State and Local Government: Sustainability in the 21st Century examines the social, economic, institutional, and environmental factors that promote or threaten the sustainability of today's state and local governments. Ideal for students who are approaching the subject for the first time, this accessible and engaging introduction covers all of the essential issues faced by contemporary state and local governments. Representing three generations of teaching and scholarship, authors Christopher A. Simon, Brent S. Steel, and Nicholas P. Lovrich provide students with a broad range of perspectives. They draw on a variety of current materials including their own research, the work of distinguished scholars, and the latest literature in the field. State and Local Government also contains a variety of helpful pedagogical tools: * "How to Get Involved" boxes suggest various ways that students can follow--and actively participate in--their state and local governments. * Chapter introductions help students to identify key concepts right from the start of each selection. * Key Terms and end-of-chapter Study Questions reinforce chapter material and promote active learning. * Informative images provide students with visual cues for recalling chapter content. Designed to facilitate and encourage lifelong civic engagement, State and Local Government: Sustainability in the 21st Century speaks directly to today's college students. This is especially important because their generation will determine whether we meet the challenge of sustainability or continue to slide toward irretrievable environmental damage. This timely and provocative volume is ideal for courses in state and local government and can also be used as a supplemental text for courses in public policy, environmental policy, and public administration.

State and Local Government: Sustainability in the 21st Century

Reference

Steel, Brent S.

Simon, Christopher A.

Lovrich, Nicholas P.

Words, Language & Grammar

Oxford University Press

This intriguing book investigates the technical information quandary created by post-industrial changes, which have produced demands for citizen involvement in public policy processes while complex scientific and technical issues increasingly make public involvement difficult. Authors Pierce, Steger, Steel, and Lovrich address the degree to which interest groups might serve to bridge the knowledge gap between public policy processes and the citizenry in U.S. and Canadian settings.
The focus of the study is on acid rain policy in Michigan and Ontario, an area of considerable scientific and technical complexity as well as political and public interest. The authors examine how the U.S. and Canadian publics acquire, process, and communicate policy-relevant information so that it can influence policymaking. Do interest groups play the information dissemination role in a manner that could address the technical information quandary? Are interest groups playing the same or different roles in the United States and Canada? What different factors cause U.S. and Canadian interest groups to behave as they do in the political arena? Recommended for scholars of Political Science, Communication, Environmental Studies, and Comparative Public Policy.

Citizens, Political Communication, and Interest Groups: Environmental Organizations in Canada and the United States (Praeger Series in Political Communication)

Politics & Social Sciences

Lovrich, Nicholas

Pierce, John

Steger, Mary Ann E.

Social Sciences

Praeger

The use of public lands in the western United States has become the focus of international, national, and regional debate. Public concern for wildlife, fish, wilderness, recreation, and other values associated with these lands has increased substantially since the 1960s. And that concern has clashed with the more user/extraction orientation of traditional interests. The priorities for management of these lands have become the subject of increasing controversy and litigation, particularly with regard to U.S. federal forests and rangelands. At the heart of this debate are differing philosophical and normative views about the natural environment and human relationship to that environment. This volume provides an analysis of public values and philosophical views about the environment from an interdisciplinary perspective and will be of interest to scholars and policymakers in public policy, business-government relations, and environmentalism.

Public Lands Management in the West: Citizens, Interest Groups, and Values

Business & Money

Economics

This book reveals how embedded beliefs more so than a lack of scientific knowledge and understanding are creating a cognitive bias toward information that coincides with personal beliefs rather than scientific consensus―and that this anti-science bias exists among liberals as well as conservatives.
In 2010, an outbreak of whooping cough in California infected more than 8,000 people, resulting in the hospitalization of more than 800 people and the death of 10 infants. In 2015, an outbreak of the measles in Disneyland infected more than 125 people. Both the whooping cough and the measles are vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs) that have been largely nonexistent in the United States for decades. As these cases demonstrate, individuals who prioritize ideology or personal beliefs above scientific consensus can impinge on society at large―and they illustrate how rejecting science has unfortunate results for public health and for the environment.
When Ideology Trumps Science examines how proponents of scientific findings and the scientists responsible for conducting and communicating the applicable research to decision makers are encountering direct challenges to scientific consensus. Using examples from high-stakes policy debates centered on hot-button controversies such as climate change, GMO foods, immunization, stem cell research, abstinence-only education, and birth control, authors Wolters and Steel document how the contested nature of contemporary perspectives on science leads to the possibility that policymakers will not take science into account when making decisions that affect the general population. In addition, the book identifies ways in which liberals and conservatives have both contested issues of science when consensus diverges from their ideological positions and values. It is a compelling must-read for public policy students and practitioners.
 • Provides readers with a clear understanding of how ideology and personal values supersede scientific consensus for people across the political spectrum
• Identifies key indicators of support for or opposition to current science-policy conflicts
• Explains how disagreement on issues such as climate change and vaccination results in inaction on these policy issues and negatively affects human and environmental health at the local, regional, national, and global levels
• Offers insights that may serve to break through the barriers of policy inaction caused by disagreement with scientific consensus

When Ideology Trumps Science: Why We Question the Experts on Everything from Climate Change to Vaccinations

Science & Math

Wolters, Erika Allen

History & Philosophy

This book poses the question of whether identifiable individual-level attributes (e.g., values, interests, knowledge, demographic characteristics) lead to support for or opposition to the development and implementation of alternative energy technologies.  In recent years, attempts to site alternative energy technologies (e.g., wind, solar, wave) have been met by intense opposition from a variety of sources, including many environmentalists from whom one might expect support for non-carbon based renewable energy initiatives.  This volume argues that there are indeed such discernible attributes, and moreover that the identification and exploration are important for the development of support strategies for the well-informed and achievable siting of such technologies. 

Prospects for Alternative Energy Development in the U.S. West: Tilting at Windmills? (Environmental Challenges and Solutions, 8)

Pierce, John C.

Springer

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