Policy Making in the Public Interest is the first text and workbook to provide a short and firmly focused introduction to local government policy making techniques. Each chapter introduces core policy concepts and competencies and concludes with exercises that encourage the reader to apply the theme of the chapter to a practical policy issue in local government, such as city-planning, community-economic development, public safety programming, utility planning, developing regional partnerships, and sustainable growth and development. The exercises explore issues students are likely to analyze as interns or observe in a service learning assignment with local government. For practitioners and elected officials, the exercises focus on issues commonly confronted on the job. This unique approach is designed specifically to lead the reader to a complete and multi-dimensional understanding of 'the public interest' and to provide tools for identifying and adopting local government policies that will support it. An accompanying eResource page contains grading forms to evaluate verbal presentations and analytical work, PowerPoint slides, downloadable forms for students and practitioners, as well as links and resources. Policy Making in the Public Interest is an essential text and workbook for classes in public policy or local government operations, a vital self-guided handbook for managers and elected officials, and a useful resource and instructional guide for workshops.

Problems of internal and external security in South-East Asia have persisted as one set of competing global alignments has been succeeded by another, with major impact on regional relationships. This book, first published in 1989, examines how the states of The Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) have attempted to confront the problems of regional security. It considers the nature and role of the Association - intended to promote economic growth, social progress and cultural development - traces its institutional development from 1967 and identifies a basic structural weakness arising from the differing strategic perspectives held by member governments. Leifer explores in particular ASEAN's response to conflicts over Kampuchea, renamed Cambodia in 1990, which was critical in exposing those differing perspectives and the limited role of a diplomatic community in coping with regional security problems. This comprehensive work will be of particular value to students and academics with an interest in South-East Asian diplomacy, history and regional security.

Chris McNickle argues that New York City Mayor David Dinkins failed to wield the power of the mayor with the skill required to run the city. His Tammany clubhouse heritage and liberal political philosophy made him the wrong man for the time. His deliberate style of decision-making left the government he led lacking in direction. His courtly demeanor and formal personal style alienated him from the people he served while the multi-racial coalition he forged as New York's first African-American mayor weakened over time.

Dinkins did have a number of successes. He balanced four budgets and avoided a fiscal takeover by the unelected New York State Financial Control Board. Major crime dropped 14 percent and murders fell by more than 12 percent. Dinkins helped initiate important structural changes to the ungovernable school system he inherited. His administration reconfigured health care for the poor and improved access to medical treatment for impoverished New Yorkers.

McNickle argues that David Dinkins has received less credit than he is due for his successes because they were overshadowed by his failure to fulfill his promise to guide the city to racial harmony. This stimulating review of a transitional period in New York City's history offers perspective on what it takes to lead and govern.

An Introduction to Connecticut State and Local Government is a timely, comprehensive, and well-referenced college level text for political science courses focused on state and local government. Author Edward Sembor covers the major governmental institutions and actors found at the state and local levels in Connecticut. Included are discussions on the governor, General Assembly, the judicial branch, political parties, interest groups and elections.

"How could this have happened?" The question still lingers among officials and residents of the small southern California town of Bell. Corruption is hardly an isolated challenge to the governance of America's cities. But following decades of benign obscurity, Bell witnessed the emergence of a truly astonishing level of public wrongdoing-a level succinctly described by Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley as "corruption on steroids." Even discounting the enormous sums involved-the top administrator paid himself nearly $800,000 a year in a town with a $35,000 average income-this was no ordinary failure of governance. The picture that emerges from years of federal, state, and local investigations, trials, depositions, and media accounts is of an elaborate culture of corruption and deceit created and sustained by top city administrators, councilmembers, police officers, numerous municipal employees, and consultants. The Failure of Governance in Bell California: Big-Time Corruption in a Small Town details how Bell was rendered vulnerable to such massive malfeasance by a disengaged public, lack of established ethical norms, absence of effective checks and balances, and minimal coverage by an overextended area news media. It is a grim and nearly unbelievable story. Yet even these factors fail to fully explain how such large-scale corruption could have arisen. More specifically, how did it occur within a structure-the council-manager form of government-that had been deliberately designed to promote good governance? Why were so many officials and employees prepared to participate in or overlook the ongoing corruption? To what degree can theories of governance, such as contagion theory or the "rover bandit" theme, explain the success of such blatant wrongdoing? The Failure of Governance, by Arizona State University Professor Thom Reilly-himself former county manager of Clark County, Nevada-pursues answers to these and related questions through an analysis of municipal operations that will afford the reader deeper insight into the inner workings of city governments-corrupt and otherwise. By considering factors arising from both theory and practice, Reilly makes clear, in other words, why the sad saga of Bell, California represents both a case study and a warning.

