This book adopts the managerial perspective to the study of smart cities. As such, this book is a necessary addition to the existing body of literature on smart cities. The chapters included in this book prove the case that transformation of cities to smart cities is a function of effective and efficient management practices implemented at diverse levels of smart cities. While advances in information and communication technology (ICT) are crucial, it is the ability to apply ICT consciously and efficiently that drives the transformation of cities to smart cities in a manner conducive to cities' sustainability and resilience. The book covers three sets of interconnected topics: Management and decision-making for urban design and infrastructure development Management and decision-making in context of smart cities development Ways of promoting and ensuring participation, representation and co-creation in smart cities These three groups of topics offer a great opportunity to acquire a clear, direct, and practice-driven knowledge and understanding of how effective management allows ICT-enhanced tools and applications to change smart cities, possibly making them smarter.

This book deals with important issues related to urban housing in South Asia. It analyses various aspects of housing, including spatial and temporal requirements and needs, as well as the challenges of implementing housing projects, such as financial feasibility of estate development projects and housing design. Finally, it discusses the socio-economic and environmental impacts of the rapid urban housing development in South Asia. Written by experts from various disciplines, the book presents several case studies that address issues such as housing provision; legislative, financial and technical support; access to employment opportunities and markets; the cumulative impact on gentrification; exclusion and spatial equity; and the economic, social and environmental sustainability of urban tissue. Researchers, housing planners, and policy makers will find this book a valuable resource in meeting the demand for affordable and sustainable housing and overcoming housing shortages in developing countries

This book discusses how various social marketing campaigns have taken up and had an impact on important aspects of quality of life across the world. The chapters bring up case studies from different regions, showing how successful social marketing campaigns have been instrumental in addressing public health challenges, discrimination and exclusion, violence, and inequity; and in changing public perceptions in different countries and through public and nonprofit organizations, but also through businesses. Thus, this book approaches social marketing from a quality-of-life (QOL) marketing philosophy, taking an international perspective. It includes 26 case studies discussing how social marketing campaigns were developed and implemented in specific cases related to disease prevention and risk behavior, safe and healthy lifestyles, and inclusion and interpersonal relationships. It also covers social marketing campaigns related to COVID-19 in various countries. The book is both comprehensive and provides in-depth understanding of every case, and is useful for research, policy making, development communication and social marketing. Graduate students, researchers, practitioners, and social marketers alike will find this book interesting.

This book fills a gap in the literature on economic liberalism in France as it strives to resolve a paradox. How do we reconcile the fact that while France has been among the most fertile of soils for the liberal intellectual tradition, the theoretical ideas it has produced has little impact on its own public debate and public policies? Using a wide range of data on public policies, it demonstrates that neo-liberal thought has had far less influence in France than in other European nations during the period from 1974 to 2012. The failure of neo-liberalism to propagate in public policies France is shown to be mainly due to the strong resistance of public opinion towards it. In addition, the structure of French institutions has reinforced the effect of "path dependence" in the making of public policy by valuing state expertise above that of actors likely to question the post-war consensus, such as academics and think tanks. Finally, the book identifies other more incidental factors which contributed to neo-liberalism marginality: the fragmentation and radicalism of neo-liberal advocates, as well as the absence of charismatic political actors to effectively embody these ideas. This book is a useful educational tool for students of economics, sociology, political science, and of French political history. This book is also of interest for journalists, think tank researchers and professionals of politics and administration.

This book is a collection of essays that explore commonalities and contrasts between strategy in armed conflict and strategy in public health. The first part uses the asymptotic limit theorems of information and control theories to study strategy as an exchange of messages between adversaries, in the context of underlying power relations. The 'messages' to be exchanged are constructed from an 'alphabet' of tactics available to each contender, in a large sense. The second part of the book explores four case histories from this perspective, ranging across agribusiness-generated pandemics, through tuberculosis and COVID-19. The final chapter attempts a strategic synthesis applicable more specifically to public health than to the remarkably - and disturbingly -- close parallel of armed conflict. Taking a unique approach to public health tactics and strategy this volume will be of interest to social epidemiologists, public health economists, public policy scientists, as well as public health researchers and practitioners.

