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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Central government > Central government policies
This book examines the intersection of globalisation and intercultural education by focusing on the trajectory of education policy: from development to adoption and implementation.The centrality of the nation-state has been constrained by a wide range of new socio-cultural, political and economic phenomena over the past decade such as globalisation, Europeanisation, modernisation, and global recession. The main implications of these developments have only just begun to unfold, and continue to be debated by policy-makers, academics, and educators. However, it is widely accepted that global socio-political and economic developments have allowed supranational institutions, functioning across nation states rather than within them, to perform many state functions with regards to education policy development and implementation. Yet, much remains unknown (and under-researched) about the impact of these still-nascent developments on the trajectory of intercultural education. This book sets out to fill in this gap by examining the intersection of globalisation and intercultural education through macro-micro integration. After all, for modern societies to establish social cohesion, education research should examine issues of citizenship, democracy, and intercultural education under the lens of globalisation.
Chen provides an analysis of the political economy of rural development in China during the reform era. Revolving around the central theme of statecraft, Chen's study gives a concise and comprehensive treatment of the interaction of ideology and politics with central policy and economic growth. He examines China's economic reform in historical perspective, characterizes China's economic and political transformation since the reform, and proposes that the Chinese Communist Party is being transformed into a party of economics while China's ideology is becoming market-oriented communal socialism. In addressing the issue of the Chinese path of development, Chen discusses the role of local party organizations in China's modernization drive and the microform of market-oriented communal socialism in the newly emerged village conglomerate, highlights the challenges that China faces at the turn of the new century after 20 years of economic reform, and analyzes the context of the introduction of village elections in 1990, and the establishment of Deng Xiaoping's Theory as a new ideological discourse at the 15th National Congress as well as the rationale behind them. In examining the connection between the two goals of statecraft --improving people's welfare and strengthening the state--and between central policies and local initiatives, Chen provides a study that will be of great interest to scholars, students, and other researchers involved with contemporary Chinese politics and development.
Doctrines have been a prevalent form of foreign policy in U.S. history. This study seeks to explain their origins by examining the Reagan Doctrine, pledging aid to anticommunist guerillas in the Third World. Based on original research and interviews with numerous individuals in the Reagan administration, the author applies two alternative explanations: realist theory, focusing on the international level of analysis, and elite beliefs theory, focusing on individual political leaders and their beliefs. What he finds is that while each perspective is necessary to explain the Reagan Doctrine, neither is sufficient by itself.
This edited volume develops critical discussions of prominent methodological approaches in participatory youth research. Chapters give special attention to power issues and dilemmas concerning young people's and researchers' involvement in research processes. The collection brings together perspectives of authors from throughout Nordic countries, all with comprehensive experience of qualitative research methods involving young people.
This cutting edge collection examines Japan's population issue, exploring how declining demographic trends are affecting Japan's social structure, specifically in the context of Greater Tokyo, life infrastructure, public finance and the economy. Considering the failures of past Japanese policies from the perspective of population, national land, and politics, it argues that the inability of past administrations to develop a long-term and comprehensive policy has exacerbated the population crisis. This text identifies key negative chain reactions that have stemmed from this policy failure, notably the effect of population decline on future economic growth and public finances and the impact of shrinking municipalities on social and community infrastructure to support quality of life. It also highlights how population decline can precipitate inter-generational conflict, and impact on the strength of the state and more widely on Japan's international status. Japan is on the forefront of the population problem, which is expected to affect many of the world's advanced industrial economies in the 21st century. Based on the study of policy failures, this book makes recommendations for effective population policy - covering both 'mitigation' measures to encourage a recovery in the depopulation process as well as 'adaptation' measures to maintain and improve living standards - and provides key insights into dealing with the debilitating effects of population decline.
