Over the past forty years, conservatives have mastered the art of pursuing policy change across the states, while similar liberal efforts have floundered. Using a diverse array of original evidence, including interviews, previously-unexamined archival records, and new surveys, State Capture explains why and how conservatives developed cross-state political clout while progressives did not. The book also carefully documents the implications of conservative cross-state network-building for American democracy, spelling out its consequences for political inequality and representation, as well as for our understanding of the relationship between private-sector businesses, political activists, and wealthy donors. In State Capture, Alexander Hertel-Fernandez details the development of a trio of conservative groups operating within and outside of state legislatures responsible for the right's success in the states. This right-leaning "troika" includes the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which brings together state legislators, conservative activists, and businesses to draft model legislation for the states; the free-market think-tanks operating as part of the State Policy Network (SPN), which together offer research and commentary in support of the policies ALEC develops; and Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a federated grassroots advocacy group with millions of volunteers and a hefty campaign warchest dedicated to pressing state governments to adopt conservative legislation, including ALEC model bills. Following the histories of each group across their victories but also their missteps, the book sheds light on broader themes in American political development and helps us to better understand longstanding issues about how businesses shape policy and politics. A timely and accessible book that tackles important long-term shifts in American politics, State Capture is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the intersection between private power and democracy.

This book, now available in paperback, is the result of national research conducted amongst England's directly elected mayors and the councillors that serve alongside them. It is the first such major publication to assess the impact on local politics of this new office and fills a gap in our understanding of how the Local Government Act 2000 has influenced local governance. The book also draws from a range of research that has focused on elected mayors - in England and overseas - to set out how the powers, roles and responsibilities of mayors and mayoral councils would need to change if English local politics is to fundamentally reconnect with citizens. It not only explores how English elected mayors are currently operating, but how the office could develop and, as such, is a major contribution to the debate about the governance of the English localities.

This text provides a systematic review of the reform of local government since the election of New Labour in 1997. Modern Local Government: " provides the relevant historical context for the predicted 'death of local government' in the Thatcher era " explains the New Labour agenda for local government and the components which make up local governance in England today " offers substantive discussion of: decision-making; community strategies; performance measures; procurement, privatization, partnerships; the role of e-government; and standards and corruption " analyzes the implications of reform at different spatial scales - from the local to the regional - and offers a rich discussion of the 'new localism' " presents an overview of the role of European Union legislation in areas like employment, environment and competition. " concludes with a consideration of the possible futures for local government including local area agreements, local public service boards and choice. Modern Local Government is a unique assessment of local government reform from the perspective of both local and central government, which is fully informed by an analysis of the role of the European Union. It will be the key resource for all students of local government in planning and related disciplines.

This book derives from research and fieldwork in the rural and tribal hinterland of India, particularly in the mineral rich states. It looks at the nuances of land and resource politics and summarizes the long-standing land acquisition and mining debate. It discusses the relevant theoretical arguments from inter-disciplinary perspectives and develops an argument through the case study of Singrauli, a region in Madhya Pradesh in India, that has seen various 'regimes of dispossession' in the last six decades in India. It looks at the legal and policy arguments around right to property, 'fair' compensation, public purpose and the resource curse debate, and at contested 'spaces' (left wing extremism) and resource-capital relationships.

This book addresses issues of national identity and nationalism in Scotland from a political and linguistic perspective. It compares a variety of attitudes and opinions from the political elite to the masses, examining the nature of national identity held by members of these groups and the differences within and between them. There is consideration of non-civic aspects of national identity, as well as a measure of political party nationalism in Scotland over the past forty years that illustrates the ideological movements of each major party during this period. This work also represents the first comprehensive examination of the discourse involved in the expression of national identity within Scottish politics and society, combining quantitative and discourse analysis methods to illustrate the articulation of national identity by differing groups in different contexts. Key Features Presents a detailed consideration of the language used within the political and nationalist arena in Scotland Compares a variety of attitudes and opinions held within Scotland from the political elite to the masses Introduces a new method for measuring political nationalism using manifesto analysis

