Wars, Guns, and Votes
Wars, Guns, and Votes

Author: Paul Collier

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2009-01-23

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 0061977209

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“Collier has made a substantial contribution to current discussions. His evidence-based approach is a worthwhile corrective to the assumptions about democracy that too often tend to dominate when Western policy makers talk about the bottom billion.” —The New York Times Book Review “Before President Obama makes a move he would do well to read Professor Paul Collier’s Wars, Guns, and Votes. . . Unlike many academics Collier comes up with very concrete proposals and some ingenious solutions.” — The Times (London) In Wars, Guns, and Votes, esteemed author Paul Collier offers a groundbreaking, radical look at the world’s most violent, corrupt societies, how they got that way, and what can be done to break the cycle. George Soros calls Paul Collier “one of the most original minds in the world today,” and Wars, Guns, and Votes, like Collier’s previous award-winning book The Bottom Billion, is essential reading for anyone interested in current events, war, poverty, economics, or international business.

Wars, Guns and Votes
Wars, Guns and Votes

Author: Paul Collier

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2011-02-28

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 144645018X

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The world is in a mess. For more than a billion people, everyday life is played out against the backdrop of civil wars, military coups and failing economies. For them, the peaceful democracy taken for granted in the West seems an impossible pipe-dream. But solutions do exist - it is up to us to achieve them. Award-winning academic Paul Collier's vision for the future of the developing world is eye-opening, provocative and refreshingly unequivocal.

Wars, Guns and Votes
Wars, Guns and Votes

Author: Paul Collier

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 1847920217

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Investigates violence and poverty in developing countries to argue that the spread of elections and peace settlements may lead to a better, democratic world but shares a cautionary warning about the prevalence of ethnic divisions and policy failures.

The Bottom Billion
The Bottom Billion

Author: Paul Collier

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2008-10-02

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 0195374630

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The Bottom Billion is an elegant and impassioned synthesis from one of the world's leading experts on Africa and poverty. It was hailed as "the best non-fiction book so far this year" by Nicholas Kristoff of The New York Times.

Elections in Dangerous Places
Elections in Dangerous Places

Author: David Gillies

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 343

ISBN-13: 0773539352

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From Afghanistan and Iraq to Haiti, Cote d'Ivoire, and Egypt, ill-timed, fraudulent, or poorly managed elections have led to discord, violence, and even regime change. While much of the international community views elections as a critical milestone in the stabilization of war-torn societies,Elections in Dangerous Placesshows how flawed elections can act as democracy in reverse and diminish political legitimacy and stable governance. Through a series of frank and incisive case studies of conflicted countries, contributors' chapters challenge the centrality and timing of elections as a key pillar of reconstruction at a war's end. They underline the dangers in rushing elections, compromising principles, and lowering the bar for what constitutes free and fair elections in situations of conflict. The authors also underline the economic cost of elections in uncertain political situations and argue that global taxpayers, who must bear the burden, are justified in questioning the value of ill-timed elections. A candid and important study of political turmoil,Elections in Dangerous Placesprovides valuable lessons and practical advice on how to better mitigate conflict and violence before, during, and after highly charged elections.

Exodus
Exodus

Author: Paul Collier

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 0195398653

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It is one of the most pressing and controversial questions of our time -- vehemently debated, steeped in ideology, profoundly divisive. Who should be allowed to immigrate and who not? What are the arguments for and against limiting the numbers? We are supposedly a nation of immigrants, and yet our policies reflect deep anxieties and the quirks of short-term self-interest, with effective legislation snagging on thousand-mile-long security fences and the question of how long and arduous the path to citizenship should be. In Exodus, Paul Collier, the world-renowned economist and bestselling author of The Bottom Billion, clearly and concisely lays out the effects of encouraging or restricting migration. Drawing on original research and case studies, he explores this volatile issue from three perspectives: that of the migrants themselves, that of the people they leave behind, and that of the host societies where they relocate. Immigration is a simple economic equation, but its effects are complex. Exodus confirms how crucial it will be that public policy face and address all of its ramifications. Sharply written and brilliantly clarifying, Exodus offers a provocative analysis of an issue that affects us all.

