In this comprehensive volume, Canadian, Ukrainian, and American scholars examine various aspects of the Ukrainian crisis, and consider its impact on Europe. The chapters include topics such as: Russian narratives about Ukraine; the conflicting assumptions underlying their divergent nation-building agendas; new findings about the far right's involvement in the Maidan protests; the Ukrainian crisis from the perspective of Western grand strategy; the security implications of Russia's geopolitical agenda in Ukraine; the factors that contributed to the rise of separatism in Donbass; and the economic costs for Ukraine of choosing economic integration with Europe rather than Eurasia. This book demonstrates that the current crisis in Ukraine is much more complex than comes across in the media. It also explores the fact that, since Russia and Ukraine will always be neighbours, some sort of modus vivendi between them will have to be found. This book was originally published as a special issue of European Politics and Society.

English local government is in a state of decline after 40 years of incremental but cumulative centralisation by central government. This book is the first to directly address this trend's impact upon the institution of local government, a crucial element in the democratic viability of a unitary state. The process of centralisation, and its corrosive effect on the status and responsibilities of local government, have been widely recognised and deplored among politicians and senior officers within local government, and by academics with an interest in this field. However, there has been no study exploring in detail its impact, and, equally important, suggesting ways in which the growing imbalance between the powers of central and local government should be rectified. This book fills this gap. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of local government, and more generally to those interested in what has been happening to British politics and governance.

Despite a centralized formal structure, Chinese politics and policy-making have long been marked by substantial degrees of regional and local variation and experimentation. These trends have, if anything, intensified as China's reform matures. Though often remarked upon, the politicsof policy formation, diffusion, and implementation at the subnational level have not previously been comprehensively described, let alone satisfactorily explained. Based on extensive fieldwork, this book explores how policies diffuse across China today, the mechanisms through which local governments actually arrive at specific solutions, and the implications for China's political development and stability in the years ahead. The chapters examine how local-level institutions solve governance challenges, such as rural development, enterprise reform, and social service provision. Focusing on diverse policy areas that include land use, state-owned enterprise reform, and house churches, the contributors all address the same overarching question: how do local policymakers innovate in each issue area to address a governance challenges and how, if at all, do these innovations diffuse into national politics. As a study of local governance in China today, this book will appeal to both students and scholars of Chinese politics, comparative politics, governance and development studies, and also to policy-makers interested in authoritarianism and governance.

Less than two years after winning the 2013 elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his intention to dissolve his government, paving the way for general elections. While the initial impression was that the upcoming elections were "pointless" and "unnecessary", the campaign gradually turned into a passionate and dramatic political competition, which reflected - and reenergized - the ideological, social, ethnic and cultural divides of Israeli society. This book describes and analyses a great variety of political, sociological and cultural dimensions of the 2015 elections for the 20th Knesset. Covering issues such as voters' behaviour, coalition formation, figures of leadership, political identities, political communication and persuasion, this rich collection of essays offers a unique and comprehensive perspective on Israeli political culture in general, and on the Israeli society in the midst of the 2015 elections in particular. It also offers theoretical insight to anyone interested in parliamentary politics and party systems in general. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Israel Affairs.

