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.

This book provides crucial insight into the fight back against austerity by local authorities through emerging forms of municipal entrepreneurialism in housing delivery. Capturing this moment within its live context, the authors examine the ways that local authorities are moving towards increased financial independence based on their own activities to implement new forms and means of housebuilding activity. They assess these changes in the context of the long-term relationship between local and central government and argue that contemporary local authority housing initiatives represent a critical turning point, whilst also providing new ways of thinking about meting housing need.

In 2010, the governor of Arizona signed a controversial immigration bill (SB 1070) that led to a news media frenzy, copycat bills in twenty-two states, and a U.S. Supreme Court battle that put Arizona at the cross-hairs of the immigration debate. Arizona Firestorm brings together well-respected experts from across the political spectrum to examine and contextualize the political, economic, historical, and legal issues prompted by this and other anti-Latino and anti-immigrant legislation and state actions. It also addresses the news media s role in shaping immigration discourse in Arizona and around the globe. Arizona is a case study of the roots and impact of the 21st century immigration challenge. Arizona Firestorm will be of interest to scholars and students in communication, public policy, state politics, federalism, and anyone interested in immigration policy or Latino politics.

City-country consolidation builds upon the Progressive tradition of favoring structural reform of local governments. This volume looks at some important issues confronting contemporary efforts to consolidate governments and develops a theoretical approach to understanding both the motivations for pursuing consolidation and the way the rules guiding the process shape the outcome. Individual chapters consider the push for city-county consolidation and the current context in which such decisions are debated, along with several alternatives to city-county consolidation. The transaction costs of city-county consolidation are compared against the costs of municipal annexation, inter-local agreements, and the use of special district governments to achieve the desired consolidation of services. The final chapters compare competing perspectives for and against consolidation and put together some of the pieces of an explanatory theory of local government consolidation.

How do female municipal leaders influence policymaking in American cities? Can gender determine who gets a say in local politics or what programs cities fund? These are some of the questions raised and answered in Mirya Holman's provocative "Women in Politics in the American City."
This book provides the first comprehensive evaluation of the influence of gender on the behavior of mayors and city council members in the United States. Holman considers the effects of gender in local, urban politics and analyzes how a leader's gender does-and does not-influence policy preferences, processes, behavior, and outcomes.
Holman effectively uses original survey data to evaluate policy attitudes, combined with observations of city council meetings and interviews with leaders and community members. In doing so, she demonstrates the importance of considering the gender of leaders in local office.
"Women in Politics in the American City "emphasizes that the involvement of women in local politics does matter and that it has significant consequences for urban policy as well as state and local democracy.

The British polity has undergone a fundamental transformation in the last decade, and in 1998 this culminated in the most radical reform of the British state since its inception in 1707. Since 1998 devolution for Scotland and Wales and power sharing in Northern Ireland have fundamentally changed the balance of power between government at the centre and the new territorial polities.

Taking this profound change as its theme, "Devolution in British Politics" is an up-to date, comprehensive and effective review of the origins and development of the devolution process. In highly readable chapters crucial aspects of devolution are considered, and the process of constitutional change and its political and institutional consequences are the principal focus of enquiry by the contributors.

With clarity and passion, "Devolution in British Politics" examines the forces at work, both historical and contemporary, that are changing the British polity. It accounts for the emergence of the cultural and political movements in the Aother nationsA that since the 1960s have demanded significant devolution of power from Whitehall and challenged the control by Westminster parties and political elites over territorial politics. "Devolution" traces the residual legacy of deep-seated cultural differences and persistent territorial interests that gave rise during the nineteenth century to political resistance to government from London, even to the idea of shared nationhood.

A team of specialist writers provides a detailed assessment of the causes and demands of the devolution campaign as well as:

• a review of the significance of the newly devolved arrangements that have replaced the classicBritish unitary state;
• an assessment of the impact of the constitutional changes;
• consideration of devolutionAs importance for the present and future workings of British government and politics, both at the centre and in the new territorial polities;
• a detailed discussion of the idea of political identity in Britain, and in a wider European and global context.

The Editor
Michael OANeill is Jean Monnet Professor of European Union Politics at Nottingham Trent University.

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.

