Winner of the Urban History Association's 2005 Best Book in Non-North American Urban History Award.
In traditional Chinese cities, a lively street culture was an important part of popular culture, and street life was central to the daily lives of city dwellers, especially the lower classes. This book examines street culture in Chengdu, an under-studied inland city, during the transformative decades between 1870 and 1930, in order to explore various topics: the relationship between urban commoners and public space; the role that community and neighborhood played in public life; how the reform movement and the Republican revolution changed everyday life; and how popular culture and local politics interacted. Drawing on a rich array of Chinese and Western sources--including archives, local newspapers, gazetteers, personal records, folk literature, and field investigation--the author argues that life in public spaces was radically transformed in Chengdu during these eventful years.

The rise of China will undoubtedly be one of the great spectacles of the twenty-first century. More than a dramatic symbol of the redistribution of global wealth, the event has marked the end of the unipolar international system and the arrival of a new era in world politics. How the security, stability and legitimacy built upon foundations that were suddenly shifting, adapting to this new reality is the subject of Will China's Rise be Peaceful? Bringing together the work of seasoned experts and younger scholars, this volume offers an inclusive examination of the effects of historical patterns-whether interrupted or intact-by the rise of China. The contributors show how strategies among the major powers are guided by existing international rules and expectations as well as by the realities created by an increasingly powerful China. While China has sought to signal its non-revisionist intent its extraordinary economic growth and active diplomacy has in a short time span transformed global and East Asian politics. This has caused constant readjustments as the other key actors have responded to the changing incentives provided by Chinese policies. Will China's Rise be Peaceful? explores these continuities and discontinuities in five areas: theory, history, domestic politics, regional politics, and great power politics. Equally grounded in theory and extensive empirical research, this timely volume offers a remarkably lucid description and interpretation of our changing international relations. In both its approach and its conclusions, it will serve as a model for the study of China in a new era.

Today, decision-making increasingly takes place in highly complex situations where the optimal solution is unclear upfront. If the decision-making process extends over several years - as in cases of large infrastructure projects - best available technologies, the group of people affected, and the institutions involved change over time. The presented research provides a decision-making concept for such situations. Based on a sound content analysis with over 400 documents and more than 31,000 pages, the regulatory structure of governance of the extension of Frankfurt Airport since the 1960s is analyzed. As a result, the theoretically derived concept of Experimentalist Regional Governance to analyze regulatory structures of governance in highly complex decision-making processes is confirmed.

First published in 1997, this volume presents the results of in-depth research into the application of the UK homelessness legislation in relation to community care, the Children Act 1989, violence to women, and racial harassment. This is supplemented with a consideration of policies and practices in 15 local authority homelessness departments. It is argued that government created the nation of a successful, or "appropriate" applicant, but this could not be translated into actual practice as the original legislation did not facilitate it. In fact, in the mid-1990s, government became more concerned with notions of inappropriateness, stereotyping those using the homelessness legislation and creating modern "folk devils". This was the background to the 1996 changes to the homelessness legislation which have created the notion of the "inappropriate" applicant. It is argued that the new legislation is more concerned with denial, deterrence and privatization. The new legislation has also detrimentally affected the application of the homelessness legislation in each of the areas discussed.

The book focuses on the cities and urban policy systems analysed in the strategic (long-term) perspective. Due to this unique perspective, the book enables the multifactorial analysis of the conditions and mechanisms of creating the urban policy system in the Visegrad Group states and Ukraine. Undoubtedly, there is a lack of studies presenting the strategic approach to creating urban policy system discussed in the broad context of the transformations of the modern democratic state and, what is connected with it, through the prism of the processes of decentralization, Europeanization and regionalization. The monograph, in the intention of the editor and the team of authors, is to fill this undeniable gap.

