![]() |
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
|
Your cart is empty |
||
|
Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Central government > General
Confronted with rising citizen discontent, the Reinventing Government movement, and new technological challenges, public organizations everywhere are seeking means of improving their performance. Their quest is not new, rather, the concern with improving the performance of government organizations has existed since the Scientific Management Movement. "Public Sector Performance" brings together in a single volume the classic, enduring principles and processes that have defined the field of public sector performance, as written in the words of leading practitioners and scholars. Taken as a whole, this volume provides a performance compass for today's public managers, helping them to reconstruct the public's confidence in, and support of, government.Defined here as managing public organizations for outcomes, performance is examined in all its varied dimensions: organizing work, managing workers, measuring performance, and overcoming resistance to performance-enhancing innovations. The selected articles are interesting, thought provoking, and instructive. They are classics in that they have been widely cited in the scholarly literature and have enduring value to public managers who seek to understand the many dimensions of performance. The book is organized into three sections: Performance Foundations, Performance Strategies, and Performance Measurement. Excerpts from additional selected articles feature special topics and wisdom from performance experts.
The eight research essays in this volume uncover new perspectives on and critique new democracy sources about the creation, operation, and first major crises of state socialism in China -- from the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 to the aftermath in the early 1960s of the Great Leap Forward.
Amtrak, the U.S. Postal Service, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the Chicago Housing Authority -- all are examples of a controversial institution, the government corporation. This hybrid organizational form incorporates the best features of public and private management to accomplish tasks that are unsuited for commercialization or ordinary public administration. This comprehensive assessment of government corporations sets aside ideological presuppositions to reexamine the record and identify both the successes and failures of this unique arrangement. By viewing public administration as an experiment, the author challenges readers to think creatively about the government corporation and ways to reinvent it, capitalizing on its strengths and compensating for its shortcomings.
Amtrak, the U.S. Postal Service, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the Chicago Housing Authority -- all are examples of a controversial institution, the government corporation. This hybrid organizational form incorporates the best features of public and private management to accomplish tasks that are unsuited for commercialization or ordinary public administration. This comprehensive assessment of government corporations sets aside ideological presuppositions to reexamine the record and identify both the successes and failures of this unique arrangement. By viewing public administration as an experiment, the author challenges readers to think creatively about the government corporation and ways to reinvent it, capitalizing on its strengths and compensating for its shortcomings.
This text covers integration of the State Department after 1945 and the subsequent appointments of Black ambassadors to Third World and African nations. Other topics include: the setbacks during the Eisenhower years and the gains achieved during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
Through its budgetary, managerial and regulatory review mandates, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the US can function as an "enforcer" with a significant impact on public policy and its implementation. This is a study of the OMB and its significant role within the American government.
Examining public service from the perspective of the worker, this book provides a new framework for understanding the roles and responsibilities of front-line public servants and assessing the appropriateness of their actions. Public employees who work at street level face some of the most intractable, pervasive, and complex problems in contemporary society. Drawing on more than 1500 hours of observation of police officers and social service workers in four states, this book explores the types of situations they confront, the factors they consider, and the hard choices they make. Presenting numerous cases of how these individuals acted in various situations, the authors show how public servants translate the expectations of administrators and others into legitimate street-level action. Vinzant and Crothers propose the concept of leadership as a positive and realistic framework for understanding what these public servants do and how they can successfully meet the daily challenges of their very difficult and complex jobs. They show how changing the theory and language we use to describe street-level work can encourage decisions that are responsive both to the needs of the clients being served and to the broader community's need for accountability. They also examine how street-level leadership can change the way agencies recruit, train, and manage these employees and how society defines their role in governance. This book offers valuable insights for those working in or studying public administration, policy analysis, criminal justice, and social work.
A fascinating look at a previously ignored piece of our nation's history, Black Diplomacy covers integration of the State Department after 1945 and the subsequent appointments of Black ambassadors to Third World and African nations. In seven illuminating chapters, Krenn covers the efforts to integrate the State Department; the setbacks during the Eisenhower years; and the gains achieved during the administrations of JFK and LBJ. Not content with simply using traditional sources (federal and other governmental agency records), he gained fresh insights from the papers of the NAACP, African American newspapers, and journals of the period. He also conducted original interviews with Edward Dudley (America's first black ambassador), Richard Fox, Horace Dawson, Ronald Palmer, and Terrence Todman (never before interviewed -- ambassador to six nations beginning in 1952, and an assistant secretary of state). This unique look at the period will be of interest to anyone attempting to understand both the history of the civil rights movement in the U.S. and America's Cold War relations with underdeveloped nations during the quarter century after World War II.
