This book analyzes various important aspects of methodology and substance regarding economic, social, and political policy in Africa directed toward achieving more effective, efficient, and equitable societal institutions. The chapters are authored by experts from within Africa and also from Africa research institutes elsewhere. The book combines practical policy significance with insightful causal and prescriptive generalizations. The emphasis is on the role of governmental decision-making and the important (but secondary) role of the marketplace, social groups, and engineering.

Local governments encounter mammouth problems, and although there is not one panacea that works internationally, this book argues that there are mechanisms to improve the local situation and theer is evidence that this can suceed. By considering a number of key case studies from Latin America, Africa and Asia, the authors review best practices in good governance, thereby demonstarting that things can improve at the local level.

"This book addresses the question: how, and to what degree, are political institutions important in explaining the state of post-Communist political systems today? More specifically, it analyses the nature of political leadership and explains how, and under what circumstances, ideas and identity have influenced post-Soviet political change"--

Enterprise Architecture is the inherent design and management approach essential for organizational coherence leading to alignment, agility, and assurance. Structured Enterprise Architecture approach is often used to plan and implement efficient and effective transformation efforts. However, the strongest driver for Enterprise Architecture is to improve service delivery and overall performance within the organization's business segments. Enterprise Architecture for Connected E-Government: Practices and Innovations addresses the gap in current literature in terms of linking and understanding the relationship between e-government and government Enterprise Architecture. Within this broader context, the focus is specifically on uncovering and comprehending the relationship between government Enterprise Architecture and connected government. Perfect for Government CIOs, IT/IS Managers, Chief Architects, Analysts and Designers seeking better, quicker, and easier approaches to respond to needs of their internal and external customers.

This book develops an innovative system, in the form of an "app", that harnesses the power of the internet to predict which sorts of people will prefer which policy in ANY planning situation. It chronicles the accumulated research wisdom behind the system's reasoning, along with several less successful approaches to policy making that have been found wanting in the past - including the myth, usually peddled by strategic planners, that it is possible to find a "best" plan which optimally satisfies everybody. The book lays out an entirely new kind of Planning Support System (PSS). It will facilitate decision-making that is far more community-sensitive than previously, and it will drastically improve the performance of anyone who needs to plan within socially-sensitive contexts - which is all of us. A standout feature of the system is its commitment to "scientific rigour", as shown by its predicted plan scores always being graphically presented within error margins so that true statistical significance is instantly observable. Moreover, the probabilities that its predictions are correct are always shown - a refreshing change from most, if not all other Decision Support Systems (DSS) that simply expect users to accept their outputs on faith alone.

This book considers the extent to which, and in what circumstances, political parties affect public policy. It explores the regional level in Germany; using case studies in the areas of education, childcare and family, and labour market policy. In particular, the author explores whether party politicians make a difference to policies.

The day after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, civic leaders began to organize four coalitions that aimed to give ordinary citizens a chance to meet, to heal, and to be heard in rebuilding decisions. This book tells the inside story of the civic renewal movement they founded.

Written by two authors with a wide range of experience in international affairs, this introductory text addresses both the commonalities and diversity of administrative practice around the world, including a succinct but thorough overview of PA in the United States. It combines solid conceptual foundations with strong coverage of nuts-and-bolts "how to" topics, such as personnel management, procurement, and budgeting, and covers both developed countries and developing and transitional economies.The book's chapters are organized into four major sections: government functions and organization; management of government activity; interaction between government and citizens; and prospects of administrative reform. Plentiful illustrations and examples throughout the book, and "What to Expect" sections and discussion questions in each chapter, make this an ideal text for any PA course that takes a global perspective.

The book provides an overview of the governmental accounting status quo in Europe by analysing the public sector accounting, budgeting and auditing systems in fourteen European countries. IT sheds light on the challenges faced by European countries as they move towards adoption of the European Public Sector Accounting Standards (EPSAS).

Public administration - the practice of producing and executing government policy by bureaucrats, politicians, managers and other officials - affects almost everything we encounter in our day-to-day lives. Public administrators are - at least partially - responsible for the amount of hours we work, the quality of the air we breathe, the ease with which we can visit the doctor and the state of the roads we walk and drive down. Despite the widespread relevance of public administration however, the relative amount of government influence on society differs across the world. This major new introduction examines public administration structures, processes and achievements, and the behavior and motivations of the administrators themselves. Internationally relevant and analyzing states at a range of different developmental stages, it examines the key themes and issues that dominate the field. Chapters are framed around a series of questions that determine the typical and the unusual features of governments. For example, focus is given to what makes for a stable government, the different definitions of management, possible solutions to corruption, the relationship between central and local governments as well as the formal strategies for policy development. The book draws extensively on core theory in the field, and makes critical links between public administration and economics, law, sociology and the wider subject of political science. As accessible for students as it is useful for practitioners looking for a comprehensive reference guide, this is an essential text for those who wish to understand the complexities of government and public administration from the inside out.

