|
|
Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Central government > Central government policies
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which
commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out
and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and
impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes
high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using
print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in
1953.
Despite deep divisions on the issue of immigration, this book shows
that immigration promotes economic innovation, expands the job
market, and contributes to diversity and creativity in the United
States. Immigration, as a conduit for bringing new talent, ideas,
and inventions into the United States, is essential to the success
and vitality of our economy and society. In this timely book,
researched and written by the Immigration Book Project Team at Penn
State University, immigration is approached from historical,
economic, business, and sociological perspectives in order to argue
that treatment of immigrants must reflect and applaud their
critical roles in supporting and leading the economic, social,
cultural, and political institutions of civil society. Approaching
immigration as both a socioeconomic phenomenon and a matter of
public policy, The Danger of Devaluing Immigrants offers
demographics and statistics on workforce participation and job
creation along with stories of individual immigrants' contributions
to the economy and society. It supports the idea that, when
immigration is challenged in the political sphere, we must not lose
sight of the valuable contributions that immigrants have made-and
will continue to make-to our democracy. Approaches immigration from
many perspectives: economic, business, historical, and sociological
Investigates the substantial roles of immigrants in critical
industries and sectors across the U.S. economy Emphasizes the
bimodal nature of attitudes toward immigrants depending on their
education and skill level and abilities Includes personal stories
and case studies from immigrants Draws on the expertise of a team
from the Smeal College of Business at Penn State University
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which
commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out
and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and
impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes
high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using
print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in
1983.
This book is a unique, single-volume treatment offering original
source material on the life, accomplishments, disappointments, and
lasting legacy of one of American history's most celebrated social
reformers-Cesar Chavez. Two decades after Cesar Chavez's death,
this timely book chronicles the drive for a union of one of
American society's most exploited groups-farm workers. Encyclopedia
of Cesar Chavez is a valuable one-volume source based on the most
recent research and available documentation. Historian Roger Bruns
documents how Chavez and his United Farm Workers (UFW), against
formidable odds, organized farm laborers into a force that for the
first time successfully took on the might of California's
agribusiness interests to achieve greater wages and better working
conditions. Set against the backdrop of the 1960s, a time of
assassinations, war protests, civil rights battles, and reform
efforts for poor and minority citizens, the approximately 100
entries in this encyclopedia provide a glimpse into the events,
organizations, men and women, and recurring themes that impacted
the life of Cesar Chavez. It also contains a section of primary
documentation-useful not only to enhance the understanding of this
social and political movement, but also as source material for
students. Presents a unique narrative of the events in the life of
Chavez and the Farm Workers Movement, as well as original documents
and entries on people and events Provides a valuable source of
information for tracing attitudes, legislation, and progressive
reform efforts in the last half-century, especially in light of the
current heated debate over immigration Demonstrates how a
determined organizer applied various methods and tactics to
accomplish what seemed at the onset of the movement to be a
quixotic venture-a relevant lesson for those strategizing to
achieve social justice today
By relying on private enterprise more than any other developed
nation, American health care has all the appearances of free-market
in action. And for more than a hundred years, attempts to reform
this system (including President Obama's Affordable Care Act) have
been met with opposition from parties warning against the stifling
effect of government intervention. What these warnings about
federal overreach overlook is the fact that the federal government
has long been an indispensible player in guiding and supporting the
current US health care system. Its role is so pervasive and of such
longstanding importance that it is easy to overlook, but it
actually created American health care as we know it today. Seminal
public programs stand behind every segment of America's massive and
hugely profitable health care industry. This is not to deny the
instrumental roles of private entrepreneurship and innovation, but
rather to describe the foundation on which they rest. The
industry's underlying driving force is a massive partnership
between the public and private spheres. The partnership is complex,
and its effects are not always ideal. But for better or worse, it
shapes every aspect of what we in the United States know as health
care. Mother of Invention traces the government's role in building
four key health care sectors into the financial powerhouses they
are today: pharmaceuticals, hospitals, the medical profession, and
private insurance. It traces their history, surveys their growth,
and highlights some of their greatest success stories, which
together reveal the indispensible role of public initiatives in
contemporary private health care. Only by understanding what
actually drives our system can we appreciate possibilities for
meaningful reform or comprehend the true context - historically and
politically - of the Obama plan.
