'This book is a useful addition to our literature on climate change law, with its focus on climate change at the local level. It examines how local governments, municipalities and city authorities address climate change through law and policy, and the problems/constraints faced in mitigation and adaptation at the local level. The 15 contributors have thoughtfully and critically analysed the issues from intellectual as well as practical perspectives, drawing on the experiences of North America as well as the EU, China, Australia and South Africa. The reader is left with deeper insights and suggestions for the way forward.' - Irene Lin Heng Lye, National University of Singapore 'This volume offers a thorough exploration of the challenges and opportunities for local governments in many parts of the world to mitigate and adapt to climate change.' - Laura Watchmann, LEED AP-ND, Executive Director, NALGEP 'As the international climate consensus is fading, the focus has shifted from the global to the local. This book is timely and ground-breaking as it frames a new subject of legal study and proves the dramatic surge of local climate action. A must-read.' - Klaus Bosselmann, University of Auckland, New Zealand Local Climate Change Law examines the role of local government, especially within cities, in addressing climate change through legal, policy, planning and other tools. This timely study offers a multi-jurisdictional perspective, featuring international contributors who examine both theoretical and practical dimensions of how localities are addressing climate mitigation and adaptation in Australia, Canada, China, Europe, South Africa and the United States, as well as considering the place of localities in global climate law agreements and transnational networks. Written from a multi-disciplinary perspective, this book will appeal to academics, post graduate and undergraduate students in law and political science, local and national government policy makers and politicians, as well as practising local government lawyers. Anyone with a general interest in environmental issues will also find much to interest them in this insightful study. Contributors: M. Doelle, A. du Plessis, L. Godden, J. Lin, J. Moore, K.B. Munroe, H.M. Osofsky, S. Pasternack, M. Peeters, M. Powers, B.J. Richardson, E. Schwartz, S. Theriault, K. Thompson, S. Wood

This book explains how states informally regulate drug markets in Latin America. It shows how and why state actors, specifically police and politicians, confront, negotiate with, or protect drug dealers to extract illicit rents or prevent criminal violence. The book highlights how, in countries with weak institutions, police act as interlocutors between criminals and politicians. It shows that whether and how politicians control their police forces explains the prevalence of different informal regulatory arrangements to control drug markets. Using detailed case studies built on 180 interviews in four cities in Argentina and Brazil, the book reconstructs how these informal regulatory arrangements emerged and changed over time.

This accessible book is about local democracy, civic engagement, political participation, and community in Britain. It rejects the many pessimistic accounts that seek to dominate our political discourse with their talk of political apathy, community breakdown and selfish individualism The book focuses on local democratic politics in Britain over the last decade and a half, from the election of the New Labour government right up to the current Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government. It includes an analysis of local democracy, civic engagement, and participation across a range of policy areas and in the context of debates around accountability, legitimacy, sustainability, localism, and the "big society." Drawing on a wide range of examples, it argues that local democracy is a vibrant terrain of innovation, civic engagement and participation, and dynamic community activity, with a wide variety of informal and formal activity taking place.

This book discusses the Belt and Road Initiative at the provincial level in China. It analyses the evolution of the role of local governments in Chinese foreign policy since the opening of China's economy in 1978, showing how the provinces initially competed with each other, and how the central government was forced to react, developing more centralised policies. Unlike other books on the Belt and Road Initiative, which focus on the international aspects of the initiative, this book demonstrates the importance of the Belt and Road in reinforcing China's unitary status and for managing and coordinating development at the local level as well as centre-province relations and province to province relations inside China.

The Canadian provinces have evolved quite different ways of responding to the policy problems posed by religious schools. Seeking to understand this peculiar reality, Faith, Rights, and Choice articulates the ways in which the provincial governance regimes developed for religious schools have changed over time. Covering nearly three centuries, the book begins with the founding of schooling systems in New France and continues into a variety of present-day conflicts that emerged over the question of religion in schools. James Farney and Clark Banack employ a method of process-tracing, drawing on 88 semi-structured interviews with key policy insiders. They also reference archival material documenting meetings, political speeches, and legislative debates related to government decisions around issues of religious education. Relying on the theoretical foundations of both historical institutionalism and Canadian political development, Faith, Rights, and Choice presents a new analytic framework to help make sense of the policy divergence witnessed across Canada.

Analyzes the extent to which the voters of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah are concerned about problems associated with development and the extent to which state senators respond to voters' concerns. Originally published in 1980

In this new authoritative collection The Environment and Transport, the editors have selected the most important articles published in the last twenty years concerning pollution, the effects of traffic on the environment and the development of controls on both a regional and national level. This important new reference work will prove an invaluable source to both practitioners and students in the field of environmental studies.

