As emerging trends and research threads surface in the area of e-government, academicians, practitioners, and students face the challenge of keeping up-to-date with new and innovative practices. ""Current Issues and Trends in E-Government Research"" provides a complete synopsis of the latest technologies in information policy, security, privacy, and access, as well as the best practices in e-government applications and measurement. ""Current Issues and Trends in E-Government Research"" presents the most current issues in e-government hardware and software technology, adoption and diffusion, planning and management, and philosophy.

This book presents a selection of contributions on the timely topic of structural reforms in Western economies, written by experts from central banks, the International Monetary Fund, and leading universities. It includes latest research on the impacts of structural reforms on the market economy, especially on the labor market, and investigates the results of collective bargaining in theory and practice. The book also comprises case studies of structural reforms. A literature survey on the topic serves as a valuable source for further research. The book is written by and targeted at both academics and policy makers.

This open access book draws a theoretically productive triangle between urban studies, theories of cosmopolitanism, and migration studies in a global context. It provides a unique, encompassing and situated view on the various relations between cosmopolitanism and urbanity in the contemporary world. Drawing on a variety of cities in Latin America, Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, it overcomes the Eurocentric bias that has marked debate on cosmopolitanism from its inception. The contributions highlight the crucial role of migrants as actors of urban change and targets of urban policies, thus reconciling empirical and normative approaches to cosmopolitanism. By addressing issues such as cosmopolitanism and urban geographies of power, locations and temporalities of subaltern cosmopolites, political meanings and effects of cosmopolitan practices and discourses in urban contexts, it revisits contemporary debates on superdiversity, urban stratification and local incorporation, and assess the role of migration and mobility in globalization and social change.

This book presents the results of extensive international comparative research into the effects of the economic and financial crisis on democratic institutions and social cohesion policies. The collected studies describe and analyse the measures (often referred to as "reforms") adopted to counter the crisis and the effects of these measures.It investigates three areas: the impact on the functioning of institutions, with respect to the relationship between representative institutions and governments, and the organisational structure of administrations at national and local levels; the impact that the austerity policies on public spending have on social rights; and the impact on traditional instruments of public action (administrative simplification, public services delivering, the use of common assets).The general findings highlight the effect of reducing the administrative and government capacity of the democratic institutions: the public sector, rather than being innovative and made more effective, declines, offering increasingly poor public services and making bad decisions, fuelling substantive or formal privatisation solutions, which in turn cause further weakening.

Latin American experiments with pension reform began when Chile converted its public pay-as-you-go system to a system of private individual accounts in 1981. In the 1990s, several other countries followed suit, inspired both by Chile's reforms and World Bank recommendations that stressed adopting compulsory government-mandated individual savings accounts. Following the lead of Latin America, individual accounts were subsequently introduced in a number of countries in both Europe and Asia. The World Bank and governments in the region have now begun to seriously re-evaluate these privatisations, with the most dramatic effort to 'reform the reform' coming from Chile, where President Michelle Bachelet backed a comprehensive initiative aimed at making the system more efficient and equitable. This volume is the first to assess pension reforms in this new 'post-privatization' era.
Section 1 of the book begins with a discussion on demographic trends by Nobel laureate Robert W. Fogel and is followed by chapters on system design and their policy implications, including chapters on demographic trends, pension system default options, and an analysis of World Bank's policies and how they have evolved (by three former and current World Bank experts). This section concludes with two chapters with differing views on reform and the role of gender (an important and understudied topic). Section 2 contains in-depth chapters on major reform efforts in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil, Peru, Uruguay and Argentina.
In addressing the most pressing policy issues and highlighting a broad range of country experiences, this volume provides an unparalleled account of the lessons frompension reform in the Americas.

In a world of earthquakes, tsunamis, and terrorist attacks, it is evident that emergency response plans are crucial to solve problems, overcome challenges, and restore and improve communities affected by such negative events. Although the necessity for quick and efficient aid is understood, researchers and professionals continue to strive for the best practices and methodologies to properly handle such significant events. Emergency Management and Disaster Response Utilizing Public-Private Partnerships bridges the gap between the theoretical and the practical components of crisis management and response. By discussing and presenting research on the benefits and challenges of such partnerships, this publication is an essential resource for academicians, practitioners, and researchers interested in understanding the complexities of crisis management and relief through public and private partnerships.

