One of the main challenges faced by the missionaries and their US supporters was the renewal of their short-term visas. The State Department repeatedly urged its Italian counterparts to consider issuing permanent or long-term residence permits, hoping to eliminate one of the most contentious points of the ongoing dispute. While the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was generally sympathetic to these proposals and sought to accommodate Washington’s requests, it faced significant resistance from Mario Scelba, the inflexible interior minister, as well as repeated pressures from the Vatican. The Vatican followed the matter with interest and concern, viewing the presence of Protestant missionaries as a potential threat to Italy’s Catholic identity and spiritual unity. Catholic propaganda leaned heavily on familiar anti-Protestant tropes, portraying Protestantism as a foreign import, threatening the country’s cohesion and spiritual unity, which, it was argued, was essential to counter the Communist threat. The visa issue became a constant point of contention, resolved only through temporary solutions and case-by-case renewals. Meanwhile, the missionaries frequently clashed with Italian authorities, who sporadically (and inconsistently) harassed them by shutting down preaching halls or preventing access to their facilities.

Chapter 4 explores why Trump has perceived an opportunity to openly test the U.S. military’s commitment to IHL. Section 4.1 analyzes the role of ideological subcultures in overriding formal doctrines relating to IHL. Section 4.2 turns to why Trump has perceived that Fox News and GOP Congress members could help him to appeal to conservatives and pockets of right-wing extremism in America’s military. Section 4.3 documents the rise of far-right subcultures in the military, both before and after Trump’s two electoral wins in 2016 and 2024. Finally, Section 4.4 presents a short case study of disproportionate military involvement in the January 6 Capitol riot. Although not a foreign battlefield, the case illustrates how Trump and his allies could lead combatants to discount norms of restraint, even to the point of attacking civilians on American soil.

Chapter 2 explains how Trump has gained the means to overtly challenge IHL. Section 2.1 presents case studies of how Fox News and Trump allies in Congress both inspired and defended two rounds of high-profile clemencies during his first term. The first, occurring roughly six months after Trump had pardoned Michael Behenna in May 2019, preempted the court martial of Mathew Golsteyn, commuted the sentence of Clint Lorance, and restored the rank of Eddie Gallagher. The second set occurred roughly a year later, when Trump pardoned four Blackwater contractors, part of the “Raven 23” convoy, who had been jailed for murdering fourteen Iraqi civilians during the 2007 “Nisour Square Massacre.” Section 2.2 documents how these clemencies are not isolated events but part of a broader challenge to international law.

Democracy is one of India’s great achievements. However, it is undeniable that Indian democracy has been under considerable strain in recent years. Chapter 1 analyzes these trends linked to Indian democracy and their underlying determinants. In particular, the chapter emphasizes the link between growing economic inequality and India’s recent democratic decline through two mechanisms – the decline of the Congress and the rise of the BJP under Modi.

This chapter provides an introduction to the book. It sets the stage by highlighting contrasts in India’s economy, democracy, and society. It then discusses the main topics covered in the book – democracy and governance, growth and distribution, caste, labor, gender, civil society, regional diversity, and foreign policy. The chapter also outlines the three themes that comprise the main arguments of the book. First, India’s democracy has been under considerable strain over the last decade. Second, growing economic inequalities that accompanied India’s high-growth phase over the last three and a half decades are associated with the country’s democratic decline. Third, society has reacted to changes from below but there are limits to societal activism in contemporary India.

In 1812, the courts were again thrust into the center of international conflict. Decades of resentment over British domination prompted the United States to embark upon what many Americans thought of as the nation’s “second war for independence.” It was one the United States was unprepared to fight. Longstanding distrust of permanent military establishments left the nation unable to counter British armed might, especially on the water. Privateers were a potential solution, but Congress and the Madison administration were unequal to the task of regulating the United States’ private navy. Responsibility fell to the judiciary, even though Jeffersonians had spent the previous decade attacking the courts for their supposed undermining of republican principles. As the revolutionary generation had learned, judicial enforcement of the laws of maritime war was critical to maintaining the nation’s international credibility. And the courts’ disposition of ships and goods captured by American privateers kept the nation’s war machine running. By marrying government authority to private enterprise, judges made it possible for the United States to reassert its standing as a sovereign and independent nation.

Chapter 3 explores the work undertaken by Carl Byoir and Ivy Lee for German interests, the subsequent Congressional investigation into that work, and the public backlash that followed. Byoir and Associates worked for the German Tourist Information Office, while Lee worked for I. G. Farben. These connections to Nazi Germany quickly came to the attention of the US government. Congress investigated potential subversive activities and conflicts of interest between private PR interests and America’s broader national interests. While neither Byoir nor Lee was revealed as a puppet of the Nazi regime, both were tainted by the association. The incident revealed the depth of popular concerns about the use of PR to promote foreign interests in the United States.

This chapter explores the idea of opposition. One may make known one’s opposition to specific measures and one may make known one’s opposition to those who hold the office of government. While opposition to those who rule may flourish only in constitutional arrangements that contemplate changes in government, the freedom to make known opposition to measures may obtain and flourish even absent such arrangements. These two different modalities of opposition – to measures and to governments – draw on a reciprocal understanding that those who oppose and those who rule are both committed to the public good. Depending on the design of its system of government, a constitution may enable or empower opposition, with the parliamentary form of government differing in important respects from the presidential. Some constitutional arrangements and proposals award to opposition members in legislatures and elsewhere some degree of authority in exercising the office of government. Whatever the merits of such coalition or consensus arrangements and proposals, they change the function of opposition, for when those who oppose begin to govern, a version of the question quis custodiet ipsos custodes (who guards the guardians) arises: who stands in opposition to the opposition?

