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Public Service Accountability: Rekindling a Debate
by Peter Murphy Kirsten Greenhalgh Laurence Ferry Russ GlennonHow we manage public services and hold them to account is critically important. Yet austerity, recent changes to accountability frameworks, and the loss of the Audit Commission have created a huge deficit in our understanding of how well services are delivered. The time is thus right to re-examine the state of our vital public services, as well as how we can make them more accountable. This book reopens the debate on what accountability means and provides unique insights into an increasingly complex organizational landscape. It presents a new and innovative way of evaluating public services that should be of use to academics and public servants alike. Synthesising empirical work across local government, health and social care, the police, and fire services, this book also explores the relationship between financial and performance accountability and makes the case for the need for a distinctive sense of public service accountability.
Regulating Pharmaceutical Prices in India: Policy Design, Implementation And Compliance (India Studies In Business And Economics Ser.)
by Ajay BhaskarabhatlaThis book presents an extensive study on the effectiveness of recent regulations on pharmaceutical prices in India, exploring the weaknesses in the design and implementation of pharmaceutical price controls and investigating what can be done to fix the broken system.In addition, it examines the extent to which essential medicines are actually made affordable by price controls. The book argues that companies make the pharmaceutical price control regime largely ineffective by coordinating to increase pre-regulation prices; by diversifying horizontally away from the regulated markets and increasing prices in the unregulated markets; by manipulating trade margins; and by refusing to comply with the regulation because the penalties remains negligible.The book draws on extensive empirical research involving India’s 2013 Drug Price Control Order and widely-used medicines such as paracetamol and metformin to illustrate how firms have weakened regulation. It argues that the regulatory regime can be strengthened by using systematic analysis of product- and region-level data in the Indian pharmaceutical industry, and by screening for the strategies that firms currently employ to circumvent regulation. In closing, it discusses recent efforts to strengthen the implementation of price controls in India and expanding the scope of price controls to medical devices.
Indigenous Life Projects and Extractivism: Ethnographies from South America (Approaches to Social Inequality and Difference)
by Cecilie Vindal Ødegaard Juan Javier Rivera AndíaExploring indigenous life projects in encounters with extractivism, the present open access volume discusses how current turbulences actualise questions of indigeneity, difference and ontological dynamics in the Andes and Amazonia. While studies of extractivism in South America often focus on wider national and international politics, this contribution instead provides ethnographic explorations of indigenous politics, perspectives and worlds, revealing loss and suffering as well as creative strategies to mediate the extralocal. Seeking to avoid conceptual imperialism or the imposition of exogenous categories, the chapters are grounded in the respective authors’ long-standing field research. The authors examine the reactions (from resistance to accommodation), consequences (from anticipation to rubble) and materials (from fossil fuel to water) diversely related to extractivism in rural and urban settings. How can Amerindian strategies to preserve localised communities in extractivist contexts contribute to ways of thinking otherwise?
The Political Economy of Development in Southeastern Europe (Contributions to Economics)
by Anastasios Karasavvoglou Persefoni Polychronidou Spyros RoukanasThis book offers important new insights into recent advances and perspectives in the field of political economy of development in Southeastern European countries. In addition, it provides theoretical and empirical contributions to political economy of development in an international context. Written by authors from Greece, Serbia and Turkey, the book covers a broad spectrum of topics – from macroeconomics and economic policy to international political economy and globalization. Presenting new and original ideas, this is a valuable resource for anyone wishing to gain a deeper understanding of political economy of development in Southeastern Europe: academicians, policymakers and business practitioners.
The EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy in Germany and the UK: Co-Operation, Co-Optation and Competition (New Perspectives in German Political Studies)
by Nicholas WrightThis book examines the impact on member states of long-term foreign policy co-operation through the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Focusing on Germany and the UK, it provides an up-to-date account of how they have navigated and responded to the demands co-operation places on all member states and how their national foreign policies and policy-making processes have changed and adapted as a consequence. As well as exploring in depth the foreign policy traditions and institutions in both states, the book also offers detailed analyses of how they addressed two major policy questions: the Iranian nuclear crisis; and the establishment and development of the European External Action Service. The book’s synthesis of country and case studies seeks to add to our understanding of the nature of inter-state co-operation in the area of foreign and security policy and what it means for the states involved.