Putting capability management into practice requires both a solid theoretical foundation and realistic approaches. This book introduces a development methodology that integrates business and information system development and run-time adjustment based on the concept of capability by presenting the main findings of the CaaS project - the Capability-Driven Development (CDD) methodology, the architecture and components of the CDD environment, examples of real-world applications of CDD, and aspects of CDD usage for creating business value and new opportunities. Capability thinking characterizes an organizational mindset, putting capabilities at the center of the business model and information systems development. It is expected to help organizations and in particular digital enterprises to increase flexibility and agility in adapting to changes in their economic and regulatory environments. Capability management denotes the principles of how capability thinking should be implemented in an organization and the organizational means. This book is intended for anyone who wants to explore the opportunities for developing and managing context-dependent business capabilities and the supporting business services. It does not require a detailed understanding of specific development methods and tools, although some background knowledge and experience in information system development is advisable. The individual chapters have been written by leading researchers in the field of information systems development, enterprise modeling and capability management, as well as practitioners and industrial experts from these fields.

The International Directory of Government is the definitive guide to people in power in every part of the world. All the top decision-makers are included in this one-volume publication, which brings together government institutions, agencies and personnel from the largest nations (China, India, Russia, etc.) to the smallest overseas dependencies (Guadeloupe, Guernsey and Christmas Island, etc). Institutional entries contain the names and titles of principal officials, postal, e-mail and internet addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and other relevant details. Key features: - comprehensive lists of government ministers and ministries - coverage of state-related agencies and other institutions arranged by subject heading - details of important state, provincial and regional administrations, including information on US states, Russian republics, and the states and territories of India.

East Manchester has been the site of one of the most substantial regeneration projects internationally. The initiative in east Manchester confirmed the tag that the city is the 'regeneration capital' of the United Kingdom. While the book focuses on a single project, it has wider relevance to national and international regeneration initiatives. The book assesses the outcomes of the regeneration, although it demonstrates the difficulties in producing a definitive evaluation. It has a political focus and illuminates and challenges many assumptions underpinning three major current academic debates: governance, participatory democracy and ideology. The book is relevant to students of politics, geography, sociology, public administration and recent history but will also interest practitioners, academics and general readers interested in urban regeneration. Mancunians will also be fascinated by the rapidly changing face and character of their city as will those with an interest in Manchester's football, the Commonwealth Games and Sportcity. -- .

This book is a collection of never-before-published papers from some of the most prominent voices in public economics. Curated by the current director of the Public Choice Society, the papers presented showcase the work of recognized leaders in the field, including a Nobel Laureate (Gary Becker), Past Presidents of the Public Choice Society (Larry Kenny, Edward Lopez), the Past President of the Southern Economic Association (Dwight Lee) and some of the most notable public choice economists (Bruce Benson, Russell Sobel, JR Clark, Art Denzau, Morris Coats, Richard Vedder). Among the broad list of topics covered are voting, education quality, environmental issues, externality theory, and public goods theory. This volume makes an important contribution to the field by making new perspectives on a variety of topics accessible to researchers. This book will be of interest to economists, political scientists, and researchers interested in public policy.

This Handbook represents a pioneering effort to consolidate the state of knowledge on policy formulation. An invaluable resource for scholars and students of policy studies, this Handbook provides a set of analytical discussions that help scholars, students and practitioners better understand the multiple dimensions of what policy formulation has come to mean in contemporary public policy-making and governance. In attempting to resolve pressing public problems, governments devise, deploy and develop policy tools in many different ways in different sectors and jurisdictions. Knowledge of these processes has been fragmented, however, spanning a multitude of different approaches, perspectives and case studies. By critically and systematically analysing both the processes and agents of policy formulation, this Handbook provides the first comprehensive overview of the formulation activities that are undertaken by governments in order to match their policy goals with the means of achieving them. The Handbook unites a wide range of expert contributors who examine the roles played by policy actors, institutions and ideas in answering fundamental questions about policy formulation such as who undertakes it, how, when, where and why. Through seven thematic sections this Handbook discusses a wide range of topics related to formulation such as the nature of policy design, instrument choice, policy appraisal, policy advice and the politics of defining and resolving policy problems. Contributors include: C. Adelle, J. Bandola-Gill, R. Burroughs, C. Eichbaum, M. Galizzi, A. Gunn, H. Gunter, M.P. Howlett, H.M. Ingram, D.S.L. Jarvis, G.F. Johnson, P.D. Jorgensen, J. Kohoutek, C. Koski, M. Lehtonen, D. Linders, C. Lyall, L. Ma, M. Maor, C. Matheson, P.J. May, J.G. McGann, I. Mukherjee, S. Nair, M. Nekola, J. Rayner, A.L. Schneider, J. Scott, R. Shaw, A. Simons, N. Stramp, H. Strassheim, M. van der Steen, A. Vesely, J.-P. Voss, S. Weiland, M. Wilder, A.R. Zito

