bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Infrastructure Development Index
Authors: Lufumpa Charles Leyeka , Letsara Nirina , Saidi Slaheddine
Published: September 2017

Despite robust recent economic growth rates, Africa remains the least competitive global region. Inadequate infrastructure is a serious constraint on doing business in the continent. This demonstrates the close linkage between infrastructure and the region’s competitiveness. Moreover, the Africa Progress Panel has ranked infrastructure development as a key priority for the advancement of the continent, and has urged the G20 leadership to continue to give it their highest support. It is against this background that the African Development Bank developed the Africa Infrastructure Development Index (AIDI) to monitor the status and progress of infrastructure development across the continent. This effort is to enhance evidence based policy making in Africa – especially with specific reference to infrastructure. The Index provides countries with the framework to assess their position and related changes with respect to the requisite infrastructure investments.
Integrated approaches for infrastructure
Authors: Lufumpa Charles Leyeka , Mubila Maurice , Yepes Tito
Published: September 2017

Given some of the key infrastructure challenges facing the continent, what is needed is a regionally integrated approach to confront these infrastructure challenges. The two main pillars of the infrastructure agenda are: (i) to strengthen the foundations for higher productivity in the main cities and (ii) to ensure a more even distribution of basic living standards. By clustering, firms increase the demand for infrastructure, thereby reaping cost savings from agglomeration. Inclusive growth also demands a more even distribution of basic living conditions in both rural and urban areas. This entails framing not only a coherent urban agenda, but also a commensurate rural agenda, to counter the incentives for rural–urban migration. What is needed is a broader vision of the technologies that can be deployed for service provision; the bundling of services wherever possible to increase effectiveness in peri-urban and rural areas; and a complementary rural development strategy.
Infrastructure deficit and opportunities in Africa
Authors: Mafusire Albert , Brixiova Zuzana , Anyanwu John , Meng Qingwei
Published: September 2017

Private sector investment opportunities in Africa’s infrastructure are huge. Regulatory reforms across African countries are identified as critical to the realization of the expected investment flows in the infrastructure sector. However, planners and policy makers need to note that there are infrastructure deficiencies in all subsectors with low income countries (LICs) in Africa facing the greatest challenge. Inefficiencies in implementing infrastructure projects account for USD 17 billion annually and improving the capacity of African countries will help minimize these costs. In this regard, the donor community must play a greater role in African LICs while innovative financing mechanisms must be the focus in the relatively richer countries of the continent. Traditional sources of financing infrastructure development remain important but private investment is critical in closing the current gaps. Countries need to devise mechanisms to exploit opportunities and avoid pitfalls in investing in infrastructure.
Innovative financing for infrastructure: Africa50 Fund issues
Authors: Kararach George
Published: September 2017

Increasing the rate of infrastructure delivery in Africa implies a greater focus on project preparation and project development. The specific case of the Africa50 Fund as a financing vehicle is explored. The vehicle aims at mobilizing private financing to accelerate the speed of infrastructure delivery in Africa. Africa50 will focus on high-impact national and regional projects in the energy, transport, ICT and water sectors. A number of issues for the Fund’s success are discussed. First, to deliver on Africa’s current infrastructure pipeline, including PIDA, Africa50 will need an equity investment of USD 10 billion, as well as attracting USD 100 billion worth of local and global capital. Second, to function as a commercially oriented financial institution, Africa50 will need to preserve and grow its capital base and provide a return to shareholders. Finally, the ownership of the founder’s equity by African countries is central to the strategy of Africa50.
Scoping corporate elites and public education
Authors: Gunter Helen M. , Apple Michael W. , Hall David
Published: September 2017

This book reports on primary research into the role and influence of corporate elites in regard to the reform of public education. This introductory chapter outlines this purpose, with a focus on corporatised governance. We outline the trends in reform, and the role of elites and corporate elites in particular, and we then provide an over view of the book and the main contributions of the reported research.
Corporate elites and the student identity market
Authors: Burch Patricia , LaFave Andrew L. , Smith Jahni M.A.
Published: September 2017

This chapter focuses in on the relationships between corporate elites in the United States and two distinct aspects of that emerging landscape: a large not-for-profit firm called inBloom that stored and analyzed student data and a smaller not-for-profit firm called Geo Listening that monitors students’ public social media profiles for negative behavioural indicators. Companies rise (Geo Listening) and fall (inBloom), and we identify the contribution of how and why elite managers operate within the political context in which business operates. We examine the interplay of corporate and political elites, and we note the shift towards more regulation. The implications of this are examined, and while we recognise the dynamics of technology and corporate investment, we also conclude by asking in whose best interests are these firms acting, and who benefits most from their involvement in public education.
The corporate false promise of techno-utopia: the case of Amplify!
Authors: Saltman Kenneth J.
Published: September 2017

