Georgetown U. Press

Dust-up; asbestos litigation and the failure of common sense policy reform.

With this case study, Barnes (political science, U. of Southern California) analyzes the political barriers to replacing a system of asbestos litigation that is insufficient and unfair to victims and businesses, to show students in law and public policy, congressional politics, and public health courses the complexity of the US policymaking process. He explores the politics of efficiency in asbestos litigation reform following the 2004 presidential election during the 109th Congress and why the reform legislation failed. He draws on the legislative records, judicial decisions, media accounts, and participant interviews and methods like qualitative and quantitative analysis to identify patterns of governmental relations that reveal institutional constraints on improving public policy and the operation of the legal system. He traces the rise of asbestos consumption and litigation, critiques of the litigation, and the institutional response and congressional efforts to reform it. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

High-stakes reform; the politics of educational accountability.

McDermott (education and public policy, U. of Massachusetts, Amherst) examines the political processes and historical context, from the beginnings of local public schools to 2001, that led to the enactment of state-level US education accountability policies that focus on performance. She focuses on high school graduation tests and state powers to close schools or replace staff, or take control of districts, and compares the uses of testing in case studies of Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut and their kinds of sanctions against students, schools, and school districts with low test scores enacted prior to the No Child Left Behind Act, a period when much of the action on educational accountability took place. She also discusses performance-based accountability and its ideas and the implications of her analysis for education policy and the general movement toward performance measurement and accountability. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Testing the national covenant; fears and appetites in American politics.

May (Institute of Practical Ethics and Public Life, U. of Virginia) argues that much of American politics can be understood as consequences of (but not reducible to) the religious patterns and energies of a Manichean dualism in the approach of the "radical Right" to foreign and domestic policy, which can be characterized as imperial overreach in both spheres and which is based on an understanding of the origins of the United States in the purely contractual agreement between self-interested individuals and thus understands government as only properly in the business of defending against foreign threats of invasion and internal threats of violence, thus ignoring the Constitution's understanding of government's purpose "to promote the general Welfare." He counters this contractual reasoning with a covenantal interpretation of American origins, which presupposes a history of reciprocity amongst "We the People" and seeks to build upon it. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Water; Asia's new battleground.

Chellaney (Center for Policy Research, New Delhi) highlights the long-term security implications of new political tensions surrounding transnational aquifers and international rivers in Asia, focusing in particular on the role of Tibet as Asia's water repository, water supplier, and rainmaker. The author employs an interdisciplinary perspective, blending ideas and research from geopolitics, sustainability science, and international law. The book includes a case study on international political and environmental implications of Chinese plans to build the world's largest dam on the Brahmaputra River. The author offers policy recommendations on preventing armed conflict over water and distributing water more equally. Appendices list water agreements and weblinks to Asian water treaties. Numerous b&w maps are included. The book's readership includes scholars, policymakers, scientists, and students. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)