EU Cohesion policy, along with support for agriculture and rural development, is one of the main items of EU spending. As such, the performance of the policy has come under increasing scrutiny. Perhaps surprisingly, however, past attempts to assess the effectiveness of the EU’s have proved to be highly ambivalent.This book examines the long-term achievements of Cohesion policy from 1989 to 2012 and draws out the main policy implications. Originally undertaken for the European Commi...

Please note: this title will publish in January 2012.This textbook explores the policies and practices employed in the management of people working in the tourism, hospitality and events industries.It considers the nature of these industries and the varied approaches that organizations take with the handling of matters such as recruitment, health and welfare and remuneration. This book is enriched with topical case studies that describe and...

In recent years public management research in a variety of disciplines has paid increasing attention to the role of citizens and the third sector in the provision of public services. Several of these efforts have employed the concept of co-production to better understand and explain this trend. This book aims to go further by systematizing the growing body of academic papers and reports that focus on various aspects of co-production and its potential contribution to new public governance. ...

Urban regeneration is a key focus for public policy throughout Europe. This book examines social sustainability and analyses its meaning. The authors offer a comprehensive European perspective to identify best practices in sustainable urban regeneration in five major cities in Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, and the UK. This authoritative overview of the scholarly literature makes the book essential reading for researchers and post-graduate students in sustainable development, real est...

Australian education policy for the past 40 years has been heading in the wrong direction and is entirely unsuitable for preparing young people for the 21st century. Exaggeration? Sadly not.For a teacher, there is nothing more exhilarating than encouraging young people to realise the power of learning. But in our schools today, teachers spend so much time preparing their students for high-stakes tests, gathering data and filling in forms, that many of them feel like the life has be...

Many social protection programmes, including cash transfers, public works programmes and asset transfers, target women as main beneficiaries or recipients of benefits. Extending social protection to rural populations has great potential for fostering rural women's economic empowerment. However, to tap into this potential, more needs to be done. There is much scope for making social protection policies and programmes more gender sensitive and for better aligning them with agricultural and r...

The third volume of the Sustainable Urban Development Series outlines the BEQUEST toolkit that helps link protocol with the assessment methods currently available for evaluating the sustainability of urban development. It details the decision support mechanisms developed for users of the system to guide them in selecting the appropriate assessment methods for a variety of evaluations.This book provides case studies drawn from locations across Europe, and also provides best...

An examination of the global economic crisis from the perspective of careValuing care and care work does not simply mean attributing care work more monetary value. To really achieve change, we must go further.In this groundbreaking book, Emma Dowling charts the multi-faceted nature of care in the modern world, from the mantras of self-care and what they tell us about our anxieties, to the state of the social care system. She examines the relations of power ...

This work explores how reshaping budget rules and how they are applied presents a preferred means of public sector budgeting, rather than simply implementing fewer rules. Through enhanced approaches to resource flexibility, government entities can ensure that public money is used appropriately while achieving the desired results.The authors identify public budgeting practices that inhibit responses to complex problems and examine how rule modification can lead to expanded budget fl...

“You won’t find a better book on whole-system change that covers so much ground in such an accessible form than Leading Educational Change!”—From the Foreword by Michael Fullan, Professor Emeritus, OISE, University of Toronto“This book tackles critical issues and conundrums about how to create productive educational systems by a group of exceptionally knowledgeable thought leaders from the U.S. and around the world. Both policymakers and practition...

Despite consistent improvements in the school systems of over recent years, there are still too many children who miss out. It is not only children from disadvantaged backgrounds attending hard-pressed urban schools that the system is failing - even in the most successful schools there are often groups of learners whose experience of schooling is less than equitable.As a result of their close involvement with a group of schools serving a predominantly working-class community over f...

How is policy made in higher education, particularly in the wake of recent economic turbulence? Has policy development converged internationally, and if so, what impact has this had on academic life and institutions? What role does policy-oriented research play in shaping the direction of higher education? Are universities grappling in common ways with issues of access and equity?Making Policy in Turbulent Times provides a historically informed and nuanced response to thes...