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      • Trusted Partner
        Politics & government
        July 2013

        Beyond devolution and decentralisation

        by Alistair Cole

      • Trusted Partner
        Business, Economics & Law
        September 2018

        Our common wealth

        by Thomas M. Hanna

      • Trusted Partner
        Teaching, Language & Reference
        June 2017

        Decentralized Governance of Adaptation to Climate Change in Africa

        by Esbern Friis-Hansen

        Based on fieldwork carried out in Uganda, Zambia, Tanzania and Ghana, this book shows how local governance institutions change the way that they work as they engage with climate change adaptation initiatives, and how the tendency of power and finance to be centralised at national level reduces the effectiveness and efficiency of real change on the ground. The evidence of these studies is that central government and international projects are neither cost effective nor institutionally sustainable; what is needed is devolution of power and resources to the local level. It's time to turn the old mantra on its head - to think globally but act locally.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        July 2010

        Using Europe: territorial party strategies in a multi-level system

        by Eve Hepburn

        This book explores how regional political parties use Europe to advance their territorial projects in times of rapid state restructuring. It examines the ways in which decentralization and supranational integration have encouraged regional parties to pursue their strategies across multiple territorial levels. This book constitutes the first attempt to unravel the complexities of how nationalist and statewide parties manoeuvre around the twin issues of European integration and decentralization, and exploit the shifting linkages within multi-level political systems. In a detailed comparative examination of three cases - Scotland, Bavaria and Sardinia - over a thirty-year period, the book explores how integration has altered the nature of territorial party competition and identifies the limits of Europe for territorial projects. In addressing these issues, this work moves beyond present scholarship on multi-level governance to explain the diversity of regional responses to Europe. By providing important new insights and empirical research on the conduct of territorial party politics, and an innovative model of territorial mobilization in Europe, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of comparative politics, European studies, regionalism and federalism, political parties and devolution. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        May 2019

        Decentring France

        by Gemma King

      • Trusted Partner
        Liberalism & centre democratic ideologies

        Moving through modernity

        Space and Geography in Modernism

        by Andrew Thacker

        This book provides the most comprehensive analysis of the post-war political thought of the Liberals and Liberal Democrats to date. The rationale of the book stems from a belief that contemporary debate over the party's future ideological direction can only be fully appreciated by placing it within a broader historical context. The book begins by outlining the three dominant ideological traditions within the Liberals and Liberal Democrats - namely, classical liberalism, the 'centre' and social liberalism. The main ideas, policies and personalities associated with each tradition are evaluated. Leading experts in the field then examine a range of themes and issues including constitutional reform, decentralization, political economy, social morality, internationalism and political strategy. The final section consists of three commentaries from different ideological perspectives written by leading Liberal Democrat MPs - Vincent Cable, David Howarth and Steve Webb. In adopting a new approach to the Liberals and Liberal Democrats and in combining expert analysis with political commentary, this book will be of interest to students and the general reader alike.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        October 2009

        The political thought of the Liberals and Liberal Democrats since 1945

        by Kevin Hickson

        This book provides the most comprehensive analysis of the post-war political thought of the Liberals and Liberal Democrats to date. The rationale of the book stems from a belief that contemporary debate over the party's future ideological direction can only be fully appreciated by placing it within a broader historical context. The book begins by outlining the three dominant ideological traditions within the Liberals and Liberal Democrats - namely, classical liberalism, the 'centre' and social liberalism. The main ideas, policies and personalities associated with each tradition are evaluated. Leading experts in the field then examine a range of themes and issues including constitutional reform, decentralization, political economy, social morality, internationalism and political strategy. The final section consists of three commentaries from different ideological perspectives written by leading Liberal Democrat MPs - Vincent Cable, David Howarth and Steve Webb. In adopting a new approach to the Liberals and Liberal Democrats and in combining expert analysis with political commentary, this book will be of interest to students and the general reader alike. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2010

        Towards a regional political class?

        Professional politicians and regional institutions in Catalonia and Scotland

        by Klaus Stolz

        Focussing on professional politicians Klaus Stolz investigates the interrelationship between political career patterns and political institutions in two of the most widely discussed cases of regionalism: Catalonia and Scotland. The study deals with two different yet closely related sets of questions: Firstly, how do professional politicians pursue their careers in the regional context. And secondly, how do they shape and reshape the political institutions in which they pursue these careers. The monograph is based on extensive empirical research including a comprehensive data set on the careers of Catalan and Scottish parliamentarians, systematic surveys of regional representatives as well as in-depth interviews of a wide range of politicians and experts in both regions. Exploring the effects of political professionalisation on regional democracy, Stolz goes way beyond traditional studies of regionalism and decentralization, while his focus on the regional career arena introduces a much needed territorial dimension to the study of political careers. Rich original data, innovative theoretical concepts and a strictly comparative approach are the basis for a study that considerably deepens and enhances our understanding of the tremendous political changes both Catalonia and Scotland are undergoing. Thus, the book is of interest to the still growing number of scholars concerned with devolution in the UK, the Spanish autonomous communities as well as to those interested in regional politics and regionalisation in general. Furthermore, its theoretical focus makes it highly relevant for scholars working on political careers, political professionalisation and democratic theory. ;

