Praised by some as islands of efficiency in a sea of unprofessional, politicized and corrupt states, and criticized by others for removing wide areas of policy making from the democratic arena, ...technocrats have become prominent and controversial actors in Latin American politics. Nonelected state officials with advanced educations from top universities, technocrats achieve considerable autonomy from political and economic actors and exert great influence over their countries' fates. This finding poses an intriguing paradox. These experts lack an independent base of authority, such as popular election, and the tenure enjoyed by professional bureaucrats. What, then, explains the power of technocrats in democratic Latin America? Why do they enjoy and maintain greater policy influence in some areas than in others? Through analysis of economic and health policy in Colombia from 1958 to 2011 and in Peru from 1980 to 2011, Technocracy and Democracy in Latin America answers these and other questions about experts in Latin America.
In The Politics of the Welfare State in Turkey, author Erdem Yörük provides a politics-based explanation for the post-1980 transformation of the Turkish welfare system, in which poor relief policies ...have replaced employment-based social security. This book is one of the results of Yörük’s European Research Council-funded project, which compares the political dynamics in several emerging markets in order to develop a new political theory of welfare in the global south. As such, this book is an ambitious analytical and empirical contribution to understanding the causes of a sweeping shift in the nature of state welfare provision in Turkey during the recent decades—part of a global trend that extends far beyond Turkey. Most scholarship about Turkey and similar countries has explained this shift toward poor relief as a response to demographic and structural changes including aging populations, the decline in the economic weight of industry, and the informalization of labor, while ignoring the effect of grassroots politics. In order to overcome these theoretical shortages in the literature, the book revisits concepts of political containment and political mobilization from the earlier literature on the mid-twentieth-century welfare state development and incorporates the effects of grassroots politics in order to understand the recent welfare system shift as it materialized in Turkey, where a new matrix of political dynamics has produced new large-scale social assistance programs.
The 1980 Mariel Boatlift was a profound episode in twentieth-century American history, impacting not just Florida, but the entire country. During the first twenty days of the boatlift, with little ...support from the federal government, the state of Florida coordinated and responded to the sudden arrival in Key West of more than thirty thousand Cuban refugees, the first wave of immigrants who became known as “ Marielitos.”
 
Kathleen Dupes Hawk, Ron Villella, Adolfo Leyva de Varona, and Kristen Cifers combine the insights of expert observers with the experiences of actual participants. The authors organize and present a wealth of primary sources, first-hand accounts, archival research, government records, and interviews with policy-makers, volunteers, and refugees that bring into focus the many far-reaching human, political, and cultural outcomes of the Mariel Boatlift that continue to influence Florida, the United States, and Cuba today.
 
Emerging from these key records and accounts is a grand narrative of high human drama. Castro’ s haphazard and temporary opening of Cuba spurred many thousands of Cubans to depart in calamitously rushed, unprepared, and dangerous conditions. The book tells the stories of these Cuban citizens, most legitimately seeking political asylum but also including subversive agents, convicted criminals, and the mentally ill, who began arriving in the US beginning in April 1980. It also recounts how local and state agencies and private volunteers with few directives or resources were left to improvise ways to provide the Marielitos food, shelter, and security as well as transportation away from Key West.
 