"How Information Matters" examines the ways a network of state and local governments and nonprofit organizations can enhance the capacity for successful policy change by public administrators. Hale examines drug courts, programs that typify the highly networked, collaborative environment of public administrators today. These "special dockets" implement justice but also drug treatment, case management, drug testing, and incentive programs for non-violent offenders in lieu of jail time. In a study that spans more than two decades, Hale shows ways organizations within the network act to champion, challenge, and support policy innovations over time. Her description of interactions between courts, administrative agencies, and national organizations highlight the evolution of collaborative governance in the state and local arena, with vignettes that share specific experiences across six states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, and Tennessee) and ways that they acquired knowledge from the network to make decisions.

"How Information Matters" offers valuable insight into successful ways for collaboration and capacity building. It will be of special interest to public administrators or policymakers who wish to identify ways to improve their own programs' performance.

This book challenges the notion that the New Zealand Police are one of only four global police services that does not have routinely armed officers, using arguments and facts drawn from 2000 to 2019, a period of important change for the organisation and its relationship with firearms, particularly following the outrages of the Christchurch mosques terrorist massacres in 2019, and the 2020 shooting death of a young police constable in Aotearoa New Zealand. This book provides a brief history of the Police from its beginnings to the present day with a specific focus on its relationship with firearms, which contextualize the law that justifies use of lethal force in a country that has abolished the death penalty. It examines police policies, procedures, training and structures governing deployment and use of firearms in Aotearoa New Zealand, and the independent oversight that now applies to fatal and non-fatal shootings by Police. Using 43 publicly released oversight agency reports and data directly related to police shootings, such as who is being shot, this book investigates how the police are using lethal force, who is being affected, and what this might mean for the service with regards to the operational deployment of firearms and the potential for use of lethal force within the community into the future.

This is an open access book. This book offers the first overview of the 'wicked problems' literature, often seen as complex, open-ended, and intractable, with both the nature of the 'problem' and the preferred 'solution' being strongly contested. It contextualises the debate using a wide range of relevant policy examples, explaining why these issues attract so much attention. There is an increasing interest in the conceptual and practical aspects of how 'wicked problems' are identified, understood and managed by policy practitioners. The standard public management responses to complexity and uncertainty (including traditional regulation and market-based solutions) are insufficient. Leaders often advocate and implement ideological 'quick fixes', but integrative and inclusive responses are increasingly being utilised to recognise the multiple interests and complex causes of these problems. This book uses examples from a wide range of social, economic and environmental fields in order to develop new insights about better solutions, and thus gain broad stakeholder acceptance for shared strategies for tackling 'wicked problems'.

This book traces the history of China's administrative reform in the past 35 years, focusing on the three phases of development, four guidelines and five major tasks of the reform since it is of great value to depict the entire process of China's administrative system reform, analyzing the achievements, problems and prospects of the reform, and exploring experiences and lessons from the relationship between the administrative system reform and China's economic, social and government transformation.

The overall functions of a government impact a wide range of sectors in society. It is imperative for governments to work at full capacity and potential in order to ensure quality progress for its citizens. Driving Efficiency in Local Government Using a Collaborative Enterprise Architecture Framework: Emerging Research and Opportunities is an essential scholarly publication for the latest research on methods for smart government initiatives and implementations, and addresses prevalent internal and external security risks. Featuring extensive coverage on a broad range of topics such as technology funds, mobile technology, and cloud computing, this book is ideally designed for professionals, academicians, researchers, and students seeking current research on the ways in which governments can advance and prosper.

