Shadows of Power examines public policy and in particular, the communicative processes of policy and decision-making. It explore the important who, how and why issues of policy decisions. Who really takes the decisions? How are they arrived at and why were such processes used? What relations of power may be revealed between the various participants? Using stories from planning practices, this book shows that local planning decisions, particularly those which involve consideration of issues of 'public space' cannot be understood separately from the socially constructed, subjective territorial identities, meanings and values of the local people and the planners concerned. Nor can it be fully represented as a linear planning process concentrating on traditional planning policy-making and decision-making ideas of survey analysis-plan or officer recommendation-council decision-implementation. Such notions assume that policy-and decision-making proceed in a relatively technocratic and value neutral, unidirectional, step-wise process towards a finite end point. In this book Jean Hiller explores ways in which different values and mind-sets may affect planning outcomes and relate to systemic power structures. By unpacking these and bring them together as influences on participants' communication, she reveals influences at work in decision-making processes that were previously invisible. If planning theory is to be of real use to practitioners, it needs to address practice as it is actually encountered in the worlds of planning officers and elected representatives. Hillier shed light on the shadows so that practitioners may be better able to understand the circumstances in which they find themselves and act more effectively in what is in reality a messy, highly politicised decision-making process.

A storm is brewing... Who is ready for the coming showdown?Shifting Shadows of Supernatural Power charts the storm brewing between the power of God and schemes of the enemy; and encourages believers to step out of the shadows and into the Light.A history of the prophetic movement in the United States combined with interviews of many well-known prophetic voices such as Jill Austin, Heidi and Roland Baker, Todd Bentley, Stacey Campbell, Randy Clark, Graham Cooke, James Goll, Bill Hamon, John Paul Jackson, Rick Joyner, and Patricia King serve as a compass to navigate the storm and change the course of a too-complacent, intellectual church.The author equips you to: Step into God's presence. Define shifting shadows' origins. Sharpen your discernment. Recognize converging movements. Increase in power and authority. Arm yourself with knowledge to distinguish the difference between power that comes from God, the enemy, or even yourself. By tapping into God's authentic power and using His gifts of the Spirit, you will access His supernatural signs and wonders---today.

It can feel like we're swimming in a sea of corruption. It's unclear who exactly is in charge and what role they play. The same influential people seem to reappear time after time in different professional guises, pressing their own agendas in one venue after another. According to award-winning public policy scholar and anthropologist Janine Wedel, these are the powerful ''shadow elite,'' the main players in a vexing new system of power and influence. In this groundbreaking book, Wedel charts how this shadow elite, loyal only to their own, challenge both governments' rules of accountability and business codes of competition to accomplish their own goals. From the Harvard economists who helped privatize post-Soviet Russia and the neoconservatives who have helped privatize American foreign policy (culminating with the debacle that is Iraq) to the many private players who daily make public decisions without public input, these manipulators both grace the front pages and operate behind the scenes. Wherever they maneuver, they flout once-sacrosanct boundaries between state and private. Profoundly original, Shadow Elite gives us the tools we need to recognize these powerful yet elusive players and comprehend the new system. Nothing less than our ability for self-government and our freedom are at stake.

In this thought-provoking and imaginative allegory, join a fictional hero for an all-too-real journey through the shadow side of leadership and its many challenges. Our hero faces the distortions and personal dilemmas that accompany his leadership role, seeing five ways that leaders fail and two ways they abuse their power. In the process, he learns seven lessons that will make him a great and principled leader for these very challenging times. The world is evolving and the values and capabilities of leaders must keep pace with and even help shape that evolution. While the virtues of good leaders may be similar through the ages, the consequences of abuse and misuse are amplified in our highly networked, complex, and uncertain times. What does it mean to be a leader with formal power today? The age of command-and-control authoritarianism is fast slipping away, but our need for competent, courageous, and principled leadership is, if anything, even more critical. Jim Kouzes, coauthor of the bestselling The Leadership Challenge and Executive Fellow of Leadership at the Leavey School of Leadership, Santa Clara University, asserts, "The Shadow Side of Power is just plain great storytelling-the kind that draws you in, stirs your passions, sustains your interest, teaches meaningful lessons, and leaves you both gratified and wanting more.... Before you embark on your next leadership adventure, take a guided tour through the allegorical world of the Leadership Inferno. You'll be better prepared for your other challenges once you have." This book is for you if you: * Are or want to be in a formal leadership role - whether of a small team or a large organization or nation. * Want to be a good - even a great -- leader who is respected by those you lead: leveraging for impact, learning, and leaving a legacy. * Are willing to face into the shadow side of power - the temptations and misperceptions that inevitably attach to authority roles and that may expose both your strengths and your least desirable qualities. * Are a coach or educator who develops people for formal leadership roles As a reader, you will be energized to meet the challenges of leadership as a choice and a responsibility-more than simply a title or an opportunity to make more money. For four decades, Pat McLagan has worked with business and government sectors to develop leaders and to transform leadership systems. In The Shadow Side of Power, Pat draws on in-depth experience as well as ongoing research into institutional, leadership, and personal transformation and effectiveness. She knows firsthand the immense energy and promise that come along with formal power, for she has seen leaders face, struggle with, succumb to, be corrupted by, and grow from the dilemmas and opportunities of their roles.

In this provocative and compelling examination of the deep politics of war, Carolyn Nordstrom takes us from the immediacy of war-zone survival, through the offices of power brokers, to vast extra-legal networks that fuel war and international profiteering. She captures the human face of the front lines, revealing both the visible and the hidden realities of war in the twenty-first century. Shadows of War is grounded in ethnographic research carried out at the epicenters of political violence on several continents. Its pages are populated not only with the perpetrators and victims of war but also with the scoundrels, silent heroes, and average families who live their lives in the midst of explosive violence. War reconfigures our most basic notions of humanity, Nordstrom demonstrates. This book, of crucial importance at the present moment, shows that war is enmeshed in struggles over the very foundations of the sovereign state, the crafting of economic empires both legal and illegal, and innovative searches for peace. Nordstrom describes the multi-trillion-dollar international financial networks that support warfare. She traces the entangled routes by which illegal drugs, precious gems, weapons, basic food supplies, and pharmaceuticals are moved by an international cast of businesspeople, profiteers, and black-market operators. Shadows of War demonstrates how the experiences of both the architects of war and of ordinary people are deleted from media accounts and replaced with stories about soldiers, weapons, and territory. For the first time, this book retrieves from the shadows the faces of those whose stories seldom reach the light of international recognition.

An expose of what really goes on behind the closed doors of state power

An inside analysis of modern cultural and political upheavals in China by a fluent Beijing correspondent describes the power struggles currently taking place between the party elite and supporters of democracy, the outcome of which the author predicts will significantly affect China's rise to a world super-power. 125,000 first printing.