This book is an excellent resource for academics and students interested in ethics and accountability in the public sector, as well as for practitioners, NGO workers and policymakers. Over the last decades, issues in ethical leadership have become central to the global call for higher moral standards on the part of corporate organisations and their leaders and managers. The book's chapters investigate these concerns in Africa, where governance gaps often reflect poor leadership. Parenthetically, in 2001, a UNDP report found difficulties in applying anti-corruption laws and managing public institutions in the continent. Twenty years on, significant efforts have been made to improve the situation, yet extensive challenges still subsist. In this first volume, contributors discuss the practice of ethics, anti-corruption, and performance management, and propose solutions, some general to the continent and others country-specific.

Building a capable public service is fundamental to postconflict state building. Yet in postconflict settings, short-term pressures often conflict with this longer-term objective. To ensure peace and stabilize fragile coalitions, the imperative for political elites to hand out public jobs and better pay to constituents dominates merit. Donor-financed projects that rely on technical assistants and parallel structures, rather than on government systems, are often the primary vehicle for meeting pressing service delivery needs. What, then, is a workable approach to rebuilding public services postconflict? Paths between Peace and Public Service seeks to answer this question by comparing public service reform trajectories in five countries - Afghanistan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Timor-Leste - in the aftermath of conflict. The study seeks to explain these countries' different trajectories through process tracing and structured, focused methods of comparative analysis. To reconstruct reform trajectories, the report draws on more than 200 interviews conducted with government officials and other stakeholders, as well as administrative data. The study analyzes how reform trajectories are influenced by elite bargains and highlights their path dependency, shaped by preconflict legacies and the specifics of the conflict period. As the first systematic study on postconflict public service reforms, it identifies lessons for the future engagement of development partners in building public services.

This book examines an interdependent approach to happiness and well-being, one that contrasts starkly with dominant approaches that have originated from Western culture(s). It highlights the diversity of potential pathways towards happiness and well-being globally, and answers calls - voiced in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals - for more socially and environmentally sustainable models. Leading global organizations including the OECD, UNICEF, and UNESCO are now proposing human happiness and well-being as a more sustainable alternative to a myopic focus on GDP growth. Yet, the definition of well-being offered by these organizations derives largely from the philosophies, social sciences, and institutional patterns of Europe and the United States. Across seven chapters this book carefully probes the inadequacy of these approaches to well-being globally and reveals the distorting effect this has on how we imagine our world, organize institutions, and plan our collective future(s). It shares a wealth of evidence and examples from across East Asia - a region where interdependence remains foregrounded - and concludes by provocatively arguing that interdependence may provide a more sustainable approach to happiness and well-being in the 21st century. A timely and accessible book, it offers fresh insights for scholars and policymakers working in the areas of psychology, health, sociology, education, international development, public policy, and philosophy. This is an open access book.

This open access book presents a unique interdiscplinary analysis of urban projects promoted by the EU from a comparative perspective This book presents cross-sectional and cross-time analyses at the territorial level targeted by these initiatives focusing on the design, theory and impacts of urban projects developed under the framework of initiatives promoted by the European Union. The book includes a new methodology to analyse the design and theory of urban plans (the comparative urban portfolio analysis) and quasi-experimental strategies to perform impact assessment at the neighbourhood level (the territorial target of those initiatives). Although empirical analyses focus on examples in Spain, the resulting analytical and methodological outcomes of these studies can be applied in a broader context to analyse integral urban policies in other countries.

After a long time of neglect, migration has entered the arena of international politics with a force. The 2018 Global Compact for safe, orderly and regular migration (GCM) is the latest and most comprehensive framework for global migration governance. Despite these dynamics, migration is still predominantly framed as a state-centric policy issue that needs to be managed in a top-down manner. This book proposes a difference approach: A truly multi-stakeholder, multi-level and rights-based governance with meaningful participation of migrant civil society. Drawing on 15 years of participant observation on all levels of migration governance, the book maps out the relevant actors, "invited" and "invented" spaces for participation as well as alternative discourses and framing strategies by migrant civil society. It thus provides a comprehensive and timely overview on global migration governance from below, starting with the first UN High Level Dialogue in 2006, evolving around the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) and leading up to the consultations for the International Migration Review Forum in 2022.

This book examines language education policy in European migrant-hosting countries. By applying the Multiple Streams Framework to detailed case studies on Austria and Italy, it sheds light on the factors and processes that innovate education policy. The book illustrates an education policy design that values language diversity and inclusion, and compares underlying policymaking processes with less innovative experiences. Combining empirical analysis and qualitative research methods, it assesses the ways in which language is intrinsically linked to identity and political power within societies, and how language policy and migration might become a firmer part of European policy agendas. Sitting at the intersection between policy studies, language education studies and integration studies, the book offers recommendations for how education policy can promote a more inclusive society. It will appeal to scholars, practitioners and students who have an interest in policymaking, education policy and migrant integration.