The emergence of large regions within Russia as centres of gravity for political and international power, and the changing relationship between these emerging regions and the centre are critically important factors currently at work within Russia. This book examines the whole question of Russian regions and regionalism. It considers important themes related to regionalism, including demography, security, military themes and international relations, and looks at a wide range of particular regions as case studies. It discusses the extent to which regions have succeeded in establishing themselves as centres of power, and assesses the degree to which President Putin is succeeding in incorporating regions into a hierarchy of power in which the primacy of the centre is retained.

This book takes a comparative approach to local government across 14 European countries, looking at processes of decentralisation, regionalisation and reforms of local government. Examining second levels of government, such as UK Counties, French Departements, Italian and Spanish Provinces, and German Landkreise, this book reveals both the specific characteristics of particular countries, and also similarities across Europe. As the first book focussing on the second level of local governments, this monograph combines comparative analysis of institutional trends and reforms of local government with examination of country-specific features to provide an original and insightful evaluation of European governance. Organised along common thematic lines, leading experts in their field outline the historical development of local government, and analyse recent or current reform debates. The book argues democratic quality and effectiveness of this territorial level of government is in the focus of on-going debates about the rescaling of statehood and a shift from 'government to governance'. The Second Tier of Local Government in Europe will be of interest to students and scholars studying local government, public administration and multi-level governance.

Bajo el gobierno del MAS el movimiento indigena boliviano logro emanciparse politicamente, penetrando las estructuras del poder estatal, pero al mismo tiempo paso por su crisis, desmovilizandose paulatinamente. El objetivo del libro es explorar la relacion entre la institucionalizacion del movimiento y su siguiente desmovilizacion. Aplicando el metodo "process tracing", el libro infiere primero que el impacto de la institucionalizacion en la dinamica del movimiento es condicionado por su caracter, asi el movimiento se pacifica cuando goza de la politica favorable y representacion gubernamental mas bien que parlamentaria; segundo, una vez el movimiento sea la parte de la maquinaria estatal, su disidencia potencial causa dilemas estrategicos para el gobierno que reacciona con estrategias para suprimirlo.

Over the past three decades, decentralization has been seen as the means for allowing local governments to become more accountable, and for encouraging the deepening of democracy and the building of village communities. By drawing on original village-level case studies of six villages in three different Indian states, this book presents a systematic analysis of the impact of decentralization on the delivery of social services at the local level within India. Supplementing national and state-level data and analyzing the different historical legacies in each state, the book argues that decentralization is not simply a function of the structure of the decentralization program or of the relationship between higher-tiered and local government. Rather, the possibility of decentralization affecting social outcomes depends on several interacting factors, including the distribution of power among local elites, the dynamics of political competition, and the level of civil society mobilization. By examining constitutionally-mandated political decentralization across India, this book identifies the circumstances under which local government structures can lead to improved social services and societal wellbeing, as well as presenting a substantial contribution to studies on South Asian Politics and Local Government.

"Decentralise authority and let managers manage" has been an almost universal message in UK public services over the last 15 years. But does it really work? This study attempts to show that behind the ministerial rhetoric the experiences of NHS trusts, grant maintained schools and housing associations were in practice distinctly mixed. The text offers a theoretical analysis of the origins and results of decentralized public management in the UK.

The International Directory of Government is the definitive guide to people in power in every part of the world. All the top decision-makers are included in this one-volume publication, which brings together government institutions, agencies and personnel in every country and dependency in the world. Each chapter offers information about: the country's system of government the head of state the legislature government ministers and ministries the election commission the judiciary state-related agencies and other institutions arranged by subject heading. For a number of countries, information has also been included about provincial government where considerable power is devolved to government at that level. Institutional entries contain the names and titles of principal officials, postal, e-mail and internet addresses, telephone, and fax numbers and other relevant details.

