M.E. Sharpe, Inc.

The arts management handbook; new directions for students and practitioners.

Written for persons seeking or having careers in the Arts, this guide serves as a "how-to" for managers and artists in all art forms, (i.e. theater, dance, music, visual, etc.) to facilitate promotion and exposure. Examples are presented in case studies that show obstacles faced and solutions to overcome them. The editors drew from a pool of academics and practitioners to provide a balance between established theoretical constructs and practical application toward ever-changing trends. Topics covered include managing theater and festival events, careers and education in Art Management, and a section on fund-raising and grant-writing. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Economic collapse, economic change; getting to the roots of the crisis.

In this analysis of the causes, consequences, and possible solutions to the severe economic crisis of the first decade of the 2000s, MacEwan (emeritus, economics, U. of Massachusetts) and Miller (economics, Wheaton College) depart from mainstream interpretations in order to highlight how issues of inequality, power, and ideology have contributed to the current crisis. Any solutions, they argue, must come from changes in income and wealth distribution, in who has power in society, and in the ideology of how the economy operates. They describe how the rise of conservative forces beginning in the 1970s led to greater concentrations of wealth and power amongst a small elite and an anti-government, "free market" ideology that led to dangerous deregulation, particularly in finance, both of which contributed to an excessive expansion of debt that helped trigger the crisis. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Effective nonprofit management; context and environment.

Pynes (public administration, U. of South Florida) supplies nonprofit administrators, board members, and program members with a guide to nonprofit management within its broader context. The guide covers what independent nonprofit organizations are, how society has changed, and the management implications for them; the increased role of accountability; issues in board governance; intergovernmental relations and public policy; revenue sources and financial management; agency effectiveness and program evaluation through performance measurement; human resources management; and advocacy and lobbying. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Ferghana Valley; the heart of Central Asia.

The Ferghana Valley is divided linguistically and politically, with parts of it now ruled by Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and the Kyrgyz Republic, yet the regions within the valley have more in common with each other than with rest of the states outside the ring of mountains. Historians, political scientists, economists, poets, and others offer perspectives from the various cultural, linguistic, and political strands. They begin with a history from the pre-colonial legacy through colonial and Soviet rule in various periods, to independence. Then they explore current economic development, land and water, culture and identity, Islam, and the international community. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Government is us 2.0.

Concerned about the general negative character of citizen-government relationships that prevails today, King (The Evergreen State College) presents 13 papers that theorize citizen-government relations and consider means of improving them through making government institutions more participatory and socially just, including through citizen engagement, although this last is not treated as a panacea as much as it was in the earlier collection Government Is Us: Public Administration in an Antigovernment Era. The papers consider issues of democratic engagement, including: the citizenship role of the public professional, cultivating empathy as a normative value in public administration, measuring citizen engagement and collaboration, and governance through public-nonprofit partnerships. They also address stories of citizen participation in practice in relation to various initiatives around the US. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Justice for all; promoting social equity in public administration.

This collection of essays for public officials, administrators in public and nonprofit organizations, citizen activists, and general readers identifies crucial issues that must be confronted to promote social equity in America. The book draws on ten years of work by the Social Equity Panel of the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), which consists of 250 people in public organizations and universities. The book starts with an overview by the editors, covering the development and measurement of social equity in American society and public administration. Subsequent chapters give background on historical and policy dimensions of inequity in income and wealth, social equity and development, urban inequality, and the economics of diversity. Part 2 delves into methods for measuring social equity in health care, criminal justice, education, and land use planning. Chapters in part 3 address leadership and organizational development issues. Johnson is vice president of a public affairs firm. Svara is professor of public affairs at Arizona State University and director of the Center for Urban Innovation. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Meaning in action; interpretation and dialogue in policy analysis.

"Interpretive approaches to political studies," according to the definition positively cited by Wagenaar (public policy, Leiden U., the Netherlands), "focus on meanings that shape actions and institutions, and the ways in which they do so." In this volume he describes approaches to interpretive policy analysis that are grounded in dialogues between theory, the analyst's presumptions, and the empirical world and in an understanding of meaning as constituted by hermeneutic, discursive, and dialogical elements. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Reinventing civil society; the emerging role of faith-based organizations.

With the administration of Barack Obama continuing to promote expanded federal support for faith-based organizations (FBOs) involved in the delivery of social services (a policy once seen as an aberration of the George W. Bush administration), there is a need to understand and analyze how the public service activities of FBOs actually play out on the ground. This is the task the authors of this work (all of Michigan State U.) take on, focusing on the areas of housing and community development and considering the ways in which FBOs interact with the political system and the political implications of such activities and interactions, in particular as concerns the differences between faith-based service provision versus secular service provision and the impact of faith-based service provision on governing civil society. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Rules and red tape; a prism for public administration theory and research.

Bozeman (public policy, U. of Georgia) and Feeney (public administration, U. of Illinois-Chicago) evaluate the success of scholars of public administration in developing red tape as a legitimate and relatively unambiguous concept suitable for serious research. They synthesize what has been learned about the phenomenon of red tape, its causes, and its organizational and social impact. More ambitiously, they also use red tape research and theory to explain empirically based theory development in public administration. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)