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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Central government > Central government policies
Politics and the Environment has established itself as the most comprehensive textbook in this area. This new edition has been completely revised and updated whilst retaining the features and the theory to practice focus which made the first two editions so successful. This text is designed to introduce students to the key concepts and issues which surround environmental problems and their political solutions. The authors investigate the people, movements and organisations that form and implement these policies, and explore the barriers which hinder successful introduction of international environmental politics. * This new edition has been expanded to include: * The shift in focus in environmental politics from sustainable development to climate change governance * Far more material on climate change including institutional, national and global responses in the aftermath of the Kyoto protocol * An increased international focus with more case studies from the UK, Europe, Australia and North America * More discussion of global environmental social movements including the US environmental organisations, in particular the Green Party and the environmental justice groups * There is an additional co-author for this edition, David Benson from the University of East Anglia This textbook is an invaluable and accessible resource for undergraduates studying environmental politics.
Have slums become 'cool'? More and more tourists from across the globe seem to think so as they discover favelas, ghettos, townships and barrios on leisurely visits. But while slum tourism often evokes moral outrage, critics rarely ask about what motivates this tourism, or what wider consequences and effects it initiates. In this provocative book, Fabian Frenzel investigates the lure that slums exert on their better-off visitors, looking at the many ways in which this curious form of attraction ignites changes both in the slums themselves and on the world stage. Covering slums ranging from Rio de Janeiro to Bangkok, and multiple cities in South Africa, Kenya and India, Slumming It examines the roots and consequences of a growing phenomenon whose effects have ranged from gentrification and urban policy reform to the organization of international development and poverty alleviation. Controversially, Frenzel argues that the rise of slum tourism has drawn attention to important global justice issues, and is far more complex than we initially acknowledged.
To explain the fundamentals of public policy, this best-selling text focuses on the process behind the crafting of legislation. By examining the individual steps-from identifying a problem, to agenda setting, to evaluation, revision, or termination of a policy-students are able to see how different factors influence the creation of policy. Each chapter features at least one case study that illustrates how general ideas are applied to specific policy issues. This new Eighth Edition provides thoughtful updates based on the 2012 election and completely revised case studies.
The issue of land rights is an ongoing and complex topic of debate for South Africans. Rights to Land comes at a time when land redistribution by government is underway. This book seeks to understand the issues around land rights and distribution of land in South Africa and proposes that new policies and processes should be developed and adopted. It further provides an analysis of what went so wrong, and warns that a new phase of restitution may ignite conflicting ethnic claims and facilitate elite capture of land and rural resources. While there are no quick fixes, the first phase of restitution should be completed and the policy then curtailed. The book argues that land ownership and administration is important to rural democracy and that this should not be placed under the control of traditionalist intermediaries. Land restitution, initiated in 1994, was an important response to the injustices of the apartheid era. But it was intended as a limited and short-term process – initially to be completed in five years. It may continue for decades, creating uncertainty and undermining investment into agriculture.
Hydraulic Fracturing in the Karoo: Critical Legal and Environmental Perspectives explores a broad-ranging set of questions related to proposed hydraulic fracturing or `fracking' in the Karoo. The book is multidisciplinary, with contributors including natural scientists, social scientists, and academics from the humanities, all concerned with the ways in which scientific facts and debates about fracking have been framed and given meaning. The work comprises four parts: Part 1 provides an international, legal, energy, economic, and revenue overview of the topic. Part 2 has a physio-geographic theme, with chapters on the inter-related aspects of water, geology, geo-hydrology, seismicity and biodiversity, as well as archaeological and palaeontological considerations. Part 3 focuses on public health, and sociological and humanities-related aspects, and Part 4 addresses the relevant laws, emphasising their implementation and the role of governance. The underlying theme of Hydraulic Fracturing in the Karoo: Critical Legal and Environmental Perspectives is one of caution. The book emphasises the need for collaboration between the natural and social sciences and the responsibilities of those charged with the implementation and governance of the fracking enterprise if South Africa hopes to effectively manage fracking at all.
