Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive of over 1400 titles.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
Books: Research
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We are living in algorithmic times.
From machine learning and artificial intelligence to blockchain or simpler news-feed filtering, automated systems can transform the social world in ways that are just starting to be imagined.
Redefining these emergent technologies as the new systems of knowing, pioneering scholar David Beer examines the acute tensions they create and how they are changing what is known and what is knowable. Drawing on cases ranging from the art market and the smart home through to financial tech, AI patents and neural networks, he develops key concepts for understanding the framing, envisioning and implementation of algorithms.
This book will be of interest to anyone who is concerned with the rise of algorithmic thinking and the way it permeates society.
Drawing on insights from differentiation theory, this book examines the participation of middle powers in multilateralism.
Taking Australia, Indonesia and South Korea as examples, the book examines these countries’ roles in regional organizations, and particularly their creation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and East Asia Summit. Through its analysis, the book argues that middle powers pursue a weakening of ‘stratificatory differentiation’, targeted in particular at major powers, and a strengthening of ‘functional differentiation’ in which middle powers can assume key roles.
The book sets out a valuable new framework to explain and understand the behaviour of middle powers in multilateralism.
Between 2021 and 2031, the UK government is set to spend over £230 billion on its military. Who decides how to use these funds, and how can we be sure that the UK’s armed forces can meet the threats of tomorrow?
This book provides the answers to these crucial questions. Concentrating on decisions taken below the political level, it uncovers the factors that underpin the translation of strategic direction into military capability. In a series of interviews, over 30 top admirals, generals and air marshals give their own views on the procurement and maintenance of the nation’s current and future military capability. Their unrivalled professional knowledge and experience affords a fascinating insight into the higher management of national defence.
This book examines the divergent medical, political and legal constructions of intersex. The authors use empirical data to explore how intersex people are embodied through these frameworks which in turn influence their lived experiences.
Through their analysis, the authors reveal the factors that motivate and influence the way in which policy makers and legislators approach the area of intersex rights. They reflect on the limitations of law as the primary vehicle in challenging healthcare’s framing of intersex as a ‘disorder’ in need of fixing. Finally, they offer a more holistic account of intersex justice which is underpinned by psychosocial support and bodily integrity.
The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically exposed weaknesses in UK housing’s relationship to the labour market and welfare system. Inequalities in household type, home occupancy, housing cost and security have contributed to the unequal impact of the disease.
Comprehensively charting fast-moving and inter-linked policy developments, Becky Tunstall assesses the position of housing and home in public policy, health and in peoples’ lives, and documents the most immediate responses to the pandemic in one convenient resource for students, scholars and practitioners.
Sports-based crime prevention programmes are becoming increasingly popular world-wide but until now there has been very little research on the effectiveness of such approaches.
Bringing together authoritative evidence from existing programmes, the authors identify and analyse emerging successful practices. Covering mentoring and coaching, particularly as they relate to Positive Youth Development (PYD) programmes, the authors explore how the development of core life skills can improve individual resilience and decrease the risk of criminal involvement. The book conceptualizes the links between criminological theory and PYD and gives recommendations for future policy and practice.
The key reference guide to rural crime and rural justice, this encyclopedia includes 85 concise and informative entries covering rural crime theories, offences and control. It is divided into five complementary sections:
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theories of rural crime;
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rural crime studies;
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rural criminal justice studies and responses;
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rural people and groups;
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rural criminological research.
With contributions from established and emerging international scholars, this authoritative guide offers state-of-the-art synopses of the key issues in rural crime, criminology, offending and victimisation, and both institutional and informal responses to rural crime.
From the denial of abortion rights in Ireland to sexual violence against British South Asian women in England, the state and its institutions continue to fail women. This book offers a counter narrative to contemporary injustices and a persistent culture of victim-blaming.
The academic and activist contributions to this collection explore contemporary research areas and pursue new discursive directions in order to present a feminist criminology, built on feminist praxis, for the twenty-first century.
Providing a direct challenge to regressive and ineffective theory, policy and practice, this book resists the politics of gendered victimisation through extending feminist analyses of the state and documenting interventions into contemporary injustices.
Young people are often at the forefront of democratic activism, whether self-organised or supported by youth workers and community development professionals. Focusing on youth activism for greater equality, liberty and mutual care – radical democracy – this timely collection explores the movement’s impacts on community organisations and workers. Essays from the Global North and Global South cover the Black Lives Matter movement, environmental activism and the struggles of refugees.
At a time of huge global challenges, youth participation is a dynamic lens through which all community development scholars and participants can rethink their approaches.
Rather than being seen simply as social policy implementors, in recent decades there has been increasing recognition of social workers as professionals with unique knowledge and insights to contribute to policy formulation and social justice.
This book offers a path-breaking, evidence-based theoretical framework for understanding why social workers engage in policy, both as professionals and citizens, and the impact of their actions. Drawing on concepts from social work and the political, sociological and policy sciences, the authors set out the implications of this framework for research, education and practice.