Why has China's authoritarian government under Xi Jinping retained
popular support without political reforms? Drawing on Chinese
social media data, in this book Titus C. Chen argues that China's
digital propaganda and information control techniques--the
monopolistic exercise of market authoritarianism--have empowered
the Xi administration to manipulate public discourse and shape
public opinion via social media. Chen argues that these techniques
forge a sense of community and unite the general public under the
Chinese government, thereby legitimating autocratic rule. By
enhancing our understanding of China's digital ideological
statecraft, the book makes a major contribution to the fields of
China Studies and Political Communication.
Ilan Stavans has amassed a collection of cutting-edge articles that
inform readers about how Latinos navigate both the mainstream
medical arena and culturally specific healing traditions. This work
highlights the myriad problems Latinos face in becoming fully
acculturated consumers of health care. Its series of chapters by
expert contributors bridges the communication gap between
mainstream medical professionals who need to understand the Latino
worldview and Latinos that need to adapt to the puzzling complexity
of providers and insurers that make up the American health care
system. Backed by research using quantitative methods and other
techniques, Health Care's seven chapters cover topics ranging from
infant care to teenage dating and sexual mores to prescription
medication use by older adults. Much of the coverage focuses on
problems of access and the ways in which Latinos move between
mainstream health care, and the world of traditional remedies
provided by botanicas (shops specializing in herbs and other
healing items) and curanderos (folk healers). Includes seven
chapters on the major issues concerning Latino access to quality
health care in the United States 18 contributors-noted scholars
providing their insights under the editorial direction of Ilan
Stavans
How do we incorporate analytical thinking into public policy
decisions? Stuart Shapiro confronts this issue in Analysis and
Public Policy by looking at various types of analysis, and
discussing how they are used in regulatory policy-making in the US.
By looking at the successes and failures of incorporating
cost-benefit analysis, risk assessment, and environmental impact
assessment, he draws broader lessons on its use, focusing on the
interactions between analysis and political factors, legal
structures and bureaucratic organizations as possible areas for
reform.Utilizing empirical and qualitative research, Shapiro
analyzes four different forms of analysis: cost-benefit analysis,
risk assessment, environmental impact assessment, and impact
analysis. After interviewing nearly fifty individuals who have
served in high levels of government, and who have made countless
regulatory policy decisions in their careers, Shapiro argues that
advocates must become less ambitious and should craft requirements
for simpler and clearer analysis. Such analysis, particularly if
informed by public participation, can do a great deal to improve
government decisions. As this book details the relationship between
analysis and institutional factors such as politics, bureaucracy,
and law, it is appropriate for a variety of readers, such as
scholars of policy, students, scholars of regulation, and
congressional and state legislative staff looking to create new
analytical requirements.
Given the dramatic changes that have taken place in global politics
in recent years (especially following September 11, 2001), it is
time to examine a series of critical issues confronting the global
political economy. One of the most important of these issues is
terrorism and its relationship with weak states. This book examines
the weak state-terrorism nexus with particular emphasis on Africa.
Specifically, it provides an in-depth analysis of state weakness,
poverty, and the opportunities offered by the latter for the
breeding of terrorism and terrorists. It also looks at the part
played by radical Islam in transnational terrorism in Africa.
Emerging from this study is recognition of a need for the
international system to analyze a wide range of issues that
contribute to the weakening of African states.
With a population of 1.2 billion and nearly two decades of
spectacular growth, China promises to become one of the world's
largest economic powers and consumer markets in the next century. A
salient feature of the contemporary Chinese economy is the
significance of state intervention toward business in the form of
'preferential policies'. Thanks to these policies, a firm's
location, ownership type and area of business largely determine
whether it should receive privileges of disadvantages in the
regulated business environment. The fast changing preferential
policies have had great influence on a wide range of economic
activities, including foreign direct investment. The extent,
complexity and variety of these policies are bewildering to both
investors and academics who study the Chinese economy.State
Intervention and Business in China is a systematic study of China's
preferential economic policies. Dr Lu and Dr Tang present these
policies in three categories, namely, the investor-oriented, the
region-oriented, and the industry-oriented policies. The authors
give a clear account of policies including: preferential tax rates,
state bank loans, trade protection and subsidies, and licensing
schemes. The book provides the in-depth political economy analyses
that reveal the sources and functions of these policies. By
offering empirical observations on the impact of state intervention
on regional development and economic structures, this book sheds
new light on the prospects for China's economic policy making.
