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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Central government > General
In today's politically and economically complex and interdependent world, scholars, professional administrators, and laypersons alike increasingly recognize the importance of bureaucracies. In this timely volume, contributors with demonstrated expertise in a range of geographical areas advance our understanding of public administration worldwide through extensive research and incisive analysis. Covering the public sector both in more- and less-developed nations, this book sheds new light on the means by which the 'fourth branch of government' can be made both effective and well-suited to the local culture. This collection is a valuable resource for scholars of public administration and political science as well as for professional administrators in the United States and abroad.
Political elites are a key topic in contemporary China studies, and have been investigated in relation to factional politics, generation politics, technocracy, and crucially, institutionalization. The institutionalization of elite replacement began in China in the 1980s and quickly accelerated after the early 1990s, as mechanisms emerged to regulate political elites' entry and exit, including age limits, term limits, and step-by-step promotion. By examining the various processes of elite selection, this book explores the role played by institutionalization in elite recruitment, promotion and turnover in China. While existing studies have developed our understanding of Chinese elite politics, two key puzzles regarding institutionalisation remain. Although institutionalisation is recognised as an important trend in Chinese politics, there is as yet no theoretical framework to explain the forces that have brought about and sustained this. Further, it is unclear how the process of institutionalisation has impacted on factional politics, and how factions would continue to operate within the parameters of formal politics. Drawing on a wide range of studies, this book looks at Politburo members, senior People's Liberation Army officers, provincial leaders, heads of major central state-owned enterprises, and Youth League affiliates, to provide a comprehensive understanding of elite recruitment and mobility in contemporary China. This book will be of great interests to students and scholars of Chinese politics and government, Chinese studies and Asian politics more broadly.
The contributors to this book critically examine the performance of new modes of governance in areas of limited statehood, drawing on a range of in-depth case studies on issues of climate change, biodiversity, and health. The Paris Agreement for Climate Change or the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) rely on new modes of governance for implementation. New modes of governance such as market-based instruments, public-private partnerships or stakeholder participation initiatives have been praised for playing a pivotal role in effective and legitimate sustainability governance. Yet, do they also deliver in areas of limited statehood? States such as Malaysia or the Dominican Republic partly lack the ability to implement and enforce rules; their domestic sovereignty is limited. Exploring this perspective on governance, the authors demonstrate that areas of limited statehood are not ungoverned or ungovernable spaces. The book elaborates how and under what conditions new modes of governance emerge in areas of limited statehood, and examines their relative effectiveness.
This comprehensive biography of Eduardo Rene Chibas (1907-1951) traces the life and times of Cuba's most popular and charismatic politician during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Chibas, whose admirers included young Fidel Castro, emphasized honesty in Cuban public life and promised to sweep away corrupt politicians during his popular Sunday broadcasts. His ties with supporters, many of whom knew him simply as "Eddy," were closer and more informal than any previous Cuban politician. During his 1948 presidential campaign, Chibas often hurled himself into the arms of adoring supporters after speeches. Such gestures were met with wonder and disgust by politicians more accustomed to buying votes than winning hearts. His suicide in 1951 dashed the dreams of his followers-who hoped he would deliver an honest government that provided services for the island's poor and respected Cuba's progressive 1940 constitution. His death, which was followed seven months hence by a military coup and eight years later by Castro's revolution, represents one of the great what ifs of Cuban politics. This seminal work explores Chibas's life in order to explain the nature of Cuban politics from the mid-twentieth century to today.
