What does it take to design effective government institutions and sustain positive changes? What have we learnt about the attempts to deliberately design and redesign public sector institutions in different countries? What works and what doesn't, and why? What happens when reforms fail? This book looks at what the existing academic literature tells us about these questions, and intends to answer these questions to generate and define theoretical and practical knowledge about deliberate (vs. evolutionary) public sector institutional change. It analyzes lessons from changes implemented by international development agencies working to reform public sector institutions in developing countries over the last five decades. The book details reforms in one such country; Kyrgyzstan, one of the more diligent nations in undertaking donor-guided reforms since its independence in 1991. It then presents a conceptual framework and analytical tools essential for understanding the processes used in deliberate institutional change, and in planning for and implementing institutional reform.

Scholarship is a multi-generational collective enterprise with a commitment to advancing knowledge, inspiring reflection, and facilitating stronger neighborhoods, cities and countries. This book explicitly adopts this lens as a recognition of the contributions of Prof. Terry Cooper to scholarship and practice, and as a mechanism to connect the past to the present and ultimately the future of scholarship in public ethics and citizen engagement. This "multi-generational" approach is designed to reveal the persistent and future ongoing need to engage as a scholarly and practitioner community with these questions. The book is broken into three main sections: citizenship and neighborhood governance, public service ethics and citizenship, and global explorations of citizenship and ethics. Unique in this collection is the explicit linkage across the main focus areas of citizenship and ethics, as well as the comparative and global context in which these issues are explored. Cases and data are examined from the United States, Chile, Thailand, India, China, Georgia, and Myanmar. Ultimately, it is made clear through each individual chapter and the collective whole that research on citizenship and ethics within public affairs and service has a rich history, remains critical to the strengthening of public institutions today, and will only increase in global significance in the years ahead.