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The System: Who Owns the Internet, and How It Owns Us
by James Ball'A fascinating exposé of the world behind your screen. Timely, often disturbing, and so important' Caroline Criado Perez, author of Invisible Women'Takes us beyond Zuckerberg, Bezos et al to a murkier world where we discover how everything online works and who benefits from it. Fascinating, engaging and important' Observer'Could not be more timely' SpectatorThe internet is a network of physical cables and connections, a web of wires enmeshing the world, linking huge data centres to one another and eventually to us. All are owned by someone, financed by someone, regulated by someone. We refer to the internet as abstract from reality. By doing so, we obscure where the real power lies.In this powerful and necessary book, James Ball sets out on a global journey into the inner workings of the system. From the computer scientists to the cable guys, the billionaire investors to the ad men, the intelligence agencies to the regulators, these are the real-life figures powering the internet and pulling the strings of our society.Ball brilliantly shows how an invention once hailed as a democratising force has concentrated power in places it already existed – that the system, in other words, remains the same as it did before.
Bluffocracy (Provocations Ser.)
by James Ball Andrew GreenwayBritain is run by bluffers. At the top of our government, our media and the civil service sit men – it’s usually men – whose core skills are talking fast, writing well and endeavouring to imbue the purest wind with substance. They know a little bit about everything, and an awful lot about nothing.We live in a country where George Osborne can become a newspaper editor despite having no experience in journalism, squeezing it in alongside five other jobs; where a newspaper columnist can go from calling a foreign head of state a ‘wanker’ to being Foreign Secretary in six months; where the minister who holds on to his job for eighteen months has more expertise than the supposedly permanent senior civil servants.The UK establishment has signed up to the cult of winging it, of pretending to hold all the aces when you actually hold a pair of twos. It prizes ‘transferable skills’, rewarding the general over the specific – and yet across the country we struggle to hire doctors, engineers, coders and more.Written by two self-confessed bluffers, this incisive book chronicles how the UK became hooked on bluffing – and why we have to stop it.
Women, Development and Peacebuilding in Africa: Stories from Uganda
by Jennifer BallThis book explores and reflects on peacebuilding, which emerges from the experiences and realities of women’s lives in East Africa, specifically, in Uganda. The author argues that often these community based peacebuilding efforts are responses to women's struggles for survival — both individually and for their families and communities. Carefully analyzing education, women's roles, human rights, conflicts, disability and immigration, this book helps to understand African women's roles in development and peacebuilding in the region. The project will interest development studies and African politics scholars, graduate students, researchers and policy makers.
The Intensification of Surveillance: Crime, Terrorism and Warfare in the Information Age
by Kirstie Ball Frank WebsterOur public and private lives are under surveillance as never before. Whether we are shopping with a credit card, walking down the street or emailing a colleague at work, our activities are closely monitored.*BR**BR*Since September 11th 2001, surveillance has intensified further. Yet although individuals, groups, governments and states are more closely monitored, our security is not assured.*BR**BR*This book explores the vast range of issues related to increased surveillance. What is going on in an area clouded by secrecy from the state and complacent reassurances from corporations? How do we track suspects and combat crime without also eroding our civil liberties and sacrificing our rights to privacy? Does electronic tagging of prisoners work? What are retailers up to with 'lifestyle profiling'?*BR**BR*Focusing on these and other issues such as paedophilia, money-laundering, information warfare, cybercrime, and related legislation, this book spotlights benefits and costs of surveillance, and suggests how it is likely to develop in the future.
