"The athor views the fiscal crisis as both a product and the process of class struggle. . . . Interview data and documents are combined to present a useful and interesting counter-perspective sensitive to the contingencies of struggle." Choice

"The Little Platoons" examines sub-local government--the small-scale structures of civil society that lie between the individual and large governmental actors--in England, France, Germany, the United States, Russia, China, and Japan. The work examines community councils, educational districts, neighborhood organizations, and the like, as seen in various societies in the modern age. And, in identifying common attributes of these civil and societal organizations, the work has particular relevance--and indeed makes ameliorative recommendations--for the problems of our modern cities. In a period of dissatisfaction with a self-regarding and centralized political class and with both market and bureaucratic institutions, Liebmann's thoughtful analysis of community and civil organization in a variety of societies and traditions broadens our understanding of comparative politics and sociology, urban planning, and state and local government.

Affirmative action programs have been implemented in over 50 jurisdictions in the United States, yet studies of a number of these communities have shown that most efforts to meet proposed race-conscious hiring goals have been unsuccessful. This unique comparative case study investigates the reasons for the success or failure of affirmative action programs in two Southern communities. Augustus J. Jones, Jr. challenges the findings in the literature that affirmative action efforts are doomed to failure. This analysis does what similar studies have failed to do: it identifies and defines those elements--communications, resources, commitment, political-social conditions, and bureaucratic arrangements--required for the successful execution of any public policy program, and then offers appropriate strategies in a detailed, step-by-step approach for successfully executing affirmative action goals. Research for the volume includes over 50 interviews of city, state, and federal officials responsible for implementing affirmative action goals, on-the-spot observations of the communities' affirmative action shops, and written records of city and country commission meetings.

Following an introductory chapter that outlines the purpose, justifications, and methodology of the work, the second chapter compares variables within the two communities, such as their civil rights records, political orientation, and progress in meeting affirmative action goals. Five subsequent chapters focus on the key elements in race-conscious hiring programs, including communications, resources, commitment, political conditions, and organizational arrangements. The final chapter offers conclusions, a recipe for successful affirmative action programs, and speculations about the future of these programs. This useful assessment will become a standard affirmative action how-to book for scholars, students, policy analysts, bureaucrats both inside and outside government, and equal opportunity officers at the federal, state, and local levels who are responsible for implementing and enforcing equal opportunity laws and affirmative action goals.

Once upon a time, a group of libertarians got together and hatched the Free Town Project, a plan to take over an American town and completely eliminate its government. In 2004, Grafton, NH, a barely populated settlement with one paved road, turned that plan into reality. Public funding for pretty much everything shrank: the fire department, the library, the schoolhouse. State and federal laws didn't disappear, but they got quieter: meek suggestions barely heard in the town's thick wilderness. The bears, on the other hand, were increasingly visible. Grafton's freedom-loving citizens ignored hunting laws and regulations on food disposal. They built a tent city, in an effort to get off the grid. And with a large and growing local bear population, conflict became inevitable. A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear is both a screwball comedy and the story of a radically American commitment to freedom. Full of colorful characters, puns and jokes, and one large social experiment, it is a quintessentially American story, a bearing of our national soul.

The growth in power of government bureaucracies is one of the more profound developments of 20th-century society. Bureaucracies impact the quality of life of every person in this country and many millions outside American borders. The president, governors, mayors, legislators, judges, and the public now are increasingly concerned with how bureaucracies are using their power, and accountability is at the heart of these concerns. For what and to whom are bureaucracies accountable? This acclaimed text examines these questions, primarily in the context of the federal bureaucracy.

Building upon the second edition of the text, Rosen updated the entire work to incorporate significant subsequent developments. Among the most important are the Chief Financial Officer Act of 1990, the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, and the Government Management Reform Act of 1994. These three laws, with the Clinton administration's National Performance Review initiative, could substantially improve performance and accountability. The text clearly and systematically examines issues of accountability that are of concern to students and researchers as well as policymakers in the area of public administration.

In the waning moments of the 1973 session, Washington's state legislators voted salary increases for all elected officials. Charles H. Sheldon and Frank P. Weaver (who was one of the special judges) provide a unique insider's account of this important episode.

