Rising inequality in advanced economies is a global challenge and a major factor behind the current wave of geo-political disruption. It has been driven by a polarisation between regions which are creating wealth and benefitting from wealth creation, and those left behind. This justifies a wholesale reinvention of these capitalist systems. Focusing on the UK example, this Element presents evidence of systemic failure, with low productivity alongside higher levels of deprivation in city-reg...

The best of the Kobo Writing Life Podcast, in one place!On KWL’s weekly podcast, the team interview experts in publishing to help independent authors grow their self publishing business. Over the years, KWL has interviewed many industry experts to discuss different aspects of the self-publishing platform.In this collection, the KWL team has curated a list of great interviews that shed light on the world of digital publishing.The Evolution of Digital...

In an increasingly interconnected environment, shocks, crises, cascading failures, and surprising breakthroughs are features of our age. The ability to anticipate, intervene, innovate, and adapt is now seen as essential for governments. Public officials serve in an expanded public space that is being reshaped by the rise of social networking and modern information and communication technologies. The desired results on many public issues exceed the reach and resources of government.

The strategies adopted by governments and public officials can have dramatic effects on peoples' lives. The best ones can transform economic laggards into trailblazers, eliminate diseases, or sharply cut crime. Strategic failures can result in highly visible disasters, like the shrinking of the Russian economy in the 1990s, or the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005. This book is about how strategies take shape, and how money, people, technologies, and public commitment c...

Every one of us will need care at some point in life: social care, healthcare, childcare, eldercare. In the shadow of COVID-19, care has become the most urgent topic of our times. But our care systems are in crisis. Concern for the most vulnerable has been overtaken by an obsession with profits and productivity. How did we end up here?In an era of economic turmoil, lower birth rates and increased life expectancy mean a larger proportion of the population than ever before is of reti...

Actors and institutions in localities and regions across the world are seeking prosperity and well-being amidst tumultuous and disruptive shifts and transitions generated by: an increasingly globalised, knowledge-intensive capitalism; global financial instability, volatility and crisis; concerns about economic, social and ecological sustainability, climate change and resource shortages; new multi-actor and multi-level systems of government and governance and a re-ordering of the i...

In principle the advanced, market-driven world in which we now live is fuelled by knowledge, information and transparency, but in practice the processes that produce this world systematically corrupt and denigrate knowledge: this is the powerful and provocative argument advanced by Colin Crouch in his latest exploration of societies on the road to post-democracy.Crouch shows that executives in profit-maximizing corporations have incentives to ignore or distort knowledge, especially...

Universities are increasingly expected to be at the heart of networked structures contributing to society in meaningful and measurable ways through research, the teaching and development of experts, and knowledge innovation. While there is nothing new in universities’ links with industry, what is recent is their role as territorial actors. It is government policy in many countries that universities - and in some countries national laboratories - stimulate regional or local economic develop...

The only up-to-date, accessibly written short guide to community development, this third edition offers an invaluable and authoritative introduction. Fully updated to reflect changes in policy, practice, economics and culture, it will equip readers with an understanding of the history and theory of community development, as well as practical guidance on how to do it.This is a key text for all students and practitioners working with communities. It includes:• a broad overvie...

In highly unequal societies such as the UK, where the top 10% take a higher share of disposable income than in most other European countries, many feel resentment towards high earners. On paper, they are doing well, but inequality isn’t even working for them.Uncomfortably Off reveals that those generally considered to be the most affluent feel anxious about the future and struggle to keep up, or even to stay put. They are starting to doubt their common sense ideas about hard work a...

There is little doubt that in recent years, enterprise has been considered an essential approach in the alleviation of deprivation existing in the developed world. The assumption is that area-based initiatives provide a means by which enterprise can include all members of society in mainstream social and economic activities. The rationale behind Enterprise, Deprivation and Social Exclusion is to critically challenge the notion that enterprise can address the complexity behind depr...

How would we design, implement and evaluate public policy if it were based on our love for future generations? For the philosopher Walter Kaufman, 'I love you' means:'I want you to live the life that you want to live. I will be as happy as you if you do; and as unhappy as you if you don't.'We have no idea what future generations will value and how they will want to live. Nor do we wish to prescribe how they choose to live, so long as they do not prevent others from living t...