What is good government? Why do some governments fail ? How do you implement political accountability in practice? What incentives do you need to put in place to ensure that politicians and public servants act in the public interest and not their own? These questions and many more are addressed in Timothy Besley's intriguing Lindahl lectures. Economic analyses of government usually divide into two broad camps. One which emphasizes government as a force for public good that can regulate markets, distribute resources and generally work towards improving the lives of its citizens. The other sees government as driven by private interests, susceptible to those with the power to influence its decisions and failing to incentivize its officials to act for the greater public good. This book adopts a middle way between the two extremes, the Publius approach, which recognizes the potential for government to act for the public good but also accepts the fact that things often go wrong. It shares the view that there are certain institutional preconditions for effective government but then proceed to examine exactly what those preconditions are. Timothy Besley emphasises that it is not just about designing an appropriate institutional framework but also about understanding the way incentives work and the process by which the political class is selected.

For the first two thirds of the twentieth century, British government was among the most stable in the advanced industrial world. In the last three decades, the governing arrangements have been in turmoil and the country has been a pioneer in economic reform, and in public sector change. In this book, Michael Moran examines and explains the contrast between these two epochs. What turned Britain into a laboratory of political innovation? Britain became a formal democracy at the start of the twentieth century but the practice of government remained oligarchic. From the 1970s this oligarchy collapsed under the pressure of economic crisis. The British regulatory state is being constructed in its place. Moran challenges the prevailing view that this new state is liberal or decentralizing. Instead he argues that it is a new, threatening kind of interventionist state which is colonizing, dominating, and centralizing hitherto independent domains of civil society. The book is essential reading for all those interested in British political development and in the nature and impact of regulation.

A seminal figure in the field of public management, Mark Moore presents his summation of fifteen years of research, observation, and teaching about what public sector executives should do to improve the performance of public enterprises. Useful for both practicing public executives and those who teach them, this book explicates some of the richest of several hundred cases used at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and illuminates their broader lessons for government managers. Moore addresses four questions that have long bedeviled public administration: What should citizens and their representatives expect and demand from public executives? What sources can public managers consult to learn what is valuable for them to produce? How should public managers cope with inconsistent and fickle political mandates? How can public managers find room to innovate? Moore's answers respond to the well-understood difficulties of managing public enterprises in modern society by recommending specific, concrete changes in the practices of individual public managers: how they envision what is valuable to produce, how they engage their political overseers, and how they deliver services and fulfill obligations to clients. Following Moore's cases, we witness dilemmas faced by a cross section of public managers--William Ruckelshaus and the Environmental Protection Agency, Jerome Miller and the Department of Youth Services, Miles Mahoney and the Park Plaza Redevelopment Project, David Sencer and the swine flu scare, Lee Brown and the Houston Police Department, Harry Spence and the Boston Housing Authority. Their work, together with Moore's analysis, reveals how public managers can achieve their true goal of producing public value.

Can we rely on the altruism of professionals or the public service ethos to deliver good quality health and education services? And how should patients, parents, and pupils behave - as grateful recipients or active consumers? This book provides new answers to these questions - a milestone in the analysis and development of public policy, from one of the leading thinkers in the field. It provides a new perspective on policy design, emphasising the importance of analysing the motivation of professionals and others who work within the public sector, and both their and public service beneficiaries' capacity for agency or independent action. It argues that the conventional assumption that public sector professionals are public-spirited altruists or 'knights' is misplaced; but so is the alternative that they are all, in David Hume's terminology, 'knaves' or self-interested egoists. We also must not assume that individual citizens are passive recipients of public services (pawns); but nor can they be untrammelled sovereigns with unrestricted choices over services and resources (queens). Instead, policies must be designed so as to give the proper balance of motivation and agency. The book illustrates how this can be done by detailed empirical examination of recent policies in health services, education, social security and taxation. It puts forwards proposals for policy reform, several of which either originated with the author or with which he has been closely associated: universal capital or 'demogrants', discriminating vouchers, matching grants for pensions and for long-term care, and hypothecated taxes.