In his time, there was no more popular national figure than Theodore Roosevelt. It was not just the energy he brought to every political office he held or his unshakable moral convictions that made him so popular, or even his status as a bonafide war hero,the man who led the Rough Riders up San Juan Hill in Cuba during the Spanish-American war. Most important, Theodore Roosevelt was loved by the people because this scion of a privileged New York family loved America and Americans.And yet, according to Bill Brands, if we look at the private Roosevelt without blinders, we see a man whose great public strengths hid enormous personal deficiencies. His highly exaggerated, and often uncompromising ways drove many of his business and personal friends crazy. His historical writings, which Brands quotes from extensively, are nothing if not a portrait of a boy's endless macho fantasies. He was often so full of himself that his speeches and writings were the frequent subject of fierce satire in their time.Even more revealing, according to Brands, was Roosevelt as son, brother, husband, and father. According to Brands, to understand both the public and private Roosevelt one must understand the impact of his father's death while he was still a child, denying him the opportunity to come to terms with his own manhood. When his first wife Alice died of complications from childbirth, leaving behind a baby daughter Alice, his response was to run away to shoot Buffalo in the west, leaving the newborn infant to the care of his unmarried sister Bamie. When his second wife Edith was seriously, perhaps fatally ill, he left her to fight in the Spanish-American war. His only concern when his brother Elliot, who had been his only friend as a child, became an alcoholic was to hide the news from the public. Determined that his four sons would not dishonor his belief that men, to achieve their manhood, must test themselves in war, he arranged for each to serve, often in the frontlines, during WWI. His youngest son Quentin would die in that cause.Beautifully written, powerfully moved by its subject, TR is nonetheless a biography more appropriate to today's critical times.
Replete with practical advice for anyone considering a career in federal, state, or local government, "Caught between the Dog and the Fireplug, or How to Survive Public Service" conveys what life is really like in a public service job. The book is written as a series of lively, entertaining letters of advice from a sympathetic uncle to a niece or nephew embarking on a government career. Kenneth Ashworth draws on more than forty years of public sector experience to provide advice on the daily challenges that future public servants can expect to face: working with politicians, bureaucracy, and the press; dealing with unpleasant and difficult people; leading supervisors as well as subordinates; and maintaining high ethical standards. Ashworth relates anecdotes from his jobs in Texas, California, and Washington, D.C., that illustrate with humor and wit fundamental concepts of public administration. Be prepared, says Ashworth, to encounter all sorts of unexpected situations, from the hostile to the bizarre, from the intimidating to the outrageous. He shows that in the confrontational world of public policymaking and program implementation, a successful career demands disciplined, informed thought, intellectual and personal growth, and broad reading. He demonstrates how, despite the inevitable inefficiencies of a democratic society, those working to shape policy in large organizations can nonetheless effect significant change-and even have fun along the way. The book will interest students and teachers of public administration, public affairs, policy development, leadership, or higher education administration. Ashworth's advice will also appeal to anyone who has ever been caught in a tight spot while working in government service.
This book explores the development of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) from a liberation movement to a national authority, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). Based on intensive fieldwork in the West Bank, Gaza and Cairo, Nigel Parsons analyzes Palestinian internal politics and their institutional-building by looking at the development of the PLO. Drawing on interviews with leading figures in the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, delegates to the negotiations with Israel, and the Palestinian political opposition, it is a timely account of the Israel/Palestine conflict from a Palestinian political perspective.
Physical safety is a core task of government. It is neither surprising nor unreasonable for government to be held accountable for hazardous substances, for food safety, for flood protection, for the spread of infectious diseases, or for the risks involved in new technologies. In 2011 the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations asked the Scientific Council for Government Policy (wrr) to investigate the scope for the development of a generic risk policy in relation to physical safety. Do citizens and businesses take sufficient responsibility for physical safety? Could the government assume a smaller role, and what part could the business community play in this? In this report the WRR argues that in order to answer these questions a distinction needs to be made between incidents, damage, risk and uncertainty. In addition, the wrr recommends that the thinking about responsibility for safety should not be placed in the perspective of a failing government, but that the central focus should be on the ambition of good governance. Finally, the wrr suggests that thinking about safety from the perspective of damage offers a useful framework for thinking through and reassessing the distribution of responsibilities. Responsibility for preventing, limiting and dealing with damage can only be assigned in advance, not retrospectively.
