Addressing UN Sustainable Development Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, the books and journal articles we publish in this area focus on the impact of vast power differentials and the issues that need to be addressed as a threat to human rights and international security, including conflict-based migration and political instability.
Our aim is to publish innovative research that supports finding ways to protect groups that can be an easy target for violence and discrimination.
Bristol University Press and Policy Press are signed up to the UN SDG Publishers Compact. In Conflict, security and peace, we aim to address the following goal:
Conflict, Security and Peace
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Remaking governance focuses on the dynamics of change as new strategies - active citizenship, public participation, partnership working, consumerism - encounter existing institutions. It explores different sites and practices of governing, from the remaking of Europe to the increasing focus on ‘community’ and ‘personhood’ in governing social life.
The authors critically engage with existing theory across political science, social policy, sociology and public administration and management to explore how ‘the social’ is constituted through governance practices. This includes the ways in which the spaces and territories of governing are remade and the peoples constituted; how the public domain is re-imagined and new forms of state-citizen relationships fostered and how the remaking of governance shapes our understanding of politics, changing the ways in which citizens engage with political power and the selves they bring to that engagement.
Remaking governance is essential reading for academics and students across a range of social science disciplines, and of interest to those engaged in policy evaluation and reform.
Economic and social change is accelerating under the twin impact of globalisation and the new information technologies. But how are these processes interrelated? Are they impelling us towards a common socio-economic future? What can governments do if they want to manage and steer the direction of development?
This book addresses these questions with particular reference to the European Union, which has made the development of a socially cohesive, knowledge-based economy its central task for the present decade. It assesses both the challenges and the policy instruments that are being deployed, focussing in particular on the dynamics of the ‘new economy’; the new organisational architectures associated with rapid innovation; the transformation of education and training; the implications for social cohesion and exclusion and the role of policy benchmarking in promoting policy learning and enhancing national performance.
The European Challenge presents the most up-to-date research on the development of the knowledge-based economy and its social and policy implications. Its accessible and integrated treatment of the processes of economic, social and technological change make it an invaluable resource for those studying and researching in the fields of public and social policy, organisational and technological change and innovation. It is also highly relevant to policy-makers who need to understand and manage this change.
Changing Scotland uses longitudinal data from the British Household Panel Survey to improve our knowledge and understanding of the impact of devolution on the lives of people in Scotland. It is the first time that BHPS data has been used in this way.
The book provides a detailed examination of social, economic, demographic and political differences, especially those involving dynamic behaviour such as residential mobility, unemployment duration, job mobility, income inequality, poverty, health and deprivation, national identity, family structure and other aspects of individual’s lives as they change over time. This data provides a ‘baseline’ for policy formulation and for analysing the impact of subsequent differential developments arising out of devolution.
The book is also an invaluable resource for establishing pre-existing differences between England and Scotland and evaluating the impact of policy initiatives by the Scottish Executive.
Evaluation has become a central tool in the development of contemporary social policy. Its widespread popularity is based on the need to provide evidence of the effectiveness of policies and programmes. This book sees evaluation as an inherently political activity, as much about forms of governance as scientific practice. Using a wide range of examples from neighbourhood renewal, health and social care and other aspects of social policy, it relates practical issues in evaluation design to their political contexts.
With contributions from leading academics and evaluation practitioners, the book considers key issues in the politics of evaluation including: governance and evaluation; participatory evaluation; partnerships and evaluation; and learning from evaluation.
The politics of evaluation is important reading for academics, social researchers, policy makers, service providers and professionals across the public services as well as professional evaluators. It will be a valuable resource for students on a range of social science and professional courses and those concerned with recent developments in social research methodology.
There is continuing government pressure on public services to ‘reform’ and change. Expectations of new forms and standards of delivery, joined-up practice and the re-connection of services to users are high. Unfortunately, many policy makers have become dangerously reliant on mechanistic top-down audit and inspection regimes as the means of implementation.
This book sets out to redress the balance. It argues powerfully that whole systems approaches are required to lead the changes towards the demands for new service configurations, partnership working and local and neighbourhood governance. The book outlines the theory behind whole systems development and gives good practice guidance on how to effectively develop ‘systems’ to improve joined-up working.
