The study focuses on the earthquakes of 5 June 1688 and 14 March 1702 in Benevento, an enclave of the Papal States in the monarchy of Naples. In a multi-perspective analysis, it discusses the mental, political, and socio-economic attempts of the elites in local government and the Papal States to cope with these events. Response to these earthquakes proves to be an essential element in the struggle for supremacy, finally decided in his favour by the Archbishop of Benevento, Cardinal V.M. Orisini (later Pope Benedict XIII), who in contemporary historiography was feted as the a ~saviour of Beneventoa (TM).

En este libro Arturo Santa Cruz desarrolla una concepcion del poder como relacion social y la aplica consistentemente al ambito economico de las relaciones de Estados Unidos con otros paises del hemisferio occidental. Siguiendo el debate academico y popular acerca de los altibajos de la hegemonia estadounidense, este trabajo centra su analisis en un caso critico para el ejercicio del poder estadounidense a traves de su diplomacia economica (o economic statecraft): el continente americano, su zona de influencia historica. La racionalidad del enfoque regional es metodologico: si se puede demostrar que la influencia de Washington ha disminuido en el area desde inicios de la decada de los anos 70 del siglo pasado (cuando la discusion sobre la materia inicio) puede asumirse que lo mismo ha ocurrido en otras latitudes. El analisis se concentra en tres regiones: Norteamerica, Centroamerica y Sudamerica. Puesto que cada region contiene estados que en ocasiones han mantenido muy diferentes relaciones con Estados Unidos, los hallazgos contribuyen a un major entendimiento de la practica del poder en la subregion en cuestion, anadiendo variabilidad a los resultados generales. La hegemonia estadounidense y el continente americano: Poder y diplomacia economica en las relaciones internacionales es una fuente invaluable para estudiantes y academicos interesados en la politica y la historia de America Latina, en la integracion regional en America del Norte, en la teoria de Relaciones Internacionales, en la Diplomacia Economica, en Economia Politica, y en Politica Comparada.

Despite the destabilizing potential of governing of a vast territory and a large multicultural population, the centralized government of the People's Republic of China has held together for decades, resisting efforts at local autonomy. By analyzing Beijing's strategies for maintaining control even in the reformist post-Mao era, Centrifugal Empire reveals the unique thinking behind China's approach to local governance, its historical roots, and its deflection of divergent interests. Centrifugal Empire examines the logic, mode, and instrument of local governance established by the People's Republic, and then compares the current system to the practices of its dynastic predecessors. The result is an expansive portrait of Chinese leaders' attitudes toward regional autonomy and local challenges, one concerned with territory-specific preoccupations and manifesting in constant searches for an optimal design of control. Jae Ho Chung reveals how current communist instruments of local governance echo imperial institutions, while exposing the Leninist regime's savvy adaptation to contemporary issues and its need for more sophisticated inter-local networks to keep its unitary rule intact. He casts the challenges to China's central-local relations as perennial, since the dilution of the system's "socialist" or "Communist" character will only accentuate its fundamentally Chinese-or centrifugal-nature.

This introductory textbook provides an historical overview of developments in local government in post-war Britain. The authors incorporate the latest research into their overview to offer a balanced and up-to-date assessment of the dominant arguments and debates, ideal for all those interested in this central topic in contemporary British history. The book opens with an explanation of the expanding role of local government since the end of World War II. The creation of the Welfare State brought unprecedented demands on local infrastructures which were now to act as the delivery vehicle for national programmes of social reform. These pressures gave rise to questions of capacity, ensuring that issues of structure, functions, finance and personnel would predominate in the postwar period. The authors examine the ways in which local government was developed, investigating social and economic circumstances and the impact of successive government policies. They explore, in particular, the effects of the Thatcher years and the way in which local government reform has been carried forward under Major. Throughout the book the authors balance their historical account with insightful analysis, exploring themes such as the on-going tensions between the accountability of local government officials to ministers, and the perceived value of local responsibility. The book will be welcomed by general readers and students of public administration, political studies and planning.

