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Since the first fertilization of a human egg in the laboratory in 1968, scientific and technological breakthroughs have raised ethical dilemmas and generated policy controversies on both sides of the Atlantic. Embryo, stem cell, and cloning research have provoked impassioned political debate about their religious, moral, legal, and practical implications. National governments make rules that govern the creation, destruction, and use of embryos in the laboratory—but they do so in profoundly different ways. This book provides a comprehensive overview of political struggles about embryo research during four decades in four countries—the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. It demonstrates the impact of particular national histories and institutions on very different patterns of national governance. Over time, the book argues, partisan debate and religious–secular polarization have come to overshadow ethical reflection and political deliberation on the moral status of the embryo and the promise of biomedical research. Only by recovering a robust and public ethical debate will we be able to govern revolutionary life-science technologies effectively and responsibly into the future.

This book is the memoir of Ambassador William J. vanden Heuvel. It weaves together his most important public speeches and writings, compiled over a lifetime of public service, with anecdotes of his adventures as a second-generation American, a soldier, a lawyer, a political activist and a diplomat. The chapters touch upon themes that resonate as much today as they did when he first encountered them: the impact of heroes and mentors, the problem of racism in America, tackling the crisis in America's prisons, the plight and promise of the United Nations, America and the Holocaust, and the legacy of FDR. He describes how individuals, himself among them, have tackled some of America's most intractable problems with ingenuity and goodwill. Along the way, he shares his journey with some of the great characters of American history: Eleanor Roosevelt, William J. "Wild Bill" Donovan, Jack and Bobby Kennedy, Harry S. Truman, Jimmy Carter. With wisdom and humor, he argues for embracing all the challenges and opportunities that life in America can offer.

This book chronicles the everyday work of a group of nurse practitioners (NPs) working on the front lines of the American health care crisis as they cared for four hundred African American older adults living with poor health and limited means. The book describes how these NPs practiced an inclusive form of care work that addressed medical, social, and organizational problems that often accompany poverty. In solving this expanded terrain of problems from inside the clinic, these NPs were not only solving a broader set of concerns for their patients; they became a professional solution for managing “difficult people” for both their employer and the state. Through the book, the reader discovers that the problems found in the NPs' exam room are as much a product of our nation's disinvestment in social problems as of physician scarcity or rising costs.

This book offers the first comprehensive history of Supplemental Security Income (SSI), from its origins as part of President Nixon's social reform efforts to its pivotal role in the politics of the Clinton administration. Enacted into law in 1972, SSI marked the culmination of liberal social and economic policies that began during the New Deal. The new program provided cash benefits to needy elderly, blind, and disabled individuals. Because of the complex character of SSI, it provides the perfect subject for assessing the development of the American state in the late twentieth century. Supplemental Security Income was launched with the hope of freeing welfare programs from social and political stigma; it instead became a source of controversy almost from its very start. Intended as a program that paid uniform benefits across the nation, it ended up replicating many of the state-by-state differences that characterized the American welfare state. Begun as a program intended to provide income for the elderly, SSI evolved into a program that served people with disabilities, becoming a primary source of financial aid for the deinstitutionalized mentally ill and a principal support for children with disabilities. The book illuminates the course of modern social policy, delving into SSI's transformation from the idealistic intentions of its founders to the realities of its performance in America's highly splintered political system.

This book explores how labor unions are essential to all workers. Yet, union systems are badly flawed and in need of rapid changes for reform. The book's multilayered analysis presents a solution — a model to replace the existing firm-based collective bargaining with a larger, industry-scale bargaining method coupled with powerful incentives for union membership. These changes would represent a remarkable shift from the norm, but would be based on lessons from other countries, US history and current policy in several cities and states. In outlining the shift, the book details how these proposals might mend the broken economic and political systems in the United States. It also uses three examples from Britain, Canada, and Australia to explore what there is yet to learn about this new system in other developed nations. The book's practical advice extends to a proposal for how to implement the changes necessary to shift the current paradigm. This powerful call to action speaks directly to the workers affected by these policies — the very people seeking to have their voices recognized in a system that attempts to silence them.

With the fields of public administration and public management suffering a crisis of relevance, this book offers a provocative assessment of their shortfalls. The two fields, it finds, no longer address urgent questions of governance in a turbulent and dangerous world. The book offers a new path forward for research, teaching, and practice. Leaders of states are constantly reinventing strategies for governing. Experts in public administration must give advice on the design as well as execution of strategies that is effective, robust, and principled. The book challenges us to reinvigorate public administration and public management, preparing the fields for the challenges of the twenty-first century.

This book documents the history and impact of California's paid family leave program, the first of its kind in the United States. The book analyzes the effect of the state's landmark paid family leave on employers and workers. It also explores the implications of California's decade-long experience with paid family leave for the nation, which is engaged in ongoing debate about work–family policies. The book exposes the process by which California workers and their allies built a coalition to win passage of paid family leave in the state legislature, and lays out the lessons for advocates in other states and localities, as well as the nation. Because paid leave enjoys extensive popular support across the political spectrum, campaigns for such laws have an excellent chance of success if some basic preconditions are met. Do paid family leave and similar programs impose significant costs and burdens on employers? Business interests argue that they do and routinely oppose any and all legislative initiatives in this area. Once the program took effect in California, this book shows, large majorities of employers themselves reported that its impact on productivity, profitability, and performance was negligible or positive. The book demonstrates that the California program is well managed and easy to access, but that awareness of its existence remains limited. Moreover, those who need the program's benefits most urgently are least likely to know about it. As a result, the long-standing pattern of inequality in access to paid leave has remained largely intact.