Marred by political tumult and violent conflict since the early twentieth century, Gaza has been subject to a multiplicity of rulers. Still not part of a sovereign state, it would seem too exceptional to be a revealing site for a study of government. Ilana Feldman proves otherwise. She demonstrates that a focus on the Gaza Strip uncovers a great deal about how government actually works, not only in that small geographical space but more generally. Gaza’s experience shows how important bureaucracy is for the survival of government. Feldman analyzes civil service in Gaza under the British Mandate (1917–48) and the Egyptian Administration (1948–67). In the process, she sheds light on how governing authority is produced and reproduced; how government persists, even under conditions that seem untenable; and how government affects and is affected by the people and places it governs. Drawing on archival research in Gaza, Cairo, Jerusalem, and London, as well as two years of ethnographic research with retired civil servants in Gaza, Feldman identifies two distinct, and in some ways contradictory, governing practices. She illuminates mechanisms of “reiterative authority” derived from the minutiae of daily bureaucratic practice, such as the repetitions of filing procedures, the accumulation of documents, and the habits of civil servants. Looking at the provision of services, she highlights the practice of “tactical government,” a deliberately restricted mode of rule that makes limited claims about governmental capacity, shifting in response to crisis and operating without long-term planning. This practice made it possible for government to proceed without claiming legitimacy: by holding the question of legitimacy in abeyance. Feldman shows that Gaza’s governments were able to manage under, though not to control, the difficult conditions in Gaza by deploying both the regularity of everyday bureaucracy and the exceptionality of tactical practice.

Every day, we are barraged by statistics, images, and emotional messages that present poverty as a problem to be quantified, managed, and solved. Global generations present the poor as a heterogeneous group and stress globalized solutions to the problem of poverty. Governing the Poor exposes the ways in which such generalized descriptions and quantifications marginalize the poor and their experiences.

Here is the story of the European Union by one of its leading thinkers. Andrew Duff describes how the EU was born at a time when federalism was seen as the only way to lasting peace, but how continuing tension between federalists and nationalists has left the Union unable to fulfil its promise. The author argues that the rise of impressive institutions such as the European Parliament, Bank and Court has not been matched by the emergence of a capable democratic executive: so the problem of weak governance at the European level must be rectified if the risk of illegitimacy is not to grow. In his career as a noted politician and commentator, Andrew Duff has worked towards the goal of federal union. He regrets Brexit but is not surprised by it, and argues that if the remaining EU makes a success of the federal experiment, the British may in due time be back.

Recently global health issues have leapt to the forefront of the international agenda and are now an everyday concern around the world. The war for global health is clearly being lost on many fronts and the massive body count is mounting fast. Re-emerging diseases such as polio and tuberculosis, long thought to be on the verge of elimination, are now coupled with the devastation of newly emerging ones such as SARS and avian influenza. In addition, the shock of bioterrorism has given a tragic poignancy to the importance of studying the failure of the global health governance system. Compiled by renowned specialists, this volume studies the global challenges and responses to these issues, as well as the roles of central institutions such as the World Health Organization, the World Trade Organization and the G8. Health practitioners and clinicians seeking a context for their front-line care provision, as well as scholars and students of global health issues, will find the volume highly valuable.

Problems posed by Syria s chemical weapons attacks, Egypt s ouster of an elected government, and myriad other global dilemmas beg the question of whether and how the world can be governed. The challenge is addressing what former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Problems without Passports environmental, economic, humanitarian, and political crises that threaten stability, prosperity, and even human survival. Everything is globalized everything "except" politics, which remain imprisoned behind national borders. The world has changed, but our basic way of managing it has not. We pursue fitful, tactical, short-term, and local responses for actual or looming threats that require sustained, strategic, longer-run, and global actions. With clarity and passion, Thomas G. Weiss argues for a diversity of organizational arrangements some centralized, some decentralized and a plurality of problem-solving strategies some worldwide, some local. He proposes a three-pronged strategy: the expansion of the formidable amount of practical global governance that already exists, the harnessing of political and economic possibilities opened by the communications revolution, and the recommitment by states to a fundamental revamping of the United Nations."

This book synthesizes findings regarding the political drivers of institutional change in extractive industry governance. It analyses resource governance from the late nineteenth century to the present in Bolivia, Ghana, Peru, and Zambia, focusing on the ways in which resource governance and national political settlements interact.

Sustainable development is often thought of as a product that can be obtained by following a prescribed course of interventions. Rather than conceptualizing it as a sweet spot of economic, ecological, and social balance, sustainable development is an ongoing process of embroilments requiring constant negotiation of often-competing aims. Sustainable development politics yield highly uneven results among different members of society and different geographic areas. As this book argues, such imbalances mean that sustainable development processes often prioritize economic over environmental goals, perpetuating and reinforcing economic and political inequalities. Governing the Rainforest looks at development and conservation efforts in the Brazilian Amazon, where the government and corporate interests bump up against those of environmentalists and local populations. This book asks why sustainable development continues to be such a powerful and influential idea in the region, and what impact it has had on various political and economic interests and geographic areas. In other words, as Eve Z. Bratman argues, sustainable development is a political practice in itself. This book offers detailed case study analysis, including of the creation of vast conservation corridors, the construction of one of the largest hydroelectric plants in the world, and new forms of land settlement projects. Based on a decade of Bratman's ethnographic fieldwork throughout Brazil, and particularly along the Trans-Amazonian Highway, Governing the Rainforest offers a fresh take on sustainable development within a multi-level analysis of actors, discourses, and practices.

Governing Health Systems: For Nations and Communities Around the World examines the complex relationships between governance and performance in community and national health systems. Each chapter provides an in-depth case study, using both qualitative and quantitative methods, on health systems in many countries, including Uganda, Ghana, India, Zambia, Japan, Nigeria, Indonesia, Brazil, Palestine, and South Korea. The chapters were written by former Takemi Fellows, who were mid-career research fellows at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and their colleagues. This case study approach yields important findings as well as contextual insights about the challenges and accomplishments in addressing governance issues in national and community health systems around the world. Health policymakers around the world are struggling to address the multiple challenges of governing health systems. These challenges also represent important themes for the research mission of the Takemi Program in International Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. This book is based on the program’s thirtieth anniversary symposium held in October 2013 at Harvard. The studies presented in this book—deep examinations of illustrative examples of health system governance for communities and nations—contribute to our knowledge about global health and assist policymakers in dealing with the complex practical problems of health systems. In short, this book addresses central questions about governing health systems—and why governance matters.

Managing early modern England was difficult because the state was weak. Although Queen Elizabeth was the supreme ruler, she had little bureaucracy, no standing army, and no police force. This meant that her chief manager, Lord Burghley, had to work with the gentlemen of the magisterial classes in order to keep the peace and defend the realm. He did this successfully by employing the shared value systems of the ruling classes, an improved information system, and gentle coercion. Using Burghley's archive, Governing by Virtue explores how he ran a state whose employees were venal, who owned their jobs for life, or whose power derived from birth and possession, not allegiance, even during national crises like that of the Spanish Armada.

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