E-government promises efficient communication, streamlined operations, citizen involvement, improved services, and increased transparency. However, despite huge investments in e-government, evidence suggests numerous e-government projects are late, over budget, and inadequate. Managing E-Government Projects: Concepts, Issues, and Best Practices collects the work of some of the best scholars and practitioners in the fields of e-government and project management, who explore how e-government projects can be managed, planned, and executed with effective project management techniques and methodologies. The chapters address theoretical, empirical, and practical concerns, explore factors affecting e-government projects successes and failures, and discuss existing best practices and their implications for local and national governance in developed and developing countries.

Peace operations are the UN's flagship activity. Over the past decade, UN blue helmets have been dispatched to ever more challenging environments from the Congo to Timor to perform an expanding set of tasks. From protecting civilians in the midst of violent conflict to rebuilding state institutions after war, a new range of tasks has transformed the business of the blue helmets into an inherently knowledge-based venture. But all too often, the UN blue helmets, policemen, and other civilian officials have been "flying blind" in their efforts to stabilize countries ravaged by war. The UN realized the need to put knowledge, guidance and doctrine, and reflection on failures and successes at the center of the institution.
Building on an innovative multi-disciplinary framework, The New World of UN Peace Operations provides a first comprehensive account of learning in peacekeeping. Covering the crucial past decade of expansion in peace operations, it zooms into a dozen cases of attempted learning across four crucial domains: police assistance, judicial reform, reintegration of former combatants, and mission integration. Throughout the different cases, the book analyzes the role of key variables as enablers and stumbling blocks for learning: bureaucratic politics, the learning infrastructure, leadership as well as power and interests of member states. Building on five years of research and access to key documents and decision-makers, it presents a vivid portrait of an international bureaucracy struggling to turn itself into a learning organization. Aimed at policy-makers, diplomats, and a wide academic audience (including those working in international relations, peace research, political science, public administration, and organizational sociology), The New World of UN Peace Operations is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in the evolution of modern peace operations.

This book explores the theoretical issues, empirical evidence, and normative debates elicited by the concept of multi-level governance (MLG). The concept is a useful descriptor of decision-making processes that involve the simultaneous mobilization of public authorities at different jurisdictional levels as well as that of non-governmental organizations and social movements. It has become increasingly relevant with the weakening of territorial state power and effectiveness and the increase in international interdependencies which serve to undermine conventional governmental processes. This book moves towards the construction of a theory of multi-level governance by defining the analytical contours of this concept, identifying the processes that can uniquely be denoted by it, and discussing the normative issues that are raised by its diffusion, particularly in the European Union.
It is divided into three parts, each meeting a specific challenge--theoretical, empirical, normative. It focuses on three analytical dimensions: multi-level governance as political mobilization (politics), as authoritative decision-making (policy), and as state restructuring (polity). Three policy areas are investigated in vindicating the usefulness of MLG as a theoretical and empirical concept--cohesion, environment, higher education--with particular reference to two member-states: the UK and Germany. Finally, both the input and output legitimacy of multi-level governance decisions and arrangements and its contribution to EU democracy are discussed. As a loosely-coupled policy-making arrangement, MLG is sufficiently structured to secure coordination among public and private actors at different jurisdictional levels, yet sufficiently flexible to avoid "joint decision traps." This balance is obtained at the cost of increasingly blurred boundaries between public and private actors and a change in the established hierarchies between territorial jurisdictions.

During the last decade, interoperability has emerged as a vivid research area in electronic business and electronic governance, promising a significant increase in productivity and efficiency of information systems, enterprises and administrations. Interoperability in Digital Public Services and Administration: Bridging E-Government and E-Business provides the latest research findings such as theoretical foundations, principles, methodologies, architectures, technical frameworks, international policy, standardization and case studies for the achievement of interoperability within the provision of digital services, from administration and businesses toward the user citizens and enterprises.

