Contrary to popular belief, the problem with U.S. higher education is not too much politics but too little. Far from being bastions of liberal bias, American universities have largely withdrawn from the world of politics. So conclude Bruce L. R. Smith, Jeremy Mayer, and Lee Fritschler in this illuminating book. C losed Minds? d draws on data from interviews, focus groups, and a new national survey by the authors, as well as their decades of experience in higher education to paint the most comprehensive picture to date of campus political attitudes. It finds that while liberals outnumber conservatives within faculty ranks, even most conservatives believe that ideology has little impact on hiring and promotion. Today's students are somewhat more conservative than their professors, but few complain of political bias in the classroom. Similarly, a Pennsylvania legislative inquiry, which the authors explore as a case study of conservative activism in higher education, found that political bias was "rare" in the state's public colleges and universities. Yet this ideological peace on campus has been purchased at a high price. American universities are rarely hospitable to lively discussions of issues of public importance. They largely shun serious political debate, all but ignore what used to be called civics, and take little interest in educating students to be effective citizens. Smith, Mayer, and Fritschler contrast the current climate of disengagement with the original civic mission of American colleges and universities. In concluding, they suggest how universities can reclaim and strengthen their place in the nation's political and civic life.

Local governments do not stand alone—they find themselves in new relationships not only with state and federal government, but often with a widening spectrum of other public and private organizations as well. The result of this re-forming of local governments calls for new collaborations and managerial responses that occur in addition to governmental and bureaucratic processes-as-usual, bringing locally generated strategies or what the authors call "jurisdiction-based management" into play. Based on an extensive study of 237 cities within five states, Collaborative Public Management provides an in-depth look at how city officials work with other governments and organizations to develop their city economies and what makes these collaborations work. Exploring the more complex nature of collaboration across jurisdictions, governments, and sectors, Agranoff and McGuire illustrate how public managers address complex problems through strategic partnerships, networks, contractual relationships, alliances, committees, coalitions, consortia, and councils as they function together to meet public demands through other government agencies, nonprofit associations, for-profit entities, and many other types of nongovernmental organizations. Beyond the "how" and "why," Collaborative Public Management identifies the importance of different managerial approaches by breaking them down into parts and sequences, and describing the many kinds of collaborative activities and processes that allow local governments to function in new ways to address the most nettlesome public challenges.

Today’s public managers not only have to function as leaders within their agencies, they must also establish and coordinate multi-organizational networks of other public agencies, private contractors, and the public. This important transformation has been

A synergy between academia and activism has long been a goal of both scholars and advocacy organizations in communications research. The essays in Communications Research in Action demonstrate, for the first time in one volume, how an effective partnership between the two can contribute to a more democratic public sphere by helping to break down the digital divide to allow greater access to critical technologies, democratizing the corporate ownership of the media industry, and offering myriad opportunities for varied articulation of individuals' ideas.Essays spanning topics such as the effect of ownership concentration on children's television programming, the media's impact on community building, and the global consequences of communications research will not only be valuable to scholars, activists, and media policy makers but will also be instrumental in serving as a template for further exploration in collaboration.

Combining the theoretical tools of comparative politics with the substantive concerns of environmental policy, experts explore responses to environmental problems across nations and political systems

Holistic, comparative analysis of multiple budget systems and contexts. Increasingly, governments must respond to the negative impacts of global economic crises on their revenues to finance needed services, and the collapse of their real industrial and financial-banking sectors. How they respond most effectively is a new study area which demands sharing of lessons between nations on government fiscal policies and performance. Budgeting for and financing of government programs and services vary widely among nations and it is important that we understand the implications of similarities and differences in methods and systems. Only through comparative analysis of public budgeting systems can results be improved in such policy areas as health, education, economic stabilization, and infrastructure development. The current global economic crisis has increased fiscal deficits and the accumulated public debts of most countries. It is especially critical now that lessons from budgeting in particular regional clusters be compared and that policymakers adopt the most relevant and useful ones that are available. In Comparative Public Budgeting, George M. Guess and Lance T. LeLoup examine conditions affecting budget decisions at the national and local levels. They review how nations classify their revenue and expenditure transactions, compare cultural and economic conditions between regions, and examine legal and institutional features that affect public management of budgets. Incorporating the most recent and significant changes in budget policy spanning more than 230 nations including the United States, the Commonwealth countries, and a selected group of European Union members, this book offers a fresh analysis of how cultural, institutional, and political forces determine how countries allocate resources and spend them for programs and policies.

This book argues, against the current view, that competitiveness--that is, the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector--matters to the long-term health of the U.S. economy and particularly to its long-term capacity to raise the standard of living of its citizens. The book challenges the arguments popularized most recently by Paul Krugman that competitiveness is a dangerous obsession that distracts us from the question most central to solving the problem of stagnant real income growth, namely, what causes productivity growth, especially in the service sector. The central argument is that, if the U.S. economy is to achieve full employment with rising real wages, it is necessary to enhance the competitiveness of its tradable goods sector. The book shows that current account deficits cannot be explained by macroeconomic mismanagement but are rather the consequence of an uncompetitive manufacturing sector. It finds that the long-term health of the manufacturing sector requires not only across-the-board policies to remedy problems of low or inefficient investment, but also sectoral policies to address problems that are strategic to resolving the balance of payments problems. Lessons are drawn from the experience of some European and Asian countries. This book will be of interest to economists, political scientists, and business researchers concerned with the place of the manufacturing sector in overall health of the U.S. economy, with issues of industrial policy and industrial restructuring, and with the conditions for rising standards of living. Candace Howes is Associate Professor, Barbara Hogate Ferrin Chair, Connecticut College. Ajit Singh is Professor of Economics, Queens College, Cambridge.