This volume examines how presidents from Truman to Bush rhetorically approached and managed political, military, judicial, legislative, and economic crises during their presidencies. Editor Amos Kiewe assembles new essays by communications scholars who look at rhetoric initiated during national crises, and account for various rhetorical developments affected by crises, changes in presidential rhetoric, and rhetorical and situational crisis constraints. Their studies suggest similarities in rhetoric in different types of crises, and yield resources for postulating patterns of crisis rhetoric.

Each chapter's author presents a crisis rhetoric case study, analyzing initial strategies and tactics, shifts in rhetorical tactics, adjustments of discourse to particular phases in the crises, and unique rhetorical approaches designed to accommodate unexpected turns of events. The contributors discuss how presidents use rhetorical inventions, flip-flops, face-saving posturing, and even silence to diffuse crises. Specific topics include Eisenhower's response to the constitutional crisis in Little Rock, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall crisis, Johnson and the Kennedy assassination, Nixon and Watergate, and Bush and the Persian Gulf Crisis. Recommended for political scientists and communication theorists.

Should we be doing--or trying to do--everything ourselves, or might it be better to contract some tasks out to others? Could they do them better and cheaper than we can? More and more state and local governments are asking these questions, and while there are many answers on the Federal level, these answers often don't apply lower down the line. Nevertheless, it is evident that contracting out is often the better strategy--but how best to go about it? What are the benefits and what are the hidden risks? Dr. O'Looney's book provides precisely the guidance that state and local managers need: first, how to decide to outsource a government service, then step-by-step how to proceed. Based on extensive interviews and other research, O'Looney takes managers through the intricacies of contract outsourcing and administration, but in doing so he makes clear that he appreciates the importance of government. His book is not an argument for privatization, as so many other books are; rather, it is an affirmation of government and the benefits of its many services.

Readers will find theory and advice on the services that are most suitable for contracting out; a listing and review of the components of a high-quality analysis, including the analysis of often overlooked political, organizational, and functional aspects of government; advice on how to go from deciding to outsource to actually designing, implementing, and monitoring a contract in situations that could prove hazardous to the livelihoods of government workers. He also discusses the changes that need to be made in the organizational culture, management, and employee training as a result of the change to a contract-based system of providing services; the considerations in designing work specifications and other critical aspects of the government-vendor relationship, and how ideal contracting processes and ideal contracts can differ according to the nature of the service being contracted. The result is a thorough and highly practical volume for executives and managers in the public sector, and for those who hope to do business with them.

This collection of essays surveys one hundred years of local administration in Britain.

This engaging account of political initiation, campaigns, and service in elected offices of increasing responsibility will interest and entertain a wide range of readers. Ackermann's experience as Mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts, offers important lessons for the political volunteer and insights for the student of politics. It is a rich resource for teachers of government, urban politics, and public administration. Through the author's eyes we see the issues, the problems, and the people that make a modern city so vital and diverse a place, and its leadership and management so delicate and complex an undertaking.

Barbara Ackermann's engaging account of her years as a city politician in Cambridge shows how elected and appointed officials and civil servants work together as they grapple with issues voters want action on, deal with political fights for positions of power, and cope with outside forces, such as the anti-war riots and protests of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The events and people portrayed in this volume represent the best and the worst of local government. "Education of a Mayor" not only recounts how one elected official learned her job, it also reveals much about how the system can work and describes what happens when it doesn't work.

Voluntarism, Planning, and the State presents a series of case studies of the planning process in the context of modern American history in the period between World War I and World War II. Each essay draws on the works of leading scholars in the field and attempts to make specific evaluations of broad generalizations about the planning experience in the United States. The studies examine such relevant topics as unemployment reform, labor relations, military peacetime planning, New Deal planning, and the postwar debate over price and wage controls.

This new work offers an in-depth look at the roles played by professional local government managers within the changing circumstances of American community life. It analyzes the societal and political influences that have shaped the professionalization of local government managers, and projects how the roles of these officers will develop, now that the professional movement has been accepted. In preparing the work, the author has accessed, for the first time, the International City Management Association's decade of national survey information on cities and countries with recognized professional administrative officers. Data from this study is merged with two author-conducted surveys of communities with recognized professional, full-time managers, allowing the author to analyze the local government profession as seen over a 13-year period.

