The Politics Industry
The Politics Industry

Author: Katherine M. Gehl

Publisher: Harvard Business Press

Published: 2020-06-23

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 1633699242

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Leading political innovation activist Katherine Gehl and world-renowned business strategist Michael Porter bring fresh perspective, deep scholarship, and a real and actionable solution, Final Five Voting, to the grand challenge of our broken political and democratic system. Final Five Voting has already been adopted in Alaska and is being advanced in states across the country. The truth is, the American political system is working exactly how it is designed to work, and it isn't designed or optimized today to work for us—for ordinary citizens. Most people believe that our political system is a public institution with high-minded principles and impartial rules derived from the Constitution. In reality, it has become a private industry dominated by a textbook duopoly—the Democrats and the Republicans—and plagued and perverted by unhealthy competition between the players. Tragically, it has therefore become incapable of delivering solutions to America's key economic and social challenges. In fact, there's virtually no connection between our political leaders solving problems and getting reelected. In The Politics Industry, business leader and path-breaking political innovator Katherine Gehl and world-renowned business strategist Michael Porter take a radical new approach. They ingeniously apply the tools of business analysis—and Porter's distinctive Five Forces framework—to show how the political system functions just as every other competitive industry does, and how the duopoly has led to the devastating outcomes we see today. Using this competition lens, Gehl and Porter identify the most powerful lever for change—a strategy comprised of a clear set of choices in two key areas: how our elections work and how we make our laws. Their bracing assessment and practical recommendations cut through the endless debate about various proposed fixes, such as term limits and campaign finance reform. The result: true political innovation. The Politics Industry is an original and completely nonpartisan guide that will open your eyes to the true dynamics and profound challenges of the American political system and provide real solutions for reshaping the system for the benefit of all. THE INSTITUTE FOR POLITICAL INNOVATION The authors will donate all royalties from the sale of this book to the Institute for Political Innovation.

Special Interest Politics
Special Interest Politics

Author: Gene M. Grossman

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 9780262571678

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An exploration of the role that special interest groups play in modern democratic politics.

Social Policy Expansion in Latin America
Social Policy Expansion in Latin America

Author: Candelaria Garay

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-12-29

Total Pages: 411

ISBN-13: 1108107974

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Throughout the twentieth century, much of the population in Latin America lacked access to social protection. Since the 1990s, however, social policy for millions of outsiders - rural, informal, and unemployed workers and dependents - has been expanded dramatically. Social Policy Expansion in Latin America shows that the critical factors driving expansion are electoral competition for the vote of outsiders and social mobilization for policy change. The balance of partisan power and the involvement of social movements in policy design explain cross-national variation in policy models, in terms of benefit levels, coverage, and civil society participation in implementation. The book draws on in-depth case studies of policy making in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico over several administrations and across three policy areas: health care, pensions, and income support. Secondary case studies illustrate how the theory applies to other developing countries.

Political Demography
Political Demography

Author: Jack A. Goldstone

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2012-08-16

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 0199945969

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The field of political demography - the politics of population change - is dramatically underrepresented in political science. At a time when demographic changes - aging in the rich world, youth bulges in the developing world, ethnic and religious shifts, migration, and urbanization - are waxing as never before, this neglect is especially glaring and starkly contrasts with the enormous interest coming from policymakers and the media. "Ten years ago, [demography] was hardly on the radar screen," remarks Richard Jackson and Neil Howe of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, two contributors to this volume. "Today," they continue, "it dominates almost any discussion of America's long-term fiscal, economic, or foreign-policy direction." Demography is the most predictable of the social sciences: children born in the last five years will be the new workers, voters, soldiers, and potential insurgents of 2025 and the political elites of the 2050s. Whether in the West or the developing world, political scientists urgently need to understand the tectonics of demography in order to grasp the full context of today's political developments. This book begins to fill the gap from a global and historical perspective and with the hope that scholars and policymakers will take its insights on board to develop enlightened policies for our collective future.

Patrons, Clients and Policies
Patrons, Clients and Policies

Author: Herbert Kitschelt

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2007-03-29

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 0521865050

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A study of patronage politics and the persistence of clientelism across a range of countries.

The Great Transformation
The Great Transformation

Author: Karl Polanyi

Publisher: Penguin Classics

Published: 2024-06-20

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780241685556

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'One of the most powerful books in the social sciences ever written. ... A must-read' Thomas Piketty 'The twentieth century's most prophetic critic of capitalism' Prospect Karl Polanyi's landmark 1944 work is one of the earliest and most powerful critiques of unregulated markets. Tracing the history of capitalism from the great transformation of the industrial revolution onwards, he shows that there has been nothing 'natural' about the market state. Instead of reducing human relations and our environment to mere commodities, the economy must always be embedded in civil society. Describing the 'avalanche of social dislocation' of his time, Polanyi's hugely influential work is a passionate call to protect our common humanity. 'Polanyi's vision for an alternative economy re-embedded in politics and social relations offers a refreshing alternative' Guardian 'Polanyi exposes the myth of the free market' Joseph Stiglitz With a new introduction by Gareth Dale

Party Competition
Party Competition

Author: Michael Laver

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 0691139040

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Party competition for votes in free and fair elections involves complex interactions by multiple actors in political landscapes that are continuously evolving, yet classical theoretical approaches to the subject leave many important questions unanswered. Here Michael Laver and Ernest Sergenti offer the first comprehensive treatment of party competition using the computational techniques of agent-based modeling. This exciting new technology enables researchers to model competition between several different political parties for the support of voters with widely varying preferences on many different issues. Laver and Sergenti model party competition as a true dynamic process in which political parties rise and fall, a process where different politicians attack the same political problem in very different ways, and where today's political actors, lacking perfect information about the potential consequences of their choices, must constantly adapt their behavior to yesterday's political outcomes. Party Competition shows how agent-based modeling can be used to accurately reflect how political systems really work. It demonstrates that politicians who are satisfied with relatively modest vote shares often do better at winning votes than rivals who search ceaselessly for higher shares of the vote. It reveals that politicians who pay close attention to their personal preferences when setting party policy often have more success than opponents who focus solely on the preferences of voters, that some politicians have idiosyncratic "valence" advantages that enhance their electability--and much more.

Social Change and Politics
Social Change and Politics

Author: Morris Janowitz

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-05

Total Pages: 920

ISBN-13: 1351490478

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This classic study deals with social control in advanced industrial society, especially the United States, and particularly the half-century after World War I. The United States is representative of Western advanced industrial nations that have been faced with marked strain in their political institutions. These nation-states have been experiencing a decline in popular confidence and distrust of the political process, an absence of decisive legislative majorities, and an increased inability to govern effectively, that is, to balance and to contain competing interest group demands and resolve political conflicts.Janowitz uses the sociological idea of social control to explore the sources of these political dilemmas. Social control does not imply coercion or the repression of the individual by societal institutions. Social control is, rather, the face of coercive control. It refers to the capacity of a social group, including a whole society, to regulate itself. Self-regulation implies a set of higher moral principles beyond those of self-interest.Since the end of World War II, the expanded scope of empirical research has profoundly transformed the sociological discipline. The repeated efforts to achieve a theoretical reformulation have left a positive residue, but there have been no new conceptual breakthroughs that are compelling. This book is a concerted and detailed effort organize and to make sense out of the vastly increased body of empirical research.