The changing nature of politics and the contemporary challenges facing public and social policy demand new perspectives that contest existing assumptions and deliver new ways of understanding a changing world. The New Perspectives in Policy and Politics book series focuses on state-of-the-art contributions that aim to re-orient perennial debates and open-up emerging seams of research. Topics range from institutional reform to network governance, and from public expectations to political inequality. The series is inter-disciplinary in approach and international in scope. It seeks to publish books that are both theoretically-informed and policy-relevant. Most importantly, the fresh and innovative contributions to the series seek to challenge and redefine debates concerning both politics and public and social policy.