Narrating Injustice Survival: Self-medication by Victims of Crime (Palgrave Studies in Victims and Victimology)
by Willem De Lint Marinella MarmoThis book explores the role of self-medication in reflexive response to victimhood and victim recovery. Based on interviews, counsellor focus groups and a self-medication survey, it situates self-medication among the coping strategies that may be set in formal and informal networks. Victims primarily seek validation, and this book reviews self-medication with particular focus on how victim-survivors develop a variety of reflexive responses in their attempt to carve out a dignified response to victimization. Validation may be achieved through the pursuit of justice, but many victims suffer from multiple or complex victimisation, with limited social chances necessary to achieve a just outcome. Routines, beliefs and an ordered pathway distinguish a dignified identity and more or less successful recovery adaptations. This book also addresses the practical implications of the findings for support organisations.
Representations of Poverty and Place: Using Geographical Text Analysis To Understand Discourse
by Laura L Paterson Ian N GregoryThis book explores a novel methodological approach which combines analytical techniques from linguistics and geography to bring fresh insights to the study of poverty. Using Geographical Text Analysis, it maps the discursive construction of poverty in the UK and compares the results to what administrative data reveal. The analysis draws together qualitative and quantitative techniques from corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis, Geographical Information Science, and the spatial humanities. By identifying the place-names that occur within close proximity to search terms associated with to poverty it shows how different newspapers use place to foreground different aspects of poverty (including employment, housing, money, and benefits), and how the London-centric nature of newspaper reporting dominates the discursive construction of UK poverty. This book demonstrates how interdisciplinary research methods can illuminate complex social issues and will appeal to researchers in a number of disciplines from sociology, geography and the spatial humanities, economics, linguistics, health, and public policy, in addition to policymakers and practitioners.
Perspectives on the Legislature and the Prospects of Accountability in Nigeria and South Africa (Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development)
by Omololu Fagbadebo Fayth RuffinThis book examines the problem of accountability in two African political systems, South Africa and Nigeria. Despite the principle of separation of powers and the doctrine of checks and balances among the institutions of governance, a burgeoning governance crisis stifles the potential of accountability and good governance. Legislative oversight in the two countries remains largely ineffective while citizens are left to face the consequences of the mismanagement of public resources by political elites. This book critically assesses how the legislative institutions in South Africa and Nigeria have been unable to harness the requisite constitutional powers to ensure accountability in government and explores the feasibility of their effectiveness. The book begins with a comparative analysis of the principles, tradition, and powers associated with legislative capability in South Africa and Nigeria. The chapters explore constitutional provisions and analyze the capacity of each legislature to function within its respective political environment. The book also examines the process and challenges associated with the various measures and mechanisms available for legislatures to ensure accountability in the two countries. Researchers, scholars and students of African politics will find this book useful in their understanding of the problems associated with the simmering governance crisis in South Africa and Nigeria.
Energy Transition: Financing Consumer Co-Ownership in Renewables
by Jens LowitzschConsumer (co-)ownership in renewable energy (RE) is essential to the overall success of Energy Transition. In June 2018, the European Union agreed on a corresponding enabling framework as part of a recast of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED II). The transposition of these comprehensive rules – in particular those on local RE communities – requires developing, implementing and rolling out business models that broaden the capital participation of consumers. The challenge is to include municipalities and/or commercial investors like SMEs and advance to economies of scale while retaining the benefits of individual consumer participation.This book is addressed to energy consumers in local communities, their municipalities and to the policy makers who represent them. Additionally, non-EU countries, in particular those where rural areas have limited access to energy, e.g. in Asia, Africa and Latin America, may be interested in the benefits of consumer ownership. While demand for energy in developing countries is growing, access to energy is crucial for improving the quality of life. The editor of this book presents a new model of consumer ownership in RE for both the EU and countries worldwide. Part One describes the rationale for consumer ownership in RE with regard to social, organizational, legal and financial conditions. Part Two discusses the issue of financing RE and introduces a new financing technique, the Consumer Stock Ownership Plan (CSOP), comparing it to traditional models. Part Three provides 18 country studies from Europe, North America, South America and Asia, organized so as to enable a cross-country comparison of policy approaches and feasibility. Policy recommendations are based on the results of this survey. Part Four summarizes, compares the best practice cases, presents a cost-benefit analysis of “prosumage” and against this background evaluates the impact on future policy.
