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Books > Business & Economics > Industry & industrial studies > Civil service & public sector
In 1973, Betsy Ann Plank became the first woman to chair the Public
Relations Society of America in its twenty-five-year history. It
was a tumultuous time to assume the national association's
leadership. Civil society seemed to be fraying at the edges, and
trust in institutions and businesses had plummeted in the aftermath
of Watergate. Yet Plank was ready to take on the task at hand.
Throughout the span of her sixty-three-year career, she broke new
ground on numerous occasions through her bold leadership and
tireless service to others. Plank rose to the highest level of the
field's national association at a time when its leadership and
membership were predominantly male. This book explores how she
managed to navigate the very real barriers of gender-based
discrimination that existed in public relations at least through
the 1970s, and how she ultimately became devoted to public
relations education.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been widely derided as a
failed state, unable to meet the basic needs of its citizens. But
while state infrastructure continues to decay, many essential
services continue to be provided at the local level, often through
grassroots initiatives. So while, for example, state funding for
education is almost non-existent, average school enrolment remains
well above average for Sub-Saharan Africa. This book addresses this
paradox, bringing together key scholars working on public services
in the DRC to elucidate the evolving nature of governance in
developing countries. Its contributions encompass a wide range of
public services, including education, justice, transport, and
health. Taking stock of what functions and why, it contributes to
the debate on public services in the context of 'real' or 'hybrid'
governance beyond the state: does the state still have a function,
or is it no longer useful and relevant? Crucially, how does
international aid help or complicate this picture? Rich in
empirical detail, the contributors provide a valuable work for
students and scholars interested in the role played by non-state
actors in organizing statehood - a role too often neglected in
debates on post-conflict reconstruction.
The 'Little Heresies' seminars - this is the second published
collection of the talks given at them - provide an important public
platform to debate the future of public services. Now more than
ever it seems vital to challenge the 'received wisdom', 'zombie
thinking' and old, tired and outdated habits and practices that
continue to infest important aspects of our public services. For,
as the authors demonstrate, what appear to be well-intentioned
policies not only create perverse incentives but frequently cause
lasting damage to the social fabric. Private sector management
methods, underpinned by neoliberal thinking, were introduced into
UK public services by Margaret Thatcher. Many other countries have
adopted the same approach. And successive governments continue to
be duped into believing, against plenty of evidence to the
contrary, that New Public Management, as it is now called, works.
It doesn't. In this second publication from the Little Heresies
series, nine heretics, all leading thinkers and practitioners in
their professional fields, explain the disastrous effects of wrong
thinking and ineffective practice in areas like standardisation,
professionalisation and measurement in public services, socalled
evidence-based policy-making, money creation and, looking more
widely, in the troubled waters of philanthropy and the
third/charitable sector.
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