Following years of investigation and research on the changes of China’s land system, the author discusses the evolution of urbanization and rural land system reform in China, arguing that the shackles of institutional arrangements, especially the dual track of the urban-rural system, hinder the free flow of resource elements, creating different property rights for rural or urban people and leading to an extremely unbalanced development of urban and rural China. However, China’s incremental reform experience began in the countryside and from there encircled the cities. In order to attract foreign capital for industrial development, land auction opened a prelude of land marketization, but the market has long been for urban land transaction only. The trend of urbanization, the pursuit of freedom and equality by the people, and the changes in relative land price must trigger changes in the institutional framework and pry open the doors to the market bit by bit. Local experimental policy tools, such as land-people-industries agglomeration and urban-rural linkages, benefit both rural and urban, market and state, and in a certain degree realize the collective land transaction. In urban-rural China, general property rights, especially the rights to transfer, must be redefined, and the rule of law is needed to contain coercive power and bring the activities of most people into a legal framework.

This book examines the ways in which emergency management organizations make sense and learn from natural disasters. Examining recent bushfires in Australia, it demonstrates that whilst public inquiries that follow such disasters can be important for learning and change, they have ultimately created a learning vacuum insofar as their recommendations repeat themselves. This has kept governments and society focused on learning lessons about the past, rather than for the future. Accordingly, this book recommends a new approach to sensemaking and learning focused on prospective planning rather than retrospective recommendations, and where planning for the future is seen as the shared responsibility of the government, society, and the emergency management community in Australia and beyond.

This is the first of five ambitious volumes theorizing the structure of governance above and below the central state. This book is written for those interested in the character, causes, and consequences of governance within the state and for social scientists who take measurement seriously. The book sets out a measure of regional authority for 81 countries in North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific from 1950 to 2010. Subnational authority is exercised by individual regions, and this measure is the first that takes individual regions as the unit of analysis. On the premise that transparency is a fundamental virtue in measurement, the authors chart a new path in laying out their theoretical, conceptual, and scoring decisions before the reader. The book also provides summaries of regional governance in 81 countries for scholars and students alike. Transformations in Governance is a major new academic book series from Oxford University Press. It is designed to accommodate the impressive growth of research in comparative politics, international relations, public policy, federalism, environmental and urban studies concerned with the dispersion of authority from central states up to supranational institutions, down to subnational governments, and side-ways to public-private networks. It brings together work that significantly advances our understanding of the organization, causes, and consequences of multilevel and complex governance. The series is selective, containing annually a small number of books of exceptionally high quality by leading and emerging scholars. The series targets mainly single-authored or co-authored work, but it is pluralistic in terms of disciplinary specialization, research design, method, and geographical scope. Case studies as well as comparative studies, historical as well as contemporary studies, and studies with a national, regional, or international focus are all central to its aims. Authors use qualitative, quantitative, formal modeling, or mixed methods. A trade mark of the books is that they combine scholarly rigour with readable prose and an attractive production style. The series is edited by Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the VU Amsterdam, and Walter Mattli of the University of Oxford.

What, fundamentally, is public management? This question is rarely answered clearly and confidently, whether by students of public management or academics in the field. This book answers this question, as its readers come to know why and how public management is a design-oriented professional discipline. The argument of the book is grounded in Herbert Simon's ideas about design-oriented professional disciplines. However, Michael Barzelay's argument runs counter to the idea that public management is a design science. It envisions the discipline as a professional practice that requires the thoughtful and skillful use of purposive theories of public organizations, along with reverse-engineered design-precedents, in problem-solving for public programs and organizations. How professional knowledge about public management is to be expanded through research and analytical synthesis is therefore a major thrust of the book's overall argument. Michael Barzelay develops these arguments in a unique way, including guiding the reader through a fictional ''Public Management Gallery'' featuring key contributions to purposive theorizing about public management as a professional practice. The book is an essential resource for those wishing to strengthen the professional practice of public management - and the discipline - through education and research immediately and for years to come.