No book has addressed the simultaneous phenomena of Korea's rapid economic development and its vibrant democratization in a single coherent paradigm. The late developmentalist approach emphasizes the strong role of Korea's state and bureaucratic efficiency but does not explain how political development was concurrent with the economic miracles in the Han River; modernization and dependence theories also fail to explain the aspect of simultaneity in this phenomenon. What these three theories commonly miss is the unique relationship between state and society in Korea's long history of political culture. In this book, Jongwoo Han takes a holistic approach to understanding these phenomena by examining the state's role in the unprecedented economic development and society's capabilities to resist the state's centralized power. Han re-articulates state-society relations through Onuf's social constructivist approach based on three rules of a political community: hegemony, hierarchy, and heteronomy. This book expands upon this effort to re-construct the state and society relations in two ways. First, it produces case studies of the capital city of Hanyang (Joseon Dynasty from 1392 to 1910), Kyeongseong (Japanese colonial control from 1910 to 1945), and Seoul (1945-current). The capital city is analyzed as a container for the major ideologies and ways of thinking that have shaped three important political eras. Second, i adopts two indigenous thoughts, Neo-Confucianism and geomancy, as sources of the main political and cultural ideologies that shape Korea's state and society relations. These sources have never been treated as units of political analysis. This book finds that both Neo-Confucianism and geomancy, over two periods of Hanyang and Kyeongseong, are two main contributing factors of the emergence of the developmental state and vibrant democracy in Korea in the Seoul era.

Cash Transfers, for all their notable successes, have been criticised for their limited ability to move poor households to provide sustainable routes out of poverty. This book draws on original qualitative research by leading scholars and development policy experts from a range of disciplines to examine whether cash transfers can have transformative spillover effects on individuals, households and communities. Case studies from Africa, the Middle East and Latin America show that, while there are limits to the sustainability of the transformations brought about by Cash Transfers, they can bring about changes affecting the social and political integration of very poor households. With chapters on Psycho-Social Wellbeing, Social Accountability and Social Capital, this comprehensive volume casts new light on the ongoing debates over the significance of the Cash Transfer 'revolution'. This book was originally published as a special issue of The Journal of Development Studies.

This comprehensive edited volume conceptually develops the notion of 'de-Europeanisation' as an important development in the literature on Europeanisation, and applies it specifically to the case of Turkey. 'De-Europeanisation' is defined as the loss or weakening of the EU/Europe as a normative/political context and as a reference point in domestic settings and national public debates of both candidate and member countries. 'De-Europeanisation' manifests itself in two basic ways: as the weakening of the appeal and influential capacity of European institutions, policies, norms and values, leading to a retreat of EU/ Europe as a normative/political context for society and politics in a candidate/member state; and as growing scepticism and indifference in a given society towards the EU/Europe, risking the legitimacy of the EU/Europe as a reference point in cases even where reform is incurred. Using this concept, the authors analyse the diminishing impact of the EU in Turkish governance and politics after the opening of accession negotiations in October 2005. The relevance of 'de-Europeanisation' is investigated through ten chapters focusing on key policy areas including education, migration, democracy, the rule of law and media freedoms, and a number of key actors including civil society organisations, political parties and political leaders. This book was originally published as a special issue of South European Society and Politics.

The history of medieval Germany is still rarely studied in the English-speaking world. This collection of essays by distinguished German historians examines one of most important themes of German medieval history, the development of the local principalities. These became the dominant governmental institutions of the late medieval Reich, whose nominal monarchs needed to work with the princes if they were to possess any effective authority. Previous scholarship in English has tended to look at medieval Germany primarily in terms of the struggles and eventual decline of monarchical authority during the Salian and Staufen eras - in other words, at the "failure" of a centralised monarchy. Today, the federalised nature of late medieval and early modern Germany seems a more natural and understandable phenomenon than it did during previous eras when state-building appeared to be the natural and inevitable process of historical development, and any deviation from the path towards a centralised state seemed to be an aberration. In addition, by looking at the origins and consolidation of the principalities, the book also brings an English audience into contact with the modern German tradition of regional history (Landesgeschichte). These path-breaking essays open a vista into the richness and complexity of German medieval history.

The bantustans – or ‘homelands’ – were created by South Africa’s apartheid regime as ethnically-defined territories for Africans. Granted self-governing and ‘independent’ status by Pretoria, they aimed to deflect the demands for full political representation by black South Africans and were shunned by the anti-apartheid movement. In 1972, Steve Biko wrote that ‘politically, the bantustans are the greatest single fraud ever invented by white politicians’. With the end of apartheid and the first democratic elections of 1994, the bantustans formally ceased to exist, but their legacies remain inscribed in South Africa’s contemporary social, cultural, political, and economic landscape. While the older literature on the bantustans has tended to focus on their repressive role and political illegitimacy, this edited volume offers new approaches to the histories and afterlives of the former bantustans in South Africa by a new generation of scholars. This book was originally published as various special issues of the South African Historical Journal.

