This book explores the dynamics of democratic reform processes in European local government. On the basis of analyses of theoretical challenges to present developments, the book pays attention to processes of democratic innovation inspired by classical representative democracy and by new forms of democracy influenced by notions of governance, participation, e-governance, empowering civil society and the like. Also attention is given to the role of regionalization and of leader- ship in efforts to revitalize local democracy. Cases from all over Europe are being studied.

Derived from the international literature on experiences with performance budgeting five elements which constitute performance budgeting as a comprehensive system can be identified in this book. This new definition is then applied to the German state level in order to investigate whether performance budgeting is effective in Germany, in detail, whether it actually leads to a reduction of public expenditure. With a survey in the state Ministries of Finance and an individually constructed panel dataset, the impact of the German performance budgeting reforms on their major aim, the enhancement of fiscal discipline, is empirically analyzed. The main result is that the potential of expenditure savings is prolonged by the enormous investments in the beginning.

This text analyses how the current generation of young adults enters the labour market and tries to create their own autonomous household, with or without children, exploring questions such as what does it mean to be a young adult in Europe today and what social policies help them to combine work and family life?

This book assesses the key factors underlying such Australian-Japanese cooperation and those policy challenges that could impede it. Experts offer critical insights into why their two countries - traditionally the two key 'spokes' in the US bilateral alliance network spanning Asia - are moving toward a security relationship in their own right.

One of the greatest challenges in the twenty-first century is to address large, deep, and historic deficits in human development. Democracy at Work explores a crucial question: how does democracy, with all of its messy, contested, and, time-consuming features, advance well-being and improve citizens' lives? Professors Brian Wampler, Natasha Borges Sugiyama, and Michael Touchton argue that differences in the local robustness of three democratic pathways - participatory institutions, rights-based social programs, and inclusive state capacity - best explain the variation in how democratic governments improve well-being. Using novel data from Brazil and innovative analytic techniques, the authors show that participatory institutions permit citizens to express voice and exercise vote, inclusive social programs promote citizenship rights and access to public resources, and more capable local states use public resources according to democratic principles of rights protections and equal access. The analysis uncovers how democracy works to advance capabilities related to poverty, health, women's empowerment, and education.

Democratic institutions should promote accountability of government officials to the needs of citizens. Civil society plays a role in exposing corruption as well as in communicating the needs of low-income residents to officials. Neither the institutions of representative democracy nor the presence of civil society, however, appears to automatically guarantee adoption of social benefits for the poor. Can democratic institutions be created to address social challenges? Scholars, development practitioners, donors, and activists propose participatory governance institutions as mechanisms to create accountability and responsiveness through a public forum incorporating civil society. To date, however, little comparative research exists to confirm whether these institutions do influence adoption of social policies. Maureen M. Donaghy remedies this gap by combining data from Brazil's 5,564 municipalities with extensive fieldwork from five Brazilian cities to test whether participatory municipal housing councils are associated with an increase in adoption of social housing programs to benefit the poor. Housing represents an issue of critical importance in Brazil and other developing countries where large populations reside in informal settlements in unsafe and insecure conditions. Civil Society and Participatory Governance is the first book of its kind to move the conversation beyond budgeting to other social policy areas, providing fresh theoretical and empirical insights to demonstrate that participatory governance institutions are effective mechanisms to coordinate government officials and civil society to alter policy-making.

The Sources and Nature of the Statistics of the United Kingdom, produced under the auspices of the Royal S atistical Society and edited by Maurice Kendall, filled a notable gap on the library shelves when it made its appearance in the early post-war years. Through a series of critical reviews by many of the foremost national experts, it constituted a valuable contemporary guide to statisticians working in many fields as well as a bench-mark to which historians of the development of Statistics in this country are likely to return again and again. The Social Science Research Council* and the Society were both delighted when Professor Maunder came forward with the proposal that a revised version should be produced, indicating as well his willingness to take on the onerous task of editor. The two bodies were more than happy to act as co-sponsors of the project and to help in its planning through a joint steering committee. The result, we are confident, will be judged a worthy successor to the previous volumes by the very much larger 'statistics public' that has come into being in the intervening years. Mrs SUZANNE REEVE Mrs EJ. SNELL Secretary Honorary Secretary Economic and Social Research Council Royal Statistical Society *SSRC is now the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). vii MEMBERSHIP OF JOINT STEERING COMMITTEE (November 1986) Chairman: Miss S. V. Cunliffe Representing the Royal Statistical Society: Mr M. C. Fessey Dr S. Rosenbaum Mrs E. J.