This chapter examines the convergence of for profit educational publishing and for profit technology corporations to highlight the economic interests and ideological framings behind the widespread celebration of educational technology. The chapter explains some of the key elements involved in efforts to expand for profit educational technology contracting including monopolistic markets, the ideology of technophilia, reliance upon the standards and standardization movement, the revolving door of educational leaders between the public and private sector, and the use of control and coercion under the guise of autonomy and choice. The chapter warns against the false promises of adaptive learning technologies, the equation of technology with economic development, open source and public school privatization more broadly.
Fighting for the local: Americans for Prosperity and the struggle for school boards
Authors: Schirmer Eleni , Apple Michael W.
Published: September 2017

Corporate-backed philanthropic groups have become increasingly involved in political processes in the past ten years. The Koch Brothers’ and their political advocacy groups, have become particularly prominent players. Their influence extends beyond high-profile state-level elections and increasingly have begun investing in municipal affairs of small cities and towns, such as school board elections like Kenosha, Wisconsin and Jefferson County, Colorado in the US. This chapter asks, why do groups like Americans for Prosperity care about small-town school board elections? This chapter highlights two particularly significant local examples in the United States: school board elections in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2014 and Jefferson County, Colorado in 2015. Through documentary analysis of school board records, news reports, and district evaluations, in both Wisconsin and Colorado, we chronicle the political contest for control of each school board. Our findings illustrate the ideological and political project of corporate, conservative influence in public education in the United States.
Double standards: everyday corporate strategies at an elite school in Argentina
Authors: Prosser Howard
Published: September 2017

This chapter explores the way that a private “English” school in Argentina negotiates curriculum demands at the global and national level. On the one hand, its International Baccalaureate programme positions the school within an educational frame that has cache locally and globally. On the other, the school also offers the state-based syllabus in an innovative fashion that involves some “curriculum chicanery” from the administration. Juggling these demands is best suited to a school with the corporate nous and wherewithal to manage them. Consequently, the school’s everyday practices strategically support an elite clientele that demands a valuable and exchangeable commodity: namely, private education that outstrips its public equivalent.
The usual suspects? Free schools in England and the influence of corporate elites
Authors: Higham Rob
Published: September 2017

Education policy in England has featured a plethora of attempts to increase institutional diversity among state schools. As part of the promotion of choice and competition in quasi-markets, diversity policies have encouraged new agents to enter the state education system as private providers of state schools. Free Schools in England have recently added a new dimension to these processes of privatisation and corporatisation. In this context, this chapter analyses who has entered the state education system as a successful Free School proposer, what policy processes have supported their entry and what patterns of influence and advantage emerge as a result. Drawing on a demographic analysis of Free School proposers and semi-structured interviews with 60 proposer groups, the analysis demonstrates how three differently positioned elite groupings have become particularly important actors. These are identified as a corporate elite within the private sector, a socio-economic class elite within civil society and a state school elite within the public sector. Examining the features of these three groupings, the chapter explores the processes and consequences of the entry and expansion of elite influence in state education.
When students ‘speak back’: challenging elite approaches to teaching, learning and education policy
Authors: Smyth John
Published: September 2017

This chapter traces the way schooling systems have become increasingly implicated in and infected by a singular neoliberal policy strain culminating in an alarming propulsion of so-called ‘disadvantaged’ young people out school in affluent western countries, effectively resulting in a denial of their access to relevant and equitably funded public education.
By listening to the stories of young people who have been ‘shoved’ out of school in order to sustain the neoliberal meritocratic sham, the chapter explores both the conditions that have led to their forced disconnection from schooling, as well as a very different set of conditions which young people ‘speak into existence’ when they are permitted to re-engage with learning in alternative educational settings.
The educational policy message of this chapter is that far from being the uneducable pathological ‘basket cases’ the neoliberal policy regime insists on portraying them as, these young people are in fact canny witnesses and agents capable of constructing a very different set of learning conditions—ones that are anathema to the competitive, individualistic, consumer-driven and elitist policy trajectories that have exiled them.
The challenge of corporate elites and public education
Authors: Gunter Helen M. , Apple Michael W. , Hall David
Published: September 2017

