POLITICAL SCIENCE / Comparative Politics

Bringing together a range of leading academics and experts on social democratic politics and policy, Why the Left Loses offers an international, comparative view of the changing political landscape, examining the degree to which the centre-left project is exhausted and is able to renew its message in a neo-liberal age.

Matt Ryan draws on ten years of research to deliver this landmark comparative review of participatory budgeting, or collective decisions on spending and taxation around the world. With examples of both positive change and notable failure, the book shows when and why citizens achieve this, and how policy makers can foster democratic engagement.

The response to neoliberal globalisation in Central Europe has led to populism arising from its brutal transition to capitalism. Kalmar uses examples from popular culture to sport to reject as racist the idea that Central Europe’s cultures are incompatible with liberal democracy.

Constitutional scholar Elliot Bulmer considers what Britain might learn from Westminster-derived constitutions around the world. Exploring the principles of Westminster Model constitutions and their impact on democracy, human rights and good government, this book builds to a bold re-imagining of the United Kingdom’s future written framework.

Identifying continuity and variety in crisis-driven austerity restructuring across Canada, Denmark, Ireland and Spain, this important book uncovers how austerity can be categorized into different dynamic types, and exposes the economic, social, and political implications of the varieties of austerity.

This short book explores Sweden’s response to the global pandemic and the wave of controversies it triggered. It helps to make sense of the response by defining ‘a Swedish model’ that incorporates the country’s value system and offers a case study for understanding the ways in which different national approaches to the pandemic have been compared.

Leading interdisciplinary scholars focus on the ‘social’ of social policy. This ground-breaking volume tackles pressing ‘social questions’ and critically engages with contested conceptions of ‘the social’ which are increasingly deployed by international institutions and policy makers.

In this book, street-level bureaucracy scholars from South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America analyse the conditions that shape frontline work and citizens´ everyday experience of the state.

Providing a new cross-national and international narrative on how global competition has reshaped welfare states this book captures the complexity of social policy reform process that have taken place over the past 25 years.

Christopher Deeming and Paul Smyth, together with internationally renowned contributors, illustrate how the merging of ‘social investment’ and ‘inclusive growth and development’ agendas, together with the environmental imperative of ‘sustainability’, is forging an important new social policy framework and shaping a new global development agenda.

This book explores relationships between war, displacement and city-making. Focusing on people seeking refuge in Somali cities after being forced to migrate by violence, environmental shocks or economic pressures, it highlights how these populations are actively transforming urban space.

Covering three Lebanese municipalities with striking sectarian diversity, Saida, Bourj Hammoud and Tyre, this book investigates the ways in which local service delivery, local interactions and vertical relationships matter in building peace.