Given the news media's focus on national issues and debates, voters might be expected to make decisions about state and local candidates based on their views of the national parties and presidential candidates. However, nationalization as a concept, and the process by which politics becomes nationalized, are not fully understood. Are All Politics Nationalized? addresses this knowledge gap by looking at the behavior of candidates and the factors that influence voters' electoral choices. The editors and contributors examine the 2020 elections in six Pennsylvania districts to explore the level of nationalization in campaigns for Congress and state legislature. They also question if politicians are encouraging nationalized behavior and straight ticket voting-especially with down-ballot races. Are All Politics Nationalized? concludes that issues specific to particular districts-such as fracking and local union politics-still matter, and candidates are eager to connect with voters by highlighting their ties to the local community. National politics do trickle down to local races, but races up and down the ballot are still heavily localized.

This volume contains articles examining freedom of information statutes, including those protecting government employees who expose official misconduct. Using United States laws as examples, the articles explore the relationship of these laws to administrative and constitutional theory in the United States. In addition, they demonstrate how varying conceptions of information illuminate the controversies in the application of these laws to the revolution in the electronic storage and retrieval of information. The articles allow the reader to speculate how the connection of these laws to liberal democratic theory explains their recent adoption in several countries and their international application.

Governing the Locals demonstrates that with the exception of a brief period in 1990-92 when the local soviets fostered mass mobilization, local governments in post-Soviet Russia have actively constrained grass-roots activism. Rather than serving as instruments of the "schooling in civil society," or of "making democracy work"-as the conventional wisdom holds-local governments have been used by the regional authoritarian or ethnocratic regimes as instruments of top down social control. The author suggests that this tendency has been on the rise under President Putin, whose reforms have served to integrate local government into a centralized power vertical potentially facilitating authoritarian style social mobilization non only on a regional level, but also on a nation-wide scale. The author examines the impact of local self-governing institutions on nationalist movement mobilization in Russia. Using insights from social movement theories, Lankina argues that similar to the soviets in the Soviet system, municipalities in post-Soviet Russia continue to influence local societies through their control over social networks, material resources, and public agenda setting. Accordingly, their facilitating or constraining role crucially affects movement successes or failures. This is the first study identifying the centrality of local government for understanding the nature of state-society relations in Russia, and for explaining the broader questions of social activism or lack thereof in the post-Soviet space.

This book analyses changes which have occurred in the organization and management of the UK public services over the last 15 years, looking particularly at the restructured NHS. The authors present an up to date analysis around three main themes: 1. the transfer of private sector models to the public sector 2. the management of change in the public sector 3. management reorganization and role change In doing so they examine to what extent a New Public Management has emerged and ask whether this is a parochial UK development or of wider international significance. This is a topical and important issue in management training, professional and policy circles. Important analytic themes include: an analysis of the nature of the change process in the UK public services: characterisation of quasi markets; the changing role of local Boards and possible adaptation by professional groupings. The book also addresses the important and controversial question of accountability, and contributes to the development of a general theory of the New Public Management.

Liberal democracies are experiencing a major transformation of public governance by which self-regulation, co-operation and negotiation between public and private actors and across different political-administrative levels play an increasingly important role for policy-making and implementation. Using the term 'governance imagery', or what a given society envisions to be the proper way of governing public affairs, this volume examines the emergence, causes and consequences of the politics of self-governance both within relevant social science theorizing and in the everyday production of public governance in various policy areas. It questions how self-governance materialized in various areas of public governance in different liberal democracies, and the driving forces and political effects of attempts to enhance the role of self-governance. Challenging the theory and practice of public administration, The Politics of Self-Governance is an indispensable read for all those interested in new forms of public governance.

In Democracy at the Crossroads, the editors argue that there have been too few scholarly attempts to provide a comprehensive critique of the assumptions behind citizenship education. In particular, they ask the distinguished contributors to this volume to address difficult but essential questions that are often avoided or intentionally overlooked: What do all-embracing terms like 'global citizenship' really mean? What does democracy mean internationally? A timely work, Democracy at the Crossroads provides a necessary examination and re-interpretation of international perspectives on democracy and global citizenship as they apply to social education.

- Based on an empirical research project by experienced environmental health practitioners - Focuses on wider environmental health challenges in many developing countries - No published text currently available in this area

Written by two of the most respected observers of New York City, this book is a comprehensive guide to city politics.

