The Constitution grants Congress the power "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises." From the First Congress until today, conflicts over the size, role, and taxing power of government have been at the heart of national politics. Ippolito’s account of federal tax policy emphasizes the relationship between taxes and other components of the budget; explains how wars, changing conceptions of the domestic role of government, and beliefs about deficits and debt have shaped the modern tax system; and looks at the partisan battle over budget policy that triggered the disconnect between taxes and spending since the 1960s. With the federal government now facing its most serious deficit and debt challenge in the modern era, partisan debate over taxation is almost completely divorced from fiscal realities. Continuing to indulge the public about the true costs of government has served the electoral interests of the parties, but it precludes honest debate about the urgent task of reconnecting taxes and budgets.

(TAX POLICY * U.S. TAXATION * U.S. DEFICIT)

In the 1990s China embarked on a series of political reforms intended to increase political participation, however modestly, so as to reduce the abuse of power by local officials. But reforms have largely stalled and, in many cases, gone backward. If there were sufficient incentives to inaugurate reform, why wasn't there enough momentum to continue and deepen them? Fewsmith approaches this question by looking at a number of promising reforms, explaining the incentives of officials at different levels, and describing how the Chinese Communist Party operates at the local level. The sort of reforms necessary to make local officials more responsible to the citizens they govern cut too deeply into the organizational structure of the party.

(CHINA POLITICAL REFORM * CHINA: GOVERNMENT)

The creative unconscious collective imagination generates ever-changing visions of legitimate power and authority, which compete for enactment and institutionalization in the political arena. If, in the past, political authority was grounded in fictions such as the divine right of kings, the laws of nature, historical determinism, and scientism, today the space of democratic politics is filled with multiple alternative social imaginaries of the desirable political order. Exposure to electronic mass media has made contemporary democratic publics more aware that credible popular fictions have greater impact on shaping our political realities than do rational social choices or moral arguments. Thus, the pressing political question in contemporary democracy is how to select and enact political fictions that promote peace, not violence, and how to found the political order on checks and balances between alternative political imaginaries of freedom and justice.

(DEMOCRACY: ALTERNATIVE VISIONS * POLITICAL FICTIONS AND DEMOCRACY)

Seeks to provide an objective answer to the perennial debate between Left and Right over what public policies best contribute to human beings leading positive and rewarding lives. Analysis focuses on the consequences of three specific political issues: 1) the welfare state and the general size of government, 2) labor organization, and 3) state efforts to protect workers and consumers through economic regulation. In each instance, the program of the Left best contributes to citizens leading more satisfying lives, and, critically, the benefits of greater happiness accrue to everyone in society, rich and poor alike.

(HAPPINESS AND POLICY * WELLBEING * QUALITY OF LIFE AND PUBLIC POLICIES)

The ‘Arab Spring’ began in Tunisia in December 2010, bringing down dictators, sparking a civil war in Libya, and igniting a bloody uprising in Syria. Its long-term repercussions in Egypt and elsewhere remain unclear. Ramadan explores the uprisings, offering insight into their origin, significance, and possible futures. As early as 2003, there had been talk of democratization in the Middle East and North Africa. The U.S. government and private organizations set up networks and provided training for young leaders, especially in use of the Internet and social media, and the West abandoned its unconditional support of authoritarian governments. But the West did not create the uprisings. Dictators have been overthrown without weapons. Democratic processes are only beginning to emerge, and unanswered questions remain, such as the role religion will play, how Islamic principles and goals should be rethought, and whether a sterile and polarizing debate between Islamism and secularism can be avoided.

(MIDDLE EAST DEMOCRATIZATION * ARAB SPRING * ISLAM AWAKENING)