In his inaugural address, Governor Brereton C. Jones proclaimed, "This administration is committed to having the most positive, progressive, exciting four years in our state's history." Through speeches and press releases, this volume reflects the principal concerns of Jones's time in office. Thematically organized, the more than two hundred public statements included here present the public face of the Jones administration on such issues as health care, education, economic development, the environment, and governmental reform. Nowhere else has the full text of these speeches and press releases been printed. Governor Jones, born in 1939, was elected to the West Virginia legislature in 1964, where he served for four years before retiring from politics. After moving to Kentucky and switching allegiance from the Republican to the Democratic Party, he re-entered politics with a successful campaign to become lieutenant governor in 1987. He was elected the Commonwealth's fifty-fourth governor in 1991 by a record margin of nearly two to one. Jones initiated a number of reforms once in office. He turned a $400 million budget deficit into a $300 million surplus in four years, and he passed dramatic ethics reform in both the executive and legislative branches. Health-care issues were also of great importance to Jones, who spent the years before his election working with the Kentucky Health Care Access Foundation in addition to farming. After surviving a helicopter crash in 1992, he turned the main focus of his administration toward health-care reform and initiatives. Though he met with legislative opposition when he proposed universal health care for all Kentuckians, he did help pass legislation in 1994 that would serve as a solid beginning on the issue for future governors.

At the center of this investigation is the great modernization effort of a West German state, Bavaria, in the 1970s and 1980s, by means of a reform of the smaller units of local government. The reforms were meant to abolish all autonomous local governments serving populations of fewer than 3,000, thereby reducing the number of local governments in Bavaria from more than 7,000 to less than 2,000. Based on interviews, surveys, and statistical research, this study chronicles fifteen communities and their challenges, developments, and social changes from post-1945 up to the present. While this book explores the decline of the iconic village community, it also reveals the survival of medieval towns in a contemporary world, and despite the modern desire for comprehensive and well-integrated services, there remains a seemingly perennial appeal of small town and village life.

In 1978, Ed Koch assumed control of a city plagued by filth, crime, bankruptcy, and racial tensions. By the end of his mayoral run in 1989 and despite the Wall Street crash of 1987, his administration had begun rebuilding neighborhoods and infrastructure. Unlike many American cities, Koch's New York was growing, not shrinking. Gentrification brought new businesses to neglected corners and converted low-end rental housing to coops and condos. Nevertheless, not all the changes were positive--AIDS, crime, homelessness, and violent racial conflict increased, marking a time of great, if somewhat uneven, transition.

For better or worse, Koch's efforts convinced many New Yorkers to embrace a new political order subsidizing business, particularly finance, insurance, and real estate, and privatizing public space. Each phase of the city's recovery required a difficult choice between moneyed interests and social services, forcing Koch to be both a moderate and a pragmatist as he tried to mitigate growing economic inequality. Throughout, Koch's rough rhetoric (attacking his opponents as "crazy," "wackos," and "radicals") prompted charges of being racially divisive. The first book to recast Koch's legacy through personal and mayoral papers, authorized interviews, and oral histories, this volume plots a history of New York City through two rarely studied yet crucial decades: the bankruptcy of the 1970s and the recovery and crash of the 1980s.

As a 1950s housewife and League of Women Voters volunteer who spearheaded the city of Lincoln’s switch to a “strong mayor� form of government, Helen Boosalis (1919–2009) never anticipated that she herself would one day be that strong mayor and chief executive of Nebraska’s capital city. Helen Boosalis’s story, told by her daughter, Beth Boosalis Davis, is that of a true pioneer of women in politics. The daughter of Greek immigrants, Boosalis achieved national prominence as the first woman president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and as an outspoken advocate for economically distressed cities facing President Reagan’s “new federalism.� Winning the Democratic nomination for governor of Nebraska in 1986, Helen Boosalis ran against Kay Orr in the first gubernatorial contest between two women in U.S. history. The interwoven tales of conflict and challenge, from the mayor’s office to the campaign trail, combine personal insight into one woman’s trailblazing political history with a compelling memoir of a half century of public service and private devotion  shared by two remarkable women, mother and daughter.

