Much of the scholarly and professional literature on development focuses either on the 'macro' level of national policies and politics or on the 'micro' level of devel- ment projects and household or community socio-economic dynamics. By contrast, this collection pitches itself at the 'meso' level with a comparative exploration of the ways in which local institutions - municipalities, local governments, city authorities, civil society networks and others - have demanded, and taken on, a greater role in planning and managing development in the Latin American region. The book's rich empirical studies reveal that local institutions have engaged upwards, with central authorities, to shape their policy and resource environments and in turn, been pressured from 'below' by local actors contesting the ways in which the structures and processes of local governance are framed. The examples covered in this volume range from global cities, such as Mexico and Santiago, to remote rural areas of the Bolivian and Brazilian Amazon. As a result the book provides a deep understanding of the diversity and complexity of local governance and local development in Latin America, while avoiding the stereotyped claims about the impact of globalisation or the potential benefits of decentralisation, as frequently stated in less empirically grounded analysis.

Just as investors want the companies they hold equity in to do well, homeowners have a financial interest in the success of their communities. If neighborhood schools are good, if property taxes and crime rates are low, then the value of the homeowner's principal asset--his home--will rise. Thus, as William Fischel shows, homeowners become watchful citizens of local government, not merely to improve their quality of life, but also to counteract the risk to their largest asset, a risk that cannot be diversified. Meanwhile, their vigilance promotes a municipal governance that provides services more efficiently than do the state or national government.

Fischel has coined the portmanteau word "homevoter" to crystallize the connection between homeownership and political involvement. The link neatly explains several vexing puzzles, such as why displacement of local taxation by state funds reduces school quality and why local governments are more likely to be efficient providers of environmental amenities. The "Homevoter Hypothesis" thereby makes a strong case for decentralization of the fiscal and regulatory functions of government.

Entstaatlichung, Finanzkrise und demographischer Wandel werden in Politik, Verwaltung und Wissenschaft heute intensiv diskutiert. Resignative Toene sind allgegenwartig. Wo aber sind Chancen zu erkennen? Es geht um Verantwortung in einer neuen Zivilgesellschaft! Hier gewinnt der Dritte Sektor, das Steuerungselement neben Staat und Markt, an Bedeutung: nicht macht- und nicht gewinnorientiert. Von historischen Reflexionen am Beispiel einer mittelalterlichen Stadt uber den Umgang mit alltaglicher Lebensfuhrung in der regionalen Planung oder den Tucken des kommunalpolitischen Alltags bis hin zu der Bedeutung akademischer Bildungseinrichtungen fur eine Region vereint der Band Handlungsstrategien im Kommunalen und Regionalen. Allen Beitragen eigen ist die UEberlegung, dass den kleinteiligen raumlich-gesellschaftlichen Formationen unter den aktuellen Bedingungen eine besondere Aufmerksamkeit zukommen muss.

State and local government fiscal systems have increasingly become vulnerable to economic changes. Over the past three decades, state and local deficits during economic recession have been larger and deeper each time. The impact of the Great Recession and its aftermath of feeble growth and lingering high unemployment has been dramatic both in scope and intensity. Before the crisis, long-term structural deficits were persistent for both individual governments and the entire sector as spending plans and patterns outpaced governments' revenue-generating capacity. The revenue systems of these governments eroded while the workloads and scope on the expenditure side of the state and local system budget continued to grow. This handbook evaluates the persistent problems in the fiscal systems of state and local governments and what can be done to solve them. It contains 35 chapters authored by 60 practitioners and academics who are renowned scholars in state and local finance. Each chapter provides a description of the discipline area, examines major developments in policy, practices and research, and opines on future prospects. The chapters are divided into four sections. Section I is a systematic discussion of the institutional, economic, and political framework that provides a background for understanding the structure and financial performance of the state and local sector. The chapters in Section II provide an overview of the various components of state and local revenue systems and how they reacted to the Great Recession. They analyze the diverse forms of taxes and charges in detail, prescribe remedies and alternatives, and examine the implications for future revenue performance. Chapters in Section III turn to spending, borrowing and financial management in the state and local sector. The focus is on the big six service delivery sectors: education, health care, human services, transportation, pensions, and housing. Section IV is a set of chapters that look ahead and speculate about how the state and local government sector's money-raising, spending, and service delivery structures will adjust to the new circumstances.

