China’s Local Councils in the Age of Constitutional Reform, 1898-1911
Roger Thompson
Hardcover
Corruption by Design
Melanie Manion
This book contrasts experiences of mainland China and Hong Kong to explore the pressing question of how governments can transform a culture of widespread corruption to one of clean government. Manion examines Hong Kong as the best example of the possibility of reform. Within a few years it achieved a spectacularly successful conversion to clean government. Mainland China illustrates the difficulty of reform. Despite more than two decades of anticorruption reform, corruption in China continues to spread essentially unabated.
Hardcover 2004
Early Ming Government
Edward L. Farmer
Hardcover 1976
Exeter, 1540-1640
Wallace T. MacCaffrey
During this period, Exeter was characterized by its self-sufficiency and by an oligarchical control over every aspect of its civic life. MacCaffrey describes a semi-autonomous world in itself, in which a small interlocked group of merchant families, related by marriage, kept tight control over the economy, politics, religion, education and social activities.
Hardcover 1973
Fruits of Propaganda in the Tyler Administration
Frederick Merk
Hardcover 1971
The Glassworkers of Carmaux
Joan W. Scott
Hardcover 1974 / Paperback
A Government Ill Executed
Paul C. Light
Foreword by Paul A. Volcker
The federal government is having increasing difficulty faithfully executing the laws, which is what Alexander Hamilton called “the true test” of a good government. This book diagnoses the symptoms, explains their general causes, and proposes ways to improve the effectiveness of the federal government.
Hardcover 2008 / Paperback 2009
Government and Community
J. R. Lander
Hardcover 1980 / Paperback
The Government of Victorian London, 1855-1889
David Owen
Of all the major cities of Britain, London, the world metropolis, was the last to acquire a modern municipal government.Owen tells in absorbing detail the story of the operations of the Metropolitan Board of Works, its political and other problems, and its limited but significant accomplishments.
Hardcover 1982
Holding Bishops Accountable
Timothy D. Lytton
The prevalence of the sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy and its shocking cover-up by church officials have obscured the largely untold story of the tort system’s remarkable success in bringing the scandal to light. The lessons of clergy sexual abuse litigation give us reason to reconsider the case for tort reform and to look more closely at how tort litigation can enhance the performance of public and private policymaking institutions.
Hardcover 2008
How Judges Think
Richard A. Posner
A distinguished and experienced appellate court judge, Posner offers in this new book a unique and, to orthodox legal thinkers, a startling perspective on how judges and justices decide cases.
Hardcover 2008
Inklings of Democracy in China
Suzanne Ogden
Since 1979 China's leaders have introduced reforms that have lessened the state's hold over the lives of ordinary citizens. By examining the growth in individual rights, the public sphere, democratic processes, and pluralization, Ogden seeks to answer questions concerning the relevance of liberal democratic ideas for China and the relationship between a democratic political culture and a democratic political system.
Paperback 2002 / Hardcover 2002
Josiah Quincy, 1772-1864
Robert A. McCaughey
Hardcover 1974
The Making of an Insurrection
Morris Slavin
Hardcover 1986
Mongolian Rule in China
Elizabeth Endicott-West
The Mongolian Yuan dynasty is a short but interesting chapter in the long history of Sino-Mongolian relations. Endicott-West has put together a detailed picture of the Mongols' methods of selecting local officials, the ethnic backgrounds of officials, and policy formation and implementation at the local level.
Hardcover 1989
National Polity and Local Power
Min Tu-ki
Edited by Philip A. Kuhn
Edited by Timothy Brook
Hardcover 1990
Olympic Dreams
Guoqi Xu
Foreword by William C. Kirby
Already the world has seen the political, economic, and cultural significance of hosting the 2008 Olympics in Beijing—in policies instituted and altered, positions softened, projects undertaken. But will the Olympics make a lasting difference? This book approaches questions about the nature and future of China through the lens of sports—particularly as sports finds its utmost international expression in the Olympics.
Hardcover 2008
The Origins of the Developmental State in Taiwan
J. Megan Greene
The rapid growth of Taiwan’s postwar “miracle” economy is most frequently credited to the leading role of the state in promoting economic development. Megan Greene challenges this standard interpretation in the first in-depth examination of the origins of Taiwan’s developmental state.
Hardcover 2008
The Parliament of 1624
Robert E. Ruigh
Hardcover 1971
Policymaking in Latin America
Edited by Ernesto Stein
Edited by Mariano Tommasi
Edited by Carlos Scartascini
Edited by Pablo Spiller
What determines the capacity of countries to design, approve, and implement effective public policies? To address this issue, this book builds on the results of a comparative study of political institutions, policymaking processes, and policy outcomes in eight Latin American countries. The volume benefits from both micro detail on the intricacies of policymaking in individual countries and a broad cross-country interdisciplinary analysis of the process in the region.