Governance Networks in the Public Sector presents a comprehensive study of governance networks and the management of complexities in network settings. Public, private and non-profit organizations are increasingly faced with complex, wicked problems when making decisions, developing policies or delivering services in the public sector. These activities take place in networks of interdependent actors guided by diverging and sometimes conflicting perceptions and strategies. As a result these networks are dominated by cognitive, strategic and institutional complexities. Dealing with these complexities requires sophisticated forms of coordination: network governance. This book presents the most recent theoretical and empirical insights into governance networks. It provides a conceptual framework and analytical tools to study the complexities involved in handling wicked problems in governance networks in the public sector. The book also discusses strategies and management recommendations for governments, business and third sector organisations operating in and governing networks. Governance Networks in the Public Sector is an essential text for advanced students of public management, public administration, public policy and political science, and for public managers and policymakers.

This volume, the result of the 21st Conference on Postal and Delivery Economics (Ireland, 2013), describes the continuing problem of the decline of the postal sector in the face of electronic competition and offers strategies for the survival of mail services in a digital age.The 25 original papers in this collection provide econometric analyses on the changing demand and elasticity of mail in the modern era. Proposed solutions to declining interest in the postal sector include closer links between mail services and the digital sphere, expansion of the parcel sector, changes to the universal service obligation, legal reform and regulatory change. Professors and students of regulatory economics will have an interest in this book, as will managers and other decision-makers working within the postal sector. Contributors include: D. Bailly, L. Balk Hope, C. Borsenberger, A.T. Bozzo, M.D. Bradley, T.J. Brennan, K.L. Capogrossi, I. Carslake, M.M. Cigno, K.K. Clendenin, J. Colvin, H. Cremer, M.A. Crew, P. De Donder, B.K. Eakin, R. Eccles, K. Elkela, A. Fratini, F. Fustier, R.R. Geddes, D. Geradin, B. Gough, A. Gustafsson, A. Haller, J. Hearn, H. Hennessy, A. Hildingsson, A.C. Houck, G. Houpis, C. Jaag, L. Janin, D. Joram, S. Lecou, J. Levin, C. Malamataris, B. Marsh, M. Meidinger, M. Moloney, H. Nikali, C.J. Paterson, E.S. Pearsall, M.K. Perkins, J. Pickett, R. Sahly, S. Selander, C. Sheedy, M. Srinivasan, V.I. Stanford, C. Strobel, G. Swinand, U. Trinkner, T. Uotila, J. Vantomme, T. Walsh

A comparative study of the senior civil service in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Greece, Denmark and Sweden. The book provides valuable information about the structures, and composition of the higher civil service and its position in the political structure through a comparative framework.

When Women Lead is a fascinating study of the different leadership styles of men and women in American politics. Providing close studies of key state legislatures, Professor Rosenthal provides an original insight into the workings of the largest cohorts of women in institutional leadership roles. Her work marks an important contribution to understanding gender, organizational leadership, and legislatures.

This book brings to the management of nonprofit organizations and public sector organizations the kind of concepts that have long been applied to commericial firms. Based on the Authors' studies of a number of nonprofit and government organizations, the book analyses the special problems and concerns that these organizations share and provides a set of organizing principles to improve their management.

There has been much speculation about the introduction of the contract culture in the public services and its consequences for those involved (including service users). This book, which is based on original research, sets out to examine the impact of contracts in three areas of the public service: health, social services, and other government activities. These findings are set in the context of policy development for the public sector as a whole. Detailed case studies in selected areas reveal the varying different patterns that have emerged. A study of the attitudes of those involved illuminates the different perspectives of participants. In the concluding chapters the authors review the policy implications of the study and identify likely future developments.

This book investigates the professional needs and training requirements of an ever-changing public service workforce in Australia and the United Kingdom. It explores the nature of future roles, the types of skills and competencies that will be required and how organisations might recruit, train and develop public servants for these roles. Leading international research - practitioners make recommendations for how local organisations can equip future public servants with the skills and professional capacities for these shifting professional demands, and the skillsets they will require. Drawing on ideas that have been developed in the Australian and UK context, the book delves into the major themes involved in re-imagining the public service workforce and the various forms of capacities and capabilities that this entails. It then explores delivery of this future vision, and its implications in terms of development, recruitment and strategy.

This book analyses the way in which the Japanese Civil Service has contributed to Japan's economic growth and the lessons that experience may offer for other developing countries.