This book explores the dynamics of democratic reform processes in European local government. On the basis of analyses of theoretical challenges to present developments, the book pays attention to processes of democratic innovation inspired by classical representative democracy and by new forms of democracy influenced by notions of governance, participation, e-governance, empowering civil society and the like. Also attention is given to the role of regionalization and of leader- ship in efforts to revitalize local democracy. Cases from all over Europe are being studied.

Winston and Gail Ramsey This book focuses on the systems used by the Axis powers for the governance of the countries that they occupied during the Second World War. It would be easy to assume that the administration of each country was carried out on a somewhat ad hoc basis, but streams of detailed orders and decrees were enacted to cover all aspects of everyday life . . . from finance to crime. Dr Raphael Lemkin was a Polish émigré and the person who coined the term `genocide’ during his study of international law concerning crimes against humanity which he began in 1933 — the year that the Nazis assumed power in Germany. Dr Lemkin’s much-acclaimed work Axis Rule in Occupied Europe was published in 1944 and extracts from it now form the framework on which we have built this `then and now’ coverage of the occupation of Czechoslovakia, Memel, Albania, Danzig, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Monaco, the Channel Islands, Greece, Yugoslavia, the Baltic states, the Soviet Union, Romania, Italy and Hungary. Individual chapters also cover the most serious crimes committed by the occupier: the destruction of whole villages in Czechoslovakia, France, the Netherlands and Greece, and the genocidal acts carried out in Italy, Greece and Belgium, although nothing can equal the wholesale slaughter enacted in the Balkans and the USSR. It has been estimated that the Axis occupation of Europe cost between 20 and 25 million civilian lives, apart from the deaths of at least 16 million servicemen and women who paid the ultimate price in trying to put Europe back together again. It is a debt that can never be repaid. SIZE 12”×8½”   368 PAGES   OVER 1,000 ILLUSTRATIONS ISBN 9 781870 067935  £39.95

Starting Over traces the remarkable political career of former Virginia Governor and U.S. Senator George Allen. Once considered a likely presidential candidate, Allen became a YouTube sensation after a slip of the tongue. But the Allen story is not over and his career has featured multiple returns from seeming oblivion. The author provides a balanced look at Allen's successes and failures. George Allen's career also parallels the ups and downs of modern American conservatism. Allen reinvented conservative political action in the post-Reagan, post-Cold War era. The issues on which he had his greatest successes became the issues that fueled the Republican comeback in the 1990s. In these pages, the reader will learn as much about recent American politics as about Allen himself.

There are many different ways to do political science research. This book takes a core question that motivates research in political science – what is democracy? – and presents, in a single volume, original research demonstrating a variety of approaches to studying it. The approaches and related methods covered by the chapters in this book include normative political theory, positivist quantitative analysis, behaviouralism, critical theory, post-structuralism, historical institutionalism, process tracing, case studies, and literature reviews. Readers are confronted with the different assumptions that researchers make when entering the research process and can compare and contrast the many different ways that a single question can be studied . This book will be enlightening for students of democracy as well as those interested in research design and methodological approaches.

In Good Government in the Tropics, Judith Tendler questions widely prevailing views about why governments so often perform poorly and about what causes them to improve. Drawing on a set of four cases involving public bureaucracies at work under the direction of an innovative state government in Brazil, the book offers findings of significance to the current debates about organization of the public-sector workplace, public service delivery, decentralization, and the interaction between government and civil society. The case chapters represent four different sectors, each traditionally spoken for by its distinct experts, literatures, and public agnecies -- rural preventive health, small enterprise development, agricultural extension for small farmers, and employment-creating public works construction and drought relief. With findings that cut across these sectoral boundaries, the book raises questions about the policy advice proferred by the international donor community. It shifts the terms of the prevailing debate away from mistrust of government toward an understanding of the circumstances under which public servants become truly committed to their work and public service improves dramatically.

