How the Chinese Communist Party maintains its power by both repressing and responding to its people Since 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has maintained unrivaled control over the country, persisting even in the face of economic calamity, widespread social upheaval, and violence against its own people. Yet the party does not sustain dominance through repressive tactics alone—it pairs this with surprising responsiveness to the public. The Party and the People explores how this paradox has helped the CCP endure for decades, and how this balance has shifted increasingly toward repression under the rule of President Xi Jinping. Delving into the tenuous binary of repression and responsivity, Bruce Dickson illuminates numerous questions surrounding the CCP’s rule: How does it choose leaders and create policies? When does it allow protests? Will China become democratic? Dickson shows that the party’s dual approach lies at the core of its practices—repression when dealing with existential, political threats or challenges to its authority, and responsiveness when confronting localized economic or social unrest. The state answers favorably to the demands of protesters on certain issues, such as local environmental hazards and healthcare, but deals harshly with others, such as protests in Tibet, Xinjiang, or Hong Kong. With the CCP’s greater reliance on suppression since Xi Jinping’s rise to power in 2012, Dickson considers the ways that this tipping of the scales will influence China’s future. Bringing together a vast body of sources, The Party and the People sheds new light on how the relationship between the Chinese state and its citizens shapes governance.

“An urgent and engaging look at how American politics have become the founding fathers’ worst nightmare” (The Daily Beast). America’s political system is dysfunctional. We know it, yet the problem seems intractable—after every election, voters discover yet again that political “leaders” are simply quarreling in a never-ending battle between the two warring tribes. As a former congressman, Mickey Edwards witnessed firsthand how important legislative battles can devolve into struggles not over principle but over party advantage. He offers graphic examples of how this problem has intensified and reveals how political battles have become nothing more than conflicts between party machines. In this critically important book, he identifies exactly how our political and governing systems reward intransigence, discourage compromise, and undermine our democracy—and describes exactly what must be done to banish the negative effects of partisan warfare from our political system and renew American democracy. “Overcoming tribalism and knee-jerk partisanship is the central challenge of our time. Mickey Edwards shows why and how in this fascinating book filled with sensible suggestions.” —Walter Isaacson, New York Times–bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci “Many Americans, whether Democrats, Republicans, independent or otherwise, would welcome a few more like [Edwards] in office.” —The Boston Globe

"In Party of the People, veteran political chronicler Jules Witcover traces the Democratic party's evolution, from its roots in the agrarian, individualistic concepts of Thomas Jefferson to its emergence as today's progressive party of social change and economic justice. Witcover describes the Democrats' dramatic struggle to define themselves and shares with us half a century of personal observation of the party through its most turbulent times."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

From the bestselling author of What's the Matter With Kansas, a scathing look at the standard-bearers of liberal politics -- a book that asks: what's the matter with Democrats? It is a widespread belief among liberals that if only Democrats can continue to dominate national elections, if only those awful Republicans are beaten into submission, the country will be on the right course. But this is to fundamentally misunderstand the modern Democratic Party. Drawing on years of research and first-hand reporting, Frank points out that the Democrats have done little to advance traditional liberal goals: expanding opportunity, fighting for social justice, and ensuring that workers get a fair deal. Indeed, they have scarcely dented the free-market consensus at all. This is not for lack of opportunity: Democrats have occupied the White House for sixteen of the last twenty-four years, and yet the decline of the middle class has only accelerated. Wall Street gets its bailouts, wages keep falling, and the free-trade deals keep coming. With his trademark sardonic wit and lacerating logic, Frank's Listen, Liberal lays bare the essence of the Democratic Party's philosophy and how it has changed over the years. A form of corporate and cultural elitism has largely eclipsed the party's old working-class commitment, he finds. For certain favored groups, this has meant prosperity. But for the nation as a whole, it is a one-way ticket into the abyss of inequality. In this critical election year, Frank recalls the Democrats to their historic goals-the only way to reverse the ever-deepening rift between the rich and the poor in America.

Party in the Street explores the interaction between political parties and social movements in the United States. Examining the collapse of the post-9/11 antiwar movement against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this book focuses on activism and protest in the United States. It argues that the electoral success of the Democratic Party and President Barack Obama, as well as antipathy toward President George W. Bush, played a greater role in this collapse than did changes in foreign policy. It shows that how people identify with social movements and political parties matters a great deal, and it considers the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street as comparison cases.

Since the day Aaron Burr, the sitting vice president of the United States, shot and killed Alexander Hamilton, one of the Founding Fathers, the Democratic Party has been at war with America. With a history that includes murder, treason, slavery, segregation, sedition, bribery, and systemic vote theft, it can argued that the Democrats are, at root, the anti-American party. In this incendiary Broadside - a heartfeltj’accuse- Michael Walsh traces the illicit and immoral history of the Democrats from Burr and the founding of the quintessential big-city political machine, Tammany Hall, to the "by any means necessary,” Saul Alinsky-inspired presidency of Barack Obama and his Windy City cronies. The prosecutorial argument: The Democrats, in essence, are nothing less than a criminal organization masquerading as a political party.

The People's Action Party (PAP) of Singapore is among the longest-ruling democratically-elected political parties in the world, in power continuously since Singapore gained self-rule in 1959. Such longevity is the product of an institution that is itself dynamic and responsive. But remarkably, the story of the party as institution has not received the sustained study it deserves from either historians or political scientists. This narrative history of the PAP follows the story through decisions made by party leaders as they sought to respond to the changing demands and expectations of the Singapore electorate over a thirty-year period that saw Singapore enter the ranks of developed nations. The focus is on change in four dimensions: in the communications methods and styles the party adopted, the mechanisms it developed for managing institutional change, the sometimes vexed question of party renewal, and the evolution of economic and social policy. Drawing on internal party documents and multiple interviews with key leaders over the course of a decade, this book provides a detailed portrait of a robust political institution and establishes a distinctive new narrative of Singapore politics.