Although politics at the elite level has been polarized for some time, a scholarly controversy has raged over whether ordinary Americans are polarized. This book argues that they are and that the reason is growing polarization of worldviews - what guides people's view of right and wrong and good and evil. These differences in worldview are rooted in what Marc J. Hetherington and Jonathan D. Weiler describe as authoritarianism. They show that differences of opinion concerning the most provocative issues on the contemporary issue agenda - about race, gay marriage, illegal immigration, and the use of force to resolve security problems - reflect differences in individuals' levels of authoritarianism. This makes authoritarianism an especially compelling explanation of contemporary American politics. Events and strategic political decisions have conspired to make all these considerations more salient. The authors demonstrate that the left and the right have coalesced around these opposing worldviews, which has provided politics with more incandescent hues than before.

This book is a detailed treatment of how to work with inner conflict in Internal Family Systems Therapy, including transcripts of actual sessions to show exactly how the technique works. Though written for psychotherapists, it is also accessible to people who want to deepen their IFS work on themselves.

Renowned political scientist Alan I. Abramowitz presents a groundbreaking argument that the most important divide in American politics is not between left and right but rather between citizens who are politically engaged and those who are not. It is the engaged members of the public, he argues, who most closely reflect the ideals of democratic citizenship—but this is also the group that is most polarized. Polarization at the highest levels of government, therefore, is not a sign of elites’ disconnection from the public but rather of their responsiveness to the more politically engaged parts of it. Though polarization is often assumed to be detrimental to democracy, Abramowitz concludes that by presenting voters with clear choices, polarization can serve to increase the public’s interest and participation in politics and strengthen electoral accountability.

Renowned political scientist Alan I. Abramowitz presents a groundbreaking argument that the most important divide in American politics is not between left and right but rather between citizens who are politically engaged and those who are not. It is the engaged members of the public, he argues, who most closely reflect the ideals of democratic citizenship—but this is also the group that is most polarized. Polarization at the highest levels of government, therefore, is not a sign of elites’ disconnection from the public but rather of their responsiveness to the more politically engaged parts of it. Though polarization is often assumed to be detrimental to democracy, Abramowitz concludes that by presenting voters with clear choices, polarization can serve to increase the public’s interest and participation in politics and strengthen electoral accountability.

Red Families v. Blue Families identifies a new family model geared for the post-industrial economy. Rooted in the urban middle class, the coasts and the "blue states" in the last three presidential elections, the Blue Family Paradigm emphasizes the importance of women's as well as men's workforce participation, egalitarian gender roles, and the delay of family formation until both parents are emotionally and financially ready. By contrast, the Red Family Paradigm--associated with the Bible Belt, the mountain west, and rural America--rejects these new family norms, viewing the change in moral and sexual values as a crisis. In this world, the prospect of teen childbirth is the necessary deterrent to premarital sex, marriage is a sacred undertaking between a man and a woman, and divorce is society's greatest moral challenge. Yet, the changing economy is rapidly eliminating the stable, blue collar jobs that have historically supported young families, and early marriage and childbearing derail the education needed to prosper. The result is that the areas of the country most committed to traditional values have the highest divorce and teen pregnancy rates, fueling greater calls to reinstill traditional values.

Featuring the groundbreaking research first hailed in The New Yorker, this penetrating book will transform our understanding of contemporary American culture and law. The authors show how the Red-Blue divide goes much deeper than this value system conflict--the Red States have increasingly said "no" to Blue State legal norms, and, as a result, family law has been rent in two. The authors close with a consideration of where these different family systems still overlap, and suggest solutions that permit rebuilding support for both types of families in changing economic circumstances.

Incorporating results from the 2008 election, Red Families v. Blue Families will reshape the debate surrounding the culture wars and the emergence of red and blue America.

The study of inequality, polarization and poverty is crucial for understanding the economic well-being of the population of a country. Conceptual and methodological advances and better data have provided better insights into these issues in recent years, and it is the objective of the book to present a systematic and up-to-date treatment of the developments in the subject. Both welfare theoretic and descriptive approaches are discussed and, since the wellbeing of a population depends on income and non-income indicators, both unidimensional and multidimensional frameworks are taken into consideration. The technical terms and mathematical operations employed to analyze the results are explained intuitively in non-technical terms, and numerical analyses and graphical representations help to illustrate important concepts.

This book links educational policies and practices in Pakistan with the socio-economic stratification in Pakistani society. It gives new facts about the economic realities of educational institution linking them with the values and ideas of their students and faculty towards militarism, religious minorities and gender issues.

The political parties in Congress are as polarized as they have been in 100 years. This book examines more than 30 years of congressional history to understand how it is that the Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill have become so divided. It finds that two steps were critical for this development. First, the respective parties' constituencies became more politically and ideologically aligned. Second, members, in turn, ceded more power to their party leaders, who implemented procedures more frequently and with greater consequence. In fact, almost the entire rise in party polarization can be accounted for in the increasing frequency of and polarization on procedures used during the legislative process.

Are you managing your brain? Or is your brain managing you? If you value self-knowledge, sooner or later you will face the profound role that the radically different perspectives of your left- and right-brain hemispheres play in your daily decisions. This timely book guides you in integrating these contrasting views of the world, and delves into the impact of brain lateralization on political progress, cultural polarization, and even the quest for personal and world peace. A practical field guide to whole-brain, heart-centered living, The Whole-Brain Path to Peace takes you a crucial step beyond the science of brain lateralization; this book invites you into a new way of perceiving your world through whole-brain living. But success on this path also requires the illumination of philosophy and the far-reaching insights of modern revelation. Olson's broader view highlights the distortions that each side of the brain can have when not informed by the other, and points us to more sensible ways of achieving greater balance.

The strong investments into optical telecommunications in the late 1990s resulted in a wealth of new research, techniques, component designs, and understanding of polarization effects in fiber. Polarization Optics in Telecommunications brings together recent advances in the field to create a standard, practical reference for component designers and optical fiber communication engineers. Beginning with a sound foundation in electromagnetism, the author offers a dissertation of the spin-vector formalism of polarization and the interaction of light with media. Applications discussed include optical isolators, optical circulators, fiber collimators, and a variety of applied waveplate and prism combinations. Also included in an extended discussion of polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) and polarization-dependent loss (PDL), their representation, behavior, statistical properties, and measurement. This book draws extensively from the technical and patent literature and is an up-to-date reference for researchers and component designers in industry and academia.