Political Science : Public Policy

Drawing on insights from other European curricular systems, this provocative book will contribute, in a timely way, to the debate on reformations of the National Curriculum. The text includes points for discussion and lists of further reading. more...

Price: $57.95

Beyond the Spanish State is a well researched and accessibly written study of EU policy-making in Spain. From the fishermen in Andalusia fighting to protect their quotas, to regional governments demanding a greater say in EU Structural Funds, the book represents a masterful effort to delve deeper into the dynamic relations between central government and other actors in the domestic arena. Conclusions most directly pertain to the case of Spain but, nonetheless, provide an insight into the broader EU framework. more...

Price: $99.00

Biology at Work brings an evolutionary perspective to bear on issues of women in the workplace: the "glass ceiling," the "gender gap" in pay, sexual harassment, and occupational segregation. While acknowledging the role of discrimination and sexist socialization, Browne suggests that until we factor real biological differences between men and women into the equation, the explanation remains incomplete. Browne looks at behavioral differences between men and women as products of different evolutionary pressures facing them throughout human history. Women’s biological investment in their offspring has led them to be on average more nurturing and risk averse, and to value relationships over competition. Men have been biologically rewarded, over human history, for displays of strength and skill, risk taking, and status acquisition. These behavioral differences have numerous workplace consequences. Not surprisingly, sex differences in the drive for status lead to sex differences in the achievement of status. Browne argues that decision makers should recognize that policies based on the assumption of a single androgynous human nature are unlikely to be successful. Simply removing barriers to inequality will not achieve equality, as women and men typically value different things in the workplace and will make different workplace choices based on their different preferences. Rather than simply putting forward the “nature” side of the debate, Browne suggests that dichotomies such as nature/nurture have impeded our understanding of the origins of human behavior. Through evolutionary biology we can understand not only how natural selection has created predispositions toward certain types of behavior but also how the social environment interacts with these predispositions to produce observed behavioral patterns. more...

Price: $26.00

Now considered a dysfunctional mess, Chicago’s public housing projects once had long waiting lists of would-be residents hoping to leave the slums behind. So what went wrong? To answer this complicated question, D. Bradford Hunt traces public housing’s history in Chicago from its New Deal roots through current mayor Richard M. Daley’s Plan for Transformation. In the process, he chronicles the Chicago Housing Authority’s own transformation from the city’s most progressive government agency to its largest slumlord. Challenging explanations that attribute the projects’ decline primarily to racial discrimination and real estate interests, Hunt argues that well-intentioned but misguided policy decisions—ranging from design choices to maintenance contracts—also paved the road to failure. Moreover, administrators who fully understood the potential drawbacks did not try to halt such deeply flawed projects as Cabrini-Green and the Robert Taylor Homes. These massive high-rise complexes housed unprecedented numbers of children but relatively few adults, engendering disorder that pushed out the working class and, consequently, the rents needed to maintain the buildings. The resulting combination of fiscal crisis, managerial incompetence, and social unrest plunged the CHA into a quagmire from which it is still struggling to emerge. Blueprint for Disaster, then, is an urgent reminder of the havoc poorly conceived policy can wreak on our most vulnerable citizens. more...

Price: $35.00

`I've always enjoyed reading the British Social Attitudes survey, which shows what the British people really think, as opposed to what journalists and politicians like to pretend they think' - John PilgerBritain is a well-documented nation. We know a lot about the characteristics of our society - who we are and what we do. We know much less about what we think and feel about our world and ourselves.The indispensable annual British Social Attitudes survey fills this gap. It compiles, describes and comments on a range of current social attitudes. The information is derived from interviews carried out by the National Centre for Social Research's own interviewers among a nationwide sample of around 3,500 people each year. The series seeks to chart changes in British social values over a period of time in relation to other changes in society, and is core-funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation. A full report is published each year.The 17th Report summarizes and interprets data from the most recent survey, as well as making comparisons with findings from previous years. The data are publicly available through the ESRC Data Archive at the University of Essex. more...

Price: $119.00