Conflict, security and peace

This book offers a vivid and persuasive critical examination of New Labour's programme for the modernisation of local government, providing a balanced view of the democracy and participation debate. It draws on a wide range of new survey data to relate the crisis of local politics and governance to wider changes in the political culture.

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.

The widespread popularity of evaluation is based on the need to provide evidence of the effectiveness of policies and programmes. This book sees evaluation as an inherently political activity, and using a wide range of examples it relates practical issues in evaluation design to their political contexts.

We are all 'glass consumers'. Organisations know so much about us, they can almost see through us. This book takes the debate beyond privacy issues, arguing that we are living in a world in which - more than ever before - our personal information defines our opportunities in life.

Economic and social change is accelerating under the twin impact of globalisation and the new information technologies. This book addresses questions of change with particular reference to the European Union, which has made the development of a socially cohesive, knowledge-based economy its central task for the present decade.

There has been an explosion of new forms of governance as societies adapt to economic, social and political change. This book highlights the dynamics of the social, cultural and institutional practices involved in 'remaking' governance. It is structured around three key themes: the remaking of peoples, publics and politics.

Can and should asset-based policies become a new pillar of the welfare state? Can they form the basis for a more egalitarian form of market economy? The citizen's stake throws open the debate by bringing together the ideas of leading thinkers in academia and policy to explore the future scope of asset-based policies in Britain.

This book offers a critical examination of both the discourse and practice of participation in order to understand the significance of this explosion in participatory forums, and the extent to which such practices represent a fundamental change in governance.

There is widespread commitment across public service agencies in the UK and elsewhere to ensuring that the best available evidence is used to improve public services. The challenge is not only making research evidence accessible and available but also getting it used. This book provides a timely contribution to enhancing evidence use.

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.

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 book identifies key topics in the policy arena, subjecting them to sustained theoretical and practical appraisal. It shows the advantage of applying a cross-disciplinary lens to the study of 'policy', presenting critical and reflective engagements with theory and practice at all levels of political organisation within a range of contexts.