Here we first highlight the central role played by the vote and political participation in the democratic process. We then look at who votes and who participates in politics. The chapter underscores severe racial imbalances across most types of participation—both conventional and less conventional. It then seeks to explain these imbalances through a rigorous examination of factors like socioeconomic status, group identity and consciousness, institutions, and mobilization. We also look at the impact of uneven participation on outcomes in American democracy and introduce potential solutions for existing inequities.

This chapter gives an overview of the long history, nature and significance of terrorism for international relations. It first addresses the topic’s recent prominence. Terrorism is by no means the most brutal type of violence, especially compared to wars in which states have killed millions of people. But it garners outsized attention through its symbolic nature. Only by educating ourselves can we rob terrorism of the source of its power. Second, it addresses key academic debates, which usually go back to the definition. The chapter argues that there are core areas of international agreement about what a terrorist act is, and that it can and should be distinguished from other types of violence. It also explains the lively debate over digital technology and the future of terrorism. Third, it lays out intellectual frameworks that help us to understand and analyse terrorism, including types of terrorism, historical patterns and the strategies used by terrorist groups. The chapter concludes with reflections about what is at stake in countering this type of illegitimate act.

In December 1916, in the winter snow of New York State, while Americans busied themselves with Christmas shopping and prepared festivities, a skinny twelve-year-old boy, poorly dressed and in ragged shoes, shouted at the top of his lungs: “Buy a Mirror fer a kid in France!” Every evening after school, James Prendergast Jackson Jr. stood on a street corner and sold copies of the newspaper to earn enough money to sponsor a French child whose father had been killed in the war in France. One of six children in a working-class family, James was determined to assist a child across the ocean who, as he had learned in school, desperately needed food and clothing. Ten cents each day would secure those necessities, and James promised himself he would get those 10 cents selling newspapers. He sold seventy copies of the paper a day, for which he earned 35 cents. From Greenville, New York, James wrote to the secretary of the Junior Committee of the Fatherless Children of France Society (FCFS) – the Franco-American organization matching American “godparents” with French children whose fathers had been killed in the war – and announced his intention of “adopting” a brother in France. With candor and determination, James announced his choice of child to support with his earnings: “I wood like a boy between ten and twelve if it is the same to you.” Attached to the letter was 85 cents that he had been given for his birthday. James was assigned André Leblanc, aged eleven, rue Dautancourt, Paris.

No foreign humanitarian organization garnered more support from Americans during (and after) World War I than did the Fatherless Children of France Society. From New York City, the Franco-American private philanthropic organization rapidly raised a wave of humanitarian response for the children of France’s war dead, doing so through strategic communication and tireless networking. Members of the FCFS toured US cities, states, and territories, opening chapters and addressing assembled crowds, constantly collecting funds. Speakers vividly described the plight of starving babies in devastated France and invited those who had witnessed the trauma of children to testify. Much of the campaigning was done by women representing local committees. Americans were offered a choice on how to spend their humanitarian dollars. From the moment they became sponsors, they could be involved in the process of selecting their orphans. Most importantly, the FCFS reached the wealthy, middle, and working classes alike. In involving school children, laborers, and members of churches, clubs, and associations, the FCFS encouraged a spirit of cooperative – and sometimes competitive – humanitarianism. As a result, the FCFS mobilized large sections of US society to “adopt” some 300,000 French children who were victims of war and kept the aid flowing from 1915 to 1921.

Chapter 7 explores the life on the water for Japanese sailors, and their tenuous connections to the Japanese home islands. Japanese society was mobilized for total warfare, which meant letter-writing campaigns for Japanese school children. Japanese society valorized the Imperial Japanese Navy, the pride of the nation, particularly after such Japanese victories at the Battle of Kolombangara.

The first chapter explores the new presence of the military in the city after the start of the war. It analyzes the militarization of civil society and the blend of increased prestige and tensions in civil–military relations characteristic of wartime. During the mobilization days, reactions in Prague resembled scenes in other European cities: streets buzzing with anxious agitation as crowds thronged army barracks and train stations. Increasingly ubiquitous gray uniforms delineated new visible wartime hierarchies. Contacts between soldiers and civilians sometimes led to violent clashes, especially prevalent around cafés and pubs. These locales were also hubs for spreading information in a context of increased censorship and military repression. General suspicion by the military authorities transformed Prague residents’ experience of the rule of law. The different facets of military mobilization and emergency measures in urban space are examined to contribute to the discussion on the nature of the Habsburg military wartime government.