This book analyzes the verticalization of coalition cabinets from the national to the sub-national level. Presenting case studies for countries with federal systems of government, such as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, and India, as well as those focusing on states with hybrid systems of government, such as Italy, the contributors analyze multilevel government formation processes to identify vertical congruence between national and sub-national coalitions. The book also examines various factors affecting the degree of congruence of political coalitions, such as the degree of decentralization, federalization and institutionalization of political systems, as well as cleavage structure. This book will be a valuable resource for all scholars interested in coalition politics, as well as for politicians and practitioners in government and parliament.

The need for results delivery in private and public sector organisations has increased, with stakeholders putting substantial pressure on organisations to demonstrate good performance in an environment with limited operational resources. In effect, organisations are being expected to deliver better results with fewer resources. By employing the appropriate tools and techniques of monitoring and evaluation, organisations can be better equipped to ensure that "what is planned" becomes "what is achieved". Monitoring and evaluation of policies, programmes and projects explains key concepts and practices involved in performance tracking and assessment. Monitoring and evaluation of policies, programmes and projects has drawn from the diverse experiences and expertise of the authors in public and private sector management of organisations, as well as practical insights gained from practitioners and students at various training courses, nationally and internationally. The balance between the more abstract, theoretical underpinnings of the subject and its practical aspects makes it easy to follow and incorporate. Contents include the following: Conceptual models of the policy process; the fundamentals and practical steps of policy monitoring and evaluation; the result-based management approach; tools and techniques for monitoring and evaluation; the use of research of policies, programmes and projects.

This book addresses current changes of education policies in a context of globalisation. It does so by focusing on the implementation of performance-based accountability policies in France and in Quebec (Canada). It questions the trajectory of these policies, their mediations and their instrumentation in various territories and schools through a theoretical framework which combines a North American neo-institutionalist approach with the perspective of the French sociologie de l'action publique. The book extends the current international literature on English-speaking experiences of hard accountability to research on "soft" accountability policies and proposes a deep investigation in two highly contrasted education systems. This investigation is multilevel and has led to field research both in schools, in intermediate authorities, and in central administrations for three years. The research presented in the book addresses the international literature on accountability in public administration and in education, the current transformations of governance in education, as well as the forms taken by the globalisation of education policies in countries differently exposed to international influences. The comparison highlights a convergent neo-statist trajectory of the performance-based accountability policy in the two countries, various forms of governance by results enacted at the local and meso level, and more intense impacts of these policies on schools and teacher's practices in Quebec than in France.

Community leadership development programs are designed to increase the capacity of citizens for civic engagement. These programs fill gaps in what people know about governance and the processes of governance, especially at the local level. The work of many in this field is a response to the recognition that in smaller, rural communities, disadvantaged neighborhoods, or disaster areas, the skills and aptitudes needed for citizens to be successful leaders are often missing or underdeveloped. Community Effects of Leadership Development Education presents the results of a five-year study tracking community-level effects of community leadership development programs drawn from research conducted in Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, South Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia. As the first book of its kind to seek answers to the question of whether or not the millions of dollars invested each year in community leadership development programs are valuable in the real world, this book challenges researchers, community organizers, and citizens to identify improved ways of demonstrating the link from program to implementation, as well as the way in which programs are conceived and designed. This text also explores how leadership development programs relate to civic engagement, power and empowerment, and community change, and it demonstrates that community leadership development programs really do produce community change. At the same time, the findings of this study strongly support a relational view of community leadership, as opposed to other traditional leadership models used for program design. To complement their findings, the authors have developed CENCE, a new model for community leadership development programs, which links leadership development efforts to community development by understanding how Civic Engagement, Networks, Commitment, and Empowerment work together to produce community viability.

