This is a free textbook written for introductory undergraduate courses in American politics and government, covering the creation and principles of the Constitution, the fundamentals of American public opinion and political behavior, and the basic functions of the three branches of government.

This text is a comprehensive introduction to the vital subject of American government and politics. Governments decide who gets what, when, how (See Harold D. Lasswell, Politics: Who Gets What, When, How, [New York: McGraw-Hill, 1936]); they make policies and pass laws that are binding on all a society’s members; they decide about taxation and spending, benefits and costs, even life and death.Governments possess power—the ability to gain compliance and to get people under their jurisdiction to obey them—and they may exercise their power by using the police and military to enforce their decisions. However, power need not involve the exercise of force or compulsion; people often obey because they think it is in their interest to do so, they have no reason to disobey, or they fear punishment. Above all, people obey their government because it has authority; its power is seen by people as rightfully held, as legitimate. People can grant their government legitimacy because they have been socialized to do so; because there are processes, such as elections, that enable them to choose and change their rulers; and because they believe that their governing institutions operate justly.Politics is the process by which leaders are selected and policy decisions are made and executed. It involves people and groups, both inside and outside of government, engaged in deliberation and debate, disagreement and conflict, cooperation and consensus, and power struggles.In covering American government and politics, this text introduces the intricacies of the Constitution, the complexities of federalism, the meanings of civil liberties, and the conflicts over civil rights;explains how people are socialized to politics, acquire and express opinions, and participate in political life; describes interest groups, political parties, and elections—the intermediaries that link people to government and politics; details the branches of government and how they operate; and shows how policies are made and affect people’s lives.

A Critical Introduction to U.S. Government and Politics

Word Count: 243127

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This book is a broad introduction to Australian politics and public policy. This field of study is important for Australians to understand the exercise of political power, their history and the scope for change. It is also important for analysts outside Australia looking for comparative cases. Within this volume are diverse topics and perspectives, demonstrating that the study of Australian politics and policy is not ‘fixed’. Rather, it is a contested field of academic scholarship. Indeed, the volume’s editors do not all agree on the content of this introduction!

This reader is an Open Educational Resource, meant to accompany a graduate or higher-level undergraduate university course in climate change resilience, adaptation, and/or planning. While the material is geared toward students in urban and regional planning, it may also be of interest to students of urban studies, public health, geography, political science, sociology, risk management, and others.

Digital Suppression and Cryptographic Defense of Social Movements

Short Description:
Defend Dissent is an introduction to cryptography paired with the social impacts of surveillance and the protective potential of encryption, with a focus on US social movements. Each chapter ends with a story that brings social context to the material—from surveillance used against contemporary US protests to the African National Congress’s use of partially manual encryption in fighting apartheid in South Africa in the 80s. This book can be read linearly, or you can pick and choose what you would like to learn about. Each chapter is prefaced with what you should read first (for background) and concludes with what you might want to read next. También disponible en Español Data dashboard

Word Count: 67802

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Existing textbooks on international relations treat history in a cursory fashion and perpetuate a Euro-centric perspective. This textbook pioneers a new approach by historicizing the material traditionally taught in International Relations courses, and by explicitly focusing on non-European cases, debates and issues.

The volume is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on the international systems that traditionally existed in Europe, East Asia, pre-Columbian Central and South America, Africa and Polynesia. The second part discusses the ways in which these international systems were brought into contact with each other through the agency of Mongols in Central Asia, Arabs in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, Indic and Sinic societies in South East Asia, and the Europeans through their travels and colonial expansion. The concluding section concerns contemporary issues: the processes of decolonization, neo-colonialism and globalization – and their consequences on contemporary society.

History of International Relations provides a unique textbook for undergraduate and graduate students of international relations, and anybody interested in international relations theory, history, and contemporary politics.

This book is designed to be a ‘Day 0' introduction to International Relations. As a beginner's guide, it has been structured to condense the most important information into the smallest space and present that information in the most accessible way. The chapters offer a broad sweep of the basic components of International Relations and the key contemporaryissues that concern the discipline. The narrative arc forms a complete circle, taking readers from no knowledge to competency. The journey starts by examining how the international system was formed and ends by reflecting that International Relations is always adapting to events and is therefore a never-ending journey of discovery. Unlike typical textbooks, there are no boxes, charts, pictures or exercises. The philosophy underpinning this book is that these things can be a distraction. This book, like others in the E-IR Foundations series, is designed to capture attention with an engaging narrative. The chapters are short, with simple paragraphs and clear sentences placing the reader inside crucial issues and debates so they can understand how things work, and where they fit in the world around them.