The book concludes with a discussion of the current state of gender-based violence in the United States while highlighting the specific landscape of advocacy organizations that are working in this space to serve intersectionally marginalized populations. The chapter elaborates on the challenges that remain for intersectional advocates as they intervene in this issue, as well as the possibilities that lie ahead for their advocacy efforts. These findings are not just applicable to policies and laws related to gender-based violence but are also valuable for identifying policy gaps in U.S. political institutions more generally. The chapter then gives a call-to-action to policymakers, advocacy organizations, foundations, and individuals to critically evaluate the current structure of U.S. policy institutions—who they benefit, who they represent, and to what extent they are ineffective for resolving some of our most pressing social issues. The call is accompanied with tangible examples of how these stakeholders can practice and support intersectional advocacy to change U.S. policy institutions to be more effective, equitable, and representative of an increasingly diverse democracy.

At a time in U.S. politics when advocacy groups are increasingly relying on supporters to help advance their agendas, this chapter considers how intersectional advocates are mobilizing their supporters in Chapter 6. While membership in women’s advocacy organizations has decreased over the years, supporters that volunteer their time to advocacy organizations to advance their policy goals has been largely overlooked. Yet, these supporters are important contributors to intersectional advocacy. In Chapter 6, two original survey experiments are presented with the supporters from this organization that also engages in intersectional advocacy. Each experiment contain authentic policy platforms that either present an intersectional advocacy approach or a traditional single issue policy approach to supporters. The findings from these experiments answer the final question: does intersectional advocacy resonate with the intersectionally marginalized populations it aims to serve, and if so, to what extent does it mobilize them to participate in the policymaking process? This chapter highlights the role of supporters in advancing these policy efforts while showcasing tangible

Chapter 5 is a study of within-firm mobilization during collective action and explains why those with the resources for mobilization have weaker preferences for collective action. Due to high levels of labor turnover, the majority of the workforce lacks strong social ties in the workplace, and those who do have mobilizational resources perceive collective action to be highly costly. Collective action occurs when the workers with mobilizational resources expect a high chance of success.

In French colonial history, we can read the world wars as a single conflict. The Great War and World War II broke the French empire as it existed in the previous century. The empire contributed substantially in blood and treasure to victory in 1918, though mobilization for that war deepened existing colonial tensions and created new ones. Shifting dynamics pointed to a renegotiation of basic colonial bargains. An ostensibly new colonial doctrine, the mise en valeur, sought to make the empire a more cohesive economic and political unit. Anti-colonial movements became stronger and more articulate throughout the interwar period, though repression and military force had little trouble preserving imperial authority, for the time being. The defeat of 1940 upended imperial relationships. How could the Vichy regime rule an empire when it had very limited authority even in the Hexagon? Yet Free France promised only continued, if reformed, imperial rule. This situation made questions of collaboration and resistance at least as complicated in the empire as in Europe. By 1945, it became clear to the attentive that the French empire would either have to expire or become something else.

Populism is a political strategy that relies on the use of a personalistic political organization and mass communication to mobilize support in the quest for power; it will be most successful when it is more cost-effective than the alternatives of programmatic political party building or the distribution of patronage. The costs involved in this trade-off come in two forms: direct costs and indirect (or transaction) costs. In politics, very often transaction costs – search, bargaining, and enforcement costs – are the higher ones. Populists lower the costs of mobilizing support by communicating directly with voters instead of working through intermediaries such as party professionals or political brokers. The populist strategy will be most effective when two conditions are met. First, potential voters or supporters must be available for direct mobilization. This means that they must be relatively free of existing party attachments. Second, the opposition should be divided. Most populists win with the backing of a mere plurality rather than a majority. The more the opposition is split between multiple contenders, the more economically viable is the populist strategy.