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In public sector organizations, strategies and management accounting are often developed with the ambition of providing a combination of long-term objectives and short-term evaluations. This combination is sometimes labelled Strategic Management Accounting (SMA). The purpose of this chapter is to enhance our knowledge about SMA in the public sector context. We do this through a qualitative study of the Swedish Public Employment Service, which in 2020 launched a new strategic direction to manage changes in the agency’s environment, along with a balance scorecard (BSC). The research question for this case was: How is the BSC used by a public sector agency as an SMA tool? Our results show that the agency’s operational managers and controllers use the BSC as an SMA tool to create active management and control, while at the same time being reactive with a short-term focus. We address these results in relation to an idea of flexibilization, more specifically the desire to become a flexible agency that can change and adapt to short-term changes.

We were attending a conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia. It was an important conference in our field; a good opportunity to present our research on highly skilled migration and to exchange ideas with other scholars. But a visit to the Old Town of Dubrovnik, a magnificent site listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List (and a filming location in the TV series Game of Thrones) was also a powerful incentive to come here. One of our research colleagues, who had previously lived in Dubrovnik, took us on her own city tour in which she presented both interesting facts and personal memories. We admired the scenic views, we noted historically important places and still visible traces of the recent war, while at the same time talking about the conference sessions we had just attended, recent turns in migration studies, and joint writing projects. The city walk became alternately sight-seeing, a social occasion and a scholarly conversa-tion, in which we performed our professions while to all intents and purposes acting as many of the other “tourists” around us.

It is difficult to find someone who has not heard about the Puerto Rico, Detroit, Michigan, or Orange County, California, bankruptcies. While guides for responsibly managing government finances exist, problems often originate not because of poor financial reporting or financial deficiencies but because issues external to financial wellbeing arise, such as economic, demographic, political, legal, or even environmental factors. Exacerbating the problem, there is not much advice in the existing literature on how to act when municipalities face financial struggles. Filling this important gap, this book explores fiscal health and fiscal hardships, municipal defaults and bankruptcies, and many other aspects to help guide local governments during fiscal distress. Fiscal hardships negatively affect the quality and availability of public goods and services and, consequently, the wellbeing of residents and businesses living and working in distressed municipalities. Turned off streetlights, unmaintained public parks, potholes, inconsistent garbage pickup, longer response time from emergency services, and multiple other issues that residents of the struggling municipalities deal with, lead to higher crime rates, lower quality of K-12 education, dangerous road conditions, lower housing values, outmigration of wealthier population, and numerous other problems. The COVID-19 pandemic put additional unprecedented pressure on municipal finances nationwide. In this book authors Tatyana Guzman and Natalia Ermasova evaluate distressed cities and municipalities and provide practical recommendations on improving their financial conditions. What are conditions and signs to look for to not to find yourself in similar situations? What can be done if your municipality is already experiencing fiscal hardships? What are the consequences of fiscal misfortunes? How does one exit a fiscal emergency? This book answers these and other questions and serves as a guide to fiscal health and prosperity f, https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/urban_bks/1029/thumbnail.jpg

The history of Europe in the 20th century is closely tied to the history of urban planning. Social and economic progress but also the brute treatment of people and nature throughout Europe were possible due to the use of urban planning and the other levels of spatial planning. Thereby, planning has constituted itself in Europe as an international subject. Since its emergence, through intense exchange but also competition, despite country differences, planning has developed as a European field of practice and scientific discipline. Planning is here much more than the addition of individual histories; however, historiography has treated this history very selective regarding geography and content. This book searches for an understanding of the historiography of planning in a European dimension. Scholars from Eastern and Western, Southern and Northern Europe address the issues of the public led production of city and the social functions of urban planning in capitalist and state-socialist countries. The examined examples include Poland and USSR, Czech Republic and Slovakia, UK, Netherlands, Germany, France, Portugal and Spain, Italy, and Sweden. The book will be of interest to students and scholars for Urbanism, Urban/Town Planning, Spatial Planning, Spatial Politics, Urban Development, Urban Policies, Planning History and European History of the 20th Century. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Max Welch Guerra, Abdellah Abarkan, María Castrillo Romón and Martin Pekár; individual chapters, the contributors., open access

This chapter explores the dynamics of estrangement and realignment in Turkey–Iran affairs and discusses the role of the U.S. in the complex interplay of cooperation and competition between Turkey and Iran throughout the 2000s. It traces the shifts in bilateral affairs from alignment in the early 2000s to estrangement between 2012 and 2016 and to realignment since mid-2016. The chapter argues that the growing estrangement in Turkish-Iranian affairs during the Arab Uprisings mostly pertained to their own countervailing positions as two rising regional powers at a time when the U.S. was rather relatively absent or reluctant to act in the Middle East. In the post-2016 era, Turkey and Iran started to realign, as both states’ contentious relations with the U.S. and uncertainties of American policy in the region drew them closer and granted them a ground to dissipate divergences. However, the recent realignment does not necessarily mean an end of Turkish-Iranian competition or the birth of a full-fledged strategic partnership. It may at best signal a return to soft balancing with many potential and actual areas for continuous rivalry in place.