A team of scholars from throughout the world joins together in this volume to discuss the changes and challenges for administrative structures at the beginning of the 21st century. Focusing on democratization movements, flexibilization tendencies, the inclusion or exclusion of minority groups and the restructuring of transitional or emerging states, it provides a differentiated spatial overview of key problems currently faced in public administration. Offering a wide range of regional case studies from Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East and Africa, it tests current theories and concepts of government and governance, space and place and society and community. In doing so, it offers valuable insights and makes policy implications.

A concise and provocative introduction to state legislative politics, State Legislatures Today is designed as a supplement for state and local government courses and upper level courses on legislative politics. The book examines state legislatures and state lawmakers, putting them in historical context, showing how they have evolved over the years, and differentiating them from Congress. It covers state legislative elections (including the impact of redistricting, candidate recruitment, etc.), the changing job description of state legislators, legislatures as organizations, the process by which legislation gets produced, and the influences upon legislators.

While some academic attention has been paid to the impact of new digital technologies on African media in the colonial languages of English, French and Portuguese, there is a dearth of research into African language digital communication. This book analyses the online presence of African language media. The chapters in the book focus on the speed, structure, content, navigation and interactivity, operations and performance, and audience of the online media. They also pay particular attention to how social media such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp have been appropriated by African language media. Using a wide range of case studies, the contributors assess the challenges of adopting digital technologies by the media, and how the technologies have impacted journalistic practice and media operations.

Examining the ability of the African language press to adopt new technologies, this book will be of interest to scholars of media, journalism, communication, social media and culture in Africa.

Table of Contents



Introduction: Not to be left behind: African languages, media and the digital sphere 1. Access, Skills, African Perspectives and ‘Development’? in Africa: Local Knowledge in Local Languages 2. Alaroye, Isolezwe and the adoption of digital technologies 3. Okun Radio Online as an Impetus for Maintaining the Dialects and Cultural Heritage of Okun-Yoruba People 4. Grassroots Media and Social Media Adaptation: Case Study of Urhobo Today 5. Breaking Protocol: Indigenous Language Usage Practices in Online Readers’ Comments in Zimbabwe 6. Perceptions of and motivations for accessing Swahili Online newspapers among students at the University of Dar es Salaam 7. Use of Indigenous Languages for Social Media Communication: The Nigerian Experience 8. Politics of language, ethnicity, and identity in Zimbabwean ethnolinguistic online communities 9. ‘Digital Chieftaincy’: Social Media, Register and Community Policing in Kenya 10. New Technologies, Indigenous Language Media Practice and Management for Development in Nigeria 11. Issues and challenges of adopting digital technologies by African language media: The YoruÌbaì example 12. African language online journalism in Malawi: Challenges and Prospects

Comprised of a series of national case studies, this book critically examines initiatives in public participation and their relationship to developments in community governance. As such, the case studies enable national perspectives to be applied to crucial features of modern public policy and politics. Focusing on case studies in areas which are undergoing major social and institutional transformation and/or which raise particular issues because of the marginal position of the areas within their nation-states, the book also concerns itself with developments in Western European countries and why people should logically support some but not other initiatives in public participation. This book will be very useful for students and academics in areas such as politics, public administration, social policy and sociology. It should also be of interest to local activists such as councillors, members of pressure groups and those concerned about modern trends in democracy.

The first local history of Napoleonic France to appear in the English language, Inside Napoleonic France: State and Society in Rouen, 1800-1815 redresses the traditional neglect of regional history during this period. Relying on extensive French archival sources, Gavin Daly sets out to investigate the nature of the Napoleonic state and its short and longer-term impact upon local society. Specifically, it examines the question of state power and its implementation and reception at a local level, the relationship between central government and the regions, the social and economic impact of war and how the Napoleonic regime addressed Rouen's revolutionary past. Having carefully studied these issues, Daly argues that despite an unprecedented degree of social control, the Napoleonic state was not all-powerful, and that the central government's power was tempered by local considerations. It is this interaction between the representatives of central government and the regional elites which provides the central focus of the book.

