Introduction to Comparative Public Administration
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This updated third edition of the Introduction to Comparative Public Administration explores the cultural, organizational, personnel and financial aspects of public administration across a wide range of European countries. The authors provide country profiles, comparative reform assessments and case studies to highlight the similarities and differences among European public administrations, with key learning objectives highlighted for each chapter.
Key Features of this third edition:
Examples from both Western and Central Eastern European administrative systems
In-depth empirical analysis paired with case studies of administrative systems and reform trajectories to enhance students' comparative interest, knowledge and skills
Accounts of recent reforms and institutional changes, such as digitalization in public administration, as well as the major trends of public sector modernization in an era of multiple crises
This revised textbook is an indispensable resource for students, researchers and lecturers of political and administrative sciences, public management and the wider social sciences. It is also of great interest to policymakers, NGOs, administrators and public CEOs interested in systems reform in Europe as well as the major trends of public sector modernization in an era of multiple crises.
Use of force: Law and practice
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Use of Force: Law and Practice is the first Irish legal textbook dedicated to examining the legal rules regulating the permissible use of force by An Gardaí Síochána (the Irish police). The use of force by Gardaí on a citizen is one of the most primitive methods to achieve compliance with the law. However such use of force by Gardaí on the citizens of the State has the potential to erode public confidence in the police service and can be controversial depending on the circumstances employed. Use of such force can create many legal, mor al and social dilemmas especially when the law lacks the requisite clarity for its permissible use. This book explores the legal rules that regulate and restrict the use of force by An Gardaí Síochána within the context of general policing in Ireland. Use of Force: Law and Practice also explores the international dimension of ‘use of force’ powers and the regulatory impact on them.
Robots and Immigrants: Who is stealing the jobs?
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This book scrutinises the narratives created around stealing jobs, opening new debates on the role of automation and migration policies. The authors reveal how the advances in AI and demands for constant flow of immigrant workers eradicate political and working rights, propagating fears over job theft and ownership.
Sentencing: A modern introduction
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Sentencing is a topic of enduring public interest and, not infrequently, one of considerable controversy. Yet it is also a topic that has traditionally received scant attention in academic and profe ssional legal education, although that is slowly changing. Criminal law practitioners, present and future, need to be well versed on sentencing law and practice, especially now that the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal have begun to issue guideline judgme nts on the sentencing of particular offences, while the Sentencing Guidelines and Information Committee established under the Judicial Council Act 2019 is charged with developing formal guidelines. Sentencing: A Modern Introduction by Professor Tom O’Mall ey, SC is the first Irish textbook on sentencing, and it aims to fill a serious gap in legal education by providing a detailed and reflective account of key sentencing issues. These include the rationale for criminal punishment, distributive principles, th e role of victims, sentencing children, techniques for structuring judicial discretion (including guidelines), sentencing options, collateral consequences of conviction and parole. A central theme of the book is that sentencing must be viewed as a process rather than an event. Hence, the judicial selection of a sentence is undoubtedly a key moment in the overall sentencing process, however, that decision in turn will have been influenced by decisions taken by various actors earlier in the process, while the impact of the penalty is often determined by later executive decisions. While essentially concerned with sentencing law, this book incorporates insights from many other disciplines including philosophy, sociology, history and economics. It has a strong c omparative focus, drawing on the experiences of other jurisdictions with sentencing systems broadly similar to Ireland’s in order to illustrate both the commonality and diversity of approaches to recurring issues in the sentencing of offenders.
Comparative Politics
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With unparalleled empirical material, this is the most comprehensive introduction to comparative politics written by the leading experts in the field who bring together a diverse and informed international perspective on comparative politics. Six new authors join the team for the sixth edition, bringing fresh ideas and insights to the comparative analysis the book provides.
The new edition has been brought fully up to date with coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and challenges to the global international order. A new chapter on the Nation-State and multicultural citizenship focuses on identity, community, ethnicity, migration, and regions. In addition to this, a new chapter 11, 'Direct Democracy', provides cutting-edge analysis of referendums, citizen assemblies, and other forms of democratic innovations. Additional analysis of gender equality, poverty, and climate change is provided from a global perspective in the new chapter 22, which examines the impact of public policies. And finally, a new chapter 25, 'Promoting and Protecting Democracy', draws on the latest developments, such as global shifts towards authoritarian regimes and autocracy, and international relations perspectives, to present a clear overview of democracy promotion.
An unrivalled amount of empirical material in the text illustrates the key similarities and differences across political systems. The wealth of empirical data also encourages students to go beyond the 'what' of comparison to the 'how'. Combining cutting edge treatment of theories and truly global geographical coverage, this exciting textbook is essential reading for all comparative politics students.
The sixth edition includes a wealth of embedded digital resources, which are accessible through the enhanced e-book. These include:
- Multiple-choice questions for every section, designed to reinforce students' understanding of key points through frequent and cumulative revision, and to assist with independent self-study
- Interactive graphs with live-updating data, which allow readers to manipulate and customise their own charts, to help reinforce understanding of empirical data in the context of each chapter
- A library of web links to relevant databases, blogs, debates, and videos, to help explore research interests and take learning further
- Answers to end of chapter questions, which contain useful hints and tips to help tackle the knowledge-based, critical thinking, and applied questions
- Videos of news reports, speeches, analysis, and key events to help bring theories and concepts to life
- A bank of comparative tables and country profiles, which illustrate ideas and concepts, but can also be used in students' own research and analysis, giving readers a real sense of how comparative politics works in practice.