How are multiculturalism, inequality and belonging understood in the day-to-day thinking and practices of local government? Examining original empirical data, this book explores how local government officers and politicians negotiate 'difficult subjects' linked with community cohesion policy: diversity, inequality, discrimination, extremism, migration, religion, class, power and change. The book argues that such work necessitates 'uncomfortable positions' when managing ethical, professional and political commitments. Based on first-hand experience of working in urban local government and extensive ethnographic, interview and documentary research, the book applies governmentality perspectives in a new way to consider how people working within government are subject to regimes of governmentality themselves, and demonstrates how power operates through emotions. Its exploration of how 'sociological imaginations' are applied beyond academia will be valuable to those arguing for the future of public services and building connections between the university and wider society, including scholars and students in sociology, social policy, social geography, urban studies and politics, and policy practitioners in local and central government. Winner of the BSA Philip Abrams Memorial Prize 2014

Over the past fifty years, local government in Europe has been confronted with escalating scales of production, population migration and market pressures. These developments have complicated its performance, challenged its domain and even threatened its existence. A popular coping strategy is inter-municipal cooperation, a phenomenon that, despite its ubiquity, has not been subject to systematic comparative research. This book presents an overview of inter-municipal cooperation in eight European countries. Each country study sketches its attendant forms, their institutional design, the tasks and competencies attributed to joint authorities of municipalities and the way inter-municipal cooperation operates in practice. Both performance and democratic aspects of cooperation are recurring topics. The last chapter of the book presents a comparative analysis and reflects on the future of inter-municipal cooperation.

2018 marks the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. When it was signed few would have imagined Brexit. This book examines the impact of the Good Friday Agreement on internal and cross-border political and economic cooperation between Northern Ireland, Ireland and Britain, in the context of Brexit. It also examines the impact of Brexit to date and concludes with some scenarios about the longer-term impact of Brexit on the Good Friday Agreement itself and on Northern Ireland's constitutional status. The volume comprises chapters from leading academics in the fields of Northern Irish and comparative politics who deal with economic and political aspects of the Good Friday Agreement, making an original contribution to the current debates on conflict resolution. It provides a theoretical framework by renowned expert on consociationalism, Brendan O'Leary, as well as a chapter on the British-Irish Relationship in the 21st Century by renowned Northern Ireland specialist John Coakley. This book was originally published as a special issue of Ethnopolitics.

First published in 1984. This book is a detailed study of the way in which the growing Labour movement gradually ousted the Liberals in West Yorkshire between 1890 and 1924. It demonstrates the basis of old Liberalism and the strength of local non-conformity, and its powerful links with the textile and engineering industries. It shows how the Liberalism of this district was dominated by small groups of well-to-do leaders involved in these main industries. This study also shows the gradual breakdown of the political consensus established between the Liberal party and the working classes and explains how the increasing opposition to Liberalism was channelled into the socialist movement. In all, the authors present a thorough and extensive study of the political changes in a particularly interesting part of the British Isles.

Grand Theater examines bureaucracy not as a readily identifiable structure but rather as a process of day-to-day operation. Thus it is concerned with how agencies of both the communist party and the state apparatus not only implemented directives from above but also responded to perceived successes and failures, chose to produce, share, and conceal information, and reacted when common citizens injected themselves into governance by making demands and complaints. It concentrates on the 1930s as a seminal period when Stalin's regime established a hypercentralized system that dominated the Soviet Union until its collapse and the Russian Federation since then. It also focuses on the administration of schools as the primary window through which to examine governance because of the importance of education to Soviet authorities, most notably Stalin himself, and the accessibility of archival documents in this field, one not classified as particularly sensitive. Grand Theater provides novel insights into the functioning of Stalinist bureaucracy, brings to the forefront a new understanding of center-periphery relations, and reveals the important role of individuals in what has heretofore been largely regarded, when beyond the Kremlin's inner circle, as a highly impersonal system. It also examines in unprecedented ways the reciprocal relationship between ideology and policy formation, on the one hand, and actual administrative practices, on the other, a relationship that more often than not had negative and dysfunctional consequences for both the governed and governing. Holmes argues that the Soviet administrative system during the 1930s was much like grand theater. The documents produced for and by that system were the script for a discursive theatrical reality that inspired neither a careful appraisal of problems nor a dispassionate search for workable solutions.

