This book explores local partnership-based initiatives to tackle European-wide problems of poverty and social exclusion. A major comparative study of the fast developing theme of social exclusion, the contributors look at its causes, effects and at the ways it might be combatted. Based on in-depth, cross-national research from areas across Europe it provides a uniquely authoritative account of the complexities of policy development in the EU, and will be invaluable to researchers in European studies, politics, and economics.

The searches by European Union major states for 'joined up' approaches to inner city regeneration are examined thematically through a focus on policy evolution since the mid-1970s. Key issues addressed include the physical, social, employment, and urban security agenda. The product of long-term research, drawing on extensive qualitative and quantitative sources at national level, backed by in-depth case study investigation of five large cities, the book assesses how contemporary urban rejuvenation is being regulated, including the increasing contribution of the European Union.

This Combat Poverty research study examines the role of local partnerships in promoting social inclusion in Ireland. Ireland is among the EU countries who have a strong model of local partnership. The book assesses the application of the partnership model in tackling social exclusion, canvasses the views of various stakeholders as to its policy impact, and makes recommendations for the continued operation of local partnerships as an instrument of social inclusion.

This book looks at transformations in citizenship politics in the EU Member States. It argues that the anti-discrimination agenda in the Treaty of Amsterdam has affected traditional patterns of national integration of ethnic minorities and migrants in Europe. Comparing France and Britain, it also looks at religious factors and Islam in Europe.

This important book examines the ways in which community economic development can contribute to local and regional regeneration. It presents a unique overview of the state of contemporary British practice in this important policy area and provides a series of fresh, theoretical, methodological and empirical insights which help us to understand ways in which communities are facing up to the challenges of devising and bringing about their own revitalisation. Community Economic Development is underpinned by the argument that much conventional regeneration work represents at best a short-term fix rather than a long-term sustainable solution to the problems of socially excluded communities. The emphasis of the book is largely on the British experience with contributions from a rich mix of new and established academics and practitioners.

Democratic Governance examines the changing nature of the modern state and reveals the dangers these changes pose to democracy. Mark Bevir shows how new ideas about governance have gradually displaced old-style notions of government in Britain and around the world. Policymakers cling to outdated concepts of representative government while at the same time placing ever more faith in expertise, markets, and networks. Democracy exhibits blurred lines of accountability and declining legitimacy. Bevir explores how new theories of governance undermined traditional government in the twentieth century. Politicians responded by erecting great bureaucracies, increasingly relying on policy expertise and abstract notions of citizenship and, more recently, on networks of quasi-governmental and private organizations to deliver services using market-oriented techniques. Today, the state is an unwieldy edifice of nineteenth-century government buttressed by a sprawling substructure devoted to the very different idea of governance--and democracy has suffered. In Democratic Governance, Bevir takes a comprehensive look at governance and the history and thinking behind it. He provides in-depth case studies of constitutional reform, judicial reform, joined-up government, and police reform. He argues that the best hope for democratic renewal lies in more interpretive styles of expertise, dialogic forms of policymaking, and more diverse avenues for public participation.

Taking as a starting point that the much discussed concept of 'globalization' is happening, the distinguished contributors to this collection of essays examine the difficult relationship between 'globalization' and 'public governance'. They argue that there are important transnational and supra-national elements of a new public order, which remain, however, beyond the traditional borders of state (but not beyond the state as such), while new organizations and institutions are brought to bear on economic processes which impose a legal and political structure on global and economic processes.