In 2011, economic damages from natural disasters in the US exceeded $55 billion, with 14 events costing more than $1 billion each in damages. To reduce the impacts of disasters on the nation and its communities, the nation needs to invest in enhancing resilience—the ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from and more successfully adapt to adverse events. Defines "national resilience," describes the state of knowledge about resilience to hazards and disasters, and frames the main issues related to increasing US resilience. Also provide goals, baseline conditions, or performance metrics for national resilience and outlines additional information, data, gaps, and/or obstacles that need to be addressed to increase the nation's resilience to disasters. Additionally, makes recommendations about the necessary approaches to elevate national resilience to disasters, and develops a vision of the characteristics of a resilient nation in the year 2030: 1) every individual and community in the nation has access to risk and vulnerability information; 2) all levels of government, communities, and the private sector have designed resilience strategies and operation plans; 3) proactive investments and policy decisions have reduced loss of lives, costs, and socioeconomic impacts of future disasters; 4) community coalitions are widely organized, recognized, and supported to provide essential services before and after disasters occur; 5) recovery after disasters is rapid and the per capita federal cost of responding to disasters has been declining for a decade; and 6) nationwide, the public is universally safer, healthier, and better educated. Also supports the emergence of a new national “culture of disaster resilience” which includes components of (1) Taking responsibility for disaster risk; (2) Addressing the challenge of establishing the core value of resilience in communities, including the use of disaster loss data to foster long-term commitments to enhancing resilience; (3) Developing and deploying tools or metrics for monitoring progress toward resilience; (4) Building local, community capacity because decisions and the ultimate resilience of a community are driven from the bottom up; (5) Understanding the landscape of government policies and practices to help communities increase resilience; and (6) Identifying and communicating the roles and responsibilities of communities and all levels of government in building resilience. Recommendations include: 1) Federal government agencies should incorporate national resilience as a guiding principle to inform the mission and actions of the federal government and the programs it supports at all levels. 2) The public and private sectors in a community should work cooperatively to encourage commitment to and investment in a risk management strategy that includes complementary structural and nonstructural risk-reduction and risk-spreading measures or tools. 3) A national resource of disaster-related data should be established that documents injuries, loss of life, property loss, and impacts on economic activity.

(DISASTER RESILIENCE)

America's position as the source of much of the world's global innovation has been the foundation of its economic vitality and military power in the post-war period. No longer is U.S. pre-eminence assured as a place to turn laboratory discoveries into new commercial products, companies, industries, and high-paying jobs. As the pillars of the U.S. innovation system erode through wavering financial and policy support, the rest of the world is racing to improve its capacity to generate new technologies and products, attract and grow existing industries, and build positions in the high technology industries of tomorrow. The report emphasizes the importance of sustaining global leadership in the commercialization of innovation. Far more vigorous attention must be paid to capturing the outputs of innovation - the commercial products, the industries, and particularly high-quality jobs to restore full employment. America's economic and national security future depends on our succeeding in this endeavor. Actionable measures are developed to advance the four core goals of the U.S. innovation policy: (1) to monitor and learn from what the rest of the world is doing; (2) to reinforce support for U.S. innovation leadership; (3) to capture greater value from its public investments in research; and (4) to cooperate more actively with other nations.

(INNOVATION POLICY IN U.S. * U.S. INNOVATION POLICY: REFORM NEEDED * SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY * ECONOMY AND U.S. INNOVATION)

Liberalism has made countless promises, almost none of which have come true: under its auspices, poverty was not eliminated, crime did not diminish, the family was not strengthened, education was not improved, nor was universal peace established. These failures flow directly from liberal contradictions. Fein contends that an “inverse force rule” dictates that small communities are united by strong forces, such as personal relationships and face-to-face hierarchies, while large-scale societies are integrated by weak forces, such as technology and social roles. As we become a more complex techno-commercial society, the weak forces become more dominant. This necessitates greater decentralization, in direct opposition to the centralization that liberals celebrate. Liberalism contradicts human nature and history’s lessons. According to Fein, we as a species are incapable of eliminating hierarchy or of loving all other humans with equal intensity. Despite its superficial appearance of vigor, liberalism is dying in contemporary American society.

(LIBERALISM IN DECLINE * GOVERNMENT)

Former Austrian diplomat and consultant to OECD notes that traditional diplomacy is based on the notion of competing nation-states, each attempting to maximize its autonomy and independence. In today’s world even mighty states are enmeshed in a web of interdependence. Much of the world’s economy, information, industry, and culture have become global. Given these massive changes, much of traditional diplomacy has become redundant and sometimes counterproductive. Notwithstanding worldwide interdependence, states still anchor this complex global system. Diplomats retain an important function in safeguarding and shaping that worldwide interdependence; to meet today’s challenges, they will have to adjust their ways and institutions.

(GLOBAL GOVERNANCE * DIPLOMACY in THE 21ST CENTURY * GOVERNMENT)

Profiles victims of corruption and chronicles the successful campaigns by courageous human rights activists, journalists, and public prosecutors. Explains the crucial challenges that now must be confronted: at stake is nothing less than global security, reduction of poverty, stability of our economic and financial systems, and the cause of freedom and democracy. Chapters discuss corruption crimes, victims and activists, political and business villains, criminalizing bribe paying, the demand for good governance, etc.

(CORRUPTION * GOVERNMENT * SECURITY * HUMAN RIGHTS)