The International Directory of Government is the definitive guide to people in power in every part of the world. All the top decision-makers are included in this one-volume publication, which brings together government institutions, agencies and personnel from the largest nations (China, India, Russia, etc.) to the smallest overseas dependencies (Guadeloupe, Guernsey and Christmas Island, etc). Institutional entries contain the names and titles of principal officials, postal, e-mail and internet addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and other relevant details. New for 2012 The new 9th edition will reflect changes to government ministers and ministries following twelve months of dramatic political events around the world, from mid-2011 to mid-2012, including:
Users will benefit from:
For a number of countries, information has also been included about provincial government where considerable power is devolved to government at that level.
"Decentralise authority and let managers manage" has been an almost universal message in UK public services over the last 15 years. But does it really work? This study attempts to show that behind the ministerial rhetoric the experiences of NHS trusts, grant maintained schools and housing associations were in practice distinctly mixed. The text offers a theoretical analysis of the origins and results of decentralized public management in the UK.
Privatization of local government is making headlines throughout the world. Scottsdale, Arizona, contracts for fire protection; Baltimore, to run nine city schools; and Chicago and Philadelphia for a range of services from janitors to recreational facilities. The United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia have arguably gone further than the United States. But much of the debate on contracting has been high on politics, philosophy, and emotion with little attention to practical issues of how to do contracting well. The book shifts the debate away from the politics and rhetoric to the practicalities and realities of contracting. The book is concerned with four issues--the role of contracting in government, the appropriateness of different contracting strategies, the process of contracting, and who does the contracting. Drawing on examples in the United States and the United Kingdom, the author considers the historical and cultural context of contracting, where contracting works and where it doesn't, the features of smart contracting, and the conditions that are conducive to smart contracting. The book provides an invaluable guide to those concerned with the practicalities of contracting.
China has become a land of protests, though the Chinese state possesses considerable administrative capacity. In this volume, Manfred Elfstrom and Yao Li provide an overview of Chinese contentious politics. They dig deep into major forms of social conflict, explore structural explanations for why protest occurs in China, and describe the ways in which various organizations and framings of issues by citizens affect how protests play out. Shifting to where grassroots activism ultimately leads, Elfstrom and Li survey China's coercive and conciliatory institutions for maintaining social control, document and explain patterns in the state's handling of different types of resistance, and examine the social and political impact of unrest. This work not only contributes to a deeper understanding of contentious politics and governance in China, but also provides insights for studies of social movements and authoritarian politics in general.
A powerful exploration of the role of women in the Republican Party that enhances readers' understanding of gender representation in the GOP and suggests solutions to address the partisan gender gap. Why is the Republican Party dominated by men to a far greater extent than its primary rival? With literature on conservative women in the United States still in its infancy, this book fills an important gap. It does so by examining Republican women as distinct from their male Republican and Democratic female counterparts and also by exploring the shifting role of Republican women in their party and in politics overall. The book brings those subjects together in one volume that will provide fascinating reading to students, scholars, and anyone else interested in U.S. politics. The analysis is presented in four parts, beginning with a look at the role of women as voters and activists in the GOP. The second section explores the process of candidate emergence, tackling the question as to why so few women run as Republicans and why those who do are less successful than their Democratic female and Republican male counterparts. In the third part, the contributors shed light on Republican women in Congress and state legislatures and their behavior as lawmakers. The final section assesses the outcome of the 2016 election for Republican women in general and, specifically, for Carly Fiorina, the only female candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Each section of the book concludes with a short "guide to action" that takes the insights set forth and applies them to suggest ways to promote a greater involvement of women in the Republican Party. Analyzes the role of women in the Republican Party, something that must be understood if America is to achieve equal representation of women in the U.S. Congress and state governments Fills an important gap in knowledge regarding the presence and impact of women in the Republican Party Suggests ways members of the Republican Party can remedy the underrepresentation of women in their ranks Brings together chapters contributed by leading experts in the field of women and politics
The International Directory of Government is the definitive guide to people in power in every part of the world. All the top decision-makers are included in this one-volume publication, which brings together government institutions, agencies and personnel in every country and dependency in the world. Each chapter offers information about: the country's system of government the head of state the legislature government ministers and ministries the election commission the judiciary state-related agencies and other institutions arranged by subject heading. For a number of countries, information has also been included about provincial government where considerable power is devolved to government at that level. Institutional entries contain the names and titles of principal officials, postal, e-mail and internet addresses, telephone, and fax numbers and other relevant details.