In today's public policy arena the regional level is gaining increased attention as problems in policy and service delivery continue to spill over traditional urban government boundaries. This authoritative work focuses on the growing role of regions in addressing and resolving local governance problems."Urban and Regional Policies for Metropolitan Livability" provides a concise, up-to-date, and systematic treatment of the problems and issues involved in urban and regional policy concerns. Each policy chapter is written by a respected expert in the area, and the book covers all the key policy issues that confront contemporary metropolitan areas, including transportation, the environment, affordable housing, crime, employment, poverty, education, and regional governance. Each chapter outlines an issue, which is followed by current thinking on problem diagnosis and problem solving, as well as the prognosis for future policy success.

In today's public policy arena the regional level is gaining increased attention as problems in policy and service delivery continue to spill over traditional urban government boundaries. This authoritative work focuses on the growing role of regions in addressing and resolving local governance problems."Urban and Regional Policies for Metropolitan Livability" provides a concise, up-to-date, and systematic treatment of the problems and issues involved in urban and regional policy concerns. Each policy chapter is written by a respected expert in the area, and the book covers all the key policy issues that confront contemporary metropolitan areas, including transportation, the environment, affordable housing, crime, employment, poverty, education, and regional governance. Each chapter outlines an issue, which is followed by current thinking on problem diagnosis and problem solving, as well as the prognosis for future policy success.

"Rush to Policy" explores the appropriate role of technical analysis in policy formation. The authors ask when and how the use of sophisticated analytic techniques in decision making benefits the nation. They argue that these techniques are too often used in situations where they may not be needed or understood by the decision maker; where they may not be able to answer the questions raised but are nonetheless required by the law.

House and Shull provide an excellent empirical base for describing the impact of politics on policies, policy analysis, and policy analysts. They examine cost benefit analysis, risk analysis, and decision analysis, and assess their ability to substitute for the current decision making process in the public sector. They examine the political basis of public sector decision making, how individuals and organizations make decisions, and the ways decisions are made in the federal sector. Also they discuss the mandate to use these methods in the policy formulation process.

The book is written by two practicing federal policy analysts who, in a decade of service as policy researchers, developed sophisticated quantitative analytic and decision-making techniques. They then spent several years trying to use them in the real world. Successes and failures are described in illuminating detail, providing insight not commonly found in such critiques. The authors delineate the interaction of politics and technical issues. Their book describes policy analysis as it is, not how it ought to be.

It is well established that the race and gender of elected representatives influence the ways in which they legislate, but surprisingly little research exists on how race and gender interact to affect who is elected and how they behave once in office. How do race and gender affect who gets elected, as well as who is represented? What issues do elected representatives prioritize? Does diversity in representation make a difference? Race, Gender, and Political Representation takes up the call to think about representation in the United States as intersectional, and it measures the extent to which political representation is simultaneously gendered and raced. Specifically, the book examines how race and gender interact to affect the election, behavior, and impact of all individuals. By putting women of color at the center of their analysis and re-evaluating traditional, "single-axis" approaches to studying the politics of race or gender, the authors demonstrate what an intersectional approach to identity politics can reveal. Drawing on original data on the presence, policy leadership, and policy impact of Black women and men, Latinas and Latinos, and White women and men in state legislative office in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, each chapter shows how the politics of race, gender, and representation are far more complex than recurring "Year of the Woman" frameworks suggest. An array of race-gender similarities and differences are evident in the experiences, activities, and accomplishments of these state legislators. Yet one thing is clear: the representation of those marginalized by multiple, intersecting systems of power and inequality is intricately bound to the representation of women of color.

While the gambling industry is indisputably large and powerful, it has received little attention from political scientists. Utilizing a variety of perspectives and techniques, von Herrmann analyzes gambling's recent expansion, finding public attitudes have been shaped both by government policies and the industry's attempts to create a family-friendly image.

Von Herrmann examines the politics of state and federal gambling policy, particularly policies relating to casinos and state lotteries. She considers gambling policy from a variety of perspectives, including the politics of adoption, the state and federal governments' role in policy formation and implementation, and the broad economic and social impact questions related to gambling. The inclusion of several state case studies provides insight into the largely successful reshaping of Americans' image of gambling--from seedy, sinful, and corrupt behavior to a benign, pleasurable entertainment experience--which ultimately has led to widespread availability.

While many have asserted that gambling policy fits well within the political models of morality politics, von Herrmann challenges this notion. Noting that true consensus has not been achieved in the area of gambling policy, she shows how supporters' economic arguments and opponents' moral concerns have effectively bifurcated the current debates on gambling policy; gambling is now viewed by many in two distinct and separate bodies of thought. As she observes, the challenge for the future of gambling policy is to find ways to bridge the gap. Of particular interest to scholars, students, and other researchers involved with public policy, particularly that relating to gambling.

