This study offers an analysis of the UK's current economic policy options and a plan for improving life for ordinary citizens via a sensible and realistic understanding of governments' limited ability to manage economic performance. It provides a manifesto which political parties could immediately adopt to make life better for all.

The Handbook of Democratic Government is the first compact and comprehensive data collection for 20 countries which simultaneously provides comparative and complete information on the composition of governments. Parties, ministries, portfolios, ministers and parliamentary support are listed, as well as duration, type of government and reasons for termination. The data are organised in such a manner that every researcher can use them as a basic data set, ready to be transformed acc...

Since the 1980s, political scientists have developed a renewed interest in the study of political institutions, based on the assumption that "institutions matter" -that is, that formal governmental institutions and constitutional-legal rules (as well as informal institutions like parties and interest groups) are crucial determinants of the shape of politics and policy outcomes. In this respect, the "new institutionalism" resembles the "old institutionalism" of pre-behaviorist days, but the...

No topic is more polarizing than guns and gun control. From a gun culture that took root early in American history to the mass shootings that repeatedly bring the public discussion of gun control to a fever pitch, the topic has preoccupied citizens, public officials, and special interest groups for decades. The Gun Debate: What Everyone Needs to Know® delves into the issues that Americans debate when they talk about guns. With a balanced and broad-ranging approach, noted economist...

Transparency has become a global concept of responsible government. This book argues that the transnational discourse of transparency promotes potentially contradictory policy ideas that can lead to unintended consequences. It critically examines whether or not increased transparency really leads to increased democratic accountability.

This volume has been designed as a key resource in the field of international political leadership research. Written by a team of distinguished leadership scholars from three continents and nine countries, the original chapters gathered in this volume cover all the major fields of political leadership, from executive, legislative and party leadership to leadership in social movements and international organizations. The special value and appeal of this book relates to its genuinely compara...

Learning from the successes and failures of others is a necessity in the field of public sector innovation. This book develops guidelines for policymakers, practitioners and policy analysts to understand what drives policy success and to transfer innovations from a source case to a target case with a view to assisting effective policy design.

In this 2010 book, Roger Masterman examines the dividing lines between the powers of the judicial branch of government and those of the executive and legislative branches in the light of two of the most significant constitutional reforms of recent years: the Human Rights Act (1998) and Constitutional Reform Act (2005). Both statutes have implications for the separation of powers within the United Kingdom constitution. The Human Rights Act brings the judges into much closer proximity with t...

Unbroken Government demonstrates how institutional and electoral characteristics present since the writing of the Constitution influence policy development. Utilizing policy areas as diverse as human spaceflight, clean air, homeland security, and foreign policy, this work shows how these patterns manifest themselves in the policymaking process.

The principle of proportionality, which has become the standard test for adjudicating human and constitutional rights disputes in jurisdictions worldwide has had few critics. Proportionality is generally taken for granted or enthusiastically promoted or accepted with minor qualifications. A Critique of Proportionality and Balancing presents a frontal challenge to this orthodoxy. It provides a comprehensive critique of the proportionality principle, and particularly of its most characterist...

This study departs from traditional interpretations of cohabitation in French politics, which suggest French institutions are capable of coping when the President and Prime Minister originate from different political parties. Instead, it offers the opposite view that cohabitation leads to partisan conflict and inertia in the policy-making process.

This book examines the puzzle of why genetically modified organisms continue to be controversial despite scientific evidence declaring them safe for humans and the environment. What explains the sustained levels of resistance? Clancy analyzes the trans-Atlantic controversy by comparing opposition to GMOs in the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, Spain, and the United States, examining the way in which science is politicized on both sides of the debate. Ultimately, the author argues that the ...