Government of Paper
Government of Paper

Author: Matthew S. Hull

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2012-06-05

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 0520272145

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“Drawing inspiration from actor-network theory, science studies, and semiotics, this brilliant book makes us completely rethink the workings of bureaucracy as analyzed by Max Weber and James Scott. Matthew Hull demonstrates convincingly how the materiality of signs truly matters for understanding the projects of ‘the state.’” - Katherine Verdery, author of What was Socialism, and What Comes Next? “We are used to studies of roads and rails as central material infrastructure for the making of modern states. But what of records, the reams and reams of paper that inscribe the state-in-making? This brilliant book inquires into the materiality of information in colonial and postcolonial Pakistan. This is a work of signal importance for our understanding of the everyday graphic artifacts of authority.” - Bill Maurer, author of Mutual Life, Limited: Islamic Banking, Alternative Currencies, Lateral Reason "This is an excellent and truly exceptional ethnography. Hull presents a theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich reading that will be an invaluable resource to scholars in the field of Anthropology and South Asian studies. The author’s focus on bureaucracy, “corruption," writing systems and urban studies (Islamabad) in a post-colonial context makes for a unique ethnographic engagement with contemporary Pakistan. In addition, Hull’s study is a refreshing voice that breaks the mold of current representation of Pakistan through the security studies paradigm." - Kamran Asdar Ali, Director, South Asia Institute, University of Texas

Street-Level Bureaucracy
Street-Level Bureaucracy

Author: Michael Lipsky

Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation

Published: 1983-06-29

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 1610443624

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Street-Level Bureaucracy is an insightful study of how public service workers, in effect, function as policy decision makers, as they wield their considerable discretion in the day-to-day implementation of public programs.

Theories of Urban Politics
Theories of Urban Politics

Author: Jonathan S Davies

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2008-11-18

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 1446246310

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′Anybody who thinks the study of urban politics is stagnating needs to pick up a copy of Theories of Urban Politics. Insightful analysis of scholarship on traditional topics is supplemented by chapters on nontraditional topics, including the new institutionalism, network governance, and urban leadership... If you want to keep up with cutting-edge debates in urban studies, the Davies and Imbroscio volume is essential′ - Todd Swanstrom, Saint Louis University ′Connects the best traditions of urban political theory with important new contributions on emerging themes. This completely revised second edition is an invaluable book for new students and established scholars. It is accessible, theoretically rich, and maps out an exciting and challenging research agenda. It will spend more time open and on the desk, than closed and on the bookshelf!′ - Professor Chris Skelcher, University of Birmingham ′Many colleagues have told us that our edition of Theories of Urban Politics provided great insights and grounding to students and seasoned researchers alike. We are delighted that so able a successor has emerged. Those that study urban politics need to be challenged and inspired by theory and this book delivers a powerful update for urban scholars′ - David Judge, Gerry Stoker and Harold Wolman, Editors of the First Edition ′This long-awaited sequel to the pioneering First Edition updates debates and developments through an excellent collection of entirely new essays contributed by some of the leading academics in the field. A special feature of the volume is that it links concerns in urban politics in North America and Europe. An excellent read′ - Professor David Wilson, De Montfort University Expanding and updating the successful first edition, Theories of Urban Politics, Second Edition provides a comprehensive introduction to and evaluation of the theoretical approaches to urban governance. Restructured into four new parts - Power, Governance, Citizens, and Challenges - the second edition reflects developments in the field over the last decade, with newly commissioned chapters updating and adding to the theoretical material included in the first edition. With contributions from many of the key figures in urban theory today, this text will be required reading on all urban politics, urban planning and public administration courses.

Changing Urban Bureaucracies
Changing Urban Bureaucracies

Author: Robert K. Yin

Publisher: RAND Corporation

Published: 1978

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13:

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The routinization process, i.e., how service practices in urban bureaucracies become part of "standard practice," is described by examining the life histories of six types of innovation: computer-assisted instruction, police computer systems, mobile intensive care units, closed circuit TV systems, breath testing for driver safety, and Jet-Axe (an explosive fire-fighting device). The life histories are analyzed in terms of the achievement of ten organizational events, conceptualized as "passages" (transitions to another organizational state) or "cycles" (survival over periodic events). The study emphasizes how these events are critical to the life history of an innovative practice. The stages in which routinization occurs and the conditions that lead to it are discussed, and several strategies that were found effective in promoting routinization are presented. The study suggests several steps that, if confirmed by further research, will allow policy officials to assess and influence routinization.

