Politics and Public Policy

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.

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.

Providing integrated coverage of the policy, practice and outcomes from 1944 to 2012, this book addresses the issues relevant to school admissions arising from three different approaches adopted in this period: planning via local authorities, quasi-market mechanisms, and random allocation.

This original and insightful reader provides a critical stock take of the state of user involvement and will be an important resource for students studying health and social care and social work, researchers and user activists.

A multidisciplinary collection examining how cultural engagement can enhance resilience, reduce social isolation and help older people to thrive and overcome challenging life events and everyday problems associated with ageing.

This ground-breaking book explores the relationship between the media, child abuse and shifting adult–child power relations which, in Western countries, has spawned an ever-expanding range of laws, policies and procedures introduced to address the ‘explosion’ of interest in the issue of child abuse.

Set in the context of New Labour's emphasis on 'modernisation', and reflecting the growing emphasis on policy making as a skill, this unique book combines both academic and practitioner perspectives to provide critical consideration of contemporary policy-making and highlight examples of good practice at all levels of government.

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.

This timely book explores how changing territorial politics are impacting on social citizenship rights across the UK.

"The consumer in public services" critiques established assumptions surrounding citizenship and consumption. Drawing on empirical research, it challenges existing stereotypes about the 'consumer as chooser' and shows how we must develop a more sophisticated understanding of consumers, examining their place and role as users of public services.

This topical book takes a critical look at contemporary governance theory, arguing that there are structural impediments to achieving an ideology of networks and reconsidering it from Marxist and Gramscian perspectives. 

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.