Table of Contents

Preface: ‘Let’s Talk About Bantustans’ Shireen Ally and Arianna Lissoni

Introduction – Beyond ‘Homelands’: Some Ideas about the History of African Rural Areas in South Africa William Beinart

1. ‘The Bandwagon of Golden Opportunities’? Healthcare in South Africa’s Bantustan Periphery Anne Digby

2. The Renewal of Community Health under the KwaZulu ‘Homeland’ Government Elizabeth Hull

3. Bantustan Education History: The ‘Progressivism’ of Bophutatswana’s Primary Education Upgrade Programme (PEUP), 1979-1988 Linda Chisholm

4. Witchcraft and the South African Bantustans: Evidence from Bushbuckridge Isak Niehaus

5. Ethnic Separatism or Cultural Preservation? Ndebele Radio under Apartheid, 1983-1994 Sekibakiba Peter Lekgoathi

6. Rural Reggae: The Politics of Performance in the Former ‘Homeland’ of Venda Fraser G. McNeill

7. Bophuthatswana and the North-West Province: From Pan-Tswanaism to Mineral-Based Ethnic Assertiveness Andrew Manson and Bernard Mbenga

8. ‘If you are hungry, and a man promises you mealies, will you not follow him?’ South African Swazi Ethnic Nationalism, 1931-1986 Shireen Ally

9. South Africa’s Bantustans and the Dynamics of ‘Decolonisation’: Reflections on Writing Histories of the Homelands Laura Evans

Memoirs

10. Autobiography of an Underground Political Activist Vha-Musanda Vho-Shandukani Mudzunga (Manapule)

11. KaNgwane: A Life in and Beyond Mabhuza Simeon Ginindza

12. Bophuthatswana and the North-West Province: The Role of the Joint Administrators Tebogo Job Mokgoro

Contemporary practices of international peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction are often unsatisfactory. There is now a growing awareness of the significance of local governments and local communitites as an intergrated part of peacebuilding in order to improve quality and enhance precision of interventions. In spite of this, 'the local' is rarely a key factor in peacebuilding, hence 'everyday peace' is hardly achieved. The aim of this volume is threefold: firstly it illuminates the substantial reasons for working with a more localised approach in politically volatile contexts. Secondly it consolidates a growing debate on the significance of the local in these contexts. Thirdly, it problematizes the often too swiftly used concept, 'the local', and critically discuss to what extent it is at all feasible to integrate this into macro-oriented and securitized contexts. This is a unique volume, tackling the 'local turn' of peacebuilding in a comprehensive and critical way. This book was published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.

Across Africa, new collectivities are shifting the terms within which access to economic opportunity, social belonging, and political agency have historically been understood. Recent years have seen powerful waves of civic mobilization sweep across the continent. Less prominent articulations of contemporary political desire have also been percolating through the diffuse experiences of the African everyday. As differential access to global capitalism and its promises folds into modes of subjection—and escape—that are hard to predict, those who exercise power find ever more ways of guarding the borders and memberships of privileged groups. This book turns to the critically entangled terms of affect and access as a basis for exploring emergent orientations in the field of African cultural theorizing. It pays especial attention to scholarship engaging with the multifaceted coordinates of political and social participation, where complex assemblages of affective attachment, exchange, and realignment work in concert with demands for socio-political and economic forms of access. This book was originally published as a special issue of Safundi.