This chapter sets out to summarise the key messages and trends in the research reported in the essays in this book. We take forward the idea of corporatised governance, where we examine what the data and analysis has to say about the privatisation of public service education, and the particular contribution of corporate elites. Specifically we identify the movement of educational issues from the public to private domains; the relocation of public education issues from government institutions to particular private organisations and individuals; and the redesign of the meaning and conduct of professional practices, and teaching and learning. We examine what public education means, and how research has a role in making the case.
Introduction: directly elected mayors in urban governance
Authors: Sweeting David
Published: September 2017

This chapter opens the work by introducing directly elected mayors as political leaders in systems of urban government, and the expectations that are placed upon them. It identifies the core features of the directly elected mayor model, of direct election, of the creation of a single identifiable leader with a secure term of office, before discussing its advantages and disadvantages. Directly elected mayors are then placed in the context of urban governance, urbanization, and globalization. The chapter ends with a description of the other chapters that comprise the book.
Can the directly elected mayor model deliver? Innovation, limitation and adaptation: lessons from the City of Bristol
Authors: Oliver Thom
Published: September 2017

This chapter analyses the position of a directly elected mayor as a mechanism to deliver transformative change to local government in England. Through a narrative exploration of the trajectory of mayoral governance in the City of Bristol, analysis interrogates where the model has succeeded, where it has met barriers, and the capacity of the position of elected mayor to innovate in order to overcome those challenges. Through the use of thematic vignettes, the argument is made that whilst the model offers significant potential for transformative change, a number of historic, structural and contextual factors have significantly limited the capacity for the model to deliver the transformative change that advocates of the model assert is possible. Conclusions are made around which elements restrict the capacity of the mayoral role to reach its potential and the how the model might be adapted in future to enable its full benefits to be realised.
Do mayors make a difference? In their own words…
Authors: Elcock Howard
Published: September 2017

Over a decade the author and John Fenwick have interviewed English elected mayors. The analysis uses the Political Leadership Matrix to assess these interviews in terms of whether mayors have made a difference and if so, how they did it. The analysis is presented in the mayors' three functions: their government of the local authority itself, their governance role – the mayor's relations with other organisations and citizens. Last comes their approach to maintaining their public support and campaigning for their re-election: their allegiance role. The mayors' attributes are analysed in terms of their formal powers and functions, their informal relations with party groups, officers and the public and their personal qualities. The conclusion is that mayors most certainly think they have made a difference.
Directly elected mayors in New Zealand: the impact of intervening variables on enhanced governing capacity
Authors: Cheyne Christine
Published: September 2017

Recent legislative changes designed to strengthen the role of the mayor have been recently introduced in New Zealand. This chapter critically reviews the New Zealand model of local political leadership. In particular, it considers the drivers and implications of the legislative changes. It is argued that, while direct election of mayors is central to political accountability, there are significant mediating influences on the legitimacy and effectiveness of local political leadership. It is important therefore to consider broader constitutional and institutional features. Drawing on the New Zealand experience, I argue that three institutional/formal variables substantially influence the governing capacity of mayors: legislation and the constitutional status of local government, the public management framework, and the framework of central-local relations. In the case of those directly elected, features of the electoral system also shape governing capacity
Directly elected mayors in Germany: leadership and institutional context
Authors: Egner Björn
Published: September 2017

Each German state has adopted its own municipal code which defines the horizontal power relations between the two most powerful players in local politics, the mayor and the municipal council. The aim of this chapter is to find our whether variances in formal power between states are connected to the assessment of mayors and councillors concerning the relationship between them. For that purpose, an index of mayoral power is established. Within reference to six regression models, the explanatory power of formal institutions is found to be relatively weak.
Directly elected mayors: a route to progressive urban leadership?
Authors: Hambleton Robin
Published: September 2017

Directly elected mayors are on the rise internationally. Enthusiasts for this form of local political leadership claim that it can provide visible, strategic, accountable leadership for cities. Opponents argue that the model concentrates too much power in the hands of one individual, and that it can result in local government decision-making being skewed to serve powerful economic interests. This chapter offers a contribution to this debate. An opening section outlines a way of conceptualising the political space available to place-based leaders. It is then suggested that, in any given locality, there are likely to be different realms of leadership, with players from inside and outside the state making a significant contribution to urban policy making. Three examples of bold and progressive mayoral leadership are then presented in the form of three short cameos: Greater London, UK (in the period 2000-08), Portland, Oregon, USA; and Freiburg, Germany. The comparative discussion of mayoral leadership that follows is structured around three themes: the role of directly elected mayors in expanding place-based power; connecting the realms of place-based leadership and bringing progressive values back into city politics.
Conclusions and reflections
Authors: Sweeting David
Published: September 2017