Managers face a complex and seemingly overwhelming set of decisions in their work lives. Investigating exactly what managers do on the job, this study presents a wealth of new evidence to analyze why managers act in the ways they do, what influences their focus of attention, and which issues and other actors in an organization they tend to find attractive and which they tend to avoid. In short, it describes how managers in the real world make decisions.

This volume presents an analysis of Japan's powerful upper bureaucracy in the post-war period. The author's aim is to provide an empirical foundation for the many impressionistic accounts of Japanese bureaucracy and a systematic basis for comparative studies of bureaucracies in other countries. The study ranges from the family and geographic backgrounds of higher civil servants through their educational training and career patterns to their retirement and post-retirement activities. Throughout, the emphasis is on assembling and analyzing the kind of systematic data that provide a solid basis for understanding how the Japanese bureaucracy actually works. Originally published in 1969. 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 Public Sector: Managing the Unmanageable offers practical advice to public sector managers on how to develop techniques to deal with the challenges they face, particularly in the areas of accountability, setting targets, risk management/encouraging innovation, managing people, decision making and working with politicians. Based on original interviews with politicians and senior public sector managers, including the last four cabinet secretaries, it is full of anecdotes, actionable lessons and insights. Each chapter takes a specific aspect of management and starts by explaining why it is different in the public sector, then sets out ways for public sector managers to handle those differences and ends with an executive summary and a checklist to prompt managers to think about how they might change what they currently do. The book has a foreword by Peter Mandelson and insights based on interviews with more than sixty successful public sector managers including: Michael Bloomberg, Brendan Barber, Sir Michael Barber, Lord (Michael) Bichard, Lord (John) Browne, Lord (Robin) Butler, Helen Carter, Sir Merrick Cockell, Charles Clarke, Lord (Geoffrey) Dear, Brian Dinsdale, Charles Farr, Lord (Charles) Guthrie, Lord (Chris) Haskins, Lord (Michael) Heseltine, Ken Livingstone, Paul Martin, Lord (John) Monks, Lord (Gus) O'Donnell, Sir Robert Naylor, Jan Parkinson, Sir Hayden Phillips, Jonathan Powell, Heather Rabbatts, John Ransford, Gill Rider, Paul Roberts, Sir Peter Rogers, Stephen Taylor, Lord (Andrew) Turnball, Sir Robin Wales, Nick Walkley, Ian Watmore and Lord (Richard) Wilson.

The growing economic power of government has prompted many studies to seek to establish the optimum size of government and how it might relate to economic growth, productivity and inflation. Vaclav Rybacek examines how these studies have used national accounts and officially published statistics to invariably underestimate the size of government, which has lead to erroneous economic policy recommendations and ultimately to an unrealistic assessment of a government's ability to meet its debts. The book shows how the methodology of macroeconomic statistics has failed to keep pace with the expansion of government and has misallocated, for example, many public producers in the field of financial services, to the corporate sector. Even central banks conducting government policy are shown to stand outside official figures on the size of government. Similarly, when showing the relative size of government, the choice of denominator, such as GDP, can further lead to underestimating government size. Drawing on Austrian economic theory, in particular in relation to market operation, the book offers a more robust methodology for the measurement of government, which is then used to recalculate fiscal indicators and GDP in order to present a more appropriate set of data for the analysis of public sector dynamics in the majority of EU countries.

According to the author, the civil servant, must be allowed to play its role in an atmosphere of transparency.

According to conventional wisdom, public ownership of industry in post-war Britain led, invariably, to under-performance. This book casts doubt upon this view by showing that, as far as the labour productivity record of the expanding state-owned industries is concerned, this was clearly not the case. The book compares the 1954-79 labour productivity record of 5 expanding public sector industries to that of 24 expanding, capital intensive, mass-production industries in the British private sector. The author shows that the public sector industries' labour productivity growth was significantly faster than that of the private sector industries. Strikingly, he also finds that the state-owned industries were narrowing their productivity gap with their US counterparts at a significantly faster rate than the private sector industries. Dr Iordanoglou concludes that it is possible that public ownership had - in the historical period investigated - a long-term positive effect on these industries. This book will be of great interest to scholars of industrial economics, public sector economics and economic history.

