This book offers a comprehensive exploration of multi-level governance, political communication and public opinion in Italy during the Covid-19 emergency. Italy’s territorial arrangements of blending aspects of unitary and federal systems within a ‘regionalized’ framework underscore the tensions between centralization and decentralization, a theme echoed in many other nations. Given the state of flux and lack of clear direction of Italian regionalism at the onset of the pandemic, the analysis provides particularly interesting insights into the effects of this unprecedented crisis on regional dynamics. Covid-19 acted as a catalyst, amplifying and exacerbating existing territorial disparities, while also highlighting the resilience and adaptability of some regions. The book delves into the national and sub-national responses to the pandemic, examines how politicians and regional leaders presented them, and how citizens perceived these responses. Through this analysis, it provides deeper insights into the intricate interplay between centralization and decentralization, as well as the diverse strategies employed to address a wide spectrum of health, social, and economic challenges. Ultimately, by moving from institutions to citizens, the book reflects on how external shocks can both challenge the democratic underpinnings of decentralization and offer opportunities to strengthen them.

This book compares the trajectories and effects of local public sector reform in Europe and fills a research gap that has existed so far in comparative public administration and local government studies. Based on the results of COST research entitled, ‘Local Public Sector Reforms: an International Comparison’, this volume takes a European-scale approach, examining local government in 28 countries. Local government has been the most seriously affected by the continuously expanding global financial crisis and austerity policies in some countries, and is experiencing a period of increased reform activity as a result. This book considers both those local governments which have adopted or moved away from New Public Management (NPM) modernization to ‘something different’ (what some commentators have labelled ‘post-NPM’), as well as those which have implemented ‘other-than-NPM measures’, such as territorial reforms and democratic innovations.

This is the first book to examine and compare how rebels govern civilians during civil wars in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. Drawing from a variety of disciplinary traditions, including political science, sociology, and anthropology, the book provides in-depth case studies of specific conflicts as well as comparative studies of multiple conflicts. Among other themes, the book examines why and how some rebels establish both structures and practices of rule, the role of ideology, cultural, and material factors affecting rebel governance strategies, the impact of governance on the rebel/civilian relationship, civilian responses to rebel rule, the comparison between modes of state and non-state governance to rebel attempts to establish political order, the political economy of rebel governance, and the decline and demise of rebel governance attempts.

This book assesses the many changes that have occurred within the European Parliament and in its external relations since the Lisbon treaty (2009) and the last European elections (2014). It is undoubtedly the institution that has evolved the most since the 1950s. Despite the many crises experienced by European integration in the last years, the Parliament is still undergoing important changes in its formal competences, its influence on policy-making, its relations with other EU institutions, its internal organisation and its internal political dynamics. Every contribution deals with the most recent aspects of these evolutions and addresses overlooked topics, providing an overview of the current state of play which challenges the mainstream intergovernmental approach of the EU. This project results from research conducted at the Department of European Political and Governance Studies of the College of Europe. Individual research of several policy analysts of the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) have contributed to this endeavour.

Why democracies believe they can survive any crisis—and why that belief is so dangerous Why do democracies keep lurching from success to failure? The current financial crisis is just the latest example of how things continue to go wrong, just when it looked like they were going right. In this wide-ranging, original, and compelling book, David Runciman tells the story of modern democracy through the history of moments of crisis, from the First World War to the economic crash of 2008. A global history with a special focus on the United States, The Confidence Trap examines how democracy survived threats ranging from the Great Depression to the Cuban missile crisis, and from Watergate to the collapse of Lehman Brothers. It also looks at the confusion and uncertainty created by unexpected victories, from the defeat of German autocracy in 1918 to the defeat of communism in 1989. Throughout, the book pays close attention to the politicians and thinkers who grappled with these crises: from Woodrow Wilson, Nehru, and Adenauer to Fukuyama and Obama. In The Confidence Trap, David Runciman shows that democracies are good at recovering from emergencies but bad at avoiding them. The lesson democracies tend to learn from their mistakes is that they can survive them—and that no crisis is as bad as it seems. Breeding complacency rather than wisdom, crises lead to the dangerous belief that democracies can muddle through anything—a confidence trap that may lead to a crisis that is just too big to escape, if it hasn't already. The most serious challenges confronting democracy today are debt, the war on terror, the rise of China, and climate change. If democracy is to survive them, it must figure out a way to break the confidence trap.

Public organizations are increasingly expected to cope with crisis under the same resource constraints and mandates that make up their normal routines, reinforced only through collaboration. Collaborative Crisis Management introduces readers to how collaboration shapes societies’ capacity to plan for, respond to, and recover from extreme and unscheduled events. Placing emphasis on five conceptual dimensions, this book teaches students how this panacea works out on the ground and in the boardrooms, and how insights on collaborative practices can shed light on the outcomes of complex inter-organizational challenges across cases derived from different problem areas, administrative cultures, and national systems. Written in a concise, accessible style by experienced teachers and scholars, it places modes of collaboration under an analytical microscope by assessing not only the collaborative tools available to actors but also how they are used, to what effect, and with which adaptive capacity. Ten empirical chapters span different international cases and contexts discussing: Natural and "man-made" hazards: earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires, terrorism, migration flows, and violent protests Different examples of collaborative institutions, such as regional economic communities in Africa, and multi-level arrangements in Canada, the Netherlands, Turkey, and Switzerland Application of a multimethod approach, including single case studies, comparative case studies, process-tracing, and "large-n" designs. Collaborative Crisis Management is essential reading for those involved in researching and teaching crisis management.