En este libro Arturo Santa Cruz desarrolla una concepcion del poder como relacion social y la aplica consistentemente al ambito economico de las relaciones de Estados Unidos con otros paises del hemisferio occidental. Siguiendo el debate academico y popular acerca de los altibajos de la hegemonia estadounidense, este trabajo centra su analisis en un caso critico para el ejercicio del poder estadounidense a traves de su diplomacia economica (o economic statecraft): el continente americano, su zona de influencia historica. La racionalidad del enfoque regional es metodologico: si se puede demostrar que la influencia de Washington ha disminuido en el area desde inicios de la decada de los anos 70 del siglo pasado (cuando la discusion sobre la materia inicio) puede asumirse que lo mismo ha ocurrido en otras latitudes. El analisis se concentra en tres regiones: Norteamerica, Centroamerica y Sudamerica. Puesto que cada region contiene estados que en ocasiones han mantenido muy diferentes relaciones con Estados Unidos, los hallazgos contribuyen a un major entendimiento de la practica del poder en la subregion en cuestion, anadiendo variabilidad a los resultados generales. La hegemonia estadounidense y el continente americano: Poder y diplomacia economica en las relaciones internacionales es una fuente invaluable para estudiantes y academicos interesados en la politica y la historia de America Latina, en la integracion regional en America del Norte, en la teoria de Relaciones Internacionales, en la Diplomacia Economica, en Economia Politica, y en Politica Comparada.

This open access book develops a conceptual framework for glocal governance as a multi-stakeholder local governance approach based on global human rights norms and democratic principles. It discusses glocal governance as part of an ongoing global transformation process that began in the 1990s, when democracy and individualizing responsibilities for governance became the dominant political system worldwide, and continues through today's dawn of a New Cold War between those countries which have democratized and those which haven't. This book will intrigue practitioners and scholars alike who are interested in the concepts of glocality and glocalism, local-global connectivity, and the implementation and dissemination of global norms and concepts such as human rights and democracy, at the local and community level as well as among civil society and private enterprises. The author argues that global norms have now become universal benchmarks which private, political, and civil actors use to assess day-to-day situations and market developments, and to make their decisions accordingly. This book will appeal to students, practitioners, and scholars of the social sciences and humanities who are interested in governance, human rights, public diplomacy and international relations; and in conceptualizing mechanisms for governing and enforcing political decisions locally, on the basis of global universal principles, international norms, and laws.

A comprehensive plan from two leading experts on how to fix America's outdated retirement system America's retirement system has serious problems. While it works well for some retirees, millions of others don't have the sound retirement they have worked decades to secure. Roughly 40 percent of today's $4 trillion federal budget is devoted to supporting retirees, which will grow to roughly half over the next decade-imperiling the sustainability of the whole system. The system is out of date. It reflects the America of a bygone age—an era in which company or union pensions provided middle-class families a decent standard of living in retirement. In America today, however, private pensions have mostly disappeared, Social Security is threatened to go insolvent, people are living longer, and health care costs continue to rise. Poorer retirees now must choose between buying enough to eat and their prescription drugs. In The Retirement Challenge, influential former White House economists Martin Neil Baily and Benjamin H. Harris explore America's outdated retirement system and explain how improving retirement requires changes by families, employers, and policymakers alike. Households need to save more, get smarter about their finances, and trade part of their 401(k) balances for insurance products. Companies need to take a more active role in their workers' retirements. And lawmakers need to amend the tax code, Social Security, and a host of other programs. Despite today's wide political divide, policymakers from both parties can come together around changes that will promote a stable retirement. This book shows that these changes do not represent a radical overhaul. If families, businesses, and policymakers do their part, everyone-current retirees and future generations-can enjoy a much more secure and prosperous retirement.

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Offshore Island Politics is a fascinating study of the constitutional and political development of the Isle of Man. The book analyses three broad aspects of twentieth-century political development: constitutional progress towards self-government, elections and public policy and the changing role of the state in Manx society. One of the most important political changes the study addresses is the gradual ascendancy of the directly elected House of Keys in Manx politics. Offshore Island Politics concludes with a look at the final two decades of the century, a period of population growth and unprecedented prosperity for the small offshore island.