From "Reefer Madness" to legal purchase at the corner store.With long-time legal and social barriers to marijuana falling across much of the United States, the time has come for an accessible and informative look at attitudes toward the dried byproduct of Cannabis sativa. Marijuana: A Short History profiles the politics and policies concerning the five-leaf plant in the United States and around the world. Millions of Americans have used marijuana at some point in their lives, yet it remains a substance shrouded by myth, misinformation, and mystery. And nearly a century of prohibition has created an enforcement system that is racist, and the continuing effects of racially-targeted over criminalization limit economic and social opportunities in communities of color. Marijuana: A Short History tells this story, and that of states stepping up to enact change. This book offers an up-to-date, cutting-edge look at how a plant with a tumultuous history has emerged from the shadows of counterculture and illegality. Today, marijuana has become a remarkable social, economic, and even political force with a surprising range of advocates and opponents. Over the past two decades marijuana policy has transformed dramatically in the United States, as dozens of states have openly defied the federal government. Marijuana: A Short History provides a brief yet compelling narrative that discusses the social and cultural history of marijuana but also tells us how a once-vilified plant has been transformed into a serious, even mainstream, public policy issue. Focusing on politics, the media, government, racism, criminal justice, and education, the book describes why public policy has changed, and what that change might mean for marijuana's future place in society.

American democratic ideals, civic republicanism, public morality, and Christianity were the dominant forces at work during South Dakota's formative decade. What? In our cynical age, such a claim seems either remarkably na�ve or hopelessly outdated. Territorial politics in the late-nineteenth-century West is typically viewed as a closed-door game of unprincipled opportunism or is caricatured, as in the classic film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, as a drunken exercise in bombast and rascality. Now Jon K. Lauck examines anew the values we like to think were at work during the founding of our western states. Taking Dakota Territory as a laboratory for examining a formative stage of western politics, Lauck finds that settlers from New England and the Midwest brought democratic practices and republican values to the northern plains and invoked them as guiding principles in the drive for South Dakota statehood. Prairie Republic corrects an overemphasis on class conflict and economic determinism, factors posited decades ago by such historians as Howard R. Lamar. Instead, Lauck finds South Dakota's political founders to be agents of Protestant Christianity and of civic republicanism - an age-old ideology that entrusted the polity to independent, landowning citizens who placed the common interest above private interest. Focusing on the political culture widely shared among settlers attracted to the Great Dakota Boom of the 1880s, Lauck shows how they embraced civic virtue, broad political participation, and agrarian ideals. Family was central in their lives, as were common-school education, work, and Christian community. In rescuing the story of Dakota's settlers from historical obscurity, Prairie Republic dissents from the recent darker portrayal of western history and expands our view and understanding of the American democratic tradition.

Examining Chicago as a model for urban economic development in the post-World War II era, Joel Rast challenges the conventional belief that structural economic change has forced cities to concentrate resources on downtown revitalization efforts in order to remain fiscally viable. Rast argues instead that cities face multiple economic development choices and that politics play a fundamental role in deciding among them. During the late 1950s, a coalition of city officials and downtown business leaders initiated planning efforts that would help reshape central Chicago into a modern mecca of service industries and affluent residential neighborhoods, chasing viable manufacturers from the near downtown area in the process. More recently, however, manufacturers have sought protection and support from city government, forming alliances with labor and community organizations concerned with the decline of well-paying industrial job opportunities. Responding to these pressures, city officials from the Harold Washington, Eugene Sawyer, and Richard M. Daley administrations have taken steps to implement a citywide industrial policy. Remaking Chicago portrays urban economic development as open-ended and politically contested. It demonstrates that who governs matters and shows how opportunities exist for creative local responses to urban economic restructuring. Based on extensive research, this well-written case study will appeal to those interested in urban planning and politics, economic development, and Chicago history and politics.