Why aren't we investing more in disaster resilience, despite the rising costs of disaster events? This book argues that decision-makers in governments, businesses, households, and development agencies tend to focus on avoiding losses from disasters, and perceive the return on investment as uncertain - only realised if a somewhat unlikely disaster event actually happens. This book develops a new business case for investment based on the multiple dividends of resilience. This looks beyond only avoided losses (the first dividend) to the wider benefits gained independently of whether or not the disaster event occurs. These include unleashing entrepreneurial activities and productive investments by lowering the looming threat of losses from disasters and enabling businesses, farmers and homeowners to take positive risks (the second dividend); and co-benefits of resilience measures beyond just disaster risk (the third dividend), such as flood embankments in Bangladesh that double as roads, or wetlands in Colombo that reduce urban heat extremes.
This book responds to the reality that children and youth constitute a disproportionately large percentage of displaced populations worldwide. It demonstrates how their hopes and aspirations reflect the transient nature of their age group, and often differ from those of their elders. It also examines how they face additional difficulties due to the inconsistent definition and uneven implementation of the traditional 'durable solutions' to forced migration implemented by national governments and international assistance agencies. The authors use empirical research findings and robust policy analyses of cases of child displacement across the globe to make their central argument: that the particular challenges and opportunities that displaced children and youth face must be investigated and factored into relevant policy and practice, promoting more sustainable and durable solutions in the process. This interdisciplinary edited collection will appeal to students and scholars of forced migration studies, development, conflict and peace-building and youth studies, along with policy-makers, children's rights organizations and NGOs.
This is the compelling story of a former Jesuit who traveled to Ireland in order to better understand the IRA, its widespread support among Irish Catholics, and the country's continuing civil unrest. Author Douglass McFerran, an American, made many key contacts in Northern Ireland, enabling him to gain unprecedented access to republican groups. He met with members of the Orange Lodge and the heavily armed Royal Ulster Constabulary; he had tea with leaders of Sinn Fein; and he participated in the annual Internment March on the streets of Belfast. In this book he provides a history of the conflict in Northern Ireland and goes beyond the propaganda on both sides to understand the causes of today's violence and explore what would be necessary to end it. McFerran wrote this book at the suggestion of individuals within the Irish republican community. During its writing he had the cooperation of several Sinn Fein leaders and past and present members of the IRA. McFerran came to believe that the violent situation in Northern Ireland can best be explained by considering the manner in which the English government, through genocide and civil repression, attempted to eliminate Irish resistance to English rule. The failure of the Anglo-Irish War to achieve a united Irish government brought on a republican movement with a political expression in Sinn Fein and a military expression in the guerrilla activities of the Irish Republican Army. The continued failure of the English government to negotiate with Irish nationalists can be attributed to a desire to maintain the political support of predominantly Protestant unionists, who since 1913 have pledged armed resistance to any effort to allow a Catholic-led government to rule over them.
In 2008, the European Commission relaunched the policy idea of active inclusion, with the aim of facilitating the integration of people into sustainable and quality employment. Over ten years later, and in the aftermath of one of the most trying periods in Europe's recent economic history, this book provides a critical and timely reassessment. The Political Economy of Policy Ideas contributes to the growing scholarly literature on ideational political economy and labour market regulation by providing a systematic analysis of the idea of active inclusion and its three core principles: activation, conditionality and personalization. The research breaks new ground by detailing how divergent interpretations of these principles, by relevant social actors in different contexts, have shaped their implementation. The book is of interest to scholars and students across comparative political economy, economic sociology, welfare and industrial relations studies.
This book deals with not just complex linkages, interactions and exchanges that form the relationship between the economic activities, human society and the ecosystems, but also the influences and impacts that each causes on the other. In recent times, this ecology-economy-society interface has received unprecedented attention within the broader environment-development discourse. The volume is in honour of Kanchan Chopra, one of the pioneers of research in these areas in India. She has recently been awarded the coveted Kenneth Boulding Award by the International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE) and is the first Asian to receive it. The four sub-themes of the book reflect some of the important areas in the environment-development discourse - sustainability of development, institutions and environmental governance, environment and well-being, and ecosystem and conservation. Within each of the sub-themes, the policy and the practice as well as the macro and micro aspects are addressed. With contributions mainly from ecological economists and ecologists, the book's approach is interdisciplinary, both in spirit and content, reflecting the honoree's work, which went not just beyond the mainstream ideology of economics, but also the way she listened to ideas from disciplines like ecology and sociology. The volume also includes two reflective essays on academic life and works of Kanchan Chopra. The book is a valuable resource for students, teachers, researchers, practitioners and policy makers in the areas of development economics, ecological economics, environmental economics and related disciplines such as conservation, development, ecology, economics, environment, governance, health, sociology and public policy.
