Textbooks
Explore our diverse range of digital textbooks designed for course adoption and recommended reading at universities and colleges. We publish over 140 textbooks across the social sciences, and an annual subscription to digital textbooks is possible via BUP Digital.
Our content is fully searchable and can be accessed on and off-campus through Shibboleth, OpenAthens or an institutional authenticated IP. For any questions on digital textbook pricing and subscription information, please contact simon.bell@bristol.ac.uk.
We are happy to provide digital samples of any of our coursebooks by completing this form. To see the full collection of all our core textbooks, browse our main website.
Books: Textbooks
You are looking at 1 - 10 of 12 items for :
- Type: Book x
- Politics and International Relations x
- Access: All content x
Over the past decade, the UK has experienced major policy and policy making change. This text examines this shifting political and policy landscape while also highlighting the features of UK politics that have endured.
Written by Paul Cairney and Sean Kippin, leading voices in UK public policy and politics, the book combines a focus on policy making theories and concepts with the exploration of key themes and events in UK politics including:
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developing social policy in a post-pandemic world;
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governing post-Brexit;
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the centrality of environmental policy.
The book equips students with a robust and up-to-date understanding of UK public policy and enables them to locate this within a broader theoretical framework.
Gender is widely recognized as an important and useful lens for the study of International Relations. However, there are few books that specifically investigate masculinity/ies in relation to world politics.
Taking a feminist-inspired understanding of gender as its starting point, the book:
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explains that gender is both an asymmetrical binary and a hierarchy;
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shows how masculinization works via ‘nested hierarchies’ of domination and subordination;
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explores the imbrication of masculinities with the nation-state and great-power politics;
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develops an understanding of the arms trade with commercial processes of militarization.
Written in an accessible style, with suggestions for further reading, this book is an invaluable resource for students and teachers applying ‘the gender lens’ to global politics.
With a contemporary overview of global social policy formation, the third edition of this leading textbook identifies key issues, debates and priorities for action in social policy across the Global South and North.
Accessible and lively, it incorporates seven new chapters covering theory, social justice, climate, migration, gender, young people and water, energy and food. The original chapters have also been fully updated to reflect major developments in the fast-changing world of global social policy. Key features include:
• overview and summary boxes to bookend each chapter;
• questions for discussion and follow-up activities;
• further reading and resources.
Exploring what it means to locate human welfare within a global framework of social policy analysis and action, this textbook offers a perfect guide for curious students.
Why do democracies fall apart, and what can be done about it?
This book introduces students to the concept and causes of democratic decay in the modern world. Illustrating the integral link between public commitment to democratic norms and the maintenance of healthy democracies, it examines the key factors in decaying democracies, including:
• Economic inequality;
• Corruption;
• Populist and authoritarian discourse;
• Declining belief in political institutions and processes.
Drawing on real-world developments, and including international case studies, the book outlines the extent to which there is a ‘democratic recession’ in contemporary politics and shows how transnational networks and technology are impacting on this development.
This accessible introductory text explains the political, economic and religious developments since the formation of the Islamic Republic in 1979 and provides an analysis of the domestic politics of Iran. It identifies the ways in which the country, often imagined as ‘isolated’, is actually integrated into the global capitalist economy. It also explains the often-heated relationship of the regional powerhouse with the outside world, especially with West Asian neighbours and the United States.
Both rigorous and readable, the book covers:
• Iran’s unusual path of capitalist development;
• The relationship between politics and religion in what is known as ‘God’s Kingdom’;
• The international and domestic factors that shape Iranian politics and society.
Assuming no prior knowledge, this book is an ideal starting point for students and general readers looking for a thought-provoking introduction to contemporary Iran.
Building substantially on the earlier, landmark text, What Works? (Policy Press, 2000), this book brings together key thinkers and researchers to provide a contemporary review of the aspirations and realities of evidence-informed policy and practice. The text is clearly structured and provides sector-by-sector analysis of evidence use in policy-making and service delivery. It considers some cross-cutting themes, including a section of international commentaries, and concludes by looking at lessons from the past and prospects for the future.
This book will be of interest to a wide range of social science researchers, students and practitioners as well as those interested in supporting more evidence-informed policy and practice.
Understanding Brexit provides a concise introduction to the past, present and future of one of the most important and controversial topics in modern British politics. Written for both those familiar with the topic and those new to it, the book sets out in a clear and accessible way many of the fundamentals for understanding why Britain voted to leave the European Union and what happens next.
This textbook is the first to examine how new trends such as “radical innovation”, “co-creation” and “potentialization” challenge fundamental values in the public sector.
The authors bridge traditional public management approaches that tend to exclude social and societal problems, with broader social theories apt to capture new dilemmas and challenges. The book shows how the effects of new forms of managerialism penetrate the state, local governments, welfare institutions as well as professional work and citizens’ rights. It facilitates a discussion about how basic values are put at stake with new reforms and managerial tools.
The book is ideal for postgraduate students in the area of public policy and public management with an interest in managing and leading public administration units and welfare institutions.
Social justice and social policy in Scotland offers a critical engagement with the state of social policy in one of the devolved nations of the UK, a decade after the introduction of devolution.
Promoting greater social justice has been held up as a key vision of successive Scottish administrations since devolution began. It is argued throughout this important book that the analysis of Scottish social policy must therefore be located in wider debates around social injustice as well as about how the devolution process affects the making, implementation and impact of social policy.
Social justice and social policy in Scotland focuses on a diverse range of topics and issues, including income inequalities, work and welfare, criminal justice, housing, education, health and poverty, each reflecting the themes of social inequality and social justice.
This book will be essential reading for academics, researchers, policy makers and practitioners as well as students of social policy and of society in Scotland and other devolved nations.
Drawing on contributions from user activists and academic researchers, this topical reader provides a critical stock take of the state of user involvement. It considers different contexts in which such involvement is taking place and includes diverse and sometimes conflicting perspectives on the issues involved. This original and insightful critique will be an important resource for students studying health and social care and social work, researchers and user activists.