This chapter explores a double shift in social policy from the late 1990s to the mid 2010s. Firstly, under the Atal Behari Vajpayee-led NDA governments (1998-99; 1999-2004) contributory social insurance was extended to reach labour market ‘outsiders’, who worked in the informal sector without access to the social insurance enjoyed by formal sector workers. This policy shift was intended to support wider labour law reforms by sidelining the political power of organised labour. As the sustainability of India’s new economic model came under scrutiny, a second shift took place under the Congress-led UPA government (2004-14) in which non-employment-linked social assistance programmes were recognised for the first time - at least in theory - as permanent, statutory rights or entitlements of citizenship. The chapter ends by examining the centrality of states to social policy implementation. It shows that by 2014 the typical subnational welfare regime combined high levels of labour commodification with publicly financed social assistance. This reflected the embrace of labour informalisation on the one hand, and the provision of direct, publicly financed social assistance on the other.

In the 1980s, two groups of physicists in Europe and America began to lay plans for a high energy proton accelerator that could settle the question of electroweak symmetry breaking. In 1984, Weinberg is appointed to the SSC Board of Overseers, and this work would occupy his time for much of the next decade. Weinberg testifies before Congress in favor of the SSC project and starts to appreciate the role of pork-barrel politics in the siting decisions. The Texas site of Waxahachie, near Dallas, is approved in 1988. The project’s construction funding is approved but faces ongoing challenges from other competing areas of science. Changes in the specifications, required by the science goals, lead to increases in the costs, resulting in bad press. In 1993, the funding was cut, and the SSC was killed off. Weinberg writes a successful trade book, Dreams of a Final Theory.

The Introduction sets the stage by describing the intense focus on abusive tax avoidance and tax evasion by the rich among political figures, legal scholars, and the general public. The Introduction also describes the stakes for the tax system in addressing high-end tax noncompliance. It then provides an overview of two conventional approaches to the problem of high-end tax noncompliance: increasing IRS funding and “activity-based rules” targeting specific strategies that enable tax avoidance and evasion. The Introduction describes the book’s argument that both of these responses are incomplete solutions. It then describes the overlooked role that tax compliance rules – which govern critical aspects of tax administration and enforcement but that currently apply to all taxpayers without regard to their income or wealth – play in enabling tax avoidance and evasion by the rich. The Introduction provides a summary of the core argument and contribution of the book: that policymakers should introduce a system of means-based adjustments to the tax compliance rules for high-end taxpayers.

In the two decades after 1975, over 1 million Vietnamese resettled in the United States. New resettlement programs arose not only in 1975 with the fall of Saigon and in the years immediately thereafter, but also in 1979, 1982, 1984, 1987, 1989, and 1996. These initiatives resulted from unilateral US policies, multilateral programs organized under the auspices of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, bilateral programs negotiated between Washington and Hanoi, and, often, a combination of the three. This chapter explores how the Vietnamese diaspora influenced the American approach to normalization with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). It argues that normalization was a protracted process that unfolded over decades and that negotiating and implementing migration programs was a central part of the that process. The US approach to post-1975 US–SRV relations saw significant input from nonexecutive actors. Nonstate actors provided information and political pressure, and created close relationships with elected officials outside the White House, especially members of Congress. These groups, the actions of first-asylum nations, and other transnational forces combined to make negotiating and implementing migration programs a US priority. The contact, cooperation, and compromise that process required normalized US–Vietnamese relations, despite US assertions to the contrary.

The introduction chapter lays the groundwork for understanding the intricate relationship between Congress and information acquisition, particularly through committee hearings and witness testimonies. Highlighting the pivotal role of information in shaping legislative decisions, the chapter probes into the challenges faced by Congress in navigating the complex landscape of external expertise within a politically charged environment. The chapter delves into the critical questions driving the book’s exploration: How does Congress acquire information, and what factors influence the selection and content of information provided by external witnesses? It introduces the overarching themes of partisan incentives, institutional conditions, and the strategic nature of information acquisition, aiming to dissect their impact on legislative processes. By providing a comprehensive overview of the book’s scope, methodology, and key theoretical insights, the introduction sets the tone for a deep dive into the dynamics of congressional information-seeking behavior.

Throughout the long period of American involvement in Vietnam, Washington officials often justified US intervention by referring to the domino theory. Even before President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally articulated the theory in 1954, civilian as well as military analysts had set out a version of the theory, linking the outcome in Indochina to a chain reaction of regional and global effects. Defeat in Vietnam, they warned, would have calamitous consequences not merely for that country but for the rest of Southeast Asia and perhaps beyond. Over time, US officials moved to a less mechanistic, more psychological version of the theory. Credibility was the new watchword, as policymakers declared it essential to stand firm in Vietnam in order to demonstrate American determination to defend its vital interests not only in the region but around the world. But it was not only American credibility on the world stage that mattered; also at stake, officials feared, was their own and their party’s credibility at home. This chapter examines these permutations of the domino theory, with particular focus on the crucial 1964–5 period under Lyndon B. Johnson.