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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Central government
In 2002 Finnish Parliament decided to permit further construction of nuclear power after decades of long societal struggle. This book analyzes the major phases of the decision-making process. It is an excellent guide to understanding energy and climate policy in Finland and thus the main ideas behind the renewal of nuclear power in Europe.
This study addresses how China's policy response to problems in Xinjiang is interpreted and implemented by officials, who are both governing agents and governed subjects by interviewing Chinese officials working in both Central government and Local governments.
Going to War overturns conventional views of the role of public opinion, the armed forces, parliamentarians, NGOs and writers in the formation of British debates about impending wars. It shows the pressures and the reasons which have led to Britain's involvement in so many conflicts.
State and local governments emerged as important interest groups in the 1960s, as that decade witnessed a rapid expansion of federal social programs administered at the state and local levels. The 1970s and 1980s were distinguished by attempts to give states and localities more responsibility over such programs. The present day is marked by an even more purposeful return of responsibility and policymaking to state and local governments, both because of severe deficits at the federal level and an ideological shift toward federalism. This work examines the impact state and local governments have had and can have on the federal government, asserting that they can be important factors in the creation of policy. The author looks at the intergovernmental lobbying tactics--successful and unsuccessful--of five states and local lobbying groups: the National League of Cities, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Association of Counties, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and the National Governor's Association. Her study will be of interest to scholars and policy-makers at the local, state, and federal government levels.
This book uses a variety of empirical cases on topics including drug development, egg donation, and governance of healthcare facilities, to investigate how actors navigate the uncertainties that permeate the interfaces of health, technologies, and politics in post-Soviet settings and what the implications of their chosen navigation routes are. Contemporary societies are imbued with uncertainties, but the authors focus on settings where uncertainties multiply, making decisions, practises, and relations in everyday life precarious. Two worlds are brought into dialogue throughout the chapters of this book with the aim of facilitating mutual learning from one another - the world of science and technology studies (STS) and the high-income liberal democracies of the West, on one hand, and studies of post-socialism on the other. In so doing, this book encourages critical learning on ensuring the resilience of individual and societal health in situations of profound uncertainties. This timely collection will be of great interest to scholars, practitioners and policy makes in the fields of sociology, biomedicine, political science and public and global health.
This book both demonstrates the ways in which individuals engage in the mobilization process and serves to explain how mobilization occurs. Through a detailed qualitative analysis of in depth interviews, document analysis, and field research, Robinson traces the beginning of a community social movement throughout the life of the movement effort. Whereas many studies ofmobilization are historical, this study offers a close analysis of mobilization efforts as they were occurring. The story of how changes in mobilization occur is demonstrated by how individuals gain information from different sources and frame the issues leading to mobilization activities. Overall the book not only contributes to an understanding of why community mobilization occurs, but helps explain that as well. This is an important read for students, researchers, and community groups alike. This book provides sociological context to environmental problems that would be useful in courses and library collections in sociology, social movements, community and environmental studies.
The term 'Eurocracy' is a word that exists in all European languages. Yet beyond fantasized representations of the 'Brussels bubble', we know little about members of the European Parliament, Commissioners, European civil servants, lobbyists, members of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank, European trade unionists, diplomats and journalists who work in or around the EU institutions? What are their social and professional trajectories, the type of authority they possess, and how does it matter? Based on extensive fieldwork, this volume aims at answering these questions by building upon Pierre Bourdieu's theory of the field of bureaucracy. 45 years after Altiero Spinelli's 'The Eurocrats', this book sheds new light on the relational structures that underpin the functioning of the EU polity. Specialists of European affairs, scholars and students in politics, administration and sociology as well as citizens will find original insights to understanding EU institutions and why the European project appears to be in crisis.
The revolutionary political upheavals in Africa in the early 1990s continue to have an impact almost two decades later. Drawing on original interviews, this book argues we must look to the defining period of transition, and the workings of the transition governments, to understand how politics in these countries changed since the fall of dictatorial one-party states. Transition governments leave legacies with respect to the relevant political players and their strategies, the institutions of government, and the nature of the political agenda. These legacies are apparent in Benin, which successfully transitioned to democracy, as well as Togo, which failed to democratize.
Profound social changes have made governance and political leadership more challenging than ever. The result is that politics in the democratic world faces a crisis in the 21st century. The revised edition of this highly successful text reassesses the gap between citizen expectation and the realities of government in light of new developments.
This volume closely examines the near-ubiquitous images of state security walls, domes, and other such defense enclosures flashing across movie screens since 2006, the year of the ratification of George W. Bush’s Secure Fence Act. This study shows that many of the films of this era enable us to imaginatively test the effects of these security mechanisms on citizens, immigrants, refugees, and other sovereign states, challenging our commitment to constructing them, maintaining them, staffing them, and subsidizing their enormous overheads. With case studies ranging from Atomic Blonde and Ready Player One to Black Panther and Elysium; Walls without Cinema serves as a timely counterpoint to the xenophobic rhetoric and abusive, carceral security conditions that characterize the Trump administration’s management of the Mexico-U.S. border situation.