David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's budget director, proclaimed the Small Business Administration a "billion-dollar waste -- a rathole", and set out to abolish the agency. His scathing critique was but the latest attack on an agency better known as the "Small Scandal Administration". Loans to criminals, government contracts for minority "fronts", the classification of American Motors as a small business, Whitewater, and other scandals -- the Small Business Administration has lurched from one embarrassment to another. Despite the scandals and the policy failures, the SBA thrives and small business remains a sacred cow in American politics. Part of this sacredness comes from the agency's longstanding record of pioneering affirmative action. Jonathan Bean reveals that even before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the SBA promoted African American businesses, encouraged the hiring of minorities, and monitored the employment practices of loan recipients. Under Nixon, the agency expanded racial preferences. During the Reagan administration, politicians wrapped themselves in the mantle of minority enterprise even as they denounced quotas elsewhere. Created by Congress in 1953, the SBA does not conform to traditional interpretations of interest-group democracy. Even though the public -- and Congress -- favors small enterprise, there has never been a unified group of small business owners requesting the government's help. Indeed, the SBA often has failed to address the real problems of "Mom and Pop" shop owners, fueling the ongoing debate about the agency's viability.
The uneasy relationship between the arts, US art museums, and the federal government has not been thoroughly explored by scholars. This book focuses on the development of "national diplomacy exhibitions" during World War II and the early Cold War and explains how the War provided the government with an impetus to create a national arts policy. It discusses how national diplomacy exhibitions on US soil were deployed as persuasive tools to influence public opinion, to reconcile discrepancies between high art and democracy, and to resolve America's lagging art status and difficulties with "the foreign." The type of soft diplomacy that art museums provide by initiating national diplomacy exhibitions has not received emphasis in the scholarly community and art museums have essentially been ignored in cultural studies of the early Cold War. Scholarly analysis of museum exhibitions in the last quarter of the 20th century is now a popular topic, but investigations of exhibitions between 1939-1960 have been thin. By scrutinizing major exhibitions during those formative years this book takes a new perspective and examines the foundational development of the so-called "blockbuster" exhibition stimulated by World War II. The book will interest readers in visual studies, history, museums, cultural affairs, government, and international diplomacy.
Hillary Rodham Clinton's inside account of the crises, choices and challenges she faced during her four years as America's 67th Secretary of State, and how those experiences drive her view of the future. 'All of us face hard choices in our lives,' Hillary Rodham Clinton writes at the start of this personal chronicle of years at the centre of world events. 'Life is about making such choices. Our choices and how we handle them shape the people we become.' In the aftermath of her 2008 presidential run, she expected to return to representing New York in the Unites States Senate. To her surprise, her formal rival for the Democratic Party nomination, newly elected President Barack Obama, asked her to serve in his administration as Secretary of State. This memoir is the story of the four extraordinary and historic years that followed, and the hard choices that she and her colleagues confronted. Secretary Clinton and President Obama had to decide how to repair fractured alliances, wind down two wars and address a global financial crisis. They faced a rising competitor in China, growing threats from Iran and North Korea, and revolutions across the Middle East. Along the way, they grappled with some of the toughest dilemmas of US foreign policy, especially the decision to send Americans into harm's way, from Afghanistan to Libya to the hunt for Osama bin Laden. By the end of her tenure, Secretary Clinton had visited 112 countries, travelled nearly one million miles and gained a truly global perspective on many of the major trends reshaping the landscape of the twenty-first century, from economic inequality to climate change to revolutions in energy, communications and health. Drawing on conversations with numerous leaders and experts, Secretary Clinton offers her views on what it will take for the United States to compete and thrive in an interdependent world. She makes a passionate case for human rights and the full participation in society of girls, youth and LGBT people. An astute eyewitness to decades of social change, she distinguishes the trendlines from the headlines and describes the progress occurring throughout the world, day after day. Secretary Clinton's descriptions of diplomatic conversations at the highest levels offer readers a masterclass in international relations, as does her analysis of how we can best use 'smart power' to deliver security and prosperity in a rapidly changing world - one in which America remains the indispensable nation.