Local Politics: A Resource for Democracy in Western Europe examines the relationship between local institutional design and citizens' attitudes toward democracy. Translated by Angelika Vetter, this book is a unique contribution to traditional political culture research, which has focused primarily on national politics. As the last stage in the nation-state administrative apparatus, local authorities represent the synapse between the political-administrative system and the citizens. By comparing attitudes towards local and national politics in a cross-national framework, this book investigates the socialization functions of local politics including the feeling of identification or belonging, the input side of politics, and the citizens' satisfaction with local and national democracy. Following sophisticated analysis, Vetter highlights the conditions under which locally socialized political orientations may serve as a resource for democracy at higher system levels. Local Politics: A Resource for Democracy in Western Europe is a fascinating read for those interested in political science and European studies.

In an era when government seems remote and difficult to approach, participatory democracy may seem a hopelessly romantic notion. Yet nothing is more crucial to the future of American democracy than to develop some way of spurring greater citizen participation. In this important book, Jeffrey Berry, Ken Portney, and Ken Thompson examine cities that have created systems of neighborhood government and incorporated citizens in public policymaking. Through careful research and analysis, the authors find that neighborhood based participation is the key to revitalizing American democracy. The Rebirth of Urban Democracy provides a thorough examination of five cities with strong citizen participation programs--Birmingham, Dayton, Portland, St. Paul, and San Antonio. In each city, the authors explore whether neighborhood associations encourage more people to participate; whether these associations are able to promote policy responsiveness on the art of local governments; and whether participation in these associations increases the capacity of people to take part in government. Finally, the authors outline the steps that can be taken to increase political participation in urban America. Berry, Portney, and Thomson show that citizens in participatory programs are able to get their issues on the public agenda and develop a stronger sense of community, greater trust in government officials, and more confidence in the political system. From a rigorous evaluation of surveys and interviews with thousands of citizens and policymakers, the authors also find that central governments in these cities are highly responsive to their neighborhoods and that less conflict exists among citizens and policymakers. The authors assert that these programs can provide a blueprint for major reform in cities across the country. They outline the components for successful participation programs and offer recommendations for those who want to get involved. They demonstrate that participation systems can influence citizens to become more knowledgeable, more productive, and more confident in government; and can provide more governments with a mechanism for being more responsive in setting priorities and formulating polices that closely approximate the true preferences of the people.

Governing the Locals demonstrates that with the exception of a brief period in 1990-92 when the local soviets fostered mass mobilization, local governments in post-Soviet Russia have actively constrained grass-roots activism. Rather than serving as instruments of the 'schooling in civil society, ' or of 'making democracy work'_as the conventional wisdom holds_local governments have been used by the regional authoritarian or ethnocratic regimes as instruments of top down social control. The author suggests that this tendency has been on the rise under President Putin, whose reforms have served to integrate local government into a centralized power vertical potentially facilitating authoritarian style social mobilization non only on a regional level, but also on a nation-wide scale. The author examines the impact of local self-governing institutions on nationalist movement mobilization in Russia. Using insights from social movement theories, Lankina argues that similar to the soviets in the Soviet system, municipalities in post-Soviet Russia continue to influence local societies through their control over social networks, material resources, and public agenda setting. Accordingly, their facilitating or constraining role crucially affects movement successes or failures. This is the first study identifying the centrality of local government for understanding the nature of state-society relations in Russia, and for explaining the broader questions of social activism or lack thereof in the post-Soviet space.

Although federal Indian policies are largely determined by Congress and the executive branch, it is the commissioner and assistant secretary of Indian Affairs who must implement them. Over the past two centuries, the overarching goals of federal Indian policy have been the social and political integration and assimilation of Native Americans and the extinguishment of aboriginal title to Indian lands. These goals have been woven into policies of emigration, assimilation, acculturation, termination, reservations, and consumerism, shifting under the influence of a changing national moral compass. Indian Affairs commissioners have and continue to hold an enormous power to dictate how these policies affect the fate of Indians and their lands, a power that David H. DeJong shows has been used and misused in different ways through the years. By examining the work of the Indian affairs commissioners and their assistant secretaries, DeJong gives new insight into how federal Indian policy has evolved and been shaped by the social, political, and cultural winds of the day.