A collection of state of the art reflections by fourteen leading experts in the field of multinational federalism. Seymour and Gagnon have gathered contributions from philosophers, political scientists and jurists dealing with the accommodation of peoples in countries like Belgium, Canada, Europe, Great Britain, India and Spain.

This book provides a comparative analysis of the processes and impacts of austerity measures introduced in the field of Local Public Services (LPS) across Mediterranean Europe. The book describes and compares the trajectories of austerity, and the types of effects. It investigates how many (and what kind of) different responses were given to similar inputs and under the influence of what factors in order to understand if there are regularities in the way that the Mediterranean countries adopted and implemented the austerity measures and how these latter impacted on local government and LPS management and delivery. The book is a product of a sub network from the COST Action LocRef IS1207 and analyses seven countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Croatia, Cyprus and Albania).

This book provides the first full account of America's relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran from Jimmy Carter's presidency to Barack Obama's. It discusses all major facets of Iranian policy of interest to the United States: nuclear proliferation, revolutionary export and support for international terrorism, efforts to undermine the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and violations of human rights. It compares developments in Iran to their perception in Washington, providing the clearest picture available yet of the discrepancies between the complex and elusive Iranian reality and its understanding in the United States.

Most social science studies of local organizations tend to focus on "civil society" associations, voluntary associations independent from state control, whereas government-sponsored organizations tend to be theorized in totalitarian terms as "mass organizations" or manifestations of state corporatism. "Roots of the State" examines neighborhood associations in Beijing and Taipei that occupy a unique space that exists between these concepts.
Benjamin L. Read views the work of the neighborhood associations he studies as a form of "administrative grassroots engagement." States sponsor networks of organizations at the most local of levels, and the networks facilitate governance and policing by building personal relationships with members of society. Association leaders serve as the state's designated liaisons within the neighborhood and perform administrative duties covering a wide range of government programs, from welfare to political surveillance. These partly state-controlled entities also provide a range of services to their constituents.
Neighborhood associations, as institutions initially created to control societies, may underpin a repressive regime such as China's, but they also can evolve to empower societies, as in Taiwan. This book engages broad and much-discussed questions about governance and political participation in both authoritarian and democratic regimes.

The specialisation, knowledge and innovation brought about by universities often play a key role in the economic success of cities and regions. Yet higher education is also increasingly regarded, in some European countries and regions, as an economic sector in itself, whereby the measure of success lies in the ability to attract international students and set up international partnerships. Universities need therefore to find successful strategies responding to global challenges and fitting local contexts. This edited volume brings together a collection of international and regional experts on the subject of higher education and regional growth. It explores the changing role of universities in a globally competitive environment and the way in which they interact with the regional business and policy community. This publication builds upon a seminar co-organised by Policy Network and the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) Applied Policy Science Unit, which was funded by the Samuel Lindow Foundation and took place at UCLan on 12 December 2014. It brings together the wide array of evidence presented at the event and provides the reader with additional input from academic experts.

Local Disaster Management explores what resilience means for local communities and local governments on the front line of responding to disasters and emergencies. Disaster management is often seen as a major international issue undertaken by global actors such as the UN, Red Cross and Red Crescent. Yet fundamentally, all disasters are local. Every disaster, regardless of its type, affects individuals, families and communities before they escalate to encompassing one or many communities or nations. This volume therefore explores fundamental issues of disaster and emergency management at the local level. What is resilience? What does resilience mean for a local government seeking to lessen the impact of disasters on their community? How do local governments adapt through their experiences of disasters and how do they recover from catastrophic experiences? This book explores these issues with chapters from top scholars in the field, draws out lessons for local government officials and disaster managers seeking to build community resilience, prepare their communities for a changing environment, and facilitate recovery after disasters strike. Local Disaster Management provides invaluable insight for local governments charged with managing the inescapable effects of climate change and the increasing frequency and severity of disasters, as well as for scholars of local governance, disaster resilience, government policy, and disaster management. The chapters were originally published as a special issue in Local Government Studies.

