Public Policy, Governance and Polarization

David K. Jesuit is a Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Central Michigan University (CMU), USA.Russell Alan Williams is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Memorial University, Canada.

• Table of ContentsIntroduction and Overview: Polarization Explained and Applied Jeremy Castle, David K. Jesuit and Russell Alan Williams Section 1: Polarized Mass Publics and Electoral Politics1. Concerted Action in Complex Environments: A Comparison of Industrial Restructuring in Mid-Sized City-Regions in Canada and the United StatesCharles Conteh2. Lines in the Sand: How Americans’ Polarization Results in Unwillingness to Accept Compromise Policy OutcomesJ. Cherie Strachan, Daniel M. Shea and Michael Wolf3. Can Unequal Distributions of Wealth Influence Vote Choice? A Comparative Study of Germany, Sweden and the United StatesLindsay Flynn and Piotr R. ParadowskiSection 2: An Example of Polarization: The Climate Change Debate4. Consensual Environmental Policy in the Anthropocene: Governing What Humanity Hath WroughtRobert Bartlett and Walter F. Baber5. Polarized Climate Debate? Institutions and Structure in Subnational PolicymakingRussell Williams and Susan Morrissey Wyse6. Polarised business interests: EU climate policy-making during the "Great Recession"Raffael HanschmannSection 3: Potential Remedies to Polarized Policymaking7. Comparative National Energy Policies and Climate Change Actions in Countries with Divided and Unified Governments: Reflections, Projections and Opportunities for Improved PedagogyThomas Rohrer and Pamela S. Gates8. Exploring the Mediating Effects of Institutions on Polarization and Political Conflict: Evidence from Michigan CitiesNathan Grasse, Thomas Greitens, Lawrence Sych, and David Jesuit9. Political Polarization, Fiscal

Contemporary public administration scholars are paying more attention to evidence-based policy, while largely neglecting the greater polarization of political systems recently characterizing North America and the European Union. Public Policy, Governance and Polarization: Making Governance Work, edited by Jesuit and Williams, takes the readers into the causes, nature, and consequences of ideological polarization, determining the extent to which it might inhibit evidence-based policy formulation and be an obstacle to public engagement-based styles of policy making. Denita Cepiku, Professor of Global public management, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy. Public Policy, Governance and Polarization: Making Governance Work provides a workable definition of ‘polarization’ in politics and the production of public policy. The co-authors use comparative case studies from the United States, Canada, and Europe as a means of better understanding the causes and effects of political polarization. These analyses assert that political polarization is here to stay and will likely grow even more pronounced in the coming years. Consequently, public administrators must learn how to work with and manage polarization. Nicholas Bauroth, Associate Professor of Political Science at North Dakota State University, USA.