Table of Contents

Contemporary African mediations of affect and access

Jessie Forsyth, Sarah Olutola & Helene Strauss

A peculiar place for a feminist? The New South African woman, True Lovemagazine and Lebo(gang) Mashile

Pumla Dineo Gqola

The girls who don’t die: subversions of gender and genre in recent fiction by Lauren Beukes

Jennifer M. Schmidt

Sticky e/motional connections: young people, social media, and the re-orientation of affect

Allison Mackey

Mediating women’s globalized existence through social media in the work of Adichie and Bulawayo

Camille Isaacs

A threatening personification of freedom or: Sobukwe and repression

Derek Hook

"Only words can bury us, not silence": reading Yvonne Vera’s difficult silences

Sarah Kastner

Fostering receptivity: cultural translation, ethical solicitation, and the navigation of distance in J.T. Rogers’ The Overwhelming

Susan Spearey

Empathy’s echo: post-apartheid fellow feeling

Ross Truscott

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This volume describes African cities in transition, and the economic, socio-political, and environmental challenges resulting from rapid post-colonial urbanization. As the African continent continues to transition from urban configurations inherited from colonial influences and history, it faces issues such as urban slum expansion, increased demands for energy and clean water, lack of adequate public transportation, high levels of inequality among different socio-economic population strata, and inadequate urban governance, planning, and policies. African cities in transition need to reconsider current policies and developmental trajectories to facilitate and sustain economic growth and Africa's strategic repositioning in the world. Written by an international team of scholars and practitioners, this volume uses case studies to focus on key issues and developmental challenges in selected African cities. Topics include but are not limited to, smart cities, changing notions of democracy, the city's role in attaining the SDGs, local governance, alternative models for governance and management, corruption, urbanisation and future cities.

Regionalism in Latin America and the Caribbean has experienced transformations over the last few years. After more than a decade of a hegemonic model based solely on free-market principles, the regional and global transformation that occurred in the first decade of the new millennium modified the way of understanding economic development and the insertion of regional blocs in global affairs. Old initiatives have been reconsidered, new schemes have emerged, and new principles going beyond trade issues have modified the norms and processes of regional economic integration. This book reviews these recent transformations to depict and explain the new trends shaping regional blocs and cooperation in the Americas.

Despite the large number of regional and global summits there is very little known about the functioning and impact of this particular type of diplomatic practice. While recognizing that the growing importance of summits is a universal phenomenon, this volume takes advantage of the richness of the Americas experiment to offer a theoretically grounded comparative analysis of contemporary summitry. The book addresses questions such as: How effective have summits been ? How have civil society and other non-state actors been involved in summits? How have summits impacted on the management of regional affairs? Filling a significant void in the literature, this volume offers an original contribution helping to understand how summitry has become a central feature of world politics. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of diplomacy, international organizations, and global/regional governance.

The history of the ANC, which is the oldest liberation movement on the African continent, is one that has generated a great deal of interest amongst historians in recent years. Gone are the days when the history of African nationalism could be relegated to the margins of the study of the South African past. Instead, with the ANC having ascended to the helm of political power, a position it has maintained for over twenty years, there can be no question that its history occupies an important and permanent place in the history of the nation.

This volume gathers together some of the most important contributions to the literature on the ANC’s role in South Africa’s struggle for liberation. Besides important themes such as gender, ethnicity, and healthcare, contributions from leading historians also address why the ANC decided to engage in armed struggle; what role the South African Communist Party played in making this decision; how the ANC External Mission contributed to the upsurge of mass protest in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s; and the ANC’s contribution, relative to the other components of the liberation struggle, in ensuring the eventual demise of the old racial order. The chapters in this book were originally published in the South African Historical Journal, the Journal of Southern African Studies, and African Studies.

