Research

The United States and the Turmoil in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Ahmed Rashid
2012

Ahmed Rashid, as characterized by noted journalist Christopher Hitchens, is “Pakistan’s best and bravest reporter.” Rashid’s unique knowledge of this vast and complex region allows him a panoramic vision and nuance that no western writer can emulate. His book, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, first introduced American readers to the brutal regime that hijacked Afghanistan and harbored the terrorist group responsible for the 9/11 attacks. In Descent into Chaos: The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and...

More Votes That Count: A Case Study in Voter Mobilization

Robert Benedetti, editor
2012

This collection grew from the experience of a group of scholars at the University of the Pacific who were challenged by the San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters to reduce voter error, improve poll worker-training, and increase voting by mail (absentee voting). The project was supported by funds from the help America Vote Act (HAVA), legislation passed in the wake of Florida's experience in the 2000 presidential election, and by the Pew Foundation for the States. Its immediate context was a controversy in California over the use of voting machines, a controversy that resulted in a...

Governing California: Politics, Government, and Public Policy in the Golden State (3rd edition)

Ethan Rarick, editor
2013
Who are the people of California, and what do they believe politically? How do Californians choose their leaders, and how do those leaders govern once they are in power? How has California confronted some of its greatest public policy challenges?

These are the questions that underlie this in-depth and careful examination of America’s mega-state. This book uses the latest research and scholarship to explore California’s civil society – how an extraordinarily complex state of 37 million people governs itself through politics and policy.

The results paint a complex and ever-changing...

Remotely Operated Systems: Myths and Reality

Norton A. Schwartz
2013

General Norton A. Schwartz retired as the Chief of Staff of the US Air Force (CSAF) on Oct 1, 2012, after serving over 39 years in the Air Force. A graduate of the US Air Force Academy, General Schwartz began his service as a pilot with the airlift out of Vietnam in 1975, and was the first CSAF who piloted special operations transport planes and helicopters as a primary discipline. He helped lead a joint special operations task force during the Gulf War in 1991 and later served as the strategic planner for the Air Force, the second-in-command of the US Special Operations Command, and...

Business at Berkeley: The History of the Haas School of Business

Sandra Epstein
2016

Founded by a gift of benefactor Cora Jane Flood in 1898, the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley is the second oldest business school in the country. Its upward trajectory from a “College of Commerce” to its top-ranked position today owes as much to its place as it does to its people and culture. Its affiliation with Berkeley has ensured rigorous academic research while its location at the heart of Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area has placed it at the forefront of innovative developments in business, technology, and society. Providing access...

California Votes: The 2014 Election

Ethan Rarick, editor
2017

California’s 2014 election featured Jerry Brown’s victory for a fourth term as governor. That length of service is both unprecedented—Earl Warren was elected three times and no one else more than twice —and also, at least for now, unrepeatable. Brown served his first two terms in the ’70s and ‘80s before California implemented its lifetime two-term limit for governors, thus allowing his return to the chief executive’s office in 2010. Barring a constitutional amendment to revise the two-term limit, no future governor of the Golden State will serve so long.

Though interrupted by long...

Envisioning the Asian New Flagship University: Its Past and Vital Future

John Aubrey Douglass and John N. Hawkins
2017

This book explores the history of leading national universities in Asia and contemplates their capacity for innovation by focusing on the New Flagship University model. This model, presented more fully in The Flagship University Model—Changing the Paradigm from Global Ranking to National Relevancy (2016), envisions the university as an institution that not only meets the standards of excellence focused on research productivity and rankings, but one that is creatively responsive to the larger social needs of their specific national or...

The Icelandic Federalist Papers

David A. Carrillo, editor
2018

For the past ten years the people of Iceland have debated whether their nation needs a new constitution, and what a new charter should say. This volume is a collection of 21 essays written by an international team of scholars (all using the pseudonym “Civis”) that analyzes arguments for and against the proposed new constitution written by the drafting council appointed by Iceland’s parliament. These essays were originally published individually by the California Journal of Politics and Policy. This collection is modeled on (and in some cases essays were intentionally written as a...

California Votes: The 2010 Governor's Race

Ethan Rarick, editor
2012

California voters went back to the future in 2010, picking Jerry Brown as their governor more than 35 years after they first elected him to the office. Brown's election to a third term capped an extraordinary career and life-son of a political dynasty, boy-wonder governor, three-time presidential candidate, volunteer for Mother Teresa, student of Zen Buddhism, radio talk-show host, big-city mayor, and then back to governor for another tenure, this time in his seventies.

Brown's victory also followed an extraordinary campaign. With a shoestring budget and a skeleton staff, the aging...

Chief: The Quest for Justice in California

Ronald M. George
2013

In May of 2008, in a case that was watched across the nation and around the world, the California Supreme Court threw out the state's requirement that marriages involve a man and a woman, opening the door for same-sex unions. The court became the first high court in the nation to rule that sexual orientation is a protected class like race and gender, and that any classification on the basis of sexual orientation is subject to strict scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the state constitution. Now in Chief: The Quest for Justice in California, the author of that landmark...