Public institutions for people with developmental disabilities continue to operate within New York State, although their very existence has been condemned, and public policies directed their complete closure by the year 2000. From Snake Pits to Cash Cows investigates why these institutions persevere despite virtually universal predictions of their demise. Paul J. Castellani's provocative account spans the years 1935 to 2000, describing decades of conflict and confusion about the role of public institutions. This book demonstrates how and why a convergence of operational, fiscal, and political crises in the mid-1970s resulted in a series of agreements among adversaries that radically changed the political landscape, and reversed the plan to close all public institutions. He also shows why New York's experience has implications and lessons for the study of public policy in the area of developmental disabilities services and for understanding Medicaid policymaking, intergovernmental finance, and human services administration.

The Oxford Handbook of New York State Government and Politics brings together top scholars and former and current state officials to explain how and why the state is governed the way that it is. The book's thirty-one chapters assemble new scholarship in key areas of governance in New York, document the state's record in comparison to other U.S. states, and identify directions for future research.

Local governments serve their communities in many diversified ways as they increasingly engage in multiple connections: international, regional, regional-local, with nongovernmental organizations and through external nongovernmental services county actors. The book discusses how the shift in emphasis from government to governance has raised many management challenges, along with shifting expectations and demands.

Winner of the 2019 Outstanding Book Award - ASC DCCSJ​ Trapped in a Vice explores the consequences of a juvenile justice system that is aimed at promoting change in the lives of young people, yet ultimately relies upon tools and strategies that enmesh them in a system that they struggle to move beyond. The system, rather than the crimes themselves, is the vice. Trapped in a Vice explores the lives of the young people and adults in the criminal justice system, revealing the ways that they struggle to manage the expectations of that system; these stories from the ground level of the justice system demonstrate the complex exchange of policy and practice.

Medicaid, one of the largest federal programs in the United States, gives grants to states to provide health insurance for over 60 million low-income Americans. As private health insurance benefits have relentlessly eroded, the program has played an increasingly important role. Yet Medicaid’s prominence in the health care arena has come as a surprise. Many astute observers of the Medicaid debate have long claimed that “a program for the poor is a poor program� prone to erosion because it serves a stigmatized, politically weak clientele. Means-tested programs for the poor are often politically unpopular, and there is pressure from fiscally conservative lawmakers to scale back the $350-billion-per-year program even as more and more Americans have come to rely on it. For their part, health reformers had long assumed that Medicaid would fade away as the country moved toward universal health insurance. Instead, Medicaid has proved remarkably durable, expanding and becoming a major pillar of America’s health insurance system. In Medicaid Politics, political scientist Frank J. Thompson examines the program’s profound evolution during the presidential administrations of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama and its pivotal role in the epic health reform law of 2010. This clear and accessible book details the specific forces embedded in American federalism that contributed so much to Medicaid’s growth and durability during this period. It also looks to the future outlining the political dynamics that could yield major program retrenchment.

Daniel M. Fox gives an incisive assessment of the critical collaboration between researchers and public officials that has recently emerged to evaluate the effectiveness and comparative effectiveness of health services. Drawing on research as well as his first-hand experience in policymaking, Fox's broad-ranging analysis describes how politics, public finance and management, and advances in research methods made this convergence of science and governance possible. The book then widens into a sweeping history of central issues in research on health services and health governance during the past century. Returning to the past decade, Fox looks closely at how policy informed by research has been made and implemented in public programs that cover pharmaceutical drugs in most American states. This case study illuminates how politics has informed the questions, methods, and reception of research on health services, and also sheds new light on how research has informed politics and public management. Looking toward the future, Fox describes the promise, as well as the fragility, of the convergence of science and governance, making his book essential reading for those struggling to revise health care in the United States over the next several years.

"A collection of essays examining public health policy and the decision-making process behind it"--Provided by publisher.