Locating Localism
Locating Localism

Author: Jane Wills

Publisher: Policy Press

Published: 2016-07-12

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1447323076

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Locating localism explores the development of localism as a new mode of statecraft and its implications for the practice of citizenship. Drawing on original research, Jane Wills highlights the importance of having the civic infrastructure and capacity to facilitate the engagement of citizens in local decision making. She looks at the development of community organising, neighbourhood planning and community councils that identify and nurture the energies, talents and creativity of the population to solve their own problems and improve our world. Combining political theory with attention to political practice, the book takes the long view of this new policy development, positioning it in relation to the political geo-history of the British state. In so doing, it highlights the challenges of the state devolving itself and the importance of citizens having the freedom, incentives and institutions needed to act.

Law, Localism, and the Constitution
Law, Localism, and the Constitution

Author: John Stanton

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-03-24

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0429760299

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Local government affects us all. Wherever we live, in towns, cities, villages, or the smallest of communities, there are locally elected councils tasked with representing people’s interests in the running of the local area. This involves, inter alia, providing public services, maintaining local spaces, and acting as a level of democratic governance within the broader constitutional and executive structure of the state. To fulfil these responsibilities, though, local government must be democratically legitimate; it must have at its disposal reasonable means and resources to function; and it must enjoy a healthy and balanced relationship with centralised government. This book explores and analyses the extent to which local government in the different parts of the United Kingdom is able to function effectively and democratically. It draws from local councillors’ views in analysing the state of local government under the current constitutional and governmental arrangements, discussing issues such as councils’ relationships with central government; citizen engagement; finance and public services; and the impact of recent reforms. It contrasts and compares the different approaches adopted in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, also setting out and discussing possible reforms of local government across the United Kingdom. While the focus is on the United Kingdom, the work includes a comparison with other relevant jurisdictions.

Reforming UK Public Policy Through Elected Regional Government
Reforming UK Public Policy Through Elected Regional Government

Author: Malcolm J. Prowle

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-08-12

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 1000626431

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This book takes an in-depth look at the enormous challenges facing UK public services and considers what might be done to resolve them. The authors are confident that more of the same over-centralised approaches to public policy and so-called "levelling-up" policies will just not work. Instead, they argue for an application of radical measures, involving the creation of elected regional governments in England similar to the devolved arrangements in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The book comprises four distinct parts: introduction and context; the need for major reform; policies for individual public services and cross-cutting themes. Following an introduction and discussion of the meaning of the terms public policy and public services, the first part goes on to discuss at length the substantial challenges to public policy and public services. The second part sets out the need for over-arching reforms, designed to address the issues discussed above, namely the development of elected regional governments. Each chapter in part three explores key themes concerning individual public policy areas and public services, while part four discusses a number of themes, which cut across all the public services already considered. Although the book is focused on and is of great relevance within the UK, it also has international appeal, as many of the themes discussed will have resonance in other countries and the analysis of public policy in regional administrations will also be of interest in other jurisdictions. It will appeal to students and academics in the fields of government and politics, economics, finance and accounting, public administration, public service management and social policy, as well as policymakers, practicing civil servants, public service managers and elected representatives.

Raising the Roof: How to Solve the United Kingdom's Housing Crisis
Raising the Roof: How to Solve the United Kingdom's Housing Crisis

Author: Jacob Rees-Mogg

Publisher: London Publishing Partnership

Published: 2019-10-10

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 025536783X

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Raising the Roof addresses one of the key issues of our era – the UK’s housing crisis. Housing costs in the United Kingdom are among the highest on the planet, with London virtually the most expensive major city in the world for renting or buying a home. At the core of this is one of the most centralised planning systems in the democratic world – a system that plainly doesn’t work. A system that has resulted in too few houses, which are too small, which people do not like and which are in the wrong places, a system that stifles movement and breeds Nimbyism. The IEA’s 2018 Richard Koch Breakthrough Prize, with a first prize of £50,000, sought free-market solutions to this complex and divisive problem. Here, Breakthrough Prize judge Jacob Rees-Mogg and IEA Senior Research Analyst Radomir Tylecote critique a complex system of planning and taxation that has signally failed to provide homes, preserve an attractive environment and enhance our cities. They then draw from the winning entries to the Breakthrough Prize, and previous IEA research, to put forward a series of radical and innovative measures – from releasing vast swathes of government-owned land to relaxing the suffocating grip of the green belt. Together with cutting and devolving tax, and reforms to allow cities to both densify and beautify, this would create many more homes and help restore property-owning democracy in the UK.