Livable Communities for Aging Populations: Urban Design for Longevity
by M. Scott BallAn innovative look at design solutions for building lifelong neighborhoods Livable Communities for Aging Populations provides architects and designers with critical guidance on urban planning and building design that allows people to age in their own homes and communities. The focus is on lifelong neighborhoods, where healthcare and accessibility needs of residents can be met throughout their entire life cycle. Written by M. Scott Ball, a Duany Plater-Zyberk architect with extensive expertise in designing for an aging society, this important work explores the full range of factors involved in designing for an aging population—from social, economic, and public health policies to land use, business models, and built form. Ball examines in detail a number of case studies of communities that have implemented lifelong solutions, discussing how to apply these best practices to communities large and small, new and existing, urban and rural. Other topics include: How healthcare and disability can be integrated into an urban environment as a lifelong function The need for partnership between healthcare providers, community support services, and real-estate developers How to handle project financing and take advantage of lessons learned in the senior housing industry The role of transportation, access, connectivity, and building diversity in the success of lifelong neighborhoods Architects, urban planners, urban designers, and developers will find Livable Communities for Aging Populations both instructive and inspiring. The book also includes a wealth of pertinent information for public health officials working on policy issues for aging populations.
Livable Communities for Aging Populations: Urban Design for Longevity
by M. Scott BallAn innovative look at design solutions for building lifelong neighborhoods Livable Communities for Aging Populations provides architects and designers with critical guidance on urban planning and building design that allows people to age in their own homes and communities. The focus is on lifelong neighborhoods, where healthcare and accessibility needs of residents can be met throughout their entire life cycle. Written by M. Scott Ball, a Duany Plater-Zyberk architect with extensive expertise in designing for an aging society, this important work explores the full range of factors involved in designing for an aging population—from social, economic, and public health policies to land use, business models, and built form. Ball examines in detail a number of case studies of communities that have implemented lifelong solutions, discussing how to apply these best practices to communities large and small, new and existing, urban and rural. Other topics include: How healthcare and disability can be integrated into an urban environment as a lifelong function The need for partnership between healthcare providers, community support services, and real-estate developers How to handle project financing and take advantage of lessons learned in the senior housing industry The role of transportation, access, connectivity, and building diversity in the success of lifelong neighborhoods Architects, urban planners, urban designers, and developers will find Livable Communities for Aging Populations both instructive and inspiring. The book also includes a wealth of pertinent information for public health officials working on policy issues for aging populations.
Education Plc
by Martin BallIs the privatisation of state education defendable? Did the public sector ever provide a fair education for all learners? In Education plc, Stephen Ball provides a comprehensive, analytic and empirical account of the privatisation of education. He questions the kind of future we want for education and what role privatisation and the private sector may have in that future. Using policy sociology to describe and critically analyse changes in policy, policy technologies and policy regimes, he looks at the ethical and democratic impacts of these changes and raises the following questions: Is there a legitimacy for privatisation based on the convergence of interests between business and the 'third way' state? Is the extent and value of private participation in public education misunderstood? How is the selling of private company services linked to the remodelling of schools? Why have the technical and political issues of privatisation been considered but ethical issues almost totally neglected? What is happening here, beyond mere technical changes in the form of public service delivery? Is education policy being spoken by new voices? Drawing upon extensive documentary research and interviews with senior executives from the leading 'education services industry' companies, the author challenges preconceptions about privatisation. He concludes that blanket defence of the public sector as it was, over and against the inroads of privatisation, is untenable, and that there is no going back to a past in which the public sector as a whole worked well and worked fairly in the interests of all learners, because there was no such past. This book breaks new ground and builds on Stephen Ball's previous work on education policy. It should appeal to those researching and studying in the fields of social policy, policy analysis, sociology of education, education research and social economics.
