The Council of Ministers

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Emilio del Valle Escalante

"This book focuses on the emergence and political-cultural implications of Guatemala's Maya movement. It explores how, since the 1970s, indigenous peoples have been challenging established, hegemonic narratives of modernity, history, nation, and cultural identity as these relate to the indigenous world. For the most part, these narratives have been fabricated by non-indigenous writers who have had the power not only to produce and spread knowledge but also to speak for and about the Maya world. Contemporary Maya narratives promote nationalisms based on the reaffirmation of Maya ethnicity and languages that constitute what it means to be Maya in present-day society, as well as political-cultural projects oriented toward the future."--BOOK JACKET.

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Michael Kazin

Our Constitution promises a government of the people, by the people, and for the people - but who are "the people"? And who can honestly claim to speak for "the people"? Here, in the first comprehensive history of populism in our nation, Michael Kazin examines the strange career of populist politics from the era of Thomas Jefferson to the era of William Jefferson Clinton. Once identified with the dispossessed, the poor and exploited workers from farm and factory, populism in recent years has been brought to the forefront of the political landscape, embraced by the likes of Ronald Reagan and Jesse Jackson and glibly applied to figures ranging from Bruce Springsteen to Rush Limbaugh. Kazin calls populism an impulse rather than an ideology. He defines it as a mode of political persuasion that combines anti-elitism, adoration of the common people (usually defined as hardworking, pious, and, until quite recently, white), and a belief in the American ideal of democracy that the power brokers in business, government, and academia have betrayed. Kazin argues that populism has undergone two major transformations since the defeat of the People's Party, the original Populists, in the mid-1890s. The first was a split between those who viewed "the people" as a group belonging above all to God and those who viewed ordinary Americans in primarily economic terms. The second, an ongoing shift to the Right, began in the McCarthy era. The movement was transformed by the onset of the Cold War, the ideological mellowing of the labor movement, and the New Left's self-imposed alienation from the American mainstream. In the 1960s, George Wallace showed how to attract blue-collar Democrats with populist rhetoric. Then Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan captured and refined populist themes for the benefit of the Republican Party. Kazin shows that the Right's conception of a struggling middle class beset by an inept, immoral state remains vigorous and limits what Bill Clinton or anyone to his left can accomplish. The Populist Persuasion unrolls a fascinating narrative of our country's history, richly endowed with examples demonstrating the flexibility of populist rhetoric. Bringing to life the powerful voices of past leaders, Kazin shows how they both inform the political debates of our own time and point with hope toward a future in which the country will live up to its original democratic ideals.

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Antonio L. Rappa

"The central metaphor in globalization: an Asian perspective on modernity and politics in America is partly constructed out of Michel Foucault's metaphor of the Ship of Fools in Madness and Civilization (1965). Building on Foucault's argument, the three themes of hope, progress and optimism as used in this book represent idiomatic expressions of the business of modernity that have developed since the time of the Industrial Revolution in the West." "With this in mind, this book has been designed for upper level undergraduates, graduate students and readers who are interested in contemporary political theory."--BOOK JACKET.

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Robin Cohen and Harry Goulbourne

After independence many African countries abjured conventional patterns of political representation and democratic participation in the interest of creating a unified state and promoting economic development. Today, however, the dominant models of one-party democracy and African socialism are in terminal collapse as a result of internal pressures and the influence of political changes taking place in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Throughout Africa, especially in South Africa, the old Left has been slowly forced to abandon its belief in democratic centralism in favor of a more pluralistic vision of the future. In this volume of provocative essays, leading scholars from Africa, Europe, and the United States examine the extent to which popular demands for democracy are both subverting and enriching the postcolonial order in Africa. The contributors explore a wide range of topics, including economic democracy, the state and civil society, the impact of the economic crisis on women, and agrarian reform. Theoretical chapters are followed by case studies of the prospects for democracy in South Africa, Uganda, Ghana, the Sudan, Botswana, and the southern African region. This book will be indispensable for those seeking to understand Africa's future in the world order.