Public Policy books

Tourism and travel have been with us since time immemorial. However, with the onset of the industrial age and the use of railways, ships, motorcars, and aeroplanes, travelling possibilities—for both business and pleasure, domestic and international—were transformed. The annals of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) provide us with unmatched insights into this fascinating story, yet these archives have never been exhaustively exploited.  The History of the World Tourism Organization takes us on a unique journey to explain how tourism has burgeoned between the early twentieth century and now. Drawing on the UNWTO’s regularly published tourism statistics, this book provides comprehensive discussions of the consequences of an unhindered flow of tourists; the consequent protection of natural assets; the safeguarding of tourism resources; how frontier formalities affect this sector; how tourism impacts on world trade; and the promotion of tourism to countries in economic decline. Collectively, these investigations offer an impartial understanding of modern tourism and its effects.  This definitive overview of this major intergovernmental organization is a must-read for students and scholars of tourism and hospitality, and it is of interest to anyone concerned with the past, present, and future of this ever-evolving and fundamentally human practice.

In Europe and other developed countries, much of the population live in small and medium sized towns. For many such places the pursuit of growth is no longer a viable strategic option. As the ability of small towns to compete with larger cities for private investment and government support diminishes, the number trapped in a spiral of long-term decline grows. Beginning with a brief overview of the global context, highlighting that urban shrinkage and decline is a widespread problem, Schlappa and Nishino illustrate how small towns can generate sustainable forward strategies in contrasting institutional contexts by fostering co-production, adjusting public facilities and right sizing the urban area. The analytical tools and practical examples provided by Schlappa and Nishino are relevant for political and administrative decisionmakers, leaders of civil society and business organisations in developing locally appropriate, creative and robust strategies to shrink smart and re-grow smaller.

The promises, dreams and hopes of architects for future cities are now inextricably linked to climate change. Architects, Sustainability and the Climate Emergency: A Political Ecology chronicles how architects have shaped their ideas of the city—and sustainability—as knowledge of the climate emergency has unfolded. Have architects responded to the climate crisis too slowly? Describing a political ecology of architecture, Peter Raisbeck draws on architectural history, theory and practice, and the climate imaginaries of architects themselves. This exploration indicates how architects have viewed the climate emergency and positions architecture alongside the politics of climate and development studies. Raisbeck questions to what degree the traditional agency of architects leads to a political authority isolated from nature, human-environment systems and the nonhuman ecological subjects rapidly approaching tipping points. The fluidity of the climate emergency itself and its unfolding relationship to architectural knowledge suggests that new approaches, agencies and subjectivities are urgently required. As architects struggle to respond to the climate emergency, this book is an important and timely contribution to sustainability, climate and development debates. Architects, Sustainability and the Climate Emergency: A Political Ecology is a necessary provocation of a critical topic.

Efficient waste management is crucial for a sustainable future. However, due to population growth and the threat of global climate change, systems of urban waste management are under increasing pressure. For the waste sector, the prospect of transitioning to a circular economy presents an opportunity to promote organizational changes and improve performance, as well as contribute to a more sustainable world. Through the examination of case studies of municipalities and waste management firms across Europe, this book provides an overview of the most innovative best practices in urban waste management. The authors analyze the development and results of collection methods, tariff-setting systems, collaborations with partners and providers, recycling policies, and employees’ and stakeholders’ engagement programs. Given the complexity of urban waste management procedures, analysis is multidisciplinary, encompassing management, environmental and sociological perspectives. Providing an overview of opportunities for knowledge sharing and transfer among firms and municipalities to help them promote best practice, this book is a valuable reference for managers and policy makers in urban waste management.

Big data and its accompanying technological ecosystems have had a dramatic impact on business, politics and society. At the same time, the very nature of big data, a term that originates from computer science discourse, often remains opaque to research communities in other disciplines as well as to practitioners. Considering the pervasive impact of big data across a number of issues and domains, clearer insight into its functions and practical application is needed. Through a unique blend of case studies and critical analysis, Big Data and Decision-Making: Applications and Uses in the Public and Private Sector examines how big data influences contemporary societies in decision-making processes, strategy setting and overall performance. Covering topics ranging from data privacy to AI, big data in healthcare, SMEs, tourism and smart cities, contributors offer a critical appraisal of lessons learnt in the process of harnessing the promise inherent in big data. Big Data and Decision-Making: Applications and Uses in the Public and Private Sector breaks down the concept of big data to reveal how it has become integrated into the fabric of both public and private domains, as well as how its value can ultimately be exploited. To this end, its contributors call for the building of bridges between the computer science-driven debate on big data and research taking place in social sciences and management.