"The traditional focus on trying to eliminate 'rent-seeking' by reducing the state's role has made a contribution but lost much of its charisma. Theoreticians and practitioners alike are looking for new ideas and Tendler offers a quite intriguing set of them. The cases demonstrate surprising counter-intuitive results that will be of interest even to those with little substantive interest in the particular setting described. Theoretical novelty and elegant use of evidence combine to makethis book a clear winner." -- Peter Evans, University of California at Berkeley

One of the greatest challenges in the twenty-first century is to address large, deep, and historic deficits in human development. Democracy at Work explores a crucial question: how does democracy, with all of its messy, contested, and, time-consuming features, advance well-being and improve citizens' lives? Professors Brian Wampler, Natasha Borges Sugiyama, and Michael Touchton argue that differences in the local robustness of three democratic pathways - participatory institutions, rights-based social programs, and inclusive state capacity - best explain the variation in how democratic governments improve well-being. Using novel data from Brazil and innovative analytic techniques, the authors show that participatory institutions permit citizens to express voice and exercise vote, inclusive social programs promote citizenship rights and access to public resources, and more capable local states use public resources according to democratic principles of rights protections and equal access. The analysis uncovers how democracy works to advance capabilities related to poverty, health, women's empowerment, and education.

In 1978, Ed Koch assumed control of a city plagued by filth, crime, bankruptcy, and racial tensions. By the end of his mayoral run in 1989 and despite the Wall Street crash of 1987, his administration had begun rebuilding neighborhoods and infrastructure. Unlike many American cities, Koch's New York was growing, not shrinking. Gentrification brought new businesses to neglected corners and converted low-end rental housing to coops and condos. Nevertheless, not all the changes were positive--AIDS, crime, homelessness, and violent racial conflict increased, marking a time of great, if somewhat uneven, transition.

For better or worse, Koch's efforts convinced many New Yorkers to embrace a new political order subsidizing business, particularly finance, insurance, and real estate, and privatizing public space. Each phase of the city's recovery required a difficult choice between moneyed interests and social services, forcing Koch to be both a moderate and a pragmatist as he tried to mitigate growing economic inequality. Throughout, Koch's rough rhetoric (attacking his opponents as "crazy," "wackos," and "radicals") prompted charges of being racially divisive. The first book to recast Koch's legacy through personal and mayoral papers, authorized interviews, and oral histories, this volume plots a history of New York City through two rarely studied yet crucial decades: the bankruptcy of the 1970s and the recovery and crash of the 1980s.

Governors in the United States are becoming prime policy makers in state and national politics. They preside over vast and increasingly important administrative structures through numerous appointments of key personnel and the management of growing budgets. Governors provide leadership for state legislatures by advocating their policy agendas, and by mobilizing public opinion and political resources. Through these roles, governors have far reaching influence in citizen's daily lives. This work examines these major political leaders by closely examining the careers of five recent governors (1960D2001): - Terry Sanford (1961D1965) - Robert (Bob) W. Scott (1969D1973) - James E. (Jim) Holshouser Jr. (1973D1977) - James G. (Jim) Martin (1985D1993) - James B. (Jim) Hunt Jr. (1977D1985; 1993D2001) ...and compares their performances in office with governors in other states. No other book has looked as closely at the persons who serve as governors during this time period.

Winner of the 2009 Robert Park Book Award for best Community and Urban Sociology book!

Branding New York traces the rise of New York City as a brand and the resultant transformation of urban politics and public life. Greenberg addresses the role of "image" in urban history, showing who produces brands and how, and demonstrates the enormous consequences of branding. She shows that the branding of New York was not simply a marketing tool; rather it was a political strategy meant to legitimatize market-based solutions over social objectives.

From "Reefer Madness" to legal purchase at the corner store.With long-time legal and social barriers to marijuana falling across much of the United States, the time has come for an accessible and informative look at attitudes toward the dried byproduct of Cannabis sativa. Marijuana: A Short History profiles the politics and policies concerning the five-leaf plant in the United States and around the world. Millions of Americans have used marijuana at some point in their lives, yet it remains a substance shrouded by myth, misinformation, and mystery. And nearly a century of prohibition has created an enforcement system that is racist, and the continuing effects of racially-targeted over criminalization limit economic and social opportunities in communities of color. Marijuana: A Short History tells this story, and that of states stepping up to enact change. This book offers an up-to-date, cutting-edge look at how a plant with a tumultuous history has emerged from the shadows of counterculture and illegality. Today, marijuana has become a remarkable social, economic, and even political force with a surprising range of advocates and opponents. Over the past two decades marijuana policy has transformed dramatically in the United States, as dozens of states have openly defied the federal government. Marijuana: A Short History provides a brief yet compelling narrative that discusses the social and cultural history of marijuana but also tells us how a once-vilified plant has been transformed into a serious, even mainstream, public policy issue. Focusing on politics, the media, government, racism, criminal justice, and education, the book describes why public policy has changed, and what that change might mean for marijuana's future place in society.

