Politics and Public Policy

Realism and constructivism are often viewed as competing paradigms for understanding International Relations, but this innovative and cutting-edge volume provides an exposition of the realist constructivist approach and uses a series of international case studies to show what realist constructivist research can look like in practice.

Mayo demonstrates how, through popular education and participatory action research, communities can develop their own understandings of their problems. Using case studies that illustrate popular education approaches in practice, she offers pedagogies of hope and shows how communities can engineer impactful and democratic forms of social change.

A decade of sustained change in policy and funding has altered the landscape of children’s early intervention services and changed the role of charities in it. This study reviews the new interplay between public and third sector providers, considering future roles, opportunities and challenges for practitioners, policy makers and volunteers alike.

Authored by two highly respected and experienced academics, this book demonstrates the rewards of studying social policy from an international perspective by avoiding the constraints of a single-nation focus.

50 years on from the Race Relations Act of 1968, this ‘state of the nation’ book provides an overview and commentary on how things currently stand in a wide range of sectors of society.

Setting a new benchmark for studies of technocracy, this book shows that a solution to the challenge of populism will depend as much on a technocratic retreat as democratic innovation.

The complex and self-serving nexus behind the UK’s housing crisis is laid bare in this passionate book from Bob Colenutt. Investigating the network of landowners, house-builders, financial backers and politicians, he reveals how we have been forced to accept the cycle of low supply and high prices, and proposes solutions to the housing emergency.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This book examines the increasing importance of engagement with non-academic groups and actors in the co-production of knowledge and real-world influence in academic research.

This timely book is the most comprehensive account yet of recent commissioning practice in the English NHS and its impact on health services and the healthcare system.

This book examines poverty in the context of the economy, society and the political community, considering how states can respond to issues of inequality, exclusion and powerlessness. Drawing on examples in both rich and poor countries, this is an accessible contribution to the debate about the nature of poverty and responses to it.

Drawing on a two-year multi-platform initiative, this book by award-winning journalist and author Mary O’Hara, asks how we can overturn the portrayal of poverty once and for all. Crucially, she turns to the real experts to try to find answers – the people who live it.

Providing an in-depth exploration of the experiences of Ireland, Denmark and Finland in their various initiatives designed to end homelessness, this book presents an authoritative comparative account of policies and strategies that have worked, along with an exposition of those that have not.