Autocracy Rising

How Venezuela Transitioned to Authoritarianism

By Javier Corrales

An alarming number of countries that once were seemingly stable democracies have veered in recent years toward authoritarianism—a trend known as “democratic backsliding.” One of those countries in Venezuela, which enjoyed periods of democratically elected governments in the latter half of the twentieth century but in the past two decades has increasingly descended into autocratic rule, coupled with economic collapse.

Autocracy Rising, written by a veteran scholar of Venezuela and Latin American politics generally explores how and why this happened. Corrales argues that Venezuela’s slide began with the policies of former president Hugo Chávez—policies that were based on government control of the economy and in turn generated a lingering economic crisis. After he succeeded Chávez in 2013, Nicolás Maduro not only entrenched the failed economic policies but also responded to various crises by establishing institutions that further undermined democracy. Each of Maduro’s responses may have solved a short-term problem but collectively they destroyed both any pretense of democracy in Venezuela and prospects for his own long-term success.

Corrales analyzes the lingering crisis in Venezuela by comparing it to twenty cases in Latin America where presidents were forced out of office. Regardless of how the current situation ends in Venezuela, his book illuminates the depressing cycle in which semiauthoritarian regimes become increasingly autocratic in response to crises, only to cause new crises that led to even greater authoritarianism.

Javier Corrales is the John E. Kirkpatrick 1951 Professor of Political Science at Amherst College.

Traces Venezuela’s democratic backslide and analyses it in the Latin American context.

Brookings Institution Press

March 2023

256 pages

39 illustrations

Hardback

978 0 8157 4007 0

Paperback

978 0 8157 3807 7 eBook

978 0 8157 3808 4

Political Science • World / Caribbean & Latin American

Middle Eastern Maze Israel, The Arabs, and the Region 1948-2022

By Itamar Rabinovich

Middle East Maze is an expanded and updated version of Itamar Rabinovich’s The Lingering Conflict, published by Brookings in 2012. This new book offers a unique narrative of the Arab-Israeli conflict and peace process by a senior academic historian who has served as Israel’s ambassador to the United States and as a peace negotiator with Syria. Rabinovich places the Arab-Israeli relationship in the larger context of Middle Eastern regional and international politics. He also examines Iran’s and Turkey’s new roles in the region. An equally important place is given to the U.S. policy in the Middle East and to the U.S. special relationship with Israel.

This revised new edition covers the signing of the Abraham Accords, the new policies pursued by the Trump and Biden administrations, the full-fledged Syrian civil war, the heyday of the Islamic State, Russia’s military intervention in Syria, the Iranian nuclear drive, and the lengthy domestic political crisis in Israel.

Itamar Rabinovich is a distinguished nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution. A professor and president emeritus at Tel Aviv University, he served as Israel’s ambassador to the United States and chief negotiator with Syria.

An insider’s analysis of the ArabIsraeli conflict and peace process.

Brookings Institution Press

March 2023

376 pages

Hardback

978 0 8157 4010 0

Paperback

978 0 8157 4011 7 eBook

978 0 8157 4012 4

Political Science • World / Middle Eastern

Red Arctic Russian Strategy Under Putin

By Elizabeth Buchanan

Renewed tensions between Russia and the West have fueled speculation that Moscow’s apparent designs on the Arctic region could help stimulate a new cold war. Vladimir Putin’s openly nationalistic ambitions, as demonstrated most vividly with his seizure of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, might seem to justify such concerns.

This book by a noted expert shifts the debate over Russia’s strategy from what Moscow could do in the Arctic to the realities of what Putin’s Russia likely will do. Buchanan challenges the widely held assumption that the Arctic is emerging as one of the most important strategic theaters in a potentially dangerous new cold war between Russia and the West. In fact, she explains that Putin’s Arctic aspirations rely heavily upon continued international cooperation via commercial partnerships with Western energy firms and Eastern injections of capital—all of which could be at risk in a new cold war.