China faces the problem of collaboration deficiency in local governance of metropolitan areas. With the evolution of regional spatial structure in China, this book is timely with its analysis on how China can approach current problems in China's regional governance through a holistic collaborative governance mechanism. The book applies the governance theory to the local government in metropolitan areas and explains how this approach may help to equalize regional public resources allocation. The author puts forth a convincing case for the use of holistic collaborative governance to better understand the problems of China's local government in metropolitan areas and to promote regional government collaboration. The book also looks at cross-jurisdiction collaboration organization, collaborative mechanism of local government, private sector and non-governmental organizations in public affairs (environmental protection, transportation, public health, water resources).

As democracy is disrupted by globalization, the solution is to globalize democracy. This book explores the causes of the current crisis of democracy and advocates new ways for more representative, effective, and accountable governance in an interdependent world. Part 1 analyzes the split of the middle class and the subsequent political polarization which underlies people's dissatisfaction with the way democracy works in developed countries. It also addresses the role of political emotions, including disappointments about unmet expectations, anger incited from opposition candidates, fear induced from government, and hope wrapping up new proposals for reform and change. In Part 2, the authors argue that a more effective governance would require reallocations of power at local, national, continental and global levels with innovative combinations of direct democracy, representative government, and rule by experts. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of political science, comparative politics, international relations, political economy and democratic theory, as well as general readers interested in politics and current events.

Regionalism is under stress. The European Union has been challenged by the Eurozone crisis, refugee flows, terrorist attacks, Euroscepticism, and Brexit. In Latin America, regional cooperation has been stagnating. Studying Europe and Latin America within a broader comparative perspective, this volume provides an analytical framework to assess stress factors facing regionalism. The contributors explore how economic and financial crises, security challenges, identity questions raised by immigration and refugee flows, the rise of populism, and shifting regional and global power dynamics have had an impact on regionalism; whether the EU crisis has had repercussions for regionalisms in other parts of the world; and to what extent the impact of stress factors is mediated by characteristics of the region that may provide elements of resilience. Written by specialists from Europe and Latin America with a shared interest in the new field of comparative regionalism, this book will be an invaluable resource for students, scholars and policy specialists in regional integration, European politics, EU studies, Latin American studies, and international relations and international law more generally.

Regionalism is under stress. The European Union has been challenged by the Eurozone crisis, refugee flows, terrorist attacks, Euroscepticism, and Brexit. In Latin America, regional cooperation has been stagnating. Studying Europe and Latin America within a broader comparative perspective, this volume provides an analytical framework to assess stress factors facing regionalism. The contributors explore how economic and financial crises, security challenges, identity questions raised by immigration and refugee flows, the rise of populism, and shifting regional and global power dynamics have had an impact on regionalism; whether the EU crisis has had repercussions for regionalisms in other parts of the world; and to what extent the impact of stress factors is mediated by characteristics of the region that may provide elements of resilience. Written by specialists from Europe and Latin America with a shared interest in the new field of comparative regionalism, this book will be an invaluable resource for students, scholars and policy specialists in regional integration, European politics, EU studies, Latin American studies, and international relations and international law more generally.

Rogue State chronicles how West Virginia entered-and remains-in the Union under unconstitutional circumstances. Its severance from Virginia and reincorporation as a new state in 1863 occurred outside the bounds of constitutional legality. The United States government, while pledged to prevent the secession of eleven states from the Union, nevertheless condoned, abetted, supported, and ultimately affirmed secession of fifty counties without permission from Virginia. This unprecedented and unconstitutional process marks the only time in American history that a state was created and admitted to the Union outside the boundaries of the prescribed constitutional process. Lincoln's attorney general even declared the process unconstitutional. Though secession was not permitted for states or parts of states by the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. government produced a facade of legality and constitutionality in 1863 to justify the secession of a part of one state to form another.

Although difficult, complicated, and sometimes discouraging, collaboration is recognized as a viable approach for addressing uncertain, complex and wicked problems. Collaborations can attract resources, increase efficiency, and facilitate visions of mutual benefit that can ignite common desires of partners to work across and within sectors. An important question remains: How to enable successful collaboration? Inter-Organizational Collaboration by Design examines how these types of collaborations can overcome barriers to innovate and rejuvenate communities outlining the factors and antecedents that influence successful collaboration. The book proposes a theoretical perspective for collaborators to adopt design science (a solution finding approach utilizing end-user-centered research, prototyping, and collective creativity to strengthen individuals, teams, and organizations), the language of designers, and a design attitude as an empirically informed pathway for better managing the complexities inherent in collaboration. Through an integrated framework, evidence-based tools and strategies for building successful collaboration is articulated where successful collaboration performance facilitates innovation and rejuvenation. This volume will be essential reading for academics, researchers, leaders and managers in nonprofit, private, and government sectors interested in building better collaborations.