Der Tagungsband zu Ehren von Prof. Dr. Gunther Kuhne enthalt Beitrage zum Energieregulierungs- und Wirtschaftsrecht. Die Beitrage untersuchen aktuelle Rechtsentwicklungen, die von wesentlicher Bedeutung fur das deutsche und europaische Energie- und Wirtschaftsrecht sind. Sie gehen der Frage nach, wie der Wechsel der Stromerzeugung von Kernenergie und Kohle hin zu erneuerbaren Energien rechtssicher gestaltet werden kann und in welchem Umfang Mitgliedstaaten die Energieregulierung normativ ausgestalten koennen, ohne die unionsrechtlichen Vorgaben zu verletzen. Die Beitrage analysieren zudem, welche Spielraume fur umlagefinanzierte Foerdersysteme die neue Rechtsprechung des EuGH zum EEG 2012 eroeffnet und inwieweit die jungsten Entscheidungen des EuGH noch Raum fur eine Investitionsschutz-Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit lassen, z.B. im Rahmen des Energiecharta-Vertrags.

This book, written by a leading sociologist, tells Edinburgh's modern story and unveils its power structure. It examines its politics, formal and informal; its changing political economy; and the rise of its status as Festival city. Behind all this lies a complex system of money and culture, of presumed social status tied into a hierarchy of schools and institutions, universities, banks and finance houses. The book explores arguments about what sort of city Edinburgh should be and what it should look like. It examines planning controversies, from post-war developments through various 'holes in the ground' up to and including The Trams controversy. Studying Edinburgh lets us draw lessons about cities in general, and their roles in the modern world.

Drawing on original fieldwork in Nigeria, Portia Roelofs argues for an innovative re-conceptualisation of good governance. Contributing to debates around technocracy, populism and the survival of democracy amidst conditions of inequality and mistrust, Roelofs offers a new account of what it means for leaders to be accountable and transparent. Centred on the rise of the 'Lagos Model' in the Yoruba south-west, this book places the voices of roadside traders and small-time market leaders alongside those of local government officials, political godfathers and technocrats. In doing so, it theorises 'socially-embedded' good governance. Roelofs demonstrates the value of fieldwork for political theory and the associated possibilities for decolonising the study of politics. Challenging the long-held assumptions of the World Bank and other international institutions that African political systems are pathologically dysfunctional, Roelofs demonstrates that politics in Nigeria has much to teach us about good governance.

Early results on election night suggested that Democrats had failed to make significant gains in the 2018 midterms. After all the votes were counted, a blue wave crashed on American electoral politics as Democrats won the House the Representatives and made significant gains at the state and local levels. In this book, Larry Sabato and Kyle Kondik bring together respected journalists and academics from across the political spectrum to examine every facet of the 2018 election, and what its outcome portends for our national politics and the coming 2020 presidential election. In frank, accessible prose, each author offers insight that goes beyond the headlines, and dives into the underlying forces and shifts that drove the election from its earliest developments to its eventual conclusion, long after the polls closed. Contributions by Matt Barreto, David Byler, Rhodes Cook, James Hohmann, Theodore Johnson, Kyle Kondik, Diana Owen, Madelaine Pisani, Josh Putnam, Larry Sabato, Emily Cahn Singer, Sean Trende, Michael Toner, and Karen Trainer.

This book is about village governance in China during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Drawing on government archives from Huailu county, Ilebei province, this book explores the operational realities of local practices as well as institutionally imposed social control, land taxation, and self government at the village level. Its analysis of peasant behaviors bridges the gap between the rational choice and moral economy models by taking into account both material and symbolic dimensions of power and interest in the peasant community. The author's interpretation of village/state relations before 1900 transcends the state and society dichotomy and accentuates the interplay between formal and informal institutions and practices. His account of state making after 1900 underscores the continuity of endogenous arrangements in the course of institutional formalization and the interpenetration between official discourse and popular notions in the new process of political legitimization.

Curtains up explores city diplomacy in global migration governance. The author lays out the paradox that cities, although increasingly de facto migration actors in an urbanizing world, lack channels to influence international policies that directly impact local realities. Drawing on ten case studies from around the world, the author shows that local governments strive to overcome this paradox through global-level interaction with national and international actors contributing to the emergence of a role of cities in global migration governance. Cities draw on this role to influence migration narratives, place local issues on global agendas and demand a seat at decision-making tables. Advancing the analysis of cities as global-level actors, the author introduces role theory to migration studies and presents a series of timely policy recommendations. These set out concrete steps towards a stronger institutionalization of city diplomacy in global migration governance.This book is written for scholars of migration studies, urban studies, and international relations as well as for practitioners focusing on multi-level migration governance, city diplomacy and multi-stakeholder partnerships.