Starting Over traces the remarkable political career of former Virginia Governor and U.S. Senator George Allen. Once considered a likely presidential candidate, Allen became a YouTube sensation after a slip of the tongue. But the Allen story is not over and his career has featured multiple returns from seeming oblivion. The author provides a balanced look at Allen's successes and failures. George Allen's career also parallels the ups and downs of modern American conservatism. Allen reinvented conservative political action in the post-Reagan, post-Cold War era. The issues on which he had his greatest successes became the issues that fueled the Republican comeback in the 1990s. In these pages, the reader will learn as much about recent American politics as about Allen himself.

Aileen and Roy is the story of the author's parents: Roy Cochran, who rose from a sod house on a hardscrabble farm in western Nebraska to the state house in Lincoln as governor, and Aileen Gantt Cochran, a pioneer teacher and superintendent of schools in the Nebraska Sandhills. Roy Cochran's three terms as governor (1935-41) covered the most critical years in the history of the West, when the population was ravaged by drought and the Great Depression, and new state-federal programs-social security, the WPA-were coming into being. Aileen Gantt grew up in the small town of North Platte at the end of the nineteenth century and supported her widowed mother and siblings as a teacher and county school superintendent. Their story, drawn from unpublished memoirs and family letters, provides a unique and intimate picture of life in a small western town around the turn of the century. It is also the story of two remarkable people who faced the challenge of governing in a time of despair and change.

The checks and balances built into the U.S. Constitution are designed to decentralize and thus limit the powers of government. This system works both horizontally - among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches - and vertically - between the federal government and state governments. That vertical separation, known as federalism, is intended to restrain the powers of the federal government, yet many political observers today believe that the federal government routinely oversteps its bounds at the expense of states.In Safeguarding Federalism, John D. Nugent argues that contrary to common perception, federalism is alive and well - if in a form different from what the Framers of the Constitution envisioned. According to Nugent, state officials have numerous options for affecting the development and implementation of federal policy and can soften, slow down, or even halt federal efforts they perceive as harming their interests. Nugent describes the general approaches states use to safeguard their interests, such as influencing the federal policy, contributing to policy formulation, encouraging or discouraging policy enactment, participating in policy implementation, and providing necessary feedback on policy success or failure. Demonstrating the workings of these safeguards through detailed analysis of recent federal initiatives, including the 1996 welfare reform law, the Clean Air Act, moratoriums on state taxation of Internet commerce, and the highly controversial No Child Left Behind Act, Nugent shows how states' promotion of their own interests preserves the Founders' system of constitutional federalism today.

This topical book examines and debates the challenges posed - on a local, European, and global level - by the imperative to balance a fiscal need for smaller public expenditure with a social need for strong governance and protection of the most vulnerable in UK society. Leading academics in the field of local governance contribute to a diverse set of analyses on the impact of the financial crisis. From Recession to Renewal offers academic debate and challenging questions on common assumptions, such as the role of government and the juxtaposing needs of fiscal cut backs and increasing social needs for services. The book includes case studies/practical examples from a range of public services. Lessons from the front-line of service delivery are analyzed. It provides a history and ideological context for the financial crisis and debates the doctrine of government and governance.

The rich history of Kansas politics continues to generate an abundant literature. The state's beginning as "Bleeding Kansas" followed by Prohibition, populism, the Progressive Era, and the Dust Bowl, through to the present day, have given local and national writers and scholars an intriguing topic for exploration. While historians and biographers shed light on pieces of this history, journalists focus on current political affairs in the state. Rarely, however, are past and present connected to fully illuminate an understanding of Kansas politics and government. This volume uses the prism of political cultures to interpret Kansas politics and disclose the intimate connections between the state's past and its current politics. The framework of political cultures evolves from underlying political preferences for liberty, order, and equality, and these preferences form the basis for the active political cultures of individualism, hierarchy, and egalitarianism. This comprehensive examination of Kansas political institutions argues that Kansas politics, historically and presently, may best be understood as a clash of political cultures.