The book opens with a discussion of the trends in professional roles and presents profiles of city managers and their career paths (the link between professional education and experience). Next it covers the occupational values and associated activities (the symbolic and practical roles of professional public managers) and the impact of the professional movement on practitioners, their jobs, and their cities. The book also presents a typology of professional services, status, and standards and gives a general evaluation of the profession of local government management and its place in the community. An extensive research bibliography is included. This book will have equal appeal for academics in public administration and practitioners in local government (state, city, county, and so on).

This volume provides a unique insight into the ways local governments have maintained financial resilience in the face of the significant challenges posed by the era of austerity. Taking an international perspective, it provides an enlightening and practical analysis of the different capacities and responses that local governments deploy to cope with financial shocks.Moving beyond traditional approaches dealing with financial stress, the financial resilience perspective reveals a wider range of organisational responses and enables consideration of the dynamic role played by internal and external contextual factors. The international case study approach allows for a comparative analysis of financial resilience in the context of different administrative and policy environments. By providing a unifying view of financial resilience, the importance of building resilience into organisational financial management is demonstrated, uncovering the relative effectiveness of different resilience building approaches. This edited volume is a valuable source for practitioners and academics, as well as students of public policy, public management and financial management.

Connecting the 'English School' approach to International Relations with the increasingly important region of Southeast Asia, this book is the first comprehensive assessment of this region-theory linkage. Surveying a range of areas, including interstate relations, the community-building goals of the region's foremost international organization, relations with civil society, the impact of non-state actors, and the role of individuals in regional dynamics, it concludes that both region and theory can gain from a broader dialogue than has yet been attempted. On the one hand, English School ideas can project a more nuanced and integrated picture of the region. On the other, the region can challenge English School thinking, input different ideas and practices, and encourage refinements and innovations. This book takes a fresh look at the international and transnational dynamics of Southeast Asia and explores the theoretical possibilities of the English School approach, signaling productive ways forward for the theory.

This is a study of local government and permissive legislation in nineteenth-century Britain. It argues that permissive legislation facilitated local initiative and debate, and that local initiatives were often more effective than national legislation. In the eighteenth century, every locality which wished to improve or police its streets had to obtain its own private Act of Parliament. By the nineteenth century, when the construction of a habitable urban environment had become a matter of urgency, Parliament had recourse to `permissive' or `adoptive' legislation, which the localities were free to adopt, or not, as they chose. Parliament facilitated, but did not require, local action, and so long as initiative and responsibility remained in local hands, relations between central and local government were relaxed. In the 1850s and 1860s, the House of Commons conceived itself to be an imperial parliament, not a vestry, and Local Boards thought of themselves as parliaments in miniature. Thereafter Parliament's preference for a permissive system gradually yielded to a concern with equality of provision. Twentieth-century historians have largely written from the point of view of the centralizers and the permanent officials in the Department of State. Liberty and Locality puts the emphasis back upon Parliament, where the decisions were taken, and the localities themselves, where their consequences were felt.

One of the last Prussian Reforms during the Napoleonic Era was the constitution of local autonomy for the cities. Proof of its lasting importance is that it was the cities that carried out the deficit-based employment policies of the early 1930s also had to carry the burden of a democratic reconstitution of Germany in the postwar period. After the crushing defeat at Napoleon's hands, likewise the reconstitution of Prussia fell to the cities. Today, the same constellation of problems can be found on different stages. Europe, as it is growing together, faces a democracy deficit which ultimately will have to be addressed by the cities. The countries in transition and undergoing transformation likewise will have to find arenas for democratic decision making, which likely will be at the municipal level. Finally, the United States of America also faces a quagmire at the federal level which ultimately will have to be resolved at the state or local level. Contributions to this book examine all of these issues, making it of interest to students in urban studies, public administration, history and political science as well as policy-makers concerned with local government and autonomy.