- An interactive flashcard glossary to test students' knowledge and understanding of each chapter's key terms
Teaching resources for adopting lecturers include:
- Seminar activities that lecturers can use to engage their students, based on the content of each chapter
- A bank of questions for lecturers to use to test students' understanding of key concepts covered in the chapters
Why We're Getting Poorer: a Realist's Guide to the Economy and How We Can Fix It
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n insider's guide to our broken economy and how it fails to serve us.
‘A fascinating examination of the failures of modern economics, and how these failures are harming us all' Grace Blakeley, author of Vulture Capitalism
‘Easily one of the most compelling economics communicators of our generation.' Yuan Yang, FT columnist and MP for Earley and Woodley
Did you know that while we think of money as notes issued by the government, the truth is that the overwhelming majority of money today is credit created by private banks?
Did you know that the reason housing keeps getting less accessible is because we haven’t found a way to separate houses from land in our policies?
And did you know that far from globalisation being a mystical force, certain countries and currencies have dominated the way it has played out – to their own advantage?
Whilst economics is at the heart of the society we live in, governing so many functions from our taxes to where we live to the price of our shopping, few of us have a strong grasp on the subject. This book is here to help.
Why We're Getting Poorer delves into the key topics in economics – money, globalisation, inequality, climate change and growth – showing that what we think we know about these things is wrong, and teaching us what we really need to know. Deciphering the jargon and complexity of economic thinking, with examples ranging from the Simpsons to the German football league to The Inbetweeners, Cahal Moran shows us why our economy set us up to fail, and offers suggestions for how we can make positive changes.
Written by an award-winning economist and the YouTuber responsible for ‘Unlearning Economics’, Why We're Getting Poorer is a thrilling, iconoclastic guide to how the world really works.
Fundamentals of the Irish legal system: Law, policy and politics
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This new edition of Fundamentals of the Irish Legal System continues to examine key features of the Irish legal system in a clear and accessible manner. Readers are invited to think deeply and critically about the interlinkages of law, policy and politics in the Irish legal system. How law and society interact to shape and change each other is a key underlying theme of this text.
Key Features:
Explains and critically assesses how Irish law is made and applied.
Analyses what the law is, the concept of the rule of law, sources of law, the civil and criminal jurisdiction of courts, alternative dispute resolution, the place of international and European Union law in the Irish legal system, the role of judges and legal practitioners, the Irish administrative state and judicial review, as well as access to justice in the Irish legal system.
Explains the intricacies of the Irish legal system, while also providing analysis and discussion on key areas and controversies
Embeds skills-based approaches to legal study, identifying approaches to find, read, analyse and critique legislation, case law, texts and journal articles, so that students can put their knowledge into practice.
A pathway to homeownership: The role to tenant purchase in Ireland
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Since the foundation of the Irish state, nearly two-thirds of all local authority housing has been sold to sitting tenants at significant discounts through various tenant purchase schemes. For decades, tenant purchase has shaped Irish housing policy, enabling many low-income families to achieve homeownership, while also sparking controversy – some describe it as the state ‘selling off the family silver’. Until recently, nearly one in four homeowners in Ireland acquired
their homes through this route.
This book provides the first comprehensive account of the evolution of tenant purchase in Ireland, contrasting its trajectory with similar policies, such as the UK’s Right to Buy. Drawing on historical sources, data analysis and original interviews, it explores the impact of tenant purchase on social housing provision, wealth distribution and the broader housing system. It critically examines the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ of the policy, highlighting systemic flaws that have
led to a weakened social housing sector and political reluctance to reform, despite mounting evidence.
A Climate of Truth: Why we need it and how to get it
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We have most of the technology we need to combat the climate crisis - and most people want to see more action. But after three decades of climate COPs, we are accelerating into a polycrisis of climate, food security, biodiversity, pollution, inequality, and more. What, exactly, has been holding us back? Mike Berners-Lee looks at the challenge from new angles. He stands further back to gain perspective; he digs deeper under the surface to see the root causes; he joins up every element of the challenge; and he learns lessons from our failures of the past. He spells out why, if humanity is to thrive in the future, the most critical step is to raise standards of honesty in our politics, our media, and our businesses. Anyone asking 'what can each of us do right now to help?' will find inspiration in this practical and important book.
Abundance: How we build a better future
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THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER and MOST-ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2025 FROM THE FINANCIAL TIMES and NEXT BIG IDEA CLUB
'Spectacular ... Inspires hope' New York Times
'Forceful, quick-moving ... important' Financial Times
'Ambitious' New Yorker
'Necessary' New Statesman
'Chilling ... Inspirational ... A book that matters' Sunday Times
'One of the most important political books of the past decade' The New European
The threat to liberal democracy isn't just autocrats - it's a lack of effective action by so-called progressives.
We have the means to build an equitable world without hunger, fuelled by clean energy. Instead, we have a politics driven by scarcity, lives defined by unaffordability and public institutions that no longer deliver on big ideas. It's time for change.
Bestselling authors Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson have spent decades analysing the political, economic and cultural forces that have led us here. In this once-in-a-generation intervention, they unpick the barriers to progress and show how we can, and must, shift the political agenda to one that not only protects and preserves, but also builds. From healthcare to housing, infrastructure to innovation, they lay out a path to a future defined not by fear, but by abundance.