From his first election in 1955 to 1976, Mayor Richard J. Daley dominated Chicago's political landscape. A product of the Irish Catholic working class, Daley never lost touch with his roots as he rose through the Democratic Party machine--whose workings he perfected--to become a powerful and enduring political figure.
The story of Daley is also the story of Chicago. Faced with issues confronting many American cities in the twentieth century--civil rights, integration, race riots, fiscal crisis, housing, suburban flight, urban renewal--Daley conducted Chicago's business with a steadfast resolve to withstand the many changes that threatened to engulf his city. "Richard J. Daley" portrays one of the most prominent American mayors in a balanced perspective and sheds new light on his place in urban history.

The relationship between citizens and local decision makers is a long standing policy pre-occupation and has often been the subject of debate by politicians across parties. Recent governments have sought to empower, activate and give responsibility to some citizens, while other groups have been abandoned or ignored. Drawing on extensive up-to-date empirical work by leading researchers in the field, "Changing local governance, changing citizens" aims to explain what debates about local governance mean for local people. Questions addressed include: what new demands are being made on citizens and why? Which citizens are affected and how have they responded? What difference do changing forms of local governance make to people's lives? The book explores governance and citizenship in relation to multiculturalism, economic migration, community cohesion, housing markets, neighbourhoods, faith organisations, behaviour change and e-democracy in order to establish a differentiated, contemporary view of the ways that citizens are constituted at the local level today. "Changing local governance, changing citizens" provides a pertinent and robustly empirical contribution to current debates amongst policy makers, academics, practitioners and local communities about how to respond to this changing policy framework. It will be of interest to post-graduate students and academic researchers in politics, public and social policy, sociology, local government and urban studies, as well as policy makers and practitioners.

The relationship between citizens and local decision makers is a long standing policy pre-occupation and has often been the subject of debate by politicians across parties. Recent governments have sought to empower, activate and give responsibility to some citizens, while other groups have been abandoned or ignored. Drawing on extensive up-to-date empirical work by leading researchers in the field, "Changing Local Governance, Changing Citizens" aims to explain what debates about local governance mean for local people. Questions addressed include: What new demands are being made on citizens and why? Which citizens are affected and how have they responded? What difference do changing forms of local governance make to people's lives? The book explores governance and citizenship in relation to multiculturalism, economic migration, community cohesion, housing markets, neighborhoods, faith organisations, behaviour change and e-democracy in order to establish a differentiated, contemporary view of the ways that citizens are constituted at the local level today. "Changing Local Governance, Changing Citizens" provides a pertinent and robustly empirical contribution to current debates amongst policy makers, academics, practitioners and local communities about how to respond to this changing policy framework. It will be of interest to post-graduate students and academic researchers in politics, public and social policy, sociology, local government and urban studies, as well as policy makers and practitioners.

Set against a backdrop of concerns about the potential break-up or radical change to the global world order, this volume sets out to investigate the use of sports mega-events by a number of emerging states. Sports mega-events, it is argued, can be understood as a key component in states' 'soft power' strategies, that is, their attempts to showcase their nations on the international stage, increase their power relative to others via non-coercive means and to increase trade and tourism. Many studies on soft power simply cite the concept's founder (Joseph Nye) and make little attempt at unpicking the mechanisms behind its creation. This volume does this by shining a light on emerging economies and by putting forward a soft power 'ideal type' to aid researchers in understanding the strategies employed by states in advancing their interests.

Winner of the 2009 Robert Park Book Award for best Community and Urban Sociology book!

Branding New York traces the rise of New York City as a brand and the resultant transformation of urban politics and public life. Greenberg addresses the role of "image" in urban history, showing who produces brands and how, and demonstrates the enormous consequences of branding. She shows that the branding of New York was not simply a marketing tool; rather it was a political strategy meant to legitimatize market-based solutions over social objectives.