Security and Economy in the Third World
by Nicole BallNicole Ball brings the effects of security expenditure to the center of that debate, examining in detail how the potential negative consequences on development outweigh the potential positive effects.Originally published in 1988.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science
by Philip BallPhilip Theophrastus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim - known to later ages as Paracelsus - stands on the borderline between medieval and modern; a name that is familiar but a man who has been hard to perceive or understand. Contemporary of Luther, enemy of established medicine, scourge of the universities ('at all the German schools you cannot learn as much as at the Frankfurt Fair'), army surgeon and alchemist, myths about him - from his treating diseases from beyond the grave in mid-nineteenth century Salzburg to his Faustian bargain with the devil to regain his youth - have been far more lasting than his actual story. Even during his lifetime, he was rumoured to travel with a magical white horse and to store the elixir of life in the pommel of his sword.But who was Paracelsus and what did he really believe and practice? Although Paracelsus has been seen as both a charlatan and as a founder of modern science, Philip Ball's book reveals a more richly complex man - who used his eyes and ears to learn from nature how to heal, and who wrote influential books on medicine, surgery, alchemy and theology while living a drunken, combative, vagabond life. Above all, Ball reveals a man who was a product of his time - an age of great change in which the church was divided and the classics were rediscovered - and whose bringing together of the seemingly diverse disciplines of alchemy and biology signalled the beginning of the age of rationalism.
Why Society is a Complex Matter: Meeting Twenty-first Century Challenges with a New Kind of Science
by Philip BallSociety is complicated. But this book argues that this does not place it beyond the reach of a science that can help to explain and perhaps even to predict social behaviour. As a system made up of many interacting agents – people, groups, institutions and governments, as well as physical and technological structures such as roads and computer networks – society can be regarded as a complex system. In recent years, scientists have made great progress in understanding how such complex systems operate, ranging from animal populations to earthquakes and weather. These systems show behaviours that cannot be predicted or intuited by focusing on the individual components, but which emerge spontaneously as a consequence of their interactions: they are said to be ‘self-organized’. Attempts to direct or manage such emergent properties generally reveal that ‘top-down’ approaches, which try to dictate a particular outcome, are ineffectual, and that what is needed instead is a ‘bottom-up’ approach that aims to guide self-organization towards desirable states.This book shows how some of these ideas from the science of complexity can be applied to the study and management of social phenomena, including traffic flow, economic markets, opinion formation and the growth and structure of cities. Building on these successes, the book argues that the complex-systems view of the social sciences has now matured sufficiently for it to be possible, desirable and perhaps essential to attempt a grander objective: to integrate these efforts into a unified scheme for studying, understanding and ultimately predicting what happens in the world we have made. Such a scheme would require the mobilization and collaboration of many different research communities, and would allow society and its interactions with the physical environment to be explored through realistic models and large-scale data collection and analysis. It should enable us to find new and effective solutions to major global problems such as conflict, disease, financial instability, environmental despoliation and poverty, while avoiding unintended policy consequences. It could give us the foresight to anticipate and ameliorate crises, and to begin tackling some of the most intractable problems of the twenty-first century.
The Legitimacy of The European Union through Legal Rationality: Free Movement of Third Country Nationals (Routledge Research in EU Law)
by Richard BallThird country nationals (TCNs) play an important part in the economy of the European Union, reflected in the rights granted to them under European Union Law. Political expediency is however shaped by world, regional and domestic influences that in turn determine policy towards third country nationals and their legal rights to freedom of movement. This book examines the concept of political legitimacy within the European Union through the principles of legal rationality, focusing in particular on the European Union’s policy towards third country nationals. Richard Ball argues that for legal doctrine to be rational it must display the requirements of formal, instrumental and substantive rationality, each mutually exclusive and essential. In taking this position of legal rationality, the book focuses on free movement rights of TCNs within EU treaties and implementing legislation, the Area of Freedom Security and Justice, and Association Agreements. Ball concludes that the stance of European Union Law towards third country nationals lacks legitimacy, and suggests possible new directions that EU policy should take in the future.
