Chapter 5 returns to discussions of the law at the federal level. It reconstructs debates over defunding the law in Congress and in the federal agencies, arguing that the Children’s Bureau leadership learned from their trouble administering Sheppard-Towner programs through the states. Giving states ultimate authority over programming had meant that each state director documented their Sheppard-Towner work differently – if they did so at all. When it came time to renew federal appropriations in Congress, the Bureau staff found itself unable to create and present national statistics on the workings of state programs. Children’s Bureau leaders recognized that they would have to take more control over state-level accounting in subsequent legislation if they hoped to maintain their claim to expertise through accurate reporting. In the meantime, without reliable national data, the Bureau had little ability to defend its use of federal dollars when conservatives swept Washington in the 1926 election and the law came under attack. A few years later, in a political climate much more friendly to federal intervention, the Bureau staff was able to implement the oversight they learned they needed in their administration of Title V of the Social Security Act.

The District of Columbia, a federal district overseen by Congress, was a constitutional battleground where freedom nationalists, proslavery firebrands, and supporters of sectional harmony clashed over federal responsibility for slavery. From 1838 to 1859, US Representative Joshua Giddings (Ohio) insisted that the federal government had no constitutional authority to uphold slavery there. His signature claim was that the framers had granted northern states the right not to be made complicit in slavery through any action or policy of the federal government, beyond the Constitution’s requirements. Giddings railed against the persistent battering of this political and moral quarantine. The sensational attempt by over seventy-five enslaved Black residents to flee the nation’s capital in 1848 onboard the Pearl brought unprecedented attention to Giddings’ defense of northern purity rights. This chapter examines Giddings’ notion of a northern right to political innocence and its role in his congressional brawls over slavery in the District of Columbia.

Abraham Lincoln's political writings were the works of a practical politician, not a political philosopher. Yet, his understanding of American politics was deeply informed by wide and penetrating reading in 19th century liberal political economy. This reading convinced him to be a determined opponent of slavery, and a vigorous promoter of henry clay's 'American system.' both of these programs retained their hold on Lincoln, and when, after his election to the presidency of the United States in 1860, the republic was plunged into civil war over slavery, Lincoln guided the nation toward the erasure of legalized slavery and to an economy favourable to commerce and manufacturing. His victory in the civil war, cut short by his assassination in 1865, nevertheless changed the political culture of the nation for the next sixty years, and set the country on the slow but inexorable path of civil equality for the freed slaves.

Chapter 11 compares incentive bargaining of law-making in the three countries, focusing on corporate law and securities regulations. Section 11.1 describes major lawmakers and law-making procedures by categorizing corporate law and securities regulations into statutory law, case law, and soft law. The distinct characteristic of US corporate law is the existence of competition among states. In Japan, drafters of statutory corporate law and securities regulations are bureaucrats of the Ministry of Justice (MOJ), the Ministry of Economic, Trade, and Industries (METI), and the Financial Service Agency (FSA). In China, although the National People’s Congress (NPC) is the supreme legislative body, it delegates law-making at several levels to many agencies. Section 11.2 introduces several examples of incentive bargaining in law-making in the three countries. In the United States, legislative lobbying also took place at both the Federal and state levels. In Japan, the incentive bargaining on corporate law-making had taken place almost exclusively in the Committee of Legal Reform. Legislation of corporate law in China includes several steps of procedure and inter-agency incentive bargaining.

Chapter 10 looks ahead to where the direct sales wars may go in the immediate and longer-term future. It makes the case that the dealers have bigger fish to fry – such as ride sharing, artificial intelligence (AI), and autonomous vehicles – than companies that try to sell their own cars. The book ends with a call for sober thinking among all stakeholders about how automobiles will be sold, serviced, owned, shared, and used after the next technological revolution.

Spring 1971 represented the final consequential leftist and radical impact on the Vietnam antiwar movement. The spring offensive demonstrations took place in a compressed two-week period in Washington, DC. Veterans also played a key role in revealing American war crimes. Liberals maintained antiwar pressure largely by concentrating on the continuing US air war. Allies within the government helped produce the twenty-sixth constitutional amendment lowering the voting age to eighteen. The movement continued evolving during the 1972 presidential contest. National coalitions and mass demonstrations gave way to smaller collaborations and more focused projects. Military veterans conducted war crimes investigations, activists withheld war taxes and pressured corporate militarists, citizens defended First Amendment rights against government disinformation, unique projects provided entertainment and advertising, and the entire movement confronted the air war. As military realities brought the war’s end closer, the antiwar movement mobilized street demonstrations but worked primarily through electoral politics.

The 1973 Paris Accords provided only a temporary respite from the war. As the war between the Vietnamese continued, antiwar forces focused initially on carrying out the agreement, then on ending US military and financial support for the Thieu regime. The Watergate scandal undermined the final obstacle to ending America’s commitment. The war’s 1975 conclusion brought more relief than excitement.

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.

By the end of 1803, it appeared that controversies over the transatlantic slave trade had been largely overcome in the United States. All states by then had stopped slave imports, including South Carolina, the most recalcitrant state dealing with this issue. The issue of the slave trade, however, came to the fore dramatically as a political issue with the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory by the United States in 1803 and the subsequent reopening of South Carolina’s slave trade for the first time since 1787. The massive increase in US-owned territory through the Louisiana Purchase held out the possibility of further demand for slave labour, with Charleston acting as an entrepôt for furnishing new African imports across the southwest United States to New Orleans and Natchez. But there was no consensus among politicians either at federal or state level that this was a desirable outcome. The years between 1803 and 1806 were therefore marked by bitter controversies about whether to reopen the slave trade to South Carolina and then, after that had taken place, whether the trade should remain open. Jefferson’s presidential message of December 1806, looking forward to the time when Congress could intervene constitutionally to prohibit the slave trade, gave notice that the issue would be subject to detailed scrutiny in the national legislature at the first available opportunity. Debates on the slave trade accordingly were regularly held in Congress and in South Carolina’s state legislature in late 1806 and 1807 and the final result was for Congress to prohibit the slave trade to the United States from 1 January 1808. This was achieved without significant abolitionist pressure or campaigning. In Congress, few representatives dwelt upon the morality and cruelty of the slave trade but upon the practical measures needed to prohibit it. Slave importations to the United States were banned at the first moment constitutionally that action on this matter could be taken.

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.