Brookings Institution Press

China's changing political landscape; prospects for democracy.

Mostly American political scientists and China scholars consider prospects that the Asian country can achieve what they recognize as democracy. Topics include ideological change and incremental democracy in reform-era China, China's lost generation, China's left tilt, legalization without democratization under Hu Jintao, and learning from abroad (not Florida). (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

China's expansion into the western hemisphere; implications for Latin America and the United States.

How will China's increasing diplomatic and economic ties with Latin America, and other evidence of its growing interest, affect what the US has regarded as its primacy in the region? Here experts from China, Latin America, the US and Europe describe changes in China's foreign policy, its needs for long-term commodity sources and energy, and its geopolitical goals and assess how those elements function in what appears to be a push to enter Latin American markets, including labor markets. Their 11 papers describe the growing interconnections between China and Latin America, the ramifications of China's startling economic rise, the roles of Latin America as developing nations and potential losers in their relationships with China, lessons being learned from China's involvement in Africa and southeast Asia, and implications for the future in the US/China/Latin American relationship. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Innovations in government; research, recognition, and replication.

This collection of ten papers is a festschrift for the Innovations in American Government Awards Program at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Management, which was begun two decades ago with a grant from the Ford Foundation for conducting research into innovations in state and local government and has now evolved into the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation. Presented by Borins (public management, U. of Toronto), the papers first address the organizational and intellectual history of the program and then discuss innovations in democratic governance, comparative innovations in Brazil, organizational innovation at the US Department of Labor during the Clinton years, innovation processes for interagency collaborative capacity, the New York Police Department's comparative statistics performance strategy and the challenge of innovation replication, replication and the English governments Beacon Scheme for encouraging the sharing of local government knowledge, and current activities and future directions for both the Ash Institute specifically and innovation research generally. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The swing voter in American politics.

Surprised at the near total lack of academic literature on the swing voter in American elections, Mayer (political science, Northeaster U.) was prompted to fashion this collection of eight papers focusing on defining and identifying swing voters, discovering differences between swing voters and the rest of the electorate, and the role of swing voters in determining the outcomes of contemporary elections. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)