This chapter draws conclusions from across the contributions to this work, relating to the importance and forms of mayoral power, the influence of political parties, the influence of mayors in governance (both locally and at other levels), over business, and in economic development in a globalised context. The work concludes with discussion over representational aspects in mayoral governance, and offers suggestions for further avenues of research.
European social and caring professions in transition
Authors: Blom Björn , Evertsson Lars , Perlinski Marek
Published: September 2017

This chapter describes the background, the aim and the content of the book. It gives a short introduction to social and caring professions in Europe, and argues that they have undergone considerable changes during recent decades, and are in a stage of transition. The chapter introduces four questions that make up the starting-point for this book. How are social and caring welfare professionals’ identity influenced by education, work experience and supervision? How are social and caring welfare professions affected by governance, regulation and control by the state? How are social and caring welfare professions affected by collaboration, conflict and competition with other welfare professions? How do social and caring welfare professionals, in practice, assess and make decisions in their work with clients and patients?
Auditing and accountability
Authors: Hanberger Anders , Lindgren Lena , Nygren Lennart
Published: September 2017

The chapter presents a conceptual framework for studying the interplay of audit and democratic governance in today’s audit societies. The presented framework is then used to analyse how two major audit systems play out in a specific, but major, welfare area, namely the elder care sector in Sweden. The chapter also examines the implications of audit and accountability for elder care policy and governance, and discusses desirable as well as perverse consequences for key-actors in the field with a special focus on professionals.
Professional boundary crossing and interprofessional knowledge development
Authors: Julkunen Ilse , Willumsen Elisabeth
Published: September 2017

The chapter points at the growing need for different welfare professions to collaborate and coordinate their services in order to respond to service users’ complex needs. To solve complex cases doctors, social workers and therapists often need to develop professional knowledge and skills that facilitate inter-professional collaboration. However, multi- or inter-professional services can give rise to demarcation problems and competition between professions. Using data from child welfare services in Finland and Norway, the chapter examines problems connected to the development of multi professional services that involve inter-professional boundary crossing and knowledge development.
Challenges of municipal community work
Authors: Mandrysz Witold , Perlinski Marek , Evertsson Lars
Published: September 2017

This chapter focuses on the pros and cons of involving professional social workers, employed in municipal social services, as animators of local community organising projects in urban, socially and economically degraded residential areas. Such projects aim at the active inclusion of inhabitants in improving their own situation and to promote social development. Local authorities can face great difficulties when using their own staff as the driving force of local community organising. The main difficulty is that many inhabitants have a negative attitude towards welfare institutions and frequently refuse to cooperate. The fact that the social workers are animating the project work for the local authority complicates the situation.
On the unnoticed aspects of professional practice
Authors: Antoft Rasmus , Høgsbro Kjeld , Nissen Maria Appel , Olesen Søren Peter
Published: September 2017

The chapter focuses on some mostly unnoticed, but crucial, aspects of professional practice among welfare professions. One such aspect comprises of the informal and strategic forms of negotiations occurring within professional practice and how they relate to various forms of complexity. The text illustrates informal and strategic negotiations by using examples from empirical research on different groups of service users (e.g. people with dementia, unemployed, families with complex problems). A central assertion is that knowledge about such negotiations is vital in terms of understanding how professional practice is actually conducted and works. Such knowledge can enhance professional creativity, confidence and capability to act.
Can complexity in welfare professionals’ work be handled with standardised professional knowledge?
Authors: Evertsson Lars , Blom Björn , Perlinski Marek , Rexvid Devin
Published: September 2017

Complexity in professional work is often discussed in relation to the professional body of knowledge. There is a tendency to relate professional success, problems and shortcomings to flaws and limitations in the professions’ expert knowledge or use of knowledge. To reduce complexity, overcome problematic situations and achieve best practice, welfare states invest considerable resources in raising professional groups’ level of knowledge and use of evidence-based knowledge. Non-medical professions such as social workers are expected to adopt and implement the principles that underpin evidence-based medicine. However, based on two empirical studies of social workers within Swedish social services, this chapter argues that problematic situations and complexity in social work can have sources other than lack of knowledge or insufficient use of knowledge. The chapter argues that these complex and problematic situations cannot be solved by standardised professional knowledge about interventions and results.
Who is viewed as client by social workers and general practitioners?
Authors: Rexvid Devin
Published: September 2017

