This volume seeks to describe and explain how European countries have been resolving political issues that involve conflicts of fundamental values.

This book develops an innovative system, in the form of an "app", that harnesses the power of the internet to predict which sorts of people will prefer which policy in ANY planning situation. It chronicles the accumulated research wisdom behind the system’s reasoning, along with several less successful approaches to policy making that have been found wanting in the past – including the myth, usually peddled by strategic planners, that it is possible to find a "best" plan which optimally satisfies everybody. The book lays out an entirely new kind of Planning Support System (PSS). It will facilitate decision-making that is far more community-sensitive than previously, and it will drastically improve the performance of anyone who needs to plan within socially-sensitive contexts – which is all of us. A standout feature of the system is its commitment to “scientific rigour”, as shown by its predicted plan scores always being graphically presented within error margins so that true statistical significance is instantly observable. Moreover, the probabilities that its predictions are correct are always shown – a refreshing change from most, if not all other Decision Support Systems (DSS) that simply expect users to accept their outputs on faith alone.

In this book, Sanjaya Baru, one of India’s most respected commentators on political and economic issues, pays close attention to the strategic consequences of India’s increasingly impressive economic performance. The new turn in India's economic policies and performance in the last decade of the twentieth century; the success of Indian enterprise in the post-WTO world; the emergence of a confident professional middle-class; a demonstrated nuclear capability; and the resilience of an open society and an open economy, in the face of multiple and complex challenges, have all shaped India's response to the tectonic shifts in the global balance of power in the post-Cold War era. In this collection of academic essays and newspaper columns, Baru explores the business of diplomacy and the diplomacy of business in a rising India. The role of India's cultural and intellectual 'soft power' in shaping global perceptions of India are examined. The book offers a panoramic view of the geopolitics and the geo-economics of India's recent rise as a free market democracy, and as such will interest both experts and lay readers.

This collection of classic essays focuses on the theoretical frameworks that informed the work of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham, the methodologies and working practices that the Centre developed for conducting academic research and examples of the studies carried out under the auspices of the Centre. This volume is split into seven thematic sections that are introduced by key academics working in the field of cultural studies, and includes a preface by eminent scholar, Stuart Hall. The thematic sections are: Literature and Society Popular Culture and Youth Subculture Media Women's Studies and Feminism Race History Education and Work.

Alcohol consumption is frequently described as a contemporary, worsening and peculiarly British social problem that requires radical remedial regulation. Informed by historical research and sociological analysis, this book takes an innovative and refreshing look at how public attitudes and the regulation of alcohol have developed through time. It argues that, rather than a response to trends in consumption or harm, ongoing anxieties about alcohol are best understood as ‘hangovers’ derived, in particular, from the Victorian period. The product of several years of research, this book aims to help readers re-evaluate their understandings of drinking. As such, it is essential reading for students, academics and anyone with a serious interest in Britain’s ‘drink problem’.

First Published in 1982. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A Lifetime in English Education is a reminder of how important a good school can be in providing pupils from all backgrounds with a rounded education that can only strengthen the bonds of society. This unique insight on the history of post-war British education, tells the personal journey of Philip Vennis – a crusading educationalist, whose long career started at Dulwich College, after which he spent a short time at Bletchley Park as an intelligence officer. Following his degree from Cambridge he taught for nine years at East Ham Grammar School for Boys, became a Deputy Headmaster at Ounsdale Comprehensive School in Wombourne, and then a Headmaster at New Mills Grammar School, Derbyshire, finishing his career with almost twenty years as Principal of one of Hampshire’s premier Sixth Form colleges at Itchen College, Southampton. As his career develops so does his conviction in a belief that a wide ranging education should be provided by the state for all. Philip’s career spanned the post-war education acts, and the rise of the comprehensive system, right up to the cultural changes of the eighties. His belief in public service, his passion for the arts, and his conviction in the power of education to help people transcend their backgrounds is completely different from the primary experience for most current Heads, that of managing a budget and making schools more cost-effective and running them like a business. This book, written by his wife, Diana Vennis, should be an inspiration to all progressive educationalists. In a contemporary environment where the co-ed, comprehensive, open access philosophy seems to have lost out to a market-led educational system, this book is a timely reminder of the journey British education has taken in the post-war period.

This book explores the significance of alcohol in the Middle East and Maghreb as a powerful catalyst of social and political division. It shows that the solidarities and polarities created by disputes over alcohol are built on arguments far more complex than oppositions on religion or consumption alone. In a region in which alcohol is banned by Islamic rules, yet allows its production and consumption, alcohol has always been contentious. However, this volume examines the different forms of social authority – religious, cultural and political – to offer a new understanding of drinking behaviours in the Middle East and North Africa. It suggests that alcohol, being at the same time an import and product of local industry, epitomises the tensions inherent to the conforming of Islamic societies to global trends, which seek to redefine political communities, social hierarchies and gender roles. The chapters challenge common misconceptions about alcohol in this region, arguing instead that medical discourses on alcohol dependency hide stances on national independence in an imperialist context; that the focus on religion also tends to conceal disputes on alcohol as a social struggle; and that disputes on inebriation are more about masculinity than judging private leisure. In doing so, the volume presents alcohol as a way of grasping the power relations that structure the societies of the Middle East and Maghreb.

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.