This open access book is the result of the 1st International Conference on Evaluating Challenges in the Implementation of EU Cohesion Policy (EvEUCoP 2022). It presents the recent findings, sparks discussion, and reveals new research paths addressing the use of novel methodologies and approaches to tackle the challenges and opportunities that are unveiled with the implementation of the EU cohesion policy. The authors cover a wide range of topics including the monitoring of data; the clearness of indicators in measuring the impact of interventions; novel evaluation methods, addressing the mid-term and terminal assessment; as well as case studies and applications on evaluations of the thematic objectives under the scrutiny of the cohesion policy, namely:* Research, technological development, and innovation; * Information and communication technologies;* Shift toward a low-carbon economy. During the 2014-2020 programmatic period, member states were required to undertake assessments to evaluate the efficacy, efficiency, and impact of each operational program. Such evaluations are generally concerned with the compliance of projects and activities with programmatic priorities, as well as with funds' absorption capacity and refer to ex-ante and ex-post assessments. Hence, this book proposes the use of novel methodologies addressing the mid-term and terminal assessments that enable performing the efficiency appraisal of the operational programs and that can support decision-makers in the selection of projects that should be awarded for funding.

New information and communication technologies have drastically changed public management. Public managers are increasingly dependent on information gathered form complex systems and they need to be able to put in place sound IT and communication structures. This accessible text, aimed specifically at those studying and working in public management, offers readers a comprehensive understanding of ICTs and their implications for public management. It provides aspiring and current public managers a framework for the development of strategic public information management across the full range of public organizations. Written by leading experts in this area, Public Management in an Information Age offers: - A thorough grounding in the latest research - Examples of issues and practices from different contexts and types of organizations around the world - A range of tools and techniques to help readers analyse concrete situations and develop appropriate solutions - Summary boxes on key ICTs in non-technical language This is the ideal text for students on Master of Public Administration, Master of Public Management and Master of Public Policy programmes.

This book provides an authoritative, inter-disciplinary, and up-to-date survey of relevant concepts, research areas, and applications of intellectual capital. Until now, the literature had lacked a comprehensive analysis of intellectual capital (IC) in regard to sustainability, block chain, and other related technologies and virtual environments. This book shows the importance of intellectual capital for contemporary organizations: how it contributes to theories of the firm, how it affects organizational performance, how is it linked with the organizational ambidexterity, how it connects to the technological developments like block chain and digital technologies, and what would be its association with sustainability. Central to our thesis is the systemic nature of intellectual capital in organizations: how intellectual capital interacts with and complements other organizational resources and developments. This book also shows as to how applying the notion of intellectual capital to organizations requires us to consider how intangible forms of capital differ from more traditional forms, implying the need for a theory of firm that accommodates a concept of dynamic, heterogeneous intellectual capital. Although a lot has been written on IC, this book proves to be the first with scholastic and action-oriented perspective on as to how a firm can manage its IC to create value. This book also demonstrates as to how the subjective aspects of IC can be measured and what can be their strategic implications. A discussion on IC disclosure also appears in the latter part of the book. In doing so, this book reveals as to how the value creation of today's businesses is driven by the IC. This book also introduces the readers to the new application of IC and its association with the contemporary disruptive technologies. This is a book for IC researchers and academicians who want to understand the diverse aspects of IC, for business managers who want to be at the cutting edge, for those early in their careers who seek a challenging new path, and for the top-level managers of the world who have their eye on the future.

From Government to E-Governance: Public Administration in the Digital Age will aim to provide relevant theoretical frameworks, past experiences, and the latest empirical research findings in the area of public administration systems that existed in earlier civilizations, as well as e-governance-introduced modern times. The target audience of this book will be composed of academics, students, civil servants, researchers, and policy advisors teaching and studying public administration and public policy, thinking to bring administrative reforms and working in government.