Paperback 2008
Pont-de-Montvert
Patrice Higonnet
In the seventeenth century, both rich and poor of Pont-de-Montvert had their own politics; one century later, the political differences had vanished though the social ones remained. During the nineteenth century, its social structure was transformed, as were its connections with politics. In this book, Higonnet explains these changes and describes the conditions of life for different people at different times in a village that is both a part of France and a world unto itself.
Hardcover 1971
Provincial Magistrates and Revolutionary Politics in France, 1789-1795
Philip Dawson
This monograph contributes research findings to the historical controversy over the political motives and conduct of the upper bourgeoisie during the French Revolution. Dawson makes use of a variety of manuscript materials pertinent to the magistrates as he treats their activities as members of corporate groups before 1790 and follows many of them as individuals through the revolutionary years to 1795.
Hardcover 1972
Pseudo-Malesko
Bohdan A. Struminski
Paperback
Racism, Xenophobia, and Distribution
John E. Roemer
Woojin Lee
Karine Van der Straeten
From the Republican Party's "Southern Strategy" in the U.S. to the rise of Le Pen's National Front in France, conservative politicians in the last thirty years have capitalized on voters' resentment of ethnic minorities to win votes and undermine government aid to the poor. Combining historical analysis and empirical rigor with major theoretical advances, the authors of this book construct a theoretical model to calculate the effect of voters' attitudes about race and immigration on political parties' stances on income distribution.
Hardcover 2007
Representative Democracy
Ballard C. Campbell
The period Campbell examines was one of rapid change and great challenge; urbanization, industrialization, and increasing national integration forced innumerable difficult and important decisions on state legislators. Campbell is sensitive to these stresses on law-making, and skillfully analyzes the interplay between personal and constituent factors that affected lawmakers.
Hardcover 1980
The Republican Roosevelt, Second Edition
John Morton Blum
Paperback 1977
Republics and Kingdoms Compared
Aurelio Lippo Brandolini
Edited and translated by James Hankins

A Socratic dialogue set in the court of King Mattias Corvinus of Hungary (ca. 1490), Aurelio Lippo Brandolini’s Republics and Kingdoms Compared depicts a debate between the king himself and a Florentine merchant at his court on the relative merits of republics and kingdoms. This is the first critical edition and the first translation into any language.

Hardcover 2009
Rethinking the 1898 Reform Period
Edited by Rebecca E. Karl
Edited by Peter Zarrow
The nine essays in this volume reexamine the "hundred days" in 1898 and focus particularly on the aftermath of this reform movement. Their collective goal is to rethink the reforms not as a failed attempt at modernizing China but as a period in which many of the institutions that have since structured China began.
Hardcover 2002
The Road from Isolation
Donald J. Friedman
Hardcover 1968
Sisters of Liberty
Louis M. Greenberg
First published in 1971, this book offers an exploration of the insurrection as part of the nationwide struggle for municipal and departmental liberties, bringing to the fore the Commune's relationship to the broader historical problem of the consolidation and future character of the Third Republic, especially in the provinces.
Hardcover 1971
A Small City in France
Françoise Gaspard
Translated by Arthur Goldhammer
Foreword by Eugen Weber
The picturesque town of Dreux, 60 miles west of Paris, made history in 1983 when Jean-François Le Pen's National Front candidates made a startling electoral gain in the region making it the forerunner of neofascist advances across the nation. A trained historian who also served as the city's socialist mayor from 1977 to 1983, Gaspard gives us an evocative picture of the town in all its particularity, at the same time fitting it into a broader context.
Hardcover 1995 / Paperback 1995
The State of the Nation
Derek Bok
This book is an eloquent assessment of where America stands, how its society has changed in the past half-century, and who or what is responsible for our current frustrations. Derek Bok examines America's progress in five areas: economic prosperity, quality of life, opportunity, personal security, and societal values.
Hardcover 1997 / Paperback 1998
Stealing the State
Steven L. Solnick
Steven Solnick argues, contrary to most current literature, that the Soviet system fell victim not to stalemate at the top nor to a revolution from below, but rather to opportunism from within. In three case studies--on the Communist Youth League, the system of job assignments for university graduates, and military conscription--Solnick makes use of rich archival sources and interviews to tell the story from a new perspective, and to employ and test Western theories of reform in the Soviet environment. He finds that even before Gorbachev, mechanisms for controlling bureaucrats in Soviet organizations were weak, allowing these individuals great latitude in their actions.
Hardcover 1998 / Paperback 1999
The Warping of Government Work
John D. Donahue
The divergent paths of public and private employment have intensified a long-standing pattern: elite workers spurn public jobs, while less skilled workers cling to government work as a refuge from a harsh private economy. The Warping of Government Work documents government’s isolation from the rest of the American economy and arrays the stark choices we confront for narrowing, or accommodating, the divide between public and private work.
Hardcover 2008