India, Pakistan, and democracy

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Anders Uhlin

"Now, for the first time, there is a comparative study of civil society and democratization in the different regions across post-Soviet national borders. Post-Soviet Civil Society offers unique data on developments in Russia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Applying an innovative analytical framework derived from theories of democratization, civil society, social movements and transnational relations, the researcher was able to formulate broader comparisons and generalizations without neglecting the specific post-Soviet context. Providing a systematic comparison across civil society sectors as well as regions, this book includes sections on NGOs, the relationship between state and civil society, and transnationalization. Quantitative survey data is combined with qualitative interviews and case study research to both confirm previous findings about the weakness of post-communist civil society and to qualify previous research in a number of ways."--Jacket.

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Jeffrey Haus

"Historians have typically characterized nineteenth-century French Jewry as largely eager to assimilate, or at the very least passively accommodating to assimilation, with only the most traditional Jews rejecting the trappings of French culture. Through the lens of Jewish primary and rabbinical education, author Jeffrey Haus shows that even integrated French Jews sought to set limits on assimilation and struggled to preserve a sense of Jewish distinctiveness in France. Challenges of Equality argues that Jewish leaders couched their views in terms that the government could understand and accept, portraying a Judaism consistent with the goal of cultural and political unification of the French nation. At the same time, their educational activities asserted the existence of distinctively Jewish cultural space." "Haus shows how French government officials repeatedly used political and financial pressure to advance their own vision of an integrated French Judaism. In response, Jewish leaders focused on the concepts of "utility" and "equality" to erect and manage the boundaries between their institutions and the state, as these were key elements of governmental policy toward religious and educational establishments. Haus examines these issues by comparing the financial and curricular histories of Jewish primary schools run by the Consistory and the central French rabbinical school. Utilizing a variety of sources - including school curricula, rabbinical ordination examinations, government documents and correspondence, state jurisprudential decisions, and the French Jewish press - Challenges of Equality paints a picture of a resilient and persistent French Judaism that adapted and integrated but nevertheless survived." "Scholars of Jewish history, French history, European history, and the history of education will appreciate the detailed look at Jewish integration in France that Haus provides."--BOOK JACKET.

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Sarah S. Stroup

"In Borders among Activists, Sarah S. Stroup challenges the notion that political activism has gone beyond borders and created a global or transnational civil society. Instead, at the most globally active, purportedly cosmopolitan groups in the world--international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs)--organizational practices are deeply tied to national environments, creating great diversity in the way these groups organize themselves, engage in advocacy, and deliver services. Stroup offers detailed profiles of these "varieties of activism" in the United States, Britain, and France. These three countries are the most popular bases for INGOs, but each provides a very different environment for charitable organizations due to differences in legal regulations, political opportunities, resources, and patterns of social networks. Stroup's comparisons of leading American, British, and French INGOs--Care, Oxfam, Médecins sans Frontières, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and FIDH--reveal strong national patterns in INGO practices, including advocacy, fund-raising, and professionalization. These differences are quite pronounced among INGOs in the humanitarian relief sector, and are observable, though less marked, among human rights INGOs. Stroup finds that national origin helps account for variation in the "transnational advocacy networks" that have received so much attention in international relations. For practitioners, national origin offers an alternative explanation for the frequently lamented failures of INGOs in the field: INGOs are not inherently dysfunctional, but instead remain disconnected because of their strong roots in very different national environments." -- Publisher's description

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Gino G. Raymond

"Chronicles foretelling the death of the French Communist Party have been a staple part of the literature on the Left in France since the 1980s, when the party began to lose control over the dissident voices in its own ranks and had to face the evidence of its failure at the ballot box. The collapse of the Berlin Wall and the demise of the Soviet Union reinforced the belief that the party had lost its raison d'etre and therefore any enduring hope of survival. Nonetheless, the party emerged from the elections of 2004 in France on a much more even keel than those parties to its left which had been tipped to overtake it. Instead of viewing the party in isolation, Raymond treats it as part of the host society whose evolution invariably impacts on its fortunes and suggests that the obituaries for communism in France may be premature."--Jacket.