This chapter examines whom social workers and general practitioners regard as a client, and how they gather information about a client. These professions have two very different approaches. For example, an applicant and a client do not need to be the same person for social workers, and social workers put clients in a broad social context to examine whether there are other clients such as a partner or children who could be affected by the problem. General practitioners concentrate mainly on the medical problem and consider social relationships to clients as less important. The chapter argues that the “traditional” theoretical understanding of professional practice as a linear and rational process consisting of diagnose, inference and treatment, reflects general practitioners’ practice as a mono-client profession, but not social workers’ as a multi-client profession.
Introduction
Authors: McCabe Angus , Phillimore Jenny
Published: September 2017

There is a growing body of literature on the voluntary, or third, sector (Milbourne, 2013). Equally, there is a long tradition of research into communities, stretching back in the UK to the series of reports produced by the Community Development Projects in the UK in the early to mid-1970s (...
Conclusion: thinking back and looking forward
Authors: McCabe Angus , Phillimore Jenny
Published: September 2017

This concluding chapter reflects on the current state of ‘below the radar’ community groups and calls for further research to be done in this under-explored area. It consolidates the book’s key themes and debates, and identifies the key challenges for policy-makers in engaging with community groups, and for researchers working in this field.
Introduction: why Detroit matters
Authors: Doucet Brian
Published: September 2017

This chapter introduces the main themes and approaches to the book. It starts by describing a journey the author takes with students to introduce them to the political, racial, economic, social and spatial complexities and divisions of Detroit and its surrounding area. This encourages us to look beyond the ruins of the city and understand the context which has produced them as well as the stories and narratives of those who are living with them. Detroit’s image as a metonym for urban failure is introduced with international examples of how the city is used as a fear monger. The chapter situates the book within wider literature on Detroit and explains why what happens in Detroit matters for other cities, before outlining the approach of the book and providing an overview of the chapters within it.
Detroit in bankruptcy: what are the lessons to be learned?
Authors: Farley Reynolds
Published: September 2017

City governments in the United States are largely supported by taxes imposed upon their residents and business owners. After World War II, Detroit lost its economic base as factories, residents and trade moved from the city to the suburbs. The tax base disappeared. The recession that began in 2008 drove the city into bankruptcy. Fortunately, that process was concluded quickly. At present, major firms and prosperous individuals are investing great sums in erecting new and renovating old buildings. In downtown, Midtown and the east river front, there are numerous signs of economic growth and population increases. Will Detroit become a model for the revitalization of older cities that once relied upon manufacturing? Or will Detroit become a model of “disaster capitalism,” that is, a city with a prosperous core but with many neighborhoods populated by impoverished minority residents whose economic status falls further and further behind that of those who are now enjoying the revived areas of the city of Detroit?
A new urban medicine show: on the limits of blight remediation
Authors: Akers Joshua
Published: September 2017

Vacancy and abandonment are produced through market systems of exploitation and speculation. The use of public money to clear “blighted” buildings in cities such as Detroit, are misdirected at the symptom and not the cause of these conditions. This chapter argues that recovering Detroit neighborhoods requires attention to the speculators and mortgage brokers producing it.
Reshaping the gray spaces: resident self-provisioning and urban form in Detroit
Authors: Kinder Kimberley
Published: September 2017

Policies of neoliberalism and austerity are eroding government capacity and increasing environmental inequity in cities nationwide. One important consequence is the inadequacy of basic services associated with land management, infrastructure maintenance, and public safety. This chapter explores the variety of Detroit residents’ do-it-yourself responses to these challenges. Rather than foregoing basic services, many residents attempt to do the work themselves. At a basic level, these physical changes improved the quality of the living environment. More importantly, these spatial interventions are transforming where and how people live in the city, get access to resources, and maintain moral geographies of social control.
Preserving Detroit by preserving its baseball history
Authors: Roche Jason
Published: September 2017

The story of the Navin Field Grounds Crew demonstrates the extent to which Detroit matters to the people who live here. Despite the threat of trespassing charges, these volunteer community activists have labored for six years to maintain the baseball field at the historic site of the former Tiger Stadium, where generations of Detroiters and Michiganders came together to watch baseball and other events. Based on the award-winning documentary film Stealing Home, this chapter discusses the extent to which their efforts show the importance of history, place, and sport to a community. They also underscore the challenges that occur when grassroots activists butt heads with political and business interests over a vacant parcel of land.
Visions in conflict: a city of possibilities
Authors: Howell Sharon , Feldman Richard
Published: September 2017

