Floundering Stability

Floundering Stability
Author: Amir Magdy Kamel
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 203
Release: 2023-03-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0472903209

The US commitment to stability—both domestically and abroad—has been a consistent feature in the way Washington, DC carries out international relations. This commitment is complimented by the increased overlap between the economic and political spheres in international affairs. Consequently, this US approach to foreign interaction is informed by an assumption that foreign policy tools can influence global stability for the better. In order to investigate this assumption, this book details the foundations of what Amir Magdy Kamel refers to as the US Stability Policy—how it evolved over time and how it was implemented in Egypt. He finds that domestic and global forces were left unaccounted for by the Stability Policy, ultimately leading to a failure to achieve the self-stated stability goals. Kamel’s analysis is informed through a unique mixed-method approach that sheds light on how and why this policy fared so poorly under Mubarak’s Egypt. He develops and tests a unique and particular way of examining the Stability Policy and presents a framework for future work to replicate and build on in the quest to understand other state-on-state relationships and the effectiveness of other foreign economic policies in achieving stability goals. Floundering Stability reflects on what Kamel’s findings mean for the relationship between the US and Egypt, as well as specific US foreign policy suggestions on how the same mistakes can be avoided in the future.

Personalism and Personalist Regimes

Personalism and Personalist Regimes
Author: Luca Anceschi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2024-07-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0192848569

Personalism and Personalist Regimes offers a systematic examination of the logic of personalism, or personalist rule, tackling comprehensively the study of personalist leaders and personalist regimes.

Why Democracies Flounder and Fail

Why Democracies Flounder and Fail
Author: Michael Haas
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 526
Release: 2018-06-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3319740709

Democracy is in crisis because voices of the people are ignored due to a politics of mass society. After demonstrating how the French Fourth Republic failed, wherein Singapore’s totalitarianism is a dangerous model, Washington is enmeshed in gridlock, and there is a global democracy deficit, solutions are offered to revitalize democracy as the best form of government. The book demonstrates how mass society politics operates, with intermediate institutions of civil society (media, pressure groups, political parties) no longer transmitting the will of the people to government but instead are concerned with corporate interests and have developed oligarchical mindsets. Rather than micro-remedy bandaids, the author focuses on the need to transform governing philosophies from pragmatic to humanistic solutions.