The Intelligent Nation proposes a systemic and radical transformation of the organisation, management, ownership and performance of the services of the state by capitalising on the potential offered by contemporary information capability and fulfilling the rights and obligations both to and of citizens. In this book, John Beckford shows how, by adopting the principles of an Intelligent Organisation, the state can thrive and meet the needs of its citizens. He proposes a complete rethink of the state as the enabler or provider of public services. In particular, he points to the failure of the public sector to significantly emulate the massive gains in productivity and customer focus experienced in both manufacturing and services (e.g. finance, retailing, insurance). Governance and all public services must be redesigned to align to the contemporary needs of the citizen and exploit the power of information to enable a transformation of their effectiveness, redefine efficiency and support human-based services in crucial areas. Each chapter provides the key learning points, a discussion of the problem in theory and practice, integrated case studies, and discussion points. Written in an accessible style, the book provides thought-provoking supplemental reading for masters and undergraduate students reading organisation theory, organisation development, political science, public administration, healthcare, information systems and business and management science.

Public-private collaborations are central to the functioning and provisioning of most essential ecosystems. Ecosystems such as security, healthcare, education, and the environment face challenges of governance, diverse constituencies, numerous advocacy organizations, incompatible outcome metrics, and persistent media attention, to name a few. There is a wide range of public and private players involved in operating, sustaining, and investing in these ecosystems, including stakeholders from government, industry, academia, non-governmental organizations, and the general public. Fundamental change requires understanding a wide range of interests and accommodating change strategies accordingly. The challenges of transforming these ecosystems would easily qualify as "wicked problems"; social or cultural problems laced with incomplete or contradictory knowledge, large numbers of people and opinions, substantial economic burdens, and inextricable connections with other issues. Transforming Public-Private Ecosystems addresses these challenges for the four important ecosystems of national security, healthcare delivery, higher education, and energy and climate, and provides an integrated perspective for understanding and enabling change.

The first systematic examination of the federal civil service in nearly forty years, "The Foundation of Merit" analyzes the historical development of the civil service in the context of the political and democratic environment that is central to its effectiveness and legitimacy. Patricia Ingraham describes theincremental and disjointed growth of the federal civil service and explains how, and why, it came to be a system with control in the wrong places, with discretion in the wrong places, and why--in its current form--it has little hope of meeting the enormous challenges of the next century.

The book concludes with an examination of the need for reform, the challenges that have shaped that need, and the lessons from the past that should guide the reforms of the future.

Since the third edition of this authoritative volume, most of Western Europe and North America have entered an era of austerity which has pervasive effects on programmes of public management reform. Even in Australasia extensive measures of fiscal restraint have been implemented. In this fourth edition the basic structure of the book has been retained but there has been a line-by-line rewriting, including the addition of extensive analyses and information about the impacts of austerity. Many new sources are cited and there is a new exploration of the interactions between austerity and the major paradigms of reform - NPM, the Neo-Weberian State and New Public Governance. The existing strengths of the previous editions have been retained while vital new material on developments since the Global Economic Crisis has been added. This remains the most authoritative, comprehensive, widely-cited academic text on public management reform in Europe, North America and Australasia.

Named Best Book in Public and Nonprofit Management, 1999-2000
Academy of Management

Named Best Book in Environmental Management, 1999
American Society for Public Administration

Leaking landfills, oil contamination, illegal waste disposal, and pervasive air pollution . . . Today's managers and policy makers face a multitude of environmental challenges, choices, and opportunities. Some work in the public or private sectors. Some are regulators or regulated. Whether they are environmental specialists or not, managers must understand scientifically complex environmental mandates and shifting ambiguities in order to address them proactively. They must not only cultivate organizational awareness of environmental values, but also remain committed to engaging in these values.

The authors of Managing for the Environment draw from their extensive managing, consulting, and research experiences to give managers, elected officials, students, and concerned citizens the tools they need to address environmental issues effectively.

Authoritative, insightful, and the first of its kind to take a strategic management view, this book:

• Describes current issues and trends in environmental affairs, including sustainable development, risk-based priority setting, managing for results, market incentives, and environmental justice
• Explains what readers should know about environmental laws and their implementation
• Shows how managers can incorporate environmental management concepts into their organizations' thinking by linking strategies, structures, and informational systems
• Offers strategies for overcoming the political, economic, and organizational obstacles to doing so
• Provides methods for understanding, defining, and communicating environmental risks and responses to employees, the media, and communities
• Presents constructive conflict resolution strategies for handling difficult environmental disputes