Table of Contents

Preface Thula Simpson

1. Dialectical Dances: Exploring John Dube’s Public Life Heather A. Hughes

2. ‘A Member of the Race’: Dr Modiri Molema’s Intellectual Engagement with the Popular History of South Africa, 1912-1921 Jane Starfield

3. Women and the Problem of Family in Early African Nationalist History and Historiography Meghan Healy-Clancy

4. The African National Congress in the Western Transvaal/Northern Cape Platteland, c.1910-1964: Patterns of Diffusion and Support for Congress in a Rural Setting Andrew Hayden Manson and Bernard Mbenga

5. The Lasting Legacy: The Soviet Theory of the National-Democratic Revolution and South Africa Irina Filatova

6. The Genesis of the ANC’s Armed Struggle in South Africa 1948-1961 Stephen Ellis

7. The African National Congress (ANC) Underground: From the M-Plan to Rivonia Raymond Suttner

8. ‘The Road to Freedom is via the Cross’: ‘Just Means’ in Chief Albert Luthuli’s Life Raymond Suttner

9. Emasculating Agency: An Unambiguous Assessment of Albert Luthuli’s Stance on Violence Scott Everett Couper

10. Secret Party: South African Communists between 1950 and 1960 Tom Lodge

11. The ANC, MK, and ‘The Turn to Violence’ (1960-1962) Paul S. Landau

12. Armed and Trained: Nelson Mandela’s 1962 Military Mission as Commander in Chief of Umkhonto we Sizwe and Provenance for his Buried Makatov Pistol Garth Benneyworth

13. Transformations in the ANC External Mission and Umkhonto we Sizwe, c. 1960-1969 Arianna Lissoni

14. Healthcare in Exile: ANC Health Policy and Health Care Provision in MK Camps, 1964 to 1989 Melissa Armstrong

15. Main Machinery: The ANC’s Armed Underground in Johannesburg During the 1976 Soweto Uprising Thula Simpson

16. ‘Umkhonto we Sizwe, We are Waiting for You’: The ANC and the Township Uprising, September 1984 – September 1985 Thula Simpson

17. Sex in a Time of Exile: An Examination of Sexual Health, AIDS, Gender, and the ANC, 1980-1990 Carla Tsampiras

First published in 1968, The Government of France is a guide for students of politics to learn about the eventful history of French democracy and the often startling role of France on the international scene. In conveying information, the authors never fail to relate the structure to the social and economic background, and their commentary is enlivened by amusing asides. By the time he has reached the end of the book the reader will not only have much information on France, but he will also understand how the machinery of government has evolve and in what direction it is likely to move in the future.

A step-by-step guidebook for advance preparation and early response to school crises

This Second Edition of Preparing for Crises in the Schools arrives at a critical moment. With several recent dramatic examples of school violence and other tragedies afflicting communities nationwide, the need for school districts to take proactive measures–rather than merely react to a crisis–is critical.

This completely updated edition offers practical plans for laying the important groundwork to ensure that crisis response will be both immediate and thorough in the wake of tragedy. Authored by three school crisis response planning experts, it offers advice on early detection of trouble, developing plans and procedures to intervene with youths quickly and successfully, and conducting a school in-service workshop on crisis response planning and intervention.

Essential for counselors, school psychologists, teachers, and administrators alike, this book helps ensure that schools are not caught by surprise when a crisis occurs.

The mesmerizing story of two countries caught in history whose rivalry can destroy the world or restore its peace, this is the first book to untangle the complex relationship of Saudi Arabia and Iran by rejecting heated rhetoric and looking at the real roots of the issue to promise pathways to peace.

Multinational federations rest on the coexistence of two or more nations within a single polity. Within these federations, minority nations play a significant role as their character differs from the other building blocks of the federation. This edited volume offers a comprehensive comparison of two such minority nations - Quebec in Canada and Wallonia in Belgium - which exemplifies many dimensions, themes and issues highly resonant to the study of federalism and regionalism across the globe. Quebec and Wallonia have experienced several decades of federal dynamics where both regions have had to find their way as a minority nation in a multinational federation. For those studying federalism and regionalism their importance lies in a number of characteristics, but principally in the fact of these minority nations have transformed into mini-states with fully fledged legislative powers within their federation. This book seeks to study the specific dynamics within these small worlds and between them and the rest of the federation. This text will be of key interest to students and scholars of federalism, nationalism and regionalism, comparative politics and policies, political ideas and social movements.

