Reforming the UK’s Citizenship Test


Book Description

How many questions could you answer in a pub quiz about British values? Designed to ensure new migrants have accepted British values and integrated, the UK's citizenship test is often portrayed as a bad pub quiz with answers few citizens know. With the launch of a new post-Brexit immigration system, this is a critical time to change the test. Thom Brooks draws on first-hand experience of taking the test, and interviews with key figures including past Home Secretaries, to expose the test as ineffective and a barrier to citizenship. This accessible guide offers recommendations for transforming the citizenship test into a ‘bridge to citizenship’ which fosters greater inclusion and integration.




British Legal Reform


Book Description

This book is a manifesto for change that showcases new policy ideas for the next government. Organised by the Society of Labour Lawyers, the Labour Party’s legal think tank, the contributors inspire debate about Britain’s future, exploring a wide range of issues from access to justice to family law reform, housing, employment, EU and trade law, asylum and refugee law, immigration and citizenship, international law and constitutional reform. As Britain may see a change in government, this book is a must-have collection of new insights into how a Labour government can renew Britain.




The UK's Changing Democracy


Book Description

The UK’s Changing Democracy presents a uniquely democratic perspective on all aspects of UK politics, at the centre in Westminster and Whitehall, and in all the devolved nations. The 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU marked a turning point in the UK’s political system. In the previous two decades, the country had undergone a series of democratic reforms, during which it seemed to evolve into a more typical European liberal democracy. The establishment of a Supreme Court, adoption of the Human Rights Act, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish devolution, proportional electoral systems, executive mayors and the growth in multi-party competition all marked profound changes to the British political tradition. Brexit may now bring some of these developments to a juddering halt. The UK’s previous ‘exceptionalism’ from European patterns looks certain to continue indefinitely. ‘Taking back control’ of regulations, trade, immigration and much more is the biggest change in UK governance for half a century. It has already produced enduring crises for the party system, Parliament and the core executive, with uniquely contested governance over critical issues, and a rapidly changing political landscape. Other recent trends are no less fast-moving, such as the revival of two-party dominance in England, the re-creation of some mass membership parties and the disruptive challenges of social media. In this context, an in-depth assessment of the quality of the UK’s democracy is essential. Each of the 2018 Democratic Audit’s 37 short chapters starts with clear criteria for what democracy requires in that part of the nation’s political life and outlines key recent developments before a SWOT analysis (of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) crystallises the current situation. A small number of core issues are then explored in more depth. Set against the global rise of debased semi-democracies, the book’s approach returns our focus firmly to the big issues around the quality and sustainability of the UK’s liberal democracy.




Questioning EU Citizenship


Book Description

The question of supranational citizenship is one of the more controversial in EU law. It is politically contested, the object of prominent court rulings and the subject of intense academic debates. This important new collection examines this vexed question, paying particular attention to the Court of Justice. Offering analytical readings of the key cases, it also examines those political, social and normative factors which influence the evolution of citizens' rights. This examination is not only timely but essential given the prominence of citizen rights in recent political debates, including in the Brexit referendum. All of these questions will be explored with a special emphasis on the interplay between immigration from third countries and rules on Union citizenship.




Long-Term Care Reforms in OECD Countries


Book Description

The past fifteen years have seen longterm care policies in the countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) undergo substantial transformations, either through major policy reforms or through accumulated minor policy changes. This book brings together data from many OECD countries to compare key changes in national policies, examine the successes or failures of new approaches, and offer policy strategies for the future. Drawing on fifteen years of evidence and bringing together contributors from a number of perspectives throughout the OECD, it will be essential for those studying--or making--policy.




Public Management Reform


Book Description

This is the thoroughly revised fourth edition of the widely-used and established standard text on public management reform. The new edition retains the historical perspective back to 1980, but now directly addresses the pervasive effects of the Global Economic Crisis of 2008 on public sectors in the three continents covered.




Reforming the Welfare State


Book Description

This book introduces a unique, new dataset on welfare state reforms in the UK, Denmark, Finland, France and Germany from 1974 to 2014. Using a variety of welfare state types in Europe, the authors have systematically investigated core questions that have preoccupied the welfare state literature at least since the 1990s. These include the extent of path dependency in mature welfare states, the usage of so-called "invisible" policy instruments for hiding cutbacks, and the role of partisanship – on whether the ideological color of the incumbent affects policy – which have been analysed in depth by examining the new dataset presented in this book. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners studying, and working in, welfare and the welfare state, and more broadly to political science, sociology and social policy.




Public Management Reform : A Comparative Analysis


Book Description

In this major new contribution to a rapidly expanding field, the authors offer an integrated analysis of the wave of management reforms which have swept through so many countries in the last twenty years. The reform trajectories of ten countries are compared, and key differences of approach discussed. Unlike some previous works, this volume affords balanced coverage to the 'New Public Management' (NPM) and the 'non-NPM' or 'reluctant NPM' countries, since it covers Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, the UK and the USA. Unusually, it also includes a preliminary analysis of attempts to improve management within the European Commission.




The Reform of Public Services Under New Labour


Book Description

Drawing on interviews conducted by the author with politicians, bureaucrats and citizens, alongside content analysis of government documents, the book explains how New Labour has consumerized public services and contributed to the anti-politics that it previously decried.




The Limits of Electoral Reform


Book Description

The Limits of Electoral Reform examines a variety of reforms, including campaign finance, direct democracy, legislative term limits, and changes to the electoral system itself. This study finds electoral reforms have limited, and in many cases, no effects. The findings here suggest there are hard limits to effects of electoral reform.




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