Bringing together the forces of political debate, this book outlines civic fusion and the process of successful public policy mediation. To help mediators understand how powerful the tool of mediation is and help them reach their full potential, this guide outlines what civic fusion is and provides real world examples of cases with positive outcomes. The book examines what mediators aspire to do, what they actually do, and outlines what needs to be done to bring disparate groups of people together to reach agreements on complicated public policy questions. To help you understand, achieve and sustain civic fusion, this guide: Will help you construct the metaphor of civic fusion and describe how passion, power, and conflict provide the energy for it; Discusses three projects: the Chelsea charter consensus process; the construction cranes and derricks negotiated rulemaking; and abortion talks; Describes what it takes to build a foundation for civic fusion; and Much more!

When citizens are invited to help define and resolve difficult community issues, they often find better and more sustainable solutions. Civic Engagement: 10 Question to Shape an Effective Plan is designed to help you evaluate your community’s “civic health,” plan for effective public engagement, monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of your engagement processes, and also identify, benchmark, and share best practices.

Locked in our worldview communities and polarised through increasingly radical campaigning, we are anxious of today's great uncertainty and our politicians have little incentive to reach across party lines. The problem of social division is real. The Brexit vote led to the highest spike in hate crimes in Britain ever recorded and heated situations like the far-right rally in Charlottesville, USA are increasingly boiling over. Overcoming Social Division is not another book about dying democracies, because horror scenarios don't make you act. Instead, it is an optimistic response on what can be done, and about how we can coexist in fragmented and polarised societies. Anatol Valerian Itten explains how public conflict resolution, civic fusion and mediative decision making help us re-learn the ability to find common ground on controversial issues with our fellow citizens, whom we tend to assume believe more extreme things than they really do. This book takes the reader through empirical key factors, obstacles and blind spots and provides helpful guidelines for everyone interested in mitigating social division and resolving conflicts. The author's insights are based on his experience in conflict management, a study of dozens of public conflict resolution cases and surprising stories of over twenty interviewed mediators. Overcoming social division can be a strenuous task. But talking to our enemies is necessary if we don't want to end up in dysfunctional democracies, and it can be a more rewarding experience than we might think. This is a fascinating read for students and academics interested in conflict resolution and public participation from psychology, social sciences, law, and related disciplines. It is also a unique resource for professionals including officials, mediators, lawyers and other practitioners dealing with conflict and public participation.

This examination of the politics of ethnicity and nation-building in Africa stresses the trend towards subnationalist autonomy and away from a singular, state-centric system based on the Western model. Forrest ranges across the continent to explore a variety of subnational movements.

"Building upon the theoretical and empirical findings, Verdini offers advice for practitioners on effective negotiation and dispute resolution strategies that avoid the presumption that there are not enough resources to go around, and that one side must win and the other must inevitably lose."--Page [4] of cover.

The UK is experiencing a housing crisis unlike any other. Homelessness is on the increase and more people are at the mercy of landlords due to unaffordable housing. Place and Identity: Home as Performance highlights that the meaning of home is not just found within the bricks and mortar; it is constructed from the network of place, space and identity and the negotiation of conflict between those – it is not a fixed space but a link with land, ancestry and culture. This book fuses philosophy and the study of home based on many years of extensive research. Richardson looks at how the notion of home, or perhaps the lack of it, can affect identity and in turn the British housing market. This book argues that the concept of ‘home’ and physical housing are intrinsically linked and that until government and wider society understand the importance of home in relation to housing, the crisis is only likely to get worse. This book will be essential reading for postgraduate students whose interest is in housing and social policy, as well as appealing to those working in the areas of implementing and changing policy within government and professional spaces.

Derrick (archivist, Bronx County Historical Society) tells the story of what was, at the time, the largest and most expensive single municipal project ever attempted--the 1913 expansion of the New York City Dual System of Rapid Transit. He considers the factors motivating the expansion, the process of its design, the controversies surrounding financing it, and its impact on New York then and today. Appendixes summarize the contracts and related certificates and list the opening dates of Dual System lines. Twenty-four pages of photographs are also included. c. Book News Inc.

In the period between the Civil War and the Great Depression, Louisville, Kentucky was host to what George C. Wright calls "a polite form of racism." There were no lynchings or race riots, and to a great extent, Louisville blacks escaped the harsh violence that was a fact of life for blacks in the Deep South. Furthermore, black Louisvillians consistently enjoyed and exercised an oft-contested but never effectively retracted enfranchisement. However, their votes usually did not amount to any real political leverage, and there were no radical improvements in civil rights during this period. Instead, there existed a delicate balance between relative privilege and enforced passivity.A substantial paternalism carried over from antebellum days in Louisville, and many leading white citizens lent support to a limited uplifting of blacks in society. They helped blacks establish their own schools, hospitals, and other institutions. But the dual purpose that such actions served, providing assistance while making the maintenance of strict segregation easier, was not incidental. Whites salved their consequences without really threatening an established order. And blacks, obliged to be grateful for the assistance, generally refrained from arguing for real social and political equality for fear of jeopardizing a partially improved situation and regressing to a status similar to that of other southern blacks.In Life Behind a Veil: Blacks in Louisville, Kentucky, 1865 - 1930, George Wright looks at the particulars of this form of racism. He also looks at the ways in which blacks made the most of their less than ideal position, focusing on the institutions that were central to their lives. Blacks in Louisville boasted the first library for blacks in the United States, as well as black-owned banks, hospitals, churches, settlement houses, and social clubs. These supported and reinforced a sense of community, self-esteem, and pride that was often undermined by the white world.Life Behind a Veil is a comprehensive account of race relations, black response to white discrimination, and the black community behind the walls of segregation in this border town. The title echoes Blyden Jackson's recollection of his childhood in Louisville, where blacks were always aware that there were two very distinct Louisvilles, one of which they were excluded from.

"The Reader addresses the themes of humanism, structures of authority, and levels of culture among different social orders and between men and women. And it examines what Burckhardt's 'discovery of the individual' really meant for the construction of self in the late medieval and early modern context."--BOOK JACKET.