This text presents twelve chapters of case studies, richly detailing key topics from popular state and local politics textbooks. From using Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri to illustrate how the comparative method can be used to understand the similarities and differences between places and how those differences matter, to a look at how state governments have taken the lead on environmental policy, readers will be able to use this detailed and highly readable text to complement their traditional textbook. And, while state and local politics is the obvious course for this text's use, it would also be useful to students of public administration, public policy, urban politics, and intro to American politics.

In 2002, the No Child Left Behind Act rocked America's schools with new initiatives for results-based accountability. But years before NCLB was signed, a new movement was already under way by mayors to take control of city schools from school boards and integrate the management of public education with the overall governing of the city. "The Education Mayor" is a critical look at mayoral control of urban school districts, beginning with Boston's schools in 1992 and examining more than 100 school districts in 40 states. The authors seek to answer four central questions: What does school governance look like under mayoral leadership? How does mayoral control affect school and student performance? What are the key factors for success or failure of integrated governance? How does mayoral control effect practical changes in schools and classrooms? The results of their examination indicate that, although mayoral control of schools may not be appropriate for every district, it can successfully emphasize accountability across the education system, providing more leverage for each school district to strengthen its educational infrastructure and improve student performance. Based on extensive quantitative data as well as case studies, this analytical study provides a balanced look at America's education reform. As the first multidistrict empirical examination and most comprehensive overall evaluation of mayoral school reform, "The Education Mayor" is a must-read for academics, policymakers, educational administrators, and civic and political leaders concerned about public education.

This volume covers a wide spectrum of governance issues relating to small states in a global context. While different definitions of governance are given in the chapters, most authors associate governance with the setting and implementation of policies aimed at managing a country or territory, and with the related institutional structures and interventions by political actors. Generally, good governance is associated with concepts such as policy effectiveness, accountability, transparency, control of corruption, encouragement of citizens' voice and gender equality-factors which are, in turn, linked with democracy. What emerges from the book is that the societies of small states are being re-shaped by various forces outside their control, including the globalization process and climate change, rendering their governance ever more complex. These problems are not solely faced by small states, but small country size tends to lead to a higher degree of exposure to external factors. The chapters are grouped into four sections broadly covering political, environmental, social and economic governance. Governance is influenced by many, often intertwined, factors; the division of the book into four parts therefore does not detract from the fact that governance is multifaceted, and such division was based on the primary focus of each particular study and its main disciplinary background. The expert authors have, moreover, used a variety of approaches in the studies, the subject of small states being well suited to scholarly work from different disciplines using qualitative, quantitative and mixed approaches to arrive at useful conclusions.

These essays by no means cover all areas of interest in long-term care programs, but they offer new insights (and intriguing questions for future research) about how differently policies in this important area can be carried out in different countries.

This title was first published in 2001. Planning today has to deal with a completely different world from the one in which many of the basic ways of thought of the profession were founded. Many traditional planning approaches often seem less relevant when attention is increasingly being focused on sustainable development, deregulation and competitiveness in a global world. Focusing on the changes that are taking place in the realm of planning practice and spatial planning across Europe, this text examines the driving forces for institutional change. It brings together a team of leading planning academics with experience of planning practice and policies, from the UK, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Portugal, Italy and Norway. Throughout the 12 chapters of the book, they examine and compare new approaches to planning across Europe at local, metropolitan, regional, national and international levels.

This book explores the relationship between bureaucrats and elected politicians in Bangladesh and discusses how this impacts governance and development in the country from an empirical perspective. It looks at the interplay of politics and bureaucracy in ancient societies, western democracies and in the developing world while highlighting the uniqueness of the Bangladesh experience and its indigenous contexts of local governance. The author presents a historical overview of the nature of political development, shift of regimes in Bangladesh, and the role of various agents and stakeholders. Through a detailed study, the book provides an analytical and theoretical framework to understanding the linkages between politics and bureaucracy, governance and development in South Asia and Bangladesh, with implications for geopolitics and economic growth. This book will be of interest to scholars, researchers and students of political economy, development studies, public administration, comparative politics as well as to policymakers, bureaucrats, government bodies, and especially those concerned with Bangladesh.

This innovative book explores micro-level neighborhood branding and the creation of distinct local identities in neighborhoods. It begins by situating place branding literature at the neighborhood level and then gives consideration to what the core components of a neighborhood brand might be. It does so by drawing on extensive interviews with key actors in the United States, such as government officials, Realtors, economic development professionals, urban planners, and neighborhood residents. Core topics such as belonging and community, identity, nostalgia, idealism, and recreation are explored. The book concludes with a proposed working definition of neighborhood brands and branding that stakeholders can use to promote and market their neighborhoods accordingly - or avoid branding them entirely. This book offers a novel contribution to place branding and destination management literatures by moving beyond the dominant macro-level narratives. It will be of interest to scholars and students studying in urban planning, tourism, destination branding, marketing, public administration and policy, and sociology.