How to Rig an Election
How to Rig an Election

Author: Nic Cheeseman

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2024-07-23

Total Pages: 343

ISBN-13: 0300280831

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An engrossing analysis of the pseudo-democratic methods employed by despots around the world to retain control Contrary to what is commonly believed, authoritarian leaders who agree to hold elections are generally able to remain in power longer than autocrats who refuse to allow the populace to vote. In this engaging and provocative book, Nic Cheeseman and Brian Klaas expose the limitations of national elections as a means of promoting democratization, and reveal the six essential strategies that dictators use to undermine the electoral process in order to guarantee victory for themselves. Based on their firsthand experiences as election watchers and their hundreds of interviews with presidents, prime ministers, diplomats, election officials, and conspirators, Cheeseman and Klaas document instances of election rigging from Argentina to Zimbabwe, including notable examples from Brazil, India, Nigeria, Russia, and the United States—touching on the 2016 election. This eye-opening study offers a sobering overview of corrupted professional politics, while providing fertile intellectual ground for the development of new solutions for protecting democracy from authoritarian subversion.

What's the Matter with Kansas?
What's the Matter with Kansas?

Author: Thomas Frank

Publisher: Picador

Published: 2007-04-01

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1429900326

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One of "our most insightful social observers"* cracks the great political mystery of our time: how conservatism, once a marker of class privilege, became the creed of millions of ordinary Americans With his acclaimed wit and acuity, Thomas Frank turns his eye on what he calls the "thirty-year backlash"—the populist revolt against a supposedly liberal establishment. The high point of that backlash is the Republican Party's success in building the most unnatural of alliances: between blue-collar Midwesterners and Wall Street business interests, workers and bosses, populists and right-wingers. In asking "what 's the matter with Kansas?"—how a place famous for its radicalism became one of the most conservative states in the union—Frank, a native Kansan and onetime Republican, seeks to answer some broader American riddles: Why do so many of us vote against our economic interests? Where's the outrage at corporate manipulators? And whatever happened to middle-American progressivism? The questions are urgent as well as provocative. Frank answers them by examining pop conservatism—the bestsellers, the radio talk shows, the vicious political combat—and showing how our long culture wars have left us with an electorate far more concerned with their leaders' "values" and down-home qualities than with their stands on hard questions of policy. A brilliant analysis—and funny to boot—What's the Matter with Kansas? presents a critical assessment of who we are, while telling a remarkable story of how a group of frat boys, lawyers, and CEOs came to convince a nation that they spoke on behalf of the People. *Los Angeles Times

Greed Is Dead
Greed Is Dead

Author: Paul Collier

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2020-07-30

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0141994177

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Two of the UK's leading economists call for an end to extreme individualism as the engine of prosperity 'provocative but thought-provoking and nuanced' Telegraph Throughout history, successful societies have created institutions which channel both competition and co-operation to achieve complex goals of general benefit. These institutions make the difference between societies that thrive and those paralyzed by discord, the difference between prosperous and poor economies. Such societies are pluralist but their pluralism is disciplined. Successful societies are also rare and fragile. We could not have built modernity without the exceptional competitive and co-operative instincts of humans, but in recent decades the balance between these instincts has become dangerously skewed: mutuality has been undermined by an extreme individualism which has weakened co-operation and polarized our politics. Collier and Kay show how a reaffirmation of the values of mutuality could refresh and restore politics, business and the environments in which people live. Politics could reverse the moves to extremism and tribalism; businesses could replace the greed that has degraded corporate culture; the communities and decaying places that are home to many could overcome despondency and again be prosperous and purposeful. As the world emerges from an unprecedented crisis we have the chance to examine society afresh and build a politics beyond individualism.

Guns, Democracy, and the Insurrectionist Idea
Guns, Democracy, and the Insurrectionist Idea

Author: Joshua Horwitz

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2009-04-29

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 0472033700

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"Guns, Democracy, and the Insurrectionist Idea recasts the gun debate by showing its importance to the future of democracy and the modern regulatory state. Until now, gun rights advocates had effectively co-opted the language of liberty and democracy and made it their own. This book is an important first step in demonstrating how reasonable gun control is essential to the survival of democracy and ordered liberty." ---Saul Cornell, Ohio State University When gun enthusiasts talk about constitutional liberties guaranteed by the Second Amendment, they are referring to freedom in a general sense, but they also have something more specific in mind---freedom from government oppression. They argue that the only way to keep federal authority in check is to arm individual citizens who can, if necessary, defend themselves from an aggressive government. In the past decade, this view of the proper relationship between government and individual rights and the insistence on a role for private violence in a democracy has been co-opted by the conservative movement. As a result, it has spread beyond extreme militia groups to influence state and national policy. In Guns, Democracy, and the Insurrectionist Idea, Joshua Horwitz and Casey Anderson set the record straight. They challenge the proposition that more guns equal more freedom and expose Insurrectionism as a true threat to freedom in the United States today. Joshua Horwitz received a law degree from George Washington University and is currently a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Casey Anderson holds a law degree from Georgetown University and is currently a lawyer in private practice in Washington, D.C.