This chapter casts the deindustrialization of Detroit as part of a larger transition providing new dangers and opportunities. The disappearance of industrial economy has created opportunities for the emergence of alternative means of creating new, sustainable and vibrant urban life. The resources of African American culture and imagination provide a perspective on developing innovative ways of making a living that nurture our capacities for cooperation and care. Rooted in Detroit’s long history of social struggle, a vision of self-determining urban life based, on local production for local needs is emerging. Mainstream elites and media generally ignore or deride these efforts. This chapter explores specific examples of the practices and programs emerging from the community. New forms of resisting dehumanization, especially since the takeover of the city by emergency management, are combined with creation of concrete alternatives to questions of land, water new ways of thinking.
Make sure you are helping: experts, solidarity, and effective partnering with locals
Authors: Philp Drew
Published: September 2017

Detroit has attracted many people who come to the city to try to work towards making it better. However, not all who come to the city end up improving the conditions for Detroiters. In this chapter, Drew Philp discusses what constitutes "good development" stemming from outsiders coming into places of long-term financial and cultural turmoil. Using William Easterly’s distinction between “searchers” and “planners,” Philp differentiates between people coming in to implement their own ideas versus those who arrive willing to listen and contribute to the efforts of those who are already there. On the basis of his personal experiences of living in Detroit, Drew Philp examines five common practices of overlooked and unexamined biases of those entering into communities. These include: the amputation of dignity, entering with false assumptions, giving people ‘busywork,’ tasks that do more harm than good and not treating people like adults.
New Strategies DMC, takin’ it all back home: lessons from Detroit for arts practices in the Netherlands
Authors: Wiersum Friso , Witte Bart , Doulos Nikos
Published: September 2017

A Dutch urban do tank sets up a residency program in Detroit to further investigate the phenomena of shrinking cities, of cities with various development speeds and of local-global connections. The gained insights prove vital for the artistic program of the do tank in their gentrifying home city.
My Detroit
Authors: Guyton Tyree
Published: September 2017

Quotes by Tyree Guyton:

“When I was five years old, my great-grandmother Katie told me that I would be a great man.”

“At the age of nine, my grandfather put a paintbrush in my hand and it felt like my hand was on fire.”

“...
Detroit Black Community Food Security Network
Authors: Yakini Malik
Published: September 2017

In this interview chapter, Malik Yakini, executive director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network (DBCFSN) discusses issues of food security and food sovereignty in Detroit. DBCFSN was formed in 2006 in order to address food insecurity among Detroit’s African-American community and to organize members of that community to play a more active role in local food security and food sovereignty. Yakini discusses the general food context in Detroit and why organisations such as his are necessary in the city. He also reflects on the ways in which Detroit has been represented and how gentrification is changing the perceptions of the city. He is critical of the racial implications of gentrification in Greater Downtown Detroit and what this means for the city’s African American community.
Feedom Freedom Farmers
Authors: Curtis Wayne , Thompson-Curtis Myrtle
Published: September 2017

The term “urban garden” may be too narrow to describe the work that Wayne Curtis and Myrtle Thompson-Curtis do with their Feedom Freedom farm on Manistique Avenue on the far east side of Detroit. In 2009, they planted their first seeds in a formerly abandoned lot next to their home. Today, they grow food on roughly one acre of land. It is shared with the community and sold within the neighborhood, as well as at Eastern Market. In this interview chapter, they discuss how growing food is an act of revolution that is closely connected to their consciousness as African Americans oppressed under capitalism.
Author and neighborhood organizer
Authors: Shakur Yusef Bunchy
Published: September 2017

In this interview chapter, Yusef Bunchy Shakur discusses his life’s transformation from a gangster to a community organiser. He describes how meeting his father in prison had a tremendous impact on transforming and redeeming his life. Shakur has committed his life to making his community and neighbourhood a better place. He is also active in resisting gentrification and in this interview, he discusses the racial injustices of Detroit’s contemporary gentrification and renaissance.
Policy analysis in the Mexican federal government
Authors: Cejudo Guillermo M.
Published: September 2017

By the end of the 20th century, policy making in the Mexican federal government was aligned to the authoritarian, closed and hierarchical logic of the political regime and its bureaucratic apparatus. Over the span of a few years, pluralism and competition have transformed the political regime and its bureaucracy. This chapter analyzes how policy analysis in the Mexican federal government has been shaped by recent political and administrative developments derived from democratization. After a brief analysis of policymaking under authoritarianism, it is discussed how policy analysis has changed according to the new nature of the political regime, with a relatively more open policymaking process and more legislative oversight. The author examines the development of a monitoring and evaluation system and shows how it has introduced a results-oriented, evidence-based, problem-solving approach to policy analysis. This new approach is contrasted with the normative and administrative framework guided by the logic of planning with which it has to compete.
Policy analysis and bureaucratic capacity in the federal government
Authors: Hernández-Galicia Jesus F. , Arellano-Gault David
Published: September 2017

