This book provides unique insights into the role of policy capacity in policymaking and policy change, as it is being uncovered at the research frontier in contemporary policy studies. The book is structured into a series of sections on policy capacity in theory and practice, each focusing on a specific aspect of policy capacity and its influence on policy formulation, decision-making, implementation and evaluation. In addition to making a significant contribution to the body of literature on the theoretical approaches to researching the role of capacity in policymaking, it also provides practical examples of the application of these approaches through a variety of national and sectoral case studies. Including contributions from authors working in a wide variety of disciplines, the book demonstrates, across the various topics investigated, many commonalities and consistencies in relation to the study of policy capacity and policy-making. This work has interdisciplinary appeal and will engage scholars in fields ranging from geography to communications, health, social work and political science, amongst others with an interest in public policy.

The global water and sanitation community is currently wrestling with the policy implications of two important realizations. The first is that it is quite possible for cities to actually run out of water-for the piped network to run dry. The second is that in many locations, basic water and sanitation interventions do not result in the large public health improvements that many water and sanitation professionals had hoped. As water and sanitation professionals work out the implications of these two realizations on policy and planning for water and sanitation improvements in the Global South, they will require an in-depth knowledge of local housing, water, and sanitation conditions, as well as a nuanced understanding of how households prioritize improvements in housing, water, and sanitation. The chapters in this book about Kathmandu illustrate the types of analyses of local conditions that are needed. Kathmandu holds many lessons for the global community about households' responses to water scarcity and the management of water and sanitation services in periods of rapid urbanization and climate change. In Focus - a book series that showcases the latest accomplishments in water research. Each book focuses on a specialist area with papers from top experts in the field. It aims to be a vehicle for in-depth understanding and inspire further conversations in the sector.

This book focuses on governance and management issues in the much publicized 'Ganga Rejuvenation Project', led by the Indian Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi. Attempts over the past three decades to clean up and rejuvenate one of the world's greatest rivers have proved futile. The major reasons for the lack of success are absence of long-term planning, poor co-ordination and failure to sustain whatever little infrastructure for water and sewage treatment could be developed. Focusing on these broad aspects, the book explores spaces for better governance through active community participation, knowledge management, prospects of Public-Private-Partnership, e-governance, youth education, waterfront development, lessons from past failures, comparative international analogies, utilization of external aid and global expertise in successful implementation of a sustainable long-term plan for a river basin's integrated development of both the economy and environment. A host of activities, such as, improving pollution monitoring systems, new development plans for tourism enhancement; river dredging and sewering riparian cities are already being carried in the hope of quick results. The Government of India has also appointed a task force for preparation of a long-term strategy. However, substantial knowledge gaps persist especially with regard to governance. This book aims to address the governance and policy issues and will be a very timely contribution to cleaning as well as rejuvenating Ganga, a river that is lifeline of millions of people.

Fully revised for a second edition, this essential guide provides a concise and accessible overview of the public policy process: agenda-setting, policy formulation, decision-making, implementation, and evaluation. The book provides an introduction to the key policy functions, the challenges they entail, and how the challenges may be addressed by policy actors. Written from a comparative perspective, the authors include examples from a diverse range of countries at different stages of development, highlighting key principles and practices through which policy actors can effectively manage their policy processes and outcomes. Key features of the second edition: fully updated and revised content throughout; expanded references and further reading; more guidance towards understanding the key concepts in public policy. This important tool offers students of public policy and policy practitioners guidance on how to make, implement, and evaluate public policies in ways that improve citizens' lives.

This Handbook provides a comprehensive global survey of the policy process. Written by an outstanding line up of distinguished scholars and practitioners, the Handbook covers all aspects of the policy process including: Theory - from rational choice to the new institutionalism Frameworks - network theory, advocacy coalition and development models Key stages in the process - Formulation, implementation and evaluation Agenda setting and decision making The roles of key actors and institutions This is an invaluable resource for all scholars, graduate students and practitioners in public policy and policy analysis.

Regulation of public infrastructure has been a topic of interest for more than a century. Providing public goods, securing their financing, maintenance, and improving the efficiency of their delivery, has generated a voluminous literature and series of debates. More recently, these issues have again become a central concern, as new public management approaches have transformed the role of the state in the provision of public goods and the modalities by which the financing of infrastructure and its operation are procured. Yet, despite the proliferation of new modalities of regulating infrastructure little is known about what works and why. Why do certain regulatory regimes fail and others succeed? What regulatory designs and institutional features produce optimal outcomes and how? And why do regulatory forms of governance when transplanted into different institutional contexts produce less than uniform outcomes? This book addresses these questions, exploring the theoretical foundations of regulation as well as a series of case studies drawn from the telecommunications, electricity, and water sectors. It brings together distinguished scholars and expert practitioners to explore the practical problems of regulation, regulatory design, infrastructure operation, and the implications for infrastructure provision.

