How to Run a Government: So That Citizens Benefit and Taxpayers Don't Go Crazy


Michael Barber - 2015
    Political leaders struggle to honor their promises and officials find it near impossible to translate ideas into action, resulting in cynicism with the government and the political process. Why is this and how can this vicious spiral be reversed? In this groundbreaking book, Michael Barber draws on his wealth of experience working for and with government leaders the world over to present a blueprint for how to run a government. Using contemporary cases from every continent and classic examples from history, he makes a compelling case for a new approach. From Downing Street to Punjab, Charles I to Churchill, this book shows that the solution is less about ideology and more about clear priorities and meticulous planning.

Staffing Organizations


Herbert G. Heneman III - 1994
    This work contains components of the model, which include staffing models and strategy, staffing support systems (legal compliance, planning, job analysis and rewards), core staffing systems (recruitment, selection, employment), and staffing system and retention management.

Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives


Elizabeth S. Anderson - 2017
    We normally think of government as something only the state does, yet many of us are governed far more--and far more obtrusively--by the private government of the workplace. In this provocative and compelling book, Elizabeth Anderson argues that the failure to see this stems from long-standing confusions. These confusions explain why, despite all evidence to the contrary, we still talk as if free markets make workers free--and why so many employers advocate less government even while they act as dictators in their businesses.In many workplaces, employers minutely regulate workers' speech, clothing, and manners, leaving them with little privacy and few other rights. And employers often extend their authority to workers' off-duty lives. Workers can be fired for their political speech, recreational activities, diet, and almost anything else employers care to govern. Yet we continue to talk as if early advocates of market society--from John Locke and Adam Smith to Thomas Paine and Abraham Lincoln--were right when they argued that it would free workers from oppressive authorities. That dream was shattered by the Industrial Revolution, but the myth endures.Private Government offers a better way to talk about the workplace, opening up space for discovering how workers can enjoy real freedom.Based on the prestigious Tanner Lectures delivered at Princeton University's Center for Human Values, Private Government is edited and introduced by Stephen Macedo and includes commentary by cultural critic David Bromwich, economist Tyler Cowen, historian Ann Hughes, and philosopher Niko Kolodny.

Health Care Reform and American Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know


Lawrence R. Jacobs - 2010
    social legislation. The new law extends health insurance to nearly all Americans, fulfilling a century-long quest and bringing the United States to parity with other industrial nations. Affordable Care aims to control rapidly rising health care costs and promises to make the United States more equal, reversing four decades of rising disparities between the very rich and everyone else. Millions of people of modest means will gain new benefits and protections from insurance company abuses - and the tab will be paid by privileged corporations and the very rich.How did such a bold reform effort pass in a polity wracked by partisan divisions and intense lobbying by special interests? What does Affordable Care mean - and what comes next? In Health Care Reform and American Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know, Lawrence R. Jacobs and Theda Skocpol--two of the nation's leading experts on politics and health care policy--provide a concise and accessible overview. They explain the political battles of 2009 and 2010, highlighting White House strategies, the deals Democrats cut with interest groups, and the impact of agitation by Tea Partiers and progressives. Jacobs and Skocpol spell out what the new law can do for everyday Americans, what it will cost, and who will pay. Above all, they explain what comes next, as critical yet often behind-the-scenes battles rage over implementing reform nationally and in the fifty states. Affordable Care might end up being weakened. But, like Social Security and Medicare, it could also gain strength and popularity as the majority of Americans learn what it can do for them.