When it comes to analyzing the phenomenon of digital government, the overwhelming focus is on the most developed nations in the world, and Western countries in particular. However, Kazakhstan, a post-totalitarian country, has also proved to be successful in the development of e-government. This book analyzes e-government development in Kazakhstan from a multitude of dimensions, including, but not limited to, political, social, economic and technological platforms. It examines the adoption of a wide range of technology-driven public sector projects and identifies the key drivers, challenges, regulation policies and stakeholders of e-government reforms in this transitional society. Taking into account recent changes in governance, such as the development of mobile government, the rise of civic engagement and the open data-driven movement, and the overall formal progress of the e-government project, this book addresses the emergence of new challenges and concerns associated with the advancement of the e-government concept. Furthermore, it suggests that a universal framework can be applied when investigating e-government projects in the developing world. Offering a wide range of practical recommendations on how to overcome the problems associated with e-government development, this book will be a valuable resource for anyone wishing to improve their understanding of the multidimensional nature of e-government. It will also be of key interest to academics studying Political Science, Development Studies, Public Policy and Central Asian Studies.

This book considers the identity, direction, and intentions embodied in post-apartheid South African Foreign Policy.　 It aims to deepen the understanding of this evolving post-apartheid foreign policy through an exploration of the nature and trajectory of key bilateral relationships from both the global ‘South’ (Brazil, China, Iran, the AU) and ‘North’ (Japan and the UK). This window on the country’s international relations enriches understanding of the normative and structural factors that influence not only South African foreign policy, but also those of the ‘emerging middle powers’ as they seek to position themselves as influential actors in international affairs. By sketching the contours of key South African relationships, the contributors offer illuminating insights into the cross-pressures shaping South African foreign policy. In addition, they also add depth to the emerging middle power concept by exploring four areas where the tendencies and tensions of emerging middle power foreign policies are apparent: regionalism, multilateralism, reform of global governance, and approach to moral leadership.

This book was previously published as a special issue of Commonwealth & Comparative Politics.

Table of Contents

1. South Africa’s bilateral relationships in the evolving foreign policy of an emerging middle power

David R. Black and David J. Hornsby

2. Norm dynamics and international organisations: South Africa in the African Union and International Criminal Court

J. Andrew Grant and Spencer Hamilton

3. South Africa and Japan: maintaining a difficult friendship

Scarlett Cornelissen

4. South African foreign policy and China: converging visions, competing interests, contested identities

Chris Alden and Yu-Shan Wu

5. Brazil and South Africa: the ‘odd couple’ of the South Atlantic?

Janis van der Westhuizen

6. A battle of principles: South Africa’s relations with Iran

Michal Onderco

7. Breaking with tradition? South Africa–UK relations

David J. Hornsby and David R. Black

Inclusive Growth in Africa analyzes the concept of inclusion within the challenges facing Africa’s rapidly growing economies, where rising affluence for some has been accompanied almost everywhere with rising inequality.

Using a combination of political economy analyses, sector studies and econometric models, the contributors delve into a range of areas associated to the new realities on the continent. Topics covered include issues of disability, corruption, capital flight, and their implications for economic sustainability. There is also a discussion of the impact on development of dependence on externally determined prices for Africa’s natural resources. Other sector analyses look at agriculture and wind power, and the innovations required to make a difference for the poorer majority.

The book comprises of a rich array of essays on socio-economic inclusion in Africa by authors drawn from academia, African think tanks and international organizations. It would be of interest to scholars and students of many disciplines, including: Economics, Sociology, Development Studies, and African Studies.

