This book is the first systematic study of policy analysis activities in Spain. It provides a comprehensive overview of how policy actors, including politicians, think tanks, researchers, interest groups and experts, generate information for the policy-making process. The book explores how executive and legislative actors participate in the production of policy analysis and how all actors elaborate and disseminate information on policy analysis. Contributors consider the ways different policy actors are involved in the production of data and information about policy problems, the resources used to produce policy analysis and the type of analysis produced over time in different policy areas.

This open access book presents a unique interdiscplinary analysis of urban projects promoted by the EU from a comparative perspective This book presents cross-sectional and cross-time analyses at the territorial level targeted by these initiatives focusing on the design, theory and impacts of urban projects developed under the framework of initiatives promoted by the European Union. The book includes a new methodology to analyse the design and theory of urban plans (the comparative urban portfolio analysis) and quasi-experimental strategies to perform impact assessment at the neighbourhood level (the territorial target of those initiatives). Although empirical analyses focus on examples in Spain, the resulting analytical and methodological outcomes of these studies can be applied in a broader context to analyse integral urban policies in other countries.

The book addresses in detail local governance in Spain. In recent decades, local governments in Europe have increasingly found themselves under pressure from a multitude of new challenges, such as demographic change, climate change, fiscal austerity policies, digitization, the demand for more citizen participation in local affairs, and the migration crisis in some of them, to name just a few. Consequently, a wave of political and administrative reforms to address these challenges, pressures and problems, has changed local governance in many countries. In part, these changes were the result of reform policies introduced by national and state governments, often triggered by austerity policies, which has become an overwhelming reality for Spanish local governments that have been forced to introduce innovations in local governance. This book aims to give an account of these innovations in local governance in Spain. This book considers the local political-administrative structure in its dimensions, focusing on the analysis of its party system, electoral competition and political behavior in the local arena, as well as on local finances, all of which are determining elements in urban and rural governance processes. On the occasion of the recent crisis unleashed by Covid-19, the book will also deal with local governance in crisis situations. The book will also contextualize local governance processes in Spain in relation to the trends in local governance observed in other European countries.

This book highlights the discontinuities and the ongoing development of the urban question in policy-making in the context of the controversial current issues of global reversal and regional revival. It critically examines contemporary public policies and practices at the urban, regional and national scales in order to offer a timely contribution to the debate on the significance of the urban dimension and interpretation in terms of the theory, policy and practice of social-spatial research in the twenty-first century. Focusing on Europe, it explores the current urban policy agendas at different scales - and the mobility of those agendas -, their implications, contradictions and controversies. It brings together original contributions from multiple disciplines but with an urban perspective, including empirical case studies and critical discussions of the following topics: the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the global “New Urban Agenda” as part of the Habitat III process; the Urban Agenda for the European Union; national spatial policies related to urban agendas; urban agendas at regional/urban levels; city regionalism discourse and state rescaling; new formal regional and metropolitan governments as a solution (or problem); the role of new actors in regional urbanization dynamics; multi-level governance processes in developing an urban agenda; informal assemblages at the metropolitan scale aiming at constructing the urban concept and dimension. Given its scope, the book is of interest to urban, regional and EU policy-makers, scholars and students working in the fields of urban geography, urban studies, EU urban and regional policies, and planning.

This book offers a unique perspective on urban processes affecting tourist spaces and city centres. Economic, social and environmental uncertainty has been commonplace since March 2019, when mobility slowed down across the globe. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated trends that have been investigated in urban space for years. The incorporation of technologies, the expansion of tourism and the introduction of policies that in part want to advance sustainability are generating processes of reorganisation of territories that are driving changes. These changes will affect models of city, urbanism and society. This publication is directed to a wide spectrum of people interested in urban processes, tourism and social change in the context of the Post-Pandemic Covid-19. In particular, the book is aimed at researchers, undergraduate and postgraduate students, consultants, public administrations and the public interested in the recent challenges that are affecting developed and developing societies.

Drawing on case studies from around the world, contributors to this ground-breaking book explore a major contemporary paradox: on the one hand, young people today are at the forefront of political campaigns promoting social rights and ethical ideas that challenge authoritarian orders and elite privileges. On the other hand, too many governments, some claiming to be committed to liberal-democratic values, social inclusion and youth participation are engaged in repressing political activities that contest the status quo. Contributors to this book explore how, especially since 9/11, governments, state agencies and other traditional power holders around the globe have reacted to political dissent authored by young people. While the ‘need’ to enhance ‘youth political participation’ is promoted, the cases in this book document how states are using everything from surveillance, summary offences, expulsion from universities, ‘gag laws’ and ‘antiterrorism’ legislation, and even imprisonment to repress certain forms of young people’s political activism. These responses diminish the public sphere and create civic spaces hostile to political participation by any citizen. This book forms part of The Criminalization of Political Dissent series. It documents and interprets the many ways contemporary governments and agencies now routinely use various techniques to repress and criminalise political dissent.