Leadership: Theory and practice
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Adopted in thousands of courses in 89 countries and translated into 15 different languages, this market-leading text successfully combines an academically robust account of the major theories and models of leadership with an accessible style and focus on how leadership theory can inform leadership practice. Peter G. Northouse uses a consistent structure for each chapter, allowing readers to easily compare and contrast different theories. Case studies and questionnaires provide students with practical examples and opportunities to deepen their understanding of their own leadership style.
Futures for the Public Sector
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Politics
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This best-selling textbook continues to lead the way in providing an approachable and wide-ranging introduction to politics. It covers the key concepts, theories and debates, actors and institutions that drive politics, exploring their application and relevance to contemporary political developments. This sixth edition's new co-author, Matthew Laing, builds on previous editions and provides significant revisions to chapters covering populism, elections, global policing, security and governance, race and gender in politics, and law and the media to reflect rapidly changing global practice and scholarship.
Brand new global examples and a range of tried-and-tested pedagogical tools, including Key Thinker profiles, Politics in Action features and debating boxes, allow students to develop nuanced responses to political issues.
Carefully designed and written to map onto degree curricula, it remains the go-to text for undergraduate introductory and comparative politics courses. It can also be used as pre-course reading or as a point of reference for politics majors or minors.
New to this edition:
- The popular Politics in Action features have been updated with new case studies to reflect the latest political developments, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the persistent rise of populism, the climate emergency, China’s continuing emergence as a world power and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
- A re-worked chapter on global political regimes, with new emphasis on flawed democracies, hybrid regimes and democratic backsliding in the modern world.
- A greater diversity of illustrative examples from around the world, with many more case studies and analyses drawn from Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Updated and free-to-use online resources that support teaching and learning can be found at bloomsburyonlineresources.com/politics-6e, featuring flashcards, a glossary, additional cases, interactive simulations and weblinks for students, and for lecturers PowerPoint slides, a testbank and a guide to using the book.
The Third Pillar. How markets and the state leave the community behind
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Revised and updated
Shortlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award
From one of the most important economic thinkers of our time, a brilliant and far-seeing analysis of the current populist backlash against globalization.
Raghuram Rajan, distinguished University of Chicago professor, former IMF chief economist, head of India's central bank, and author of the 2010 FT-Goldman-Sachs Book of the Year Fault Lines, has an unparalleled vantage point onto the social and economic consequences of globalization and their ultimate effect on our politics. In The Third Pillar he offers up a magnificent big-picture framework for understanding how these three forces--the state, markets, and our communities--interact, why things begin to break down, and how we can find our way back to a more secure and stable plane.
The "third pillar" of the title is the community we live in. Economists all too often understand their field as the relationship between markets and the state, and they leave squishy social issues for other people. That's not just myopic, Rajan argues; it's dangerous. All economics is actually socioeconomics - all markets are embedded in a web of human relations, values and norms. As he shows, throughout history, technological phase shifts have ripped the market out of those old webs and led to violent backlashes, and to what we now call populism. Eventually, a new equilibrium is reached, but it can be ugly and messy, especially if done wrong.
Right now, we're doing it wrong. As markets scale up, the state scales up with it, concentrating economic and political power in flourishing central hubs and leaving the periphery to decompose, figuratively and even literally. Instead, Rajan offers a way to rethink the relationship between the market and civil society and argues for a return to strengthening and empowering local communities as an antidote to growing despair and unrest. Rajan is not a doctrinaire conservative, so his ultimate argument that decision-making has to be devolved to the grass roots or our democracy will continue to wither, is sure to be provocative. But even setting aside its solutions, The Third Pillar is a masterpiece of explication, a book that will be a classic of its kind for its offering of a wise, authoritative and humane explanation of the forces that have wrought such a sea change in our lives.
Co-intelligence: Living and working with AI
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**A New York Times Bestseller**
'Co-Intelligence is the very best book I know about the ins, outs, and ethics of generative AI. Drop everything and read it cover to cover NOW' Angela Duckworth
Consumer AI has arrived. And with it, inescapable upheaval as we grapple with what it means for our jobs, lives and the future of humanity.
Cutting through the noise of AI evangelists and AI doom-mongers, Wharton professor Ethan Mollick has become one of the most prominent and provocative explainers of AI, focusing on the practical aspects of how these new tools for thought can transform our world. In Co-Intelligence, he urges us to engage with AI as co-worker, co-teacher and coach. Wide ranging, hugely thought-provoking and optimistic, Co-Intelligence reveals the promise and power of this new era.
New Public Governance As a Hybrid
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This Element focuses on New Public Governance as one of the major administrative narratives of our times. It offers a critical interpretation of NPG as a hybrid tool for management, governance, and reform, arguing that NPG coexists with and is likely to gradually merge into New Public Management. Several arguments support the 'continuity and hybridization' hypothesis, whereby the transition from NPM to NPG occurred through the retention of key elements and a layering and sedimentation process. These arguments challenge the “linear substitution” hypothesis, accounting for NPM's persistence and dominance. The Element develops a new interpretation of NPG and discusses the challenges that NPG poses. Finally, it shows that exploring hybridity is critical for evaluating the potential of NPG in terms of a shift in public administration and understanding governance trajectories and reform scenarios.