The Legitimacy of The European Union through Legal Rationality: Free Movement of Third Country Nationals (Routledge Research in EU Law)
by Richard BallThird country nationals (TCNs) play an important part in the economy of the European Union, reflected in the rights granted to them under European Union Law. Political expediency is however shaped by world, regional and domestic influences that in turn determine policy towards third country nationals and their legal rights to freedom of movement. This book examines the concept of political legitimacy within the European Union through the principles of legal rationality, focusing in particular on the European Union’s policy towards third country nationals. Richard Ball argues that for legal doctrine to be rational it must display the requirements of formal, instrumental and substantive rationality, each mutually exclusive and essential. In taking this position of legal rationality, the book focuses on free movement rights of TCNs within EU treaties and implementing legislation, the Area of Freedom Security and Justice, and Association Agreements. Ball concludes that the stance of European Union Law towards third country nationals lacks legitimacy, and suggests possible new directions that EU policy should take in the future.
Behavioural Public Policy in Australia: How an Idea Became Practice (Public Administration and Public Policy)
by Sarah BallUsing rich ethnographic data and first-hand experience, Ball presents a detailed account of Australia’s attempts to incorporate behavioural insights into its public policy. Ball identifies three competing interpretations of behavioural public policy, and how these interpretations have influenced the use of this approach in practice. The first sees the process as an opportunity to introduce more rigorous evidence. The second interpretation focuses on increasing compliance, cost savings and cutting red tape. The last focuses on the opportunity to better involve citizens in policy design. These interpretations demonstrate different ‘solutions’ to a series of dilemmas that the Australian Public Service, and others, have confronted in the last 50 years, including growing politicisation, technocracy and a disconnect from the needs of citizens. Ball offers a detailed account of how these priorities have shaped how behavioural insights have been implemented in policy-making, as well as reflecting on the challenges facing policy work more broadly. An essential read for practitioners and scholars of policy-making, especially in Australia.
Behavioural Public Policy in Australia: How an Idea Became Practice (Public Administration and Public Policy)
by Sarah BallUsing rich ethnographic data and first-hand experience, Ball presents a detailed account of Australia’s attempts to incorporate behavioural insights into its public policy. Ball identifies three competing interpretations of behavioural public policy, and how these interpretations have influenced the use of this approach in practice. The first sees the process as an opportunity to introduce more rigorous evidence. The second interpretation focuses on increasing compliance, cost savings and cutting red tape. The last focuses on the opportunity to better involve citizens in policy design. These interpretations demonstrate different ‘solutions’ to a series of dilemmas that the Australian Public Service, and others, have confronted in the last 50 years, including growing politicisation, technocracy and a disconnect from the needs of citizens. Ball offers a detailed account of how these priorities have shaped how behavioural insights have been implemented in policy-making, as well as reflecting on the challenges facing policy work more broadly. An essential read for practitioners and scholars of policy-making, especially in Australia.
The Guardsmen: Harold Macmillan, Three Friends And The World They Made
by Simon BallFrom the playing fields of Eton via the horrors of the Western Front to the pinnacle of political power in 20th-century Britain – a brilliant collective biography of Harold Macmillan, Lord Salisbury, Oliver Lyttleton and Harry Crookshank.