Three main themes are intertwined throughout the book: Russian Arctic interests; Putin’s vision to regain great power status; and the emerging narrative of a new cold war in the Arctic. Weaved together, they dovetail to present a qualitative assessment of Russian Arctic strategy devoid of ideological biases. The unique departure for the book is that it makes the case that Russia’s renewed great power ambitions under Putin are not the only explanation for Russian Arctic strategy.

Elizabeth Buchanan is lecturer in strategic studies at Deakin University based at the Department of Defense’s Australian War College, Canberra. She specializes in Arctic and Antarctic geopolitics and Russian foreign energy strategy. She is a Non-Resident Fellow with the Modern War Institute at West Point.

Explores the broader context of Putin’s actions.

Brookings Institution Press

March 2023

224 pages

20 illustrations

Hardback

978 0 8157 4004 9

Paperback

978 0 8157 3888 6 eBook

978 0 8157 3889 3

Political Science • World / Russian & Former Soviet Union

America and the Yemens A Tragic Encounter

By Bruce Riedel

The first in-depth review of America’s role in the Yemeni civil war.

This book provides a history of US relations with the various entities of north and south Yemen, and the first in-depth review of America’s role in the deadly Saudi directed war in the Yemens. Three Presidents—Obama, Trump, and Biden—have been deeply involved in this conflict. Riedel places this current war in the context of America’s history of engaging with the Yemens. America and the Yemens is of interest to readers seeking to have a better understanding of America’s role in the Middle East and the tragic encounter that has created the worst humanitarian catastrophe in our lives.

Bruce Riedel is a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies program at the Brookings Institution where he specializes in the Middle East and South Asia. He resides in Chestertown, Maryland.

Brookings Institution Press

September 2023 • 96 pages

Hardback 978 0 8157 4013 1 eBook 978 0 8157 4014 8

Political Science • International Relations / General

Small Isn’t Beautiful The Case against Localism

By Trevor Latimer

Exposes the disadvantages of localism beyond slogans and marketing.

“Local” has become synonymous with good. Trevor Latimer’s, however, argues that “localism” is based on an “undeserved aura of respectability, virtue, and good sense” and can produce results that are misguided or even dangerous. Particularly when it comes to public policies, decisions made at the local level are rarely superior and are sometimes unjust. Latimer exposes the supposed “virtue” of localism as a hodgepodge of weak arguments and misleading hunches.

Trevor Latimer received his PhD in Politics from Princeton University and has held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Georgia and Dartmouth College.

Brookings Institution Press

February 2023 • 288 pages

Hardback 978 0 8157 3971 5

Paperback 978 0 8157 4048 3 eBook 978 0 8157 3972 2

Political Science • General

Hand-Off

The Foreign Policy George W. Bush Passed to Barack Obama

Edited by Stephen J. Hadley, Peter D. Feaver, William C. Inboden and Meghan L. O’Sullivan, preface by Condoleezza Rice and Stephen J. Hadley, foreword by President George W. Bush

Provides unprecedented access to recently declassified Transition Memoranda of the Bush administration.

Hand-Off details the Bush administration’s national security and foreign policy as described at the time in then-classified Transition Memoranda prepared by the National Security Council experts who advised President Bush.

Stephen J. Hadley served for four years as the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs from 2005 to 2009. From 2001 to 2005, Mr. Hadley was the Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor, serving under then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. He resides in Washington, D.C.

Brookings Institution Press

February 2023 • 774 pages

Hardback with dust jacket 978 0 8157 3977 7 eBook 978 0 8157 3978 4

Political Science • American Government / Executive Branch

Military History for the Modern Strategist America’s Major Wars Since 1861

By Michael O’Hanlon

Combines brevity and clarity with a broad conceptual approach, for students of security studies as well as generalist policymakers.

In this timely book, esteemed military expert Michael O’Hanlon examines America’s major conflicts since the mid-1800s: the Civil War, the two World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He presents America’s wars on a conceptual level, focusing on strategies, key decisions, innovative technologies and the dynamics that shaped their outcomes. O’Hanlon looks for overarching trends and themes, along with the lessons for the military strategists and political leaders of today and tomorrow.