State Intervention and Business in China will be indispensably for
scholars and specialists who are interested in contemporary Chinese
economy and society. It is also a valuable guide for doing business
in China.
Since the mid-1990s European welfare states have undergone a major
transformation. Relative to the post-war years, today they put less
emphasis on income protection and more on the promotion of labour
market participation. This book investigates this transformation by
focusing on two fields of social policy: active labour market
policy and childcare. Throughout Europe, governments have invested
massively in these two areas. The result, a more active welfare
state, seems a rather solid achievement, likely to survive the
turbulent post-crisis years. Why? Case studies of policy
trajectories in seven European countries and advanced statistical
analysis of spending figures suggest that the shift towards an
active social policy is only in part a response to a changed
economic environment. Political competition, and particularly the
extent to which active social policy can be used for credit
claiming purposes, help us understand the peculiar cross-national
pattern of social policy reorientation. This book, by trying to
understand the shift towards an active welfare state, provides also
an update of political science theories of social policy making.
Much has been written about policy efforts to achieve 'Health in
All Policies': an ambitious attempt to improve population health
and reduce health inequalities by ensuring multiple policy areas
are more attuned to their health impacts. However, most accounts
focus on technical challenges, such as implementing impact
assessments. In contrast, and focusing on the European Union, this
book argues that 'Health in All Policies' is essentially a
political project shaped by institutional power, competing ideas,
and discourses. We can only really understand the failure to
realise its ambition through political analysis.
Environmental Policy in Europe focuses on the creation of
environmental policy, how new legislation is formed and the
influence brought to bear by industrial interest groups. By
addressing the nature of this consultation process between
interested parties and public authorities, the authors show why
public policy in the European Union is so different in practice
from the prescriptions of academic scholarship. European
environmental legislation results from a process of consultation
and negotiation which is extensively explored in this volume by a
distinguished group of authors. Focusing on such issues as
pesticide registration, combustion emissions, the European waste
management industry, recycling regulations and eco-auditing, they
offer unique insights into the development of public policy. While
the analysis focuses on the actual behaviour of firms and public
authorities, the authors also discuss the involvement of firms
within the regulation devising process - to determine whether their
behaviour distorts the public interest - and the strategic use by
firms of the regulatory process by firms leading to restrictions of
competition. Scholars, students and policymakers will welcome
Environmental Policy in Europe for seeking to enlarge the
traditional perspective of environmental economics on public policy
while integrating the recent advances of both the economics of
regulation and industrial economics.
Depicting a new stage of Salvadoran history that began in 1979,
Mario Lungo Ucles offers an acute analysis of the transformation of
El Salvador during the 1980's under the impact of revolution and
counterinsurgency. This new and expanded English-language edition
of his award-winning book traces the historical roots of the
Salvadoran insurgency and demonstrates how the counterinsurgency
efforts promoted by the United States failed to anticipate either
the durability of the rebels or the rise of the Nationalist
Republican Alliance as the country's first explicitly bourgeois
political party.Lungo Ucles explains the reasons behind the
remarkable outcome of the war in a negotiated settlement and why El
Salvador's future requires a major reformulation of the politics
and institutions of both the left and the right. This is a work of
importance not just for the politics of El Salvador but for other
Third World societies in the age of post-Cold War globalization.
Mario Lungo Ucles is currently Professor at the Universidad
Centroamericana in San Salvador, El Salvador. He is former editor
of the journal "Estudios Sociales Centroamericanos" and the author
of several books.
This book examines the effectiveness of trade and non-trade
policies to combat the menace of child labour. Although it has
decreased on the global scale in recent years, child labour still
remains high, particularly in the developing countries. Keeping in
mind the estimated extent of child labour in different regions
around the globe, the book offers a detailed critical review of
both theoretical and empirical literature on the topic as well as
the policies to reduce the incidence of child labour. It also
develops a general equilibrium model to demonstrate the possible
effects of growth-promoting, non-trade policies, as opposed to
direct trade policies, on child labour employment mitigation. The
book argues that of the non-trade policies, the introduction of
compulsory education appears to be an effective instrument for
curtailing the child labour problem when families receive targeted
subsidies for sending their children to school. It also shows that
appropriately designed and targeted education subsidies can reduce
the incidence of child labour and that social protection measures,
such as subsidies on school enrolment, also tend to have a positive
impact. The book not only opens up research topics for academicians
but is also a valuable resource for policy makers.
|
|