Class Strategies and the Education Market: The Middle Classes and Social Advantage (PDF)
by Stephen J. BallModern state education was essentially formed around the needs and interests of the middle class. The middle classes are currently very much at the centre of all politicians' electoral concerns. Nevertheless sociological and educational research has tended to neglect the middle class. Class Strategies and the Education Market examines the ways in which the middle classes maintain and improve their social advantages in and through education. Drawing on an extensive series of interviews with parents and children, this book identifies key moments of decision making in the construction of the educational trajectories of middle class children. Stephen J. Ball organises his analysis around the key concepts of social closure, social capital, values and principles and risk, while bringing a broad range of up-to date sociological theory to bear upon his subject. From this thorough analysis, valuable and thought-provoking insights into the assiduous care and considerable effort and expenditure which goes into ensuring the educational success of the middle class child, emerge. The middle classes are a sociological enigma, presenting the social researcher with considerable analytic and theoret 9781134483532
Class Strategies and the Education Market: The Middle Classes and Social Advantage
by Stephen J. BallModern state education was essentially formed around the needs and interests of the middle class. The middle classes are currently very much at the centre of all politicians' electoral concerns. Nevertheless sociological and educational research has tended to neglect the middle class. Class Strategies and the Education Market examines the ways in which the middle classes maintain and improve their social advantages in and through education. Drawing on an extensive series of interviews with parents and children, this book identifies key moments of decision making in the construction of the educational trajectories of middle class children. Stephen J. Ball organises his analysis around the key concepts of social closure, social capital, values and principles and risk, while bringing a broad range of up-to date sociological theory to bear upon his subject. From this thorough analysis, valuable and thought-provoking insights into the assiduous care and considerable effort and expenditure which goes into ensuring the educational success of the middle class child, emerge. The middle classes are a sociological enigma, presenting the social researcher with considerable analytic and theoret 9781134483532
The Education Debate (3rd edition) (PDF)
by Stephen J. BallSince the second edition of this book, the education debate has fiercened. Education policy must ensure economic productivity and competitiveness, but in recent years, debates about its contribution to the worsening of social inequality, particularly in relation to grammar schools, have become increasingly divisive. Ever-changing, stuttering policy can make this a field that's hard to keep track of... a problem that this book solves. Along with extensive updates, this third edition includes a new introduction and updated examples and references throughout. Ball examines new areas of focus, including the emphasis on neuroscience, the increased interest of business in education and the impact of austerity and precarity. Unlike so many other books on education policy, The education debate doesn't simply describe education policy, but captures key debates and themes in this fast-changing field.
Education plc: Understanding Private Sector Participation in Public Sector Education
by Stephen J. BallIs the privatisation of state education defendable? Did the public sector ever provide a fair education for all learners? In Education plc, Stephen Ball provides a comprehensive, analytic and empirical account of the privatisation of education. He questions the kind of future we want for education and what role privatisation and the private sector may have in that future. Using policy sociology to describe and critically analyse changes in policy, policy technologies and policy regimes, he looks at the ethical and democratic impacts of these changes and raises the following questions: Is there a legitimacy for privatisation based on the convergence of interests between business and the ‘third way’ state? Is the extent and value of private participation in public education misunderstood? How is the selling of private company services linked to the remodelling of schools? Why have the technical and political issues of privatisation been considered but ethical issues almost totally neglected? What is happening here, beyond mere technical changes in the form of public service delivery? Is education policy being spoken by new voices? Drawing upon extensive documentary research and interviews with senior executives from the leading ‘education services industry’ companies, the author challenges preconceptions about privatisation. He concludes that blanket defence of the public sector as it was, over and against the inroads of privatisation, is untenable, and that there is no going back to a past in which the public sector as a whole worked well and worked fairly in the interests of all learners, because there was no such past. This book breaks new ground and builds on Stephen Ball’s previous work on education policy. It should appeal to those researching and studying in the fields of social policy, policy analysis, sociology of education, education research and social economics.
Education plc: Understanding Private Sector Participation in Public Sector Education
by Stephen J. BallIs the privatisation of state education defendable? Did the public sector ever provide a fair education for all learners? In Education plc, Stephen Ball provides a comprehensive, analytic and empirical account of the privatisation of education. He questions the kind of future we want for education and what role privatisation and the private sector may have in that future. Using policy sociology to describe and critically analyse changes in policy, policy technologies and policy regimes, he looks at the ethical and democratic impacts of these changes and raises the following questions: Is there a legitimacy for privatisation based on the convergence of interests between business and the ‘third way’ state? Is the extent and value of private participation in public education misunderstood? How is the selling of private company services linked to the remodelling of schools? Why have the technical and political issues of privatisation been considered but ethical issues almost totally neglected? What is happening here, beyond mere technical changes in the form of public service delivery? Is education policy being spoken by new voices? Drawing upon extensive documentary research and interviews with senior executives from the leading ‘education services industry’ companies, the author challenges preconceptions about privatisation. He concludes that blanket defence of the public sector as it was, over and against the inroads of privatisation, is untenable, and that there is no going back to a past in which the public sector as a whole worked well and worked fairly in the interests of all learners, because there was no such past. This book breaks new ground and builds on Stephen Ball’s previous work on education policy. It should appeal to those researching and studying in the fields of social policy, policy analysis, sociology of education, education research and social economics.