This open access book covers the use of data science, including advanced machine learning, big data analytics, Semantic Web technologies, natural language processing, social media analysis, time series analysis, among others, for applications in economics and finance. In addition, it shows some successful applications of advanced data science solutions used to extract new knowledge from data in order to improve economic forecasting models. The book starts with an introduction on the use of data science technologies in economics and finance and is followed by thirteen chapters showing success stories of the application of specific data science methodologies, touching on particular topics related to novel big data sources and technologies for economic analysis (e.g. social media and news); big data models leveraging on supervised/unsupervised (deep) machine learning; natural language processing to build economic and financial indicators; and forecasting and nowcasting of economic variables through time series analysis. This book is relevant to all stakeholders involved in digital and data-intensive research in economics and finance, helping them to understand the main opportunities and challenges, become familiar with the latest methodological findings, and learn how to use and evaluate the performances of novel tools and frameworks. It primarily targets data scientists and business analysts exploiting data science technologies, and it will also be a useful resource to research students in disciplines and courses related to these topics. Overall, readers will learn modern and effective data science solutions to create tangible innovations for economic and financial applications.

Europe's future is contested between those who want to integrate further, those who prefer things to stay as they are, and those who would retreat into nationalism. These divisions impair the government of the European Union and weaken its ability to shoulder more responsibility for its unstable neighbourhood. This open access book analyses the EU's evolving constitution, arguing that the lack of effective federal government lies at the heart of its problems. It recommends reforms for each EU institution, including those involving treaty change. It makes the case for a unified executive, a more legitimate legislature, and the introduction of a federal treasury and supreme court. It proposes a fresh category of affiliate membership underpinned by a new European security council that would overcome the historic division between the EU and NATO. The book is essential reading for practitioners and students of European integration.

This open access book explores a special species of trouble afflicting modern societies: creeping crises. These crises evolve over time, reveal themselves in different ways, and resist comprehensive responses despite periodic public attention. As a result, these crises continue to creep in front of our eyes. This book begins by defining the concept of a creeping crisis, showing how existing literature fails to properly define and explore this phenomenon and outlining the challenges such crises pose to practitioners. Drawing on ongoing research, this book presents a diverse set of case studies on: antimicrobial resistance, climate change-induced migration, energy extraction, big data, Covid-19, migration, foreign fighters, and cyberattacks. Each chapter explores how creeping crises come into existence, why they can develop unimpeded, and the consequences they bring in terms of damage and legitimacy loss. The book provides a proof-of-concept to help launch the systematic study of creeping crises. Our analysis helps academics understand a new species of threat and practitioners recognize and prepare for creeping crises.

Economic development and social welfare depend on the existence of effective and efficient infrastructure systems, particularly in health, energy, transportation and water, many of which are developed and managed through Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs). However, empirical evidence suggests some pitfalls in the use of these PPP arrangements. This book addresses these issues, focusing on mostly three key questions: How to improve the robustness of the decision-making process leading to the option of PPP? How to improve contract management as the longest phase of the process? How can contracts be improved to accommodate uncertainty and avoid harmful renegotiations? The authors explore the concept of flexible contracts, the uncertainty modeling for improving the robustness of the decision-making process, and develop an overall framework for effective contract management, along with a comprehensive analysis of current renegotiation patterns. The ultimate goal is to improve the contractual performance, as well as the overall infrastructure management and social welfare.

This book analyzes the EU's responses to the sovereign debt crisis that hit the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in 2010. After reviewing the events that led to the crisis, it examines two case studies. The first assesses the short-term policy changes by drawing on a new mechanism, contingent learning. The second case study revolves around the long-term EMU reforms passed during the period 2010-2013. More specifically, it assesses these responses in relation to the institutional scientific publications of the European Central Bank and the DG ECFIN of the Commission. By analyzing both the short and long-term responses to the sovereign debt crisis, the book elucidates how policy learning can be an effective engine for deeper European integration. It will be of interest to scholars and students of EU integration, the EMU, policy learning, and supranational bureaucracies.