Former Governor of Illinois, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and twice unsuccessful Democratic candidate for President of the United States, Adlai Stevenson played a key role in American politics through out much of the middle of the twentieth century. This collection of essays from Senator Eugene McCarthy, Senator Adlai Stevenson III, Ambassador George Bunn, Brian Urquhart, Arthur Schlesinger, and others, looks at Stevenson's past and current societal significance.
This edited collection assesses governance in forestry programmes and projects, including REDD+ governance. It examines political representation, participation and decentralisation in forest governance, providing insight as to how forest governance arrangements can be responsive to the socio-economic interests of local people and communities who live adjacent to and depend on forests. Global Forest Governance and Climate Change argues that inclusive complementary representation of local communities is required for strong participatory processes and democratic decentralisation of forest governance. Responsiveness to local people's socio-economic interests in forestry initiatives require paying attention to not just the hosting of participatory meetings and activities, but also to the full cast of appointed, self-authorized, and elected representative agents that stand, speak, and act for local people. This book will be of interest to students and academics across the fields of climate change governance, forestry, development studies, and political economy. It will also be a useful resource for policy makers and practitioners responsible for forestry and climate change initiatives.
Does EU participation in the multilateral system lead to the goal of effective multilateralism? This book examines 8 multilateral organizations, showing how EU policies harm the organizations they mean to help. The multilateral system is too heterogeneous for a one-size-fits-all approach; we must understand multilateralism working in practice.
Neither his contemporaries nor subsequent historians have known quite what to do with John Quincy Adams. He was neither conservative nor liberal, neither aristocrat nor democrat. Frequently at odds with New England's political and social leadership, he was influenced by both Puritan traditions of the 17th century and the scientific Enlightenment of the 18th. His life divided into three careers, with his presidency, his least successful career, sandwiched between those of diplomat and Secretary of State on one hand, and congressman on the other. This bibliography provides a guide to the literature on all three careers and provides the first comprehensive listing of Adams's published writings. Following the introduction and a chronology of Adams's life, the volume opens with chapters devoted to manuscript and archival resources, the writings of John Quincy Adams, and general biographical publications. Chapters 4 and 5 list sources on Adams's early career and mature years, and chapter 6 turns to the elections of 1824 and 1828. The presidency is covered in chapter 7, administration associates in chapter 8, and the post-presidential years in chapter 9. Chapter 10 examines his childhood and personal life. Two concluding chapters are devoted to historiography and iconography. The volume also includes a list of relevant periodicals and author and subject indexes.
Challenging pluralist theory and the incremental model of policy making, Paul Schulman argues that many public policy undertakings may fail because of critical mismatches between the scale requirements of an objective and the political and organizational resources actually applied to its pursuit. At the same time, the book explores some of the special risks and hazards associated with large-scale policy frameworks.
In this edited volume, leading environmental policy experts from China, USA, and Europe provide a contemporary view of Chinese environmental policy, analyzing current discussions among various actors and agencies. The book covers a wide range of topics including the gap between national policy goals and their local implementation, cultural and social factors shaping political behavior, legal and political systems affecting environmental policy creation and execution, new societal forces participating in environmental policymaking and governance, and local state strategies tasked with navigating a mix of political, legal, and societal forces. Featuring in-depth, empirically-grounded analyses with interdisciplinary approaches, the book is ideal reading for scholars interested in the complex nature of balancing Chinese environmental sustainability and economic growth.
In Wolf Country tells the story of the first groups of wolves that emigrated from reintroduced areas in Idaho to re-colonize their former habitat in the Pacific Northwest, how government officials prepared for their arrival, and the battles between the people who welcome them and the people who don't, set against the backdrop of the ongoing political controversy surrounding wolf populations in the Northern Rockies. The political maneuvering and intense controversy that has defined wolves' recovery in the West makes this a compelling and timely read.
Approaching the problem of homelessness from a broad public policy perspective, Lang focuses on the American political economy and how it permits community development patterns based on racism and self-interest. This interdisciplinary study challenges the belief that homelessness is entirely due to the Reagan administration's cutbacks. Instead, it suggests the need for reform in our housing and employment policies. The book reviews competing socioeconomic paradigms that can explain why meaningful and effective programs are difficult to enact. "Homelessness Amid Affluence" discusses housing, community development patterns, economic segregation, and problems of the urban underclass, as well as proposed solutions. The interdisciplinary nature and historical perspective of this volume make it informative reading for sociologists, social workers, policymakers, and researchers. This volume is divided into five sections. The first section provides a conceptual overview. Section Two deals with the urban policy context from which a solution to homelessness must emerge. Section Three covers low-cost housing while Section Four deals with specific policies and programs developed in response to the needs of the homeless. A case study based on the author's experience with the efforts of Camden County, New Jersey is included. The last section analyzes some new policy approaches and ends with an assessment of the likely policy outcomes to emerge from this continuing debate.
