This highly anticipated addition to the “Great Questions in Politics” series offers a provocative argument about the persistence of bad ideas in shaping American economic policy. The result of a collaboration between political scientist Bryan D. Jones and economist Walter Williams, The Politics of Bad Ideas is indispensable reading for any study of American government, public policy, or economic and budgetary analysis. The Politics of Bad Ideas examines why, over the last quarter century, bad economic ideas -- such as cutting taxes without cutting spending -- have become so influential in shaping government policies. Using in-depth research and trenchant political and economic analysis, the book explores why those bad ideas continue to survive despite overwhelming evidence that they in fact cause damage to the federal government’s long-term fiscal stability and the American economy.

The Politics of Bad Ideas: The Great Tax Cut Delusion and the Decline of Good Government in America

Business & Money

Jones, Bryan D.

Williams, Walter

Economics

Pearson

Creating an Information Security Program from Scratch

This book is written for the first security hire in an organization, either an individual moving into this role from within the organization or hired into the role. More and more, organizations are realizing that information security requires a dedicated team with leadership distinct from information technology, and often the people who are placed into those positions have no idea where to start or how to prioritize. 
There are many issues competing for their attention, standards that say do this or do that, laws, regulations, customer demands, and no guidance on what is actually effective. This book offers guidance on approaches that work for how you prioritize and build a comprehensive information security program that protects your organization. 
While most books targeted at information security professionals explore specific subjects with deep expertise, this book explores the depth and breadth of the field. Instead of exploring a technology such as cloud security or a technique such as risk analysis, this book places those into the larger context of how to meet an organization's needs, how to prioritize, and what success looks like. Guides to the maturation of practice are offered, along with pointers for each topic on where to go for an in-depth exploration of each topic. 
Unlike more typical books on information security that advocate a single perspective, this book explores competing perspectives with an eye to providing the pros and cons of the different approaches and the implications of choices on implementation and on maturity, as often a choice on an approach needs to change as an organization grows and matures.

Computers & Technology

Computer Science

CRC-Press

The implementation perspective: A guide for managing social service delivery programs

After the “big” decisions are made in legislatures and executive offices, what is done by those who implement and operate social service programs will determine their success or failure. Yet, over and over again, the managers of public organization disregard or handle poorly the critical problems involved in starting and developing new programs or in modifying existing ones. This book presents a new decision-making rationale-the implementation perspective-as the basic guide to social service program management. The cardinal principle is that the central focus of policy must be at the point of service delivery. Here is where management must redirect its attention. The demand is to concentrate on the hard, dirty, time-consuming work of building the local delivery capacity needed to provide better social services and to implement new program decisions over time. The Implementation Perspective is a message for our times. Even those who would continue the nation's effort to meet its social obligations are finding that simply calling for big new programs and more spending is no longer satisfying. Moreover, Proposition 13, the balanced budget movement, inflation, and compelling demands for new funds in such areas as energy, now squeeze social programs. New directions may have to come, not from new funds, but from rethinking and redirection and, more to the point, the better management of existing programs.

The Implementation Perspective: A Guide for Managing Social Service Delivery Programs

Politics & Social Sciences

Sociology

University of California Press

In an important and provocative contribution to the debate on 'the British disease' in the 1980s, Walter Williams draws on his extensive American experience of central government management and analysis to recommend critical structure changes in the organisation of government in Britain. In this book, first published in 1988, Williams sees such radical upheaval as the only solution to her besetting economic and social problems, and calls for two interlocking revolutions - one in the structure of central government in Britain, and the other in the critical economic institutions of the nation. The latter can only succeed if the former has occurred, and Professor Williams focuses sharply on the managerial and analytic changes necessary. He argues that only with wholesale modernisation can any government, of whatever political hue, provide the institutional capacity to cope with the problems of a nation in deep social and economic decline. Written in a lucid and highly accessible style, Washington, Westminster and Whitehall is likely to provide a compelling text for anyone interested in the nature and development of government in Britain.

Washington, Westminster and Whitehall

Cambridge University Press

In an important and provocative contribution to the debate on 'the British disease' in the 1980s, Walter Williams draws on his extensive American experience of central government management and analysis to recommend critical structure changes in the organisation of government in Britain. In this book, first published in 1988, Williams sees such radical upheaval as the only solution to her besetting economic and social problems, and calls for two interlocking revolutions - one in the structure of central government in Britain, and the other in the critical economic institutions of the nation. The latter can only succeed if the former has occurred, and Professor Williams focuses sharply on the managerial and analytic changes necessary. He argues that only with wholesale modernisation can any government, of whatever political hue, provide the institutional capacity to cope with the problems of a nation in deep social and economic decline. Written in a lucid and highly accessible style, Washington, Westminster and Whitehall is likely to provide a compelling text for anyone interested in the nature and development of government in Britain.