This book discusses Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) and their potential to protect and maintain critical infrastructure in a variety of global governmental settings. Critical infrastructure is defined as essential services that underpin and support the backbone of a nation's economy, security, and health. These services include the power used by homes and businesses, drinking water, transportation, stores and shops, and communications. As governmental budgets dwindle, the maintenance of critical infrastructure and the delivery of its related services are often strained. PPPs have the potential to fill the void between government accounting and capital budgeting. This volume provides a survey of PPPs in critical infrastructure, combining theory and case studies to provide a comprehensive view of possible applications. Written by a diverse group of international experts, the chapters detail PPPs across industries such as transportation, social infrastructure, healthcare, emergency services, and water across municipalities from the US to New Zealand to Hong Kong. Chapters discuss objectives and legal requirements associated with PPPs, the potential advantages and limitations of PPPs, and provide guidance as to how to structure a successful PPP for infrastructure investment. This book is of interest to researchers studying public administration, public finance, and infrastructure as well as practitioners and decision makers interested in instituting PPPs in their communities.

The information revolution has increased the pressure on governments to utilize technology to increase efficiency, transparency, and access. Cases on Public Information Management and E-Government Adoption provides real world examples of the successes and pitfalls faced by public sector organizations. The process of adopting technology is full of complicated social, practical, administrative, cultural, and legal pitfalls and opportunities. In order to ensure that any organization achieves the greatest advantages from their technological advances, these issues must be addressed and learning from the empirical studies present in this reference is the first step.

The contents include a chapter on Conversion and the following. In Act Two, we have, "Words Before Blows" by Sammie Byron, Brutus; "Most Noble Brother, You Have Done Me Wrong" by DeMond Bush, Mark Antony; and, "Have You Not Love Enough to Bear with Me?" by Ron Brown, Cassius. In Intermission, we have Othello: Unplugged at Luther Luckett Correctional Complex. In Act Three, we have The Luckett Symposium on Shakespeare and Race: Titus Andronicus, Merchant of Venice, and Othello; "George Bush Doesn't Care about Black People": Agnes Wilcox's Julius Caesar at Northeast Correctional Center. In Act Four, we have "Romans, Countrymen, Lovers!" The Shakespeare Behind Bars Tour at the Kentucky Correctional Institute for Women; "Unsex Me Here": Playing the Lady at Luckett; and, Rapshrew: Jean Trounstine and the Framingham Women's Prison. In Act Five, we have: A Visit with Warden Larry Chandler; Desdemona Speaks: Mike Smith on the Outside; and, Shakespeare in Solitary: "To Revenge or to Forgive?": Laura Bates' Hamlet and Othello at the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility. The contents also include an epilogue.

Leading Irish academics and policy practitioners present a current and comprehensive study of policy analysis in Ireland. Contributors examine policy analysis at different levels of government and governance including international, national and local and in the civil service, as well as non-government actors such as NGOs, interest groups and think tanks. They investigate the influential roles of the European Union, the public, science, quantitative evidence, the media and gender expertise in policy analysis. Surveying the history and evolution of public policy analysis in Ireland, this authoritative text addresses the current state of the discipline, identifies post-crisis developments and considers future challenges for policy analysis.

China has undergone a remarkable transition over the past thirty years from a centrally-planned economy to a more market oriented one. The transformation of business in China has been correspondingly evident. This book gives an interdisciplinary analysis of the evolution of business development in China and the 'marketization' of industry during this period within a complex framework of legal, political, and economic reform aims.
The book includes twelve original business case studies to provide industry-specific analysis of the overarching macroeconomic and legal developments. It examines both domestic enterprise reform in China and the evolving treatment of foreign firms in the context of both corporate laws and economic policies, and how business is likely to evolve as economic and legal reforms rapidly increase during the twenty-first century, notably with regard to China's increasing global integration.

