Understanding and Improving Public Management Reforms by
Why do top-down reforms to public services so often over-promise and under-deliver?
Using five concepts from psychology, economics and organisational sociology, Thomas Elston addresses this pressing question of good governance.
Rather than focusing on the challenge of implementation, Understanding and Improving Public Management Reforms reveals how flawed policy design is often the major contributor to reform failure. Cognitive bias, restrictive social institutions and inattention to ‘quiet costs’ during the policy-making process are essential to explaining the poor track record of reforms to date – and point the way towards better decision-making in future.
Written for policy professionals, service managers, students and researchers alike, this concise, practical and multidisciplinary study draws on varied examples to help reconceive the perennial problem of public management reform – and to propose new solutions.
The Political Formulation of Policy Solutions by
In this book, an international group of public policy scholars revisit the stage of formulating policy solutions by investigating the basic political dimensions inherent to this critical phase of the policy process. The book focuses attention on how policy makers craft their policy proposals, match them with public problems, debate their feasibility to build coalitions and dispute their acceptability as serious contenders for government consideration. Based on international case studies, this book is an invitation to examine the uncertain and often indeterminate aspects of policy-making using qualitative analysis embedded in a political perspective.
Organizational Innovation in Public Services by
In the wake of the economic crisis, many public services are facing a challenging environment in which they receive less funding but are expected to deliver better services. Organisational Innovation in Public Services develops new theoretical models and analyses case studies to provide an important insight into how to modernise public services.
Introducing Public Administration by
Now in an extensively revised tenth edition, Introducing Public Administration provides students with the conceptual foundation they need, while introducing them to important trends in the discipline. This classic textbook―blending historical accounts with contemporary events―examines the most important issues in the field of public administration through the use of examples from various disciplines and modern culture. Its approach of using extensive case studies at the end of each chapter encourages students to think critically about the nature, purpose, and public value of public administration today.
Refreshed and revised throughout, the tenth edition contains a number of critical updates for the field:
All-new case studies at the end of each chapter to address various challenges, including social justice, climate change action, smart cities, transforming governmental institutions, and economic responses to the global pandemic. The case studies―many with legal dimensions as well―cover emerging issues and are well suited for further research by students.
Two chapters by contributing authors on 1) Social equity and justice, covering contemporary challenges in the US, from police reform to voting rights and homelessness, and 2) Public budgeting, contrasting government fiscal efforts between two recessions, illuminating successes and failures with a case study on the federal government shutdown in 2019 over border wall funding.
Keynotes at the start of each chapter to help introduce students to historical figures, contemporary dilemmas, and examples of public service in action, including subjects such as diversity and inclusion, marijuana legalization, organizational effects of remote work, and examining scenarios for the future.
A completely rewritten concluding chapter on leadership, followership, and leading teams with a discussion of destructive leadership types and a flipped case study on defining what leadership effectiveness is.
Complete with a fully updated companion website containing instructor slides for each chapter, a chapter-by-chapter instructor’s manual and sample syllabus, student learning objectives, and self-test questions, Introducing Public Administration is the ideal introduction to the discipline for first year masters students, as well as for the growing number of undergraduate public administration courses and programs.
