Bringing rare interviews and meticulous research to the cloaked world of Mexican politics in the mid-twentieth century, Palace Politics provides a captivating look at the authoritarian Mexican state—one of the longest-lived regimes of its kind in recent history—as well as the origins of political instability itself, with revelations that can be applied to a variety of contemporary political situations around the globe. Culling a trove of remarkable firsthand accounts from former Mexican presidents, finance ministers, interior ministers, and other high officials from the 1950s through the 1980s, Jonathan Schlefer describes a world in which elite politics planted the seeds of a mammoth socioeconomic crisis. Palace Politics outlines the process by which political infighting among small rival factions of high officials drove Mexico to precarious situations at all levels of government. Schlefer also demonstrates how, earlier on, elite cooperation among these factions had helped sustain one of the most stable growth economies in Latin America, until all-or-nothing struggles began to tear the Mexican ruling party apart in the 1970s. A vivid, seamlessly narrated history, Palace Politics is essential reading for anyone seeking to better understand not only the nation next door but also the workings of elite politics in general.

The Pan-Africanist debate is back on the historical agenda. The stresses and strains in the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar since its formation some forty years ago are not showing any sign of abating. Meanwhile, imperialism under new forms and labels continues to bedevil the continent in ever-aggressive, if subtle, ways. The political federation of East Africa, which was one of the main spin-offs of the Pan-Africanism of the nationalist period, is reappearing on the political stage, albeit in a distorted form of regional integration. It is in this context that the present study is situated. Backgrounding the major dramas of the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar this book studies the personalities involved and their politics, and includes an account of the Dodoma CCM conference that toppled President Jumbe. It is also a detailed legal analysis of the union incorporating powerful new material.

PHILOSOPHY & PUBLIC AFFAIRS contains philosophical discussions of substantive legal, social, and political problems, as well as discussions of the more abstract questions to which these discussions give rise. The journal is designed to fill the need for a periodical in which philosophers with different viewpoints and philosophically inclined writers from various disciplines can bring their distinctive methods to bear on problems of concern to everyone.

A very insightful and clearly written philosophical inquiry into the nature of sport. ---Marion Smiley, Brandeis University Can equality and excellence coexist? If we assert that no person stands above the rest, can we encourage and acknowledge athletic, artistic, and intellectual achievements? Perhaps equality should merely mean equality of opportunity. But then how can society reconcile inherent differences between men and women, the strong and the weak, the able-bodied and the disabled? In The Playing Fields of Eton, Mika LaVaque-Manty addresses questions which have troubled philosophers, reformers, and thoughtful citizens for more than two centuries. Drawing examples from the 18th century debate over dueling as a gentleman's prerogative to recent controversies over athletes' use of performance enhancing drugs, LaVaque-Manty shows that societies have repeatedly redefined equality and excellence. One constant, however, remains: sports provide an arena for working out tensions between these two ideals. He concludes that, just as in sports where athletes are sorted by age, sex, and professional status, in modern democratic society excellence has meaning only in the context of comparison among individuals who are, theoretically, equals. LaVaque-Manty's argument will engage philosophers, yet his inviting prose style and use of familiar illustrations will welcome non-philosophers to join the conversation. Mika LaVaque-Manty is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan.

In the early 1900s, Detroit's clubwomen successfully lobbied for issues like creating playgrounds for children, building public baths, raising the age for child workers, and reforming the school board and city charter. But when they won the vote in 1918, Detroit's clubwomen, both black and white, were eager to incite even greater change. In the 1920s, they fought to influence public policy at the municipal and state level, while contending with partisan politics, city politics, and the media, which often portrayed them as silly and incompetent. In this fascinating volume, author Jayne Morris-Crowther examines the unique civic engagement of these women who considered their commitment to the city of Detroit both a challenge and a promise. By the 1920s, there were eight African American clubs in the city (Willing Workers, Detroit Study Club, Lydian Association, In As Much Circle of Kings Daughters, Labor of Love Circle of Kings Daughters, West Side Art and Literary Club, Altar Society of the Second Baptist Church, and the Earnest Workers of the Second Baptist Church); in 1921, they joined together under the Detroit Association of Colored Women's Clubs. Nearly 15,000 mostly white clubwomen were represented by the Detroit Federation of Women's Clubs, which was formed in 1895 by the unification of the Detroit Review Club, Twentieth Century Club, Detroit Woman's Club, Woman's Historical Club, Clio Club, Wednesday History Club, Hypathia, and Zatema Club. Morris-Crowther begins by investigating the roots of the clubs in pre-suffrage Detroit and charts their growing power. She goes on to consider the women's work in three areas-Policies That Affect Women and Children, Protecting the Home against Enemies, and Home as Part of the Urban Environment-and considers the numerous challenges they faced in The Limits of Enfranchised Citizens. An appendix contains the 1926 Directory of the Detroit Federation of Women's Clubs. In the end, Morris-Crowther shows that Detroit's clubwomen pioneered new lobbying techniques like personal interviews, and used political education in savvy ways to bring politics to the community level. This volume will be interesting reading for enthusiasts of Detroit history and readers wanting to learn more about women and politics of the 1920s.