As late as the 1980s, breast cancer was a stigmatized disease, so much so that local reporters avoided using the word "breast" in their stories and early breast cancer organizations steered clear of it in their names. But activists with business backgrounds began to partner with corporations for sponsored runs and cause-marketing products, from which a portion of the proceeds would benefit breast cancer research. Branding breast cancer as "pink"-hopeful, positive, uncontroversial-on the products Americans see every day, these activists and corporations generated a pervasive understanding of breast cancer that is widely shared by the public and embraced by policymakers. Clearly, they have been successful: today, more Americans know that the pink ribbon is the symbol of breast cancer than know the name of the vice president. Hiding Politics in Plain Sight examines the costs of employing market mechanisms-especially cause marketing-as a strategy for change. Patricia Strach suggests that market mechanisms do more than raise awareness of issues or money to support charities: they also affect politics. She shows that market mechanisms, like corporate-sponsored walks or cause-marketing, shift issue definition away from the contentious processes in the political sphere to the market, where advertising campaigns portray complex issues along a single dimension with a simple solution: breast cancer research will find a cure and Americans can participate easily by purchasing specially-marked products. This market competition privileges even more specialized actors with connections to business. As well, cooperative market activism fundamentally alters the public sphere by importing processes, values, and biases of market-based action into politics. Market activism does not just bring social concerns into market transactions, it also brings market biases into public policymaking, which is inherently undemocratic. As a result, industry and key activists work cooperatively rather than contentiously, and they define issues as consensual rather than controversial, essentially hiding politics in plain sight.
After the United Nations adopted the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to "end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all," researchers and policy makers highlighted the importance of targeted investment in science, technology, and innovation (STI) to make tangible progress. Science, Technology, and Innovation for Sustainable Development Goals showcases the roles that STI solutions can play in meeting on-the-ground socio-economic and environmental challenges among domestic and international organizations concerned with the SDGs in three overlapping areas: agriculture, health, and environment/energy. Authors and researchers from 31 countries tackle both big-picture questions, such as scaling up the adoption and diffusion of new sustainable technologies, and specific, localized case studies, focusing on developing and middle-income countries and specific STI solutions and policies. Issues addressed include renewable energy, automated vehicles, vaccines, digital health, agricultural biotechnology, and precision agriculture. In bringing together diverse voices from both policy and academic spheres, this volume provides practical and relevant insights and advice to support policy makers and managers seeking to enhance the roles of STI in sustainable development.
The collapse of the financial markets in 2008 and the resulting
'Great Recession' merely accelerated an already worrisome trend:
the shift away from an employer-based social welfare system in the
United States. Since the end of World War II, a substantial
percentage of the costs of social provision--most notably,
unemployment insurance and health insurance--has been borne by
employers rather than the state. The US has long been unique among
advanced economies in this regard, but in recent years, its social
contract has become so frayed that is fast becoming unrecognizable.
Despite Obama's election, the burdens of social provision are
falling increasingly upon individual families, and the situation is
worsening because of the unemployment crisis. How can we repair the
American social welfare system so that workers and families receive
adequate protection and, if necessary, provision from the ravages
of the market?
From all outward appearances, the American policymaking process has been revolutionized in the last half century. Beginning in the 1970s, new safeguards were put in place to prevent the kind of free-wheeling and sometimes reckless policymaking environment of earlier periods. These changes-including the creation of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office-were widely hailed as ushering in a new era of accountability in Washington and putting an end to the days when cagey political operatives could rush major legislation through Congress without any real consideration of the economic costs. But what if the supposedly new and improved policymaking process that resulted from these 'good government' reforms is every bit as prone to manipulation as the one it replaced? As Robert Saldin shows in When Bad Policy Makes Good Politics, that has unfortunately been the case. As in the past, the new politics of the policymaking process encourage savvy political actors to game the system. The very rules that were designed to thwart financially irresponsible legislation now incentivize the development of fundamentally flawed and unworkable policies. To uncover the pathologies of the American policymaking process, Saldin traces the sad tale of the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act. While few outside the beltway are aware of it, it was a major piece of legislation that played a central role in the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the most important social policy law since the 1960s. The CLASS Act targeted an intractable problem: the ever-increasing demand for costly long-term care services. For decades, both Republicans and Democrats have recognized the problem as a major one, so the question has not been whether we should tackle it. Rather, the debate centered on how we should do it-that is, how we should pay for it. The problem was always that the costs were staggering, and there was little political will to fund such a program (Medicare did not fund it). Long term care advocates realized this, and therefore focused on passing a law that effectively ignored the economic costs. They finally shuttled it into the larger Affordable Care Act, which was passed into law in 2010. Saldin traces the process, showing how an array of perverse incentives allowed such a flawed law to come into being. In fact, Kathleen Sibelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, announced in late 2011 that the administration would no longer try to put the law into effect because of its basic unworkability. Saldin's book is ostensibly about this one piece of legislation, but it's about much more than this: the near-impossibility of passing 'clean' laws that are not doctored by special interests adept at gaming the system. Essential reading for anyone interested in the policymaking process, the book establishes that our current policymaking environment produces outcomes that are just as perverse as the ones enacted by the old system.