The relationship between parliament and government is fundamental to a political system. In this volume, a distinguished team of specialists explore that relationship and consider to what extent parliaments have the capacity to constrain governments. Are there particular institutional features, such as specialisation through committees, that enhance their capacity to influence public policy?
The relationship between parliament and government is fundamental to a political system. In this volume, a distinguished team of specialists explore that relationship and consider to what extent parliaments have the capacity to constrain governments. Are there particular institutional features, such as specialisation through committees, that enhance their capacity to influence public policy?
A comprehensive overview of the president's policy-making role and the way this role structures the president's interaction with other institutions of government. The book concludes with a discussion of the issues of accountability and policy leadership.
A comprehensive overview of the president's policy-making role and the way this role structures the president's interaction with other institutions of government. The book concludes with a discussion of the issues of accountability and policy leadership.
Anyone who experienced the attacks on September 11 cannot forget the imagery: the smoking, falling towers, the Pentagon smoldering, the Shanksville crash site, the first responders. But there is an invisible story hidden in the wreckage, one that required years of patient investigation and the piecing together of a sequence from many scattered sources. By establishing the most definitive timeline of how that day unfolded, William M. Arkin shows how the US government failed in the face of the unprecedented attack. It is a story of laughable airport security, vulnerable airspace, blind intelligence, poor communications, muddled orders, Pentagon chaos, and presidential isolation. Everything about the emergency procedures of the governments-from White House security to continuity of government to military alerts-went wrong. On That Day is a stunning, nightmare journey through a government reeling in confusion while many civilians performed individual acts of heroism. It is a chilling expose of government negligence and overreach, and a constitution in crisis.
The articles assembled in this volume offer a fresh approach to analysing the problem of corruption in developing countries and the k means to tackle the phenomenon. They draw on a wide variety of theoretical traditions and are interdisciplinary in their approach, reflecting the fact that corruption cannot be understood through the lens of economic or political analysis alone. A wealth of empirical material is assembled from a range of developing countries, both in the form of case studies and detailed cross-national analysis, to examine these questions. The message conveyed by this book is that corruption is a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon which pervades all societies to varying degrees. It is not amenable to quick-fix solutions but requires a complementary response at a variety of levels through governments, aid agencies and NGOs working together to tackle the root causes of the problem and mitigate its corrosive developmental consequences. This book will appeal to acedemic and policy-makers concerned with problems of goverance and public management in developing countries, as well as specialists working on corruption and designing anti-corruption strategies.
The problem of corruption is of central significance for the developmental prospects of poor countries. Corruption undermines development by siphoning off resources for infrastructures and public services and by weakening the legitimacy of the state. The volume will appeal to academics and policy-makers concerned with problems of governance and public management in developing countries, as well as specialists working on corruption and designing anti-corruption strategies.
In today's "trial by media" election campaigns, do you have to be crazy to run for higher office? Looking back over the past 25 years, Stanley Renshon provides the first comprehensive account of how the issue of character has come to dominate presidential campaigns. He traces two related but distinctive approaches to a candidate's psychology: mental health and character. Drawing on his clinical and political science training, Renshon has devised a theory which will allow the public to better evaluate the personal and leadership qualities of presidential candidates.
Imagining Welfare Futures explores possible futures of welfare by considering different types of relationship between the public and the state through which social welfare may be organized beyond the millennium. By drawing on contemporary debates about the 'citizen', 'the community' and 'the consumer', the book explores what each of these imaginary figures might mean for the next generation of welfare users.
"The Biographical Dictionary of British Prime Ministers" is a
wide-ranging, comprehensive guide to the political lives of
Britain's Prime Ministers from Sir Robert Walpole to Tony Blair.