City Hall Goes Abroad provides a systematic examination of local activism, specifically city governments acting on international issues. It delineates the growth of these activities in the past two decades, focusing on four issues: the comprehensive test ban, nuclear-free zone declarations, divestment from South Africa, and sanctuary for Central American refugees. This book is useful in understanding not only these specific issues and the cities that have acted on them, but the general phenomenon of nonstate activism that has emerged and the direction of this activism in the 1990s and beyond. This unique volume examines the subject matter from both a descriptive and quantitative perspective. The comprehensive way in which the topic is addressed will be of interest to academics, activists, and government practitioners as well as students of urban politics, local government, foreign policy, and international relations. "Heidi H. Hobbs is to be commended for producing a book that should be required reading for any student of foreign policy making--by central and noncentral governments--and that advances the analysis of the global activities of American municipal governments. --Canadian Journal of Urban Research

These volumes provide an essential comprehensive work of reference for the annual municipal elections that took place each November in the 83 County Boroughs of England and Wales between 1919 and 1938. They also provide an extensive and detailed analysis of municipal politics in the same period, both in terms of the individual boroughs and of aggregate patterns of political behaviour. Being annual, these local election results give the clearest and most authoritative record of how political opinion changed between general elections, especially useful for research into the longer gaps such as 1924-29 and 1935-45, or crisis periods such as 1929-31. They also illuminate the impact of fringe parties such as the Communist Party and the British Union of Fascists, and also such questions as the role of women in politics, the significance of religious and ethnic differentiation and the connection between occupational and class divisions and party allegiance. Analysis at the ward level is particularly useful for socio-spatial studies. A major work of reference, County Borough Elections in England and Wales, 1919-1938 is indispensable for university libraries and local and national record offices. Each volume has approximately 700 pages.

This is a coherent and integrated set of essays around the theme of governance addressing a wide range of questions on the organisation and legitimation of authority. At the heart of the book is a set of topics which have long attracted the attention of urbanists and urban historians all over the world: the growth and reform of urban local government, local-centre relationships, public health and pollution, local government finance, the nature of local social elites and of participation in local government. Approaching these topics through the concept of governance not only raises a series of new questions but also extends the scope of enquiry for the historian seeking to understand towns and cities all over the world in a period of rapid change. Questions of governance must be central to a variety of enquiries into the nature of the urban place. There are questions about the setting of agendas, about when a localised or neighbourhood issue becomes a big city or even national political issue, about what makes a 'problem'. Public health and related matters form a central part of the 'issues' especially for the British; in North America fire and the development of urban real estate have dominated; in India the security of the colonial government had a prominent place. The historical dynamic of these essays follows the change from the chartered governments of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries towards the representative regimes of the nineteenth and twentieth. However, such historical change is not regarded as inevitable, and the effects of bureaucratic growth, regulatory regimes, the legitimating role of rational and scientific knowledge as well as the innovatory use of ritual and space are all dealt with at length.

These volumes provide an essential comprehensive work of reference for the annual municipal elections that took place each November in the 83 County Boroughs of England and Wales between 1919 and 1938. They also provide an extensive and detailed analysis of municipal politics in the same period, both in terms of the individual boroughs and of aggregate patterns of political behaviour. Being annual, these local election results give the clearest and most authoritative record of how political opinion changed between general elections, especially useful for research into the longer gaps such as 1924-29 and 1935-45, or crisis periods such as 1929-31. They also illuminate the impact of fringe parties such as the Communist Party and the British Union of Fascists, and also such questions as the role of women in politics, the significance of religious and ethnic differentiation and the connection between occupational and class divisions and party allegiance. Analysis at the ward level is particularly useful for socio-spatial studies. A major work of reference, County Borough Elections in England and Wales, 1919-1938 is indispensable for university libraries and local and national record offices. Each volume has approximately 700 pages.

In A Short History of the Blockade, award-winning writer Leanne Betasamosake Simpson uses Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg stories, storytelling aesthetics, and practices to explore the generative nature of Indigenous blockades through our relative, the beaver—or in Nishnaabemowin, Amik. Moving through genres, shifting through time, amikwag stories become a lens for the life-giving possibilities of dams and the world-building possibilities of blockades, deepening our understanding of Indigenous resistance as both a negation and an affirmation. Widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation, Simpson’s work breaks open the intersections between politics, story, and song, bringing audiences into a rich and layered world of sound, light, and sovereign creativity. A Short History of the Blockade reveals how the practice of telling stories is also a culture of listening, “a thinking through together,� and ultimately, like the dam or the blockade, an affirmation of life.