Governments worldwide struggle to remove policy deadlocks and enact much-needed reforms in organizational structure and public services. In this book, Jacob Torfing explores collaborative innovation as a way for public and private stakeholders to break the impasse. These network-based collaborations promise to multiply the skills, ideas, energy, and resources between government and its partners across agency boundaries and in the nonprofit and private sectors. Torfing draws on his own pioneering work in Europe as well as examples from the United States and Australia to construct a cross-disciplinary framework for studying collaborative innovation. His analysis explores its complex and interactive processes as he looks at how drivers and barriers may enhance or impede the collaborative approach. He also reflects on the roles institutional design, public management, and governance reform play in spurring collaboration for public sector innovation. The result is a theoretically and empirically informed book that carefully demonstrates how multi-actor collaboration can enhance public innovation in the face of fiscal constraint, the proliferation of wicked problems, and the presence of unsatisfied social needs.
Emergency Response to Domestic Terrorism analyzes the emergency
response to the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in
Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995.
This book provides a historical background of the American business cycle, challenges the validity of conventional Keynesian ideology, and presents a bold, alternative theory of how production leads to wealth in our modern economy. The United States is mired in the aftermath of booming economic prosperity, resembling the trouble recently experienced by the Japanese economy due partially to similar Keynesian bailouts and subsidies. Now more than two years into the current financial crisis, Americans are starting to wonder if we can ever escape the consequences of past mistakes. If our "recovery" plan continues along the previous paths that generated economic bubbles and unemployment, then we are destined for failure. Destined for Failure: American Prosperity in the Age of Bailouts provides a conceptual framework previously available only to those with formal university training. It explains the effects of government regulation, political interference in the housing and job markets, misallocation of resources in health and education, moral hazard, environmental constraints, and excessive taxation. The authors provide insight into their view of Keynesian economics as an outdated, detrimental ideology, and take the Bush and Obama administrations to task for budget deficits and cronyistic subsidies and bailouts. The senior author is a distinguished economist who supplemented his in-depth knowledge with contributions from two of his brightest undergraduate students Seven graphical representations and three data tables highlight key information Index provides the reader with easy access to specific topics throughout the text More than 20 case studies apply the general theory of the book to real-world examples, each concluding with specific policy proposals
In the first quarter of the twentieth century, the British Government, the banks, and leading individuals in London reached historic decisions that determined the name, shape, nature, and future of the region known as the Middle East. In this fascinating and readable book, Roger Adelson examines who made policy, on what grounds, with what information, and with what results. The setting for the narrative is London, then the world's greatest metropolis and its financial and political center. Adelson evokes the atmosphere of Whitehall, Fleet Street, the City of London, and Westminster, and paints a vivid portrait of the individuals (Churchill, Lloyd George, Curzon, Cromer, and others) who established the international agenda. Using an extensive range of public and private archives, he identifies issues of money, power, and territorial ambition at the heart of policy, and he describes decisions made in ignorance of and often wholly without reference to local interests. The book explores and explains British diplomacy both before and after the 1914-1918 War: the protection of the Suez Canal and Persian Gulf; the fear of a German drive to the East and subjugation of the Turks; the discovery of oil; the post-war suppression of nationalist aspirations and the establishment of collaborative regimes more in tune with London than with the Middle East itself. More clearly than any previous work, it identifies the virtual invention of the modern Middle East and the roots of the ethnic and nationalist antagonisms that characterize the region today.