Written by some of the leading authorities on British politics this
authoritative dictionary provides essential information about each
premiership, including facts and analytical debate. In addition to
brief biographical information outlining career history and
important dates and events, each entry contains a brief summary of
the Prime Minister's significance and peculiarities, followed by a
more descriptive and interpretative account of his or her political
life and influence on British politics. Entries also include
references and further reading.
"The Biographical Dictionary of British Prime Ministers" is a
wide-ranging, comprehensive guide to the political lives of
Britain's Prime Ministers from Sir Robert Walpole to Tony Blair.
Written by some of the leading authorities on British politics this
authoritative dictionary provides essential information about each
premiership, including facts and analytical debate. In addition to
brief biographical information outlining career history and
important dates and events, each entry contains a brief summary of
the Prime Minister's significance and peculiarities, followed by a
more descriptive and interpretative account of his or her political
life and influence on British politics. Entries also include
references and further reading.
Almost overnight, the massive military-industrial assets of the Soviet Union came under the jurisdiction of fifteen states instead of one established government. While only four states inherited weapons of mass destruction, most of the fifteen states of the former Soviet Union can produce sensitive materials and equipment. Because all the states serve as transit points for both legal commerce and illegal smuggling, developing export control systems in all the newly independent states (NIS) has become the cornerstone of the global effort to reduce the risk of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Arms on the Market is the first book to tackle this difficult subject. Not only does it explore the various theoretical approaches that help us understand the development of export control systems in the nis, but it also introduces a unique method for measuring and comparing export control development.
Parliaments widely had been expected to decline in significance in the later part of the 20th century, but instead they have developed new and vital political roles and have innovated in their institutional structure - most recurrently in newly organised or invigorated parliamentary committees, not only in a few parliaments, but as a global phenomenon.
In the public sector at the moment resources are scarce - or at the
very least finite and limited - how they are allocated is therefore
of crucial importance.
The widespread restructuring and privatization of UK public services has fundamentally changed the nature of society. This text is an examination of all aspects of public sector management. It includes: recent developments in the public sector and policy making; analysis of the role of markets and quasi markets in the allocation and delivery of public services; the heuristics and dialectics of resource allocation; news stories from the press, such as the story of "child B" to illustrate arguments; and two diagnostic inventories "Monksbane and Feverfew" and "RAPS" which readers can use to assess their own values about public services.
This volume originated when William C. Bullitt began working on a book of studies of the principle personalities surrounding the Treaty of Versailles. In discussing this project with Sigmund Freud, the idea arose of a collaborative work on Woodrow Wilson. They worked on the book for ten years, reading all of Wilson's published books and speeches as well as volumes written about Wilson. After perusing this material, Bullitt and Freud realized that they could not write an analysis of Wilson's character unless they deepened their understanding of his nature with private, unpublished information from his intimates. They then set out to collect diaries, letters, records, and memoranda from various associates of Wilson. Freud writes in his introduction that he did not begin this study with an objective view of Wilson, but rather held an unsympathetic view of him. But he goes on to say that while reading through materials about Wilson, his strong emotions underwent a thorough subjugation. He describes Wilson as a person for whom mere facts held no significance; he esteemed highly nothing but human motives and opinions. As a result, writes Freud, it was natural for him in his thinking to ignore the facts of the real outer world, even to deny they existed if they conflicted with his hopes and wishes. This habit of thought is visible in his contacts with others. Freud also notes that there was an intimate connection between Wilson's alienation from the world of reality and his religious convictions. The book opens with a thirty-page biography of Wilson written by Bullitt. The collaborative psychological study that makes up the bulk of the volume then follows. Woodrow Wilson provides readers with a more intimate knowledge of the man, which in turn leads to a more exact estimate of his achievements. This intriguing psychoanalytic study will be of continuing interest to historians, political scientists, psychologists, and sociologists. |
You may like...
Stories in English for Children…
English Language and Culture Academy
Hardcover
R434
Discovery Miles 4 340
Introduction to Transfer Learning…
Jindong Wang, Yiqiang Chen
Hardcover
R1,899
Discovery Miles 18 990
Advanced Machine Vision Paradigms for…
Tapan K. Gandhi, Siddhartha Bhattacharyya, …
Paperback
R3,019
Discovery Miles 30 190
Novel Financial Applications of Machine…
Mohammad Zoynul Abedin, Petr Hajek
Hardcover
R4,610
Discovery Miles 46 100
|