The Collaborative Constitution
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In this book, Aileen Kavanagh offers a fresh account of how we should protect rights in a democracy. Departing from leading theoretical accounts which present the courts and legislature as rivals for constitutional supremacy, Kavanagh argues that protecting rights is a collaborative enterprise between all three branches of government - the Executive, the legislature, and the courts. On a collaborative vision of constitutionalism, protecting rights is neither the solitary task of a Herculean super-judge, nor the dignified pronouncements of an enlightened legislature. Instead, it is a complex, dynamic, and collaborative endeavour, where each branch has a distinct but complementary role to play, whilst engaging with each other in a spirit of comity and mutual respect. Connecting constitutional theory with the practice of protecting rights in a democracy, this book offers an innovative understanding of the separation of powers, grounded in the values and virtues of constitutional collaboration.
The Real Economy: History and theory
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A provocative new theory of “the economy,” its history, and its politics that better unites history and economics
What is the economy, really? Is it a “market sector,” a “general equilibrium,” or the “gross domestic product”? Economics today has become so preoccupied with methods that economists risk losing sight of the economy itself. Meanwhile, other disciplines, although often intent on criticizing the methods of economics, have failed to articulate an alternative vision of the economy. Before the ascent of postwar neoclassical economics, fierce debates raged, as many different visions of the economy circulated and competed with one another. In The Real Economy, Jonathan Levy returns to the spirit of this earlier era, which, in all its contentiousness, gave birth to the discipline of economics.
Drawing inspiration particularly from Thorstein Veblen and John Maynard Keynes, Levy proposes a theory of the economy that is open to rich empirical and historical scrutiny, covering topics that include the emergence of capitalism, the notion of radical uncertainty, the meaning of demand, the primal desire for money, the history of corporations, and contemporary globalization. Writing for anyone interested in the study of the economy, Levy provides an invaluable provocation for a broader debate in the social sciences and humanities concerning what “the economy” is.
Public Policy in Action: Perspectives on the policy process
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This comprehensive textbook explores the policy process from a multitude of perspectives, including rationalism, culturalism, institutionalism and from a political point of view. This allows students to discover key concepts from the policy science literature and gain a deeper understanding of how public policy is discussed academically and shaped empirically.
Public Policy in Action gives a detailed breakdown of all stages of the policy process by discussing the emergence of policy problems affecting the agenda, the formulation of policy alternatives, the decision-making process, the implementation of policies and the progression to evaluation, learning and policy change. The authors also outline the sets of factors which influence the steps of the policy process internally and externally. The book is supported by a wide variety of case studies from a number of national and international contexts of relevance to an international audience.
Key features include:
Up-to-date review of the literature on the policy process
Coverage on all key elements of the policy cycle
Insight into the complexity of policy making in practice
Multiple perspectives of the policy process
Critical reflections on the roles of policy analysts
Multiple case studies including water management, migration and social policies.
This extensive and detailed textbook will be an invaluable resource for undergraduate and masters students of public policy, policy analysis and public administration, by providing an insight into the complexity of policy making in the real world.
The Technological Republic: Hard power, soft belief and the future of the west
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A sweeping indictment of the West’s culture of complacency and a passionate call to wake up to our new reality from the bold thinkers behind tech giant Palantir
Our most brilliant engineering minds once collaborated with government to advance world-changing technologies. Their efforts secured the West’s dominant place in the geopolitical order. But that relationship has now eroded, with perilous repercussions.
In this groundbreaking treatise, one of tech’s boldest thinkers and his longtime deputy offer a searing critique of our collective abandonment of ambition. Palantir co-founder and CEO Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska argue that in order for the West to retain its global edge―and preserve the freedoms we take for granted―the software industry must renew its commitment to addressing our most urgent challenges, including the new arms race of artificial intelligence.
At once iconoclastic and rigorous, this books also lifts the veil on tech giant Palantir and its broader political project from the inside, offering a passionate call for the West to wake up to our new reality.
‘A rallying cry, as we enter the age of artificial intelligence, for a return to World War II era co-operation…A fascinating and important work’ WALTER ISAACSON
Invisible Women: Data bias in a world designed for men
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Discover the shocking gender bias that affects our everyday lives in this groundbreaking gift of a book.
'Nothing delights me more than a well-written and well-researched book that teaches you and never bores you' Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
'HELL YES. This is one of those books that has the potential to change things - a monumental piece of research' Caitlin Moran
Imagine a world where...
· Your phone is too big for your hand
· Your doctor prescribes a drug that is wrong for your body
· In a car accident you are 47% more likely to be injured.
If any of that sounds familiar, chances are you're a woman.
From government policy and medical research, to technology, workplaces, and the media. Invisible Women reveals how in a world built for and by men we are systematically ignoring half of the population, often with disastrous consequences. Caroline Criado Perez brings together for the first time an impressive range of case studies, stories and new research from across the world that illustrate the hidden ways in which women are forgotten, and the profound impact this has on us all.
After the Train: Irish women united and a network of change
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The vast accomplishments of modern Irish feminism would look very different without the courageous, yet often overlooked, efforts of Irishwomen United activists in the years following the Contraceptive Train.
This phenomenal collection of twenty essays offers first-hand, historical accounts of on-the-ground activities during this period, shining a light of neglected truth on the history of how Ireland was changed. In this book, writer and IWU member Evelyn Conlon together with academic Rebecca Pelan, ensure the impact of the organisation will no longer be forgotten.