In January 2013, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government initiated a peace process in order to settle the Kurdish question through peaceful means. However, this sanguine atmosphere gradually disappeared, before finally collapsing after the general elections of 7 June 2015. This book addresses the question of why the peace building attempts that culminated between 2013 and 2015 failed. It deals with the historical background of the Kurdish question and contemporary complexities of the Turkish politics to explain how they eventually jeopardized the peace process. This is an important and relevant research question because the Kurdish question has been viewed as a variable shaping Turkey's domestic politics and its foreign relations. The Kurdish question's influence on Turkish foreign policy is not confined to its neighbors. Turkey's relations with the United States and the European Union was also shaped by the issues stemmed from the Kurdish question. As this was the first serious peace attempt in a conflict that lasted over three decades, examination of why it failed will inform any future attempts at peace and will help pinpoint the potential path that Turkey might face in both the domestic and international realm. This book will appeal to students and scholars with an interest in Turkey and the Kurdish issue, peacekeeping, security studies and Middle East Politics.

This book focuses on a border police collaboration project in the Baltic Sea area aiming at fighting cross-border crimes. It deals with the challenges that inherently "suspicious" organizations face when forced to work together. The study offers unique insights into a European border police project, giving the reader a behind the scenes account of how cross-border policing and organized crime in Europe is prevented and solved. Through detailed ethnographic descriptions, the book describes how a trust-based relationship, which is necessary for the exchange of sensitive intelligence information, gradually developed by the participants in and through their joint efforts to protect Europe from external threats and by performing everyday work together. The study presented in this book is of interest to scholars as well as practitioners concerned with migration management, border policing, intelligence analysis, police culture, and the changing nature of policing in an increasingly global and interconnected world. The book includes various sociological features, such as emotion management, emotional labor, hegemonic masculinity, and takes an interactionist perspective on informal interactions such as joking, bantering, and telling stories. It is also of interest to readers engaged in various forms of intra-, inter-organizational, and inter-cultural collaborations.

Improving the Sustainable Development Goals evaluates the Global Goals (Agenda 2030) by looking at their design and how they relate to theories of economic development. Adopted unanimously by the member states of the United Nations (UN) in 2015, the goals are remarkable for the global commitment on a set of targets to reach by 2030, but also for the lack of a strategy of implementation. The choice of appropriate action is handed over to individual governments, some of which are limited by their lack of resources. This book explores how implementation of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) can be developed, especially in developing countries. The content, strengths and weaknesses of the SDGs are critically examined, alongside their relationship to ongoing academic research. The authors also investigate the actions of governments over the past three years by looking at the national strategies they have presented at annual meetings of the UN High-Level Political Forum. Improving the Sustainable Development Goals takes a critical but constructive approach, pointing out risks as well as possible remedies. The SDGs are seen as an opportunity for a global conversation on what works in solving some fundamental problems relating to poverty and environmental degradation. With the inclusion of a chapter by Tobias Ogweno, former member of the Kenya’s UN mission, this book will appeal to all those who are interested in policy analysis with a focus on development issues.

Today, as the last natural resources are located in first nation people’s land, it seems that the ecological frontier coincides with an epistemic human frontier. For example, the resource war we are facing is one in which first nations are struggling to preserve their lands, their rivers and mountains, dignity, and their right to self-determination (Icaza and Vazquez 2017). What can we learn from these ongoing social struggles resisting violent forms of power destroying land, women’s lives and hope? This question inspires the steps taken in this chapter.

This book provides a comprehensive framework for analysing, comparing and promoting territorial governance in policy relevant research. It reveals in-depth considerations of the emergence, state-of-the art and evolution of the concept of territorial governance. A unique series of ten case studies across Europe, from neighbourhood planning in North Shields in the North East of England to climate change adaptation in the Baltic Sea Region, provides far-reaching insights into a number of key elements of territorial governance. The book draws generalised empirically-based conclusions and discusses modes of transferability of ‘good practices’. A number of suggestions are presented as to how the main findings from this book can inform theories of territorial governance and spatial policy and planning.

Framed by a new and substantial introductory chapter, this book collects Stefano Guzzini’s reference articles and some less well-known publications on power, realism and constructivism. By analysing theories and their assumptions, but also theorists following their intellectual paths, his analysis explores the diversity of different schools, and moves beyond simple definitions to explore their intrinsic tensions and fallacies. Guzzini’s approach to the analysis of power – within and outside International Relations – provides the common theme of the book through which the theoretical state of the art in IR is reassessed. A novel analysis of power and the potential limits of realism and constructivism in International Relations, Power, Realism and Constructivism will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, international political economy, social and political theory, and the study of power.