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        March 2024

        Approaches to emotion in Middle English literature

        by Carolyne Larrington

        Over the last twenty-five years, the 'history of emotion' field has become one of the most dynamic and productive areas for humanities research. This designation, and the marked leadership of historians in the field, has had the unlooked-for consequence of sidelining literature - in particular secular literature - as evidence-source and object of emotion study. Secular literature, whether fable, novel, fantasy or romance, has been understood as prone to exaggeration, hyperbole, and thus as an unreliable indicator of the emotions of the past. The aim of this book is to decentre history of emotion research and asks new questions, ones that can be answered by literary scholars, using literary texts as sources: how do literary texts understand and depict emotion and, crucially, how do they generate emotion in their audiences - those who read them or hear them read or performed?

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        April 2019

        Alejandro Amenábar

        by Nuria Triana-Toribio, Barry Jordan, Andy Willis

        Since the release of his first feature in 1996, Alejandro Amenábar has become the 'golden boy' of Spanish filmmaking, a bankable star director whose brand virtually guarantees quality, big audiences and domestic box office success. He has directed three of the highest-grossing movies in Spanish film history and has enjoyed enormous international and critical acclaim, including an Oscar for Best Foreign Film for Mar Adentro/The Sea Inside, 2004. This book is the first full-length study in English of Amenábar's shorts and feature films. It provides detailed analysis of his engagement with popular film genres as the basis for an auteur cinema and incorporates a reappraisal of his auteurism as fundamentally decentred and shared. An essential resource for students, scholars and fans of Amenábar, the book will also appeal to a wider readership, including professionals in the film, media and culture industries as well as those who have a general interest in cinema.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        January 2019

        Alejandro Amenábar

        by Barry Jordan

        Since the release of his first feature in 1996, Alejandro Amenábar has become the 'golden boy' of Spanish filmmaking, a bankable star director whose brand virtually guarantees quality, big audiences and domestic box office success. He has directed three of the highest-grossing movies in Spanish film history and has enjoyed enormous international and critical acclaim, including an Oscar for Best Foreign Film for Mar Adentro/The Sea Inside, 2004. This book is the first full-length study in English of Amenábar's shorts and feature films. It provides detailed analysis of his engagement with popular film genres as the basis for an auteur cinema and incorporates a reappraisal of his auteurism as fundamentally decentred and shared. An essential resource for students, scholars and fans of Amenábar, the book will also appeal to a wider readership, including professionals in the film, media and culture industries as well as those who have a general interest in the best of Spanish, European and world cinema.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2023

        Globalized urban precarity in Berlin and Abidjan

        Young men and the digital economy

        by Hannah Schilling

        Digital technologies promise efficiency and comfort, but the smoothness of platform services relies on the hidden social labour of those who keep the gig economy running. This book presents a comparative ethnography of young men making a living through digital technologies: selling mobile airtime in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, and app-based delivery riders in Berlin, Germany. These case studies explore the significance of symbolic capital in urban youth's social existence and organisation of livelihood in the digital economy, and the technological mechanisms producing a new form of urban precarity. Globalized urban precarity in Berlin and Abidjan puts forward an original comparative approach to develop a global urban sociology for the digital era. It provides an innovative analytical toolbox that decentres discussions of precarity from the standard of a normal employment contract. With its focus on symbolic capital, the ethnography shows the consequences of the proliferating gig economy for status struggles among urban youth, and carefully embeds the densification of software and services into the socio-material relations on which these new urban infrastructures are built.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        June 2012

        Alejandro Amenábar

        by Barry Jordan, Nuria Triana-Toribio, Andy Willis

        Since the release of his first feature (Tesis) in 1996, Alejandro Amenábar has become the 'golden boy' of Spanish filmmaking, its 'King Midas', - a bankable star director - whose brand virtually guarantees quality, big audiences and domestic box office success. He has directed three of the biggest grossing movies in Spanish film history and has enjoyed enormous international and critical acclaim (including an Oscar for Best Foreign Film for Mar Adentro/The Sea Inside, 2004). With Alejandro Amenábar, Jordan provides the first full-length study in English of Amenábar's shorts and feature films. Known for his spectacular imagery, sophisticated editing, memorable sound-tracks and challenging subject matter, Jordan shows how Amenábar makes a serious and socially aware, exportable 'middlebrow' cinema, designed for global audiences. There is also a detailed analysis of his engagement with popular film genres as the basis for an auteur cinema, and Jordan incorporates a reappraisal of Amenábar's auteurism as fundamentally decentred and shared. The book will be an essential resource for teachers, students, scholars and fans of Amenábar. It will also appeal to a wider readership, such as those who work in the film, media and culture industries as well as those who have a general interest in the best of Spanish, European and World cinema. ;

