Something is badly, badly wrong with transportation in Toronto. Just riding public transit provides evidence of that, along with a pain in the neck.  Torontonians still love the TTC, but just wish it would shape up, and are painfully aware it hasn't been world-class for at least a generation. The author, no specialist in any of the relevant areas of research, brings his skills as an academic and the righteous indignation of a TTC rider to the task of telling just how bad things a...

Award-winning reporter Jodi Kantor takes readers deep inside the White House in an "insightful and evocative" portrait of Barack and Michelle Obama (Chicago Tribune) that will surprise even readers who thought they knew the two icons.When Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election, he also won a long-running debate with his wife Michelle. Contrary to her fears, politics now seemed like a worthwhile, even noble pursuit. Together they planned a White Ho...

A TIMES POLITICAL BOOK OF THE YEARA LONGMAN/HISTORY TODAY BOOK OF THE YEARThe award-winning history of the British Welfare State –now fully revised and updated for the 21st Century.‘A masterpiece’ Sunday TimesGiant Want. Giant Disease. Giant Ignorance. Giant Squalor. Giant Idleness.These were the Five Giants that loomed over the post-war reconstruction...

In 1933 President Franklin D. Roosevelt created America's first domestic national service program: the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). As part of this program-the largest and most highly esteemed of its kind-nearly three million unemployed men worked to rehabilitate, protect, and build the nation's natural resources. It demonstrated what citizens and government could accomplish together. Yet despite its success, the CCC was short lived. While more controversial programs such as Presiden...

"They called it the Reagan revolution," Ronald Reagan noted in his Farewell Address. "Well, I'll accept that, but for me it always seemed more like the great rediscovery, a rediscovery of our values and our common sense." Nearly two decades after that 1989 speech, debate continues to rage over just how revolutionary those Reagan years were. The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction identifies and tackles some of the controversies and historical mysteries that continue to sw...

Electronic payment is the economic backbone of all e-commerce transactions. This book covers the major subjects related to e-payment such as, for example, public key infrastructure, smart cards, payment agents, digital cash, SET protocols, and micro-payment. Its first part covers the infrastructure for secure e-payment over the Internet, whereas in the second part a variety of e-payment methods and systems are described.This edited volume offers a well-written and sound technical o...

Bookshelves abound with theoretical analyses, how-to guides, and personal success stories by famous corporate leaders, public officials, even athletic coaches, expounding on how to lead from the top. But what about those in the middle who are increasingly tasked with trying to reshape, reorient, or recreate the capabilities of an organization?Leading Change from the Middle takes you on the journeys traveled by Kurt Mayer, an information technology executive in the Departmen...

This book provides practical know-how on understanding, implementing, and managing main stream social media tools (e.g., blogs and micro-blogs, social network sites, and content communities) from a public sector perspective. Through social media, government organizations can inform citizens, promote their services, seek public views and feedback, and monitor satisfaction with the services they offer so as to improve their quality. Given the exponential growth of social media in contemporar...

Through a series of specific questions that cut to the core of conspiracism as a global social and cultural phenomenon this book deconstructs the logic and rhetoric of conspiracy theories and analyses the broader social and psychological factors that contribute to their persistence in modern society.

A critical examination of public administration's pervasive vision of a powerful stateWoodrow Wilson argued for a state led by a powerful government, guided by science and enlightened experts, for the accomplishment of a set of collective purposes—in other words, a purposive state. Michael Spicer contends that though Wilson and those who followed him have not typically explored questions of political and constitutional theory in their writing, a clear and ...

Greater transparency is increasingly seen as the answer to a wide range of social issues by governments, NGOs and businesses around the world. However, evidence of its impact is mixed. Using case studies from around the world including India, Tanzania, the UK and US, Transparency and the open society surveys the adoption of transparency globally, providing an essential framework for assessing its likely performance as a policy and the steps that can be taken to make it more effective. It a...

Restless Citizens gives a unique insider's view of how the United Nations treats its employees. Written by Dr. Udoh E. Udom, a retired senior official in the World Health Organization, the book is a robustly critical but deeply informed view of all aspects of UN employment.Excerpted from the foreword by David Antill, School of Law, University of Leicester - UKWords: 60