It provides the first up-to-date and comprehensive picture of the state of regionalism in England. Charting the regionalisation of England that has occurred over recent years, the book:
examines the background to the ‘English Question’;
outlines factors leading to regionalisation in England;
presents a new region by region analysis of the social, economic and political conditions;
considers the arguments for regional government.
Policy makers, practitioners, academics, students, journalists and others who need to understand and keep up to date with the development of governance of the English regions will find this book to be an indispensable resource.
Over the past 10 years partnership working has become a central feature of public services. This book analyses experience of partnerships in different policy fields, identifying the theoretical and practical impediments to making partnership work and critically evaluating the advantages and disadvantages for those involved. Its broad coverage goes beyond the confines of statutory partnerships, addressing other important forms of collaboration between voluntary, private and statutory sectors and service users and community and minority groups.
Through a wide range of perspectives, Partnership working aims to integrate theory and practice across a number of policy areas. Using a variety of models, it:
highlights both positive and negative aspects of partnership working at political, cultural and technical levels;
shows how partnerships can empower people and groups through effective collaboration;
suggests some of the principles on which good practice should be based and the resources required;
addresses key issues of accountability, representation and social exclusion.
The book provides important reading for academics, policy makers, service providers and senior practitioners in community development and community safety, local government, housing, social services and health. It will also be a valuable resource for those working in voluntary organisations and students on professional courses.
Public policy for the 21st century is a collection of essays in memory of Henry Neuburger, an economist whose career spanned half a dozen government departments, and who was for much of the 1980s an adviser to the leadership of the Labour Party. His original contributions to economic policy analysis across the field of public policy are the starting point of the essays, whose contributors between them cover the same broad span of economic policy. The essays look forward to the new century and together form an introduction to key issues in contemporary policy making.
Policy issues covered include macroeconomic policy, the impact of the National Minimum Wage, the distributional effect of tax and benefit policies since the 1997 change of government, the debates around an ‘urban renaissance’, and the impact of European integration on policy making. Contributors also examine and explain debates around different approaches to economic analysis, and show how analysis can be carried beyond the conventional confines of the money economy and of the household as a ‘black box’. The book concludes with a discussion of Henry Neuburger’s career, looking in particular at the role of economic advisers within policy making.
This is a timely book on economic policy making and commitment to making that policy work. It is important reading for students and academics concerned with public, economic and social policy, and government economists.
Reviving local democracy offers a vivid and persuasive critical examination of New Labour’s programme for the modernisation of local government, providing a balanced view of the democracy and participation debate. Since 1997, the Blair government has sought to mobilise popular participation through local referenda, new political structures, electoral reform, and the creation of powerful new elected mayors. Through these mechanisms it is hoped that the lack of public interest and persistently low election turnouts will be overcome.
The book draws on a wide range of new survey data to relate the crisis of local politics and governance to wider changes in the political culture. The author goes on to evaluate the government’s proposals to reverse decline, asking whether this programme of reform is likely to succeed. With the aid of a series of recent surveys of both public and councillor opinion, and the successful blending of historical and empirical analysis, she offers an assessment of the realities which the democratic renewal project will have to confront in its implementation.
The book is topical and timely, and highly accessible, and will appeal to students, those involved in local government, and anyone concerned to see local government become more representative, responsive, and open to popular participation.
What counts is what works - but how can we actually tell what works? And what can we do with such knowledge to influence policy and practice? As all parts of the public sector embrace ‘evidence’ as a means of providing more effective and efficient public services, this book provides a timely and novel contribution to such debates. The authors consider the role of evidence in specific public policy areas (healthcare, education, criminal justice, social care, welfare, housing, transport and urban renewal), using experts in each field to explore the creation, dissemination and use of evidence within each. They consider in particular: How is research evidence of service effectiveness created? How does such evidence shape policy and influence service delivery? What efforts are being made to encourage greater utilisation of evidence in policy and practice? The rich cross-sectoral accounts of the many and diverse activities in each sector provide an insight into the ebb and flow of evidence as guidance to policy and practice. ‘What works?’ develops perceptive analyses of outstanding problems, and raises challenging agendas for service development and future research. The authors conclude with the all-important question of the implementation of evidence-based practice and lead the way to the reinvigoration of innovative thinking. With its relevance to both cutting-edge practice and research, this book is important reading for a wide range of managers and professionals in different sectors, as well as students and academics studying public policy, public administration, and social policy and management.