The A Practical Approach series is the perfect partner for practice work. Each title focuses on one field of the law and provides a comprehensive overview of the subject together with clear, practical advice and tips on issues likely to arise in practice. The books are also an excellent resource for those new to the law, where the expert overview and clear layout promotes clarity and ease of understanding. This second edition of A Practical Approach to Local Government Law provides comprehensive coverage of the rull range of law and legislation relating to local government and local authorities. Since the first edition published in 1997, there have been significant legislative changes in the field of local government, including the enactment of the Local Government Act 2003 and the new Capital Finance Rules brought into force in April 2004. This new edition takes these changes fully into account, and covers the increasingly key areas of; partnerships and joint ventures; procurement; freedom of information; wellbeing; best value; and human rights. Very much a practical guide, A Practical Approach to Local Government Law 2/e makes extensive use of examples, checklists, and key documents, to assist the busy practitioner in quickly locating the material they need, whilst also providing valuable context for the student coming to this complex subject for the first time.

Since the publication of the first edition of A South African Renewable Energy Guide for Local Government, the costs related to non-renewable energy generation have increased exponentially, and coal-based energy systems have continued to generate large quantities of dangerous emissions. Conversely, sustainable energy generation has become more cost-effective, and in many instances renewables are now more economically viable than non-renewables. This narrowing gap in costs, coupled with an increased awareness of the environmental benefits of renewables, has greatly stimulated the sustainable energy market.

Over the last several years, metropolitan municipalities have engaged with innovative, cost-effective sustainable energy projects and solutions. Medium and smaller municipalities are beginning to understand the roles and responsibilities of the various stakeholders in the energy sector. They are learning how to work within the confines of the South African national, provincial and local policy, legislative and regulatory frameworks; how to embed renewables within local integrated development plans and strategies; how to utilise appropriate technologies and how to apply financing mechanisms and leverage partnerships for successful project delivery. It is critically important therefore that (particularly) small, medium and rural municipalities continue to explore, and receive capacity-building and support for, renewable and energy-efficient solutions

In line with these developments, this second edition provides useful information and solid examples of how politicians, city managers and government officials, in partnership with communities, can facilitate the adoption of renewable energy systems and technologies to achieve a more sustainable energy future for all.

Revered and reviled in almost equal amounts since its inception, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has been responsible for creating and maintaining much of New York and New Jersey's transportation infrastructure -- the things that make the region work. Doig traces the evolution of the Port Authority from the battles leading to its creation in 1921 through its conflicts with the railroads and its expansion to build bridges and tunnels for motor vehicles. Chronicling the adroit maneuvers that led the Port Authority to take control of the region's airports and seaport operations, build the largest bus terminal in the nation, and construct the World Trade Center, Doig reveals the rise to power of one of the world's largest specialized regional governments.

This definitive history of the Port Authority underscores the role of several key players -- Austin Tobin, the obscure lawyer who became Executive Director and a true "power broker" in the bi-state region, Julius Henry Cohen, general counsel of the Port Authority for its first twenty years, and Othmar H. Ammann, the Swiss engineer responsible for the George Washington Bridge, the Bayonne and Goethels bridges, the Outerbridge Crossing, and the Lincoln Tunnel.

Today, with public works projects stalled by community opposition in almost every village and city, the story of how the Port Authority managed to create an empire on the Hudson offers lessons for citizens and politicians everywhere.

This book examines the effects of globalization at the local level within our everyday lives. Rather than seeing the city as a conurbation, a location of economic activity, or in terms of governance and administration, Czarniawska explores the city as an 'action net'. She uses studies of city management in Warsaw, Stockholm, and Rome to develop this, looking in particular at the impact of 'global' influences on city management, organization and culture.

Why are some states in India able to facilitate foreign capital inflows better while others are not? This book addresses the socio-political factors such as ideas and interests of political actors, which produce the different levels of foreign direct investment (FDI) in states of India. It studies the causal role of disparate state-society relations in the evolution of institutions facilitating and regulating FDI inflows in the states through a comparative case study on the manufacturing industries of Tamil Nadu and Odisha.