This volume addresses, specifically, priority fields of science in which joint, multidisciplinary research should be developed, encompassing rational use of natural resources and regional sustainable development, as well as the monitoring of the biosphere's ecosystem state and the risks of natural and anthropogenic hazards, and the creation of new materials and technologies. The list of priorities includes Siberia's economic, social and humanitarian problems, as well as the development of information systems for the rapid exchange of scientific data. The contributors suggest that there is a recognized need for the involvement of young scientists in partnership laboratories, in a probationary capacity.
Placing the development of the Soviet and Russian central governments in theoretical context, this work breaks new ground in the study of contemporary Russian politics. Iulia Shevchenko's creative treatment of the principal-agent model offers fresh insight into the institutional origins of change in government organization in the communist and post-communist period, from President Gorbachev to President Putin. She demonstrates that government organization varies with the extent to which the principal actors - the president and parliament - are prepared to empower the cabinet to actively develop rather than just implement policy. Delegation of broad decision-making powers, which occurs when the policy environment is highly competitive, is a crucial factor explaining the uneven dynamics of government development during this period. The originality of this work, rich with supporting evidence and empirical data, will ensure that it becomes the standard source for students and scholars concerned with this aspect of post-Soviet politics.
Freedom and the Rule of Law takes a critical look at the historical beginnings of law in the United States, and how that history has influenced current trends regarding law and freedom. Anthony Peacock has compiled articles that examine the relationship between freedom and the rule of law in America. Although this is a theme that has been a perennial one since America's founding, it is also one of particular importance today, and this book explains how history makes this apparent. The rule of law is fundamental to all liberal constitutional regimes whose political orders recognize the equal natural rights of all, and whose purpose is to protect those natural rights in addition to the general welfare. The rule of law was essential to achieving both of these ends and to reconciling them where necessary. But just how free is America today? It was certainly within the contemplation of the Founders that the federal judiciary would have a significant role in interpreting the Constitution, federal laws, and treaties, but it would be difficult to argue that those who framed and ratified the Constitution contemplated a role for the courts, particularly for the United States Supreme Court, of the magnitude they have today. The writers take the reader far back into history to the very roots of American Law by examining the English common law roots that provided the foundation for the rule of law in America. This book explores these phenomena and other recent developments in American freedom through history.
This book outlines the findings and suggestions of the Law and Society Association's International Research Collaborations, which focused on the African Union's Agenda 2063. This outlined the ideal Africa aspired to by the year 2063: 'the Africa we want'. The authors examine socio-economic rights issues and their impact on developing a strong educational agenda that can drive Africa to realize Agenda 2063. As Africa's development has remained slow in the face of many challenges, the need to embrace good governance, rule of law and human rights obligations are major tools to realize the continent's potential. The project focuses in particular on the central place of education law and policy in achieving the goals of Agenda 2063.
The International Directory of Government is the definitive guide
to people in power in every part of the world. All the world's top
decision-makers are included in this one-volume publication, which
details more than 17,500 government ministries, departments,
agencies, corporations and their connected bodies. Each chapter
contains:
From the author of "First in His Class," the definitive biography
of Bill Clinton, this "New York Times" bestseller was hailed by
critics as a groundbreaking multigenerational biography, a richly
textured account of President Obama and the forces that shaped him
and sustain him. |
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