      • Models to assemble. Current federal processes, decentralization of power, and challenges of multilevel government

        by Marcelo Bernal and Calógero Pizzolo

        There are no identical federalisms or a general model that works as a reference or starting point. Federal countries have histories, trajectories, discontinuities, institutions and processes that make them unique and unrepeatable experiences. Comparisons can help us in different ways. They can enable us to more clearly prevent the consequences of adopting specific agreements. Through the identification of similarities and differences, we can think over certain aspects of the agreements adopted, and its circumstances that might otherwise go unnoticed. Furthermore, comparisons can suggest positive and negative lessons; we can learn not only from the successes, but also from the failures of other federations and the mechanisms and procedures they have used to deal with problems. The idea of comparison, then, consists of a constant attempt to generalize, decompose, disaggregate and re-spin the significant points of these trajectories that may represent an institutional strength or a coordination experience worthy of being studied and, with particularities, assimilated in other contexts. “Models to build: current federal processes, decentralization of power, and challenges of multilevel government” is a collective work in terms of its size, which has required two years of collaborative work by social scientists from five continents and almost twenty universities, gather together in the challenge of thinking of federalism as a preferred tool for state management in the 21st century. We hope that this proposal will serve as a reference for future studies on the subject and as an input for the management of political institutions, university teaching, scientific analysis and the dissemination of a current topic and centrally in the agendas of the main Law professorships and Political Science of the planet.

      • Education

        Professional Knowledge and Educational Restructuring in Europe

        by Goodson, I. F.

        European welfare institutions such as education and health care are restructuring their organisations in terms of decentralisation, deregulation, privatization and so forth. As a consequence professional positions and demands on professional competencies in these institutions are in transition. At the same time European societies are changing in different ways, e.g. in terms of a "knowledge society" as well as in demographic and cultural changes. Professionals such as teachers and nurses are meeting such changes in their work with students and clients. Thus, there is a need to study these transitions and changes. Here we are doing this from a "bottom-up" perspective where we are comparing experiences in different institutional and national contexts. This study combines two kinds of narrative research; a study of the systemic narratives produced by governments who are restructuring educational systems and the life history narratives of those professionals working within those systems and their perspectives on ongoing restructuring.

      • Education

        Critiquing Praxis

        Conceptual and Empirical Trends in the Teaching Profession

        by Ax, Jan

        Critiquing Praxis describes the contemporary state of the teaching profession based on different aspects of Dutch educational praxis, and the descriptions are followed by reflections from Australia and Scandinavian perspectives. Its critique of the current state of the profession, especially in the face of the centralisation of education policy and the decentralisation of responsibility to schools, has widespread application elsewhere in the world. The volume does not aim to judge those who made choices about schools and teacher education in the past; rather it aims to offer an evaluation of how the perspectives that shaped past choices were themselves shaped by ways of understanding the world, and by past historical conditions. In our turn, we who are making such choices and responding to such challenges now will ourselves be judged by history. That being so, we should prepare ourselves by learning from history. Critiquing Praxis offers us a unique opportunity to do that with a praxis model for critique that is mainly based on European perspectives in pedagogy and sociology.

      • Education

        Teacher Career Motivation and Professional Development in Special and Inclusive Education in China

        by Feng, Y.

        Using autobiographical accounts acquired from her extensive career in education, the author has explored the multi-faceted influences on teacher career motivation and professional development in special and inclusive education in China. The social realities faced by teachers in their professional lives in a city in China have been highlighted through comparison and contrast with those of their international peers. This is achieved through a comprehensive review of recent literature and an empirical study to encourage teacher voices with this regard. The study reveals opportunities and challenges in China in the process of moving towards inclusive education. In particular, it identifies the impact of teacher recruitment policies, teacher education programmes, education decentralisation, rural-urban disparities as well as socio-cultural values on teacher career motivation and their professional development. It also addresses various implications regarding ethical dilemmas overlooked in previous educational research. Meanwhile, the author proposes a discussion on Self-Determination Theory in terms of motivational change. This book provides insights for policy makers, educators, researchers, teachers and students in special and inclusive education. Readers from other walks of life in China and beyond may also gain a better understanding of the Chinese education system through the life stories of the teachers researched.

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