Analytics for the public sector involves the application of operations research and statistical techniques to solve various problems existing outside of the private sector. The use of analytics for the public sector results in more efficient and effective services for the clients and users of these systems. Analytics, Operations, and Strategic Decision Making in the Public Sector is an essential reference source that discusses analytics applications in various public sector organizations, and addresses the difficulties associated with the design and operation of these systems including multiple conflicting objectives, uncertainties and resulting risk, ill-structured nature, combinatorial design aspects, and scale. Featuring research on topics such as analytical modeling techniques, data mining, and statistical analysis, this book is ideally designed for academicians, educators, researchers, students, and public sector professionals including those in local, state, and federal governments; criminal justice systems; healthcare; energy and natural resources; waste management; emergency response; and the military.

This book examines language education policy in European migrant-hosting countries. By applying the Multiple Streams Framework to detailed case studies on Austria and Italy, it sheds light on the factors and processes that innovate education policy. The book illustrates an education policy design that values language diversity and inclusion, and compares underlying policymaking processes with less innovative experiences. Combining empirical analysis and qualitative research methods, it assesses the ways in which language is intrinsically linked to identity and political power within societies, and how language policy and migration might become a firmer part of European policy agendas. Sitting at the intersection between policy studies, language education studies and integration studies, the book offers recommendations for how education policy can promote a more inclusive society. It will appeal to scholars, practitioners and students who have an interest in policymaking, education policy and migrant integration.

This book provides a comprehensive account of EU's renewable energy policy development as it traces the agenda-shaping, policy formulation and decision-making phases of the EU's secondary legislation on renewable energy - that is the three successive directives of 2001 (RES-E), 2009 (RED), and 2018 (RED II). It also explores the EU's energy policymaking dynamics and assess integration outcomes of these three policymaking instances in the renewable energy field from a comparative perspective. Enriched with elite interviews with the Brussels policy community, and drawing on European integration and public policy literature, the proposed book will resonate with and offer relevant insights to students, scholars, stakeholders, and policymakers interested in EU energy policy, in particular, and European integration, in general.

This unique book explores a very broad range of ideas and institutions and provides case studies and best practices in the context of broader theoretical analysis. The impact global multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and IMF have on development is hotly debated, but few doubt their power and influence. Therefore, the main aim of this book is to examine the concepts that have powerfully influenced development policy and, more broadly, look at the role of ideas in these institutions and how they have affected current development discourse. With the aim, the objectives, therefore, to enhance the understanding of how the ideas travel within the systems and how they are translated into policy, modified, distorted, or resisted. It is not about creating something fundamentally new, nor is it about completely transcending the efforts of these global institutions. Rather, it is about creating effective global institutions at a global level, that can aid in social and economic development globally. The scholarly value of the proposed publication is self-evident because of the increase in the emphasis placed on global institutions and the role they play for corporate governance, innovation, and sustainability globally and it is going to be more crucial post-pandemic when the economies restart and more so in emerging economies. Moreover, there is a dire need for understanding comprehensively the complexity in the process of how these global institutions work multi-laterally.

This open access book presents a unique interdiscplinary analysis of urban projects promoted by the EU from a comparative perspective This book presents cross-sectional and cross-time analyses at the territorial level targeted by these initiatives focusing on the design, theory and impacts of urban projects developed under the framework of initiatives promoted by the European Union. The book includes a new methodology to analyse the design and theory of urban plans (the comparative urban portfolio analysis) and quasi-experimental strategies to perform impact assessment at the neighbourhood level (the territorial target of those initiatives). Although empirical analyses focus on examples in Spain, the resulting analytical and methodological outcomes of these studies can be applied in a broader context to analyse integral urban policies in other countries.

This book examines an interdependent approach to happiness and well-being, one that contrasts starkly with dominant approaches that have originated from Western culture(s). It highlights the diversity of potential pathways towards happiness and well-being globally, and answers calls - voiced in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals - for more socially and environmentally sustainable models. Leading global organizations including the OECD, UNICEF, and UNESCO are now proposing human happiness and well-being as a more sustainable alternative to a myopic focus on GDP growth. Yet, the definition of well-being offered by these organizations derives largely from the philosophies, social sciences, and institutional patterns of Europe and the United States. Across seven chapters this book carefully probes the inadequacy of these approaches to well-being globally and reveals the distorting effect this has on how we imagine our world, organize institutions, and plan our collective future(s). It shares a wealth of evidence and examples from across East Asia - a region where interdependence remains foregrounded - and concludes by provocatively arguing that interdependence may provide a more sustainable approach to happiness and well-being in the 21st century. A timely and accessible book, it offers fresh insights for scholars and policymakers working in the areas of psychology, health, sociology, education, international development, public policy, and philosophy. This is an open access book.