After two decades of dominating the public sector reform agenda, privatization is on the wane as states gradually reassert themselves in many formerly privatized sectors. The change of direction is a response to the realization that privatization is not working as intended, especially in public service sectors.

This landmark volume brings together leading social scientists, including B. Guy Peters, Anthony Cheung and Jon Pierre, to systematically discuss the emerging patterns of the reassertion of the state in the delivery of essential public services. The state under these emerging arrangements assumes overall responsibility for and control over essential public service delivery, yet allows scope for market incentives and competition when they are known to work. The recent reforms thus display a more pragmatic and nuanced understanding of how markets work in public services .

The first part of the book provides the theoretical context while the second provides sectoral studies of recent reforms in healthcare, education, transportation, electricity and water supply. It includes case studies from a range of countries: Brazil, China, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, USA, Hong Kong and the UK.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars in Political Science, Public Administration, Public Policy, Geography, Political Economy, Sociology, and Urban Planning.

After two decades of dominating the public sector reform agenda, privatization is on the wane as states gradually reassert themselves in many formerly privatized sectors. The change of direction is a response to the realization that privatization is not working as intended, especially in public service sectors. This landmark volume brings together leading social scientists, including B. Guy Peters, Anthony Cheung and Jon Pierre, to systematically discuss the emerging patterns of the reassertion of the state in the delivery of essential public services. The state under these emerging arrangements assumes overall responsibility for and control over essential public service delivery, yet allows scope for market incentives and competition when they are known to work. The recent reforms thus display a more pragmatic and nuanced understanding of how markets work in public services . The first part of the book provides the theoretical context while the second provides sectoral studies of recent reforms in healthcare, education, transportation, electricity and water supply. It includes case studies from a range of countries: Brazil, China, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, USA, Hong Kong and the UK. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in Political Science, Public Administration, Public Policy, Geography, Political Economy, Sociology, and Urban Planning.

This Handbook provides a comprehensive global survey of the policy process. Written by an outstanding line up of distinguished scholars and practitioners, the Handbook covers all aspects of the policy process including: Theory - from rational choice to the new institutionalism Frameworks - network theory, advocacy coalition and development models Key stages in the process - Formulation, implementation and evaluation Agenda setting and decision making The roles of key actors and institutions This is an invaluable resource for all scholars, graduate students and practitioners in public policy and policy analysis.

Blockchain technology continues to disrupt a wide variety of organizations, from small businesses to the Fortune 500. Today, hundreds of blockchain networks are in production, including many built with Hyperledger Fabric. This practical guide shows developers how the latest version of this blockchain infrastructure provides an ideal foundation for developing enterprise blockchain applications or solutions. Authors Matt Zand, Xun (Brian) Wu, and Mark Anthony Morris demonstrate how the versatile design of Hyperledger Fabric 2.0 satisfies a broad range of industry use cases. Developers with or without previous Hyperledger experience will discover why no other distributed ledger technology framework enjoys such wide adoption by cloud service providers such as Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Google, and Oracle. Walk through the architecture and components of Hyperledger Fabric 2.0 Learn about the Hyperledger family, projects, and ecosystem Migrate your current Hyperledger Fabric projects to version 2 Develop blockchain applications on the Hyperledger platform with Node.js Deploy and integrate Hyperledger on Microsoft Azure, Amazon Managed Blockchain, IBM Cloud, and Oracle Cloud Develop blockchain applications with Hyperledger Aries, Avalon, Besu, and Grid Build end-to-end blockchain supply chain applications with Hyperledger

Fully revised for a second edition, this essential guide provides a concise and accessible overview of the public policy process: agenda-setting, policy formulation, decision-making, implementation, and evaluation. The book provides an introduction to the key policy functions, the challenges they entail, and how the challenges may be addressed by policy actors. Written from a comparative perspective, the authors include examples from a diverse range of countries at different stages of development, highlighting key principles and practices through which policy actors can effectively manage their policy processes and outcomes. Key features of the second edition: fully updated and revised content throughout; expanded references and further reading; more guidance towards understanding the key concepts in public policy. This important tool offers students of public policy and policy practitioners guidance on how to make, implement, and evaluate public policies in ways that improve citizens' lives.

Nation-states rarely go to war over water, but it is also rare that water conflicts in an international river basin are resolved through cooperation among the riparian countries that use the shared resources. One interpretation for the lack of success is that the magnitude of potential gains from cooperation is largely unknown for most international rivers, and riparian countries may have an incomplete or even inaccurate knowledge of cooperative opportunities. In addition, gains from cooperation will mean little to individual riparians unless the required cooperative behaviors are incentive compatible. Game theory offers useful insights for assessing cooperative solutions for water conflicts in international river basins. Applying cooperative game theory concepts such as core, nucleolus, and Shapley value to Nile water conflicts, we examine the incentive structure of both cooperative and noncooperative strategies for different riparian countries and establish some baseline conditions for incentive-compatible cooperation in the Nile basin.