The book provides a definitive account of the political, legal, and administrative twists on the local, state, and federal levels in response to the crisis as well as of the often-dysfunctional attempts at collaboration between governmental and private institutions. Vivid and readable, Florida and the Mariel Boatlift of 1980 presents the significant details that illuminate and humanize this complex humanitarian, political, and logistical crisis. 
Can Latin America's 'new left' stimulate economic development, enhance social equity, and deepen democracy in spite of the economic and political constraints it faces? This is the first book to ...systematically examine the policies and performance of the left-wing governments that have risen to power in Latin America during the last decade. Featuring thorough studies of Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, and Venezuela by renowned experts, the volume argues that moderate leftist governments have attained greater, more sustainable success than their more radical, contestatory counterparts. Moderate governments in Brazil and Chile have generated solid economic growth, reduced poverty and inequality, and created innovative and fiscally sound social programs, while respecting the fundamental principles of market economics and liberal democracy. By contrast, more radical governments, exemplified by Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, have expanded state intervention and popular participation and attained some short-term economic and social successes.
Comparative public policy in Latin America Franceschet, Susan; Díez, Jordi
Comparative public policy in Latin America,
c2012, 20130115, 2017, 2013, 2012, 2012-11-23, 2013-01-15, 20120101, Letnik:
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This book promises to become the definitive work on contemporary public policy in Latin America, essential for those who study the area as well as comparative public policy more broadly.
Morning in America Troy, Gil
2005., 20131024, 2013, 2005, 2005-01-01, Letnik:
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Did America's fortieth president lead a conservative counterrevolution that left liberalism gasping for air? The answer, for both his admirers and his detractors, is often "yes." InMorning in ...America, Gil Troy argues that the Great Communicator was also the Great Conciliator. His pioneering and lively reassessment of Ronald Reagan's legacy takes us through the 1980s in ten year-by-year chapters, integrating the story of the Reagan presidency with stories of the decade's cultural icons and watershed moments-from personalities to popular television shows.
One such watershed moment was the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. With the trauma of Vietnam fading, the triumph of America's 1983 invasion of tiny Grenada still fresh, and a reviving economy, Americans geared up for a festival of international harmony that-spurred on by an entertainment-focused news media, corporate sponsors, and the President himself-became a celebration of the good old U.S.A. At the Games' opening, Reagan presided over a thousand-voice choir, a 750-member marching band, and a 90,000-strong teary-eyed audience singing "America the Beautiful!" while waving thousands of flags.
Reagan emerges more as happy warrior than angry ideologue, as a big-picture man better at setting America's mood than implementing his program. With a vigorous Democratic opposition, Reagan's own affability, and other limiting factors, the eighties were less counterrevolutionary than many believe. Many sixties' innovations went mainstream, from civil rights to feminism. Reagan fostered a political culture centered on individualism and consumption-finding common ground between the right and the left.
Written with verve,Morning in Americais both a major new look at one of America's most influential modern-day presidents and the definitive story of a decade that continues to shape our times.
Beautiful to behold and extremely sensitive to its environment,
the snake is nonetheless stigmatized as a serpent, a creature that
almost universally inspires fear. At a time when so many animals
are ...endangered, who will speak up for the snake?
Snake populations are declining precipitously around the globe,
but calls for their conservation are muted by fear and prejudice.
Saving Snakes offers a new approach to understanding
snakes and preserving their populations--an approach built on
respect. Nicolette Cagle has traveled the world in search of
snakes, from the midwest and southeastern U.S. to Cuba, Nicaragua,
and Australia, and spent decades conducting natural science
research on the patterns of snakes in regions where urban
development encroaches upon the natural world. Her book offers a
first-hand account of the strange and secretive lives of snakes,
and reveals their devastating losses.
Beautifully and accessibly written, Saving Snakes
entwines Cagle's personal narrative with deep scientific and
historical research. Through the author's exploration of her
evolution as a field naturalist, it provides a blueprint for
developing a conservation consciousness among young people and
paves the way for increased inclusivity in the male-dominated field
of herpetology. While fundamentally a book about snakes, this is
also the story of one woman's pursuit of her passion as she
searches for, studies, and stands up for them.
Latin America has recently experienced a powerful resurgence of populism, a phenomenon that has had an outsized influence on the region's politics. What explains this resurgence? And what is ...distinctive about this new populist era? Answering these questions, Robert Barr offers a refined conceptualization of populism and an intriguing explanation of its recent electoral successes across the continent.
Answers the questions: what is the background to issues in external and internal politics? What is the Turks' opinion on European and Turkish identity? On Cyprus? On the role of the generals? Why do ...human rights problems linger on? What is behind the Kurdish question? Is Turkey religiously split? What are the pros and cons of Turkish association with the EU?
Serendipity placed David Johnston on Mount St. Helens when the volcano rumbled to life in March 1980. Throughout that ominous spring, Johnston was part of a team that conducted scientific research ...that underpinned warnings about the mountain. Those warnings saved thousands of lives when the most devastating eruption in U.S. history blew apart Mount St. Helens, but killed Johnston on the ridge that now bears his name. Melanie Holmes tells the story of Johnston's journey from a nature-loving Boy Scout to a committed geologist. Blending science with personal detail, Holmes follows Johnston through encounters with Aleutian volcanoes, his work helping the Portuguese government assess the geothermal power of the Azores, and his dream job as a volcanologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. Interviews and personal writings reveal what a friend called "the most unjaded person I ever met," an imperfect but kind, intelligent young scientist passionately in love with his life and work and determined to make a difference.
