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This chapter outlines a relatively simple way of understanding the dynamics of local democracy. Across the universe of democracies, three characteristics are the most powerful and widely applicable predictors of their electoral politics: size, scope, and bias. Once we know a democracy's population (size), the magnitude of its constitutive powers (scope), and how uniformly it distributes its resources (bias), we can predict a great deal about who votes, who runs for office, and whether factors like incumbency, parties, ideology, issues, interest groups, and candidate charisma shape vote choices. In other words, we can best predict how people will vote in a particular election if we first understand what is distinctive about that democracy's politics and, if we know its size, scope, and bias, we can predict what those electoral politics are like. The political dynamics of size, scope, and bias are examined in turn.

This chapter shows how the social control practices that involve banishment emerge from key political and legal dynamics. It first suggests that banishment emerged as a response to the Supreme Court's invalidation of traditional vagrancy and loitering laws. It then outlines the legal evolution of the techniques that include banishment. The discussion also identifies some techniques that have three distinct and consequential characteristics: they are definitely territorial, they improve police and prosecutorial power, and they widen the range of behaviors that may lead to criminal justice intervention.

This chapter focuses primarily on those members of local elites who were connected to the government apparatus. This core group of local elites had decisively shaped state-elite interactions throughout imperial history. The chapter first outlines historical changes in the character of local elites and in their relations with the pre-imperial, the early imperial, and the late imperial state. It shows that the process of establishing viable relations between these elites and the bureaucracy was a lengthy and painful one, and that it took more than a full millennium for the empire to learn how to harness local elites to its cause. Even then, tension between holders of social and of administrative power remained highly visible, and cycles of cooperation and contest between them shaped much of the political dynamics of the imperial age.

This introductory chapter discusses an anthropological approach to examining political order in Afghanistan. Rather than casting the nation in the context of war and conquerors, this chapter views the Afghans themselves as the main players to understand the country and its political dynamics. It examines the question of how rulers in Afghanistan obtained political legitimacy over the centuries and brought order to the land, particularly through looking at how notions of power and political legitimacy in Afghanistan change over a long period of time. The chapter lays out the groundwork for a more detailed discussion on these concepts by introducing the themes and theoretical framework underpinning the book's overall arguments.

Studies the role of two‐tier systems in generating consensus for a reform that would be otherwise repelled. It is shown that if exposure to unemployment is initially too low, such strategy will fail as well. Furthermore, it can be used to generate political support for an across‐the‐board reform at a later stage. However, recognition of that possibility by voters ex‐ante will reduce the political support for the two‐tier reform.

This chapter considers the outcomes in terms of understanding the politics of neoliberal resilience and its implications for the future of democratic capitalism. It reflects on the apparent paradox that the cases of neoliberal resilience show a more stable democracy and less thoroughgoing penetration of populist political dynamics than in the cases of neoliberal contestation and discontinuity. It also reviews the analogy between the ability of General Augusto Pinochet to maintain his grip on political power in Chile in the face of many challenges, and the history of neoliberalism in Latin America and Eastern Europe. The chapter highlights the relationship between neoliberalism and constrained democratic rule that is characteristic of the relatively well-known and is a generalized pattern of the Chilean story. It talks about the establishment of neoliberalism that was pushed under outright authoritarian regimes and cites shock therapy conditions and its continuity.

This chapter examines how Obama changed the domestic political dynamics of U.S.-Cuban relations, making new thinking about Cuba politically feasible. Obama promised to end restrictions on remittances and family travel for Cuban Americans, resume “people-to-people” educational and cultural exchanges, and engage Cuba in talks on issues of mutual interest. Engagement, he argued, offered the best hope for promoting “a democratic opening in Cuba,” which would be “the foremost objective of our policy.” As the new president took the oath of office, conditions for a rapprochement between Cuba and the United States appeared more propitious than at any time in a half century.

This concluding chapter reassesses the state of knowledge on Classic Maya political structure and dynamics. It also argues that by pulling together all sources of political data from the macroscale to the middle-scale to the microscale, archaeologists can reconstruct in much more detail the dynamic political landscape characteristic of the Classic period. The causes of these dynamics are found at all levels of Maya society, from the individual and the local community to the polity and regional interaction among these kingdoms. Rather than conceiving of the whole Maya society as cycling between periods of centralization during the Classic period and decentralization during the Postclassic period, this synthesis underscores that powerful and possibly more centralized states were superposed against smaller and less centralized polities in both time periods.