Socialist cities have special qualities which endure in particular, subtle, and often under-theorized ways. This book engages with socialism on a global scale, as well as the variety of socialist urbanisms and post-socialist urbanisms, and the range of ways in which globalization intersects with changes in socialist and post-socialist cities. Offering a unique international comparative focus, the book's fourteen case studies from Asia, Europe, Latin America, and Africa are grouped under three main themes: housing experiences and life trajectories, planning and architecture, and governance and social order. Featuring contributors from a range of disciplinary backgrounds and research foci, Socialist and Post-Socialist Urbanisms brings together a collection of essays on cities that are often overlooked in mainstream urban studies.

In this book, George Robert Bateman, Jr. presents a philosophical examination of the potential benefits of participatory budgeting (PB), with recommendations of how they might be realized. The work of social philosophers like Thomas Jefferson, John Dewey, Robert Putnam are studied to better understand the potential benefits and their effect on individuals and communities. Using social provisioning and John Fagg Foster's theories of instrumental value and institutional adjustment, Bateman demonstrates how participatory budgeting in New York City (PBNYC) can realize its full potential and transform individual participants into their better selves and also transform their communities. This transformation can occur when participants are able to make decisions about things that matter in their lives. As more of us become empowered and actively engaged in deliberations concerning local economic/political issues the more we will experience public happiness, greater understanding of others, greater development of our morality, and an increased sense of belonging. The Transformative Potential of Participatory Budgeting will be of great interest to scholars in the fields of normative political theory, political philosophy, local politics, heterodox economics, institutional economics, political sociology, urban sociology, and community sociology.

China has witnessed numerous incidents of social protests over the past three decades. Protests create uncertainty for authoritarian governments, and the Chinese government has created, strengthened, and coordinated multiple dispute-resolution institutions to manage social conflicts and protests. Accommodating the aggrieved prevents the accumulation of grievances in society, but concessions require resources. As the frequency and scale of collective action are closely tied to the political opportunity for action, the Chinese government has also contained protest by shaping the political opportunity available to the aggrieved. Cai and Chen show that when the Chinese central government prioritizes social control, as it has under Xi Jinping's leadership, it signals that it will tolerate local governments' use of coercion. The result is an environment that is not conducive to the mobilization of collective action, large-scale occurrences of which have been uncommon in China in recent years.

Toronto prides itself on being "the world's most diverse city," and its officials seek to support this diversity through programs and policies designed to promote social inclusion. Yet this progressive vision of law often falls short in practice, limited by problems inherent in the political culture itself. In "Everyday Law on the Street", Mariana Valverde brings to light the often unexpected ways that the development and implementation of policies shape everyday urban life. Drawing on four years spent participating in council hearings and civic association meetings, and shadowing housing inspectors and law enforcement officials as they went about their day-to-day work, Valverde reveals a telling transformation between law on the books and law on the streets. She finds, for example, that some of the democratic governing mechanisms generally applauded - public meetings, for instance - actually create disadvantages for marginalized groups, whose members are less likely to attend or articulate their concerns. As a result, both officials and citizens fail to see problems outside the point of view of their own needs and neighborhood. Taking issue with Jane Jacobs and many others, Valverde ultimately argues that Toronto and other diverse cities must reevaluate their allegiance to strictly local solutions. If urban diversity is to be truly inclusive - of tenants as well as homeowners, and recent immigrants as well as longtime residents - cities must move beyond microlocal planning and embrace a more expansive, citywide approach to planning and regulation.

Die Dynamik von Inklusion und Exklusion ist in vielen gesellschaftlichen Bereichen wirksam. Kulturelle Konflikte, politische Spannungen sowie mediale Identitats- und Fremdheitskonstruktionen erzeugen gesellschaftliche Spaltungen und verhindern, dass Menschen an politischen Entscheidungen, Bildungsprozessen, sozialer Sicherheit und Wohlstand partizipieren koennen. Mit welchen Methoden die komplexen Ursachen von Exklusion erklart werden koennen, welche Loesungsansatze unterschiedliche wissenschaftliche Disziplinen entwickeln und inwiefern Prozesse gesellschaftlicher Veranderung angestossen werden koennen, ist Thema der in diesem Band versammelten Beitrage.

