Scholars and policymakers have long known that there is a strong link between human development and spending on key areas such as education and health. However, many states still neglect these considerations in favour of competing priorities, such as expanding their armies. This book examines how states arrive at these decisions, analysing how democratic accountability influences public spending and impacts on human development. The book shows how the broader paradigm of democratic accountability - extending beyond political democracy to also include bureaucratic and judicial institutions as well as taxation and other modes of resource mobilisation - can best explain how states allocate public resources for human development. Combining cross-country regression analysis with exemplary case studies from Pakistan, India, Botswana and Argentina, the book demonstrates that enhancing human capabilities requires not only effective party competition and fair elections, but also a particular nesting of public organisational structures that are tied to taxpaying citizens in an undisturbed chain of accountability. It draws out vital lessons for institutional design and our approach to the question of human development, particularly in the less developed states. This book will be of great interest to postgraduate students and researchers in the fields of political economy, public policy, governance, and development. It also provides valuable insights for those working in the international relations field, including inside major aid and investment organisations.

Scholars and policymakers have long known that there is a strong link between human development and spending on key areas such as education and health. However, many states still neglect these considerations in favour of competing priorities, such as expanding their armies. This book examines how states arrive at these decisions, analysing how democratic accountability influences public spending and impacts on human development. The book shows how the broader paradigm of democratic accountability - extending beyond political democracy to also include bureaucratic and judicial institutions as well as taxation and other modes of resource mobilisation - can best explain how states allocate public resources for human development. Combining cross-country regression analysis with exemplary case studies from Pakistan, India, Botswana and Argentina, the book demonstrates that enhancing human capabilities requires not only effective party competition and fair elections, but also a particular nesting of public organisational structures that are tied to taxpaying citizens in an undisturbed chain of accountability. It draws out vital lessons for institutional design and our approach to the question of human development, particularly in the less developed states. This book will be of great interest to postgraduate students and researchers in the fields of political economy, public policy, governance, and development. It also provides valuable insights for those working in the international relations field, including inside major aid and investment organisations.

This book explores two fundamental shifts in the paradigms of governance in Western bureaucracies: the widespread use of privatization, private firms and market methods to run core public services, and the conscious attempt to transform the role of citizenship from ideals of entitlement and security to new notions of mutual obligation, selectivity and risk. Mark Considine examines a key service of the modern welfare state unemployment assistance--to explain and theorize the nature of these radical changes. He has undertaken extensive research in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand--four countries which have been among the boldest reformers within the OECD, yet each adopting distinctively different models and programs.

This book explores two fundamental shifts in the paradigms of governance in Western bureaucracies: the widespread use of privatization, private firms and market methods to run core public services, and the conscious attempt to transform the role of citizenship from ideals of entitlement and security to new notions of mutual obligation, selectivity and risk. Mark Considine examines a key service of the modern welfare state unemployment assistance--to explain and theorize the nature of these radical changes. He has undertaken extensive research in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand--four countries which have been among the boldest reformers within the OECD, yet each adopting distinctively different models and programs.

Throughout the industrialized world, universities have undergone remarkable changes since the mid-1980s. The Enterprise University in Australia is the first systematic study of the Australian system since the momentous Dawkins reforms ten years ago. Grounded in case studies of seventeen Australian universities, the authors contend that the modern university can be understood as an "enterprise university," characterized by corporate-style executive leadership.

The lives of all Australians are profoundly affected by the quality of social services available, but a long list of royal commissions and public inquiries have revealed them to be failing. In The Careless State Mark Considine shows that the preferred model of reform has failed to adapt and improve.In the 1980s Australian governments faced rapidly increasing demand for services in areas like employment assistance, aged care, childcare and vocational education and training; to respond to this challenge, governments led by Bob Hawke and Paul Keating pioneered the introduction of service markets, where private companies compete with public institutions and charities in newly constructed social services. This 'choice revolution' was embraced and extended by the Howard government. Market choice continues to drive reform across a wide spectrum of programs and social services. Considine's detailed investigation demonstrates conclusively that important aspects of the experiment with social service markets have failed. Weak quality control, systematic rorting and entrenched disadvantage have become the norm. Private business interests and shareholders' interest have often displaced established charities and commitment to quality care for all. The service systems are careless, leaving clients to make choices without real information or protection.Considine points to alternative ways that reforms could be configured to get the best from both private and public agencies, and find a new approach to save these failing services.

BUYING AND SELLING THE POOR ventures behind the scenes of the multibillion-dollar welfare-to-work system, offering new insights into how Australia responds to unemployment and disadvantage. As the authors tell the story of four local employment offices, they paint a vivid picture of a critically important social service which many people are aware of but which few properly understand. They also reveal the wider impacts that processes of marketisation and welfare reform have had on these frontline services over decades, and how the work of frontline staff and service providers has been transformed. BUYING AND SELLING THE POOR looks closely at how these services operate, why some succeed where others fail, and what can be learned from the stories of staff and clients who have navigated the system. Three decades into this market experiment, how well are we doing in supporting our most vulnerable citizens to get back to work?

Getting Welfare to Work traces the radical reform of the Australian, UK, and Dutch public employment services systems. Starting with major changes from 1998, this book examines how each national system has moved from traditional public services towards more privately provided and market-based methods. Each of these three countries developed innovative forms of contracting-out and complex incentive regimes to motivate welfare clients and to control the agencies charged with helping them. The Australian system pioneered the use of large, national contracts for services to all unemployed jobseekers. By the end of our study period this system was entirely outsourced to private agencies. Meanwhile the UK elected a form of contestability under Blair and Cameron, culminating in a new public-private financing model known as the 'Work Programme'. The Dutch had evolved their far more complex system from a traditional public service approach to one using a variety of specific contracts for private agencies. These innovations have changed welfare delivery and created both opportunities and new constraints for policy makers. Getting Welfare to Work tells the story of these bold policy reforms from the perspective of street-level bureaucrats. Interviews and surveys in each country over a fifteen year period are used to critically appraise this central pillar of the welfare state. The original data analysed in Getting Welfare to Work provides a unique comparative perspective on three intriguing systems. It points to new ways of thinking about modes of governance, system design, regulation of public services, and so-called activation of welfare clients. It also sheds light on the predicament of third sector organisations that contract to governments through competitive tenders with precise performance monitoring, raising questions of 'mission drift'.