Modern direct democracy has recently become an important element of political life in many countries. These developments can be observed at the national, regional, and local level of political systems. Participation and democracy in local political affairs play a major role in stabilising and developing democratic systems. This volume presents, for the first time, a broad basis of information on the wide variety of local institutions and practice of direct democracy in 19 countries. Country specialists analyse
- the role of direct democracy in the institutional context and culture of national political systems,
- political processes of introduction and development of initiatives and referendums,
- regulations of procedures of municipal direct democracy,
- practice of local direct democracy,
- the contribution of local direct democracy to democratic development in general.

Written for practitioners and practitioners-in-training of education development, this book reviews education issues in developing countries and provides in-depth case studies from Egypt, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

This book provides an extensive evaluation of the numerous policy instruments used by regional governments in Europe to promote innovation activity in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The instruments are compared and benchmarked in order to identify 'good practice', in an effort to bridge the gap between the theory of regional innovation and real-world policy implementation. The authors argue for a new policy paradigm and highlight the value of an interactive style of policy intervention. Since the majority of SMEs have a limited resource base with regard to innovation, they need external orientation to understand and adapt to their environment. Thus, the main role for policy should be to increase the innovative capacity of a region and its SMEs by fostering interactive learning both within firms, and within the region as a whole. The authors also collect extensive data on the efficiency of innovation-driven policy measures and introduce three key concepts for successful regional innovation policy: coherence, interactivity and cumulative character. This volume will provide practical lessons and useful comparative results for a variety of professionals working on SME-oriented innovation at the EU, national and regional level. In particular, the mix of theoretical and empirical material will be of considerable interest to academics and researchers studying regional innovation systems and their role in knowledge-based economies. The book will also appeal to professional consultants, practitioners and policymakers who will find the frameworks for the evaluation and design of innovation policies to be of immense value.

This book considers the extent to which, and in what circumstances, political parties affect public policy. It explores the regional level in Germany; using case studies in the areas of education, childcare and family, and labour market policy. In particular, the author explores whether party politicians make a difference to policies.

How are metropolitan regions governed? What makes some regions more effective than others in managing policies that cross local jurisdictional boundaries? Political coordination among municipal governments is necessary to attract investment, rapid and efficient public transit systems, and to sustain cultural infrastructure in metropolitan regions. In this era of fragmented authority, local governments alone rarely possess the capacity to address these policy issues alone. This book explores the sources and barriers to cooperation and metropolitan policy making. It combines different streams of scholarship on regional governance to explain how and why metropolitan partnerships emerge and flourish in some places and fail to in others. It systematically tests this theory in the Frankfurt and Rhein-Neckar regions of Germany and the Toronto and Waterloo regions in Canada. Discovering that existing theories of metropolitan collective action based on institutions and opportunities are inconsistent, the author proposes a new theory of "civic capital", which argues that civic engagement and leadership at the regional scale can be important catalysts to metropolitan cooperation. The extent to which the actors hold a shared image of the metropolis and engage at that scale strongly influences the degree to which local authorities will be willing and able to coordinate policies for the collective development of the region. Metropolitan Governance and Policy will be of interest to students and scholars of comparative urban and metropolitan governance and sociology.