Complementary Research Methods for Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
by Chad R. LochmillerThis edited volume brings together leading scholars from the fields of educational leadership and policy studies to discuss qualitative, quantitative, and mixed research methods in an accessible and pedagogically well-designed volume. Authors discuss ways in which various research methodologies and methods can productively be brought together to expand our current understanding of leadership issues and the contemporary policy context that surrounds them. Chapters provide both practical recommendations for using the methods discussed as well as suggestions for further reading.
Highs and Lows of European Integration: Sixty Years After The Treaty Of Rome
by Carlo Ruzza Luisa Antoniolli Luigi BonattiIn light of Europe’s prolonged state of crisis, this book reassesses the challenges and prospects of the European integration process. Scholars from diverse disciplines reflect on various types of integration by analyzing political, economic and sociological variables, while also taking legal and cultural constraints into account. Readers will learn about the dilemmas and challenges of the European transformation process as well as political reforms to overcome these challenges. The book is divided into four parts, the first of which discusses the external dimension of the European Union, including a review of development aid policies and EU foreign policy. In turn, the second part focuses on institutional change and asymmetrical integration in the EU. The third part is devoted to the rise of populism and nationalism, including an analysis of the role of civil society organizations in the Brexit. In closing, the last part highlights the crisis of the Euro as a symbol of European integration and the emerging social and economic divide between countries of the North and South.
Globalized Eating Cultures: Mediation and Mediatization
by Jörg Dürrschmidt York KauttThis innovative volume explores the link between local and regional eating cultures and their mediatization via transnational TV cooking shows, glocal food advertising and social media transfer of recipes. Pursuing a global and interdisciplinary approach, it brings together research conducted in Latin America, Australia, Africa, Asia and Europe, from leading scholars in sociology and political science, media and cultural studies, as well as anthropology. Drawing on this rich case study material facilitates a revealing and engaging analysis of the connection between the meta-concepts of globalization and mediatization. Across fifteen chapters its authors provide fresh insights into the different impact that food and eating cultures can have on the everyday mediation of ethnicity and class as well as local, regional and transnational modes of belonging in a media rich global environment. This exciting addition to the food studies literature will appeal in particular to students and scholars of sociology, anthropology, media and cultural studies.
Eastern Mediterranean Port Cities: A Study Of Mersin, Turkey-from Antiquity To Modernity (The Urban Book Series)
by Filiz Yenişehirlioğlu Eyüp Özveren Tülin Selvi ÜnlüThis book surveys the historical development, current problems and likely prospects for Eastern Mediterranean port cities, providing contributions from scholars from various disciplines, such as archaeologists, historians, economists, urban planners and architects. By studying the city of Mersin and the surrounding area, it offers insights into the changing nature of Eastern Mediterranean port cities.The first part of the book discusses the approaches to the Mediterranean World, from the late prehistory to the present, and questions the implications of the values inherited from the past for a sustainable future. The second part then examines the social structure of Eastern Mediterranean port cities presenting an in-depth study of different ethnic groups and communities. In the third part the changing physical structure of these cities is elucidated from the perspectives of archaeology, architecture, and urban planning. The last part focuses on urban memory through a detailed study based on live recordings of original accounts by the local people. The book benefits prospective researchers in the field of Mediterranean studies, archaeology, history, economic history, architecture and urban planning.
Western Balkan Economies in Transition: Recent Economic and Social Developments (Societies and Political Orders in Transition)
by Will Bartlett Reiner OsbildThis book explores the economic and social development of the Western Balkan region, a group of six countries that are potential candidates for EU membership. It focuses on the key economic issues facing these countries, including the challenge of promoting economic growth, limiting public deficits and debt, and fostering international trade relations. Given the severe impact of the recent economic crisis on social welfare in the region, it also investigates the nature and extent of social exclusion, a factor likely to produce future political instabilities if not effectively addressed by a return to sustainable economic growth. The contributions explore these issues in light of the major influence of EU policy instruments and advice, which are currently guiding the economies along an accession trajectory to future EU membership.
The Politics of Educational Reform in Ghana: Understanding Structural Persistence in the Secondary School System (Critical Studies of Education #7)
by Maxwell A. AziabahThis book comprises six main chapters and addresses the core research question: How can the endurance of academic bias in Ghana’s secondary education system be explained in the context of educational reform versus change of government concurrence? Six sub-questions have subsequently been derived from the core research question, enabling a comprehensive and rigorous treatment of the subject matter of investigation. The manuscript adopts an historical institutionalism approach, combining path dependency with partisan theory in explicating structural persistence in the secondary school system in Ghana. A case study methodological design procedure has been employed in the investigation of three episodes of educational reform, anchored on qualitative content analysis as the main data reduction mechanism.