Requirements engineering has since long acknowledged the importance of the notion that system requirements are stakeholder goals-rather than system functions-and ought to be elicited, modeled and analyzed accordingly. In this book, Nurcan and her co-editors collected twenty contributions from leading researchers in requirements engineering with the intention to comprehensively present an overview of the different perspectives that exist today, in 2010, on the concept of intention in the information systems community. These original papers honor Colette Rolland for her contributions to this field, as she was probably the first to emphasize that 'intention' has to be considered as a first-class concept in information systems engineering. Written by long-term collaborators (and most often friends) of Colette Rolland, this volume covers topics like goal-oriented requirements engineering, model-driven development, method engineering, and enterprise modeling. As such, it is a tour d'horizon of Colette Rolland's lifework, and is presented to her on the occasion of her retirement at CaISE 2010 in Hammamet, the conference she once cofounded and which she helped to grow and prosper for more than 20 years.

The Central Intelligence Agency's relative transparency makes it unique among the world's espionage operations. Over the past few decades it has released over 31 million pages of previously classified documents, including, most recently, the so-called Family Jewels, a special collection of records on a series of operations from the 1950s to the 1970s that violated the agency's own legislative charter. Taken together, these papers permit a partial glimpse inside the CIA's clandestine world: how it operates; how it views the outside world; how it gets things right; and, all too often, how it gets them wrong. The documentary selections assembled here, carefully analyzed for content, consistency, and context, guide readers through the CIA's shrouded history and allow readers to sift the evidence for themselves. The principal theme of this new documentary history of the Central Intelligence Agency is the dilemma of maintaining a secret organization in an open society. A democracy rests on accountability, and accountability requires transparency: the people cannot hold their government to account if they do not know what it is doing in their name. At the same time, an intelligence agency lives in a world of shadows. It cannot function if it is not able to keep its sources, its methods, and many of its operations secret. The resulting tension-and the constant temptation to take advantage of the impunity that secrecy allows-has shaped the CIA's history from its beginnings. Narrative chapters introducing the successive periods of CIA history Analytical discussion setting the individual documents in context and drawing connections among them Timeline tracing major developments in CIA historyGeneral bibliography of recommended print and electronic resources for further study

The authors show how and why standards are used as governance tools. They follow the historical development of standards and their new forms and roles, across the substantive areas of industrial and organizational "quality," the financial sector, environment, and labor.

Governments around the world are criticized as inefficient, ineffective, too large, too costly, overly bureaucratic, overburdened by unnecessary rules, unresponsive to public needs, secretive, undemocratic, invasive into rights of citizens, self-serving, and failing in provision of the quantity and quality of services desired by the taxpaying public. Fiscal stress has plagued many governments, increasing the cry for less costly or just less government. Critics have exerted sustained pressure on politicians and public managers for transformational reform. Recommendations for change have included application of market and economic logic and private sector management methods to government. Managerial reform has been promoted on grounds that the public sector is organized and functions on many of the wrong principles and needs reinvention and renewal. Government reforms in response to reformist pressures have included restraint of spending and tax cuts, sales of public assets, privatization and contracting-out of services, increased performance measurement and auditing, output and outcomes based budgeting, and new accounting and reporting methods. Reform has been accompanied by promises of smaller, less interventionist and more decentralized government, improved efficiency and effectiveness, greater responsiveness and accountability to citizens, increased choice between public and private providers of services, a more 'entrepreneurial' public sector capable of cooperating with business. While it is apparent why politicians and elected officials often support new managerial methods, observers wonder whether the promises of reform can be delivered upon to provide benefits depicted so attractively. Dialogue on this question is active among public management scholars, practitioners, politicians, citizen groups and the media. Substantial elements of this dialogue are represented in this book.

Now in its third edition, Encyclopedia of Public Administration and Public Policy remains the definitive source for article-length presentations spanning the fields of public administration and public policy. It includes entries for: Budgeting Bureaucracy Conflict resolution Countries and regions Court administration Gender issues Health care Human resource management Law Local government Methods Organization Performance Policy areas Policy-making process Procurement State government Theories This revamped five-volume edition is a reconceptualization of the first edition by Jack Rabin. It incorporates over 225 new entries and over 100 revisions, including a range of contributions and updates from the renowned academic and practitioner leaders of today as well as the next generation of top scholars. The entries address topics in clear and coherent language and include references to additional sources for further study.

This book looks at the role of multiculturalism in the complex construction of the European Union, acknowledging the tension of creating a new political space for identities that are simultaneously national, regional, linguistic, and religious, and yet strive to encompass a political and geographic whole. The author investigates the difficulty of conjugating the complex, pluralistic sense of belonging that individuals and groups in the EU experience in efforts to form a cohesive political identity, and one that is expressly European.