When it comes to analyzing the phenomenon of digital government, the overwhelming focus is on the most developed nations in the world, and Western countries in particular. However, Kazakhstan, a post-totalitarian country, has also proved to be successful in the development of e-government. This book analyzes e-government development in Kazakhstan from a multitude of dimensions, including, but not limited to, political, social, economic and technological platforms. It examines the adoption of a wide range of technology-driven public sector projects and identifies the key drivers, challenges, regulation policies and stakeholders of e-government reforms in this transitional society. Taking into account recent changes in governance, such as the development of mobile government, the rise of civic engagement and the open data-driven movement, and the overall formal progress of the e-government project, this book addresses the emergence of new challenges and concerns associated with the advancement of the e-government concept. Furthermore, it suggests that a universal framework can be applied when investigating e-government projects in the developing world. Offering a wide range of practical recommendations on how to overcome the problems associated with e-government development, this book will be a valuable resource for anyone wishing to improve their understanding of the multidimensional nature of e-government. It will also be of key interest to academics studying Political Science, Development Studies, Public Policy and Central Asian Studies.

Alberto Brugnoli and Alessandro Colombo have put together an important collection of essays on government and governance in Italy and Britain. This richly documented comparative study proposes to answer two key questions: how does the change from government to governance emerge, and what enables this transformation to survive and even to displace State-centric solutions to public policy issues? The book will be a milestone in highlighting the distinctive and original role of the principle of subsidiarity, in examining and assessing governance regimes, their philosophy and their organizational choices and in linking subsidiarity with the prospects of freedom, responsibility and self-governing societies in the modern world. I know of no other book that brings the principle of subsidiarity to the frontier of the most current research in social science.' - Filippo Sabetti, McGill University, CanadaThis unique and original book focuses on institutional changes, welfare reforms and transformations in both Britain and Italy over the last three decades. The book illustrates that although it was a widely held belief in both countries that the arena of social and economic governance would shift to the national level, to the surprise of many, a different trend has emerged. In otherwise very different national experiences, both Britain and Italy have seen the sub-national level of governance become crucial in redefining public services, and in designing, delivering, and monitoring key services. The expert contributors use a distinctive and original principle - subsidiarity - as a lens through which to examine and assess these governance regimes, their philosophies, and their organizational choices. Academics, researchers and students of social policy, public policy, public administration and regional studies will find this book to be a highly fascinating read. It will also provide a wealth of information for policymakers and think tanks.

In recent years, Republicans and Democrats have drifted toward polarized immigration policy positions, forestalling congressional efforts at comprehensive reform. In this book Gary M. Reich helps explain why some states have enacted punitive policies toward their immigrant populations, while others have stepped up efforts to consider all immigrants as de facto citizens. Reich argues that state policies reflect differing immigrant communities across states. In states where large-scale immigration was a recent phenomenon, immigrants became an electorally-enticing target of restrictionist advocates within the Republican party. Conversely established immigrant communities steadily strengthened their ties to civic organizations and their role in Democratic electoral and legislative politics. Reich contends that these diverging demographic trends at the state level were central to the increasing partisan polarization surrounding immigration nationally. He concludes that immigration federalism at present suffers from an internal contradiction that proliferates conflict across all levels of government. As long as Congress is incapable of addressing the plight of unauthorized immigrants and establishing a consensus on immigration admissions, state policies inevitably expand legal uncertainty and partisan wrangling. The Politics of Immigration Across the United States will appeal to scholars and instructors in the fields of immigration policy, social policy, and state government and politics. The book will also encourage public policy practitioners to reflect critically on their work.

In recent years, Republicans and Democrats have drifted toward polarized immigration policy positions, forestalling congressional efforts at comprehensive reform. In this book Gary M. Reich helps explain why some states have enacted punitive policies toward their immigrant populations, while others have stepped up efforts to consider all immigrants as de facto citizens. Reich argues that state policies reflect differing immigrant communities across states. In states where large-scale immigration was a recent phenomenon, immigrants became an electorally-enticing target of restrictionist advocates within the Republican party. Conversely established immigrant communities steadily strengthened their ties to civic organizations and their role in Democratic electoral and legislative politics. Reich contends that these diverging demographic trends at the state level were central to the increasing partisan polarization surrounding immigration nationally. He concludes that immigration federalism at present suffers from an internal contradiction that proliferates conflict across all levels of government. As long as Congress is incapable of addressing the plight of unauthorized immigrants and establishing a consensus on immigration admissions, state policies inevitably expand legal uncertainty and partisan wrangling. The Politics of Immigration Across the United States will appeal to scholars and instructors in the fields of immigration policy, social policy, and state government and politics. The book will also encourage public policy practitioners to reflect critically on their work.