The worldwide consumption of resources is causing environmental damage at a rate that cannot be sustained. Apart from the resulting environmental and health problems, this trend could threaten economic growth due to rapidly decreasing natural resources and the cost of addressing these issues. The public sector has a responsibility to stimulate the marketplace in favor of the provision of more resource-efficient and less polluting goods, services, and works in order to support environmental and wider sustainable development objectives. Green Public Procurement Strategies for Environmental Sustainability provides innovative insights on the adoption and implementation of green public procurement for sustainable practice in order to contribute to environmental protection. The content within this publication examines climate change, sustainable development, and document analysis and is designed for policymakers, environmentalists, managers, suppliers, development agencies, government officials, academicians, researchers, students, and professionals.

Technological development is achievable only when a country has the ability to systematically design and introduce its own new technologies. In spite of the variety of studies regarding technology management, there is still a lack of studies concerning the principle concepts of technology management in the Middle Eastern/North African (MENA) region's firms. The generally low level of ICT diffusion in most of the region's countries widens the gap between MENA countries and the modern world. Private Sector Innovations and Technological Growth in the MENA Region provides innovative insights into investments made for the digital transformation of major cities in the region that have the potential to become a significant driver for economic development and job creation. Highlighting topics such as strategic planning, risk analysis, and customer loyalty, this publication is designed for policymakers, economists, academicians, researchers, business professionals, and students interested in the use of ICT integration for the advancement of the MENA region.

This comprehensive and accessible textbook introduces the basic concepts of transport policy and decision-making to students of transport policy, transport planning, urban transport, transport evaluation and public policy.It presents the foundations and rationale of transport policy, incorporating a review of the policy formulation process and models of decision-making appropriate to public sector policy-makers. Topics covered include: - The basics of transport planning and traffic theory deemed necessary to understand policy implications of issues including congestion, safety and parking. - Potential solutions to problems such as road user charges, travel demand management, voluntary travel behavior change, transport system management and public transport investment. - Prescriptions for technological change. - Discussion of the need for an integrated land transport policy along with a case study to illustrate how this might be developed for a typical metropolitan area. Contents: 1. Introduction 2. History of Transport with Policy Implications 3. Policy Needs and Policy Processes 4. Economic and Sustainability Foundations 5. Traffic Theory and Transport Planning Foundations 6. Social Exclusion 7. Tackling the Externalities - Environment 8. Tackling the Externalities - Health and Safety 9. Tackling the Externalities - Congestion 10. Tackling the Externalities - Fuels and Technology 11. Agglomeration and Other Wider Economic Benefits 12. Road User Charges 13. Potential Solutions - Public Transport Investment and Technology 14. Potential Solutions - TSM, TDM, VTBC, etc 15. Goods Movement 16. An Integrated Land Use/Transport Policy

The gap between various social classes occurs due to inequality in various social categories arising from lack of opportunities and exclusion from resource distribution due to various attributes of these societal classifications. The social problems of poverty and inequality created by economic uncertainty become a compelling force for states to introduce welfare programs. Reshaping Social Policy to Combat Poverty and Inequality is a critical scholarly publication that delivers extensive coverage of policy practice and a unique emphasis on the broad issues and human dilemmas inherent in the pursuit of social justice. The book further explores how the economic fluctuations and political change interact with shifting social values to shape and re-shape social policies. Highlighting a range of topics such as economics, discrimination, and sustainable development, this book is essential for policymakers, academicians, researchers, social psychologists, sociologists, government officials, and students.

This book argues that active citizenship and poverty are inextricably linked. A common sentiment in discussions of poverty and social policy is that decisions made about those living in poverty or near-poverty are illegitimate, inadvisable, and non-responsive to the needs and interests of the poor if the poor themselves are not involved in the decision-making process. Inside this intuitively appealing idea, however, are a range of potential contradictions and conflicts. These conflicts are at the nexus between active citizenship and technical expertise, between promotion of stability in governance and empowerment of people, between empowerment that is genuine and sustainable and empowerment that is artificial, and between a "war on poverty" that is built on the ideas of collaborative governance and one that is built on an assumption of rule of the elite. The poor have long been consigned to a group of "included-out" citizens. They are legally living in a place, but they are not afforded the same courtesies, entrusted with the same responsibilities, or respected in parallel processes as those citizens of greater means and those who behave in manners that are more consistent with "middle class" values. Poor citizens engaged in the "war on poverty" of the 1960s started to emerge and force their agenda through adversarial action and social protest. This book explores the clear linkages between engaged citizenship and poverty in the United States, revealing a war on poverty and impoverished citizenship that continues to develop in the twenty-first century.