Building Jerusalem
Building Jerusalem

Author: Tristram Hunt

Publisher: Metropolitan Books

Published: 2006-12-26

Total Pages: 657

ISBN-13: 1466831928

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From Manchester's deadly cotton works to London's literary salons, a brilliant exploration of how the Victorians created the modern city Since Charles Dickens first described Coketown in Hard Times, the nineteenth-century city, born of the industrial revolution, has been a byword for deprivation, pollution, and criminality. Yet, as historian Tristram Hunt argues in this powerful new history, the Coketowns of the 1800s were far more than a monstrous landscape of factories and tenements. By 1851, more than half of Britain's population lived in cities, and even as these pioneers confronted a frightening new way of life, they produced an urban flowering that would influence the shape of cities for generations to come. Drawing on diaries, newspapers, and classic works of fiction, Hunt shows how the Victorians translated their energy and ambition into realizing an astonishingly grand vision of the utopian city on a hill—the new Jerusalem. He surveys the great civic creations, from town halls to city squares, sidewalks, and even sewers, to reveal a story of middle-class power and prosperity and the liberating mission of city life. Vowing to emulate the city-states of Renaissance Italy, the Victorians worked to turn even the smokestacks of Manchester and Birmingham into sites of freedom and art. And they succeeded—until twentieth-century decline transformed wealthy metropolises into dangerous inner cities. An original history of proud cities and confident citizens, Building Jerusalem depicts an unrivaled era that produced one of the great urban civilizations of Western history.

The Making and Circulation of Nordic Models, Ideas and Images
The Making and Circulation of Nordic Models, Ideas and Images

Author: Haldor Byrkjeflot

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-10-19

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 1000504034

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This critical and empirically based volume examines the multiple existing Nordic models, providing analytically innovative attention to the multitude of circulating ideas, images and experiences referred to as "Nordic". It addresses related paradoxes as well as patterns of circulation, claims about the exceptionality of Nordic models, and the diffusion and impact of Nordic experiences and ideas. Providing original case studies, the book further examines how the Nordic models have been constructed, transformed and circulated in time and in space. It investigates the actors and channels that have been involved in circulating models: journalists and media, bureaucrats and policy-makers, international organizations, national politicians and institutions, scholars, public diplomats and analyses where and why models have travelled. Finally, the book shows that Nordic models, perspectives, or ideas do not always originate in the Nordic region, nor do they always develop as deliberate efforts to promote Nordic interests. This book will be of key interest to Nordic and Scandinavian studies, European studies, and more broadly to history, sociology, political science, marketing, social policy, organizational theory and public management. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

An Inclusive Environment
An Inclusive Environment

Author: Maritz Vandenberg

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2008-09-24

Total Pages: 667

ISBN-13: 1136429859

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People can be excluded from freedom and the good things in life by age, disability, poverty, unfair discrimination, crime or the fear of crime, and arrogant and unresponsive governments. This practical reference deals with all of these factors, and shows the links between them. In addition to several hundred shorter notes it includes over a thousand major entries, each of which comprises: a summary of relevant facts, incisive commentary to help readers cut through the fog of jargon and propaganda that confuses many of these issues and websites where the latest information may be found. It concludes with a detailed bibliography of around 500 useful references. The work will be found useful by professionals and managers in all walks of life; by central and local government officials and representatives, and by students in the social sciences. It devotes particular attention to the all-important Disability Discrimination Act, and numerous detailed entries, accompanied in many cases by elegant diagrams, suggest to architects and other designers, facilities managers, and personnel managers how the requirements of the Act may be met.

A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Studying Organizations
A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Studying Organizations

Author: Chris Grey

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2012-11-22

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 1446271439

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Conceived by Chris Grey and written to get you thinking, the “Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap” series offers an informal, conversational, accessible yet sophisticated and critical overview of what you find in conventional textbooks. The Third Edition of Studying Organizations has been updated in light of the continuing financial and economic crisis. It shows how this grew out of a thirty year experiment in 'new capitalism' and links this to changes in the world of work organizations in terms of growing insecurity, inequality and to shifts in the status of management. Suitable for students of organizational studies and management, professionals working in organizations and anyone curious about the workings of organizations. Visit Chris Grey's accompanying blog and read his comments on current news stories and how they relate to themes in the book.

The Blair Effect 2001–5
The Blair Effect 2001–5

Author: Anthony Seldon

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2005-09-29

Total Pages: 502

ISBN-13: 9781139449021

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Tony Blair's strong start to his third term, with his role in capturing the Olympic Games for Britain, his statesman-like handling of the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on London, his promise of a new start to the European Union and his leadership of the G8 summit at Gleneagles, has brought his relatively lacklustre second term into sharp relief. The second term should have been the time when New Labour fulfilled its manifesto promises. So what changed between 2001 and 2005 and what was achieved? How far was Blair himself responsible, and what was Gordon Brown's influence? What was the impact of the Iraq war? And what of Blair's policy towards Europe? Anthony Seldon and Dennis Kavanagh gather together leading academics and journalists to provide an authoritative assessment of Blair's second term, including a review of New Labour in government from 1997 to the present.

The politics of Englishness
The politics of Englishness

Author: Arthur Aughey

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2013-07-19

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 1847796052

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The politics of Englishness provides a digest of the debates about England and Englishness and a unique perspective on those debates. Not only does the book provide readers with ready access to and interpretation of the significant literature on the English Question, it also enables them to make sense of the political, historical and cultural factors which constitute that question. The book addresses the condition of England in three interrelated parts. The first looks at traditional narratives of the English polity and reads them as variations of a legend of political Englishness, of England as the exemplary exception, exceptional in its constitutional tradition and exemplary in its political stability. The second considers how the decay of that legend has encouraged anxieties about English political identity and about how English identity can be recognised within the new complexity of British governance. The third revisits these narratives and anxieties, examining them in terms of actual and metaphorical ‘locations’ of Englishness: the regional, the European and the British.