Table of Contents

Part I: Political economy of inclusion

1. The Inclusiveness of Africa’s recent high-growth episode: Evidence from several countries, Alun Thomas

2. Disability and labour force participation in Cameroon, Arlette Simo Fosto, Christian Marie Zamo Akono and Roger Tsafack Nanfosso

3. Corruption and small and medium-sized enterprise growth in Cameroon, Daniel Gbetnkom

4. Entrepreneurship and Income Level in Developing Countries, Janvier D. Nkurunziza

Part II: External and spatial economies

5. Cereal price transmission from international to domestic markets in Africa, Carolin Mengel, Stephan von Cramon-Taubadel, Friederike Greb, Nelissa Jamor, Nadine Würriehausen

6. Impacts of Regional Trade Agreements on Trade in Agrifood Products: Evidence from Eastern and Southern Africa, Albert Makochekanwa

7. Export Diversification and Intra-Industry Trade in Africa, Siope V. ‘Ofa, Malcolm Spence, Simon Mevel and Stephen Karingi

8. Capital flight and economic growth in the Franc Zone, Ameth Saloum Ndiaye

Part III: Sectorial aspects

9. Development of Wind Energy in Africa, Alli D. Mukasa, Emelly Mutambatsere, Yannis Arvanitis and Thouraya Triki

10. Impact of Improved Agricultural Technology Adoption on Sustainable Rice Productivity and Rural Farmers’ Welfare in Nigeria, Bola Amoke Awotide, Taiwo Timothy Awoyemi, B.T. Omonona, and Aliou Diagne

In Japan, the main local administrative affairs are traditionally allotted to prefectures and municipalities, while communal disposal systems, fire-fighting and regional development takes secondary importance. However, two new changes to the frame of local governments have altered the main frameworks of national and provincial governance. With decentralization reforms taking effect, more local bodies are gaining autonomy and departing from uniformity. This has allowed methods of cooperation between governing bodies to diversify- trends which augur a dissolution of uniformity in Japanese local administration. If left alone, it may eventually lead to disparities between principal and peripheral bodies, and thus complicate the administrative systems further. How will these changes affect future community development? This book aims to address the dynamism of concepts of wide area public service in Japan. It advocates the use of flexible strategies to ensure service standards are best suited to each regional demand. This concept can be called "departure from uniformity". This book also examines the advantages and disadvantages of these shifts for the future of Japanese public policy, and suggests various strategies to prevent further complications; e.g. autonomous settlement zone. Regional Administration in Japan: Departure from uniformity will interest researchers of Japanese public policy and public administration. This book will also engage researchers of Japanese politics and Japanese studies in general.

How do we understand the evolution of central-local relations in China during the reform period? This book addresses this question by focusing on eight separate issues in which the central-local relationship has been especially salient - government finance, investment control, regional development, administrative zoning, implementation, culture, social welfare and international relations. Each chapter introduces a sector and the way the center and various local governments have shared or divided power over the different periods of China's reform era. The balance of power is gauged dynamically over time to measure the extent to which one level of government dominates, influences or shares power in making decisions in each of these particular domains, as well as what is likely to occur in the foreseeable future. The authors assess the winners and losers of these changes among key actors in China's society. The result provides a dynamic view of China's changing power relations.

This book explores experiences, issues and challenges which have emerged since Constitutional status was granted to the local bodies at grassroots level in India in the early 1990s. Among other issues, it focuses on: the contrasting political ideas of Mahatma Gandhi and B. R. Ambedkar on Panchayati Raj Institutions the legal and constitutional provisions which were introduced through the 73rd and 74th Amendment Acts the devolution process, status and challenges of democracy for local governmental bodies empowerment of the women and lower castes through reservations in the local bodies governance in Schedule V and VI tribal areas Based on extensive fieldwork across India, this volume will be useful to scholars and researchers of political science, sociology, public administration as well as policymakers and civil society activists.