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1. Power Games in the Caucuses, Azerbaijan's Foreign and Energy Policy towards the West, Russia and the Middle East

Author:
Alvin Almendrala Camba
Publication Date:
02-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
Nazrin Mehdiyeva's work is elegantly argued and timely volume on small states and energy politics; however, in looking to contribute to both of these literatures, she opens up questionable points in her book. Her main aim was to understand the conditions that allowed Azerbaijan to pursue an autonomous foreign policy after the Cold War while focusing on energy's role in the context of global energy insecurity. Mehdiyeva's structure relies on a simple and clear deductive narrative. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on small state literature and its application in Azerbaijan's institutional context; 4 focuses on Russia, the main 'antagonist' in the narrative, and 5 on the Caspian sea issue; while 6 and 7 deal with alternative allies in the form of Turkey and the United States. The last chapter concludes with the author's projection of future foreign policy.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Cold War, and Politics
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Turkey, Middle East, and Azerbaijan

2. Tobias Endler, How To Be A Superpower: The Public Intellectual Debate on the Global Role of the United States after September 11

Author:
Scott Nicolas Romaniuk
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
From the great rift that has emerged between the United States (US) and much of the international community in a post-9/11 social and political landscape, a disquieting thread of schisms concerning America's political ideologies, democratic deliberation, communication and societal discourse, have seen the academy and public intellectuals seed the conditions for the adoption of the general view that the US is in decline. Establishing an edifying prism through which to engage with these and other problematic issues such as the reformulation of America's global role in the 21st century, Tobias Endler addresses the deep core of the matter by connecting with leading political thinkers and America's luminary intellectuals to consider America in the midst of an intellectual renaissance, and whether this might appropriately be taken as postmortem or rebirth.
Topic:
Communications
Political Geography:
United States

3. Damien Cahill, Lindy Edwards, and Frank Stilwell (eds.), Neoliberalism: Beyond the Free Market(Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Author:
Emmanuel Kipole
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
Apparently capitalism and neo-liberalism have elevated the market to a position of omnipotence as a spontaneously occurring best resources' distributor. However, neo-liberalism as a philosophy that informs capitalism has always sparked divergent opinions as to its core spirit and practice. Neo-liberalism has always been netted into different perspectives. Although the consensual bottom-line of neo-liberalism philosophy is the free market, there is no consensus on its interpretation, contextualization and practices. As a whole, there is optimism in neo-liberalism the same as there is skepticism.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, America, and Europe

4. Abrajano, Marisa A. and Michael R. Alvarez, New Faces, New Voices: The Hispanic Electorate in America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010).

Author:
Ksenia Krauer-Pacheco
Publication Date:
02-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
In recent years, politicians and researchers in the United States have become more aware of the importance of the Hispanic electorate because of the ever increasing Latino population. This, in turn, has spurred a growing interest in its political behavior and preferences. In this context, Marisa A. Abrajano and R. Michael Alvarez's most recent book represents a good analysis of the largest minority group in the United States. New faces, new voices: the Hispanic electorate in America resulted from a research project aimed at understanding the political behavior of Hispanics in the United States since the late 1990s. Two main goals were successfully achieved in the pages of the book: firstly, to demonstrate why the Hispanic electorate is such a diverse and complex group, particularly when compared to other ethnic and racial minority groups in the United States; and secondly, to dispel some of the pieces of conventional wisdom about the Hispanic electorate, many of which have affected the way in which campaigns, elected officials, the media, and even the average American voter, perceive this group.
Topic:
Political Violence
Political Geography:
United States and America

5. Fred I. Greenstein, Inventing the Job of President: Leadership Style from George Washington to Andrew Jackson (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2009).