The Fundamentals of the Public Policy Process provides students with a carefully selected collection of articles that introduce readers to essential theories and concepts in public policy. The anthology is organized in a way that parallels the stages heuristic model reflecting the individual stages of the public policy process. The text is divided into four distinct units. Unit I provides students with an overview of the discipline, includes a theoretical explanation of the process of policymaking, and explores the role of federalism within the political structure of the United States. Units II, III, and IV comprise the pre-decision, decision, and post-decision stages of the policy process. The chapters focus on further narrowing down these broader stages into seven more specific and concentrated ones that echo the stages model. In Unit II, the pre-decision stage, the readings coincide with the particular itemized stages of the policy cycle, including problem identification and definition, agenda setting, and policy formulation. Unit III focuses on the singular decision-making stage of policy adoption. The final unit, the post-decision stage, covers the political processes that occur following the adoption of a policy solution, including implementation, policy and program evaluation, and policy change and termination. The Fundamentals of the Public Policy Process is an ideal resource for introductory public policy courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Unmasked is the story of what happened in Okoboji, a small Iowan tourist town, when a collective turn from the coronavirus to the economy occurred in the COVID summer of 2020. State political failures, local negotiations among political and public health leaders, and community (dis)belief about the virus resulted in Okoboji being declared a hotspot just before the Independence Day weekend, when an influx of half a million people visit the town. The story is both personal and political. Author Emily Mendenhall, an anthropologist at Georgetown University, grew up in Okoboji, and her family still lives there. As the events unfolded, Mendenhall was in Okoboji, where she spoke formally with over 100 people and observed a community that rejected public health guidance, revealing deep-seated mistrust in outsiders and strong commitments to local thinking. Unmasked is a fascinating and heartbreaking account of where people put their trust, and how isolationist popular beliefs can be in America's small communities.

As global markets toppled during the 2008 financial crisis, the Canadian market for non-bank asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) seemed on the verge of collapsing. Fueled by a top rating from DBRS, ABCP had found its way into the portfolios of some of Canada's most sophisticated investors as well as vulnerable retail investors who didn't know what they were holding. The failure of the $32 billion market could have tipped Canadian and foreign credit default swap markets into chaos if it weren't for the swift actions of a few powerful asset holders. Collectively, through the Montreal Accord and led by veteran Canadian lawyer Purdy Crawford, they managed to hold the Canadian ABCP market back from the brink of collapse by crafting a complex and innovative solution. Back from the Brink goes behind the scenes of the ABCP crisis to examine how a solution was reached and lessons learned that could prevent or mitigate future crises. The authors also examine the imaginative use of the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act and describe the roles played by the banks, the major investors, rating agencies, and the financial regulators in the crisis's origins and conclusions. Back from the Brink holds important lessons for anyone interested in Canadian law, the future of complex investments, and Canada's capital markets.

This unique book explores a very broad range of ideas and institutions and provides case studies and best practices in the context of broader theoretical analysis. The impact global multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and IMF have on development is hotly debated, but few doubt their power and influence. Therefore, the main aim of this book is to examine the concepts that have powerfully influenced development policy and, more broadly, look at the role of ideas in these institutions and how they have affected current development discourse. With the aim, the objectives, therefore, to enhance the understanding of how the ideas travel within the systems and how they are translated into policy, modified, distorted, or resisted. It is not about creating something fundamentally new, nor is it about completely transcending the efforts of these global institutions. Rather, it is about creating effective global institutions at a global level, that can aid in social and economic development globally. The scholarly value of the proposed publication is self-evident because of the increase in the emphasis placed on global institutions and the role they play for corporate governance, innovation, and sustainability globally and it is going to be more crucial post-pandemic when the economies restart and more so in emerging economies. Moreover, there is a dire need for understanding comprehensively the complexity in the process of how these global institutions work multi-laterally.

The community development profession: issues, concepts and approaches is an informative resource for students and practitioners of community-based development as it faces the stumbling blocks of a new professionalism. Authors Professors Frik de Beer and Hennie Swanepoel introduce and debate the relevant issues, concepts and approaches, and their evolution, interpretation and application in the field of development. Based on an extensive literature study, the book argues that some more recently evolved approaches can be traced to a "community development" origin, with possible pitfalls of marginalisation and disempowerment in the hands of powerful people. De Beer and Swanepoel also discuss issues such as the origin and history of community development from an international and South African perspective; community development principles, policy, ethics, institutions and training; community development project management and evaluation; the integrated development programme (IDP); all aspects of participatory planning, local economic development, and sustainability; the important role played by government and NGOs. Lecturers will benefit from the questions for reflection and discussion, a reading list per theme and a glossary for second-language users, all of which are included in each chapter.