Internationalization and demands for more democratic influence at the local level have undermined the traditional methods of policy analysis. This path-breaking book is an institutional analysis of the new networks in public governance. Traditional policy analysis takes as its starting point national legislation and then traces the public policy process through the hierarchical chain of agencies which implement directives. In this book, Peter Bogason takes a postmodern approach which recognizes increasing fragmentation within institutional organizations, and offers an alternative 'bottom-up' approach to the analysis of local governance. He discusses collective action at the local level and describes how it is linked to the public sector through the need for financial, expert and legal resources, and thereby creates a link where 'public action' becomes 'public policy'. The analysis disregards which agencies have formal responsibilities for action and instead focuses on who actually makes public policy, regardless of formal status - public or private, international, central or local. This book will prove interesting reading for all students and scholars of public policy and public administration, as well as political scientists.

Scholars of politics are comfortable theorizing about the parliamentary process and individual political parties, but they are often guilty of ignoring the role of individual citizens except through opinion polls and voting statistics. Even at the local level, the main focus of political theorists has traditionally been on formal systems of government usually lauding representative democracy as the standard for Western government while the importance of participatory action at a local level has been vastly underestimated. Correcting this imbalance, the renowned political scholars who contribute to this volume outline both the theory and practice of so-called "extra-formal democracy," wherein societal governance is more accurately described as a "network activity" and citizens, politicians, public administrators and other professionals act together on issues or problems that are defined as public. This new and complex form of democracy explored here in three unique settings: the United States, the Netherlands, and Denmark is increasingly regarded as an achievable vision for a multi-faceted theory of government."

This is the first comprehensive analysis ever of the build-up of NATO’s defence of the Baltic Approaches during the Cold War, including war plans and exercise reports, emphasizing the perspective of the miilitary actors rather than their political masters’ views. The overall theme is the creation of tactics for littoral warfare - war in confined waters as opposed to the more common blue ocean perspective. The research regards how NATO perceived the goals of the enemy; what the purposes were of the NATO organisations, what military instruments they had to organise, how cooperation was organised among units from sovereign states, and how they tested their military capabilities. The book analyses war plans and tactics of the Danish and West German navies and their planned support from air forces. We follow the modernisations of the navies from guns to missiles. Tactical discussions among military top officers are laid bare, and intelligence reports about the Warsaw Pact and its military capabiliities are presented. Exercises are analysed based on the military reports. The book is a must for any one interested in the tactical considerations of military leaders, the details of war planning, and the evaluations of the military capability.