This book is designed as a foundational entry point to International Relations theory – structured to condense the most important information into the smallest space and present that information in an accessible manner. The first half of the book covers the theories that are most commonly taught in undergraduate programmes. The book then expands to present emerging approaches and offer wider perspectives. Each chapter sets out the basics of a theory whilst also applying it to a real-world event or issue, creating a lively, readable and relevant guide that will help students to see not only what theories are – but why they matter.

Introduction to Comparative Government and Politics is the first open educational resource (OER) on the topic of comparative politics, and the second OER textbook in political science funded by ASCCC OERI, in what we hope will become a complete library for the discipline. This textbook aligns with the C-ID Course Descriptor for Introduction to Comparative Government and Politics in content and objectives. It is organized thematically, with each chapter accompanied by a case study or a comparative study, one of the main methodological tools used in comparative politics. By contextualizing the concepts, we hope to help students learn the comparative method, which to this day remains one of the most important methodological tools for all researchers.

Diverse Perspectives

Short Description:
This book is intended for readers who have never studied the Middle East, or experts who may wish to fill gaps in their knowledge of the region from other disciplines. Whether for establishing or deepening one’s knowledge of the region, these fundamentals are important to know. The languages, cultural, religious and sectarian communities of the region, and selected turning points and influential people in history are starting points for gaining an understanding of the diverse contexts of the region.

Long Description:
This book is intended for readers who have never studied the Middle East, or experts who may wish to fill gaps in their knowledge of the region from other disciplines. Whether for establishing or deepening one’s knowledge of the region, these fundamentals are important to know. The languages, cultural, religious and sectarian communities of the region, and selected turning points and influential people in history are starting points for gaining an understanding of the diverse contexts of the region. It is based on introductory and graduate courses on the contemporary Middle East, which the Center’s director, Dr. Alam Payind, has been teaching for the past 30 years. The book’s co-author, Melinda McClimans, has taught these and other courses with him, as well as her own, for the past 15 years. The material is intended engage with diverse – even conflicting – cultural and historical perspectives, and ways of perceiving both Middle Eastern and world history from perspectives within the region. It is not intended to reinforce a monolithic or matter-of-fact perception of the region. For this and many other reasons, images are an important aspect of the knowledge presented. Each chapter starts with links to its image galleries, along with other visual aids and key elements.

Word Count: 28082

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The syllabus for POSC 230-002: International Relations as taught at James Madison University by Dr. Hakseon Lee.

Short Description:
This open educational resource (OER) brings together Canadian and international scholars in a contemporary, pluralistic volume introducing undergraduates in a variety of relevant disciplines to political ideologies and worldviews. This introductory volume is also suitable for a wider general audience. This volume is the first of its kind, a fully open textbook on political worldviews that deals with the historical development of classical ideologies, while expanding and updating the subject using contemporary political examples and non-Eurocentric examinations of ideology. The volume includes chapters on Indigenous worldviews, Confucianism, and the future of ideology in the emerging global order. The volume also contains valuable sets of discussion questions throughout.

Long Description:
Political Ideologies and Worldviews: An Introduction takes a “pluralist” approach and, in addition to being the first open textbook on its subject, also pushes back against the Eurocentric tendencies of standard textbooks by including chapters on Indigenous worldviews and Confucianism. Providing the latest scholarship on “classical ideologies” (liberalism, conservatism, socialism, anarchism, etc.), the textbook also includes innovative chapters on populism, feminism, and multiculturalism, as well as looking at the future of ideologies in a globalized world. Joining together scholars from Canada and beyond, the text also contains discussion questions to help students and readers to think further.

This edited open textbook will be a great asset for introductory courses at the college and university levels on political ideologies and political thought and philosophy, but could also be used in other disciplines, as each chapter assesses the state of the ideology in today’s world. The general reader looking for a better understanding of the competing ideological currents of our time – currents which flow into our daily political debates and real-life government decisions – will also greatly benefit from this book.