As the population of the greater Las Vegas area grows and the climate warms, the threat of a water shortage looms over southern Nevada. But as Christian S. Harrison demonstrates in All the Water the Law Allows, the threat of shortage arises not from the local environment but from the American legal system, specifically the Law of the River that governs water allocation from the Colorado River. In this political and legal history of the Las Vegas water supply, Harrison focuses on the creation and actions of the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) to tell a story with profound implications and important lessons for water politics and natural resource policy in the twenty-first century. In the state with the smallest allocation of the Colorado's water supply, Las Vegas faces the twin challenges of aridity and federal law to obtain water for its ever-expanding population. All the Water the Law Allows describes how the impending threat of shortage in the 1980s compelled the five metropolitan water agencies of greater Las Vegas to unify into a single entity. Harrison relates the circumstances of the SNWA's evolution and reveals how the unification of local, county, and state interests allowed the compact to address regional water policy with greater force and focus than any of its peers in the Colorado River Basin. Most notably, the SNWA has mapped conservation plans that have drastically reduced local water consumption; and, in the interstate realm, it has been at the center of groundbreaking, water-sharing agreements. Yet these achievements do not challenge the fundamental primacy of the Law of the River. If current trends continue and the Basin States are compelled to reassess the river's distribution, the SNWA will be a force and a model for the Basin as a whole.

The U.S. is heading toward major problems. If unaddressed, these problems will soon wreak havoc on the country's financial health, social fabric, standing in the global community, and even its vulnerability in an increasingly hostile world.

The troublesome and sad fact is that most of these problems and ensuing threats are due to gross mismanagement by U.S. leaders in the White House and Congress. The very people who have sworn to keep America financially sound, preeminent, democratic, and safe in a threatening world are leading the country and its citizens into troubling and dangerous times. Fiscal and financial mismanagement, poorly designed intelligence capabilities, a dysfunctional, money-based power structure, and poor, myopic leadership are coalescing to create turbulent times ahead.

Poor management by leaders on both sides of the political aisle is leading the country into trouble. This book explains why and shows what must be done to avoid certain disaster.

This book discusses the ethical dilemmas of migration in the era of globalization. Centered on the recent influx of large numbers of migrants and refugees to the United States and Europe and viewed through the lens of the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit and the United Nations Summit on Refugees and Migrants, this book focuses on the problems posed by globalized migration and analyzes proposed responses. Using prominent ethical theories and moral principles, such as Utilitarianism, duty, justice, and integrity, the book proposes a framework for analyzing decision-making by migrants and policymakers and formulating equitable policies to address the migration crisis. Drawing attention to the ethical dilemmas that migrants and policymakers experience, this book fills a gap in the literature and enriches it, adding to the economic, political, and human rights issues that are traditionally part of the migration discussion. Appropriate for students and scholars of ethics, policy, and political science, this book is also meant to be of use to practitioners and decision-makers faced with similar decisions.

Public policy has a dynamic effect on multiple facets of modern society. Methods for managing and engaging the public sphere continue to change conceptually across the globe, impacting the ways that governments and citizens interact both within and across borders. Management and Participation in the Public Sphere is a definitive reference source for the latest scholarly research on the interplay of public affairs and the domestic realm, providing innovative methods on managing public policy across various nations, cultures, and governments. Featuring expansive coverage on a multitude of relevant topics in civic involvement, information technology, and modes of government, this publication is a pivotal reference source for researchers, students, and professionals seeking current developments in novel approaches to public policy studies. This publication features timely, research-based chapters on the critical issues of public policy including, but not limited to, archival paradigms, Internet censorship, media control, civic engagement, virtual public spaces, online activism, higher education, and public-private partnerships.

In 1997, the Labour Government came to power in the UK and committed to reforming public service delivery, particularly towards the improvement of children's services. This book analyses Labour Party's subsequent strategy towards public service delivery emphasising, on one level, devolving more power to frontline deliverers, while on the other, strengthening central control through a variety of means, leading to a 'mixed-approach' in its overall reforms. The book focuses on the implementation process involved in rolling out its Sure Start policy in order to understand and analyse the dynamics in Labour's approach to delivery. In so-doing, it draws on implementation and policy network theories to offer an original analytical framework - 'the implementation network approach' - to explain the implementation process of Sure Start policy. This book will be undoubtedly appealing to the students and scholars engaged in the fields of Public Policy and British Politics.

This volume celebrates the contribution of Professor Colin Williams, an immensely important and influential scholar in the field of language policy for more than forty years. Eighteen chapters by former students, colleagues and collaborators address a range of topics involving different aspects of language legislation and language rights, governance, economics, territoriality, land use planning, and onomastics. Six chapters address policy issues in Professor Williams's native Wales while others focus on Canada, Catalonia, Ireland and Scotland. The volume concludes with an Afterword by Professor Williams himself. The book will be suitable for postgraduates and researchers not only in the field of language policy and planning but also sociolinguistics, geography, law and political science.