The collective memories of these women describe everything from pickets to sit ins, self-questioning to dancing, the development of feminist ideas and publishing despite the restrictive laws and attitudes surrounding them. Through relentless, difficult discussions, publications, marches and allyship with the global Feminist and Civil Rights Movement, the ideas of IWU were transformed into action for the sake of reproductive rights, sexuality, representation and rape crisis work.
A foreword from former Irish President Mary McAleese contextualises the collective labour of IWU within a not-so-distant past in Ireland. This book also features an archive of original art, flyers, photographs and memorabilia of the movement, many of which appear for the first time in print.
A glimpse at the long-winding track of history behind us reminds us how far we've come. Irishwomen United and their allies set the precedent for change for the next generation. The stories of these women campaigners are not only representative of past movements, but also a call to action for future social justice activists in the fight for liberation and equality for all.
Things Your Future Self Will Thank You For: Small changes, lasting results
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As a family doctor, Dr Mark Rowe has seen first-hand the impact of investing in your future self with simple, small changes to your daily routine that leverage the science of habits for lasting results.
Take a sauna – it could improve your metabolism and your pain threshold.
Drink great coffee – it can lower your risk of heart disease and stroke.
Make time for awe – it releases positive hormones.
In this inspiring and practical book, Mark reveals the most important things we can do today to improve our lives tomorrow, with benefits that are so impressive you’ll want to get started straightaway.
Become the CEO of your own health. Your future self starts today.
Communitarianism: Politics, society and public policy
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This thoroughly revised and updated edition of Henry Tam's Communitarianism brings different strands of communitarian thought together into a critical synthesis, at the centre of which is the ideal of inclusive communities based on the three principles of mutual responsibility, cooperative enquiry, and citizen participation.
Tam shows how communitarian ideas can be applied in practice, addressing key problems in social, economic, and political life, with case studies from the state, business, and voluntary sectors to demonstrate how we can more effectively respond to the major problems facing society.
With key pedagogical features including a timeline of the emergence of key communitarian ideas, diagrams illustrating conceptual differences relating to communitarian, authoritarian and individualist thinking, and a selection of global case studies and further readings, this is the authoritative guide to the theory and practice of Communitarianism.
The Humanities and Public Administration: An introduction
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This perceptive book is a much-needed exploration of the contribution of the humanities to the study of public administration. Expert authors advocate for reintegrating the humanities into this field, highlighting the ways in which the social sciences and humanities complement each other in researching global governmental processes.
The Humanities and Public Administration presents a comprehensive analysis of how fields such as historiography, philosophy, religious studies, and the fine arts can shed light on under-explored aspects of administrative phenomena. Reflecting critically and systematically on the applications of these subject areas, chapters present exciting new approaches to understanding international public administration and public policy. Authors also emphasise the wider benefits of connecting the humanities as a whole to the study of social sciences.
This pioneering book is a vital read for academics and students in public administration and management, public governance, and public policy. It provides an illuminating insight into the interdisciplinary nature of both public administration and the humanities for all those interested in these fields.
Real World Research: A resource for users of social research methods in applied settings
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Real World Research supplies the multidisciplinary skills necessary to conduct social research projects inside and outside of the classroom or the workplace. Offering well-balanced coverage of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods, this highly practical resource incorporates approaches from different social science disciplines to help readers find answers to real-life research questions in healthcare, education, business and management, and in many other public and private settings. Detailed yet accessible chapters include step-by-step advice for developing a research question, choosing a research design strategy, collecting and analyzing the data, interpreting and reporting the results, and more.
The fifth edition contains timely coverage of contemporary methodologies, key ethical issues, and ongoing debates within the field of social research. New and expanded sections address topics such as evidence‐based approaches to social research, ethical considerations when conducting research involving people, carrying out projects based solely on existing research, and the importance and implications of internet-based research. Featuring a wealth of up-to-date examples drawn from a wide range of disciplines, this classic textbook:
Focuses on useful real-world research in applied settings such as homes, schools, businesses, and other workplaces
Provides a concise overview and a well-defined example of each main step of the research process
Highlights the importance of collaboration, cooperation, and active participation in social research
Explains flexible research designs using largely qualitative methods, including additional coverage of ethnographic and grounded theory approaches
Includes an extensive companion website with numerous research examples, links to journal articles, PowerPoint slides, and many other additional resources
Real World Research, Fifth Edition, remains essential reading for those tasked with developing, performing, and reporting the findings of a research project, including students, academics and educators, social scientists, health practitioners, and professionals in a diverse range of fields.
Economics for a Fragile Planet: Rethinking markets, institutions and governance
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In a world of growing environmental risks and ecological scarcities, ensuring a safe Anthropocene for humankind is essential. Managing an increasingly "fragile" planet requires new thinking on markets, institutions and governance built on five principles: ending the underpricing of nature, fostering collective action, accepting absolute limits, attaining sustainability, and promoting inclusivity. Rethinking economics and policies in this way can help to overcome the global challenges posed by climate change, biodiversity loss, freshwater scarcity, and deteriorating marine and coastal habitats. It requires decoupling wealth creation from environmental degradation through business, policy and financial actions aimed at better stewardship of the biosphere. In this book, renowned environmental economist Edward Barbier offers a blueprint for a greener and more inclusive economy, and outlines the steps we must take now to build a post-COVID world that limits environmental threats while sustaining per capita welfare.