In this history of the social and human sciences in Mexico and the United States, Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt reveals intricate connections among the development of science, the concept of race, and policies toward indigenous peoples. Focusing on the anthropologists, sociologists, biologists, physicians, and other experts who collaborated across borders from the Mexican Revolution through World War II, Rosemblatt traces how intellectuals on both sides of the Rio Grande forged shared networks in which they discussed indigenous peoples and other ethnic minorities. In doing so, Rosemblatt argues, they refashioned race as a scientific category and consolidated their influence within their respective national policy circles. Postrevolutionary Mexican experts aimed to transform their country into a modern secular state with a dynamic economy, and central to this endeavor was learning how to ""manage"" racial difference and social welfare. The same concern animated U.S. New Deal policies toward Native Americans. The scientists' border-crossing conceptions of modernity, race, evolution, and pluralism were not simple one-way impositions or appropriations, and they had significant effects. In the United States, the resulting approaches to the management of Native American affairs later shaped policies toward immigrants and black Americans, in Mexico, officials rejected policy prescriptions they associated with U.S. intellectual imperialism and racial segregation.
Young people, crime and delinquency are words that are commonly linked in public perception and young people are often blamed for social ills. Their deviancy and threat to social control has been held to be a social fact from Plato to today. This book subjects that 'fact' to critical examination through consideration of youth justice systems in six different countries, drawing on sociological and criminological analysis as well as expert practitioner opinion. This book's comparative, cultural approach allows for consideration of the impact of new and emergent systems of communication and discourse and considers how these may impact future constructions of delinquency at a local and global level. Understanding changing constructions of delinquency, the systems and responses we already have and their strengths and weaknesses enables critique about what we do and what we know, and allows us to imagine how it might be otherwise.
The Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA) is the most expansive federal legislation addressing intimate violence in the United States to date. Meyer-Emerick uses three theories to examine the legislation: Foucault's theories on how people develop their ideas about their sexuality; Habermas's theories on the legitimacy of the state; and MacKinnon's theories of a gender hierarchy preserved through sexual violence. Through consideration of interviews with policymakers, professionals, and focus groups with citizens, her analysis suggests that state intervention is limited. Additional avenues for combating violence against women is therefore necessary. These theories were also used to develop questions that were asked of policymakers and local professionals in interviews and with focus groups of survivors, perpetrators, and citizens. The interviews revealed perceptual differences between the thinking of the policymakers and the local professionals. These dissimilarities highlight the practitioners' lack of knowledge about the intent of VAWA, which may impede service delivery to clients. The focus group responses indicated that not only do women have a higher distrust than men but that survivors and perpetrators have opinions that diverge from both local citizens and other participants. This demonstrates a need for change in the system that is supposed to be protecting women from violence. Meyer-Emerick concludes with recommendations for further interventions. Policymakers and local providers of social services will find the work of particular value as will scholars and researchers dealing with domestic violence.
This study shows how philanthropic foundations and their leaders help shape the American political agenda. The authors' central argument is that foundation leaders are members of a key social and political elite in American society. Relying on a survey of such leaders and on an examination of foundation public policy grants, the authors demonstrate that members of the foundation elite are among the most polarized groups in American society. This study shows how philanthropic foundations and their leaders help shape the American political agenda. The authors' central argument is that foundation leaders are members of a key social and political elite in American society. Relying on a survey of such leaders and on an examination of foundation public policy grants, the authors demonstrate that members of the foundation elite are among the most polarized groups in American society. Contrary to popular belief, those who control foundations seek to make American more progressive. Public policy oriented foundations are largely liberal in outlook and make grants primarily to liberal individuals and organizations. The authors examine the dilemmas that the existence of such organizations create for democratic political theory. The discussion is placed in the context of a historical overview of the role of foundations in American society; it will be of great interest to public policy professionals, political scientists, and those who track the direction of the national agenda.
