Politics and Public Policy
Public Policy is one of our core strengths with series including the International Library of Policy Analysis and New Perspectives in Policy & Politics.
We also have a range of valuable public policy textbooks including Studying public policy: An international approach, edited by Michael Hill, and Public management in transition: The orchestration of potentiality, edited by Niels Åkerstrøm Andersen and Justine Grønbæk Pors. Inspection copies are available for these and all our textbooks.
Our politics publishing, in conjunction with the Bristol University Press imprint, includes high-profile titles from authors such as Peter Hain, Nick Raynsford and Patrick Diamond.
Don't miss our related journal Policy & Politics which contains many articles of interest in this area.
Policing the Police
Challenges of Democracy and Accountability
Evolving modes of delivery and new technologies are changing the way society holds police officers to account. This much-needed new book from criminology professor Michael Rowe, part of the ‘Key Themes in Policing’ series, explores issues of governance, discipline and transparency to set out a new agenda for modern-day accountability.
Personalising public services
Understanding the personalisation narrative
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.
Payment by Results and Social Impact Bonds
Outcome-Based Payment Systems in the UK and US
Paying for the Welfare State in the 21st Century
Tax and Spending in Post-Industrial Societies
Amid urgent debates around the function of welfare in the post-industrial 21st Century, and how we pay for it, David Byrne and Sally Ruane deploy the concepts and analytical tools of Marxist political economy to better understand recent developments, and the possibilities they present for social change.
The Passionate Economist
How Brian Abel-Smith Shaped Global Health and Social Welfare
This is the first biography of Abel-Smith. It takes a historical perspective to analyse the development of health and social welfare systems since the 1950s, exposing the critical impact of long-running debates on poverty and state responsibility, especially in Britain.
Partnerships, New Labour and the governance of welfare
Current policy encourages 'partnerships' between statutory organisations and professionals; public and private sectors; with voluntary organisations and local communities. But is this collaborative discourse as distinctive as the government claims? These claims are critically examined, using evidence from a wide range of welfare partnerships.
Partnerships
Machines of possibility
How did partnerships come to emerge almost everywhere and at almost the same time? What is the inner logic of partnerships? And at what point does that logic begin to break down? This book improves our understanding of the shifting ground on which partnerships and agreements must be reached in today's hyper-complex society.
Partnership working
Policy and practice
This book analyses experiences of partnerships in different policy fields, identifying theoretical and practical impediments to making partnership work and evaluating the implications for those involved. It also addresses other key forms of collaboration between voluntary, private and statutory sectors, service users and community groups.
Parenting the Crisis
The Cultural Politics of Parent-Blame
This book examines how pathologising ideas of failing, chaotic and dysfunctional families create a powerful consensus that Britain is in the grip of a ‘parent crisis’ and are used to justify increasingly punitive state policies.
Outsourcing in the UK
Policies, Practices and Outcomes
In this comprehensive account, Janice Morphet analyses the role and use of outsourcing within the UK public sector since the mid-1970s and illustrates the impact it has had on ideology, policy narratives and public expectations in the present.
Obama’s Welfare Legacy
An Assessment of US Anti-Poverty Policies
Using new research, Anne Daguerre examines Obama’s legacy on welfare and antipoverty policies, focusing in particular on the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
Obama and the Biracial Factor
The Battle for a New American Majority
Obama and the Biracial Factor is the first book to explore the significance of mixed-race identity as a key factor in the election of President Obama and examines the sociological and political relationship between race, power, and public policy in the United States.