Public Affairs & Administration

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Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making, Revised Edition

by Deborah Stone from W. W. Norton

Since its debut, Policy Paradox has been widely acclaimed as the most accessible policy text available. Unlike most texts, which treat policy analysis and policy making as different enterprises, Policy Paradox demonstrates that "you can't take politics out of analysis." Through a uniquely rich and comprehensive model, this revised edition continues to show how real-world policy grows out of differing ideals, even definitions, of basic societal goals like security, equality, and liberty. The book also demonstrates how these ideals often conflict in policy implementation. In this revised edition, Stone has added a full-length case study as an appendix, taking up the issue of affirmative action. Clear, provocative, and engaging, Policy Paradox conveys the richness of public policy making and analysis.

Classics of Public Administration

by Jay M. Shafritz from Wadsworth Publishing

With this newly expanded sixth edition of CLASSICS OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Jay M. Shafritz and Albert C. Hyde aim to introduce you to the principles of public administration via the most significant scholarly writings on the topic. Straightforward and informative, this text starts you with Woodrow Wilson and takes you all the way to today's political scientists. This edition includes five new readings and helps you learn the key fields of public administration: bureaucracy, organization theory, human resources management, the budgetary process, public policy, implementation, evaluation, intergovernmental relations, and public service ethics.

Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations: A Guide to Strengthening and Sustaining Organizational Achievement, 3rd Edition

by John M. Bryson from Jossey-Bass

When it was first published more than sixteen years ago, John Bryson's Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations introduced a new and thoughtful strategic planning model. Since then it has become the standard reference in the field. In this completely revised third edition, Bryson updates his perennial bestseller to help today’s leaders enhance organizational effectiveness. This new edition:

• Features the Strategy Change Cycle—a proven planning process used by a large number of organizations
• Offers detailed guidance on implementing the planning process and includes specific tools and techniques to make the process work in any organization
• Introduces new material on creating public value, stakeholder analysis, strategy mapping, balanced scorecards, collaboration, and more
• Includes information about the organizational designs that will encourage strategic thought and action throughout the entire organization
• Contains a wealth of updated examples and cases

When it was first published more than sixteen years ago, John Bryson's Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations introduced a new and thoughtful strategic planning model. Since then it has become the standard reference in the field. In this completely revised third edition, Bryson updates his perennial bestseller to help todays leaders enhance organizational effectiveness. This new edition: Features the Strategy Change Cyclea proven planning process used by a large number of organizations Offers detailed guidance on implementing the planning process and includes specific tools and techniques to make the process work in any organization Introduces new material on creating public value, stakeholder analysis, strategy mapping, balanced scorecards, collaboration, and more Includes information about the organizational designs that will encourage strategic thought and action throughout the entire organization Contains a wealth of updated examples and cases

Fiscal Administration

by John Mikesell from Wadsworth Publishing

Ever wonder how federal finance really works? FISCAL ADMINISTRATION shows you how public budgets operate and lets you crunch the numbers yourself. And with the latest data from the US federal budget, including its breakdown, you can see for yourself how policymakers allocate money. Plus, each chapter includes stories for discussion from the private sector as well as from public finance. Run the numbers and debate the financial policies with FISCAL ADMINISTRATION.

Public Policy: Politics, Analysis, And Alternatives

by Michael E. Kraft from CQ Press

Too many books leave policy analysis to a last and solitary chapter--or don't cover it at all. Kraft and Furlong answer to this need and integrate an evaluative approach to policy in their innovative text, encouraging critical and creative thinking on issues ranging from the benefits and costs of sustainable development to the advantages and drawbacks of U.S. efforts to fight the war on terrorism.

Public Policy starts with the basics and concisely describes government institutions, identifies primary policy actors, and reviews major theoretical models. The authors then discuss the nature of policy analysis and its practice, and show students how to employ evaluative criteria in six substantive policy areas. At its core, Public Policy guides students through policy alternatives, arming them with the analytic tools to understand how the interests and motivations of policy actors--both within and outside of government--impact a complex, yet comprehensible, policy agenda.

Improvements to Each Chapter

• Meticulous updating--all new chapter-opening vignettes, current tables and figures, and refreshed lists of suggested readings and websites.
• Strategic streamlining--restructured chapters early in the book ensure a more progressive and accessible introduction to the institutions, actors, and processes of public policy.
• Enhanced pedagogy--key terms focus only on the most important and relevant concepts while end-of-chapter discussion questions better facilitate student analysis.
• Working with Sources--these boxes help students investigate the reliability and comparative quality of sources of policy information through more extensive use of specific cases that call for active application.
• Steps to Analysis--this feature walks students through the steps of the evaluative process in a variety of actual cases, giving students even more opportunities to put their analytic skills to practice.

New Policy Coverage

• Homeland Security--analyzes the economic, political, and ethical dimensions of the United States' struggle with terrorism and disaster management. The authors examine the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the use of private contractors for military operations and homeland security initiatives, the Patriot Act's implications for civil liberties, as well as how the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina illustrates the limits of the government's capacity to respond to emergencies.
• Health Care--evaluates President Bush's reforms to Medicare, including efforts to provide prescription drug coverage for seniors in light of persistently rising health care costs.
• Welfare and Social Security--analyzes President Bush's stalled plan to privatize Social Security as well as alternative reforms under consideration.
• Education--focuses on whether the No Child Left Behind Act has created valuable and effective education reforms, and what amendments to this legislation might improve current testing standards and federal funding allocations.
• Energy and the Environment--looks at the debates over oil drilling in the Arctic and federal and state responses to escalating gasoline prices in light of the ongoing conflict between business interests and environmental quality.