Sustainable Peacebuilding and Social Justice in Times of Transition: Findings on the Role of Education in Myanmar
by Mieke T.A. Lopes Cardozo Elizabeth J.T. MaberThis book offers a unique insight into the ways in which education systems, governance, and actors at multiple scales interact in initial steps towards building peace. It presents a spectrum of recently conducted research in the context of Myanmar, a society in the midst of challenging transitions, politically, socio-culturally and economically. Divided in 3 thematical research areas, the first part on Myanmar’s policy landscape aims to unravel the integration of peacebuilding into the education sector at macro and micro policy levels. The second part examines the role teachers play in processes of peacebuilding, and the third part examines ways in which formal and non-formal peacebuilding education programs address the agency of youth in Myanmar. This book is an essential guide for students embarking in the field of education, conflict and peacebuilding.
Participation in Child Protection: Theorizing Children's Perspectives
by Mandy DuncanThere have long been doubts within social work about the viability of reconciling participatory practice with the statutory power that comes hand-in-hand with child protection work. This book explores this issue by proposing an original theory of children’s participation within statutory child protection interventions. It prioritises children’s voices through presentation of a wide collection of children’s experiences of the child protection system including three unique in-depth accounts. Identifying the different ways in which children engage with professionals in the child protection process, Duncan explores why they act in the ways that they do. The book reveals why some children are sceptical participants or become disaffected with the system whilst others participate more positively within it. Participation in Child Protection will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including social work, sociology, psychology, counselling, law and education, as well as child protection professionals such as social workers, child protection police officers, health visitors and teachers.
The Slow Evolution of Foster Care in Australia: Just Like A Family? (Palgrave Studies in the History of Childhood)
by Nell Musgrove Deidre MichellThis book draws on archival, oral history and public policy sources to tell a history of foster care in Australia from the nineteenth century to the present day. It is, primarily, a social history which places the voices of people directly touched by foster care at the centre of the story, but also within the wider social and political debates which have shaped foster care across more than a century. The book confronts foster care’s difficult past—death and abuse of foster children, family separation, and a general public apathy towards these issues—but it also acknowledges the resilience of people who have survived a childhood in foster care, and the challenges faced by those who have worked hard to provide good foster homes and to make child welfare systems better. These are themes which the book examines from an Australian perspective, but which often resonate with foster care globally.
The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Public Policy
by David BooninThis book brings together a large and diverse collection of philosophical papers addressing a wide variety of public policy issues. Topics covered range from long-standing subjects of debate such as abortion, punishment, and freedom of expression, to more recent controversies such as those over gene editing, military drones, and statues honoring Confederate soldiers. Part I focuses on the criminal justice system, including issues that arise before, during, and after criminal trials. Part II covers matters of national defense and sovereignty, including chapters on military ethics, terrorism, and immigration. Part III, which explores political participation, manipulation, and standing, includes discussions of issues involving voting rights, the use of nudges, and claims of equal status. Part IV covers a variety of issues involving freedom of speech and expression. Part V deals with questions of justice and inequality. Part VI considers topics involving bioethics and biotechnology. Part VII is devoted to beginning of life issues, such as cloning and surrogacy, and end of life issues, such as assisted suicide and organ procurement. Part VIII navigates emerging environmental issues, including treatments of the urban environment and extraterrestrial environments.
Ethical Responsiveness and the Politics of Difference
by Anshuman A. Mondal Tanja DreherThis edited collection focuses on the ethics, politics and practices of responsiveness in the context of racism, inequality, difference and controversy. The politics of difference has long been concerned with speech, voice and representation. By focusing on the practices and politics of responsiveness—listening, reading and witnessing—the volume identifies vital new possibilities for ethics and social justice. Chapters focus on the conditions of possibility, or listening as ethical praxis; unsettling or disrupting colonial relationships; and ways of listening that highlight non-Western traditions and move beyond the liberal frame. Ethical responsiveness shifts some of the responsibility for negotiating difference and more just futures from subordinated speakers, and on to the relatively more privileged and powerful.