In this timely new book, Carolyn Smith develops a methodology for the study and criticism of presidential press conferences. Moving away from the traditional method of studying the presidential rhetoric of prepared speeches, Smith proposes methods of criticism for the quasi-spontaneous environment of the press conference where the control of messages is divided between the president and the press. The book offers a detailed critical assessment of Ronald Reagan's relationship with reporters during his eight years in office. From this assessment, Smith develops her approach to press conference criticism. She proposes the development of standards by which to judge good, bad, and indifferent press exchanges and focuses on the internal dynamics of press conferences as they now exist. Noting that presidential press conference reform has been tried several times with a general lack of success, Smith points out that these press conferences, whatever their deficiencies, are valuable records worth understanding. The book explores the nature of the presidential press conference and the fundamental importance of the adversarial relationship between the president and the press. Smith includes a valuable summary of the history of the adversarial press conference focusing on those aspects that have made the press conference an institution and an inherently adversarial public encounter. She then puts forth an approach for criticism of the press conference accounting for both the president and the press. Finally, using her own approach, Smith offers sample criticism of Ronald Reagan's press conferences and his relationship with reporters during his first 69 days in office. Students and scholars of journalism, rhetoric, political science, and communication will find Presidential Press Conferences valuable reading.

Macro-regional strategies seek to improve the interplay of the EU with existing regimes and institutions, and foster coherence of transnational policies. Drawing on macro-regional governance and Europeanization, this edited volume provides an overview of processes of macro-regionalization in Europe displaying evidence of their significant impact.

This in-depth survey of the federal law enforcement system is divided into four sections. The first gives an overview of the types of positions available, with their requirements and benefits. The entire second section is devoted to the Department of Justice, the agency solely responsible for the prosecution of federal offenses. . . . (The third section consists of 42 black and white illustrations of federal agency badges.) The agency profiles in the fourth section follow a standard format. . . . The profiles run the gamut of federal enforcement agencies, from the large and well-known, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, to small and obscure agencies such as the Supreme Court Police. The detailed information conveniently brought together in this handbook will make it a useful reference source not only for specialized law enforcement collections but wherever there is interest in public policy or a need for career information. Booklist Here is an in-depth study both of the larger, more publicized federal enforcement agencies and of the smaller ones about which little is known. Special attention is given to agency funding, types of positions available, personnel practices, and to the clarification of criminal, general investigator, and uniformed police positions. The Department of Justice and its specific agencies that perform law enforcement duties are examined in great detail. Photographs of the badges issued by the various federal agencies are included. Profiles of sixty-one federal police and investigative agencies complete with organizational structure charts, personnel strengths, and agency responsibility are arranged alphabetically. Detailed appendices include several examples of the training required for federal agents, important personnel forms, and the 1984 fiscal year salary schedule.

The XXXIII Conference of the American Italian Historical Asso-ciation was held in Lowell Massachusetts, where Greek immi-grants settled at the turn of the century and established a vibrant community. Italians from Calabria, Naples and Sicily soon followed. Throughout the years the two ethnic groups collaborated in many cultural activities, among which the Lowell Opera Company, under the directorship of Vito Selvaggio, originally from "Magna Graecia" in Italy, became a community leader in the cultural life of Lowell. Selvaggio, with his directorship of The Lowell Opera Company, provided a beautiful performance of Italian Operatic pieces to the conference participants.

City of the Right examines the writings of some of today's most influential conservative thinkers. Irving Kristol, William F. Buckley, Edward C. Banfield, Milton Friedman, and novelist Ayn Rand receive extended consideration. Topics discussed range from authority, law and order, and traditional value systems to social welfare programs and the plight of the poor.

Since the first elections of 1994, the South African constitution officially guarantees and promotes a wide range of political and civil rights and institutionalizes the separation of powers with an independent judiciary. This has made South Africa a political symbol of change, hope and democracy in Africa and around the world. However, since the introduction of free and fair electoral processes and with ANC dominating the presidency and the parliamentary seats, the political scene has been scattered by democratic challenges. South Africa remains a flawed democracy, combining free elections and respect for basic civil liberties with problems of governance, an underdeveloped political culture, and low levels of public participation. Today, South Africa stands at a crossroads. While the constitutional democracy has survived, South African democracy seems to have weakened by state capture, internal ANC implosion, corruption, societal polarization, social exclusion, xenophobia, and threats of state economic bankruptcy. South Africa faces growing discontent symbolized in intensified societal and political debates, protests and demonstrations providing for the question if this is a sign of dissatisfied citizens demanding deeper democracy or activities questioning the established constitutional democracy from an anti-democratic, populist, and radical point of view. South Africas Democracy at the Crossroads explores the question; what are the challenges to future democratization in South Africa?