Author:
Mihail Chiru
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
Fred Greenstein is one of the most influential presidential scholars in the United States. In his most recent work, he takes on the role of 'archeologist' of the oldest trademarks left on the presidential institution, by the first seven chief executives: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.
Political Geography:
United States

6. Loic Wacquant, Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity (London: Duke University Press, 2009).

Author:
Christopher Herring
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
At the beginning of 2010, the State of California in the throes of fiscal crisis decided that it will open its prison doors to some 6,500 prisoners from its bloated penal system, the largest in America. Yet the savings from this endeavor will only put a small dent in the ballooning budget that is forecasted to continually swell over its current $8 billion price tag and will devour an even greater proportion of its state budget on top of the 11 percent it already consumes next year. As for next steps, the governor proposes handing prisons over to private contractors and opening up a US prison in Mexico for illegal immigrants. None of the plans include reducing judicial sentencing or increasing funds for rehabilitation and counseling for the growing prison population. At the same time, the state legislature continues to slash welfare and education expenditures as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proposes to completely eliminate the state's welfare program for families, medical insurance for low-income children and Cal Grants cash assistance to college and university students. The proposals would completely reshape the state's social service network, transforming California from one of the country's most generous states to one of the most tightfisted, while the release of a few prisoners does nothing to curb the sentencing structures that continue to overcrowd the state's penitentiaries.
Political Geography:
United States, America, and London

7. Adam Dinham, Faiths, Public Policy and Civil Society: Problems, Policies, Controversies (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009).

Author:
Stephen Pimpare
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
There may be no simple answer to why governments increasingly promote the participation of faiths in the design and implementation of public policies. For Adam Dinham, the “imperatives driving an interest in faith” are threefold: governments see faiths as a repository of resources (“buildings, staff, volunteers and relationships”), as a potential means of fostering “community cohesion,” and as part of a broader “extension of new forms of participative governance” (p. 5-6). The focus in Faith, Public Policy and Civil Society is on such matters in the UK over the past decade or so, and the attention he periodically pays to the US and Canadian cases is usually not much more than passing reference. They are useful and generally insightful references, typically helping to elucidate one aspect or another of the issue under consideration, but readers needing a thorough-going and systematic comparative study will need to turn elsewhere. But that's not to suggest that those with interests outside the UK will not find much to value in this volume, and it should surely be required reading for those invested in “faithbased” service provision and political participation in the UK.
Political Geography:
United States

8. Distributive justice in crisis

Author:
Eldar Sarajlic
Publication Date:
09-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
The paper tries to examine the effects of economic crisis on philosophical considerations of distributive justice. It tackles the problem of a radical increase in scarcity as a condition of justice. Instead of assuming a relatively fixed (“moderate”) level of scarcity as a background against which justice in distribution obtains, the paper examines what happens when this level risks falling below and how does that change our views of distributive justice. It takes upon the recent events in the United States to construe a specific philosophical model and ask how crisis distribution, where that favors wealthier actors, can be justified. By analyzing the crisis distribution principle, it ultimately aims to suggest that moderate scarcity should not be seen as a mere condition, but an important and vital object of justice. As such it falls within, not beyond legitimate obligations of democratic governance.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
United States

9. Rory McVeigh, The Rise of the Ku Klux Klan - Right-Wing Movements and National Politics (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2009).

Author:
Adriana Marinescu
Publication Date:
09-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) often appears to the European reader as a spectacular source of racial violence. The Invisible Empire, the hooded people, and the fiery crosses seem just another eccentricity in the land of the mighty rule of law and civil rights. However, through a sharp analysis of the mobilization of the Klan as social movement, Rory McVeigh conveys a deeper insight into the roots of the KKK's growth and decline. As a professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame, he has continuously delved into right-wing mobilization and the echoes of the Ku Klux Klan. His latest book provides an analysis on how social theories can explain this kind of mobilization and thus develop strategies for preventing the harm that right-wing extremism can cause to individuals and to the social fabric of the communities. Moreover, what makes this research more than an explanatory flashback is the existence of yet common situations such as vigilante groups patrolling the border between the United States and Mexico or neo-Nazis boldly marching through European cities
Topic:
Politics
Political Geography:
United States and Mexico

10. David Ekbladh, The Great American Mission: Modernization and the Construction of an American World Order

Author:
Willem Oosterveld
Publication Date:
09-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Central European University Political Science Journal
Institution:
Central European University
Abstract:
David Ekbladh's first book, The Great American Mission, deals with the role of development policy in American foreign relations during the Cold War. More specifically, it discusses modernization as a developmental approach, tracing its rise and fall over a period of about forty years. In Ekbladh's view, modernization theory fused political, ideological and strategic objectives at a time when the United States waged what was, in essence, a global struggle over ideas.
Topic:
Cold War and Development
Political Geography:
United States and America