The purpose of this chapter is to understand and study the emerging bureaucratic skills being developed at the federal level to undertake policy analysis in Mexico. To this end, first, a literature review was undertaken to identify some of the key capacities and skills required for a bureaucracy to be regarded as competent in public policy analysis. Second, two surveys were conducted, one administered to all middle and senior public administration management, and the other focusing on units specializing in public policy analysis. The current characteristics of Mexican federal bureaucracy were identified, together with the challenges faced by bureaucrats in translating the results of policy analysis into actions and programs that can be implemented. Finally, a series of activities and skills informally performed by certain civil servants (articulators/translators called fixer, network manager and policy manager) of the enormous bureaucratic apparatus is discussed.
Policy analysis in the Chamber of Deputies
Authors: Velarde Rodrigo Velazquez Lopez
Published: September 2017

Until the 1990s, the Mexican Congress functioned as a rubber-stamp institution whose main function was the approval of the presidents’ bills. The subordination of Congress to the executive branch produced, among other effects, the hindering of legislative policy analysis. Since government agencies had control over the policy process, it was not necessary for legislators neither to become policy specialists nor to invest resources and time in the development of professional staffs that could carry out policy analysis on diverse areas. However, as the process of democratization advanced, legislators started to create research centers and established civil service systems in order to professionalize the staff that supports legislative work. This chapter provides an assessment of the congressional policy analysis carried out in Mexico by focusing on the lower chamber (Chamber of Deputies) of the federal Congress. It argues that research centres and legislative committees perform three types of policy analysis. The limited functioning of the civil service system, the politicization of legislative staff, and low salaries are the main factors that undermine the quality of policy analysis in the Chamber of Deputies.
Policy analysis in think tanks
Authors: Dussauge-Laguna Mauricio I. , Vazquez Marcela I.
Published: September 2017

The chapter provides an overview of how policy analysis takes place in Mexican Think Tanks. It focuses on two of the few organisations of this kind that currently exist in the country: the Centro de Investigación para el Desarrollo (CIDAC, or Centre for Research for Development) and the Centro de Estudios Espinosa Yglesias (CEEY, or Centre of Studies Espinosa Yglesias). The chapter is divided into four sections. The first discusses the main features of think tanks, with a particular focus on the Mexican ones. The second presents the origins and general objectives of CIDAC and CEEY, and describes how these two organizations conduct policy analysis. The third compares both cases, paying particular attention to how they define their topics of interest, how they gather relevant information, what kind of policy products they generate, what kind of communication channels they use, and how they assess the impact that their analyses may have had. The chapter closes with some conclusions and general remarks about the future challenges of policy analysis in Mexican think tanks.
Policy analysis, the political game and institutional change in the labor market
Authors: Bensusan Graciela , Bizberg Ilan
Published: September 2017

This chapter analyses two public policy cases: The most recent labour and educational reforms in Mexico. It focused on these two cases because they show the interplay and decision making of social and political actors framed in a corporatist arrangement and its consequences on the design and implementation of public policies. The chapter is organized as follows: First, it presents an analysis of each of the abovementioned public policies and their institutional changes. It then studies the political processes through which the decisions were made, taking into account what was at stake, the actors involved, the scenarios and the rules of the game. The chapter then discusses the way in which all these factors influenced the quality of policy analysis, the implementation of the policies adopted and the manner in which corporatism diminished their effectiveness, credibility and permanence.
Policy analysis in the media: the coverage of public issues and the relevance of context
Authors: Guerrero Manuel Alejandro , Restrepo Monica Luengas , Ochoa Carlos Fuentes , Palacios Martha Lizbeth
Published: September 2017

Media are key actors in supporting a pluralistic and healthy public life. Greater media autonomy and professionalism imply a balanced coverage of issues based upon diverse and contrasted sources. Thus, for covering different aspects of public affairs and policy in consolidated democracies it may be possible to expect the existence of investigative cabinets within media organizations. In the case of Mexico, by contrasting two theoretical models –Agenda-Setting and Indexing—to compare the coverage of three public policy cases with three investigative journalism stories in a group of print, broadcast and Web-based media, this chapter provides answers to the following questions: Are the media more autonomous and professional in their coverage of public issues? Are there any differences according to the type of media –print, broadcast or web? Does their coverage of public issues reflect the work of specialized investigative cabinets?
Conclusion
Authors: Mendez Jose-Luis , Dussauge-Laguna Mauricio I.
Published: September 2017