This chapter presents the theory of the book, which builds on bargaining models of conflict by extending the logic to bargaining over self-determination and integrating complexity of the actors engaged into the bargain. The chapter demonstrates that the number of factions within states and self-determination (SD) groups and the connections between them create differing internal political dynamics for each actor. Of special importance are if and when factions can represent veto points with ability to reject bargains. Such internal political dynamics have important consequences for the ability of states and SD groups to overcome challenges of bargaining related to credibility and uncertainty. They create incentives for actors to pursue different strategies in the bargain over self-determination, and these incentives and constraints affect the chance of accommodation of SD groups, and the likelihood of violence between states and SD groups and within SD groups.

This chapter concentrates on the colonias ecológicas productivas (CEP) movement that sheds light on the political dynamics of community struggles for life space and livelihood and the challenges involved in trying to integrate these struggles with strategies that enhance sustainability. The mobilization of Bosques del Pedregal makes clear how much community success depends on the ability to engage the capabilities of relevant state agencies. The CEP movement suggested programs and strategies for approaching sustainability, but its proponents did not get the support they needed from the state. Examining the twists and turns that mark the struggles of the families of Los Belvederes to combine livelihood and sustainability in Ajusco generates a new appreciation for the need for an interdisciplinary approach to planning that builds into itself a strategic emphasis on social experimentation, feedback loops, social learning, and continuous improvement.

Chapter One provides background analysis for understanding the emergence of the Somali diaspora around the world. It looks closely at the Somali civil war. This chapter also provides an overview of the postcolonial Somali regimes and the regional and international political dynamics that continue to shape the country’s ongoing crisis. It discusses how this crisis produced physical and material insecurity, forcing millions from their homes since the late 1980s, with hundreds of thousands crossing international borders in search of safe haven, which is viewed today as Western citizenship. It also details the role their former lives in refugee camps and urban areas in neighboring countries (primarily Kenya) play in their subsequent border crossings in search of social and economic security.

This chapter culls the central themes from these cases, reexamines the factors that drive positive and negative responses to the new immigration, and seeks to unpack the political dynamics by which they play out. It also highlights the metropolitan spatial dimension of these dynamics. The chapter then examines the implications for research and practice. On the practice side, it suggests some new federal policies that would speed immigrant integration, promote receptivity, and defuse tensions. It also features some “best practices” developed around the country, noting which ones work, why, and where. Finally, the chapter highlights the most important remaining research questions and explains how building on the case study method used here could help answer them.

This book concludes by describing paramilitary groups as the political manifestation of profound uncertainty among a cross-section of a country's most resourced sectors. They emerge of out a process in which political dynamics create fissures between traditional allies and realignments among factions whose interests are served in their organization. The increasing global demand for States to avoid the appearance of sponsoring violence often plays a critical role in this process, forcing the newly aligned actors to work outside the official capacity of the State. The cases of Chiapas, Colombia, and El Salvador elucidate this process. This final chapter summarizes the findings of the comparative case analysis presented here, then briefly explores the international application of these findings using three contemporary conflicts from different parts of the world. It ends with a discussion of the implications of this study's findings for the broader study of political violence.

This chapter considers some of the prominent strategic consequences arising from the prosecution of vicarious warfare over recent times. The chapter reveals its principal operational manifestations to further scrutiny with the aim of uncovering its central dynamics and shedding greater light on the often counterproductive strategic consequences of this form of war, at least as it has been conducted by the United States over recent times. It begins by presenting core Clausewitzian insights that can aid appreciation of the political dynamics underlying the use of force, and specifically as they apply to vicarious warfare. This helps explain how apparent tactical gains can shroud serious deficiencies in strategic terms. The chapter then shifts to outline how these dynamics play out in relation to three 'Ds' of delegation, danger-proofing and darkness, which are employed as short-hand descriptors for some of the central practices that have characterized contemporary US vicarious warfare.

This chapter deals with the broad sweep of political life in Micronesia, focusing on the overlapping spheres of political dynamics and leadership. Micronesian political life is characterized by opposing pulls between quite inclusive participation in a community’s decision making, on the one hand, and the hierarchical organization of authority and responsibility, on the other. Hierarchy and rank are fundamental to Micronesian political life but exist within a participatory context, recognizing that every individual and group possesses legitimate interests in the community’s continued success. Competition for social status is a fundamental aspect of Micronesian politics precisely because there is a significant degree of social mobility among individuals and groups. Politics and leadership in Micronesian societies can be understood only as growing out of this continual interplay between hierarchy and equality. Although hierarchy and equality are often treated as if they are opposite poles, in Micronesia they are complementary aspects of an essentially common political culture.