Debates on Nigeria's fiscal federalism preceded the gradual evolution of Nigeria into a colonial federal state in 1954. Issues of distribution of scarce but allocatable resources have often beclouded the desires of Nigerians to generate the resources that are expected to be shared. Throughout its history, it has been evident that Nigerians have always been sensitive to the fiscal dimensions of its federation. Nigeria's media have been awash with the debate over the nature of resource generation, distribution, and challenges of equalization in the federation. At the National Political Reform Conference in 2005, delegates from some states of the federation staged a walk-out because of the nature of resource distribution.

This book explores hitherto unaddressed dimensions in federalism studies in India. It traces continuities and changes in Indian federalism since independence and especially economic liberalization. Beginning with the 1990s, due to the emergence of multi-party system, coalition governments, change in judicial temper and the onset of privatization and globalization in the economy, there has been a trend towards greater federalization in India. However, in the context of one-party majority in a coalition government since 2014, new aspects have emerged in Indian federalism. The volume engages with several facets of federalism: administrative federalism; environmental and resource federalism; changing dynamics of fiscal federalism; and multi-level governance. With comparative data and case studies across different states of India, it brings together a range of issues, including Article 356 and its dysfunctions; land acquisition; decentralized governance; tribal rights; the roles of central and state governments; concerns regarding Citizenship Amendment Act; recent abrogation of Article 370 and 35 A; Delhi and statehood; climate change; MGNREGA; implementation of ICDS and the cooperative and competitive nature of Indian federalism. Comprehensive and topical, this book will be useful to scholars and researchers of political science, federalism, comparative federal studies, political studies, comparative politics, public administration, governance and development studies. It will also interest policy makers, bureaucrats, government organizations, NGOs, and civil society activists.

The classic book on the way American government agencies work and how they can be made to work better -- the "masterwork" of political scientist James Q. Wilson (The Economist) In Bureaucracy, the distinguished scholar James Q. Wilson examines a wide range of bureaucracies, including the US Army, the FBI, the CIA, the FCC, and the Social Security Administration, providing the first comprehensive, in-depth analysis of what government agencies do, why they operate the way they do, and how they might become more responsible and effective. It is the essential guide to understanding how American government works.

This is a comparative international study of the patterns of planning in local governments. While strategic planning has been a field of interest for public management and administrative science for over half a century there are very few cross-national studies of the specifics of planning in local governments. The book analyses the planning activities of local authorities in 7 diverse countries: France, Hungary, Romania, Russia, Spain, Turkey and USA. Although theoretical models of strategic planning are used, the book's findings point to a very diverse and interesting environment with cultural, political and legal factors playing a significant role in shaping how planning is done in each country.

This book examines the issues of urban governance and local democracy in South India. It is the first comprehensive volume that offers comparative frameworks on urban governance across all states in the region: Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The book focuses on governance in small district-level cities and raises crucial questions such as the nature of urban planning, major outstanding issues for urban local governance, conditions of civic amenities such as drinking water and sanitation and problems of social capital in making urban governance work in these states. It emphasizes on both efficient urban governance and effective local democracy to meet the challenges of fast-paced urbanization in these states while presenting policy lessons from their urbanization processes. Rich in empirical data, this book will be useful to scholars and researchers of political studies, public administration, governance, public policy, development studies and urban studies, as well as practitioners and non-governmental organizations.

Distance, in its traditional sense, connotates "estrangement" and "division". But in the context of modern political studies, it means a controllable resource that can be manipulated to change the relationship between the government and the public. Drawing on this concept from Western political science, the author explores the law and mechanisms of China's political communication. In this volume, the author introduces a creative theoretical framework of distance, which is a dynamic system comprised of physical and psychological distance, ideal distance and real distance, and natural distance and consequent distance. Psychological distance is the core, because it signifies not only whether there is trust between a government and the public, but also whether the political community can maintain a high degree of harmony, stability, unity, and vitality. Events in the past five years in China are used as cases to illustrate the point. Students and scholars who are interested in political science and political communication, especially Chinese politics, would find this title a useful reference.

Once upon a time, a group of libertarians got together and hatched the Free Town Project, a plan to take over an American town and completely eliminate its government. In 2004, Grafton, NH, a barely populated settlement with one paved road, turned that plan into reality. Public funding for pretty much everything shrank: the fire department, the library, the schoolhouse. State and federal laws didn't disappear, but they got quieter: meek suggestions barely heard in the town's thick wilderness. The bears, on the other hand, were increasingly visible. Grafton's freedom-loving citizens ignored hunting laws and regulations on food disposal. They built a tent city, in an effort to get off the grid. And with a large and growing local bear population, conflict became inevitable. A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear is both a screwball comedy and the story of a radically American commitment to freedom. Full of colorful characters, puns and jokes, and one large social experiment, it is a quintessentially American story, a bearing of our national soul.

