This book surveys the changing role of senior civil servants in Western Europe and explores whether they have kept their central role in government decision-making. Looking at these issues in comparative perspective, the contributors provide an insight into the causes and consequences of the changing role of officials.
Citizens around the world look to the state for social welfare provision, but often struggle to access essential services in health, education, and social security. This book investigates the everyday practices through which citizens of the world's largest democracy make claims on the state, asking whether, how, and why they engage public officials in the pursuit of social welfare. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in rural India, Kruks-Wisner demonstrates that claim-making is possible in settings (poor and remote) and among people (the lower classes and castes) where much democratic theory would be unlikely to predict it. Examining the conditions that foster and inhibit citizen action, she finds that greater social and spatial exposure - made possible when individuals traverse boundaries of caste, neighborhood, or village - builds citizens' political knowledge, expectations, and linkages to the state, and is associated with higher levels and broader repertoires of claim-making.
List of Tables and Figures; List of Acronyms; Acknowledgements; Introduction: Thinking Big Again; Chapter 1: From Crisis Ideology to the Division of Innovative Labour; Chapter 2: Technology, Innovation and Growth; Chapter 3: Risk-Taking State: From 'De-risking' to 'Bring It On!'; Chapter 4: The US Entrepreneurial State; Chapter 5: The State behind the iPhone; Chapter 6: Pushing vs. Nudging the Green Industrial Revolution; Chapter 7: Wind and Solar Power: Government Success Stories and Technology in Crisis; Chapter 8: Risks and Rewards: From Rotten Apples to Symbiotic Ecosystems; Chapter 9: So.
Same time, the glaring systemic deficiencies of extant welfare systems-and the psychological toll of welfare dependency--became increasingly apparent, even to welfare's supporters.
The relationship between the state and higher education institutions has always been a complex one. The ‘state’ itself in this context is a heterogeneous mix of elite people - bureaucrats, politicians, committees of co-opted academics and business leader - and it increasingly faces pressures from diverse stakeholders, including students (themselves an increasingly diverse community), staff, families, employers and businesses (local, regional and multinational). This volume explores the rapidly evolving relationship between the state and higher education in Europe and in East Asia through a combination of empirical studies, secondary analyses and personal observations from many of the leading scholars in the field of comparative education studies. A scenario emerges where the state seeks to encourage stakeholder influence, while, at the same time, acts to moderate such influence in order to ensure that wider objectives are satisfied; markets are controlled, elements of demand and supply are manipulated and funding is targeted to meet particular policy priorities through a model that is described as ‘controlled stakeholder steering’ which offers a new explanation of the relationship between the state and higher education, certainly in the countries addressed in this book.
This book charts the development of political thought within the British Liberal Party and its successor, the Liberal Democrats. Beginning with Jo Grimond’s rise to the leadership in 1956, it follows the Liberal resurgence in the second half of the twentieth century through to the major setbacks of the 2015 general election and the 2016 referendum on UK membership of the European Union. Drawing on interviews with leading politicians and political thinkers, the book examines Liberal ideas against the background of key historical events and controversies, including the period of coalition government with the Conservatives.
This book constitutes the proceedings of the 20th International Colloquium on Theoretical Aspects of Computing, ICTAC 2023, which took place in Lima, Peru, during December 4–8, 2023. The 20 full papers presented in this volume together with 3 invited papers and 1 tool paper were carefully reviewed and selected from 40 submissions. They were organised in the topical sections as follows: Bring Together Practitioners; Researchers from Academia; Industry; Government to Present Research Results and Exchange Experience and Ideas.
The neurosciences propose that the concept of will is scientifically untenable - it is our brain rather than our 'self' that controls our choices. Yet we seem to be confronted with increasing free choice in all areas of life. Using up-to-date empirical research in the social sciences and philosophy, this volume addresses the seeming contradiction.
Scotland is a country of strong progressive traditions and could be a model for a renewed social democracy. Devolution has given it a chance to show what a small self-governing nation, within a wider British and European Union, can do. Yet the authors of this volume are disappointed by the lack of policy innovation since 1999. In an effort to relaunch the debate, they offer a range of ideas for new thinking and new policies for Scotland of the twenty-first century. Whether independent or devolved, Scotland faces the same challenge: how to harness the energies of the nation and to combine economic competitiveness with social cohesion.