POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy / General

Using core concepts of policy analysis "Understanding the policy process" builds up a full explanation of social policy change that can be applied to any aspect of welfare policy, public and social policy. This second edition of the book updates the first edition for the post-Blair era with international case studies from numerous countries.

In this book, the authors use the latest research to explore financial differences across the UK’s three main parties in the four years leading up to the 2010 General Election, revealing an unhealthy picture of grassroots party organisation in which the capacity to engage with many voters is concentrated in a few constituencies.

This book brings together leading figures in democratic reform and civic engagement to show why and how better state-citizen cooperation is needed to improve democracy and achieve positive social change across a range of policy areas and in varied national contexts.

Building substantially on the earlier, landmark text, What Works? (Policy Press, 2000), this book brings together key thinkers and researchers to provide a clearly-structured review of the aspirations and contemporary realities of evidence-informed policy and practice.

This book sets out how people’s lives can be positively transformed through diverse forms of community involvement. It shows how communities can become more collaborative and resilient in dealing with the problems they face and provides a guide to what a holistic policy agenda for community-based transformation should encompass.

This topical book offers an analysis of the current state of the planning system in England and an evidence-based review of over a decade of change. With a critique of ongoing UK planning reforms, the book argues that the planning system is often blamed for a range of issues that are in fact the fault of ineffective policymaking.

The novel theoretical framework offered in this book presents a radical reconception of the place of knowledge in contemporary policy making in Europe.

This book re-assesses the benefits and failures of competition, how public and private prisons compare, the impact of competition on the public sector’s performance, and how well Government has managed this ‘quasi-market’.

Shows how the effects of new forms of managerialism penetrate the state, local governments, welfare institutions as well as professional work and citizens rights. It facilitates a discussion about how basic values are put at stake with new reforms and managerial tools.

An innovative account of social control and behaviourism within welfare systems and social policies, and the implications for disadvantaged groups.

The creative citizen unbound explores the potential of civically-minded creative individuals in the era of social media and in the context of an expanding creative economy. Contributors examine creative citizenship's contribution to civic life and to social capital and its economic and cultural definitions of value.

This insightful and progressive book proposes a new moral approach to public policy to replace Third Way governments' failed attempts to reconcile global markets with ethically-informed public policies.