'Funmi Olonisakin

The first in a series of "inside" histories, Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone relates how a small country—one insignificant in the strategic considerations of the world powers—propelled the United Nations to center stage in a crisis that called the UN's very authority into serious question; and how the UN mission in Sierra Leone was transformed from its nadir into what is now  More >

Dele Olowu and James S. Wunsch
with contributions by Joseph Ayee, Gerrit M. Deslooverer, Simon Fass, Dan Ottemoeller, and Paul Smoke

Why have some decentralization reforms led to viable systems of local governance in Africa, while others have failed? Exploring this question, the authors outline the key issues involved, provide historical context, and identify the factors that have encouraged or discouraged success.   Detailed studies of seven African states are grounded in a common analytical framework, one that  More >

Dele Olowu and Soumana Sako, editors

Exploring the relationship between governance and development policy, the authors of this collection describe recent governance changes in a range of African countries, analyze the consequences of those changes for institutional reforms, and highlight the challenges involved in consolidating ongoing processes of economic liberalization and democratization.  More >

Edward A. Olsen

Considering the future of U.S.-Korea relations, Edward Olsen first provides a rich assessment of the political, economic, and strategic factors that have shaped—and flawed—U.S. policy toward the Korean peninsula since WWII.   Olsen suggests that the prospect of permanent separation has become integral to U.S. policy toward both Korean states. Offering counterintuitive  More >

Dick. W. Olufs III

The Making of Telecommunications Policy examines the history, politics, and impact of telecommunications policy. Beginning with a comparison of several alternate views of the future, Olufs explains how government action makes the widespread use of some new technologies more likely than others. He details the challenges that rapid advances in communications technologies pose for policymaking  More >

Beth Omansky

A person may be legally blind, yet not "blind enough" to qualify for social services. Beth Omansky explores the lives of legally blind people to show how society responds to those who don’t fit neatly into the disabled/nondisabled binary. Probing the experience of education, rehabilitation, and work, as well as the more intimate spheres of religion, family, and romantic  More >

Akali Omeni

Close to the center of politics since the nineteenth century, the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) has grown to become the country’s main security agency. Akali Omeni traces the checkered record of the NPF, dissecting the intricacies of its evolution, structures, and missions—and showing how colonial- and military-era traditions continue to underpin its uneasy relationship with the general  More >

Walter C. Opello, Jr. and Stephen J. Rosow

This engaging introduction to contemporary politics examines the historical construction of the modern territorial state. Opello and Rosow fuse accounts of governing practices, technological change, political economy, language, and culture into a narrative of the formation of specific state forms. This revised edition reinforces their central argument that the current neoliberal state does not  More >

Walter C. Opello, Jr., and Katherine A. R. Opello

This innovative text explores the nature of European politics in the context of the origin and institutional development of the European state system.  Underlying the analysis are a series of questions: How did the state, the central element of contemporary European political life, emerge from and eventually triumph over the bewildering multiplicity of competing forms of rule that existed  More >

Baskın Oran, translated by John William Day

The collapse of the multiethnic, multireligious, and multilingual Ottoman Empire after World War I led to the establishment of several nation-states, with enormous repercussions for the empire's minority populations. Baskın Oran focuses on religious and ethnic minorities in the Republic of Turkey—home for centuries to Alevites, Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Kurds, Syriacs, and more—to  More >