Recognizing the pivotal role that local governments play in the high-tech economy, this book examines the effect of technology industries and infrastructures on cities and the local policy actions required for effective response to these challenges. Filled with fresh information and practical advice, "Cities in the Technology Economy" provides a thorough coverage of the technology economy with respect to cities and economic development, focusing on the attraction of technology industries and investment in technology infrastructure. The author utilizes a triangualtion of approaches - national level data, nationwide survey of local officials, and case studies - to examine what cities are doing in the technology economy, describe the barriers to participation in the technology economy, and detail entrepreneurial actions of local governments to traverse these hurdles. All of the research points to the need for a strong local role enabling local policy action and activities to shape a technology economy response.

Education reformers and policymakers argue that improved students' learning requires stronger academic standards, stiffer state tests, and accountability for students' scores. Yet these efforts seem not to be succeeding in many states. The authors of this important book argue that effective state reform depends on conditions which most reforms ignore: coherence in practice as well as policy and opportunities for professional learning. The book draws on a decade's detailed study of California's ambitious and controversial program to improve mathematics teaching and learning. Researchers David Cohen and Heather Hill report that state policy influenced teaching and learning when there was consistency among the tests and other policy instruments; when there was consistency among the curricula and other instruments of classroom practice; and when teachers had substantial opportunities to learn the practices proposed by the policy. These conditions were met for a minority of elementary school teachers in California. When the conditions were met for teachers, students had higher scores on state math tests. The book also shows that, for most teachers, the reform ended with consistency in state policy. They did not have access to consistent instruments of classroom practice, nor did they have opportunities to learn the new practices which state policymakers proposed. In these cases, neither teachers nor their students benefited from the state reform. This book offers insights into the ways policy and practice can be linked in successful educational reform and shows why such linkage has been difficult to achieve. It offers useful advice for practitioners and policymakers seeking to improve education, and to analysts seeking to understand it.

The administrative state is a powerful tool because it can control the population and, in moments of crisis, help leaders put down popular threats to their rule. But a state does not act; bureaucrats work through the state to carry out a leader's demands. In turn, leaders attempt to use their authority over the state to manage bureaucrats in a way that induces bureaucratic behavior that furthers their policy and political goals. Focusing on Kenya since independence, Hassan weaves together micro-level personnel data, rich archival records, and interviews to show how the country's different leaders have strategically managed, and in effect weaponized, the public sector. This nuanced analysis shows how even states categorized as weak have proven capable of helping their leader stay in power. With engaging evidence and compelling theory, Regime Threats and State Solutions will interest political scientists and scholars studying authoritarian regimes, African politics, state bureaucracy, and political violence.

Contents:
1. Mark Evans and Liam Coen Elitism and Agri-Environmental Policy in Ireland 2. Gary Murphy Pluralism and the Politics of Morality 3. Eoin O'Sullivan Marxism, the State and Homelessness in Ireland 4. Pat O'Connor Feminism and Politics of Gender 5. William K. Roche and Terry Cradden Neo-Corporatism and Social Partnership 6. Neil Collins and Mary O'Shea Clientelism: Facilitating rights and favours 7. Maura Adshead Policy Networks and Sub-National Government in Ireland 8. Michelle Millar Institutionalism 'Old' and New: Exploring the mother and child Scheme 9. Vani K. Borooah Rational Actor Models, Voting and the Northern Ireland Assembly 10. Maura Adshead and Oliver Wall Policy Transfer and the Irish University Sector 11. Lee McGowan and Mary Murphy Europeanisation and the Irish Experience 12. Paul Sweeney Globalisation: Ireland in a global context

Contents:
1. Mark Evans and Liam Coen Elitism and Agri-Environmental Policy in Ireland 2. Gary Murphy Pluralism and the Politics of Morality 3. Eoin O'Sullivan Marxism, the State and Homelessness in Ireland 4. Pat O'Connor Feminism and Politics of Gender 5. William K. Roche and Terry Cradden Neo-Corporatism and Social Partnership 6. Neil Collins and Mary O'Shea Clientelism: Facilitating rights and favours 7. Maura Adshead Policy Networks and Sub-National Government in Ireland 8. Michelle Millar Institutionalism 'Old' and New: Exploring the mother and child Scheme 9. Vani K. Borooah Rational Actor Models, Voting and the Northern Ireland Assembly 10. Maura Adshead and Oliver Wall Policy Transfer and the Irish University Sector 11. Lee McGowan and Mary Murphy Europeanisation and the Irish Experience 12. Paul Sweeney Globalisation: Ireland in a global context

This groundbreaking book will redefine the way we look at American urban government. It considers how and why cities change their governing arrangements - and the implications for cities of the future. Previous categorizations of urban governing arrangements have included the political city (traditional elected mayor/city council) and the administrative city (city manager appointed by city council). The authors argue that in recent years most cities have adapted and changed their structures so much to accommodate contemporary demands that the traditional models no longer reflect reality. It is time for a new paradigm - their model of the adapted city that represents how local government really works. The book provides rich detail and numerous case studies that show how actual cities have changed and adapted their structure to fit changing times and citizen demands. However, the primary strength of this work is its focus on the implications for flourishing urban life and politics in the future.

