Losing Power

Losing Power
Author: Sekou M. Franklin
Publisher:
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2021-10-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780820361734

The Power Paradox

The Power Paradox
Author: Dacher Keltner
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2016-05-17
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0698195590

A revolutionary and timely reconsideration of everything we know about power. Celebrated UC Berkeley psychologist Dr. Dacher Keltner argues that compassion and selflessness enable us to have the most influence over others and the result is power as a force for good in the world. Power is ubiquitous—but totally misunderstood. Turning conventional wisdom on its head, Dr. Dacher Keltner presents the very idea of power in a whole new light, demonstrating not just how it is a force for good in the world, but how—via compassion and selflessness—it is attainable for each and every one of us. It is taken for granted that power corrupts. This is reinforced culturally by everything from Machiavelli to contemporary politics. But how do we get power? And how does it change our behavior? So often, in spite of our best intentions, we lose our hard-won power. Enduring power comes from empathy and giving. Above all, power is given to us by other people. This is what we all too often forget, and it is the crux of the power paradox: by misunderstanding the behaviors that helped us to gain power in the first place we set ourselves up to fall from power. We abuse and lose our power, at work, in our family life, with our friends, because we've never understood it correctly—until now. Power isn't the capacity to act in cruel and uncaring ways; it is the ability to do good for others, expressed in daily life, and in and of itself a good thing. Dr. Keltner lays out exactly—in twenty original "Power Principles"—how to retain power; why power can be a demonstrably good thing; when we are likely to abuse power; and the terrible consequences of letting those around us languish in powerlessness.

Stirrings

Stirrings
Author: Lana Dee Povitz
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 359
Release: 2019-08-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1469653028

In the last three decades of the twentieth century, government cutbacks, stagnating wages, AIDS, and gentrification pushed ever more people into poverty, and hunger reached levels unseen since the Depression. In response, New Yorkers set the stage for a nationwide food justice movement. Whether organizing school lunch campaigns, establishing food co-ops, or lobbying city officials, citizen-activists made food a political issue, uniting communities across lines of difference. The charismatic, usually female leaders of these efforts were often products of earlier movements: American communism, civil rights activism, feminism, even Eastern mysticism. Situating food justice within these rich lineages, Lana Dee Povitz demonstrates how grassroots activism continued to thrive, even as it was transformed by unrelenting erosion of the country's already fragile social safety net. Using dozens of new oral histories and archives, Povitz reveals the colorful characters who worked behind the scenes to build and sustain the movement, and illuminates how people worked together to overturn hierarchies rooted in class and race, reorienting the history of food activism as a community-based response to austerity. The first book-length history of food activism in a major American city, Stirrings highlights the emotional, intimate, and interpersonal aspects of social movement culture.

Crushing

Crushing
Author: T. D. Jakes
Publisher: FaithWords
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2019-04-16
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781455595372

Follow God's process for growth and learn how you can benefit from life's challenging experiences with this book by bestselling inspirational author T.D. Jakes. In this insightful book, #1 New York Times bestselling author T.D. Jakes wrestles with the age-old questions: Why do the righteous suffer? Where is God in all the injustice? In his most personal offering yet, Bishop Jakes tells crushing stories from his own journey-the painful experience of learning his young teenage daughter was pregnant, the agony of watching his mother succumb to Alzheimer's, and the shock and helplessness he felt when his son had a heart attack. Bishop Jakes wants to encourage you that God uses difficult, crushing experiences to prepare you for unexpected blessings. If you are faithful through suffering, you will be surprised by God's joy, comforted by His peace, and fulfilled with His purpose. Crushing will inspire you to have hope, even in your most difficult moments. If you trust in God and lean on Him during setbacks, He will lead you through.

The Political Foundations of Judicial Independence in Dictatorship and Democracy

The Political Foundations of Judicial Independence in Dictatorship and Democracy
Author: Brad Epperly
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2019-09-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0192583646

This book argues that explaining judicial independence-considered the fundamental question of comparative law and politics-requires a perspective that spans the democracy/autocracy divide. Rather than seeking separate explanations in each regime context, in The Political Foundations of Judicial Independence in Dictatorship and Democracy, Brad Epperly argues that political competition is a salient factor in determining levels of de facto judicial independence across regime type, and in autocracies a factor of far greater import. This is because a full "insurance" account of independence requires looking not only at the likelihood those in power might lose elections but also the variable risks associated with such an outcome, risks that are far higher for autocrats. First demonstrating that courts can and do provide insurance to former leaders, he then shows via exhaustive cross-national analyses that competition's effects are far higher in autocratic regimes, providing the first evidence for the causal nature of the relationship. Epperly argues that these findings differ from existing case study research because in democratic regimes, a lack of political competition means incumbents target the de jure independence of courts. This argument is illustrated via in-depth case study of the Hungarian Constitutional Court after the country's 2010 "constitutional coup," and then tested globally. Blending formal theory, observational and instrumental variables models, and elite interviews of leading Hungarian legal scholars and judges, Epperly offers a new framework for understanding judicial independence that integrates explanations of both de jure and de facto independence in both democratic and autocratic regimes.

