The book tells you everything you need to know to start an career or change the direction of your current career in politics, government, or activism.

Nationalist movements have become a force in contemporary American politics regardless of the political party. As social issues plague America, civilian participation in activism is experiencing a resurgence. Nationalism, Social Movements, and Activism in Contemporary Society: Emerging Research and Opportunities provides vital information on the most current issues facing the American public and political system while also exploring nationalist ideology and its application in modern politics. While highlighting the challenges facing America’s democracy and social structure, this book explores how civilians and movements are working to make progress in the current political climate. This book is an important resource for researchers, activists, political scientists, journalists, professors, students, and professionals seeking current research on nationalism, social activism, civilian protest, and the current American political climate.

Doing Democracy examines the potential of the arts and popular culture to extend and deepen the experience of democracy. Its contributors address the use of photography, cartooning, memorials, monuments, poetry, literature, music, theater, festivals, and parades to open political spaces, awaken critical consciousness, engage marginalized groups in political activism, and create new, more democratic societies. This volume demonstrates how ordinary people use the creative and visionary capacity of the arts and popular culture to shape alternative futures. It is unique in its insistence that democratic theorists and activists should acknowledge and employ affective as well as rational faculties in the ongoing struggle for democracy.

Explores the value of an organization-centered approach to understanding parties and their role in democratic representation.

"This book highlights the way in which contemporary forms of governance, policy and politics have been reframed by women 'working the spaces of power'. It shows how links between activism and work have generated innovations that have since become 'common sense' forms of policy and practice. Janet Newman draws on interviews with a wide variety of women in positions of power, some at the highest levels of government, some who have led major voluntary bodies, others who are entrepreneurs, philanthropists, community activists and campaigners. All of their work has been informed by a range of social movements and activist commitments. Newman uses these interviews to interrogate, develop and challenge existing approaches to understanding social and political change."--Publisher's description

This book explores the diverse ways in which disability activism and advocacy are experienced and practised by people with disabilities and their allies. Contributors to the book explore the very different strategies and campaigns they have used to have their demands for respect, dignity and rights heard and acted upon by their communities, by national governments and the international community. The book, with its contemporary global focus, makes a significant contribution to the field of disability and social justice studies, particularly at a time of major social, political and cultural upheaval. Global Perspectives on Disability Activism and Advocacy offers a significant intervention within the field of disability at a time of major social upheaval where actors, advocates and activists are seeking to hold onto existing claims for rights, equality and disability justice.

The transition paradigm has traditionally viewed civil society activism as an essential condition for the establishment of democracy. The democracy promotion strategies of Western policy-makers have, therefore, been based on strengthening civil society in authoritarian settings in order to support the development of social capital -to challenge undemocratic regimes. This book questions the validity of the link between an active associational life and democratization. It examines civil society in the Arab world in order to illustrate how authoritarian constraints structure civil society dynamics in the region in ways that hinder transition to democracy. Building on innovative theoretical work and drawing on empirical data from extensive fieldwork in the region, this study demonstrates how the activism of civil society in five different Arab countries strengthens rather than weakens authoritarian practices and rule. Through an analysis of the specific legal and political constraints on associational life, and the impact of these on relations between different civic groups, and between associations and state authorities, the book demonstrates that the claim that civil society plays a positive role in processes of democratic transformation is highly questionable. Offering a broad and alternative vision of the state of civil society in the region, this book will be an important contribution to studies on Middle Eastern politics, democratization and civil society activism.

Social workers are called upon to shift from a human-centric bias to an ecological ethical sensibility by embracing love as integral to their justice mission and by extending the idea of social justice to include environmental and species justice. This book presents the love ethic model as a way to do eco-justice work using public campaigns, research, community arts practice and other nonviolent, direct action strategies. The model is premised on an active and ongoing commitment to the eco-values of love, eco-justice and nonviolence for the purpose of upholding the public interest. The love ethic model is informed by the stories of eco-activists who used nonviolent actions to address ecological issues such as: pollution; degradation of the environment; exploitation of farm animals; mining industry overriding First Nation Peoples’ land rights; and human health and social costs related to the natural resource industries, private land developments and government infrastructure projects. Informed by practice insights by activists from a range of eco-justice concerns, this innovative book provides new directions in social work and environmental studies involving transformational change leadership and dialogical group work between interest groups. It should be considered essential reading for social work students, researchers and practitioners as well as eco-activists more generally.

"Richard Hart's constant quest for political autonomy, decolonisation and regional unity has earned him a space in the annals of history as one of Jamaica's leading nationalist figures and as a vital contributor to the Caribbean integration movement. As a key proponent of social, political and economic transformations in the region, Hart fought arduously for trade unionism, political sovereignty and mass-based democratic political parties among other important issues which advanced the lives of Caribbean nationals. Hart's upper middle class upbringing and his status as a lawyer was never a deterrent to his championing the cause of the ordinary man. For his subversive political beliefs and radical stance against colonial powers, he was imprisoned by the British colonial government in the 1940s, expelled by the People's National Party in 1952, and branded a radical by those who deemed his beliefs rogue and detrimental to their interests in the Caribbean. Caribbean Reasonings-Caribbean Political Activism: Essays in Honour of Richard Hart offers some of the best assessment of the work of one of Jamaica's best politicians,activists and historians. Along with the critical reflection of his work, Caribbean Political Activism :Essays in Honour of Richard Hart also shows the struggles the Jamaican and Grenadian societies faced in the post-independence years of the 1970s and 1980s."--P. [4] of cove

While it was not until 1871 that slavery in Cuba was finally abolished, African-descended people had high hopes for legal, social, and economic advancement as the republican period started. In Black Political Activism and the Cuban Republic, Melina Pappademos analyzes the racial politics and culture of black civic and political activists during the Cuban Republic. The path to equality, Pappademos reveals, was often stymied by successive political and economic crises, patronage politics, and profound racial tensions. In the face of these issues, black political leaders and members of black social clubs developed strategies for expanding their political authority and for winning respectability and socioeconomic resources. Rather than appeal to a monolithic black Cuban identity based on the assumption of shared experience, these black activists, politicians, and public intellectuals consistently recognized the class, cultural, and ideological differences that existed within the black community, thus challenging conventional wisdom about black community formation and anachronistic ideas of racial solidarity. Pappademos illuminates the central, yet often silenced, intellectual and cultural role of black Cubans in the formation of the nation's political structures; in doing so, she shows that black activism was only partially motivated by race.