States and Markets
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States and Markets] should be read by every student of international political economy.'- International Relations Theory. Susan Strange was one of the most influential international relations scholars of the latter half of the twentieth century. She is regarded by many as the creator of the discipline of international political economy (IPE) and leaves behind an impressive body of work. States and Markets is one of Strange's seminal texts. Strange introduces the reader to a unique critical model for understanding the relationship between politics and economics centred on her four-faceted model of power consisting of: security, production, finance and knowledge. Using these terms Strange provides a rigorous analysis of the effects of political authority, including states, on markets and conversely of market forces on states. The Revelations edition includes a new foreword by Ronen Palan.
Research handbook on open government
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This Research Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of scholarship on open government, with insights into novel concepts, approaches and trends. Expert editors and contributing authors explore how the emergence of digital technologies has accelerated the promotion of open governments across the globe, as well as research developments in the field.Chapters cover the three main pillars of open government; transparency, participation and collaboration; and delineate their practical applications in a wide array of policy domains. Authors expand on the progress of open government implementation and evaluate emerging trends, such as blockchain technology, user-centered design and user experience, as well as mis- and disinformation. This Research Handbook highlights the impact of open government initiatives and creates a better understanding of their various components and results, and the interplay between the two.This is an essential reference for academics, researchers and students of public policy, administration, regulation and governance. It is also of great interest to policymakers and governmental actors interested in innovation and emergent technologies, and how these are applicable to global policies and open governments.
Handbook on trust in public governance
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This Handbook explores the transformative power of trust for relations within and between governments, parliaments and politicians, administrations and regulatory agencies, courts, societal actors and citizens. Adopting a multi-actor and multi-level perspective, it highlights the centrality of trust in enhancing the resilience, effectiveness and legitimacy of current governance systems.Bringing together a cross-disciplinary team of experts, the Handbook examines the causes, dynamics and effects of trust and distrust in public governance. Authors illustrate the complex interplay between (dis)trust, vulnerability, transparency, power, regulation and control in an era characterised by fluid and inclusive forms of government that require collaboration and a functional balance between trust and distrust to operate. They cover key topics including among others, participation, networks, contracting, technology, crisis governance, and trust reparation. Ultimately, the Handbook explores how to expand the boundaries of future research, and demonstrates that fostering reciprocal relations of functional trust is a fundamental principle of effective governance.The Handbook on Trust in Public Governance is an essential read for students and scholars of public administration and management, political science, policy studies, and public governance. It is also a key resource for policy-makers and government officials seeking to craft strategies that enhance governance legitimacy and resilience.
Collaborative governance primer: an antidote to solving complex public problems
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This Brief provides a primer on collaborative governance and its essential principles. Drawing on examples from the U.S. at the local government level, chapters accentuate the growing utilization of bottom-up approaches in addressing complex societal concerns, with a particular emphasis on public health issues such as HIV/AIDS and the COVID 19 pandemic.The Brief approaches the topic with the following questions in mind: (1) Does collaborative governance provide a viable alternative to complex public problem solving compared to the traditional top-down bureaucratic approach?; (2) Is cross-sector stakeholders'involvement in collaborative governance a viable pathway forward in the administration of peoples'affairs?; (3) Can societal well-being be better promoted with non-mandated collaborative governance?; (4) Would the representation and participation of target populations in policy decision making and/or implementation generate constructive and sustainable solutions for societal benefits? ; and (5) Is collaborative governance the future of public management/administration? Providing much needed insights for theory, policy, and praxis, this volume will be of interest to academics and students of public affairs, public management, governance, public health, public policy, and disaster and emergency management, as well as practitioners and policy makers in related fields.
Urban Inequality in Finland: Land, housing and the Nordic welfare state
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Investigates the structural dynamics of urban inequality from a political economy perspective
Discusses how a descriptive methodology in Finnish mainstream segregation research has contributed to territorial stigmatisation
Analyses the changing and contradictory means and goals of land and housing policies in Finland
Illustrates how state and municipal land policies have adopted entrepreneurial, rent-maximising features which restrict attempts to deter urban inequality
Shows how the role of social housing is retrenching, and housing is treated increasingly as a financial asset contributing to urban inequalities
Coupling a political economic analysis of policy transformations with a critical sociology of urban inequality, the book contributes to an understanding of the structural dynamics of urban inequality in the Nordic welfare state context. It shows how the state and municipalities have allowed an entrepreneurial and profit-oriented logic to penetrate these policies. From regulators of capitalist urbanisation, public bodies have increasingly become its institutional scaffolding. This brings with it a host of urban social problems linked to uneven development such as segregation, gentrification, and housing displacement.
The book also presents a novel critique of descriptive mainstream research, policy and media narratives regarding urban inequality in Finland. It suggests that a lack of explanation regarding the structural dynamics of urban inequality has contributed to the disrepute of working-class neighbourhoods, and their territorial stigmatisation.
Policing Higher Education: The antidemocratic attack on scholars and why it matters
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On the essential role of higher education and academic freedom in thriving democracies. Higher education is facing an existential crisis. Students and staff are surveilled with cameras and facial recognition software. Police zip-tie and arrest students during protests. As universities across the United States become epicenters of ideological warfare, Policing Higher Education contextualizes these skirmishes within a broader global framework. From the contentious debates surrounding free speech and curriculum control to the denial of tenure for outspoken faculty, Eve Darian-Smith examines the myriad ways higher education has become a battleground. Darian-Smith highlights the intersecting global trends of rising authoritarianism and declining academic freedom, revealing how the United States is part of a larger pattern seen in democracies worldwide, including Brazil, Hungary, Germany, India, and the Philippines. This book challenges readers to view educational conflicts not merely as culture wars but as intense and connected struggles over economic, political, and social power. Drawing from extensive scholarship, Darian-Smith humanizes the impacts of these attacks on scholars and students, offering poignant stories of persecution and resilience. With a critical eye on the historical and structural drivers of antidemocracy, this book pushes for new, meaningful conversations about academic freedom that transcend national borders. It emphasizes the vital role of universities in fostering social responsibility and combating the global drift toward authoritarianism.