This book examines the politics of renewable electricity policy in democratic Spain. It provides the first comprehensive political analysis of how and why successive Spanish governments have increased or reduced support for renewable power, especially wind and solar. In particular, it identifies the key influences that have been brought to bear on decision making by the core executive as it has sought to determine the appropriate role of renewable sources in the country's electricity mix. Following the introduction, four chapters chart the dramatic rise, fall, and, most recently, renewed rise in support for utility-scale renewable power, from the early 1980s to the present. Another chapter details the decade-long political struggle over the regulation of small-scale distributed renewable electricity generation. The penultimate chapter explores the future prospects for renewable power in Spain, and the final chapter offers an overarching explanation of the patterns of policy outcomes observed.
The book takes as its premise the argument that diverse learner groups are a fact of demographic change that should be considered foundational in the preparation of teachers rather than be problematized as a challenge. It promotes the idea of teacher education for inclusive education based on a consideration of what it means to educate all children together. Divided into four parts, the book considers key issues for teacher education, teacher agency, teacher education for diversity, and a research agenda for the future. In today's world, the demographic profile of students in schools is more complex than ever before, and the increasing cultural, linguistic and developmental diversity of today's classrooms, along with the pressure to achieve high academic standards for everybody has significant implications for how classroom teachers should be prepared to meet these demands. This book advances a new understanding of inclusive education that addresses the limitations inherent in current approaches that problematize differences between learner groups by promoting a view of difference as an aspect of human individuality. It considers the implications of the research evidence underpinning teacher education for diversity and makes suggestions for future research in the field.
Comparative Public Policy provides the first truly systematic and comprehensive account of the transformation of the post-war state in the advanced countries of the Western world. The author generates new research findings which show how the economic, social and political changes of the post-war era have reshaped modern public policy across the OECD region. Francis G. Castles examines the growth of big government and the emergence of the modern welfare state and identifies ways in which the role of the state has impacted on labour markets and such personal issues as home ownership, fertility and divorce. He explains why the trajectory of policy transformation has varied from country to country, with immediate post-war policy laggards sometimes becoming leaders, and erstwhile policy pioneers on occasions stagnating. This innovative book presents a wealth of background data and a huge range of new findings, covering 12 policy areas in 21 advanced industrialized countries over a period of more than three decades. Comparative Public Policy is essential reading for students and scholars who wish to understand the dynamics of contemporary social and political development.
Planning by civil governments, businesses, and the military services has been considered separately in both theory and practice. Those concerned with each of these applications have had little contact with those in the others, despite the common concerns and characteristics of their respective practices. A leading figure in the research and education in planning, Branch draws upon his experience in civil, corporate, and military planning to provide a comprehensive guide to the key aspects of planning. This text is invaluable to those engaged in governmental and business planning and to students working toward careers in urban and regional planning, public administration, business management, and other fields concerned with planning.
Michael Suman has brought together wide-ranging viewpoints of media advocates, media lawyers, academics, and entertainment industry representatives who examine the important public policy issue of how advocacy groups affect the entertainment industry. In the first part of the book, representatives from media advocacy groups, including Action for Children's Television and Population Communications International, look at their efforts to utilize the media for policy purposes. In the second part, attorneys specializing in communications look at the ways advocacy groups have been aided as well as hindered by changes in the laws and public policy. Changes in advocacy groups as well as the entertainment industry in general are examined by various scholars in the third section. Representatives of the entertainment industry look at the impact of advocacy groups in the fourth section of the book. Scholars as well as public policy makers and those involved in entertainment oversight will find this a provocative analysis.
One of the most significant areas of activity in the George Bush administration was foreign affairs. Drawing together participants as well as foreign policy scholars and journalists, Hofstra Universtiy organized the 1997 Conference on the Presidency of George Bush. This volume covers the key foreign affairs activities of the administration. The essays examine major areas of the Bush foreign policy record. Included are papers on international trade, the Middle East, Latin America, Somalia, Bosnia, arms control, and U.S. base closing. Scholars, students, and other researchers involved with the policies of the Bush administration will find this a useful resource. |
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