The editors of the book came to the following conclusions. First, the policy analysis field has made significant progress in Mexico but still needs to overcome several important challenges. Second, despite some recent progress, policy analysis is not extensively conducted yet at neither the Executive nor the Legislative federal branches. Third, autonomous agencies, advisory councils and some departments of the federal bureaucracy are able to conduct policy analysis to a greater extent than other state agencies. Fourth, compared to the federal level, policy analysis is much weaker at the state and local levels. Fifth, the lack of a truly functioning merit civil service is one of the main reasons that explain the low policy analysis capacity at all levels and most areas of the Mexican state. Sixth, policy analysis is much weaker across non-state organizations than at state spheres, something that is directly related to the Mexican tradition of strong state presence. Seventh, while policy analysis is conducted to some extent in parties, think thanks, civic and business organizations, it is only scarcely conducted within unions and the mass media. Eight, there seems to be some evidence for a positive relationship between policy analysis and policy influence.
Introduction: past tents, present tents: on the importance of studying protest camps
Authors: Brown Gavin , Feigenbaum Anna , Frenzel Fabian , McCurdy Patrick
Published: September 2017

Despite protest camps’ increasing role as an organisational form of protest, little scholarship has considered protest camps as their own domain of enquiry. What protest camp scholarship that does exist has largely been sporadic and often views camps as either merely functional to the specific movements in which they were created, or sees them as ephemeral spaces that leave little legacy. In either case, the protest camp is regarded as just one site amongst many in the context of studying a specific social movement often grouped together with other social movement strategies such as street parties, demonstrations, assemblies and direct actions. In this introduction, the authors point to the importance to detail the unique spaces of protest camps, their sustaining infrastructures and the similarities and differences between protest camps across movements and locations. The authors also consider the lack of theory which conceptually develops the importance of the protest camp as a distinct entity and a lack of succinct empirical work on protest camps.
Introduction: assembling and materialising
Authors: McCurdy Patrick , Feigenbaum Anna , Frenzel Fabian , Brown Gavin
Published: September 2017

In this section introduction the authors consider the different elements that are brought together to create the material and social infrastructures of camps. Taking seriously the material and social infrastructures of camps, they examine the spatial division of labour within protest camps. They also introduce how the architecture of the public squares and gardens that are occupied by protesters can shape the ways in which politics is practised within them. Protest camps are seldom spontaneous, and it is necessary to understand better the processes by which camps are planned, and the ways in which political practices travel between camps over time. This includes the important role of media and communication infrastructure. The authors highlight the need to examine the relationship between the physical space of occupation and the mediated or virtual space. Of interest are the media practices used to maintain and amplify spaces of protest, with particular attention given to the role of media - and social media in particular - in maintaining and amplifying corporeal protest camp sites.
Introduction: occupying and colonising
Authors: Brown Gavin , Frenzel Fabian , McCurdy Patrick , Feigenbaum Anna
Published: September 2017

The book’s second section - ‘Occupying and Colonizing’ - addresses a different set of spatial politics posed by protest camps. The authors are concerned here with the politics of occupying (public) space for protest and the tensions that can arise from this. Urban protest camps, in particular, frequently seek to occupy public space in order to draw attention to the policies of political and economic elites. The authors question how certain ‘publics’ are brought into being by protest camps, whilst the existence of others might be elided or erased. This section addresses the constitutive power of protest camps as a political and communicative space. Here, the spatial character of a protest camp as its own sphere of life and communication creates a disposition between the two, something that leads to various relationships from clear cut antagonism between ‘the camp’ and ‘the outside’ to more heterotopic overlaps, as well as more blurred boundaries in communication and action.
Occupation, decolonisation and reciprocal violence, or history responds to Occupy’s anti-colonial critics1
Authors: Thompson AK
Published: September 2017

Almost from its inception, the Occupy movement in America was beset by criticisms alleging that liberation could not be achieved through occupation, since the latter remained inseparable from the violent history of colonial conquest. However, American history offers concrete examples of anti-colonial struggles in which activists embraced occupation as the central means of achieving their aims. In addition to cases like the Indians of All Tribes occupation of Alcatraz (1969-71) and the occupation of Columbia University by Harlem-based Civil Rights and Black Power militants (1968), closer theoretical consideration reveals that politics itself—whether carried out in the name of conquest or of liberation—both presupposes and demands occupation. Consequently, the anti-colonial critique of the Occupy movement must be carefully re-evaluated.