Policies forged by all levels of government affect the lives of urban residents. Contributors to this volume explore how intergovernmental relations shape urban policies and how various social forces are involved in - or excluded from - the policy process. Focusing on diverse policy fields including emergency planning, image-building, immigrant settlement, infrastructure, federal property, and urban Aboriginal policy, Sites of Governance presents detailed studies of the largest city in each of Canada's provinces. Drawing on extensive documentary research and hundreds of interviews, contributors offer rich, nuanced analyses and a wealth of policy cases, ranging from preparation for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics to the development of innovative immigrant settlement programming in Winnipeg. Dominant themes include the importance of resources and formal jurisdiction in multilevel policy making, and the struggle for influence between business interests and other social forces. Essential reading for anyone concerned with the quality of urban life in Canada, Sites of Governance offers important insights about how multilevel governance works in Canadian cities. Contributors include Laurence Bherer (Université de Montréal), David Bulger (University of Prince Edward Island), Christopher Dunn (Memorial University), Robert Finbow (Dalhousie University), Joseph Garcea (University of Saskatchewan), Pierre Hamel (Université de Montréal), Martin Horak (University of Western Ontario), Thomas Hutton (University of British Columbia), Christopher Leo (University of Winnipeg), Greg Marquis (University of New Brunswick , Saint John), Byron Miller (University of Calgary), Cecily Pantin (Memorial University), Alan Smart (University of Calgary), Donald Story (University of Saskatchewan), and Robert Young (University of Western Ontario).

Spreading good governance is a key goal of political leaders and reformers — whether it is to improve cities, nations, regimes or institutions — because better-governed people are more likely to avoid civil conflict and obtain significant social returns. But just what is meant by “governance” at the national or international level? Is it a fuzzy concept, or is it a clear set of rules or norms? How can it help to strengthen societies and drive better policy? On Governance: What It Is, What It Measures and Its Policy Uses answers these questions. By proposing new theories for national and global governance, examining more than 90 governance indexes and analyzing best practices in governance, this volume suggests how policy makers can use governance theory and governance indexes to improve both domestic and multilateral decision making. World order depends on strengthened governance. On Governance spells out the meaning and the potential benefits of governance innovation for civil society and national policy makers. Building on the measured effects of policies in many dimensions of human existence, this book provides a guide to creating more positive outcomes for people everywhere.

What is the political allure, value and currency of emotions within contemporary cultures of governance? What does it mean to govern more humanely? Since the emergence of an emotional turn in human geography over the last decade, the notion that our emotions matter in understanding an array of social practices, spatial formations and aspects of everyday life is no longer seen as controversial. This book brings recent developments in emotional geography into dialogue with social policy concerns and contemporary issues of governance. It sets the intellectual scene for research into the geographical dimensions of the emotionalized states of the citizen, policy maker and public service worker, and highlights new research on the emotional forms of governance which now characterise public life. An international range of empirical field studies are used to examine issues of regulation, modification, governance and potential manipulation of emotional affects, professional and personal identities and political technologies. Contributors provide analysis of the role of emotional entanglements in policy strategy, policy implementation, service delivery, citizenship and participation as well as considering the emotional nature of the research process itself. It will be of interest to researchers and students within social policy, human geography, politics and related disciplines.

This volume advances understanding of the significance of 'the city' in global governance, demanding innovation in international relations theory. A rich assortment of case studies adds breadth to theorizing of the role sub-national political actors play in global affairs. Each of the eight case studies demonstrates different intersections between the local and the global and how these intersections alter the conditions resulting from globalizing processes.

Important policy problems rarely fit neatly within existing territorial boundaries. More difficult still, individual governments or government departments rarely enjoy the power, resources and governance structures required to respond effectively to policy challenges under their responsibility. These dilemmas impose the requirement to work with others from the public, private, non-governmental organisation (NGO) or community spheres, and across a range of administrative levels and sectors. But how? This book investigates the challenges—both conceptual and practical—of multi-level governance processes. It draws on a range of cases from Australian public policy, with comparisons to multi-level governance systems abroad, to understand factors behind the effective coordination and management of multi-level governance processes in different policy areas over the short and longer term. Issues such as accountability, politics and cultures of governance are investigated through policy areas including social, environmental and spatial planning policy. The authors of the volume are a range of academics and past public servants from different jurisdictions, which allows previously hidden stories and processes of multi-level governance in Australia across different periods of government to be revealed and analysed for the first time.

Scholars from a range of disciplines discuss research methods, theories, and conceptual approaches in the study of internet governance. The design and governance of the internet has become one of the most pressing geopolitical issues of our era. The stability of the economy, democracy, and the public sphere are wholly dependent on the stability and security of the internet. Revelations about election hacking, facial recognition technology, and government surveillance have gotten the public's attention and made clear the need for scholarly research that examines internet governance both empirically and conceptually. In this volume, scholars from a range of disciplines consider research methods, theories, and conceptual approaches in the study of internet governance.

As a result of global dynamics--the increasing interconnection of people and places--innovations in global environmental governance haved altered the role of cities in shaping the future of the planet. This book is a timely study of the importance of these social transformations in our increasingly global and increasingly urban world. Through analysis of transnational municipal networks, such as Metropolis and the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, Sofie Bouteligier's innovative study examines theories of the network society and global cities from a global ecology perspective. Through direct observation and interviews and using two types of city networks that have been treated separately in the literature, she discovers the structure and logic pertaining to office networks of environmental non-governmental organizations and environmental consultancy firms. In doing so she incisively demonstrates the ways in which cities fulfill the role of strategic sites of global environmental governance, concentrating knowledge, infrastructure, and institutions vital to the function of transnational actors.