Access Points develops a new theory about how democratic institutions influence policy outcomes. Access Point Theory argues that the more points of access that institutions provide to interest groups, the cheaper lobbying will be, and, thus, the more lobbying will occur. This will lead to more complex policy, as policymakers insert specific provisions to benefit special interests, and, if one side of the debate has a lobbying advantage, to more biased policy, as the advantaged side is able to better take advantage of the cheaper lobbying. This book then uses Access Point Theory to explain why some countries have more protectionist and more complex trade policies than other; why some countries have stronger environmental and banking regulations than others; and why some countries have more complicated tax codes than others. In policy area after policy area, this book finds that more access points lead to more biased and more complex policy. Access Points provides scholars with a powerful tool to explain how political institutions matter and why countries implement the policies they do.
Drawing on longitudinal interviews, government records, and
personal narratives, feminist sociologist Lisa Brush examines the
intersection of work, welfare, and battering. Brush contrasts
conventional wisdom with illuminating analyses of social change and
social structures, highlighting how race and class shape women's
experiences with poverty and abuse and how "domestic" violence
moves out of the home and follows women to work.
Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. In this updated second edition, internationally renowned scholar B. Guy Peters provides a succinct introduction to public policy and illustrates the design approach to policy problems. Peters demonstrates how decision-makers can make more effective choices and why a design approach to public intervention can improve policy formulation. Key features of the second edition include: Analytical identification and evaluation of the vital components of policy design Reflections on the challenges posed by Covid-19 and public policy solutions An expanded overview of evaluation and behavioral public policy analysis Critical discussions of alternatives to cost-benefit analysis. Offering a timely and concise approach to the field, this book will be crucial for high-level students who are new to public policy, as well as scholars and researchers hoping to improve and advance their understanding of the design perspective. Its analytic and theoretical grounding will also prove useful for policy practitioners, enabling sophisticated solutions to common policy problems.
The concept of `economic planning' was a central theme of the popular economic policy debate in the 1930s. Dr Ritschel traces the many interpretations of planning, and examines the process of idealogical construction and dissemination of the new economic ideas. He finishes with an explanation of the planners' retreat, later in the decade, from the economics of planning towards the far less ambitious (but also less contentious) alternative - the `middle way' of Keynesian economics.
Deborah Posel breaks new ground in exposing some of the crucial political processes and struggles which shaped the reciprocal development of Apartheid and capitalism in South Africa. Her analysis debunks the orthodoxy view which presents apartheid as the product of a single `grand plan', created by the State in response to the pressures of capital accumulation. Using as a case study influx control during the first phase of apartheid (1948-1961), she shows that apartheid arose from complex patterns of conflict and compromise within the State, in which white capitalists, the black working class, and popular movements exercised varying and uneven degrees of influence. Her book integrates a detailed empirical analysis of the capitalist State and its relationship to class interests.
