This book on the pre-history of democratization shows how and why more modern attitudes to democracy started to emerge in the late eighteenth century. Focusing on the language of parliamentarians, the author reconstructs and compares debates on the political role and representation of the people in Britain and Sweden. His analysis demonstrates not only the persistence of the classical, pejorative, conception of democracy but also the gradual re-evaluation of the notion prior to the French Revolution. The author analyses the clash between British and French conceptions of democracy as well as the first definitions of the sovereignty of Parliament as the sovereignty of the people. Furthermore, by placing parliamentary discourse in the context of public debates, he reveals the previously ignored role that parliaments played in redefining the most crucial concepts in Western political theory.

Reasonable people disagree about the reach of the federal government, but there is near-universal consensus that it should protect us from such dangers as bacteria-infested food, harmful drugs, toxic pollution, crumbling bridges, and unsafe toys. And yet, the agencies that shoulder these responsibilities are in shambles; if they continue to decline, lives will be lost and natural resources will be squandered. In this timely book, Rena Steinzor and Sidney Shapiro take a hard look at the tangled web of problems that have led to this dire state of affairs. It turns out that the agencies are not primarily to blame and that regulatory failure actually stems from a host of overlooked causes. Steinzor and Shapiro discover that unrelenting funding cuts, a breakdown of the legislative process, an increase in the number of political appointees, a concurrent loss of experienced personnel, chaotic White House oversight, and ceaseless political attacks on the bureaucracy all have contributed to the broken system. But while the news is troubling, the authors also propose a host of reforms, including a new model for measuring the success of the agencies and a revitalization of the civil service. The People’s Agents and the Battle to Protect the American Public is an urgent and compelling appeal to renew America’s best traditions of public service.

This book investigates the working mechanisms of public opinion in Late Republican Rome as a part of informal politics. It explores the political interaction (and sometimes opposition) between the elite and the people through various means, such as rumours, gossip, political literature, popular verses and graffiti. It also proposes the existence of a public sphere in Late Republican Rome and analyses public opinion in that time as a system of control. By applying the spatial turn to politics, it becomes possible to study sociability and informal meetings where public opinion circulated. What emerges is a wider concept of the political participation of the people, not just restricted to voting or participating in the assemblies.

This book reveals the covert operations of Mao's public security organs through an examination of the recruitment of agents, their training and their operational activities.

Previous edition of this translation: 2005.

Are companies, churches, and states genuine agents? How do we explain their behaviour? Can we treat them as accountable for their actions? List and Pettit offer original arguments, grounded in cutting-edge work on social choice, economics, and philosophy, to show there really are group agents, over and above the individual agents who compose them.

True stories, told and written by the current and retired former Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). This book is dedicated to the three FBI Special Agents that were killed on August 9, 1979, and their families, as well as 33 other FBI Special Agents who died as a direct result of an adversarial action throughout the FBI's history to date. It is also dedicated to the countless families of both active and retired Agents, who exemplified the Fidelity -Bravery - Integrity that the FBI men and women represent. Throughout human history, man has recorded events, whether in written form, by word of mouth, or electronically. These recordings were made to tell a story, to preserve history, to teach and enlighten future generations about life. This book was written to do all of the above, with stories that are part of the FBI's history. The book contains hundreds of true stories, written by hundreds of current and retired FBI Special Agents. I, as an author, am merely a messenger that put together all the stories, including mine. The author was born in a small village in Slovenia, which at that time was one of the republics of Yugoslavia, a communist country in Eastern Europe. Slovenia is now an independent country and a member of NATO. Author left Slovenia at the age of eleven, with his mother, and arrived in the U.S. on Thanksgiving Day, 1956. He was reunited with his father for the first time in eleven years, as his father left the communist country or face a certain death, when the youngster was three months old. Following graduation from John Carroll University in 1967, and ROTC commitment, author became a Cleveland, Ohio police officer, followed by service as a U.S. Army officer during the Vietnam War. In 1970, upon completion of the FBI Academy, author was sworn in as an FBI Special Agent, given credentials, a badge and a gun and started his 32 years of public service in the FBI. Stories in the book were collected during the 32 years on duty and the 12 years of retirement. Additional stories are being collected and will be published in the next book, God willing. Yes, FBI Special Agents are real people, who have left various jobs, to pursue a dream and a daily challenge in a career serving human beings. We are special, because we put our lives on the line every day to protect those that we have sworn to serve. We reflect the society around us. Our backgrounds are as varied as the people that we serve and protect. We have feelings, we cry and we laugh. We are shot at and we shoot as a last resort. We bleed and we die. We leave for work carrying a gun, a set of credentials and a badge, not knowing if we will return to our loved ones alive in one piece, at the end of the day. We are saints and we are sinners. The split-second decisions that we have to make at times may haunt us, as attorneys rehash our actions for years after their occurrence. These decisions may make the difference whether we will be judged by twelve or carried by six. All of us hope and pray, that our actions will be just and correct and we will make it home to our loving families. Many of the stories that are contained in this book will be labeled by some readers as being politically incorrect, provocative, racist and sexist. None of the stories are meant to offend you. Believe me, the stories are real and they deal with life (and death) in the real world that all of us live in today.