The Bicycle Garden (Russian Edition)

Children's Books

Growing Up & Facts of Life

Khlebnikova Press/Fernwood & Hedges Books

Et si vous pouviez faire pousser un vélo? Timka et Dasha font pousser des vélos dans leur jardin. Ils ont bien vite découverts que le vélo n'était pas sage, il a grandi et grandi jusqu'au ciel. C'est pourquoi, le frère et la soeur ont décidé de continuer à planter. Couleur, 40 pages, 18 mois à 5 ans

The Bicycle Garden (French Edition)

Teen & Young Adult

Fernwood & Hedges Books

An American president must be master of two arts: politics and management. Without political mastery, he can't get elected, let alone construct the power base he'll need to govern. But without managerial expertise, his policy making will be unintelligent and ineffective. Managerial mastery has been missing from the administrations of all post-World War II presidents, according to Walter Williams. Spurred by popular anti-bureaucratic sentiment and promises to trim the fat from the federal government, presidents from Eisenhower to Carter have decimated the ranks of top-level bureaucrats, leaving the Executive Office of the President alarmingly short of competent policy advice. Reagan took the process a step further. He was, according to Williams, the first explicitly anti-analytic president. "Ronald Reagan launched an eight-year war on policy information and analysis," Williams writes. "He won. His distaste for expert policy information, analysis, and advice led to the destruction of much of the institutional analytic capacity built up in the Executive Branch." Poor policies and inept governance are the direct result of cutbacks in expert policy information and analytic capacity, Williams contends. He traces the decline of policy analysis since Eisenhower, but focuses his most devastating analysis on Reagan, who cut experts from the agencies, relied on a few hand-picked, mainly political advisers, and held all policy analysis to an ideological standard. The results of the fifty-year trend, according to Williams, are massive budget and trade deficits, public sector underinvestment in physical and human capital that threatens America's superpower status, and a widening gap between rich and poor that is tearing apart the nation's social fabric. Still, the situation is not hopeless. Williams prescribes a series of measures to correct America's course, arguing that government is not just the problem, it's the solution.

Mismanaging America: The Rise of the Anti-Analytic Presidency

Politics & Government

Univ Pr of Kansas

An American president must be master of two arts: politics and management. Without political mastery, he can't get elected, let alone construct the power base he'll need to govern. But without managerial expertise, his policy making will be unintelligent and ineffective.Managerial mastery has been missing from the administrations of all post-World War II presidents, according to Walter Williams. Spurred by popular anti-bureaucratic sentiment and promises to trim the fat from the federal government, presidents from Eisenhower to Carter have decimated the ranks of top-level bureaucrats, leaving the Executive Office of the President alarmingly short of competent policy advice.Reagan took the process a step further. He was, according to Williams, the first explicitly anti-analytic president. "Ronald Reagan launched an eight-year war on policy information and analysis," Williams writes. "He won. His distaste for expert policy information, analysis, and advice led to the destruction of much of the institutional analytic capacity built up in the Executive Branch."Poor policies and inept governance are the direct result of cutbacks in expert policy information and analytic capacity, Williams contends. He traces the decline of policy analysis since Eisenhower, but focuses his most devastating analysis on Reagan, who cut experts from the agencies, relied on a few hand-picked, mainly political advisers, and held all policy analysis to an ideological standard.The results of the fifty-year trend, according to Williams, are massive budget and trade deficits, public sector underinvestment in physical and human capital that threatens America's superpower status, and a widening gap between rich and poor that is tearing apart the nation's social fabric. Still, the situation is not hopeless. Williams prescribes a series of measures to correct America's course, arguing that government is not just the problem, it's the solution."This is an incisive original analysis of an important issue."--Fred I. Greenstein, author of Evolution of the Modern Presidency."The issues examined here--the emergence of technically trained, professional policy advisers, the proper role of such advisers, and the consequences of presidential failure to seek and use such advisers effectively*#8212;are of major importance to American governance. Others have examined pieces of the puzzle, but until now no one has explored it in this depth, using the methodology of repeated confidential--and very candid--interviews with actual participants in the policy process."--Harry S. Havens, author of The Evolution of the General Accounting Office.

University Press of Kansas

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Williams, Walter. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Williams, Walter

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Williams, Walter. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Politics of Bad Ideas: The Great Tax Cut Delusion and the Decline of Good Government in America

Creating an Information Security Program from Scratch

Creating an Information Security Program from Scratch

The Implementation Perspective: A Guide for Managing Social Service Delivery Programs

Washington, Westminster and Whitehall

Washington, Westminster and Whitehall

The Bicycle Garden (Russian Edition)

The Bicycle Garden (French Edition)

Mismanaging America: The Rise of the Anti-Analytic Presidency

Mismanaging America: The Rise of the Anti-Analytic Presidency