Public governance paradigms: Competing and co-existing
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This enlightening book scrutinizes the shifting and overlapping governance paradigms that inform public administration reforms. Exploring the models that shape and reshape the daily operation of public organizations, it explains the core features of public bureaucracy and professional rule in the modern day. From the rise to supremacy of New Public Management to the growing preference for alternatives, such as Digital Era Governance, Public Value Management and New Public Governance, four world-renowned authors launch a powerful and systematic comparison of the competing and co-existing paradigms. Advancing the'public governance diamond'as a critical tool for comparing the core features of governance paradigms, this insightful book discusses the underlying behavioural assumptions of these models and the challenges faced by leaders when managing in a public sector. Informed by both key theory and empirical analysis, this book will be crucial reading for students and researchers seeking an authoritative voice on competing and co-existing modes of governance. Public leaders and managers, as well as public employees, will also benefit from its insights into the varying and multifaceted dynamics of public governance.
Pathways to Sustainable Welfare: Inertia, emergence and transformation in Swedish cities
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Pathways to Sustainable Welfare critically examines how cities can address the dual challenges of climate change and sustainability while ensuring the welfare of their populations. Focused on three Swedish cities, it explores the integration of environmental and welfare concerns in local policies, urban movements and public opinions.
Dynamics and issues of local autonomy: A comparative study
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This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. It is free to read, download and share on Elgaronline.com. This book explores local autonomy as measured by the updated and extended Local Autonomy Index, and considers the underlying issues related to this multidimensional concept. It analyses dynamics spanning over three decades concerning the dimensions of local autonomy and its variables and indicators.
Handbook of applied economics in vaccines
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Vaccine discovery, financing, and distribution offer technical challenges requiring difficult choices. Patients, parents, providers, and politicians all must decide about who, when, where to vaccinate. Billions if not trillions of dollars and millions of lives depend on getting these choices right. Economics, the science of choice under uncertainty, can help clarify the principles for these choices. Yet standard economics models do not apply to most vaccines because they are a commodity offering both private benefit and risk as well as population level benefits through herd immunity. The book explains the vaccine development and financing landscape and the principles that invalidate standard market-based approaches to vaccine discovery and distribution based on free unregulated markets. Because government involvement in vaccine policy is universal, tools to determine costs and benefits of vaccination from various perspectives are explained and illustrated with exercises. The applications of economic evaluation to vaccines are presented with a range of sophistication from simple static models to advanced stochastic Markov models with dynamic effects of secondary disease transmission. Finally the book covers the need to plan and provide for public and private financing for vaccine discovery, production, and distribution. Throughout the book there is a focus on showing the benefits as well as the limitations of an exclusive focus on economic efficiency. Applied exercises help readers immediately begin to apply principles to typical problems facing decision-makers.
The Human Rights Accountability Mechanisms of International Organizations
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International organizations are becoming increasingly powerful. Today, they affect the lives of individuals across the globe through their decisions and conduct. Consequently, international organizations are more capable of violating the human rights of individuals. But how can they be held to account for such violations? This book studies the procedural mechanisms that may hold international organizations to account for their human rights violations. It establishes a general framework for identifying, analyzing, and assessing the accountability mechanisms of international organizations. This general framework is then applied to three distinct cases: the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy missions, refugee camp administration by the UNHCR, and detention by the International Criminal Court. The overall conclusion is that none of the existing accountability mechanisms across the three cases fulfill the normative requirements set out in the general framework. However, there are significant variations between cases, and between different types of accountability mechanisms.
Climate Justice and the University: Shaping a hopeful future for all
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A radical exploration of how higher education can advance transformative climate justice.Amid the worsening climate crisis and intensifying inequities, higher education can play a powerful role in addressing the intersecting crises facing humanity. Institutions of higher education hold untapped potential to advance social justice and reduce climate injustices. However, universities are not yet structured to accelerate social change for the public good. In Climate Justice and the University, Jennie Stephens reimagines the potential of higher education to advance human well-being and promote ecological health. Drawing on over thirty years of experience working on the climate crisis within higher education, Stephens offers a provocative and pathbreaking vision of how higher education can accelerate the shift toward more equitable, healthy, and stable futures for all. Building on a US and European context, she integrates examples from the innovative landscape of transformative education initiatives around the world. With climate chaos exacerbating instability of all kinds, reimagining the transformative power of higher education is hopeful and empowering. By inviting readers to collectively reimagine different priorities and structures within higher education, Stephens disrupts long-held assumptions about how universities advance learning and research, suggesting possibilities to shape a more equitable future for all.
Rethinking feminism in Ireland
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Rethinking Feminism in Ireland offers a radical approach that sees feminism as a practical philosophy that seeks to combat all forms of oppression.