The European Parliament (EP) - a powerful actor in today's European Union - was not intended to be more than a consultative assembly at first. Yet this book shows that the EP was much more influential in shaping Community policy in the early years of the integration process than either the founding Treaties or most existing scholarship would allow. It studies the EP's institutional evolution through the lens of Community social policy, a policy area with a particularly strong ideational dimension. By promoting a European social dimension, Members of the EP (MEPs) presented the Parliament as the true representative of European citizens by channelling their interests and needs. MEPs thus emphasised the EP's role as a provider of democratic legitimacy for Community politics, whilst at the same time trying to convince European citizens that the Communities could have a real and positive impact on their everyday lives.

What makes bureaucracy work for the least advantaged? Across the world, countries have adopted policies for universal primary education. Yet, policy implementation is uneven and not well understood. Making Bureaucracy Work investigates when and how public agencies deliver primary education across rural India. Through a multi-level comparative analysis and more than two years of ethnographic field research, Mangla opens the 'black box' of Indian bureaucracy to demonstrate how differences in bureaucratic norms - informal rules that guide public officials and their everyday relations with citizens - generate divergent implementation patterns and outcomes. While some public agencies operate in a legalistic manner and promote compliance with policy rules, others engage in deliberation and encourage flexible problem-solving with local communities, thereby enhancing the quality of education services. This book reveals the complex ways bureaucratic norms interact with socioeconomic inequalities on the ground, illuminating the possibilities and obstacles for bureaucracy to promote inclusive development.

A fresh interpretation of London's early Victorian political culture, devoting particular attention to the relationship which existed between Whigs and vestry-based radicals. In the second quarter of the nineteenth century the British capital witnessed a growing polarisation between metropolitan Whig politicians and the increasingly vocal political force of London radicalism - a tension exacerbated byurban, and in many respects specifically metropolitan, issues. Though Whiggery was a political creed based on tenets such as the defence of parliament and free trade, it has been traditionally thought out of place and out of favour in large urban settings, in part because of its association with aristocracy. By contrast, this book shows it to have been an especially potent force in the early Victorian capital where continual conflict between Whigs and radicals gave the metropolitan constituencies a singularly contested and particularly vibrant liberal political culture. From the mid-1830s, vestry-based metropolitan radicals active in local governing structures began to espouse an anti-Whig programme, aimed in part at undermining their electoral strength in the metropolitan constituencies, which emphasised the preservation and extension of "local self-government". This new cause displaced the older radical rhetorics of constitutional "purification" and "re-balance", and in so doing drove metropolitan radicalism away from its earlier associations and towards a retrenchment-obsessed and anti-aristocratic liberalism. Benjamin Weinstein is assistant professor of history at Central Michigan University.

During the 1950s, amid increased attention to the problems facing cities-such as racial disparities in housing, education, and economic conditions; tense community-police relations; and underrepresentation of minority groups-local governments developed an interest in "human relations." In the wake of the shocking 1965 Watts uprising, a new authority was created: the Los Angeles City Human Relations Commission. Today, such commissions exist all over the United States, charged with addressing such tasks as fighting racial discrimination and improving fair housing access. Brian Calfano and Valerie Martinez-Ebers examine the history and current efforts of human relations commissions in promoting positive intergroup outcomes and enforcing antidiscrimination laws. Drawing on a wide range of theories and methods from political science, social psychology, and public administration, they assess policy approaches, successes, and failures in four cities. The book sheds light on the advantages and disadvantages of different commission types and considers the stresses and expectations placed on commission staff in carrying out difficult agendas in highly charged political contexts. Calfano and Martinez-Ebers suggest that the path to full inclusion is fraught with complications but that human rights commissions provide guidance as to how disparate groups can be brought together to forge a common purpose. The first book to examine these widely occurring yet understudied political bodies, Human Relations Commissions is relevant to a range of urban policy issues of interest to both academics and practitioners.