Urban Politics
Urban Politics

Author: Bernard H. Ross

Publisher: M.E. Sharpe

Published: 2011-08-10

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 0765630966

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This popular text mixes the best classic theory and research on urban politics with the most recent developments in urban and metropolitan affairs. Its very balanced and realistic approach helps students to understand the nature of urban politics and the difficulty of finding effective solutions in a suburban and global age. The eighth edition provides a comprehensive review and analysis of urban policy under the Obama administration and brand new coverage of sustainable urban development. A new chapter on globalization and its impact on cities brings the history of urban development up to date, and a focus on the politics of local economic development underscores how questions of economic development have come to dominate the local arena. The book traces the changing style of community participation, including the emergence of CDCs, BIDs, and other new-style service organizations. It analyzes the impacts of the New Regionalism, the New Urbanism, and much more at an approachable level. The eighth edition is significantly shorter and more affordable than previous editions, and the entire text has been thoroughly rewritten to engage students. Boxed case studies of prominent recent and current urban development efforts provide material for class discussion, and concluding material demonstrates the tradeoff between more ideal and more pragmatic urban politics. Source material provides Internet addresses for further research.

The Oxford Handbook of Urban Politics
The Oxford Handbook of Urban Politics

Author: Karen Mossberger

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 697

ISBN-13: 0199385556

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The Oxford Handbook of Urban Politics is an authoritative volume on an established subject in political science and the academy more generally: urban politics and urban studies. The editors are all recognized experts, and are well connected to the leading scholars in urban politics. The handbook covers the major themes that animate the subfield: the politics of space and place; power and governance; urban policy; urban social organization; citizenship and democratic governance; representation and institutions; approaches and methodology; and the future of urban politics. Given the caliber of the editors and proposed contributors, the volume sets the intellectual agenda for years to come.

Theories of Urban Politics
Theories of Urban Politics

Author: David Judge

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 1995-07-11

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9780803988651

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This textbook provides a comprehensive overview of the main theories which structure debate about urban politics. It looks at aspects of power, taking in both traditional and more recent theories. It considers the nature of public bureaucracy and the importance of those officials with a leadership role in city government. It examines the way that citizens are involved in the processes of urban politics, and it puts urban politics in context in terms of the social and economic environment and the complex architecture of government in which it has to operate. (Adapté du résumé de l'éditeur).

The Science of Bureaucracy
The Science of Bureaucracy

Author: David Demortain

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2020-01-21

Total Pages: 453

ISBN-13: 026253794X

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How the US Environmental Protection Agency designed the governance of risk and forged its legitimacy over the course of four decades. The US Environmental Protection Agency was established in 1970 to protect the public health and environment, administering and enforcing a range of statutes and programs. Over four decades, the EPA has been a risk bureaucracy, formalizing many of the methods of the scientific governance of risk, from quantitative risk assessment to risk ranking. Demortain traces the creation of these methods for the governance of risk, the controversies to which they responded, and the controversies that they aroused in turn. He discusses the professional networks in which they were conceived; how they were used; and how they served to legitimize the EPA. Demortain argues that the EPA is structurally embedded in controversy, resulting in constant reevaluation of its credibility and fueling the evolution of the knowledge and technologies it uses to produce decisions and to create a legitimate image of how and why it acts on the environment. He describes the emergence and institutionalization of the risk assessment–risk management framework codified in the National Research Council's Red Book, and its subsequent unraveling as the agency's mission evolved toward environmental justice, ecological restoration, and sustainability, and as controversies over determining risk gained vigor in the 1990s. Through its rise and fall at the EPA, risk decision-making enshrines the science of a bureaucracy that learns how to make credible decisions and to reform itself, amid constant conflicts about the environment, risk, and its own legitimacy.

Cities, Politics, and Policy
Cities, Politics, and Policy

Author: John P. Pelissero

Publisher: CQ Press

Published: 2002-10-01

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 1483301486

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Just because Milwaukee isn't Manhattan, doesn't mean that those urban centers face completely unique challenges. Through effective comparative analysis of key issues in urban studies--how city managers share power with mayors, how spending policies affect economic development, and how school politics impact education policy--students can clearly see how scholars discern patterns and formulate conclusions to offer theoretical and practical insights from which all cities can benefit. Pelissero brings together an impressive team of contributors to explore variation among cities through case studies and cross-sectional analyses. Each author synthesizes the field's seminal literature while explaining how urban leaders and their constituents grapple with everything from city council politics to conflict and cooperation among minority groups. Authors identify both key trends and gaps in the scholarship, and help set the research agenda for the years to come. Lively case material will hook your students while the accessible presentation of empirical evidence make this reader the comprehensive and sophisticated text you demand.