"Corporate reform" is not reform at all. Instead, it is the systematic destruction of the foundational American institution of public education. The primary motivation behind this destruction is greed. Public education in America is worth almost a trillion dollars a year. Whereas American public education is a democratic institution, its destruction is being choreographed by a few wealthy, well-positioned individuals and organizations. This book investigates and exposes the handful of people and institutions that are often working together to become the driving force behind destroying the community public school.

Most people have a bias toward seeing the world as they would like it to be. It might be best for some purposes, however, to know the world as it actually is. "Unlimited Progress: The Grand Delusion of the Modern World" can help in that quest. One of the most misleading ideas permeating the modern world is the concept that progress can be almost unlimited. Most of this book focuses on modern science and how it underlies and influences almost all of our general views about what the world is like. Americans have become hooked on progress. Much of this addiction has developed because of the great advances of modern science and related technology. Author Dennis Knight Heffner, M.D., has a broad-based perspective on science, developed over half a century, that will help you understand that there are limits to progress. Being aware of them can help you make important choices affecting your life- especially political choices.

In 1989, the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) published the milestone volume Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, edited by Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley, which delved into a wide variety of issues that were integral to the growth of modern Singapore. The world that Singapore faced in 1989 has changed irrevocably. Meanwhile, within Singapore, the city-state has seen two prime ministerial transitions and the installation of third generation leaders who have articulated their vision for the twenty-first century. This new volume serves to update and review public policies from the early 1990s onwards. It gathers prominent thinkers and scholars on Singapore to examine issues of leadership and policy; economic restructuring; societal transformation; foreign relations and national identity. It seeks to outline the impending challenges of the twenty-first centuey, and to demonstrate a clear trajectory of intellectual analysis of contemporary Singapore for students and scholars alike.

This major new text on the theory and practice of public management moves away from descriptive accounts of its evolution to provide a systematic treatment of the key paradigms of public management today. It examines their competing outlooks, values, tools and assumptions and - using a wide range of examples from different areas of management around the world - their implications for practice. The text sets out three contrasting 'logics' for management - performance, professionalism and politics - and shows how public managers act on the interplay between these for effective results. Relating all three logics to a wide range of diverse contexts - from police services to healthcare, social services to educational providers - the text shows how managers can simultaneously perform to a high standard, act professionally through their work, and cope with internal and external politics. Incorporating the latest theories and practices, this comprehensive book will appeal to readers around the world wanting to understand, and contribute to, public management today.

Electronic Government is continually advancing in topics such as hardware and software technology, e-government adoption and diffusion, e-government policy, e-government planning, management, e-government applications, and e-government impacts. Technology Enabled Transformation of the Public Sector: Advances in E-Government is filled with original research about electronic government and supplies academicians, practitioners, and professionals with quality applied research results in the field of electronic/digital government, its applications, and impacts on governmental organizations around the world. This title effectively and positively provides organizational and managerial directions with greater use and management of electronic/digital government technologies in organizations. It also epitomizes the research available within e-government while exponentially emphasizing the expansiveness of this field.

This book assesses how governance has evolved in six nations - England, Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands - between 1970 and 2018. More specifically, it examines how the governance approaches and the sets of policy tools used to govern have altered with respect to four public policy sectors that represent core responsibilities of the modern OECD state: education, energy, environment and health. To structure this analytical approach, the book harnesses sociological institutionalism in the area of 'policy sequencing' to trace both the motivations and the consequences of policy-makers' altering governance approaches and the resulting policy tools. Combining a comparative and international focus, this book will appeal to scholars and students of public policy and governance.

Firearms policy has periodically dominated Canadian politics since the late 1960s. Compared to the United States, however, there is little scholarship on firearms policy to the neighbouring north. Using Canadian firearms policy, Aiming to Explain examines five prominent policy process theories employed during the period from the 1989 Montreal Massacre to the 2012 cancellation of the universal firearms registry. Throughout, B. Timothy Heinmiller and Matthew A. Hennigar present rigorous applications of rational choice institutionalism, social constructivism, the advocacy coalition framework, the multiple streams framework, and punctuated equilibrium. The investigations draw on method-based best practices, while also making use of a wide range of data collection and analysis techniques, including inferential statistics, descriptive statistics, process tracing, congruence analysis, and qualitative content analysis. The goal of Aiming to Explain is not to select a single best theory, but to compare their relative strengths and weaknesses in an effort to direct future research and theoretical development efforts in the study of Canadian public policy.

