Very stimulating and intellectually exciting. In fact, I think it is one of the best books I have read for a long time. - Professor Carsten Greve, International centre for Business and Politics at the Copenhagen Business SchoolPublicness appears to be in decline or retreat in the face of markets, consumerism and individualism. Yet questions of public participation, public governance and the reform of public services are at the top of the political agenda in many countries.

A group of whimsical forest friends are sledding when they encounter a frozen lake. Bear foolishly tries to skate on the thin ice, and falls through into the freezing water. He is rescued by his friends, who work as a team performing CPR and using a defibrillator to save his life. Bear survives and recognizes his foolish action, promising to make better choices in the future.

`This is an illuminating and topical study, which skilfully blends together theoretical and empirical analysis in search of the "citizen-consumer". It should become a key text for all with an interest in public service reform and the "choice" agenda, as well as consumerism and citizenship′ - Ruth Lister, Professor of Social Policy, University of LoughboroughPolitical, popular and academic debates have swirled around the notion of the citizen as a consumer of public services, with p...

A unique collection of letters from a member of the YWCA on her first world tour in the 1930s, Letters from Clara tells one woman’s story of adventure and danger on the eve of World War II. Despite limited financial means, Clara Pagel was richly resourceful and used the YWCA network to find work and places to live in the Far East, along the way meeting other women also working their way around the world. As Clara described in letters to her YWCA friends back home, her sojourn was ...

An engaging contribution to the increasing body of knowledge about gender and organizations, Gender, Culture and Organizational Change examines gender-based inequality in organizations and considers how sexual and social relations between women and men based on sexuality, power and control determine the cultures, structures and practices of organization and the experiences of men and women working in them.Gender, Culture and Organizational Change represents a decad...

Responsibility, participation and choice are key policy framings of active citizenship, summoning the citizen to take on new roles in welfare state reform. This volume traces the emergence of new discourses and the ways in which they take up and rework struggles of social movements for greater independence, power and control. It explores the changing cultural and political inflections of active citizenship in Germany, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, France, Italy and the UK, with ethnogr...

This book examines what value, if any, the state has for the pursuit of progressive politics; and how it might need to be reimagined and remade to deliver transformative change.Is it possible to reimagine the state in ways that open up projects of political transformation? This interdisciplinary collection provides alternative perspectives to the ‘antistatism’ of much critical writing and contemporary political movement activism. Contributors explore ways of reimagining the state t...

There is an urgent need to rethink relationships between systems of government and those who are ‘governed’. This book explores ways of rethinking those relationships by bringing communities normally excluded from decision-making to centre stage to experiment with new methods of regulating for engagement.Using original, co-produced research, it innovatively shows how we can better use a ‘bottom-up’ approach to design regulatory regimes that recognise the capabilities of communities...

At the crossroads of art and science, Beautiful Brain presents Nobel Laureate Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s contributions to neuroscience through his groundbreaking artistic brain imagery.Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852–1934) was the father of modern neuroscience and an exceptional artist. He devoted his life to the anatomy of the brain, the body’s most complex and mysterious organ. His superhuman feats of visualization, based on fanatically precise techniques and...

Bureaucracy has long been a cornerstone of advanced industrial societies, and a defining feature of modernity. At the same time, many commentators from all quarters argue that it is on the wane in this post-this or that world; or that if it isn't, it should be dismantled to free up organizations, enterprise, and innovation. But do we live in a more or less bureaucratic world? Do contemporary forms and means of communication undermine or modify bureaucracy, or does technology create new 'ir...

This title was first published in 2002: Urban governance has faced numerous challenges as city governments, their partners and their critics struggle to transform themselves in the context of post-industrial economies and societies. This context has generated new relations of economic life and social activity to be accommodated in cities, and has also changed expectations of the roles, relationships and modes of governance. New conceptual tools to analyze these experiences are becoming ava...

The acclaimed author recounts his epic journey across Europe and Asia in this international bestselling classic of travel literature: "Compulsive reading" (Graham Greene).In 1973, Paul Theroux embarked on a four-month journey by train from the United Kingdom through Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. In The Great Railway Bazaar, he records in vivid detail and penetrating insight the many fascinating incidents, adventures, and encounters of his gr...