Public Administration: Concepts and Cases

by Richard Stillman from Houghton Mifflin Company

Public Administration: Concepts and Cases offers a unique and highly regarded framework in which conceptual readings are paired with contemporary case studies that reflect real-world examples of administrative work, as well as new thinking and developments in the field.

Case studies and examples cover topics such as the Columbia space shuttle disaster, the shootings at Columbine High School, the AIDS epidemic, and the war in Iraq—making it easy to engage students in the readings.

• The readings include introductions, annotations, and discussion questions.
• Chapters contain review questions, key terms, and suggestions for further reading.
• Pertinent topics include ecology and decision-making, intergovernmental relations, information networks, and ethics. A topical table of contents makes it easy to choose subjects of particular interest.

Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil

by Michael C. Ruppert from New Society Publishers

The attacks of September 11, 2001, were accomplished through an amazing orchestration of logistics and personnel. Crossing the Rubicon discovers and identifies key suspects-finding some of them in the highest echelons of American government-by showing how they acted in concert to guarantee that the attacks produced the desired result.

Crossing the Rubicon is unique not only for its case-breaking examination of 9/11, but for the breadth and depth of its world picture-an interdisciplinary analysis of petroleum, geopolitics, narcotraffic, intelligence and militarism-without which 9/11 cannot be understood.

The US manufacturing sector has been mostly replaced by speculation on financial data whose underlying economic reality is a dark secret. Hundreds of billions of dollars in laundered drug money flow through Wall Street each year from opium and coca fields maintained by CIA-sponsored warlords and US-backed covert paramilitary violence. America's global dominance depends on a continually turning mill of guns, drugs, oil and money. Oil and natural gas-the fuels that make economic growth possible-are subsidized by American military force and foreign lending.

In reality, 9/11 and the resulting "war on terror" are parts of a massive authoritarian response to an emerging economic crisis of unprecedented scale. Peak Oil-the beginning of the end for our industrial civilization-is driving the lites of American power to implement unthinkably draconian measures of repression, warfare and population control. Crossing the Rubicon is more than a story. It is a map of the perilous terrain through which, together and alone, we are all now making our way.

Michael C. Ruppert is the publisher and editor of From the Wilderness, a newsletter read by more than 16,000 subscribers in 40 countries. A former Los Angeles Police Department narcotics investigator, he is widely known for his groundbreaking stories on US involvement in the drug trade, Peak Oil and 9/11.

Gender, Race, and Class in Media: A Text-Reader

from Sage Publications, Inc

Incisive analyses of mass media – including such forms as talk shows, MTV, the Internet, soap operas, television sitcoms, dramatic series, pornography, and advertising—enable this provocative new edition of Gender, Race and Class in Media to engage students in critical mass media scholarship. Issues of power related to gender, race, and class are integrated into a wide range of articles examining the economic and cultural implications of mass media as institutions, including the political economy of media production, textual analysis, and media consumption.

Ten new, original essays are included in this text, along with compelling previously published articles and book chapters by both established media scholars and new voices in the field. Together with new section introductions by Gail Dines and Jean Humez, the readings provide a solid yet accessible critical introduction to mass media studies.

Features:

• Authority. Original essays and important reprinted articles from renowned scholars comprise this comprehensive and diverse volume
Original essaysand important reprinted articlesfrom renowned scholars comprise this comprehensive and diverse volume
• Accessibility. Work in cultural studies and queer theory is made accessible to undergraduate students
. Work in cultural studies and queer theory is made accessible to undergraduate students
• Activist Philosophy. Extensive bibliography and media resources encourage conscientious activism.
. Extensive bibliography and media resources encourage conscientious activism.
• Integrated analysis. Race is examined throughout the text rather than treated in a separate chapter.
Race is examined throughout the text rather than treated in a separate chapter.

Original essaysand important reprinted articlesfrom renowned scholars comprise this comprehensive and diverse volume . Work in cultural studies and queer theory is made accessible to undergraduate students . Extensive bibliography and media resources encourage conscientious activism. Race is examined throughout the text rather than treated in a separate chapter.

 

New to the Second Edition:

1. Expanded coverage of "queer" representations in mass media
2. New section introductions provide readers with a guide for each section
3. New section on the violence debates and a new section on the Internet
4. Two sections devoted to consumerism, marketing, and advertising

Recommended for courses in mass media, feminist theory, race, class, and gender, and social theory in the Sociology, Communication, and Women’s Studies disciplines. Also recommended as a general reference title for scholars and anyone interested in the representation of race, class, and gender in the media.

Understanding Public Policy (12th Edition)

by Thomas R. Dye from Prentice Hall

For undergraduate-level courses in Public Policy.

Understanding Public Policy is not only an introduction to the study of public policy, but also an introduction to the models that political scientists use to describe and explain political life.

This leading introduction to public policy is designed to provide undergraduate and graduate students with concrete tools for not only understanding public policy in general, but for analyzing specific public policies. It focuses on what policies governments pursue, why governments pursue the policies they do, and what the consequences of these policies are. Very contemporary in perspective, it introduces eight analytical models currently used by political scientists to describe and explain political life and then, using these various analytical models—singly and in combination—explores specific public policies in a variety of key domestic policy areas.

The Case Against the Fed

by Murray N. Rothbard from Ludwig Von Mises Institute

The most powerful case against the American central bank ever written. This work begins with a mini-treatment of money and banking theory, and then plunges right in with the real history of the Federal Reserve System. Rothbard covers the struggle between competing elites and how they converged with the Fed.

Rothbard calls for the abolition of the central bank and a restoration of the gold standard. His popular treatment incorporates the best and most up-to-date scholarship on the Fed's origins and effects.