Why did the West become rich? Was it the product of institutions, culture, and economic policies? Or were foreign expansion, imperialist exploitation and the slave trade the keys to prosperity? In this book, Kristian Niemietz takes the reader beyond the 'Culture War' debates around the legacy of the British Empire, and looks at the economics of imperialism. By examining the empirical work of modern historians of colonialism, as well as the views of contemporary figures ranging from Adam Smith to Karl Marx, Niemietz explores a debate which has raged for three centuries and is only growing more contentious. Drawing on data from various European colonial empires, Niemietz casts doubt on the claim - popular among both 19th-century imperialists and modern-day progressives - that empire was a crucial factor in the West's rise to prosperity. Instead, he shows that - its immorality aside - Western colonialism was simply bad economics. Far from being a story of plunder leading to sustained growth, the story of empire is an all too familiar tale of vested interests using the state to secure private benefits while leaving the taxpayer to foot the bill.

The aim of most public sector digitization programmes is the status quo, delivered more cheaply. Rather than saving the public from bureaucracy, digital has created new administrative burdens. The public are engaged as consumers in a way that misunderstands the nature of what makes public services public. Instead of digital being recognised as critical to the operation of a modern state, it is too often an afterthought.

It's time to share the benefits of digital with the public more fully.

This book describes the types of interaction we should expect from the next generation of public services, the digital platforms and infrastructure they will be built with, and the public sector design values needed to make them a reality.

It includes thirty illustrated design patterns, ten strategic interventions, and global examples of emerging patterns in digital government. It also highlights some foundational ideas in computer science, design and public policy to show how the challenges posed by the digital state are neither novel nor new. The book will enable more policy professionals to think like technologists and designers, and it will help more technologists and designers to think about public policy.

Engineers plan transport systems, people use them. But the ways in which an engineer measures success - speed, journey time, efficiency - are often not the way that passengers think about a good trip. We are not cargo. We choose how and when to travel, influenced not only by speed and time but by habit, status, comfort, variety - and many other factors that engineering equations don't capture at all. As we near the practical, physical limits of speed, capacity and punctuality, the greatest hope for a brighter future lies in adapting transport to more human wants and needs. Behavioural science has immense potential to improve the design of roads, railways, planes and pavements - as well as the ways in which we use them - but only when we embrace the messier reality of transport for humans. This is the moment. Climate change, the coronavirus pandemic and changing work-life priorities are shaking up long-held assumptions. There is a new way forward. This book maps out how to design transport for humans.

This book is for people worrying about their sinking ship. Based on experience, it is a guide for navigating the blockers, buzzwords and bloody-mindedness that doom any analogue organisation trapped into thinking that while the internet has changed the world, it won't change their world.

Companies that grew up on the web have changed our expectations of the services we rely on. We demand simplicity, speed and low cost. Organizations founded before the Internet aren't keeping up - despite spending millions on IT, marketing and 'innovation'.

This revised, expanded second edition of Digital Transformation at Scale is a guide to building a digital institution. It explains how a growing band of reformers in businesses and governments around the world have helped their organizations pivot to this new way of working, and what lessons others can learn from their experience.

It is based on the authors' experience designing and helping to deliver the UK's Government Digital Service (GDS). The GDS was a new institution made responsible for the digital transformation of government, designing public services for the Internet era. It snipped 4 billion off the government's technology bill, opened up public sector contracts to thousands of new suppliers, and delivered online services so good that citizens chose to use them over the offline alternatives, without a big marketing campaign. Other countries and companies noticed, with the GDS model now being copied around the world.

All organizations are becoming service organizations. But most weren't built to deliver services successfully end-to-end, and the human, operational and financial impacts are abundantly clear. In the digital era the stakes are even higher, given how rapidly services change. Yet default working practices (governance, planning, funding, leadership, reporting, programme and team structures) inside large organizations haven't changed. Rather than modernize just one service at a time, it's the underlying organizational conditions that need to be transformed -- anything less is futile.

The Service Organization is the result of years of research and consulting, as well as dozens of interviews with executives. It explores significant challenges that leaders will recognize, and turns them into solvable puzzles by providing practical advice and tools that reimagine what the organization does from the perspective of its customers -- and it organizes the activity needed to deliver the best outcomes. This book is for everyone involved, from designers to technologists and from operational staff to policymakers and leaders. It includes surprisingly simple and doable, but non-obvious, steps that don't depend on seniority or pay band and that are typically overlooked by even the most progressive professions, teams and companies.

Kate Tarling sets a bold, ambitious and practical agenda for all service organizations. Her book is full of behind-the-scenes examples from the global companies, public sector bodies and non-profits that are now delivering and leading successful services. It shows how to reinvent organizations so they rely not just on 'transforming technology' but on putting the success of their services at the heart of how they operate.

It seems that just about every new technology that we bring to bear on improving our lives brings with it some downside, side effect or unintended consequence.

