Author: Catherine Kingfisher
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 178238006X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 230
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Book Description
An ethnography of the development and travel of the New Zealand model of neoliberal welfare reform, this study explores the social life of policy, which is one of process, motion, and change. Different actors, including not only policy élites but also providers and recipients, engage with it in light of their own resources and knowledge. Drawing on two analytic frameworks of the contemporary anthropology of policy-translation and assemblage-Kingfisher situates policy as an artifact and architect of cultural meaning, as well as a site of power struggles. All points of engagement with policy are approached as sites of policy production that serve to transform it as well as reproduce it. As such, A Policy Travelogue provides an antidote to theorizations of policy as a-cultural, rational, and straightforwardly technical.
Author: Martyn Cornick
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135108781
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 330
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Book Description
This book studies travel writing produced by French authors between the two World Wars following visits to authoritarian regimes in Europe and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). It sheds new light on the phenomenon of French political travel in this period by considering the well-documented appeal of Soviet communism for French intellectuals alongside their interest in other radical regimes which have been much less studied: fascist Italy, the Iberian dictatorships and Nazi Germany. Through analyses of the travel writing produced as a result of such visits, the book gauges the appeal of these forms of authoritarianism for inter-war French intellectuals from a broad political spectrum. It examines not only those whose political sympathies with the extreme right or extreme left were already publicly known, but also non-aligned intellectuals who were interested in political models that offered an apparently radical alternative to the French Third Republic. This study shows how travel writing provided a space for reflection on the lessons France might learn from the radical political experiments of the inter-war years. It argues that such writing can usefully be read as a form of utopian thinking, distinguishing this from colloquial understandings of utopia as an ideal location. Utopianism is understood neither as a fantasy ungrounded in the real nor as a dangerously totalitarian ideal, but, in line with Karl Mannheim, Paul Ricœur, and Ruth Levitas, as a form of non-congruence with the real that it seeks to transcend. The utopianism of French political travel writing is seen to lie not in the attempt to portray the destination visited as utopia, but rather in the pursuit of a dialogue with radical political alterity.
Author: Debbie Lisle
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521867801
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 332
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Book Description
This book brings the 'serious' world of politics to the 'superficial' world of contemporary travel writing.
Author: Ken Conca
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199335095
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
Water is a basic human need and a scarce commodity with increasing value to farmers, industries, and cities in an urbanizing world. It is unpredictable in supply and quality, difficult to contain or direct, and notoriously difficult to manage well. Several trends -- climate change, the endurance of widespread global water poverty, intensifying competition among rival uses and users, and the vulnerability of critical freshwater ecosystems -- combine to intensify the challenges of governing water wisely, fairly, and efficiently. The twenty-seven chapters in The Oxford Handbook of Water Politics and Policy address such issues over the course of seven thematic sections. These themes reflect familiar frameworks in the water policy world, including water, poverty, and health; water and nature; and water equity and justice. Other sections look at emergent and contentious policy arenas, including the water/energy/food nexus and management of uncertainty in water supply, or connect well-established strands in new ways, including sections on water tools (water price and value, supply and demand, privatization, corporate responsibility) and issues surrounding transboundary waters. This volume conceives of water as a global issue, and gathers a diverse group of leading scholars of water politics and policy.
Author: Michael Heazle
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136530339
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 204
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Book Description
Uncertainty in Policy Making explores how uncertainty is interpreted and used by policy makers, experts and politicians. It argues that conventional notions of rational, evidence-based policy making - hailed by governments and organisations across the world as the only way to make good policy - is an impossible aim in highly complex and uncertain environments; the blind pursuit of such a 'rational' goal is in fact irrational in a world of competing values and interests. The book centres around two high-profile and important case studies: the Iraq war and climate change policy in the US, UK and Australia. Based on three years' research, including interviews with experts such as Hans Blix, Paul Pillar, and Brian Jones, these two case studies show that the treatment of uncertainty issues in specialist advice is largely determined by how well the advice fits with or contradicts the policy goals and orientation of the policy elite. Instead of allowing the debates to be side-tracked by arguments over whose science or expert advice is 'more right', we must accept that uncertainty in complex issues is unavoidable and recognise the values and interests that lie at the heart of the issues. The book offers a 'hedging' approach which will enable policy makers to manage rather than eliminate uncertainty.
