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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Local government > General
This book explores the normalization of HIV and AIDS, reflecting upon the intended and unintended consequences of the multifarious "AIDS industry."
While the focus on national governments as the main providers of different forms of transnational governance in Southeast Asia is entirely understandable, such a focus can significantly underestimate the roles played by non-state actors. This comprehensive collection provides five different case studies that explore in detail how these governance forms work in different policy arenas. While previous studies have noted the way that non-state actors act as pressure or advisory groups, lobbying or advising states and regional organisations, this book explores how they are now more actively involved in a variety of cross-border networked forms of coordination, providing standards, rules and practices that other actors voluntarily abide by. The chapters in this volume reveal variations in the architecture of transnational governance, why they emerge, the modes of social co-ordination through which they work to shape actor behaviour and achieve impact, their normative implications, and how these governance schemes intersect with state and national regulatory frameworks. The authors point to the importance of looking beyond arrangements established through intergovernmental mechanisms in order to gain a full understanding of how international interactions are organised in Southeast Asia. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Asia.
In recent decades, local governments across America have increasingly turned specialized functions over to autonomous agencies ranging in scope from subdivision-sized water districts to multi-state transit authorities. This book is the first comprehensive examination of the causes and consequences of special-purpose governments in more than 300 metropolitan areas in the United States. It presents new evidence on the economic, political, and social implications of relying on these special districts while offering important findings about their use and significance.
Transitional societies struggling to build democratic institutions and new political traditions are faced with a painful dilemma. How can Government become strong and effective, building a common good that unites disparate ethnic and class groups, while simultaneously nurturing democratic social rules at the grassroots? Professor Fuller brings this issue to light in the contentious, multicultural setting of Southern Africa. Post-apartheid states, like South Africa and Namibia, are pushing hard to raise school quality, reduce family poverty, and equalize gender relations inside villages and townships. But will democratic participation blossom at the grassroots as long as strong central states so necessary for defining the common good push universal policies onto diverse local communities? This book builds from a decade of family surveys and qualitative village studies led by Professor Fuller at Harvard University and African colleagues inside Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa.
Two decades since the enactment of South Africa’s present constitution, the durability and endurance of ‘past’ inequalities and injustices illustrate that the ‘new South Africa’ – lauded as a miracle nation with the best constitution in the world – can no longer be regarded as an unqualified success. The legal and constitutional foundations of post-1994 South Africa are in a process of renegotiation that invites new and alternative perspectives and approaches.
This landmark book is the first of its kind to assess the challenges of African region-building and regional integration across all five African sub-regions and more than five decades of experience, considering both political and economic aspects. Leading scholars and practitioners come together to analyze a range of entwined topics, including: the theoretical underpinnings that have informed Africa's regional integration trajectory; the political economy of integration, including the sources of different 'waves' of integration in pan-Africanism and the reaction to neo-liberal economic pressures; the complexities of integration in a context of weak states and the informal regionalization that often occurs in 'borderlands'; the increasing salience of Africa's relationships with rising extra-regional economic powers, including China and India; and comparative lessons from non-African regional blocs, including the EU, ASEAN, and the Southern Common Market. A core argument of this book, running through all chapters, is that region-building must be recognized as a political project as much as if not more than an economic one; successful region-building in Africa will need to include the complex political tasks of strengthening state capacity (including states' capacity as 'developmental states' that can actively engage in economic planning), resolving long-standing conflicts over resources and political dominance, improving democratic governance, and developing trans-national political structures that are legitimate and inclusive.
This book explores the relationship between bureaucrats and elected politicians in Bangladesh and discusses how this impacts governance and development in the country from an empirical perspective. It looks at the interplay of politics and bureaucracy in ancient societies, western democracies and in the developing world while highlighting the uniqueness of the Bangladesh experience and its indigenous contexts of local governance. The author presents a historical overview of the nature of political development, shift of regimes in Bangladesh, and the role of various agents and stakeholders. Through a detailed study, the book provides an analytical and theoretical framework to understanding the linkages between politics and bureaucracy, governance and development in South Asia and Bangladesh, with implications for geopolitics and economic growth. This book will be of interest to scholars, researchers and students of political economy, development studies, public administration, comparative politics as well as to policymakers, bureaucrats, government bodies, and especially those concerned with Bangladesh.
Economists and political scientists deal with three major areas of concern: the effect of moving large numbers of welfare recipients into labor markets, the planned federal reforms in the health-care field that will shift costs to the state and local sectors, and trends in federal aid. Focusing on the impact of US devolution of responsibility and costs to the states, they find that the state economies can accommodate the challenges generally, but that the effect of welfare reform is too long-range to be adequately assessed in the near-term.
