While there is plenty of literature on California’s history, topography, and attractions, The Beholden State: California's Lost Promise and How to Recapture It is the first book examining in rigorous detail how a place seen just a generation ago as the dynamic engine of the American future could, through bad policy ideas, find itself with among the highest unemployment rates and poorest educational outcomes in the country

In response to mounting debt crises and macroeconomic instability in the 1980s, many countries in the developing world adopted neoliberal policies promoting the unfettered play of market forces and deregulation of the economy and attempted large-scale structural adjustment, including the privatization of public-sector industries. How much influence did various societal groups have on this transition to a market economy, and what explains the variances in interest-group influence across countries? In this book, Agnieszka Paczyńska explores these questions by studying the role of organized labor in the transition process in four countries in different regions—the Czech Republic and Poland in eastern Europe, Egypt in the Middle East, and Mexico in Latin America. In Egypt and Poland, she shows, labor had substantial influence on the process, whereas in the Czech Republic and Mexico it did not. Her explanation highlights the complex relationship between institutional structures and the “critical junctures” provided by economic crises, revealing that the ability of groups like organized labor to wield influence on reform efforts depends to a great extent on not only their current resources (such as financial autonomy and legal prerogatives) but also the historical legacies of their past ties to the state. This new edition features an epilogue that analyzes the role of organized labor uprisings in 2011, the protests in Egypt, the overthrow of Mubarak, and the post-Mubarak regime.

In the latest novel by critically acclaimed author Cassandra Rose Clarke, two noblewomen and the pirate who once accompanied them to seek a bargain with a goddess find themselves at the center of a conflict between the immortal being Decay and the Emperor himself, as the goddess calls on them to repay their debt by seeking out this elusive god, before the world crumbles around them all.

As their infatuation with President Obama fades, millions of Americans anxiously ask, Is this the change we were waiting for? The current administration represents change, for sure, Steven Malanga argues - a momentous transformation of the fundamental structure of American politics. A self-interested coalition of public-sector unions and government-financed community activists (like the young Barack Obama) has become our era''s characteristic political machine. In Shakedown, Mr. Malanga shows how this machine''s single-minded goal is always bigger government and more public spending. The bill, he says, is now coming due for the relentless rise of this new political powerhouse. He chronicles how public-sector unions and the corrupt political hacks beholden to them have all but bankrupted once-rich states like California and New Jersey. He details the campaigns to undermine the successful and popular 1990s welfare reform and to revitalize the failed, wasteful War on Poverty programs that funnel taxpayer money to the advocacy groups that are integral cogs in the new political machine. And he provides a comprehensive summary of how these same advocacy groups spent decades helping undermine mortgage standards in the name of helping the poor - in the process enriching themselves and enabling the housing meltdown. As Americans anxiously ponder the future direction of their government and their economy, Shakedown explores the questions of who got us in this mess and why we need change - constructive change - more than ever.

The State is a brilliant analysis of some of the fundamental issues of modern political thought from the perspective, not of individuals or subjects, but of the state itself. The author poses the query, "What would you do if you were the state?" The state usually is understood as an instrument, not a personality, and it is presumed to exist so that people can achieve their common ends. However, Jasay asks, what if we suppose the state to have a will and ends of its own? To answer these questions, the author traces the logical and historical progression of the state from a modest-sized protector of life and property through its development into an "agile seducer of democratic majorities, to the welfare-dispensing drudge that it is in many countries today ... Is the rational next step a totalitarian enhancement of its power?" The State presents what has been termed "a disturbingly logical 'agenda' for the state in pursuit of its 'self-fulfillment.'"--Inside jacket flap.

Today there are more states controlling more people than at any other point in history. We live in a world shaped by the authority of the state. Yet the complexion of state authority is patchy and uneven. While it is almost always possible to trace the formal rules governing human interaction to the statute books of one state or another, in reality the words in these books often have little bearing upon what is happening on the ground. Their meanings are intentionally and unintentionally misrepresented by those who are supposed to enforce them and by those who are supposed to obey them, generating a range of competing authorities, voices, and allegiances. The Everyday Life of the State explores this "everyday" transformation of state authority into multiple scripts, narratives, and political activities. Drawing upon case studies from across the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia, the chapters in this book investigate the many ways in which those subjects traditionally regarded as being weak, passive, and obedient manage not only to resist the authority of state actors but to actively subvert and appropriate it, in the process making, unmaking, and remaking the boundaries between state and society over and over again. Collectively, these chapters make an important contribution to the expanding literature on "everyday politics." The "state in society" concept used in this volume has been developed by political scientist Joel S. Migdal, the Robert F. Philip Professor of International Studies in the University of Washington's Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies.

From the bestselling authors of The Right Nation, a visionary argument that our current crisis in government is nothing less than the fourth radical transition in the history of the nation-state Dysfunctional government: It’s become a cliché, and most of us are resigned to the fact that nothing is ever going to change. As John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge show us, that is a seriously limited view of things. In fact, there have been three great revolutions in government in the history of the modern world. The West has led these revolutions, but now we are in the midst of a fourth revolution, and it is Western government that is in danger of being left behind. Now, things really are different. The West’s debt load is unsustainable. The developing world has harvested the low-hanging fruits. Industrialization has transformed all the peasant economies it had left to transform, and the toxic side effects of rapid developing world growth are adding to the bill. From Washington to Detroit, from Brasilia to New Delhi, there is a dual crisis of political legitimacy and political effectiveness. The Fourth Revolution crystallizes the scope of the crisis and points forward to our future. The authors enjoy extraordinary access to influential figures and forces the world over, and the book is a global tour of the innovators in how power is to be wielded. The age of big government is over; the age of smart government has begun. Many of the ideas the authors discuss seem outlandish now, but the center of gravity is moving quickly. This tour drives home a powerful argument: that countries’ success depends overwhelmingly on their ability to reinvent the state. And that much of the West—and particularly the United States—is failing badly in its task. China is making rapid progress with government reform at the same time as America is falling badly behind. Washington is gridlocked, and America is in danger of squandering its huge advantages from its powerful economy because of failing government. And flailing democracies like India look enviously at China’s state-of-the-art airports and expanding universities. The race to get government right is not just a race of efficiency. It is a race to see which political values will triumph in the twenty-first century—the liberal values of democracy and liberty or the authoritarian values of command and control. The stakes could not be higher.