Education Policy and Social Class: The Selected Works of Stephen J. Ball
by Stephen J. BallBringing together twenty years of research and writing, this book provides an overview of Stephen Ball’s career and shows not only the development of his most important ideas but also the long-lasting contributions he has made to the field of educational policy analysis. This volume contains sixteen key essays divided into three sections: perspectives on policy research policy technologies and policy analysis social class and education policy. Each chapter presents innovative ways of thinking about public policy, asking probing questions about what policy is, how policy is influenced and what effects intentional and unintentional policies have. As a body of work, this collection raises issues of ethics and social justice which are often neglected in the mass of policies that now affect every aspect of our education systems.
Education Policy and Social Class: The Selected Works of Stephen J. Ball
by Stephen J. BallBringing together twenty years of research and writing, this book provides an overview of Stephen Ball’s career and shows not only the development of his most important ideas but also the long-lasting contributions he has made to the field of educational policy analysis. This volume contains sixteen key essays divided into three sections: perspectives on policy research policy technologies and policy analysis social class and education policy. Each chapter presents innovative ways of thinking about public policy, asking probing questions about what policy is, how policy is influenced and what effects intentional and unintentional policies have. As a body of work, this collection raises issues of ethics and social justice which are often neglected in the mass of policies that now affect every aspect of our education systems.
Foucault, Power, and Education (Routledge Key Ideas in Education)
by Stephen J. BallFoucault, Power, and Education invites internationally renowned scholar Stephen J. Ball to reflect on the importance and influence of Foucault on his work in educational policy. By focusing on some of the ways Foucault has been placed in relation to educational questions or questions about education, Ball highlights the relationships between Foucault’s concepts and methods, and educational research and analysis. An introductory chapter offers a brief explanation of some of Foucault’s key concerns, while additional chapters explore ways in which Ball himself has sought to apply Foucault’s ideas in addressing contemporary educational issues. In this intensely personal and reflective text, Ball offers an interpretation of his Foucault—That is, his own particular reading of the Foucauldian toolbox. Ideal for courses in education policy and education studies, this valuable teaching resource is essential reading for any education scholar looking for a starting point into the literature and ideas of Foucault.
Foucault, Power, and Education (Routledge Key Ideas in Education)
by Stephen J. BallFoucault, Power, and Education invites internationally renowned scholar Stephen J. Ball to reflect on the importance and influence of Foucault on his work in educational policy. By focusing on some of the ways Foucault has been placed in relation to educational questions or questions about education, Ball highlights the relationships between Foucault’s concepts and methods, and educational research and analysis. An introductory chapter offers a brief explanation of some of Foucault’s key concerns, while additional chapters explore ways in which Ball himself has sought to apply Foucault’s ideas in addressing contemporary educational issues. In this intensely personal and reflective text, Ball offers an interpretation of his Foucault—That is, his own particular reading of the Foucauldian toolbox. Ideal for courses in education policy and education studies, this valuable teaching resource is essential reading for any education scholar looking for a starting point into the literature and ideas of Foucault.
Global Education Inc.: New Policy Networks and the Neoliberal Imaginary
by Stephen J. BallDo private and philanthropic solutions to the problems of education signal the end of state education in its �welfare� form?Education policy is being reformed and re-worked on a global scale. Policies are flowing and converging to produce a singular vision of �best practice� based on the methods and tenets of the �neo-liberal imaginary�. Philanthro