Author: Peter William House
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9781412831055
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 452
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Book Description
Rush to Policy explores the appropriate role of technical analysis in policy formulation. The authors ask when and how the use of sophisticated analytic techniques in decision-making benefits the nation. They argues that these techniques are too often used in situations where they may not be needed or understood by the decision maker, where they may not be to answer the questions raised but are nonetheless required by law. House and Shull provide an excellent empirical base for describing the impact of politics on policies, policy analysis, and policy analysts. They examine cost-benefit analysis, risk analysis, and decision analysis and assess their ability to substitute for the current decision-making process in the public sector. They examine the political basis of public sector decision-making, how individuals and organizations make decisions, and the ways decisions are made in the federal sector. Also, they discuss the mandate to use these methods in the policy formulation process. The book is written by two practicing federal policy analysts who, in a decade of service as policy researchers, developed sophisticated quantitative analytic and decision-making techniques. They then spent several years trying to use them in the real world. Success and failures are described in illuminating detail, providing insight not commonly found in such critiques. The authors delineate the interaction of politics and technical issues. Their book describes policy analysis as it is, not how it ought to be. Peter W. House is the director of policy research and analysis at the National Science Foundation. He is the author of ten books on multidisciplinary science and technology policy research and analyses in government, private, and university sectors, including The Art of Public Policy Analysis and with Roger D. Shull, Regulatory Reform: Politics and the Environment and Regulations and Science: Management of Research on Demand. Roger D. Shull is a senior analyst at the Division of Policy Research and Analysis, National Science Foundation.
Author: Elizabeth Becker
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439161003
Category : BUSINESS & ECONOMICS
Languages : en
Pages : 464
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Book Description
"Travel is no longer a past-time but a colossal industry, arguably one of the biggest in the world and second only to oil in importance for many poor countries. One out of 12 people in the world are employed by the tourism industry which contributes $6.5 trillion to the world's economy. To investigate the size and effect of this new industry, Elizabeth Becker traveled the globe. She speaks to the Minister of Tourism of Zambia who thinks licensing foreigners to kill wild animals is a good way to make money and then to a Zambian travel guide who takes her to see the rare endangered sable antelope. She travels to Venice where community groups are fighting to stop the tourism industry from pushing them out of their homes, to France where officials have made tourism their number one industry to save their cultural heritage; and on cruises speaking to waiters who earn $60 a month--then on to Miami to interview their CEO. Becker's sharp depiction reveals travel as a product; nations as stewards. Seeing the tourism industry from the inside out, the world offers a dizzying range of travel options but very few quiet getaways"--
Author: Mark Bevir
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317533623
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 476
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Book Description
Interpretive political science focuses on the meanings that shape actions and institutions, and the ways in which they do so. This Handbook explores the implications of interpretive theory for the study of politics. It provides the first definitive survey of the field edited by two of its pioneers. Written by leading scholars from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, the Handbook’s 32 chapters are split into five parts which explore: the contrast between interpretive theory and mainstream political science; the main forms of interpretive theory and the theoretical concepts associated with interpretive political science; the methods used by interpretive political scientists; the insights provided by interpretive political science on empirical topics; the implications of interpretive political science for professional practices such as policy analysis, planning, accountancy, and public health. With an emphasis on the applications of interpretive political science to a range of topics and disciplines, this Handbook is an invaluable resource for students, scholars, and practitioners in the areas of international relations, comparative politics, political sociology, political psychology, and public administration.
Author: Jeremie Bouchard
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429849915
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 310
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Book Description
This collection brings together theory and ethnographic research from a range of national contexts to offer unique insights into the nature of agency in language policy and planning. Situated within a broader sociological framework, the book explores agentive processes at work in case studies from around the world, engaging in discussions of such key themes as language and identity, language ideologies, linguistic diversity in education, and language revitalization. Each chapter examines the ways in which decisions made at both the local and national level impact language use and in turn, the dynamic relationship between language use, policy, and practice in these contexts. Taken together, this volume advances our understanding of agency in language policy and planning and directions for future research, making this key reading for students and scholars in language and education, critical sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics.
Author: Daniel Béland
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1803921099
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 165
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Book Description
Extensively updated, this second edition of the Advanced Introduction to Social Policy provides a concise overview of the field that takes newer realities into account as well as taking insights from the traditional social policy canon. Daniel Béland and Rianne Mahon draw on both classic and contemporary theories to illuminate the broad processes that are putting pressure on existing social policy arrangements and raising new research questions.