The Welfare State and the Democratic Citizen: How Social Policies Shape Political Equality (Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology)
by Jennifer ShoreThis book examines the ways in which the welfare state impacts levels and distributions of political participation and democratic support in Western democracies. Going beyond the traditional contextual accounts of political behaviour, which primarily focus on political institutions or the socio-economic climate, this book looks specifically at the impact of public policy on a variety of political behaviours and attitudes. Drawing on the theoretical insights from the policy feedback approach, the author argues and empirically demonstrates that generous social policy offerings can not only foster democratic citizenship by promoting a more inclusive political culture, but are most beneficial to citizens who are otherwise excluded from political life in many other societies. This book will appeal most to scholars in the fields of political science and sociology who are especially interested in the welfare state, public policy, political sociology, and inequality.
Great Powers and International Hierarchy
by Daniel McCormackHierarchical relationships—rules that structure both international and domestic politics—are pervasive. Yet we know little about how these relationships are constructed, maintained, and dismantled. This book fills this lacuna through a two-pronged research approach: first, it discusses how great power negotiations over international political settlements both respond to domestic politics within weak states and structure the specific forms that hierarchy takes. Second, it deduces three sets of hypotheses about hierarchy maintenance, construction, and collapse during the post-war era. By offering a coherent theoretical model of hierarchical politics within weaker states, the author is able to answer a number of important questions, including: Why does the United States often ally with autocratic states even though its most enduring relationships are with democracies? Why do autocratic hierarchical relationships require interstate coercion? Why do some hierarchies end violently and others peacefully? Why does hierarchical competition sometimes lead to interstate conflict and sometimes to civil conflict?
Precedents and Judicial Politics in EU Immigration Law (European Administrative Governance)
by Marie De SomerThis study explores the use of precedents in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). It argues that a strategic use of precedent-based discourses aids the Court in developing its jurisprudence autonomously; that is, independent of the political preferences of EU member states. The study is based on a long-term assessment of CJEU case law in the politically sensitive area of immigration law. It traces the Court’s rulings in this area from the 1970s up until the most recent period. The study identifies a series of consistent discursive patterns that slowly, but surely, moved EU immigration law beyond what member states had intended. The work takes an interdisciplinary approach, engaging with both political science and legal discussions on the Court of Justice and its role in processes of European integration.
Monopoly Restored: How the Super-Rich Robbed Main Street
by Jack Lawrence LuzkowThis book is a work of contemporary economic history focusing primarily on the US and the UK. It shows that, historically, much of the wealth of the ultra-wealthy has been based on inheritance, tax evasion, political influence, or wage theft. Today, much of the wealth of the rentier class—the super-rich—is based on income from ownership or control of scarce assets, or assets artificially made scarce. As a result, the super-rich reap much of their wealth from patents, monopolies, and subsidies. Their banks retain the right to speculate on risky derivatives, and their credit-card companies are not limited by usury laws that reduce interest rates. The super-rich have lowered (or escaped) inheritance taxes, shifted much of their income to lower taxed capital gains, practiced wage theft, fought minimum wage laws, outsourced jobs, and resorted to temps and contract labor to avoid unions and decent wages. They use tax havens where trillions of dollars remain untaxed, transfer profits of their intellectual and financial property to subsidiaries in low-tax regimes, and defend for-profit health insurance that is unaffordable and inequitable for millions. This book states in qualitative and quantitative terms how expensive the super-rich have become, why they are unsustainable for the rest of us, and what the way forward to greater economic equality may be. In sum, the super-rich are unaffordable.
Industrial, Trade, and Employment Policies in Iran: Towards a New Agenda
by Pooya Alaedini Mohamad R. RazaviThis volume explores Iran’s industrial and trade policy options for achieving sustainable, export-oriented, and pro-employment growth. The first part of the book discusses Iran’s economic and industrial development performance, as well as strategies for enhancing capabilities, fostering productive transformation, and developing employment that can result in faster and more inclusive economic growth. It also presents a case study on a leading manufacturing subsector—the automotive industry. The book then offers a set of analyses concerning the country’s trade sector, including exchange rate policies, ways to connect to global markets, and accession to the World Trade Organization. In turn, the closing chapters investigate various aspects of Iran’s labor market and offer policy recommendations on the creation of productive jobs. Readers will learn about effective industrial, trade, and employment policies that can complement macroeconomic measures adopted by the government. As such, the book will appeal not only to scholars and policy-makers, but also to international investors seeking to understand various core aspects of Iran’s industrial and employment structures and trade regime.