Whatever Happened to Local Government?

Whatever Happened to Local Government?
Author: Allan Cochrane
Publisher:
Total Pages: 150
Release: 1993
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780335190119

In the 1980s British local government was at the eye of the political storm. Councils were blamed for overspending and central government was blamed for threatening to bring an end to local democracy. In 1990 a new local tax - the poll tax - proved so unpopular that it helped to bring an end to Margaret Thatcher's reign as Prime Minister. But what has really happened to local government over the last fifteen years? What do the changes tell us about the nature of British politics in the 1990s? And what do they mean for the future direction of local government? These questions are at the heart of this book, which argues that it is necessary fundamentally to reappraise the ways in which we understand local government. Allan Cochrane develops a wide ranging argument, drawing on material from across the traditional divisions created by academic disciplines and theoretical systems to show that local government in Britain will never be the same again. It needs to be seen as just one element in a more complex local welfare state, which is itself being transformed to fit in with a new (business-led) agenda for welfare.

Whatever happened to Tory Liverpool?

Whatever happened to Tory Liverpool?
Author: David Jeffery
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2023-04-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1837646562

An Open Access edition of this book, supported by the LUP OA author fund, is available on the Liverpool University Press website, the OAPEN library and our Digital Collaboration Hub. In the 1968 local elections the Liverpool Conservatives won 62 percent of the vote and 78 percent of the seats on Liverpool City Council. By 1972 the party had held a majority on Liverpool’s municipal government for 85 of the previous 100 years. But in 1983 they lost their last two MPs, and in 1998 they lost their final councillor. The Conservatives have not won an electoral contest in the city since. Whatever happened to Tory Liverpool? Success, decline, and irrelevance since 1945 explores the history of Conservative electoral performance in Liverpool from the end of the Second World War to the present day, and challenges a number of myths regarding the city’s political history: Conservative post-war success was not due to sectarian tensions or false consciousness, and neither was Conservative decline due to Margaret Thatcher. The book takes a multi-method approach to the study of Conservative Party history in Liverpool. It proposes a tripartite framework, which separates the periods of success (1945–1972), decline (1973–1986), and irrelevance (1987 onwards), and argues that each period should be explained by recourse to different phenomena. Only in this way can the complex post-war history of the Conservative Party in Liverpool truly be understood.

Whatever Happened to Party Government?

Whatever Happened to Party Government?
Author: Mark Wickham-Jones
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2018-07-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 0472130889

The contentious history of a provocative report and its meaning for American political science

Strong Towns

Strong Towns
Author: Charles L. Marohn, Jr.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2019-10-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1119564816

A new way forward for sustainable quality of life in cities of all sizes Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Build American Prosperity is a book of forward-thinking ideas that breaks with modern wisdom to present a new vision of urban development in the United States. Presenting the foundational ideas of the Strong Towns movement he co-founded, Charles Marohn explains why cities of all sizes continue to struggle to meet their basic needs, and reveals the new paradigm that can solve this longstanding problem. Inside, you’ll learn why inducing growth and development has been the conventional response to urban financial struggles—and why it just doesn’t work. New development and high-risk investing don’t generate enough wealth to support itself, and cities continue to struggle. Read this book to find out how cities large and small can focus on bottom-up investments to minimize risk and maximize their ability to strengthen the community financially and improve citizens’ quality of life. Develop in-depth knowledge of the underlying logic behind the “traditional” search for never-ending urban growth Learn practical solutions for ameliorating financial struggles through low-risk investment and a grassroots focus Gain insights and tools that can stop the vicious cycle of budget shortfalls and unexpected downturns Become a part of the Strong Towns revolution by shifting the focus away from top-down growth toward rebuilding American prosperity Strong Towns acknowledges that there is a problem with the American approach to growth and shows community leaders a new way forward. The Strong Towns response is a revolution in how we assemble the places we live.

The Role of Local Government in Economic Development

The Role of Local Government in Economic Development
Author: Jonathan Q. Morgan
Publisher: Unc School of Government
Total Pages: 21
Release: 2009
Genre: Economic development
ISBN: 9781560116127

This report discusses the findings from a mail survey of local government economic development activities that was sent to all 540 municipalities and 100 counties in North Carolina. An important part of the analysis examines whether cities and counties differ significantly in their economic development efforts and whether smaller jurisdictions employ different types of development strategies and tools than larger ones. The survey findings also highlight the barriers that local governments face in promoting economic development and identify important technical assistance needs and gaps in local capacity.