Humanizing the Economy: Co-operatives in the Age of Capital


John Restakis - 2010
    At the close of the twentieth century, corporate capitalism extended its reach over the globe. While its defenders argue that globalisation is the only way forward for modern, democratic societies, the spread of this system is failing to meet even the most basic needs of billions of individuals around the world. Moreover, the entrenchment of this free market system is undermining the foundations of healthy societies, caring communities, and personal wellbeing. This book shows how co-operative models for economic and social development can create a more equitable, just, and humane future. With over 800 million members in 85 countries and a long history linking economics to social values, the co-operative movement is the most powerful grassroots movement in the world. Its future as an alternative to corporate capitalism is explored through a wide range of real-world examples including: Emilia Romagna's co-operative economy in Northern Italy; Argentina's recovered factory movement; Japan's consumer and health co-operatives. Highlighting the hopes and struggles of everyday people seeking to make their world a better place, this is essential reading for anyone who cares about the reform of economics, globalisation, and social justice.

Why Socialism Works


Harrison Lievesley - 2017
    Please note this book only contains two words and is entirely satire.

AWS Well-Architected Framework (AWS Whitepaper)


Amazon Web Services - 2015
    By using the Framework you will learn architectural best practices for designing and operating reliable, secure, efficient, and cost-effective systems in the cloud.

Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States


Albert O. Hirschman - 1970
    Albert O. Hirschman makes a basic distinction between alternative ways of reacting to deterioration in business firms and, in general, to dissatisfaction with organizations: one, "exit," is for the member to quit the organization or for the customer to switch to the competing product, and the other, "voice," is for members or customers to agitate and exert influence for change "from within." The efficiency of the competitive mechanism, with its total reliance on exit, is questioned for certain important situations. As exit often undercuts voice while being unable to counteract decline, loyalty is seen in the function of retarding exit and of permitting voice to play its proper role. The interplay of the three concepts turns out to illuminate a wide range of economic, social, and political phenomena. As the author states in the preface, "having found my own unifying way of looking at issues as diverse as competition and the two-party system, divorce and the American character, black power and the failure of 'unhappy' top officials to resign over Vietnam, I decided to let myself go a little."

Public Administration: Concepts and Cases


Richard J. Stillman II - 1976
    Case studies and examples cover topics such as the Columbia space shuttle disaster, the shootings at Columbine High School, and the war in Iraq--making it easy to engage students in the readings.

Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics


Morley Winograd - 2008
    America’s demand for change in the 2008 election will cause another of our country’s periodic political makeovers. This realignment, like all others before it, will result from the coming of age of a new generation of young Americans—the Millennial Generation—and the full emergence of the Internet-based communications technology that this generation uses so well. Beginning in 2008, almost everything about American politics and government will transform—voting patterns, the fortunes of the two political parties, the issues that engage the nation, and our government and its public policy. Building on the seminal work of previous generational theorists,Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais demonstrate and describe, for the first time, the two types of realignments—“idealist” and “civic”—that have alternated with one another throughout the nation’s history.  Based on these patterns, Winograd and Hais predict that the next realignment will be very different from the last one that occurred in 1968. “Idealist” realignments, like the one put into motion forty years ago by the Baby Boomer Generation, produce, among other things, a political emphasis on divisive social issues and governmental gridlock. “Civic” realignments, like the one that is coming, and the one produced by the famous GI or “Greatest” Generation in the 1930s, by contrast, tend to produce societal unity, increased attention to and successful resolution of basic economic and foreign policy issues, and institution-building. The authors detail the contours and causes of the country’s five previous political makeovers, before delving deeply into the generational and technological trends that will shape the next.  The book’s final section forecasts the impact of the Millennial Makeover on the elections, issues, and public policies that will characterize America’s politics in the decades ahead. For additional information go to:Millennial Makeover website.

