1st Edition
Public Policy, Governance and Polarization Making Governance Work
Table of Contents
Introduction and Overview: Polarization Explained and Applied
Jeremy Castle, David K. Jesuit and Russell Alan Williams
Section 1: Polarized Mass Publics and Electoral Politics
1. Concerted Action in Complex Environments: A Comparison of Industrial Restructuring in Mid-Sized City-Regions in Canada and the United States
Charles Conteh
2. Lines in the Sand: How Americans’ Polarization Results in Unwillingness to Accept Compromise Policy Outcomes
J. Cherie Strachan, Daniel M. Shea and Michael Wolf
3. Can Unequal Distributions of Wealth Influence Vote Choice? A Comparative Study of Germany, Sweden and the United States
Lindsay Flynn and Piotr R. Paradowski
Section 2: An Example of Polarization: The Climate Change Debate
4. Consensual Environmental Policy in the Anthropocene: Governing What Humanity Hath Wrought
Robert Bartlett and Walter F. Baber
5. Polarized Climate Debate? Institutions and Structure in Subnational Policymaking
Russell Williams and Susan Morrissey Wyse
6. Polarised business interests: EU climate policy-making during the "Great Recession"
Raffael Hanschmann
Section 3: Potential Remedies to Polarized Policymaking
7. Comparative National Energy Policies and Climate Change Actions in Countries with Divided and Unified Governments: Reflections, Projections and Opportunities for Improved Pedagogy
Thomas Rohrer and Pamela S. Gates
8. Exploring the Mediating Effects of Institutions on Polarization and Political Conflict: Evidence from Michigan Cities
Nathan Grasse, Thomas Greitens, Lawrence Sych, and David Jesuit
9. Political Polarization, Fiscal
Biography
David K. Jesuit is a Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Central Michigan University (CMU), USA.
Russell Alan Williams is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Memorial University, Canada.
Contemporary public administration scholars are paying more attention to evidence-based policy, while largely neglecting the greater polarization of political systems recently characterizing North America and the European Union. Public Policy, Governance and Polarization: Making Governance Work, edited by Jesuit and Williams, takes the readers into the causes, nature, and consequences of ideological polarization, determining the extent to which it might inhibit evidence-based policy formulation and be an obstacle to public engagement-based styles of policy making.
Denita Cepiku, Professor of Global public management, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy.
Public Policy, Governance and Polarization: Making Governance Work provides a workable definition of ‘polarization’ in politics and the production of public policy. The co-authors use comparative case studies from the United States, Canada, and Europe as a means of better understanding the causes and effects of political polarization. These analyses assert that political polarization is here to stay and will likely grow even more pronounced in the coming years. Consequently, public administrators must learn how to work with and manage polarization.
Nicholas Bauroth, Associate Professor of Political Science at North Dakota State University, USA.