These issues can pose very real and growing ethical problems for all of us. For example, automated facial recognition can make life easier and safer for us - but it also poses huge issues with regard to privacy, ownership of data and even identity theft. How do we understand and frame these debates, and work out strategies at personal and governmental levels?

Technology Is Not Neutral: A Short Guide to Technology Ethics addresses one of today's most pressing problems: how to create and use tools and technologies to maximize benefits and minimize harms?

Drawing on the author's experience as a technologist, political risk analyst and historian, the book offers a practical and cross-disciplinary approach that will inspire anyone creating, investing in or regulating technology, and it will empower all readers to better hold technology to account.

Can a woman have a penis? Is the West forever stained by racism? Are we all going to die from climate change? To the liberal establishment of London, New York or Sydney, the answer to all of these questions is 'Yes'. And anyone who disagrees is a racist, climate-denying transphobe. Our elites have become convinced of some very strange and extreme ideas. And yet there is precious little pushback against them. Critics are cowed by the threat of shaming, cancellation, even arrest. The new orthodoxies of our age are risible, and yet the space for dissent is shrinking. We need more heretics. Throughout history, it has been those brave enough to puncture the prevailing groupthink who have propelled society forward. But they are in shockingly short supply today. In this collection of original essays, Brendan O'Neill remakes the case for heresy - and commits a few heresies of his own along the way.

If climate action remains marginal at this late hour, it will fail. The rapid, system-level change that we need to escape catastrophe will take unprecedented public mobilization. A 'silent majority' of citizens is now concerned about human-made climate change - and as ever more people wake up to the crisis and ask 'What can I do?', the climate movement must answer them without insisting on conformity.

In dismay at the inaction of governments on climate, emerging citizen groups are showing how people can use their real power and authentic voice to drive change. In the workplace, in politics and in local communities people are stepping forward both to demand transformation and to make it happen. At the same time, they're regenerating community and directing the wasted energy of us-and-them polarization back towards solidarity and resilience. This wave will grow if concerned individuals recognize that they're part of a climate majority: a formidable collective force for change.

All proceeds from the sale of this book will support work by the Climate Majority Project to catalyse urgent citizen climate action.

Studying any subject at degree level is an investment in the future that involves significant cost. Now more than ever, students and their parents need to weigh up the potential benefits of university courses. That's where the Why Study series comes in. This series of books, aimed at students, parents and teachers, explains in practical terms the range and scope of an academic subject at university level and where it can lead in terms of careers or further study. Each book tries to both enthuse the reader about its subject and answer the crucial questions that a college prospectus does not.

Studying any subject at degree level is an investment in the future that involves significant cost. Now more than ever, students and their parents need to weigh up the potential benefits of university courses. That's where the Why Study series comes in. This series of books, aimed at students, parents and teachers, explains in practical terms the range and scope of an academic subject at university level and where it can lead in terms of careers or further study. Each book tries to both enthuse the reader about its subject and answer the crucial questions that a college prospectus does not.

Studying any subject at degree level is an investment in the future that involves significant cost. Now more than ever, students and their parents need to weigh up the potential benefits of university courses. That's where the Why Study series comes in. This series of books, aimed at students, parents and teachers, explains in practical terms the range and scope of an academic subject at university level and where it can lead in terms of careers or further study. Each book tries to both enthuse the reader about its subject and answer the crucial questions that a college prospectus does not.

This book describes and interprets the economic and political history of the past half a century, examining the challenges confronted by successive governments and their chancellors, the policies employed for good or ill, and - running through it all - the desperate search for a panacea that could arrest the nation's relative decline and return the country to its supposed former glories.

A medical act with multiple social, psychological and emotional implications, abortion is a socio-political issue in its own right. Access to the right to abortion is subject to tension, opposition and conflict between different actors or ideas with sometimes extremely antagonistic positions. While Europe is the continent where access to safe and legal abortion seems to be closest to international medical and health recommendations, authorities in several countries are challenging this access. In general, attempts to restrict access, whether successful or not, highlight the possible reversibility of the right to access abortion. As a result, the right to abortion remains a highly sensitive issue of public and political debate. This book compares the legal regime of abortion in the different EU countries and the effectiveness of the right of access to abortion. Moreover, it traces the evolution of the political debate while drawing on the concrete example of Belgium. This examination highlights the extent to which the calls for the right to abortion and the institutional recognition of this right are shaped by various actors within national and international networks. The positions and framing of the issues by these 'pro-choice' and 'pro-life' actors, including the Holy See, are carefully analysed. The book also examines the discrepancy between the citizenship approach adopted by research on sexual and reproductive rights and the language of human rights used by activists to legitimise themselves as interlocutors in political deliberation and to justify their claims. This book provides a comparative look at the discourses and practices of abortion rights across Europe.