Why We Are Losing the War on Gun Violence in the United States

Why We Are Losing the War on Gun Violence in the United States
Author: Marie Crandall
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2020-12-09
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 3030555135

This edited collection of data and perspectives takes a fresh approach to gun violence prevention by addressing the question, “why are we losing the war on gun violence in America?” Although successes and failures in the prevention of gun violence are examined, it is a war we are losing, due to restrictions on research funding, entrenched historical perspectives, structural violence, and perhaps differing priorities or views on what is right or wrong. Gun violence is a public health crisis. It remains politicized and has been paralyzed with inaction. In the chapters, the authors write candidly about the challenges that have thwarted gun violence prevention, as well as highlight possible strategies for progress to save lives. Critical areas explored among the chapters include: Gun Violence, Structural Violence, and Social Justice School Shootings: Creating Safer Schools Mental Illness and Gun Violence Understanding the Political Divide in Gun Policy Support The Second Amendment and the War on Guns The Impact of Policy and Law Enforcement Strategies on Reducing Gun Violence in America Youth Gun Violence Prevention Organizing Smart Guns Don't Kill People With this compendium, the editors and authors hope to bridge the growing gap between groups or ideologies, and create common ground to discuss workable solutions. Why We Are Losing the War on Gun Violence in the United States is essential reading for a broad audience including practitioners, academics, researchers, students, policy-makers, and other professionals in public health, behavioral sciences (including social work and psychology), social sciences, health sciences, public policy, political science, and law, as well as any readers interested in the path to decreasing gun violence in America.

The Politics of Uncertainty

The Politics of Uncertainty
Author: Andreas Schedler
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 508
Release: 2013-08-02
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0191669830

Dictatorship is not what it was once. Military and single-party regimes have been withering away. Today, most dictators organize multiparty elections. The Politics of Uncertainty presents an analytical framework and empirical data that allow us to understand the distinctive political dynamics of these new electoral authoritarian regimes. It argues that all autocracies suffer from institutional uncertainties: their hold on power is never secure. They also suffer from informational uncertainties: they can never know for sure how secure they are. The author identifies these uncertainties as the central axes of regimes conflicts under dictatorship. The "politics of uncertainty" comprises the struggle between rulers and dissidents over these twin uncertainties. In electoral autocracies, it unfolds primarily as competition over electoral uncertainty. The study of electoral authoritarianism is a vibrant growth industry in political science and this book is required reading for all students of elections, authoritarianism, and democratization. Oxford Studies in Democratization is a series for scholars and students of comparative politics and related disciplines. Volumes concentrate on the comparative study of the democratization process that accompanied the decline and termination of the cold war. The geographical focus of the series is primarily Latin America, the Caribbean, Southern and Eastern Europe, and relevant experiences in Africa and Asia. The series editor is Laurence Whitehead, Senior Research Fellow, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.

Why Nuclear Power Has Been a Flop

Why Nuclear Power Has Been a Flop
Author: Jack Devanney
Publisher: Bookbaby
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2020-11-11
Genre:
ISBN: 9781098308964

This book is a collection of essays focused on the Gordian knot of our time, the closely coupled problems of energy poverty for billions of humans, and global warming for all humans. The central thesis of the book in that nuclear power is not only the only solution, it is a highly desirable solution, cheaper, safer, less intrusive on nature than all the alternatives.

The Crisis of Liberal Democracy and the Path Ahead

The Crisis of Liberal Democracy and the Path Ahead
Author: Bernd Reiter
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2017-08-24
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1786603667

Political representation and democracy are at odds and we need new models to organize politics without relying so heavily on elected representatives. Similarly, capitalism undermines markets, as the rich and wealthy shield their assets and make them untenable for average earners. Elitism thus undermines both democracy and markets and we need to devise ways to limit the power of professional politicians, as well as the asset holdings of the rich so that the goods they hold can re-enter general markets. A broad array of institutions and laws have been enacted in different places and at different times to block economic elitism and protect democratic self-rule. This book presents a number of such cases, historical as well as contemporary, where solutions to the problem of political and economic elitism have successfully been practiced. It then compares these cases systematically, to determine the common factors and hence the necessary conditions for ensuring, and protecting self-rule and equal opportunity. This book encourages the idea that alternatives to representative, capitalist democracy are possible and can be put to practice.