This book answers the question why London has been a stronghold for the Labour Party for relatively long periods of the last century and continues to be so to this day to an extent that surprises contemporaries. The book draws on evidence from history and political sociology as well as the personal experience of the author in London local government during the 1980s. It argues that while changes in the London economy, plus the ability of the party to forge cross-class alliances, can go some way to explain the success of the Labour Party in London, a range of other demographic and social factors need to be taken into account, especially after the year 2000. These include the size of London's growing black and ethnic minority communities; higher concentrations of well-educated younger people with socially liberal values; the increasing support of the middle-classes; the impact of austerity after 2008; and the degree of poverty in London compared to non-metropolitan areas. This book will be of key interest to readers interested in the history of the Labour Party, the politics of London, Socialist politics/history, British politics/history, government, political sociology, and urban studies.

How are multiculturalism, inequality and belonging understood in the day-to-day thinking and practices of local government? Examining original empirical data, this book explores how local government officers and politicians negotiate 'difficult subjects' linked with community cohesion policy: diversity, inequality, discrimination, extremism, migration, religion, class, power and change. The book argues that such work necessitates 'uncomfortable positions' when managing ethical, professional and political commitments. Based on first-hand experience of working in urban local government and extensive ethnographic, interview and documentary research, the book applies governmentality perspectives in a new way to consider how people working within government are subject to regimes of governmentality themselves, and demonstrates how power operates through emotions. Its exploration of how 'sociological imaginations' are applied beyond academia will be valuable to those arguing for the future of public services and building connections between the university and wider society, including scholars and students in sociology, social policy, social geography, urban studies and politics, and policy practitioners in local and central government. Winner of the BSA Philip Abrams Memorial Prize 2014

This volume describes and analyzes alternative and emerging models of non-territorial autonomy (NTA), particularly in relation to decentralization. The authors push the NTA debate in new directions by offering a re-conceptualization based on ethno-cultural bottom-up decentralized action that redefines autonomy into its true sense of autonomous action. Through description, critical analysis, and evaluation of several case studies, this book assesses the potential for new paradigms within decentralized systems. The authors explore two approaches to political decentralization which add to the theoretical debate on NTA - network governance, which focuses on new dynamics in policy processes, and normative pluralism, which focuses on accommodating the distinctness of the groups through the subsidiarity principle with regard to their own affairs. The book explores the potential ramifications of ethno-cultural NTA institutions acting within the wider framework of state institutions and assesses the functions of these institutions as another dimension of decentralization and thus another 'layer' of democracy. With contemporary examples from Europe, the Middle East, Asia and South Africa, as well as theoretical aspects of the conceptualization of autonomy, this book offers a truly global perspective. It will be of great interest to policy-makers in countries experiencing adverse developments due to the pressure on public management, as well as advanced students and scholars questioning the ability of the Westphalian system to address cultural diversity.

As the title intimates, this title is an introduction to the study of local government finance. It is an enlightening work aimed primarily at undergraduate students studying local government and administration at universities, technikons and technical colleges. The following issues are covered: why local governments need money; the democratic tenets and principles guiding the management of local government finance; the particular roles of a council, its executive committee and the administrative authority in managing local government finance; the nature of local government property and other taxes; user charges, consumer tariffs and nominal levies as other revenue sources; features and functions of local government budgets; debt management and loans administration; inventory management; inter-governmental financial relations and external financial control.

Turmoil and Transition in Boston tells the personal and political story of Larry DiCara, the youngest person ever elected to the Boston City Council. DiCara's story is intimately woven into the fate of his hometown of Boston. Then a federal court order mandating busing to achieve racial integration in the public schools ripped apart his city. DiCara shows how public policy decisions and economic and demographic changes from that time transformed Boston into one of America's most diverse, affluent, and successful cities in the twenty-first century.

Regionalism is under stress. The European Union has been challenged by the Eurozone crisis, refugee flows, terrorist attacks, Euroscepticism, and Brexit. In Latin America, regional cooperation has been stagnating. Studying Europe and Latin America within a broader comparative perspective, this volume provides an analytical framework to assess stress factors facing regionalism. The contributors explore how economic and financial crises, security challenges, identity questions raised by immigration and refugee flows, the rise of populism, and shifting regional and global power dynamics have had an impact on regionalism; whether the EU crisis has had repercussions for regionalisms in other parts of the world; and to what extent the impact of stress factors is mediated by characteristics of the region that may provide elements of resilience. Written by specialists from Europe and Latin America with a shared interest in the new field of comparative regionalism, this book will be an invaluable resource for students, scholars and policy specialists in regional integration, European politics, EU studies, Latin American studies, and international relations and international law more generally.