Whether we are thinking about the evolving climate crisis, the urgent need for geopolitical energy autonomy or the detrimental impact of the extractive economy on communities and nature around the world, it is clear that Europe faces a crucial challenge to transition its economy quickly towards one that provides everyone with the opportunity to live a good life within planetary boundaries. But the faster one needs to change, the greater the risk of people and regions being left behind. The development and implementation of a just transition is therefore essential for the times we are living in. This book, published in association with the Green European Foundation, asks what kinds of policy and funding do we need to make the transition happen in an equitable way, ensuring that the fundamental rights of all are guaranteed in an inclusive society? And how does this translate into the divergent realities of different regions in Europe, and in the Global South?

Travel is central to our lives. The transport system brings us the goods and services that we need and allows us to access the experiences and opportunities that we seek. Yet our transport system has many problems: congestion and overcrowding, noise, air pollution and carbon emissions, deaths and injuries, and the intrusion of vehicles into unsuitable locations. Much effort and money has been devoted to tackling these problems, over many years, but progress is slow.

Recognition of the urgent need to respond to climate change is prompting major transport developments - particularly a switch to electric vehicles - and it is also argued that the amount of travel we undertake will need to be reduced. The coronavirus pandemic caused a great shock to our travel patterns, showing us that we could manage with much less movement if we had to. But as the pandemic recedes, our travel behaviour is largely reverting to what it was before, albeit with less commuting to work and less shopping in person.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of the transport system. It looks at how it has developed, at how it will need to evolve to meet our need for travel - sustainably and economically - and at what our options are for meeting those needs.

The legal profession needs more than law. Whether you are a student, a law school, a university, a law firm or an in-house legal team, The Legal Team of the Future is the definitive guide to understanding and building the holistic skills required of those working in legal services now and in the future. Highlighting the importance of multidisciplinary teams working collaboratively to solve legal problems, the book introduces a 'Law+' model for the profession, comprising sixteen skills across four quadrants: Law+People, Law+Business, Law+Change and Law+Technology. As well as outlining each of the skills, the book explains how to build those skills as an individual, a law firm, an in-house team, a university or a law school. Designed for both lawyers and business professionals working in law, The Legal Team of the Future dispels the myth that the 'lawyer of the future' is solely responsible for the future of the profession, instead focusing on diverse individuals working within their own specializations. The Law+ model is more than an academic theory, containing real-world examples and case studies and devised by an expert in legal innovation who is still working in the field on a daily basis. This book is the guide you need to navigate the future of the legal profession and to stay ahead of the pack in delivering legal services to clients.

Published in association with the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS), this book examines the four factors that challenge the fate of the European social model: globalization, monetary union, Eastern enlargement and digitalization. As a former EU Commissioner for Social Affairs, the author represents the rare combination of a top policy maker and a profoundly knowledgeable political economist. Andor's book offers both first-rate analysis and imaginative ideas for the reforms needed to cope with these four factors. He leads us through the 'ups' of post World War II policy design in the West and the vision of a post-communist regime in the Centre-East before going on to examine the EU-wide 'downs' due to cultural neo-conservatism and the trajectory of EU macro governance. Having taken stock of some of the main threats to the social model, he goes on to highlight where common EU policy can be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem - which was too often the case in the past.

From a Western point of view, the policy of economic engagement with China has failed.

At the end of the Second World War, Hong Kong lived up to its description as the barren island. It had few natural resources, its trade and infrastructure lay in tatters, its small manufacturing base had been destroyed and its income per capita was less than a quarter of its mother country, Britain. As a British colony it fell to a small number of civil servants to confront these difficult challenges, largely alone. But by the time of the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, it was one of the most prosperous nations on Earth. By 2015 its GDP per capita was over 40% higher than Britain's. How did that happen? Around the world, post-war governments were turning to industrial planning, Keynesian deficits and high inflation to stimulate their economies. How much did the civil servants in Hong Kong adopt from this emerging global consensus? Virtually nothing. They rejected the idea that governments should play an active role in industrial planning - instead believing in the ability of entrepreneurs to find the best opportunities. They rejected the idea of spending more than the government raised in taxes - instead aiming to keep a year's spending as a reserve. They rejected the idea of high taxes - instead keeping taxes low, believing that private investment would earn high returns, and expand the long-term tax base. This strategy was created and implemented by no more than a handful of men over a fifty-year period. Perhaps the most important of them all was John Cowperthwaite, who ran the trade and industry department after the war and then spent twenty years as deputy and then actual Financial Secretary before his retirement in 1971. He, more than anyone, shaped the economic policies of Hong Kong for the quarter century after the war and set the stage for a remarkable economic expansion. His resolve was tested constantly over his period in office, and it was only due to his determination, independence, and intellectual rigor that he was not diverted from the path in which he believed so strongly. This book examines the man behind the story, and the successful economic policies that he and others crafted with the people of Hong Kong.