Michael O’Hanlon holds the Phil Knight Chair in Defense and Strategy at Brookings, where he also is director of research and director of the Talbott Center in the Foreign Policy Program. He teaches at Columbia and Georgetown universities.

Brookings Institution Press

January 2023 • 416 pages • 10 illustrations

Hardback 978 0 8157 3983 8 eBook 978 0 8157 3984 5

History • Military / Strategy

Digitally Invisible How the Internet Is Creating the New Underclass

By Nicol Turner Lee

More than one-half of the world’s 7.7 billion people still do not have access to the Internet, including millions of people in the United States, which has led the digital revolution. Most of these non-adopters—whether by choice or circumstance—are poor, less educated, people of color, older, or living in rural communities. As the digital revolution is quickly carving out this other America, it’s likely that these people on the margins of the information-based economy will fall deeper into abject poverty and social and physical isolation.

Based on fieldwork across the United States, this book explores the consequences of digital exclusion through the real-life narratives of individuals, communities, and businesses that lack sufficient online access. The inability of these segments of society to exploit the opportunities provided by the Internet is rapidly creating a new type of underclass: the people on the wrong side of a digital divide. The book focuses on the places in America where technology is widening the gaps among social classes, racial and ethnic minorities, and urban and rural communities.

The author offers fresh ideas for providing equitable access to existing and emerging technologies. Her ideas potentially can offset the unintended outcomes of increasing automation, the use of big data, and the burgeoning app economy. In the end, she makes the case that remedying digital disparities is in the best interest of U.S. competitiveness in the technology-driven world of today and tomorrow.

Nicol Turner Lee is a fellow in the Governance Studies program at the Brookings Institution, where she and specializes in legislative and regulatory policies targeting telecommunications and high-tech industries.

Real-life consequences of the digital divide, and what can be done to close it.

Brookings Institution Press

August 2023

220 pages

Hardback 978 0 8157 3898 5 eBook 978 0 8157 3899 2

Political Science • Public Policy / Science & Technology Policy

Regulating Digital Industries How Public Oversight Can Encourage Competition, Protect Privacy, and Ensure Free Speech

By Mark MacCarthy

Essential reading for a coherent policy approach to today’s tech industry discontents.

This is the first book to address the tech backlash within a coherent policy framework. It treats competition, privacy and free speech as objectives that must be pursued in a coordinated fashion by a dedicated industry regulator. It argues for new laws and regulations to promote competition, privacy and free speech in tech and outlines the structure and powers of a regulatory agency able to develop, implement and enforce digital rules for the 21st century.

Mark MacCarthy is a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Communication, Culture, & Technology Program.

Brookings Institution Press

October 2023 • 416 pages

Hardback 978 0 8157 4015 5

Paperback 978 0 8157 3981 4 eBook 978 0 8157 3982 1

Business & Economics • Industries / Computers & Information Technology

The Gulf Cooperation Council at Forty Risk and Opportunity in a Changing World

Edited by Tarik M. Yousef and Adel Abdel Ghafar

For policymakers, academics, researchers at think tanks and non-governmental organizations, and everyone who is interested in the GCC region.

This policy-oriented book of essays by noted scholars and experts considers the key trends shaping GCC countries, ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic, to climate change, economic disruptions, demographics and other domestic concerns, and shifts in the global order.

Tarik M. Yousef was a non-resident senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. His professional career has spanned the academic world, the public policy arena, and more recently the NGO space. Adel Abdel Ghafar was a nonresident fellow in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. His research interests include statesociety relations, socio-economic development and foreign policy in the MENA region.

Brookings Institution Press

March 2023 • 310 pages • 26 illustrations

Hardback 978 0 8157 4005 6

Paperback 978 0 8157 3953 1 eBook 978 0 8157 3954 8

Political Science • World / Middle Eastern