Public administration

Citizens' everyday conduct is shaped by governmental action, yet there is much evidence that both front-line public service staff and service users can sometimes act in ways that modify or disrupt intended policy outcomes. This book presents a highly original examination of how policy objectives can be 'subverted' through the actions of citizens.

This lively and topical book provides a critique of choice in contemporary society and policy. Having choices empowers us, but constant extension of choice overwhelms us. In a concise and readable style, the author considers whether choice enhances or burdens our lives, and questions the blithe assumption that more choice is always for the better.

This book rethinks the public, public communication and public action in a globalising world. It looks at how publics are brought into being and how to develop research agendas into their formation, offering a rich set of methodological resources and stressing the need to examine the boundaries between theory, research and politics.

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.

Written by leading academics in the field of local governance, this book provides a broad framework in which to analyse the impact of the financial crisis on public services and local government.

This book provides a new model for evidence-based policy in UK drug policy and will be essential reading for students and researchers in public policy and criminology.

This is an English version of a text on public policy analysis originally written for practitioners in Switzerland and France. It presents a model for the analysis of public policy and includes examples of its application in everyday situations. This English version introduces supplementary illustrations and examples from the United Kingdom.

A compelling new approach to public policy-making as problem processing, bringing together aspects of puzzling, powering and participation and relating them to cultural theory, issues about networks, models of democracy and modes of citizen participation.

Published to coincide with the first anniversary of the election, this book looks at the Coalition government in the context of conservative ideas and seeks to assess what, if anything, is new about it.

This book focuses on how personalisation - the idea that public services should be tailored to the individual, with budgets devolved to the service user or frontline staff - evolved as a policy narrative and has mobilised wide-ranging political support.

The appeal of voluntary action as a solution to growing welfare needs in advanced capitalist countries raises important questions about the social impacts and spatial equity of such provision. For the first time, these issues are addressed within a single book, exploring the complex relationship between voluntary action, society and space.

Offering insight into the key debates on services for young children, this book tells how Sure Start was set up, the numerous changes it went through, and how it has changed the landscape of services for all young children in England.