This important Handbook is a comprehensive guide to the role, function and perceived impact of policy research-oriented institutions in North America, Europe and beyond. Over two-dozen international scholars explore the diverse and eclectic world of think tanks to reveal their structure, governance and unique position in occupying a critical space on the public policy landscape. This Handbook serves as a reference point for understanding how think tanks shape public opinion and public policy, and how their directors help them navigate their way through an increasingly crowded marketplace of ideas. It also considers how these organizations enlist various actors (such as policy makers, the media, donors and industry leaders) to influence the discourse around key domestic and foreign policy issues. Handbook on Think Tanks in Public Policy is an invaluable resource for academics and students who wish to further their understanding of how to measure the impact and reach of think tanks. It will also be useful for policymakers and NGOs who are interested in the expertise think tanks can offer on policy-related issues and to donors, whose main goals and objectives may be advanced by these organisations.

How can governments control spending pressure from influential groups, often representing powerful regional interests? This book is concerned with institutional solutions that allow modern nation states to balance historically grown cultural, political and economic diversity.Laura von Daniels combines different literatures in economics and political science, and draws on interviews with former government leaders, and country experts from international organizations. She applies this research to topics such as fiscal institutions and budget balances, presenting a critical review of different institutional approaches to resolving fiscal imbalances and public indebtedness. Students and scholars of various disciplines, including politics, public and social policy, economics and business will find the discussions and detailed description of institutional reforms in emerging market nations to be of use to their research. It will also be of interest to practitioners working on fiscal decentralization and budget control.

Existing research understands co-production as leading to shifts in roles of the public sector institutions and their staffs. The shift is seen in the way that a discursive use of the term service provision with embedded logics encompassing fiscal accountability, performance measurement, efficiency, and process regulation has changed towards discourses that embrace collaboration between the public sector front staff and the citizens, with the aim of developing legitimate and effective welfare services that are co-produced by means of active participation and distributed decision making. However, this change requires new approaches to the way in which the implementation of new practices and tools is executed in practice as studied and researched, and how the new practices and tools are understood and evaluated in organizations. Processual Perspectives on the Co-Production Turn in Public Sector Organizations is an essential reference book that examines, unfolds, and develops approaches to co-production and implementation as dynamic, processual, collaborative, sensemaking, and as requiring and resulting in capacity building and learning. Moreover, the book examines new approaches to engage citizens and public sector actors in collaborative and co-productive processes, especially with concern for new goals pertaining to sustainability, social equity, democratic legitimacy, etc. Covering topics that include knowledge management and collective leadership, the book presents perspectives on capacity building, learning, change, and evaluation in organizations and current research in different areas of the public sector. It is intended for public sector administrators and managers investigating the relevancy, approaches, and methods in co-production. Furthermore, it targets civil actors and welfare service users, leaders and managers of public organizations, researchers, academicians, and students in programs that include social welfare development, public administration, political science, and organizational development.

An unassailable case that, in the eyes of history, Barack Obama will be viewed as one of America's best and most accomplished presidents.Over the course of eight years, Barack Obama has amassed an array of outstanding achievements. His administration saved the American economy from collapse, expanded health insurance to millions who previously could not afford it, negotiated an historic nuclear deal with Iran, helped craft a groundbreaking international climate accord, reined in Wall Street and crafted a new vision of racial progress. He has done all of this despite a left that frequently disdained him as a sellout, and a hysterical right that did everything possible to destroy his agenda even when they agreed with what he was doing. Now, as the page turns to our next Commander in Chief, Jonathan Chait, acclaimed as one of the most incisive and meticulous political commentators in America, digs deep into Obama's record on major policy fronts--economics, the environment, domestic reform, health care, race, foreign policy, and civil rights--to demonstrate why history will judge our forty-fourth president as among the greatest in history. Audacity does not shy away from Obama's failures, most notably in foreign policy. Yet Chait convincingly shows that President Obama has accomplished what candidate Obama said he would, despite overwhelming opposition--and that the hopes of those who voted for him have not been dashed despite the smokescreen of extremist propaganda and the limits of short-term perspective.

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas.In this Advanced Introduction, Christopher Pollitt starts a penetrating account of the theories, methods and possible trajectories of the study of public management, also examining the academic community itself, and its relationship to the world of practice. There is no more authoritative - or lively - text of such scope and focus. This is a stimulating analysis by a leading international scholar. It includes: - a global overview - a critical and authoritative analysis of the current state of the field - the location of academic research firmly in the real world context of austerity, climate and demographic change, and technological transformation - an examination of the relationship between academic study and the practice of public management - a look inside the ivory tower , at the forces changing the way the subject is studied and practised This truly unique work will be of particular interest to graduate students, advanced scholars, lecturers and trainers in public administration, public management, government, public policy, political science and development administration. Middle level and senior practitioners in public administration and public management will also find this an invaluable and sophisticated introduction.

Analytics for the public sector involves the application of operations research and statistical techniques to solve various problems existing outside of the private sector. The use of analytics for the public sector results in more efficient and effective services for the clients and users of these systems. Analytics, Operations, and Strategic Decision Making in the Public Sector is an essential reference source that discusses analytics applications in various public sector organizations, and addresses the difficulties associated with the design and operation of these systems including multiple conflicting objectives, uncertainties and resulting risk, ill-structured nature, combinatorial design aspects, and scale. Featuring research on topics such as analytical modeling techniques, data mining, and statistical analysis, this book is ideally designed for academicians, educators, researchers, students, and public sector professionals including those in local, state, and federal governments; criminal justice systems; healthcare; energy and natural resources; waste management; emergency response; and the military.

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.