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Explores ways to make democracy work better, with particular focus on the integral role of local institutions.
Cities in Transition focuses on the sustainability transitions initiated in 40 European cities. The book presents the incredible wealth of insights gathered through hundreds of interviews and questionnaires. Four key domains—local energy systems, local green spaces, local water systems and local labour markets—have been the focus of the field research investigating local potentials for social innovation and new forms of civil society self-organisation. Examining the potential of new organizational frameworks like co-operatives, multi-stakeholder constructions, local-regional partnerships and networks for the success of such transitions, this book presents the key ingredients of a sustainable urban community as a viable concept to address current global financial, environmental and social challenges. Crucial reading for academics and practitioners of urban planning and sustainability in Europe, Cities in Transition is an innovative roadmap for sustainability in changing cities.
The Oxford Handbook of Local and Regional Democracy in Europe analyses the state of play of democracy at the subnational level in the 27 member states of the EU plus Norway and Switzerland. It places subnational democracy in the context of the distinctive Anglo, the French, the German and Scandinavian state traditions in Europe asking to what extent these are still relevant today. The Handbook adapts Lijphart's theory of democracy and applies it to the subnational levels in all the country chapters. A key theoretical issue is whether subnational (regional and local) democracy is derived from national democracy or whether it is legitimate in its own right. Besides these theoretical concerns i...
Over the last three decades, numerous radical right populist parties (RRPP) have emerged, developed, and strengthened their electoral weight in Western Europe. Yet, while several RRPP have managed to formally participate in government coalitions (such as in Italy, Austria, and Switzerland) or to informally support minority governments (such as in Denmark, and in The Netherlands) and while other RRPP have become highly visible opposition forces (such as in France, and Germany), the influence exercised by RRPP remain underexplored. It is essential to focus on their policy influence because of their electoral strength but also because they are often perceived by journalists, citizens, policy-ma...
Local Autonomy as a Human Right contends that local communities struggle to preserve their territorial autonomy over time despite changes to the broader political and geographic contexts within which they are embedded. Forrest argues that this both reflects and is evidence of a worldwide embrace of local control as a key political and social value, indeed, of such importance that it should be embraced and codified as a human right. This study weaves together evidence grounded in a variety of disciplines - history, geography, comparative politics, sociology, public policy, anthropology, international jurisprudence, rural studies, urban studies -- to make clear that a presumed, inherent moral ...
Is the Prefect an exception, surviving only in France and some countries influenced by Napoleon? No! This book tells the varied stories of the resilience, in most European States and under different names, of the prefectoral institution. It is the first comparative book in English studying these territorial administrators who have a go-between role in centre-periphery relations and a nodal role in territorial governance. Gathering a multidisciplinary team of scholars under the auspices of the European Group for Public Administration, this volume offers a fine-grained analysis of 17 national cases, examines cross-country data, and proposes a theoretical frame made of a Weberian ideal-type with three variants, to better comprehend and explain the permanence and changes of the prefectoral figure.
Many natural scientists believe climate change will bring civilizational collapse. Tim Gorringe argues that behind this threat is a commitment to false values, embodied in our political, economic, and farming systems. At the same time, millions of people the world over—perhaps the majority—are committed to alternative values and practices. This book explores how these values, already foreshadowed in people’s movements all over the world, can produce different political and economic realities which can underwrite a safe and prosperous future for all.
This book undertakes the first systematic, multi-country investigation into how regimes of place equality, consisting of multilevel policies, institutions and governance at multiple scales, influence spatial inequality in metropolitan regions. Extended, diversified metropolitan regions have become the dominant form of human settlement, and disparities among metropolitan places figure increasingly in wider trends toward growing inequality. Regimes of place equality are increasingly critical components of welfare states and territorial administration. They can aggravate disparities in services and taxes, or mitigate and compensate for local differences. The volume examines these regimes in a global sample of eleven democracies, including developed and developing countries on five continents. The analyses reveal new dimensions of efforts to grapple with growing inequality around the world, and a variety of institutional blueprints to address one of the most daunting challenges of twenty-first century governance.
While the field of public management has become increasingly international, research and policy recommendations that work for one country often do not work for another. Why, for example, is managerial networking important in the United States, moderately effective in the United Kingdom, and of little consequence in the Netherlands? Comparative Public Management argues that scholars must find a better way to account for political, environmental, and organizational contexts to build a more general model of public management. The volume editors propose a framework in which context influences the types of managerial actions that can be used effectively in public organizations. After introducing ...