Alberto Brugnoli and Alessandro Colombo have put together an important collection of essays on government and governance in Italy and Britain. This richly documented comparative study proposes to answer two key questions: how does the change from government to governance emerge, and what enables this transformation to survive and even to displace State-centric solutions to public policy issues? The book will be a milestone in highlighting the distinctive and original role of the principle of subsidiarity, in examining and assessing governance regimes, their philosophy and their organizational choices and in linking subsidiarity with the prospects of freedom, responsibility and self-governing societies in the modern world. I know of no other book that brings the principle of subsidiarity to the frontier of the most current research in social science.' - Filippo Sabetti, McGill University, CanadaThis unique and original book focuses on institutional changes, welfare reforms and transformations in both Britain and Italy over the last three decades. The book illustrates that although it was a widely held belief in both countries that the arena of social and economic governance would shift to the national level, to the surprise of many, a different trend has emerged. In otherwise very different national experiences, both Britain and Italy have seen the sub-national level of governance become crucial in redefining public services, and in designing, delivering, and monitoring key services. The expert contributors use a distinctive and original principle - subsidiarity - as a lens through which to examine and assess these governance regimes, their philosophies, and their organizational choices. Academics, researchers and students of social policy, public policy, public administration and regional studies will find this book to be a highly fascinating read. It will also provide a wealth of information for policymakers and think tanks.

Cultural heritage and illicit trafficking in the Middle East are two key topics of our time. The book sheds light on both aspects, and identifies the need to democratize cultural heritage, by giving greater control to local communities. It also investigates the link between local hotbeds of conflict and violence in countries such as Syria and Iraq, as well as war economics, transnational criminal networks and the politics of deliberate destruction and theft of cultural heritage. Finally, the chapters analyze the impact of non-violent and violent non-state actors, fragile states, forced migration, environmental degradation, as well as how local and international institutions have reacted to the dramatic events which the region and its inhabitants have experienced in recent years

This monograph ties in the scholarly debate on Chinese village elections and their consequences for China's political system. It draws on comparative fieldwork conducted in six villages in two counties in Jiangxi and Jilin Provinces and one district in Shenzhen between 2002 and 2005, producing data from some 140 in-depth interviews of villagers and local officials up to the prefectural level. The major objective of this book is as much a critical assessment of the research literature of Chinese village elections published over the last fifteen years as to sharpen the reader's sight for the scope and limits of this important reform to generate regime legitimacy in the local state, an issue which has so far been neglected in the study of Chinese village elections. It hence contributes to our understanding of the nexus between political participation and cadre accountability at the grassroots, and highlights a number of factors ensuring the persistence of one-party rule in contemporary China.

This book explores the role of mayors in navigating the realities of living and governing under Nazi occupation. In Western Europe under Nazi occupation, mayors of villages and cities were forced into strategic cooperation with the occupier. Mayors had to provide good governance, mediate between occupier and populations, maintain personal legitimacy, and build local consensus. However, as national systems underwent authoritarian reform and collaborationists infiltrated administrations, local governments were gradually turned into instruments of Nazi control and repression. Nico Wouters uses rich new archival data to compare the realities of local government in three countries. Looking at topics such as food supply, public order and safety, forced labour, the repression of resistance, the persecution of the Jews and post-war purges, this book redefines our knowledge of collaboration, resistance and accommodation during Nazi occupation.

