Public silence in policymaking can be deafening. When advocates for a disadvantaged group decline to speak up, not only are their concerns not recorded or acted upon, but also the collective strength of the unspoken argument is lessened—a situation that undermines the workings of deliberative democracy by reflecting only the concerns of more powerful interests. But why do so many advocates remain silent on key issues they care about and how does that silence contribute to narrowly defined policies? What can individuals and organizations do to amplify their privately expressed concerns for policy change? In Healthy Voices, Unhealthy Silence, Colleen M. Grogan and Michael K. Gusmano address these questions through the lens of state-level health care advocacy for the poor. They examine how representatives for the poor participate in an advisory board process by tying together existing studies; extensive interviews with key players; and an in-depth, first-hand look at the Connecticut Medicaid advisory board's deliberations during the managed care debate. Drawing on the concepts of deliberative democracy, agenda setting, and nonprofit advocacy, Grogan and Gusmano reveal the reasons behind advocates' often unexpected silence on major issues, assess how capable nonprofits are at affecting policy debates, and provide prescriptive advice for creating a participatory process that adequately addresses the health care concerns of the poor and dispossessed. Though exploring specifically state-level health care advocacy for the poor, the lessons Grogan and Gusmano offer here are transferable across issue areas and levels of government. Public policy scholars, advocacy organizations, government workers, and students of government administration will be well-served by this significant study.

Patients as Policy Actors offers groundbreaking accounts of one of the health field's most important developments of the last fifty years--the rise of more consciously patient-centered care and policymaking. The authors in this volume illustrate, from multiple disciplinary perspectives, the unexpected ways that patients can matter as both agents and objects of health care policy yet nonetheless too often remain silent, silenced, misrepresented, or ignored. The volume concludes with a unique epilogue outlining principles for more effectively integrating patient perspectives into a pluralistic conception of policy-making. With the recent enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, patients' and consumers' roles in American health care require more than ever the careful analysis and attention exemplified by this innovative volume.

It’s Silence, Soundly, It’s Nothing, Seriously and It’s Absence, Presently, continue The ‘It’ Series published by Matador since The Book of It (2010). They constitute another stage in an artistic journey exploring the visual and audial dialectic of mark, word and image that began over 25 years ago. In their aesthetic form the books are a decentred trilogy united together in a new concept of The Bibliograph. All three present this new aesthetic object, which transcends the narrow limits of the academic bibliography. The alphabetical works also share a tripartite structure and identical length. The Bibliograph itself is characterised by its strategic place within each book as a whole as well as by the complex variations in meaning of the dominant motifs – nothing/ness, absence and silence – which recur throughout the alphabetical entries that constitute the elements of each text. It’s Nothing, Seriously, for example, addresses the amusing paradox that so much continues to be written today about – nothing! The aleatory character of the entries in the texts encourage the modern reader to reflect on each theme and to read them in a new way. The reader is invited as well to examine their various inter-textual relations across given conventional boundaries in the arts and sciences at several levels of physical, psychical & social reproduction.

This book presents the first large-scale study of lobbying strategies and outcomes in the United States and the European Union, two of the most powerful political systems in the world. Every day, tens of thousands of lobbyists in Washington and Brussels are working to protect and promote their interests in the policymaking process. Policies emanating from these two spheres have global impacts—they set global standards, they influence global markets, and they determine global politics. Armed with extensive new data, Christine Mahoney challenges the conventional stereotypes that attribute any differences between the two systems to cultural ones—the American, a partisan and combative approach, and the European, a consensus-based one. Mahoney draws from 149 interviews involving 47 issues to detail how institutional structures, the nature of specific issues, and characteristics of the interest groups combine to determine decisions about how to approach a political fight, what arguments to use, and how to frame an issue. She looks at how lobbyists choose lobbying tactics, public relations strategies, and networking and coalition activities. Her analysis demonstrates that advocacy can be better understood when we study the lobbying of interest groups in their institutional and issue context. This book offers new insights into how the process of lobbying works on both sides of the Atlantic.

With budgets squeezed at every level of government, cost-benefit analysis (CBA) holds outstanding potential for assessing the efficiency of many programs. In this first book to address the application of CBA to social policy, experts examine ten of the most important policy domains: early childhood development, elementary and secondary schools, health care for the disadvantaged, mental illness, substance abuse and addiction, juvenile crime, prisoner reentry programs, housing assistance, work-incentive programs for the unemployed and employers, and welfare-to-work interventions. Each contributor discusses the applicability of CBA to actual programs, describing both proven and promising examples. The editors provide an introduction to cost-benefit analysis, assess the programs described, and propose a research agenda for promoting its more widespread application in social policy. Investing in the Disadvantaged considers how to face America’s most urgent social needs with shrinking resources, showing how CBA can be used to inform policy choices that produce social value.

A must have book for anyone has ever wanted to make a difference in the world. ________________________________________________ Service is the rent we pay for living" says preeminent children's advocate Marian Wright Edelman and this is the motto by which Malaak Compton Rock, dedicated humanitarian and wife of comedian Chris Rock, lives her life. From a childhood grounded in the importance of giving back to her work in public relations at The U.S. Fund for UNICEF to becoming a full-time mother and humanitarian, Malaak's life has fully embodied this sentiment. Part memoir, part practical guide, If It Takes a Village, Build One offers readers insightful advice on everything from how to find just the right volunteer opportunity, how to get kids involved in a life of service, how to research charities, and even how to start a nonprofit, as Malaak did several years ago. All of this practical wisdom is grounded in inspirational anecdotes about her own experience with service, including her work with Katrina rebuilding and her recent brainchild, Journey for Change: Empowering Youth Through Global Service, a program for at-risk kids from Bushwick, Brooklyn, which takes teens on a two week service mission to South Africa to volunteer and experience the world. The book also features interviews with other well known humanitarians, like PR powerhouse Terrie M. Williams, activist Bobby Shriver, and journalist Soledad O'Brien and engaging sidebars with interesting facts about service and nuggets of advice. At the end of the narrative readers will find a compendium of information including Malaak's favorite charities, unique service ideas, and suggested reading and web resources, which will make this a book to be visited time and time again. Far from being preachy or sanctimonious, Malaak's warm voice reminds us all that giving back is ultimately easier and infinitely more fulfilling than we thought it could be. Warm, honest, and accessible, If it Takes a Village, Build One will be the must-have book (and perfect gift!) for aspiring do-gooders.

Explores the ways in which the nation-state and nationalism are challenged by contemporary realities. This volume addresses changes to our understanding of national sovereignty, problems posed by violent conflict between rival national projects, the feasibility of postnationalist democracy and citizenship, and the debate over global justice.