"Offices in Brussels representing the interests of regional actors in the EU have carved out a niche position within Europe's expanding multi-level political system. They are now the most visible indicators of the growing role played by EU regions. How can we understand their contribution to EU governance? What do they deliver to Europe's regions? This book covers these issues"--

As 300 million Americans squeeze into our country, and as single-person households outnumber parents with children, it's time to rethink our land use laws that favor the single-family house. This provocative book visits sites of recent controversies--from an immigration dispute in a Virginia suburb, to eminent domain in New York City, to illegal apartments in the backyards of California. Boudreaux explores how we could scrap the old housing bias in favor of affluent homeowners, and in its place harness the free market to provide for a greater variety of residences--apartments, townhouses, and mobile homes - for the twenty-first century.

Discusses the ambiguous nature of the state in Russia, focusing on elite networks and their role in policy processes. This book examines the paradoxical dualism of state institutions and ruling networks, providing answers as to why some decisions are not implemented, and why the state exists despite the systemic inefficiency of its institutions.

Early results on election night suggested that Democrats had failed to make significant gains in the 2018 midterms. After all the votes were counted, a blue wave crashed on American electoral politics as Democrats won the House the Representatives and made significant gains at the state and local levels. In this book, Larry Sabato and Kyle Kondik bring together respected journalists and academics from across the political spectrum to examine every facet of the 2018 election, and what its outcome portends for our national politics and the coming 2020 presidential election. In frank, accessible prose, each author offers insight that goes beyond the headlines, and dives into the underlying forces and shifts that drove the election from its earliest developments to its eventual conclusion, long after the polls closed. Contributions by Matt Barreto, David Byler, Rhodes Cook, James Hohmann, Theodore Johnson, Kyle Kondik, Diana Owen, Madelaine Pisani, Josh Putnam, Larry Sabato, Emily Cahn Singer, Sean Trende, Michael Toner, and Karen Trainer.

This edition of Politics in the New South takes the remarkable story of the transformation of southern politics in the twentieth century up through the virtual triumph of southern Republicanism in the mid-1990s. The book explores not only the fundamental changes that have occurred - in party politics, political leadership, voting rights and black participation - but also the strong continuities in the political culture of the South despite a reversal of party allegiances. There is no richer or more readable introduction to the politics of the South - a region that shows us important aspects of both our past and our future.

As performance management has evolved, it has encompassed many different tools and approaches including measurement, data analysis, evidence-based management, process improvement, research and evaluation. In the past, many of the efforts to improve performance in government have been fragmented, separated into silos and labeled with a variety of different names including performance-based budgeting, performance-informed management, managing for results and so on. Making Government Work: The Promises and Pitfalls of Performance-Informed Management by Katherine Barrett and Rich Greene is loaded with dozens of stories of what practitioners are currently working on-what's working and what's not. The benefits are ample, so are the challenges. This book describes both, along with practical steps taken by practitioners to make government work better. Readers will discover that while the authors strive to meet the documentation standards of carefully vetted academic papers, the approach they take is journalistic. Over the last year, Barrett and Greene talked to scores of state and local officials, as well as academics and other national experts to find out how performance management tools and approaches have changed, and what is coming in the near-term future. Performance management has been in a state of evolution for decades now, and so Barrett and Greene have endeavored to capture the state of the world as it is today. By detailing both the challenges and conquests of performance management in Making Government Work: The Promises and Pitfalls of Performance-Informed Management, Barrett and Greene insure readers will find the kind of balanced information that is helpful to both academics and practitioners-and that can move the field forward.

Canada's federal system, composed of ten provincial governments and three territories, all with varying economies and political cultures, is often blamed for the country's failure to develop coordinated policy responses to key issues. But in other federal and multi-level governance systems, the ability of multiple governments to test a variety of policy responses has been lauded as an effective way to build local and national policy. Despite high-profile examples of policy diffusion in Canada, there has been surprisingly little academic study of policy learning and diffusion among provinces. Featuring cutting-edge research, Provincial Policy Laboratories explores the cross-jurisdictional movement of policies among governments in Canada's federal system. The book comprises case studies from a range of emerging policy areas, including parentage rights, hydraulic fracturing regulations, species at risk legislation, sales and aviation taxation, and marijuana regulation. Throughout, the contributors aim to increase knowledge about this understudied aspect of Canadian federalism and contribute to the practice of intergovernmental policymaking across the country.