Local Politics Matters

Local Politics Matters PDF

Author: Richard Meagher

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 191

ISBN-13: 159056619X

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"It feels like politics counts more today than it ever has. At the same time, people are frustrated by "the mess in Washington" or think "I can't make a difference." Local Politics Matters shows a way out: a chance for everyday people to feed their hunger for political action while having a positive impact. Local Politics Matters takes the knowledge that scholars have gathered from half a century of studying local politics, and translates it into clear action steps for citizens. Local Politics Matters: Explains local government. There are over 90,000 local governments in America. Do you have a "strong mayor" or "council-mayor" system of government? Who sits on your "board of supervisors"? What the heck is a "selectman"?! Shows why you should care. Local politics offers access-officials are literally the people in your neighborhood-and impact: you can make a difference. Lays out what to do. In local politics, sometimes there are right answers. The book explores six issues where only one path makes sense, and then follows up with specific steps to get involved. For readers who want to make a difference, this book lets them know how, by reminding them that Local Politics Matters"--

How Local Politics Shape Federal Policy

How Local Politics Shape Federal Policy PDF

Author: Sarah S. Elkind

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 0807834890

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Focusing on five Los Angeles environmental policy debates between 1920 and 1950, Sarah Elkind investigates how practices in American municipal government gave business groups political legitimacy at the local level as well as unanticipated influence over

All Health Politics Is Local

All Health Politics Is Local PDF

Author: Merlin Chowkwanyun

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2022-05-09

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 1469667681

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Health is political. It entails fierce battles over the allocation of resources, arguments over the imposition of regulations, and the mediation of dueling public sentiments—all conflicts that are often narrated from a national, top-down view. In All Health Politics Is Local, Merlin Chowkwanyun shifts our focus, taking us to four very different places—New York City, Los Angeles, Cleveland, and Central Appalachia—to experience a national story through a regional lens. He shows how racial uprisings in the 1960s catalyzed the creation of new medical infrastructure for those long denied it, what local authorities did to curb air pollution so toxic that it made residents choke and cry, how community health activists and bureaucrats fought over who'd control facilities long run by insular elites, and what a national coal boom did to community ecology and health. All Health Politics Is Local shatters the notion of a single national health agenda. Health is and has always been political, shaped both by formal policy at the highest levels and by grassroots community battles far below.

School Board Battles

School Board Battles PDF

Author: Melissa M. Deckman

Publisher: Georgetown University Press

Published: 2004-02-27

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 9781589014091

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If there is a "culture war" taking place in the United States, one of the most interesting, if under-the-radar, battlegrounds is in local school board elections. Rarely does the pitch of this battle reach national attention, as it did in Kansas when the state school board—led by several outspoken conservative Christians—voted to delete evolution from the state's science curriculum and its standardized tests in August 1999. That action rattled not only the educational and scientific communities, but concerned citizens around the nation as well. While the movement of the Christian Right into national and state politics has been well documented, this is the first book to examine their impact on local school board politics. While the Kansas decision was short-lived, during the past decade in school districts around the country, conservative Christian majorities have voted to place limits on sex education, to restrict library books, to remove references to gays and lesbians in the classroom, and to promote American culture as superior to other cultures. School Board Battles studies the motivation, strategies, and electoral success of Christian Right school board candidates. Based on interviews, and using an extensive national survey of candidates as well as case studies of two school districts in which conservative Christians ran and served on local boards, Melissa M. Deckman gives us a surprisingly complex picture of these candidates. She reveals weaker ties to national Christian Right organizations—and more similarities between these conservative candidates and their more secular counterparts than might be expected. Deckman examines important questions: Why do conservative Christians run for school boards? How much influence has the Christian Right actually had on school boards? How do conservative Christians govern? School Board Battles is an in-depth and in-the-trenches look at an important encounter in the "culture war"—one that may well determine the future of our nation's youth.