This book explores categories of applications and driving factors surrounding the Smart City phenomenon. The contributing authors provide perspective on the Smart Cities, covering numerous applications and classes of applications. The book uses a top-down exploration of the driving factors in Smart Cities, by including focal areas including "Smart Healthcare," "Public Safety & Policy Issues," and "Science, Technology, & Innovation." Contributors have direct and substantive experience with important aspects of Smart Cities and discuss issues with technologies & standards, roadblocks to implementation, innovations that create new opportunities, and other factors relevant to emerging Smart City infrastructures. Features an exploration of Smart City issues and solutions from a variety of stakeholders in the evolving field Presents conversational, nuanced, and forward thinking perspectives on Smart Cities, their implications, limitations, obstacles, and opportunities Includes contributions from industry insiders who have direct, relevant experience with their respective subjects as well as positioning and corporate stature

With chapters written by leading researchers and practitioners actively engaged in the work, this Edited Volume examines the role of the state education agency in school turnaround efforts. An emphasis is placed on practical application of research and best practice related to the State Education Agency's (SEA's) critical leadership role in driving and supporting successful school turnaround efforts. The Edited Volume is organized around the Center on School Turnaround's four objectives, with sections devoted to each: 1.Create a Pro-Turnaround Statutory and Regulatory Environment 2.Administer and Manage Turnaround Efforts Effectively 3.Provide Targeted and Timely Technical Assistance to Local Educational Agencies and Schools 4.Advocate and Lead to Build Support for Local Turnaround Efforts Chapters include: a) brief literature review, b) examples from SEAs (and/or concrete examples of proposed SEA practices), and c) action principles for the SEA.

A volume in Research in Public Management Series Editor: Lawrence R. Jones, Naval Postgraduate School A myth from the colonial period was that Americans could defend themselves by keeping a rifle in the closet and when needed, grab it, and march off to battle in times of crisis. Unfortunately, providing national defense is more complicated that that; indeed it was more complicated even during the Revolutionary war. General George Washington's struggles to form a standing army supported by workable logistics and supply processes and to get funding for both from the Revolutionary Congress are well documented. Financing national defense requires planning and resourcing in advance. Reacting at the instant of crisis is too late. Building an educated, highly trained and capable Armed Forces and the acquisition of defense weapons and weapons systems has long lead times and involves making decisions the consequences of which are likely to last for decades. These decisions include how to recruit and retain military and civilian personnel as well as designing, buying and fielding a vast array of ground weapons, ships, aircraft and other weaponry. A decision to buy a major defense weapons system for example sets in motion a chain of other decisions that will affect the U.S., its allies and enemies around the world. Implementation of such decisions is financed through the U.S. federal government and Department of Defense budget processes in a planned yet highly and pluralistic and disaggregated system for determining how to advocate, acquire and allocate scarce resources in a manner that culminates in congressional and presidential approval. In this book we examine the concepts and practices of defense financing, provide a detailed description and analysis of resource policy decision making, financial management and budget execution processes, and analyze the most significant features of the national defense and U.S. federal government resource decision and management system. The book assesses the numerous factors, including those that characterize the complex budget review and appropriation decision making dynamics of Congress, that make U.S. defense finance and budgeting different from any other system in the world. In addition, in a concluding chapter the book compares U.S. defense policy and budgeting to other nations in different regions of the globe, drawing conclusions about the effects of U.S. defense policy and defense financing abroad in regions including Europe, Russia, the Middle-East and Asia.