James D Long – författare

Given the enormous challenges they face, why do so many citizens in developing countries routinely turn out to vote? This Element explores a new explanation grounded in the social origins of electoral participation in emerging democracies, where mobilization requires local collective action. This Element argues that, beyond incentives to express ethnic identity and vote-buying, perceptions of social sanctioning from community-based formal and informal actors galvanize many to vote who might otherwise stay home. Sanctioning is reinforced by the ability to monitor individual turnout given the open layout and centralized locations of polling stations and the use of electoral ink that identifies voters. This argument is tested using original survey and qualitative data from Africa and Afghanistan, contributing important insights on the nature of campaigns and elections in the promotion of state-building and service delivery, and the critical role voters play reducing fears of global democratic backsliding.

The Gift Within is a fictional book about Skylar, a tender-hearted Carolina Wren, who is afraid to take flight and is tormented by his siblings. Encouraged by his parents, he overcomes his fear and discovers how to soar by giving away the gift deep within his heart. The book is appropriate for pre-adolescent readers, although it can be easily comprehended by gifted younger readers and read by parents/grandparents to young children. The "hidden" moral of the book is to help readers think about their own special gifts.

FIGHT OR FAIL...Dispossessed in the battle of Tukayyid, former Com Guard soldier Jeremiah Rose wants nothing more than to strike back at the Clans who destroyed his 'Mech and his career. Dreams of swift vengeance turn to nightmares when every effort he makes to rejoin the fight to protect the citizens of the Inner Sphere is rejected.Forced to win a new BattleMech by fighting on the game world of Solaris VII, Rose recruits other soldiers from the arenas to create a new mercenary unit and take his grudge back to the invaders.Unfortunately, Rose is long on battle experience and short on business skills. Turning a band of mismatched MechWarriors into an elite fighting unit becomes harder than he imagined when Rose is forced to fight his fellow MechWarriors in order to fight the Clans.