The recent devolution to the states of responsibilities previously held by the federal government -- a key goal of the deficit-reduction, smaller-government agenda of the 1990s -- has far-reaching implications for state budgets. At the moment, a strong economy has put most states into a strong enough fiscal condition to shoulder such burdens as welfare reform and public investment. But beneath the current surpluses are structural problems that are unlikely to withstand the next economic downturn; as a result, any essential public needs will be left unmet. This book deal with three major areas of concern: first, the effect of moving large numbers of welfare recipients into labor markets; second, the planned federal reforms in the health care field that will shift costs to the state and local sector; and third, trends in federal aid. A basic finding of these essays is that state economies can accommodate these challenges generally speaking, but the effect of recent welfare reform presents a problem too long-range to be adequately assessed in the near-term.
The foundings of constitutional democracies are commonly traced to singular moments. In turn, these moments of national origin are characterized as radical political innovations, notable for their civic unity, perfect legitimacy and binding authority. In constitutional democracies, this common view is particularly attractive, with original founding events, actors, and ideals continuously evoked in everyday politics to legitimize state authority and unify citizens. Angelica Maria Bernal challenges this view of foundings, however, explaining that it is ultimately dangerous, misguided, and unsustainable. Beyond Origins argues that the ascription of a universal authority to original founding events is problematic because it limits our understanding of subsequent foundational changes, political transformation and innovation. This singular view also confounds our ability to account for all of the actors and venues through which foundation-building and constitutional transformation occurs. Because such understandings of national foundings obscure the many power struggles at work in them, these origin stories are invalid. In the wake of these limited views of national founding, Bernal develops an alternate approach: "founding beyond origins." Rather than asserting that founding events are authoritatively settled and relegated to history, this framework redefines foundings as contentious, uncertain, and incomplete. Indeed, the book looks at a wide variety of contexts - early imperial Rome; revolutionary Haiti and France; the mid-20th century, racially-segregated United States; and contemporary Latin America - to reconsider political foundings as a contestatory and ongoing dimension of political life. Bridging classic and contemporary political and constitutional theory with historical readings, Bernal reorients understandings of political foundings, arguing that it is only through context-specific and pragmatist understandings of democratic origins that we can realize the potential for radical democratic change.
Over the past few decades and throughout the world, numerous government-initiated experiments and attempts at directly engaging and including citizens have emerged as remedies for a variety of problems faced by modern democracies, including political disaffection and insufficient capacity to deal with the complexity inherent in many contemporary public problems, such as climate change and segregation. In practice, these attempts are given many names, such as citizen panels, deliberative fora, collaborative dialogues, etc. In the academic literature as well, the phenomenon falls under many different headings, for instance collaborative, deliberative or interactive governance. Participatory Governance and Representative Democracy refers to this empirical phenomenon as local participatory governance, that is, government-sponsored direct participation between invited citizens and local officials in concrete arrangements and concerning problems that affect them. Participatory governance, we argue, may take many forms, regarding (1) type of interaction and type of communication between participants within the specific participatory arrangement (e.g., deliberative vs. aggregative) as well as regarding (2) the relation and connection between the specific arrangement and the more traditional representative structures (e.g., compatible, incompatible, transformative or irrelevant). The proposed edited volume addresses the matter of institutionalization, highlighting the difficulties associated with establishing stability and a shared understanding of the roles and rules among citizens, local politicians and administrators in participatory arrangements.
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 prov
This study examines how the shared cultural values of employees in
a Polish firm influence management attempts top transform
organizational practices in a newly privatized factory. By
introducing a foreign management approach, Total Quality Management
(TQM), the management of this factory presents a potential conflict
of values between the employees and the management philosophy.
Tracing the historical and contemporary impact of traditional,
political and religious influences in Poland and utilizing
ethnographic techniques of observation, interviews, and secondary
source data, the author identifies four patterns of shared
mindsets. These mindsets, insecurity and instability, distrust,
reluctance to assume responsibility and a struggle between
individualism and collectivism generate resistance to the
successful implementation of TQM in this factory.
This volume addresses the issues arising from the recent devolution referenda by exploring the historical development of the proposals, the importance of national and regional identities, the changing policies of the political parties and the approaches of business and other major groups towards devolution. It also looks at the impact on electoral reform coming from the proposal that proportional representation be used to elect the regional assemblies and how the new assemblies are to be financed. Finally the book discusses the implications of a devolved British state where different countries and regions achieve different levels of autonomy at different paces.