Word Count: 85701

ISBN: 978-1-989864-24-1

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El libro busca crear un espacio informático de interacción formativa y de producción, teórico-práctica, entre docentes y estudiantes de cátedras universitarias de diversas facultades, carreras y disciplinas de estudio de la Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Argentina. Es de nuestro interés compartirlo con otras Universidades de América Latina, afines en la temática, que tengan disposición a ser parte de esta experiencia democratizadora de producción y enseñanza académica que ingeniosamente ofrece Proyecto Latin. Organizamos una comunidad interdisciplinaria (Derecho, Ciencia Política, Sociología y Trabajo Social) a partir de expectativas comunes en contenidos y abordajes en el proceso de enseñanza aprendizaje universitario de grado. Las políticas públicas, el género y los Derechos Humanos constituyeron el campo temático de interés común, que forma parte del proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje así como también de estudios e investigaciones de los y las participantes de la comunidad

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Introduction to Public Policy
Chapter 2: Origins and Actors
Chapter 3: Foundations of the Policy Process
Chapter 4: Problem Identification and Agenda Setting
Chapter 5: Policy Design and Formulation
Chapter 6: Policy Implementation
Chapter 7: Policy Analysis and Evaluation

The focus of this book is on using quantitative research methods to test hypotheses and build theory in political science, public policy and public administration. It is designed for advanced undergraduate courses, or introductory and intermediate graduate-level courses. The first part of the book introduces the scientific method, then covers research design, measurement, descriptive statistics, probability, inference, and basic measures of association. The second part of the book covers bivariate and multiple linear regression using the ordinary least squares, the calculus and matrix algebra that are necessary for understanding bivariate and multiple linear regression, the assumptions that underlie these methods, and then provides a short introduction to generalized linear models.

The book fully embraces the open access and open source philosophies. The book is freely available in the SHAREOK repository; it is written in R Markdown files that are available in a public GitHub repository; it uses and teaches R and RStudio for data analysis, visualization and data management; and it uses publically available survey data (from the Meso-Scale Integrated Socio-geographic Network) to illustrate important concepts and methods. We encourage students to download the data, replicate the examples, and explore further! We also encourage instructors to download the R Markdown files and modify the text for use in different courses.

To fully grasp the significance of this story we explore the history of the West, the development of Yellowstone National Park, something about the discipline of conservation biology and related policy sciences, Grizzly bear recovery, and eventually the contemporary economy and social setting of the region. The Greater Yellowstone is a model of how to build a regional system of international importance and local well-being.

Prospects for Sustainability

Short Description:
This book is a collective effort to understand and apply current conceptualizations of sustainability to a study of state and local government. It is an attempt to focus our attention on a basic understanding of the time-tested institutions and guiding principles likely to take society and governance towards greater advancement. Our work is, however, tempered by a developing understanding of smart growth — growth in productive capacity, quality of life and social justice that does not necessitate large-scale destructive or extractive activity. The growth sought produces widespread mutual benefit, is prudent in design and thoughtful in execution. The growth in question here is mindful of the past, yet builds better lives and futures for our posterity. Data dashboard

Word Count: 139622

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Represión digital y defensa criptográfica de movimientos sociales

Short Description:
A la defensa del disenso es una introducción a la criptografía que atiende los efectos sociales de la vigilancia, así como el potencial de protección que brinda el cifrado, con un enfoque en los movimientos sociales nacidos en Estados Unidos. Cada capítulo termina con una historia que aporta un contexto social al material: desde la vigilancia contra protestas contemporáneas en Estados Unidos, hasta la forma en que el Congreso Nacional Africano usó cifrado parcialmente manual para luchar contra el Apartheid en la Sudáfrica de los años 80 del siglo pasado. Puedes leer este libro en forma lineal o puedes elegir los temas sobre los cuales te gustaría aprender. Al inicio de cada capítulo se menciona lo que deberías leer primero (como antecedente) y al final, lo que podría ser de tu interés a continuación. Traducido por Lauren Robbins Also available in English Tablero de datos

Word Count: 37092

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