This volume shows how social diversification during the economic boom has modified political norms and public practices -- contrary to the nostalgic hopes of many establishment conservatives. White maintains that while political reforms have emerged partly from the local resources created by economic boom (as detailed in the companion volume), these reforms have equally come from new norms among individuals and small groups. In comparing China's current situation to that of other countries and their revolutions, it is clear that China's reforms have followed a similar pattern; as the revolution's wave crests, the tide predictably changes and symbolic and police centralization ebb as local governance rises. The rapid modernization of China has necessitated development of new methods of maintaining coercive order at the local level, while the state political institutions grapple with new methods for selecting new leaders and adopting new laws.

In our "devolutionary" era, politics at the state and local levels is more interesting than ever. This popular text is the most concise, readable, and current introduction to the field. Now in its ninth edition, the book keeps its focus on the varied and changing political and economic environments in which state and local governments function and their strengths and weaknesses in key areas of public policy.

The text is enlivened throughout by boxed sections that relate individual experiences or highlight particular issues and interesting developments. Topics covered in this edition include changing patterns of devolution and centralization in American federalism; taxation and budgeting; new approaches to welfare, education, land use, and waste management; and such "hot" issues as tort reform and the death penalty.

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.

This volume shows how social diversification during the economic boom has modified political norms and public practices -- contrary to the nostalgic hopes of many establishment conservatives. White maintains that while political reforms have emerged partly from the local resources created by economic boom (as detailed in the companion volume), these reforms have equally come from new norms among individuals and small groups. In comparing China's current situation to that of other countries and their revolutions, it is clear that China's reforms have followed a similar pattern; as the revolution's wave crests, the tide predictably changes and symbolic and police centralization ebb as local governance rises. The rapid modernization of China has necessitated development of new methods of maintaining coercive order at the local level, while the state political institutions grapple with new methods for selecting new leaders and adopting new laws.

Centered on the urban workplace, the danwei (workunit) has been the fundamental social and spatial unit of urban China under socialism. Not only was it the source of employment, wages, and other material benefits for the vast majority of urban residents, it was also the institution through which the urban population was housed, organized, regulated, policed, educated, trained, protected, and surveyed. Furthermore, as the basic unit of urban society, each danwei became a community, providing its members with identity, a "face," and social belonging. With particular focus on the link between spatial forms and social organization, this book traces the origins and development of this critical institution up to the present day. Recent economic restructuring has seen the danwei lose its dominant role, yet its presence still influences the possibilities for urban transformation. Moreover, the author argues, the new institutions emerging in its place display important characteristics of the old danwei system.

Interest in the governance of London has remained high in the years following the election of a London mayor and all the twists and turns of Mayor Livingstone's term of office, including struggles with Whitehall and the boroughs. Written a leading authority, Governing London provides a definitive critique of the politics, administration and government of one of the world's leading cities and recommends major changes to the capital's government to address its longstanding crisis of governability.

Politics and Government in South Africa introduces readers to all aspects of government and politics in South Africa, from local, to provincial, national, and on to international considerations.

The perfect guide for students and general readers, this textbook explains how South Africa’s key institutions are governed and interact with each other, and how important issues such as economics, gender, race, and class shape relations between citizens and government. Grounded in history and leading theories and debates, the book also brings in alternative perspectives from artists, writers, and popular culture, to demonstrate the diverse ways in which issues of politics and social justice are engaged with within South Africa.

Written with the needs of students at the forefront, each chapter includes:

• Review and discussion questions
• Key terms and further resources
• Fun facts in a Did you know? section
• Supplementary sources and quotations in a The Past as Present section

Interactive and engaging, Politics and Government in South Africa invites readers to consider what they would do in tackling issues such as land distribution, peacekeeping, South Africa’s role in the African Union, and military engagement abroad. It is an essential read for undergraduate students studying Political Science, International Relations, and African Studies, and for anyone looking to develop a deeper understanding of South Africa.