Exploring a number of topics including political activism, the world of work, queer and trans-rights activism, gender-based violence, and reproductive rights, this open access book sets out a fresh approach to the future of feminism using case studies in Ireland to to illustrate global issues. Including interviews with 30 people involved in feminist activism in Ireland, this book uses Irish history and political developments to create a collaborative, collective feminist effort with a global outlook. Rethinking Feminism in Ireland articulates a vision for the future that encourages solidarity across lines of difference and that makes the case for a politically charged, praxis-oriented approach that refuses to strip feminism of its substance and potential to contribute to radical change.
Open government for the green transition. Panorama of good practices towards meaningful citizen participation
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The active involvement of citizens in shaping government's response to the climate and environmental crisis is essential to ensure its effective implementation and to strengthen trust in public decision making. To achieve this, governments can rethink the governance of the green agenda by drawing on open government principles – transparency, accountability, and participation. This report compiles good practices identified across OECD Member and partner countries, illustrating how open government practices are used to (re)engage citizens in the green transition. Through initiatives to improve access to environmental information and open green data, the strategic use of public communication grounded in innovative approaches, and the deployment of participatory mechanisms and processes at various levels of government, the report highlights the opportunities and levers that can be activated throughout the policy cycle to ensure meaningful citizen participation in the green transition, foster a shared understanding and ownership of the issues and responses, and empower citizens to become key actors in this transition.
Fast tracking net zero by building climate and economic resilience: A summary for policymakers
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Climate action has never been more urgent. 2024 was the hottest year on record and the first to exceed an average of 1.5°C of warming. As the world faces record-breaking heat and escalating climate risks, this report provides governments with policy insights to help close the ambition and implementation gaps to reach net zero. Drawing on the OECD’s substantial body of climate policy research, this summary for policymakers brings together findings from the second phase of the Organisation’s Net Zero+ project, which focuses on building climate and economic resilience. The report shows that reaching net zero is still possible but requires urgent action. It also discusses the importance of public support, trade, investment and finance, climate adaptation and bridging knowledge gaps to improve the effectiveness of climate policies.
Getting the public onside: How to make reforms acceptable by design
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Public acceptability is a crucial condition for the successful implementation of reforms. The challenges raised by the green, digital and demographic transitions call for urgent and ambitious policy action. Despite this, governments often struggle to build sufficiently broad public support for the reforms needed to promote change. Better information and effective public communication have a key role to play. But policymakers cannot get the public to choose the side of reform without a proper understanding of people's views and how they can help strengthen the policy process.
Perceptual and behavioural data provide an important source of insights on the perceptions, attitudes and preferences that constitute the "demand-side" of reform. The interdisciplinary OECD Expert Group on New Measures of the Public Acceptability of Reforms was set up in 2021 to take stock of these insights and explore their potential for improving policy. This report reflects the outcomes of the Expert Group's work. It looks at and assesses (i) the available data and what they can tell policymakers about people's views; (ii) the analytical frameworks through which these data are interpreted; and (iii) the policy tools through which considerations of public acceptability are integrated into the reform process.
Harnessing mission governance to achieve national climate targets
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To achieve ambitious climate targets under the Paris Agreement, countries need more than political will – they need effective governance. This report examines how a mission-oriented approach can transform climate action. Analysing 15 countries' climate council assessments, the report reveals that, while many nations are incorporating elements of mission governance, significant gaps remain. It highlights promising examples of whole-of-government approaches, while identifying key challenges, such as limited societal engagement, weak co-ordination, and a lack of focus on experimentation and ecosystem mobilisation. The report argues that national climate commitments effectively function as overarching missions, and thus, can greatly benefit from applying mission governance principles. It recommends integrating missions into climate mitigation efforts, applying these principles to policy design and implementation, and deploying targeted missions to address specific climate challenges. By embracing a holistic, mission-driven strategy, countries can enhance their climate action and achieve their ambitious targets.
How to monitor and evaluate policies to address child poverty and disadvantage in Ireland
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Ireland has many important initiatives underway to promote child and youth well-being and to improve outcomes for children experiencing disadvantage. In 2023, the country launched Young Ireland, its third whole-of-government policy framework for children and young people. This technical report aims to provide Ireland with practical guidance to support the development of a data monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system for Young Ireland. It discusses the evidence base needed to promote collective learning among policymakers, which includes a better conceptualisation of monitoring of implementation, measuring impact, and potentially redirecting actions. The technical report focuses on developing quantitative and qualitative indicators for this M&E system and identifies ways in which data development could be strengthened to enhance the capacity for monitoring child policy and outcomes, and to respond to the challenges involved.
The ocean economy to 2050
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The ocean economy has long been a powerful driver of global growth, creating jobs, fuelling development, and ensuring food security for millions worldwide. If the ocean economy were a country, it would be the fifth largest economy in the world. However, climate change, environmental degradation, lagging productivity, and slow digital transformation are intensifying pressures on marine ecosystems and economic potential. Tackling these challenges requires bold, co-ordinated action, not only to safeguard marine ecosystems but to sustain the ocean economy as a source of prosperity for future generations.
The OECD report The Ocean Economy to 2050 provides groundbreaking data, analysis, and insights to support policymakers in fostering a sustainable and resilient ocean economy. It explores potential pathways for the sector’s development through 2050, emphasising the urgent need for science-based decision-making and improved ocean governance. The report underscores the need to phase out harmful practices and combat illicit activities—the so-called "dark ocean economy." It also highlights the critical role of transitioning to cleaner energy and harnessing digital technologies to mitigate environmental impacts, address climate change, and enhance the productivity of ocean industries.
