Over the last four decades the public trust in government in the United States has fallen dramatically due to a "perfect storm" of contributing factors, such as a seemingly never ending string of political scandals, partisan polarization and toxic attack politics, and miserable failures to respond to natural disasters or the devastation of the Great Recession. This book contains the academic presentations that were made at the Symposium on Advancing Excellence and Public Trust in Gover...

Award-winning reporter Jodi Kantor takes readers deep inside the White House in an "insightful and evocative" portrait of Barack and Michelle Obama (Chicago Tribune) that will surprise even readers who thought they knew the two icons.When Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election, he also won a long-running debate with his wife Michelle. Contrary to her fears, politics now seemed like a worthwhile, even noble pursuit. Together they planned a White Ho...

Paul Keating and John Howard altered the nation’s body-clock. Between them, they dominated 30 years of power, as both treasurers and prime ministers. Typically, they have been seen only as antagonists with competing visions of Australia and its place in the world. In The Longest Decade, however, George Megalogenis argues that they also deserve to be seen as the twin architects of the political, economic, and social revolution that took Australia through a period of trauma and reco...

The Conscience of a Conservative reignited the American conservative movement and made Barry Goldwater a political star. It influenced countless conservatives in the United States, and helped lay the foundation for the Reagan Revolution in 1980. It covers topics such as education, labor unions and policies, civil rights, agricultural policy and farm subsidies, social welfare programs, and income taxation. This significant book lays out the conservative position both politically and economi...

At the beginning of the century, the majority of Americans were satisfied with the way things were going in the United States. And then a slow decline began, seemingly uninterrupted by changes in party or achievements by the White House. As the campaigning for the next president begins, the question we ask ourselves now is who will be the most competent leader? In Why Presidents Fail and How They Can Succeed Again, Elaine Kamarck asks another important question: When did Americans...

A portrait of Washington politics during one of the most turbulent eras in American history by the twentieth century's premier US government insider.During his three decades as a journalist and political pundit for the New York Herald Tribune and Newsweek magazine, Stewart Alsop covered many of the defining historical events of mid-to-late twentieth-century America, from the post–World War II boom and the Red Scare to the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban mi...

How can we intervene in the systemic bureaucratic dysfunction that beleaguers the public sector? De Jong examines the roots of this dysfunction and presents a novel approach to solving it. Drawing from academic literature on bureaucracy and problem solving in the public sector, and the clinical work of the Kafka Brigade-a social enterprise based in the Netherlands dedicated to diagnosing and remedying bureaucratic dysfunction in practice, this study reveals the shortcomings of conventional...

Before Russia invaded Ukraine, it invaded Georgia. Both states are part of Russia's "near abroad" - newly independent states that were once part of the Soviet Union and are now Russia's neighbors. While the Russia-Georgia war of 2008 faded from the headlines in the wake of the global recession, the geopolitical contest that created it did not. Six years later, the spectre of a revanchist Russia returned when Putin's forces invaded and annexed the Crimean peninsula, once part of Russia but ...

Contemporary observers of politics in America often reduce democracy to demography. Whatever portion of the vote not explained by the class, gender, race, and religious differences of voters is attributed to the candidates' positions on the issues of the day. But are these the only--or even the main--factors that determine the vote? The Performance of Politics develops a new way of looking at democratic struggles for power, explaining what happened, and why, during the 2008 presidential ca...

This book is about the difficulty of serving in local government. It’s about finding meaning in public service and developing a deep sense of pride in making a difference to the well being of our communities. I wrote this book to provide hope and guidance to my colleagues in administration and their political partners as they work through difficult times and climb over tremendous obstacles. It is a true story that shows what can be achieved when we are prepared to lead, when we instill a sens...

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Government Racket, A Call for Revolution and The Tax Racket comes a scathing indictment of the dysfunctional federal government and its reckless disregard for the future of our country.The government of the United States is a juggernaut of mismanagement, malfeasance and incompetence. Despite the strong foundation laid down by the founding fathers, it is headed to extinction.From th...

To celebrate Singapore’s fiftieth anniversary for its independence from Malaysia in 2015, 35 students, academics and activists came together to discuss and write about pioneering Singaporean human rights activists and their under-reported stories in Singapore. The city-state is known for its remarkable economic success while having strict laws on individual freedom in the name of national security, public order and racial harmony. Singapore’s tough stance on human rights, however, does not...