Public policy and the policy process

Moving up and getting on is the first accessible, yet comprehensive, text to critique the effectiveness of recent integration and social cohesion policies. It argues that there needs to be greater emphasis on the social aspects of integration and opportunities for meaningful social contact between migrants and longer-settled residents.

This topical book uses network analysis and interviews with key actors to address the changes in education, with a focus on education and the role of new philanthropy.

This study, by a qualitative sociologist, uses interpretive methods to examine the impact of auditing and inspection on professional work in schools, hospitals, local government and the police and provides a true sense of what is practically involved in the work of counting, measuring and managing quality.

Explores the politics and ideology behind a new form of philanthropy whereby wealthy capitalists and private corporations establish initiatives to reduce poverty, disease and food security. Is this new philanthropy just a sticking plaster without long-term results as it fails to tackle inequality?

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.

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.

Who is working class today and how do political parties gain their support? This insightful book proposes what needs to be done to address the issues of the 'new working class'. It provides practical recommendations for political parties to reconnect with the electorate and regain trust.

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.

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.

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.

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.