Local Government

The essential guide to local government leadership.

Performative Outrage delivers a piercing examination of how manufactured fury is eroding the foundations of democracy. Drawing from experience in public administration and backed by profound insights, Brooks Williams reveals how local government, the most direct and impactful form of governance—is being paralyzed by social media theatrics, fear-driven decision-making, and the relentless churn of outrage cycles. With searing clarity, he deconstructs the anatomy of performative anger, exposes its enablers, and traces its devastating consequences for trust, leadership, and community cohesion.

Why is racism still with us, and what can the Civil Rights Movement tell us about today? David Billings, a self-described “son of the South,” tackles these questions in his well-researched, deeply personal and eminent new audio book, Deep Denial: The Persistence of White Supremacy in United States History and Life.

The Katrina List: An Untold Story of Hurricane Katrina offers an intimate and powerful account of one of America’s most devastating disasters. Going beyond headlines and statistics, it captures the raw human experiences of those who endured the storm—stories of survival, separation, and resilience. Through overlooked personal narratives, it exposes the emotional toll of loss and the failures of government response. This audiobook also highlights the importance of remembrance, showcasing the Katrina National Memorial Museum’s role in preserving these voices for future generations.

Mayhem goes a long way toward answering questions that still linger about the notorious Boston Marathon bombing, such as: Where were the bombs made? And what had been Tamerlan Tsarnaev's relationship to the FBI? This engaging narrative casts a spotlight on the US government's relationship with the older Tsarnaev brother as his younger brother, Dzhokhar, continues his efforts to have his death sentence commuted.

Managing for Meteors provides a conduit for passing on direct experiences, raising questions, and providing tools for new leaders to consider for enhancing the functions of local governments and getting prepared in advance of major disruptors.

In Great Games, Local Rules, Alexander Cooley, one of America's most respected international relations scholars, explores the dynamics of the new competition for control of the region since 9/11. All three great powers have crafted strategies to increase their power in the area, which includes Afghanistan and the former Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. Each nation is pursuing important goals: basing rights for the US, access to natural resources for the Chinese, and increased political influence for the Russians.

After the 2016 election, Republicans had their largest majority in the states since 1928, controlling legislative chambers in 32 states and governor offices in 33. They also held both chambers of Congress and the presidency despite losing the popular vote. What happened? Meaghan Winter shows how the Democratic Party and left-leaning political establishment have spent the past several decades betting it all on the very risky and increasingly foolhardy strategy of abandoning the states to focus on federal races.

Fear swept Zhenjiang as British soldiers gathered outside the city walls in the summer of 1842. Already suspicious of foreigners, locals had also heard of the suffering the British inflicted two months earlier, in Zhapu. A wave of suicides and mercy killings ensued: rather than leave their families to the invaders, hundreds of women killed themselves and their children or died at the hands of male family members. British observers decried an "Asian culture" of ritual suicide. In reality, the event was sui generis—a tragic result of colliding local and global forces in nineteenth-century China.

It feels like politics counts more today than it ever has. At the same time, people are frustrated by “the mess in Washington” or think “I can’t make a difference”. Local Politics Matters shows a way out: a chance for everyday people to feed their hunger for political action while having a positive impact. Richard Meagher, a professor of political science, takes the knowledge that scholars have gathered from half a century of studying local politics, and translates it into clear action steps for citizens.

Almost everyone has faced the frustrating task of negotiating with a local, state, national, or foreign government at some point in their lives. Whether they are applying for a building permit from their local zoning board, trying to sell software to the US Defense Department, looking for approval for a merger, or planning to set up a business in Limerick or Bangalore, businesspeople confront a unique set of challenges when dealing with any form of government.

James L. Leloudis and Robert R. Korstad tell the story of race and voting rights, from the end of the Civil War until the present day. They show that battles over the franchise have played out through cycles of emancipatory politics and conservative retrenchment. When race has been used as an instrument of exclusion from political life, the result has been a society in which vast numbers of Americans are denied the elements of meaningful freedom: a good job, a good education, good health, and a good home.

In a series of 10 essays, spanning five centuries of history, beginning with the conquest of Mexico by Hermán Cortés and ending in 1992 San Francisco, Rodriguez explores the conflicts of race, religion, and cultural identity for Mexican-Americans across the landscape of his beloved California.

Traffico, trasporti, strade e piazze, scuole e centri per gli anziani. Su tutto questo si concentra l'attività di comuni e province. Nel volume si spiega come funziona e come si va trasformando il governo locale, dopo gli effetti della crisi economica e delle manovre per contenere i costi e razionalizzare il funzionamento delle istituzioni.

Women didn’t always have the rights and the possibilities that they do today. In the past, the basic human rights such as the right to vote, the right to reproduce, the right to work, to hold public office, to enter into legal contracts, to have equal rights in family law, the right to education, the right to be free from sexual violence, the right to own property, and so on were not available to women.