ABSTRACT
This book considers some recent and spectacular failures in policy-making and asks what is meant by policy 'disaster', the different forms that they can take and why they have occured. These issues are explored in nine contrasting cases drawn from both the European Union and its member states. These include: the devastating crisis in the Belgium political system following the exposure of a paedophile ring; the crisis in the Dutch fight against drugs; 'Mad Cows', the 'Arms to Iraq' affair in the UK; monetary union between West and East Germany; the Swedish monetary crisis of 1992; and the EU's common fisheries policy and policies towards civil war in Yugoslavia. This book is an excellent study of how and why policies can go wrong and highlights the limits of what governments can achieve in Western Europe.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|20 pages
Introduction
part II|38 pages
The Core Functions of the State
chapter 3|20 pages
The Mass Media and Policy Disasters
part III|53 pages
The ‘Welfare‘ State
chapter 5|17 pages
Italian Public Policy and the Southern Question
part IV|39 pages
The State in its International Context
part V|40 pages
The European Union Level
chapter 10|18 pages
The Change of a Lifetime?
part VI|22 pages
Conclusions