Furthering social justice and human rights is a fundamental principle underlying the social work profession. Engaging in social policy formulation processes is a major route through which social workers can realise this goal. This type of social work activity has been termed 'policy practice'. The aim of this book is to shed light on policy practice in social work discourse, education and practice in eight liberal democracies. This is the first effort to undertake a cross-national study of social worker engagement in social policy formulation processes. The book offers insights into questions such as 'what is the importance attributed to social worker involvement in policy change in the social work discourse and education in different countries?' and 'how do social workers influence social policy in various national settings?' These issues are relevant to social worker practitioners, students, educators and researchers, as well as to social policy scholars, who are interested in the role of professionals in social policy formulation.
This book examines the variation in high-skilled immigration policies in OECD countries. These countries face economic and social pressures from slowing productivity, ageing populations and pressing labour shortages. To address these inter-related challenges, the potential of the global labour market needs to be harnessed. Countries need to intensify their efforts to attract talented people - the best and the brightest. While some are excelling in this new marketplace, others lag behind. The book explores the reasons for this, analysing the interplay between interests and institutions. It considers the key role of coalitions between labour (both high- and low-skilled) and capital. Central to the analysis is a newly constructed index of openness to high-skilled immigrants, supplemented by detailed case studies of France, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. The book contributes to the literature on immigration, political economy and public policy, and appeals to academic and policy audiences.
Togman provides a comparative analysis of French and U.S. immigration policies from 1945 to 2000. He explores why nations implement the immigration policies they do, why some governments allow or even encourage large-scale immigration while others restrict it, why some states shift from liberal to restrictive entry policies and vice versa. Focusing on critical historical junctures, Togman illustrates how different institutional structures in France and the United States led these countries to implement divergent entry policies. Political institutions are shown to act as an intervening variable, helping determine what, if any, influence other factors such as economic conditions and cultural traditions have over a nation's immigration laws. Scholars and students of French politics, U.S. politics, comparative politics, and immigration policies will find this work helpful.
Seen from the outside, the world of politics and policy-making seems to be in constant flux. Leading institutionalist and sociological theories of the state, on the other hand, predict equilibrium and stability. This book addresses this contradiction by posing the question: "Why do some (but not all) individuals possessing the power and influence necessary to make a difference in contemporary democratic societies - actors whose very position suggests that they have done well under existing conditions - actively seek to change policies or institutions?" Ongoing competition for legitimate authority, the book's authors conclude, provides the often-neglected dynamic element that explains this behavior.
In the wake of the Indian Mutiny, the 1860s and 1870s marked an important period of change and imperial consolidation for the British. Here the author examines the imperial policies of Robert Cecil, the third marquis of Salisbury, who served as secretary of state for India for two administrations during this key era, which marked a significant turning point for relations with the local princes. Clearly defining the office of secretary of state, Salisbury was responsible for policies designed to ensure the smooth running of an empire whose administration was made more difficult by the British Parliament, which possessed the right to oversee Indian affairs. Hoping to prevent a frontier war, Salisbury stressed the importance of promoting progressive change in such a way as to avoid arousing Indian opposition. This conservative approach to Indian government was able to countenance radical ideas, but it did give rise to the hostility of Western-educated Indians who sought more say in the governing of India. At this time, their opposition lacked weight, but Salisbury warned of future dangers should the British fail to promote the welfare of the Indian peasant and to solve India's financial difficulties. Salisbury would carry with him ideas developed at this time to his future posts as foreign secretary and prime minister. Brumpton's study complements existing research into imperial ideology and the official mind of India under the British.
China's Rise to Power: Conceptions of State Governance examines how a twenty-first century contradiction-the country's combination of authoritarian rule and a market-oriented economy in state-led capitalism-has proven simultaneously appealing and a source of domestic dissatisfaction. Balancing policy analysis with detailed investigation of escalating popular unrest, this essay collection explores the discontent that stems from the Communist leadership's obsession with growth and control, and anticipates new space for alternative governance. As the sixth-generation leaders come of age at this critical juncture, the way out of internal crises will not necessarily be the way of the Chinese Communist Party..
"This book offers a new way of understanding how neighborhood revitalization can be done in a way that benefits both residents and the economy. Sandoval pioneers the use of complexity thinking as a lens to see what would otherwise be invisible-the co-evolution of a community with the city's actions and policies. He does this through a vivid case study of the process by which remarkable positive change took place in a once troubled, poor neighborhood in Central Los Angeles." -Judith Innes, Professor of City and Regional Planning, UC Berkeley, and author of Planning with Complexity: Introduction to Collaborative Rationality for Public Policy "Sandoval illuminates the variations in the way city hall people and neighborhood people deal with one another. Much as they may want to support neighborhood organizations, his study reveals that city hall people are often unclear on how to do it. We need a theory of city hall-neighborhood interaction; maybe we have now found it in Los Angeles." -Pierre Clavel, Professor of City and Regional Planning, Cornell University |
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