Understanding the challenges in research and practice of participation in the digital era, and the important role of local governance in achieving the sustainable development goals, Community Participation and Civic Engagement in the Digital Era unfolds the complex relationship of community participation, social capital and social networks. Singh presents an in-depth literature review alongside case studies from developing countries, showcasing the role of participation in sustainable development, and explaining how digital development creates technological tools and a virtual space for community engagement – increasing the complexity of community participation and civic engagement, and the potential for implementing the sustainable development goals at a local level. From the historic concept and forms of participation to describing and analysing the environmental and individual factors shaping practice of participation, community development interventions and local governance, the book culminates in a discussion of future work and challenges in the digital world. Delivering a careful review of the theoretical and practical problems of community participation in the digital age and featuring applied theories and cases which appeal to public policy makers and researchers, Community Participation and Civic Engagement in the Digital Era offers a rich theoretical perspective and detailed critical review of social capital and social networks that has profound application in the fields of political science, sociology and development economics.

Risk assessment and risk management are essential across the public sector to improve processes and outcomes. However, there is little clarity over what this actually means. This lack of understanding leads to a wide variation in risk assessment and management practice and to miscommunications of risk across professions, creating further barriers to interprofessional practice and co-creation of value across the public sector. Despite these challenges, there is a concurrent expectation that risk assessment and risk management be carried out across the sector to the highest standard, which inevitably becomes problematic. Conceptualising Risk Assessment and Management across the Public Sector explores concepts and applications of risk across the public sector to aid risk professionals in establishing a clearer understanding of what risk assessment and management is, how they might be unified across the sector, and how and where deviations across professions are needed. This book addresses these issues through providing a theory-informed discussion on the conceptualisations of risk, risk assessment, and risk management across the public sector, and through identifying where shared values and where differences exist across professions. Guidance on interprofessional risk practice and risk communication to overcome barriers is offered using a combination of theoretically underpinned approaches and exemplars from practice, presented to have broad applicability across the public sector rather than being siloed within a specific professional grouping or theoretical paradigm.

What is the role of trade to both expedite growth and to provide the transformative innovations needed in our post-Pandemic, post-Brexit, unstable world? Using historical examples to demonstrate how complex forces interplay into virtuous or vicious cycles of cumulative causation, Simmons and Culkin suggest alternative trade approaches to drive economic growth. Set within the socio-political space defined by a nascent Anglosphere and its implicit nationalism, they map alternative frameworks to embolden entrepreneurs to make the future. With fresh thinking Covid, Brexit and The Anglosphere equips academics, students, policymakers and general readers with the tools to drive growth in a post-Pandemic post- Brexit fragmenting world order facing rapidly advancing technical change.

Creative Tourism and Sustainable Territories: Insights from Southern Europe examines the growth and development of this emerging and fast developing area of tourism practice, while assessing it’s impacts on sustainability and regional development. Examples are drawn from across Southern Europe with analysis of Creative Tourism practices in Portugal, Italy, Spain, Greece, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Slovenia. Creative Tourism and Sustainable Territories features chapters from leading scholars that explore the definition and evolution of Creative Tourism, the roles played by urban and rural territories, the motivations and profiles of a creative tourist, best practices in Creative Tourism and contribution of festivals to Creative Tourism and territorial development providing an expansive study that will be of interest to researchers in Tourism Studies, Hospitality Studies, Sustainability, Economic Development and Cultural Industries, and Geography.

Designing Public Space for an Ageing Population examines the barriers older people face by being a pedestrian in the built environment and demonstrates how to overcome them. Drawing on research carried out across the globe, and framed around Bourdieu's theory of capitals, this book establishes how to overcome restrictions and barriers to mobility including: - Infrastructure capital, such as technology, services, roads, pavements, finance and economics - Social capital, for example friends, family, neighbourhood and community - Cultural capital (norms, expectations, rules, laws) - Individual capital (skills, abilities, resilience, adaptation and desire and willingness to change) The book demonstrates that the public realm must be safe and accessible, but also attractive and desirable to an ageing population. The book includes case studies presenting solutions around CABE's objectives of urban design, notably: safe and accessible space including ease of movement; legible space, including adaptability, diversity and choice and; distinctive and aesthetically pleasing space, including character, continuity and quality.