Most social science studies of local organizations tend to focus on civil society associations, voluntary associations independent from state control, whereas government-sponsored organizations tend to be theorized in totalitarian terms as mass organizations or manifestations of state corporatism. "Roots of the State" examines neighborhood associations in Beijing and Taipei that occupy a unique space that exists between these concepts.
Benjamin L. Read views the work of the neighborhood associations he studies as a form of administrative grassroots engagement. States sponsor networks of organizations at the most local of levels, and the networks facilitate governance and policing by building personal relationships with members of society. Association leaders serve as the state's designated liaisons within the neighborhood and perform administrative duties covering a wide range of government programs, from welfare to political surveillance. These partly state-controlled entities also provide a range of services to their constituents.
Neighborhood associations, as institutions initially created to control societies, may underpin a repressive regime such as China's, but they also can evolve to empower societies, as in Taiwan. This book engages broad and much-discussed questions about governance and political participation in both authoritarian and democratic regimes.

This book addresses the meanings and implications of self-organization and state society relations in contemporary Nigerian politics. The conventional wisdom in public choice theory is that self-organization could generate collective action problems, via the tragedy of the commons, or the prisoner's dilemma, or a condition akin to Hobbes' state of nature, where selfish interests produce social conflict rather than cooperation. In the absence or unwillingness of the state to provide such services, entire communities in Nigeria have had to band together to repair roads, build health centers, repair broken transformers owned by the public utilities company, all from levies. Consideration of post-authoritarian state-civil society relations in Nigeria began in a situation where the state was deeply embroiled in a morass of economic and political crises, further complicating these relations, and lending urgency to questions about state capacity, as well as the nature of the relationship between state and civil society, and their implication for the social, economic and political health and well being of the democratizing polity and its citizens.

Your roadmap to community leadership: This significant guide puts the tools of democracy into everyones hands. Based on the best of Blandin Foundations 20-year experience in developing community leaders, it gives community members like yourself the tools to bring people together to make changes. Here are some of the useful resources you'll find: Identifying Community Assets; Community Problem Analysis; Accessing Community Data; Appreciative Inquiry; Translating Vision to Action; Interpersonal Communication for Leaders; Managing Interpersonal Conflict as a Leader; Building Social Capital Across Cultures; Network Mapping: Locating Your Social Capital; Stakeholders Analysis; Building Coalitions; Building Effective Community Teams; Recruiting and Sustaining Volunteers; Getting the Most from Your Meetings. Across the country, individuals and groups are hearing a bugle call to action. Rural, urban, rich, poor, left, right, and everywhere in between community members are waking up to bridge differences and make their communities the best they can be. If you want to make a difference where you live, this book is your roadmap. If you attend early and late night meetings to figure out what needs to get done, this book is your handbook. If you give your time and energy to make things happen, this book is your guide. If you work to involve your neighbors to solve problems, this book is your ally. Carefully crafted examples based on real-life leadership issues help you see how to put the tools of leadership to work where you live, today. Whether you are an active community member who wants to make a difference, a nonprofit leader serving the community, a leadership advisor, a government liaison called on to convene the community, a business leader, a public servant, or a foundation program officer specializing in community needs, you will find in this book the tools and theories essential to getting your work done.

Provide open data, balance decisions and initiatives, and create equitable policies. Smart communities don't wait for someone to deem them smart; they take action. State and local governments worldwide have taken that first step using geographic information system (GIS) technology. Applying GIS to planning and urban design, public works operations, and racial equity and social justice has helped meet citizens' needs and improve government operations. And with advancements in smart technology, location intelligence for state and local governments is not just for GIS specialists. More informed, data-driven decisions lead to improved outcomes that can be shared and replicated in other communities, helping citizens and government collaborate for the common good. Building a Smarter Community: GIS for State and Local Government shows how government leaders in cities, counties, and states have applied GIS for improved planning, operations, and civic inclusion. In this collection of case studies and guidance to get started, learn how GIS: Helped planners visualize affordable housing patterns in Honolulu, Hawaii Radically changed stormwater management practices in Salinas County, California Improved easy access to city data, initiatives, and services in Coral Gables, Florida Supported minority-owned business during the COVID pandemic in San Rafael, California Web apps, GIS hubs and dashboards, and other GIS solutions help state and local governments develop a deeper understanding of the communities they serve within a real-world context. Sections on getting started with GIS provide helpful ideas, strategies, tools, and actions and a collection of online resources to jump-start your use of GIS for state and local government. Discover how GIS and location intelligence support state and local government decisions and citizen participation in Building a Smarter Community.