After over a decade of administrative and economic reform in mainland China, the center has become increasingly remote and less important for many localities. In many ways, the mobilization capacity of the central government has been weakened. Central government policies are often ignored and local officials are often more interested in personal projects than in centrally directed economic plans. In this study of local government and politics in China, the author explores when and why local government officials comply with policy directives from above. Drawing on interviews with government officials in various municipalities and a review of county records and other government documents, he provides the first in-depth look at policy implementation at the county and township levels in the PRC. The book examines the impact of the Chinese cadre system on the behavior of local officials, local party and government structure, relationships among various levels of Chinese local government, policy supervision mechanisms at local levels, village governance of China, and more.

"Freedom and Justice for all" is a phrase that can have a hollow ring for many members of the disability community in the United States. Jacqueline Vaughn Switzer gives us a comprehensive introduction to and overview of U.S. disability policy in all facets of society, including education, the workplace, and social integration. Disabled Rights provides an interdisciplinary approach to the history and politics of the disability rights movement and assesses the creation and implementation, successes and failures of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by federal, state and local governments. Disabled Rights explains how people with disabilities have been treated from a social, legal, and political perspective in the United States. With an objective and straightforward approach, Switzer identifies the programs and laws that have been enacted in the past fifty years and how they have affected the lives of people with disabilities. She raises questions about Congressional intent in passing the ADA, the evolution and fragmentation of the disability rights movement, and the current status of disabled people in the U.S. Illustrating the shift of disability issues from a medical focus to civil rights, the author clearly defines the contemporary role of persons with disabilities in American culture, and comprehensively outlines the public and private programs designed to integrate disabled persons into society. She covers the law's provisions as they apply to private organizations and businesses and concludes with the most up-to-date coverage of recent Supreme Court decisions-especially since the 2000-2002 terms-that have profoundly influenced the implementation of the ADA and other disability policies. For activists as well as scholars, students, and practitioners in public policy and public administration, Switzer has written a compassionate, yet powerful book that demands attention from everyone interested in the battle for disability rights and equality in the United States.

When pundits refer to the death of community, they are speaking of a number of social ills, which include, but are not limited to, the general increase in isolation and cynisism of our citizens, widespread concerns about declining political participation and membership in civic organizations, and periodic outbursts of small town violence. Making a Place for Community argues that this death of community is being caused by contemporary policies that, if not changed, will continue to foster the decline of community. Increased capital flow between nations is not at the root of the problem, however, increased capital flow within our nation is. Small towns shouldn't have to hope for a prison to open nearby and downtown centres shouldn't sit empty as suburban sprawl encroaches, but they do and it's a result of widely agreed upon public policies.

Success and failure are key to any consideration of public policy but there have been remarkably few attempts systematically to assess the various dimensions and complex nature of policy success. This important new text fills the gap by developing a systematic framework and offering an entirely new way of introducing students to policy analysis.

Local Governance in England and France addresses issues at the cutting edge of comparative politics and public policy. The book is based on extensive research and interviews, over 300 in total, with local decision makers in two pairs of cities in England and France: Lille and Leeds; Rennes and Southampton. No other Anglo-French comparative project has ever gone into such depth - based on actual case studies - making this book an invaluable resource for students and professionals alike. The book poses key questions about the changing role of the state, the difficulties of policy coordination in a fragmented institutional context, and about the relationship between governance, networks as well as political and democratic accountability. It will be of great interest to the professional research community, and practitioners in Britain, France and beyond, as well as to students of comparative politics, European public policy, British / French politics, European studies, public management and local government studies.

This book draws on critical theory to introduce readers to ways of exploring questions about the EU from a political economy perspective, questions like: -Does the EU help or hinder Europe's 'social models' to face the challenges of globalization? - Does the EU represent a break from Europe's imperial past? - What were the causes of the Eurozone crisis?

Written in an accessible, case study format, this groundbreaking work explores the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of family leave policy in the United States, from its beginnings at the state level in the early 1980s, through the adoption of the federal Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, and beyond to the present day. With a political economy perspective, the book identifies the major economic and social forces affecting both the family and the workplace. And drawing on original primary research, it examines how the political system has responded to this evolving issue with various policy initiatives.