The War State: The Cold War Origins Of The Military-Industrial Complex And The Power Elite, 1945-1963


Michael Swanson - 2013
    It accounts for over 46% of total world arms spending. Before World War II it spent almost nothing on defense and hardly anyone paid any income taxes. You can't have big wars without big government. Such big expenditures are now threatening to harm the national economy. How did this situation come to be? In this book you'll learn how in the critical twenty years after World War II the United States changed from being a continental democratic republic to a global imperial superpower. Since then nothing has ever been the same again. In this book you will discover this secret history of the United States that formed the basis of the world we live in today. By buying this book you will discover: - How the end of European colonialism created a power vacuum that the United States used to create a new type of world empire backed by the most powerful military force in human history. - Why the Central Intelligence Agency was created and used to interfere in the internal affairs of other nations when the United States Constitution had no mechanism for such imperial activities. - How national security bureaucrats got President Harry Truman to approve of a new wild budget busting arms race after World War II that is still going on to this day. - Why President Eisenhower really gave his famous warning against the "military-industrial complex." - Why during the Kennedy administration the nuclear arms race almost led to the end of the world during the Cuban Missile Crisis. - How President Kennedy tried to deal with what had grown into a "permanent government" of power elite national security bureaucrats in the executive branch of the federal government that had become more powerful than the individual president himself. In this book you will discover this secret history of the United States that formed the basis of the world we live in today.

The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation


Drew Westen - 2007
    For two decades Drew Westen, professor of psychology and psychiatry at Emory University, has explored a theory of the mind that differs substantially from the more "dispassionate" notions held by most cognitive psychologists, political scientists, and economists—and Democratic campaign strategists. The idea of the mind as a cool calculator that makes decisions by weighing the evidence bears no relation to how the brain actually works. When political candidates assume voters dispassionately make decisions based on "the issues," they lose. That's why only one Democrat has been re-elected to the presidency since Franklin Roosevelt—and only one Republican has failed in that quest. In politics, when reason and emotion collide, emotion invariably wins. Elections are decided in the marketplace of emotions, a marketplace filled with values, images, analogies, moral sentiments, and moving oratory, in which logic plays only a supporting role. Westen shows, through a whistle-stop journey through the evolution of the passionate brain and a bravura tour through fifty years of American presidential and national elections, why campaigns succeed and fail. The evidence is overwhelming that three things determine how people vote, in this order: their feelings toward the parties and their principles, their feelings toward the candidates, and, if they haven't decided by then, their feelings toward the candidates' policy positions.Westen turns conventional political analyses on their head, suggesting that the question for Democratic politics isn't so much about moving to the right or the left but about moving the electorate. He shows how it can be done through examples of what candidates have said—or could have said—in debates, speeches, and ads. Westen's discoveries could utterly transform electoral arithmetic, showing how a different view of the mind and brain leads to a different way of talking with voters about issues that have tied the tongues of Democrats for much of forty years—such as abortion, guns, taxes, and race. You can't change the structure of the brain. But you can change the way you appeal to it. And here's how…

Causes of War


Jack S. Levy - 2009
    Written by leading scholars in the field, "Causes of War" provides the first comprehensive analysis of the leading theories relating to the origins of both interstate and civil wars.Utilizes historical examples to illustrate individual theories throughoutIncludes an analysis of theories of civil wars as well as interstate wars -- one of the only texts to do bothWritten by two former International Studies Association Presidents

The Myth of the Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern Age


Archie Brown - 2014
    Within democracies, although 'strong leaders' are seldom as strong or independent as they purport to be, the idea that one person is entitled to take the big decisions is dangerous nonetheless, and the advantages of a collegial style of leadership are too often overlooked.In reality, only a minority of political leaders make a big difference, by challenging assumptions about the politically possible or setting in motion systemic change. Yet in a democracy that is rare. It is especially when enlightened leaders acquire power in an authoritarian system that the opportunity for radical transformation occurs.Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson, Willy Brandt and Mikhail Gorbachev, Deng Xiaoping and Nelson Mandela, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair are among the leaders whom Brown examines in this original and illuminating study.

The 24-Carrot Manager


Adrian Gostick - 2002
    Providing strategies and solutions for the managers of today, this book offers answers for improving employee commitment and profitability by strategically acknowledging employee effort. How is it done? The deceptively simply answer: with carrots.