This edited volume is a tribute to, and a debate with, the scholarship of Walter Carlsnaes and his contribution to the study of foreign policy in both its conceptualization and application. This book probes the theoretical boundaries of Foreign policy analysis, and questions orthodox understandings of the field. It examines the Agency-Structure debate, the question of how human decision-making affects the norms and institutions of international interactions (and vice versa), and analyses how the study of Foreign Policy can be applied to the European Union as a supranational entity devoid of traditional statehood. Contributors offer an in-depth discussion on the intricacies of studying foreign policy, and provide new perspectives on the standing of the EU as a foreign policy entity.

Public broadcasters, like the BBC and the Italian broadcaster RAI, are some of the most important media organisations in the world. Politicians are often tempted to interfere in the workings of these broadcasters and when this happens, the results are highly controversial, as both the Blair and Berlusconi governments have discovered. Public Broadcasting and Political Interference explains why some broadcasters are good at resisting politicians’ attempts at interference, and have won a reputation for independence - and why other broadcasters have failed to do the same. It takes a comparative approach of broadcasters in different countries, including the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and Sweden arguing political independence for public service broadcasters is important because of its contribution to democracy allowing voters alternative sources of information which allow them to choose between electoral alternatives.

Unrestricted, Japan maintained a high level of regional equality from the 1970s through the 1990s. The LDP's policies, especially regional industrial development policies, public works, national subsidies, and financial transfers to local governments, played important role in reducing regional disparity between urban and rural areas, resulting in strong support from the rural electorate. This made the LDP's long-term dominance possible. In the 2000s, however, regional disparities between urban and rural areas began to increase. This dissertation explores the causes of the regional disparity from a politics and policy perspective.; Starting in the 1980s, Japan faced international and domestic challenges, such as economic globalization, a decline of economic growth, budget deficits, and an aging society, which made it difficult for Japan to sustain the 1955 System. These problems necessitated a reform of the system. But attempts to reform made little change until the LDP reconsidered its rural-based electoral strategy. The increasing power of urban, non-affiliated voters during the 1990s began to shift the LDP's rural-oriented policies. After the election of Koizumi as prime minister, the government reduced public works projects in rural areas and redirected them toward urban areas. These projects focused on the renovation of urban centers and the construction of international airports and harbors. This was a response to strong demands to improve international competitiveness. Meanwhile, the government launched decentralization reform to cope with problems arising from globalization, an aging society, and rural depopulation. In particular, concern over local budget deficits under the conditions of the increase of the aged population and depopulation in rural areas facilitated fiscal decentralization from the early 2000s. This resulted in a high reliance on local revenue sources rather than financial transfers from the central government, providing benefits to local governments in u

Unrestricted, The idea of using publicly funded vouchers to subsidize parents' ability to pick and choose education providers has been part of the contemporary policy debate for decades. Beginning in the 1990s, this private school choice idea began to be translated into specific legislative proposals showing up on the agenda of state legislatures with increasing frequency, with a few states going so far as to enact some form of private school choice law. Yet, scholarship on the issue has remained focused on debating the substance, advocates, and constituencies of the general private school choice idea and little attention has been directed toward understanding the diverse landscape of actual legislation driving attempts to introduce private school choice reform into state education policies.; To what extent does different legislation present policy designs with distinct implications for changing existing public school policy arrangements and for the chances of a bill becoming enacted into law?; This work uses an originally dataset of individual pieces of private school choice legislation introduced into state legislatures from 1997 to 2007. Thus allowing it to capture and analyze distinctions in private school choice policy design, the frequency of individual bill introductions across state legislative venues, and the influence of both policy design and venue context on individual bill enactment chances.; The analysis reveals that the private school choice idea has been incorporated into legislation in a diverse range of different policy designs, and that bills were introduced into and considered by state legislatures in very uneven patterns. Logit estimation indicated that the legislation most likely to get enacted into law tended to be designed to restrict eligibility to students with a learning disability, or designed with specific and restrictive funding or participation caps, and was introduced into states with comparatively weaker public school systems and Republican contro

Unrestricted, Party leaders can use the Supreme Court to further their political and policy goals. By locating the governing regime's strength and the Court's alignment with the regime, we can better understand how the Court operates at any given moment. In Stage 1 of the realignment cycle, the Court can be used to help consolidate the coalition. In Stage 2, the Court helps implement the party's platform. In Stage 3, the Court tries to maintain the integrity of the coalition. This dissertation looks at the Supreme Court of the antebellum and postbellum periods, demonstrating that placing the Court in "political time" is a useful way to understand the institution.

