This book examines the origins and consequences of Burma's current policies from military, political, social, and economic perspectives. It analyzes, among other issues, the Asian decision to "constr
One of the key constitutional features of a parliamentary democracy is that the political executive, or cabinet, derives its mandate from - and is politically responsible to - the legislature. What makes a parliamentary democracy democratic is that, once a legislative election has been held, the new legislature has the power to dismiss the incumbent executive and replace it with a new one. Moreover, it sits essentially as a court, passing continual judgement on the record of the executive, and continuous sentence on its future prospects. That is how citizens, indirectly, choose and control their government. But the relationship between legislature and executive is not one-sided. The executive typically has the authority to recommend dissolution of parliament and is usually drawn from the parliament. Executive personnel, therefore, have intimate familiarity with parliamentary practices; and for their part, parliamentary personnel aspire to executive appointments. Surprisingly little is
This is a biography of Earthopolis, the only Urban Planet we know of. It is a history of how cities gave humans immense power over Earth, for good and for ill. Carl Nightingale takes readers on a sweeping six-continent, six-millennia tour of the world's cities, culminating in the last 250 years, when we vastly accelerated our planetary realms of action, habitat, and impact, courting dangerous new consequences and opening prospects for new hope. In Earthopolis we peek into our cities' homes, neighborhoods, streets, shops, eating houses, squares, marketplaces, religious sites, schools, universities, offices, monuments, docklands, and airports to discover connections between small spaces and the largest things we have built. The book exposes the Urban Planet's deep inequalities of power, wealth, access to knowledge, class, race, gender, sexuality, religion and nation. It asks us to draw on the most just and democratic moments of Earthopolis's past to rescue its future.