All Politics Is Local

All Politics Is Local PDF

Author: Meaghan Winter

Publisher: Hachette UK

Published: 2019-10-01

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1568588372

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Democrats have largely ceded control of state governments to the GOP, allowing them to rig our political system and undermine democracy itself. After the 2016 election, Republicans had their largest majority in the states since 1928, controlling legislative chambers in thirty-two states and governor offices in thirty-three. They also held both chambers of Congress and the presidency despite losing the popular vote. What happened? Meaghan Winter shows how the Democratic Party and left-leaning political establishment have spent the past several decades betting it all on the very risky and increasingly foolhardy strategy of abandoning the states to focus on federal races. For the American public, the fallout has been catastrophic. At the behest of their corporate patrons, Republican lawmakers have diminished employee protections and healthcare access and thwarted action on climate change. Voting rights are being dismantled, and even the mildest gun safety measures are being blocked. Taking us to three key battlegrounds--in Missouri, Florida, and Colorado--Winter reveals that robust state and local politics are the lifeblood of democracy and the only lasting building block of political power.

All Politics is Local, and Other Rules of the Game

All Politics is Local, and Other Rules of the Game PDF

Author: Tip O'Neill

Publisher: Adams Media Corporation

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 9781558504707

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Tip O'Neill--member of the U.S. Congress for 40 years and Speaker of the House for 10 years--was an American institution, known and loved across the country. In All Politics Is Local he shares his secrets. Continuing in the tradition of the bestselling Man of the House O'Neill's initmitable stories and irresistible style show how politics really work.

The Politics of Local Government

The Politics of Local Government PDF

Author: Barry E. Truchil

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2017-12-20

Total Pages: 117

ISBN-13: 1498520456

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Combining scholarly literature with elected experience at the local governmental level, Barry E. Truchil addresses the inner workings and politics of local government in small town and suburban settings in The Politics of Local Government. This book explores issues involving development and implementation of budgets, regulation, and control of development (including conversion of open space to housing and business buildings), as well as the initiation of progressive changes such as the use of green energy and control of corruption. Given the limited available research in this area, this book fills a void for scholars in the field, undergraduate and graduate students as well as those interested in the politics of local government.

Earthly Politics

Earthly Politics PDF

Author: Sheila Jasanoff

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2004-03-19

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 9780262600590

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Globalization today is as much a problem for international harmony as it is a necessary condition of living together on our planet. Increasing interconnectedness in ecology, economy, technology, and politics has brought nations and societies into even closer contact, creating acute demands for cooperation. Earthly Politics argues that in the coming decades global governance will have to accommodate differences even as it obliterates distance, and will have to respect many aspects of the local while developing institutions that transcend localism. This book analyzes a variety of environmental-governance approaches that balance the local and the global in order to encourage new, more flexible frameworks of global governance. On the theoretical level, it draws on insights from the field of science and technology studies to enrich our understanding of environmental-development politics. On the pragmatic level, it discusses the design of institutions and processes to address problems of environmental governance that increasingly refuse to remain within national boundaries. The cases in the book display the crucial relationship between knowledge and power—the links between the ways we understand environmental problems and the ways we manage them—and illustrate the different paths by which knowledge-power formations are arrived at, contested, defended, or set aside. By examining how local and global actors ranging from the World Bank to the Makah tribe in the Pacific Northwest respond to the contradictions of globalization, the authors identify some of the conditions for creating more effective engagement between the global and the local in environmental governance.

Local Elections and the Politics of Small-Scale Democracy

Local Elections and the Politics of Small-Scale Democracy PDF

Author: J. Eric Oliver

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2012-07-22

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1400842549

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Local government is the hidden leviathan of American politics: it accounts for nearly a tenth of gross domestic product, it collects nearly as much in taxes as the federal government, and its decisions have an enormous impact on Americans' daily lives. Yet political scientists have few explanations for how people vote in local elections, particularly in the smaller cities, towns, and suburbs where most Americans live. Drawing on a wide variety of data sources and case studies, this book offers the first comprehensive analysis of electoral politics in America's municipalities. Arguing that current explanations of voting behavior are ill suited for most local contests, Eric Oliver puts forward a new theory that highlights the crucial differences between local, state, and national democracies. Being small in size, limited in power, and largely unbiased in distributing their resources, local governments are "managerial democracies" with a distinct style of electoral politics. Instead of hinging on the partisanship, ideology, and group appeals that define national and state elections, local elections are based on the custodial performance of civic-oriented leaders and on their personal connections to voters with similarly deep community ties. Explaining not only the dynamics of local elections, Oliver's findings also upend many long-held assumptions about community power and local governance, including the importance of voter turnout and the possibilities for grassroots political change.