Although the study of knowledge is as old as human history, it has only been recognized in the last two decades as a crucial factor of organizational success. Knowledge management has gained much attention from both academics and practitioners; however, more research is needed as this discipline is still in its infancy. Implementing Knowledge Management Strategy in the Public Sector provides innovative insights and clear direction for the effective implementation of knowledge management initiatives and programs in organizations, specifically within the public sector. It serves to increase the awareness of knowledge management in a systematic and holistic way for both individuals and organizations. Centering on topics such as project management, smart technologies, and support sharing, this book is designed for researchers, academicians, business professionals, government officials, policymakers, consultants, managers, and practitioners.

Strategy is vital to effective and efficient public service delivery as well as successful governance and leadership. This new text provides a concise yet systematic overview of the achievements, downfalls and complexities of public strategy in today's globalized and often market-driven world. It describes the place of strategy in civic societies whose citizens are more interconnected and vocal than ever. It shows that successful strategic planning goes well beyond problem-solving to developing adaptable plans that can evolve as requirements and circumstances change. And it explains why muddling through simply won't work. Emphasizing the importance of applying a variety of techniques to the process of strategy-creation, Rethinking Public Strategy reassesses the key factors that can deliver significant improvements in public services and build public value. It looks at why public strategy is distinctive, as well as the principles it has in common with the corporate domain. This text includes numerous case studies from around the globe - from South Africa to Singapore, the USA to Germany, and from China to the Czech Republic - that ground the exposition in real experience. Based on state-of-the-art research by two expert practitioners in the field, it offers an essential guide to the art of strategy in the contemporary public sector, and encourages readers to evaluate critically the various approaches to strategy.

This book presents a theory of information justice that subsumes the question of control and relates it to other issues that influence just social outcomes. Data does not exist by nature. Bureaucratic societies must provide standardized inputs for governing algorithms, a problem that can be understood as one of legibility. This requires, though, converting what we know about social objects and actions into data, narrowing the many possible representations of the objects to a definitive one using a series of translations. Information thus exists within a nexus of problems, data, models, and actions that the social actors constructing the data bring to it. This opens information to analysis from social and moral perspectives, while the scientistic view leaves us blind to the gains from such analysis-especially to the ways that embedded values and assumptions promote injustice. Toward Information Justice answers a key question for the 21st Century: how can an information-driven society be just? Many of those concerned with the ethics of data focus on control over data, and argue that if data is only controlled by the right people then just outcomes will emerge. There are serious problems with this control metaparadigm, however, especially related to the initial creation of data and prerequisites for its use. This text is suitable for academics in the fields of information ethics, political theory, philosophy of technology, and science and technology studies, as well as policy professionals who rely on data to reach increasingly problematic conclusions about courses of action.

In this important new book, Christopher Pollitt, one of the leading researchers in public policy and management, argues that we are guilty of neglecting a fundamental dimension of both the practice and study of contemporary public policymaking and management: that of time.
Pollitt traces the character of, and the reasons for, this neglect in his wide-ranging study. He considers the theoretical options for addressing time in a more sophisticated way, and applies these perspectives both to his own research and that of many others. Finally he looks at the implications for practitioners.
Pollitt's analysis draws on an exceptionally wide range of work from many fields, sectors, and countries. It is rich in examples, concepts, and methods. It poses fundamental questions about some central tendencies in 21st century policymaking, and opens up a new direction for academic research.

This book provides a general overview of intelligence in health policy, health-care organizations and health services in the light of the current EU digital agenda, which aims to make health data and e-health tools publicly available. The first part analyses the implications of knowledge management and decision-making procedures for intelligent health policies and governance. The second part discusses in detail the concept of intelligence and illustrates why the perspective of organizational intelligence offers a solution to contemporary problems in health care, while the third part focuses on intelligent leadership models in health-care organizations. Providing a guide to new ways of understanding, developing, and reforming health policy and health services, it appeals to scholars as well as decision-makers in health governance and health-care institutions.