In this innovative book, Jacob Torfing, a leading scholar of the field, critically evaluates emerging ideas, practices and institutions that are transforming how public governance is perceived, theorised and conducted in practice. Identifying cutting-edge developments in public governance, this incisive book analyses new forms of political leadership, public management, public organisation, administrative steering, cross-boundary collaboration, public regulation and societal problem-solving. Examining some of the most significant instances of public governance transformation, chapters explore the effects of transformations from sovereign to interactive political leadership, from national to multi-level governance, and from hard to soft power. With a novel focus on the production of innovative public value outcomes, the book considers how these developments interact with and are influenced by new digital technologies and increasing globalisation. Torfing concludes with a reflection on how best to comprehend, study and take advantage of current and future transformations in public governance. A novel rethinking of how current societies are governed, this book will inspire students, scholars and practitioners of political science, public policy, regulation and governance, and public administration management to reconsider how public governance and administration may be organised in the future to present innovative solutions to societal problems.
This enlightening book scrutinizes the shifting and overlapping governance paradigms that inform public administration reforms. Exploring the models that shape and reshape the daily operation of public organizations, it explains the core features of public bureaucracy and professional rule in the modern day. From the rise to supremacy of New Public Management to the growing preference for alternatives, such as Digital Era Governance, Public Value Management and New Public Governance, four world-renowned authors launch a powerful and systematic comparison of the competing and co-existing paradigms. Advancing the 'public governance diamond' as a critical tool for comparing the core features of governance paradigms, this insightful book discusses the underlying behavioural assumptions of these models and the challenges faced by leaders when managing in a public sector. Informed by both key theory and empirical analysis, this book will be crucial reading for students and researchers seeking an authoritative voice on competing and co-existing modes of governance. Public leaders and managers, as well as public employees, will also benefit from its insights into the varying and multifaceted dynamics of public governance.
This timely Handbook considers the increasing struggles facing international development in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. It investigates the role global co-operation must play in resolving the multiple crises of the pandemic, resultant economic devastation and existing climate changes and external-debt concerns. Contributions identify the need to question current assumptions and approaches to international development in the context of how markets are constructed, states reformed and resources distributed. Split across four thematic parts, this thought-provoking Handbook explores the concept and politics of development, development and contested globalization, the politics of development agendas and global actors in the politics of development. Chapters examine the politics of: developmental regionalism, crime, law and development in historical perspective, international monetary relations, food, global health, the global gender agenda, the sustainable development goals, development in the WTO, and private foundations. Engaging and accessible, the Handbook on the Politics of International Development will be a key resource for students and scholars of international politics and relations, public policy, geopolitics and development studies.
In Media in Postapartheid South Africa, author Sean Jacobs turns to media politics and the consumption of media as a way to understand recent political developments in South Africa and their relations with the African continent and the world. Jacobs looks at how mass media defi nes the physical and human geography of the society and what it means for comprehending changing notions of citizenship in postapartheid South Africa. Jacobs claims that the media have unprecedented control over the distribution of public goods, rights claims, and South Africa's integration into the global political economy in ways that were impossible under the state-controlled media that dominated the apartheid years. Jacobs takes a probing look at television commercials and the representation of South Africans, reality television shows and South African continental expansion, soap operas and postapartheid identity politics, and the internet as a space for reassertions and reconfi gurations of identity. As South Africa becomes more integrated into the global economy, Jacobs argues that local media have more weight in shaping how consumers view these products in unexpected and consequential ways.
Based on original empirical data collected from three Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, this engaging book offers comprehensive insights into the institutional environment of public-private partnership (PPP) from a unique and under-explored context. Drawing on ideas from the fields of project management, neo-institutional theory and research on the Gulf rentier states, this book unpacks how individual and organizational actors engage in several strategies to either enable the implementation of PPPs or to resist them. It explores why and how individual and organizational actors in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar seek to disrupt or maintain existing forms of project organizing. Chapters from this book highlight both the macro- and micro-dynamics of initiating, implementing or resisting new forms of project organizing, and offer several theoretical contributions to project management, PPP literature and neo-institutional theory. This book will be an essential read for academics and policymakers interested in broader questions of how the institutional context affects public sector reforms and the introduction of New Public Management ideas to non-western contexts. Public policy and management students and practitioners will also find this book to be a valuable resource. |
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