The works of Walt Whitman have been described as masculine, feminine, postcolonial, homoerotic, urban, organic, unique, and democratic, yet arguments about the extent to which Whitman could or should be considered a political poet have yet to be fully confronted. Some scholars disregard Whitman’s understanding of democracy, insisting on separating his personal works from his political works. A Political Companion to Walt Whitman is the first full-length exploration of Whitman’s works through the lens of political theory. Editor John E. Seery and a collection of prominent theorists and philosophers uncover the political awareness of Whitman’s poetry and prose, analyzing his faith in the potential of individuals, his call for a revolution in literature and political culture, and his belief in the possibility of combining heroic individualism with democratic justice. A Political Companion to Walt Whitman reaches beyond literature into political theory, revealing the ideology behind Whitman’s call for the emergence of American poets of democracy.

Renowned theorists address the interconnections between those who engage in political struggle and those who study it. 'Political theorists typically define political action in terms of rational potential rather than conflict, and for this reason neglect the partisan nature of political experience. This volume redresses this neglect, focusing on the interrelated questions of whether the task of political theory is to find some means of containing partisan politics and whether political theory is itself separate from partisan politics. Each section of the book corresponds to one of three ways of conceiving the optimal or necessary relationship between political theory and partisan political struggle. The first section considers the extent to which partisan politics requires constitutional consensus and the degree to which such a consensus requires correct theoretical underpinnings. The second focuses on the compatibility of theoretical deliberation with partisan politics, and the third on the possibility that political theory is itself necessarily a form or means of partisan engagement. The end result is a theoretically diverse but focused debate on this important but neglected subject.

The nature of authority and rulership was a central concern in ancient Greece, where the figure of the king or tyrant and the sovereignty associated with him remained a powerful focus of political and philosophical debate even as Classical Athens developed the world’s first democracy. This collection of essays examines the extraordinary role that the concept of tyranny played in the cultural and political imagination of Archaic and Classical Greece through the interdisciplinary perspectives provided by internationally known archaeologists, literary critics, and historians. The book ranges historically from the Bronze and early Iron Age to the political theorists and commentators of the middle of the fourth century B.C. and generically across tragedy, comedy, historiography, and philosophy. While offering individual and sometimes differing perspectives, the essays tackle several common themes: the construction of authority and of constitutional models, the importance of religion and ritual, the crucial role of wealth, and the autonomy of the individual. Moreover, the essays with an Athenian focus shed new light on the vexed question of whether it was possible for Athenians to think of themselves as tyrannical in any way. As a whole, the collection presents a nuanced survey of how competing ideologies and desires, operating through the complex associations of the image of tyranny, struggled for predominance in ancient cities and their citizens.

“A major piece of work . . . a classic. There is no other book like it.” —Norman Schofield, Washington University “The authors succeed brilliantly in tackling a large number of important questions concerning the interaction among voters and elected representatives in the political arena, using a common, rigorous language.” —Antonio Merlo, University of Pennsylvania Positive Political Theory II: Strategy and Structure is the second volume in Jeffrey Banks and David Austen-Smith’s monumental study of the links between individual preferences and collective choice. The book focuses on representative systems, including both elections and legislative decision-making processes, clearly connecting individual preferences to collective outcomes. This book is not a survey. Rather, it is the coherent, cumulative result of the authors’ brilliant efforts to indirectly connect preferences to collective choice through strategic behaviors such as agenda-selection and voting. The book will be an invaluable reference and teaching tool for economists and political scientists, and an essential companion to any scholar interested in the latest theoretical advances in positive political theory.