This volume addresses the issues arising from the recent devolution referenda by exploring the historical development of the proposals, the importance of national and regional identities, the changing policies of the political parties and the approaches of business and other major groups towards devolution. It also looks at the impact on electoral reform coming from the proposal that proportional representation be used to elect the regional assemblies and how the new assemblies are to be financed. Finally the book discusses the implications of a devolved British state where different countries and regions achieve different levels of autonomy at different paces.
Black Lives Matter at School is an essential resource for all those seeking to build an antiracist school system." -Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award-winning and #1 New York Times Bestselling Author Black Lives Matter at School succinctly generalizes lessons from successful challenges to institutional racism that have been won through the Black Lives Matter at School movement. This book will inspire many more educators and activists to join the Black Lives Matter at School movement at a moment when this antiracist work in our schools could not be more urgent and critical to education justice. Contributors include Opal Tometi, who wrote a moving foreword, Bettina Love who shares a powerful chapter on abolitionist teaching, Brian Jones who centers Black Lives Matter at School in the historical context of the ongoing struggle for racial justice in education and prominent teacher union leaders from Chicago to Los Angeles and beyond who discuss the importance of anti-racist struggle in education unions. The book includes essays, interviews, poems, resolutions, and more from educators, students and parents around the country who have been building Black Lives Matter at School on the ground.
This comprehensive volume provides crucial insights from contemporary academics and practitioners into how positive interventions might be made into post-secular political spaces that have emerged in the wake of the economic, political, and social upheavals of the 2008 global financial crisis. The failure of liberal democracy to deal effectively with such challenges has led to scapegoating of the poor, immigrants, and Muslims, and contributed to the populist electoral success of, among others, the Leave campaign during the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, and Donald Trump's Presidential campaign. These shocks have highlighted contemporary political spaces defined by what has been termed 'all the posts': postmodern, post-Christendom, post-liberal, post-political, and post-secular. This collection examines emerging attempts to understand and advance the cause of wellbeing within this context. The authors address a variety of key issues including: (re)configuring mythologies for the common good; deploying love and friendship politically; motivating new social movements; valuing the other; recovering displaced and devalued political narratives; finding alternatives to the previously dominant neo-liberalism; listening deeply for social transformation; and overcoming adversarial party politics. This book was originally published online as a special issue of the journal Global Discourse.
There is a wealth of published material which analyzes large-scale
international development plans and policies. This collection
shifts the focus away from this to examine the conflicts and
realities of development at a local, empirical level. It provides a
series of case studies which illuminates the attitudes and actions
of those involved in local development.
An original work on American cities and the ongoing "urban crisis". Using the metaphor of the socially constructed organization of space, Bartlett takes a broad view of the evolution of urban America, from its historical roots to the present; he then examines the way in which current policies have responded to, and affected the organization of space (covering housing, transportation, government and other urban problems). He concludes with a look to the future of American cities, how they will impact and be impacted on by changing commercial and labor markets, by the problems of poverty and cultural change. In an epilogue, he explores possible ways to overcome the "social dilemmas", while recognizing the difficulty of this undertaking. A thoroughly unique perspective to the study of cities, this book is about how space is used in America and how it changes as the "logic of location" evolves historically. Starting with the assumption that cities are fundamentally unnatural" phenomena, it unravels the interactions of technological advances that have made them possible and policies that have given them shape.
The Niger Delta Region has in the past two decades experienced protracted violent conflicts. At the roots of these violent conflicts are the genuine quests of the people for sustainable development that is based on social justice, equity, fairness and environmental protection. Although richly endowed, the region is hopelessly poor. This paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty has been attributed to a myriad of factors ranging from Nigeria’s centralized federalism, to ethno-regional domination, corruption, poor governance, and oil-related environmental degradation. Development in the Niger Delta is vital not only to the stability and prosperity of Nigeria, but also to global energy security. This book provides unique insights into the challenges of development and peace building in the Niger Delta, and insights into other resource-rich but poverty-stricken, conflict-prone regions of the world.
The Local Government Review has not been a rewarding experience for the majority of authorities who were drawn into it. Although those authorities which have achieved unitary status are generally positive about the outcome, elsewhere the Review has generated frustration, loss of morate and a sense of injustice.
Battery Park City in Manhattan has been hailed as a triumph of
urban design, and is considered to be one of the success stories of
American urban redevelopment planning. The flood of praise for its
design, however, can obscure the many lessons from the long
struggle to develop the project. Nothing was built on the site for
more than a decade after the first master plan was approved, and
the redevelopment agency flirted with bankruptcy in 1979. |
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