Representing Calcutta is a spatial history of the colonial city, and addresses the question of modernity that haunts our perception of Calcutta. The book responds to two inter-related concerns about the city. First is the image of Calcutta as the worst case scenario of a Third World city -- the proverbial 'city of dreadful nights.' Second is the changing nature of the city’s public spaces -- the demise of certain forms of urban sociality that has been mourned in recent literature as the passing of Bengali modernity. By examining architecture, city plans, paintings, literature, and official reports through the lens of postcolonial, feminist, and spatial theory, the book explores the conditions of colonialism and anti-colonial nationalism that produced the city as a modern artefact. At the centre of this exploration resides the problem of 'representing' the city, representation understood as description and narration, as well as political representation. In doing so, Chattopadhyay questions the very idea of colonial cities as creations of the colonizers, and the model of colonial cities as dual cities, split in black and white areas, in favour of a more complicated view of the topography.

Unrestricted, This thesis examines two cases air pollution regulation in the Environmental Protection Agency and military tribunal policy in the Department of Defense in an attempt to better understand bureaucratic politics in the modern era. The central claim is that modern bureaucratic agencies, while under significant pressure from congress, the president, and his political appointees to support the elected branches policy priorities, are frequently shielded from presidential and congressional usurpations. They are thus protected because of their internalization of and instrumental use of adversarial legal recourses, a mechanism I call litigation-fostered bureaucratic autonomy. It is hypothesized that litigation-fostered bureaucratic autonomy emerges from a conversion of the original place of courts as instruments of bureaucratic control. The main contributions of the thesis are its challenges to the literatures on bureaucratic control (principal-agent models), bureaucratic autonomy, and adversarial legalism. The argument is that all of these literatures have underestimated and/or misunderstood the complex use of litigation in agency rulemaking. The primary purpose of the paper is concept-building, not comprehensive analysis, but the paper finishes with a discussion of the next steps in the larger project and a reflection on possible applications of the project to other debates within political science, namely the debates on judicial behavior and regime politics.

Naser, M. M. (2020). The emerging global consensus on climate change and human mobility. London, UK: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315105031

Unrestricted, The main thesis of this dissertation is that whites' attitudes toward unpopular groups, such as undocumented immigrants, affect their support for "universal," programs such as government supported health care. More specifically, I argue that the complex racialization of Latinos and the specific ways in which they are stereotyped and constructed as illegal immigrants influences whites' views of government supported health care. This argument adds to the existing literature on race, policy, and public opinion in two critical ways. First, traditional literature largely focuses upon whites attitudes toward blacks. I contend it is critical to go beyond this black-white dichotomy and examine whites' attitudes toward other marginalized groups as well, specifically, Latinos and undocumented immigrants. Since Latinos are the largest minority group, and undocumented immigrants continue to be a growing part of American society, I argue it is important to examine white racial attitudes toward these groups also, in order to completely understand the effect of white racial attitudes on public policies. Second, I focus on a policy that Americans view as universal, health care. This contributes to the existing literature on race, and policy because this literature largely focuses on policies that are linked to a certain segment of the population, such as welfare policy which is intended for low-income people. My project shows the continuing important role racial attitudes play in shaping American attitudes toward public policies.

Unrestricted, This master's thesis explores the relationship between early racial socialization and racial attitudes among Latino immigrants residing in the United States. With increasing levels of Latino migration into the U.S., the traditional black-white color divide has been challenged and complicated by this multifaceted racial/ethnic grouping. I assess whether early racial socialization based on skin tone persists after migration to the U.S. My interest is in the realm of politics. Many scholars have noted that socialization related to racial hierarchies differs in Latin America from the U.S. Unlike in the U.S., where the "one-drop" rule has long prevailed, skin tone and not black ancestry is an important indicator of identity and social position. I first discuss the foundations for these two cultural views of skin tone. Secondly, I review the controversy about the two competing theories of skin tone that are related to U.S. and Latin American racial discourse. Third, I offer a way to test which theory is more appropriate in the changing U.S. population by looking at the relationship between early racial socialization and candidate evaluation. I ask the question of whether early racial socialization in Latin America, based on skin tone, persists through continued use of the skin tone hierarchy toward candidate evaluation in the U.S. Lastly, I discuss additional policy and/or political implications for findings derived from such a study.

Unrestricted, This paper looks at Supreme Court decision-making by examining cases that involved issues of slavery. After developing a population of 14 cases, I test the decisions in light of the three alternative hypotheses: attitudinalism, legalism, and regime theory. Each theory explains a different set of cases. The attitudinal model captures cases involving Mississippi laws governing slavery. The legal model explains suits in which the issue was whether a black was a slave or not. Finally, the regime account is most important in fugitive slave law.