Whatever Happened to Class?

Whatever Happened to Class?
Author: Rina Agarwala
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2008-10-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1461634695

Class explains much in the differentiation of life chances and political dynamics in South Asia; scholarship from the region contributed much to class analysis. Yet class has lost its previous centrality as a way of understanding the world and how it changes. This outcome is puzzling; new configurations of global economic forces and policy have widened gaps between classes and across sectors and regions, altered people's relations to production, and produced new state-citizen relations. Does market triumphalism or increased salience of identity politics render class irrelevant? Has rapid growth in aggregate wealth obviated long-standing questions of inequality and poverty? Explanations for what happened to class vary, from intellectual fads to global transformations of interests. The authors ask what is lost in the move away from class, and what South Asian experiences tell us about the limits of class analysis. Empirical chapters examine formal and informal-sector labor, social movements against genetic engineering, and politics of the "new middle class." A unifying analytical concern is specifying conditions under which interests of those disadvantaged by class systems are immobilized, diffused, co-opted—or autonomously recognized and acted upon politically: the problematic transition of classes in themselves to classes for themselves.

Whatever Happened to High School History?

Whatever Happened to High School History?
Author: Bob Davis
Publisher: James Lorimer & Company
Total Pages: 288
Release: 1995-01-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9781550284867

Bob Davis examines official high school history teaching and related government policies from the 1940s to the mid-1990s, providing essential background for those concerned with how history will be taught in the 21st century. Davis traces the demise of the old historiographical narrative of progress, the rise of an essentially content-free "skills"-based approach to education, and the emergence of the new orthodoxy of post-modern theory, identifying the weaknesses of each and suggesting fruitful directions for future development of history teaching. Whatever Happened to High School History? is a passionate and insightful account of crisis and decline in a subject that used to be the pillar of the secondary curriculum. An Our Schools/Our Selves book.

Control and Power in Central-local Government Relations

Control and Power in Central-local Government Relations
Author: R.A.W. Rhodes
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2018-12-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0429872852

Published in 1999. Originally published in 1981, Control and Power in Central-Local Government Relations set out to provide a re-interpretation of central-local relations in Britain. The book reviewed the (then) existing literature; redefined the subject of intergovernmental relations (IGR); and developed a theory linking IGR to broader issues in the study of British Government. It rapidly became a classic in the study of local government. The link to broader issues what achieved through the power-dependence model and the focus on policy communities. The book underpinned the vast growth in the study of policy networks in British government. This revised edition includes four new chapters, two of which have been specially written. The new Preface traces the fortunes of the power-dependence model, commenting on and updating the individual chapters. A new part II continues the story. It contains a 1986 essay reviewing criticism of the original model (chapter 6); a 1992 article discussing unresolved issues in the study of policy networks (chapter 7); and a new chapter assessing where we are now in the study of networks. It argues, provocatively, for an ethnographic focus on traditions and narratives; on how individuals construct networks. The book remains essential reading for all students and academics concerned with the study of IGR and policy networks.

Local Democracy, Journalism and Public Relations

Local Democracy, Journalism and Public Relations
Author: Carmel O'Toole
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2019-05-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1351697307

This is a critical examination of the impact of sustained large-scale austerity cuts on local government communications in the UK. Budget constraints have left public sector media teams without the resources for robust citizen-facing communications. The "nose for news" has been downgraded and local journalists, once the champions of public interest coverage, are a force much diminished. The book asks, what is lost to local democracy as a result? And what does it mean when no one is holding the country’s public spenders to account? The authors present extensive interviews with communications professionals working across different council authorities. These offer important insights into the challenges currently being faced by communicators within local public services. The book also includes in-depth case studies on the Grenfell Tower disaster, the Rotherham child-grooming scandal and the Sheffield tree-felling controversy. These events all raise serious questions about the scrutiny and accountability of local authorities and the important role the media can and does play. Local Democracy, Journalism and Public Relations provides new empirical data on, and the real-world views of, working communications teams in local government today. For students and researchers interested in local journalism and public relations, the book illuminates the current relationship between these professions, local democracy and political accountability.

Contemporary Minority Nationalism

Contemporary Minority Nationalism
Author: Michael Watson
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 1990
Genre: Ethnic groups
ISBN: 9780415000659

Explores the political and socio-economic circumstances surrounding minority nationalism and analyses its successes and failures in recent years.