This book explores the extent to which a transformation of public employment regimes has taken place in four Western countries, and the factors influencing the pathways of reform. It demonstrates how public employment regimes have unravelled in different domains of public service, contesting the idea that the state remains a 'model' employer.

This edited collection assembles cutting-edge comparative policy research on contemporary policies relevant to gender and workplace issues. Contributors analyze contemporary gender-related employment policies ranging from parental leave and maternity programs, sexual harassment, and work/life balance to gender mainstreaming. Gender and Work in Comparative Perspective thoroughly illustrates the richness of understanding that can be gained through the juxtaposition of a variety of r...

How are metropolitan regions governed? What makes some regions more effective than others in managing policies that cross local jurisdictional boundaries? Political coordination among municipal governments is necessary to attract investment, rapid and efficient public transit systems, and to sustain cultural infrastructure in metropolitan regions. In this era of fragmented authority, local governments alone rarely possess the capacity to address these policy issues alone.This book ...

Despite a substantial legacy of literature on EU interest representation, there is no systematic analysis available on whether a European model of interest representation in EU governance is detectable across functional, and territorial, categories of actors. ‘Functional’ actors include associations for business interests, the professions, and trade unions, as well as ‘NGOs’ and social movements; territorial based entities include public actors (such as regional and local government), as w...

This book gives a practitioner's account of international experiences with rural development seen from a German angle. It argues for a development co-operation for rural areas that actively supports popular participation, beneficiaries' self-organization, decentralization and, consequently, smaller self-managed (para)projects rather than large, top-down organized rural development projects.

The delegation of policy-competencies to the European Union has changed the context in which national actors form their interests and represent them. Shaping European markets and societies, EU regulation has important effects in the member states. This book analyses how business interest organizations respond to this challenge and what strategies they develop to cope with European integration. Starting from the idea that institutional contexts, resource dependencies, and organizational cha...

Bringing together theoretical, empirical and comparative perspectives on the European Social Model (ESM) and transitional labour market policy, this volume contains theoretical accounts of the ESM and a discussion of policy implications for European social and employment policies that derive from research on transitional labour markets. It provides an economic as well as legal assessment of the European Employment Strategy and contains evaluations of new forms of governance both in Europea...

This revised and expanded edition of a benchmark collection compares how civil services around the world have adapted to cope with managing public services in the 21st century. The volume provides insights into multi-level governance, juridification and issues of efficiency and responsiveness as well as exploring the impact of fiscal austerity.

The challenges faced by the public sector are many and varied. Civil services at the forefront of tackling pressing problems in a whole range of areas from climate change to income inequality are being allocated less money to do so. This collection explores how public sectors have adapted to address the demands placed on them in the 21st Century.

An edited book in the Critical Perspectives on Work and Employment series associated with the annual International Labour Process Conference. The book focuses on comparative work and employment relations research conducted within a broader political economy framework. Written by leading academics, it contains cutting-edge research.

Countries which take spatial planning seriously should take planning law and property rights also seriously. There is an unavoidable logical relationship between planning, law, and property rights. However, planning by law and property rights is so familiar and taken for granted that we do not think about the theory behind it. As a result, we do not think abstractly about its strengths and weaknesses, about what can be achieved with it and what not, how it can be improved, how it could be ...

The aims of and motives for development cooperation have changed significantly in recent times. Besides pursuing short- and longer-term objectives in their own economic, foreign policy and other interests, donors usually have a recognisable and genuine interest in assisting countries in their processes of development.