In this innovative book, Jacob Torfing, a leading scholar of the field, critically evaluates emerging ideas, practices and institutions that are transforming how public governance is perceived, theorised and conducted in practice. With a novel focus on the production of innovative public value outcomes, it identifies cutting-edge developments in public governance and considers how it may transform in the future to present innovative solutions to societal problems.
Contributions for this volume are based on the conference "Rethinking Public Governance" held in Budapest at Hungary's National University of Public Service within the framework of the Transatlantic Policy Consortium (TPC) in 2015. The papers cover a range of topics, including the importance of education and of efficient management of government resources for successful democracy building processes, analysis of formality and informality in public administration, and analysis of select ethnic minority problems. The papers represent various approaches connecting research and policy. Dr. Tibor Babos is a chief government advisor on security policy at the Prime Minister's Office, Hungary. Dr. Sameeksha Desai is an associate professor at Indiana University, School of Public & Env. Affairs. Dr. Andreas Knorr is professor of economics at the German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer.
Seeking to make key developments in political science relevant to discussions about governance, this volume illustrates the dynamics of four modes of governance: via the use of markets; contracts; partnerships; and inculcating modes of self-discipline or compliance in target subjects.
While a growing private sector and a vibrant civil society can help compensate for the shortcomings of India’s public sector, the state is—and will remain—indispensable in delivering basic governance. In Rethinking Public Institutions in India, distinguished political and economic thinkers critically assess a diverse array of India’s core federal institutions, from the Supreme Court and Parliament to the Election Commission and the civil services. Relying on interdisciplinary approaches and decades of practitioner experience, this volume interrogates the capacity of India’s public sector to navigate the far-reaching transformations the country is experiencing. An insightful introduction to the functioning of Indian democracy, it offers a roadmap for carrying out fundamental reforms that will be necessary for India to build a reinvigorated state for the twenty-first century.
The global financial crisis hit the world in a remarkable way in late 2008. Many governments and private sector organizations, who had considered Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) to be their future, were forced to rethink their strategy in the wake of the crisis, as a lot of the available private funding upon which PPPs relied, was suddenly no longer available to the same extent. At the same time, governments and international organizations, like the European Union, were striving to make closer partnerships between the public sector and the private sector economy a hallmark for future policy initiatives. This book examines PPPs in the context of turbulent times following the global financial crisis (GFC). PPPs can come in many forms, and the book sets out to distinguish between the many alternative views of partnerships; a project, a policy, a symbol of the role of the private sector in a mixed economy, or a governance tool - all within a particular cultural and historical context. This book is about rethinking PPPs in the wake of the financial crisis and aims to give a clearer picture of the kind of conceptual frameworks that researchers might employ to now study PPPs. The crisis took much of the glamour out of PPPs, but theoretical advances have been made by researchers in a number of areas and this book examines selected new research approaches to the study of PPPs.
Rethinking Private Authority examines the role of non-state actors in global environmental politics, arguing that a fuller understanding of their role requires a new way of conceptualizing private authority. Jessica Green identifies two distinct forms of private authority--one in which states delegate authority to private actors, and another in which entrepreneurial actors generate their own rules, persuading others to adopt them. Drawing on a wealth of empirical evidence spanning a century of environmental rule making, Green shows how the delegation of authority to private actors has played a small but consistent role in multilateral environmental agreements over the past fifty years, largely in the area of treaty implementation. This contrasts with entrepreneurial authority, where most private environmental rules have been created in the past two decades. Green traces how this dynamic and fast-growing form of private authority is becoming increasingly common in areas ranging from organic food to green building practices to sustainable tourism. She persuasively argues that the configuration of state preferences and the existing institutional landscape are paramount to explaining why private authority emerges and assumes the form that it does. In-depth cases on climate change provide evidence for her arguments. Groundbreaking in scope, Rethinking Private Authority demonstrates that authority in world politics is diffused across multiple levels and diverse actors, and it offers a more complete picture of how private actors are helping to shape our response to today's most pressing environmental problems.
This volume explores new directions of governance and public policy arising both from interpretive political science and those who engage with interpretive ideas. It conceives governance as the various policies and outcomes emerging from the increasing salience of neoclassical and institutional economics or, neoliberalism and new institutionalisms. In doing so, it suggests that that the British state consists of a vast array of meaningful actions that may coalesce into contingent, shifting, and contestable practices. Based on original fieldwork, it examines the myriad ways in which local actors - civil servants, mid-level public managers, and street level bureaucrats - have interpreted elite policy narratives and thus forged practices of governance on the ground. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of governance and public policy.
Public institutions support good governance, which, in turn, promotes sustainable economic development and, thereby nurtures the welfare of the people. The vital bond between a people and its government is that of trust, and these public institutions help maintain that trust.
Stefan Brands proposes cryptographic building blocks for the design of digital certificates that preserve privacy without sacrificing security. As paper-based communication and transaction mechanisms are replaced by automated ones, traditional forms of security such as photographs and handwritten signatures are becoming outdated. Most security experts believe that digital certificates offer the best technology for safeguarding electronic communications. They are already widely used for authenticating and encrypting email and software, and eventually will be built into any device or piece of software that must be able to communicate securely. There is a serious problem, however, with this unavoidable trend: unless drastic measures are taken, everyone will be forced to communicate via what will be the most pervasive electronic surveillance tool ever built. There will also be abundant opportunity for misuse of digital certificates by hackers, unscrupulous employees, government agencies, financial institutions, insurance companies, and so on.In this book Stefan Brands proposes cryptographic building blocks for the design of digital certificates that preserve privacy without sacrificing security. Such certificates function in much the same way as cinema tickets or subway tokens: anyone can establish their validity and the data they specify, but no more than that. Furthermore, different actions by the same person cannot be linked. Certificate holders have control over what information is disclosed, and to whom. Subsets of the proposed cryptographic building blocks can be used in combination, allowing a cookbook approach to the design of public key infrastructures. Potential applications include electronic cash, electronic postage, digital rights management, pseudonyms for online chat rooms, health care information storage, electronic voting, and even electronic gambling.
The world currently faces a number of challenges that no single country can solve. Whether it is managing a crisis-prone global economy, maintaining peace and stability, or trying to do something about climate change, there are some problems that necessitate collective action on the part of states and other actors. Global governance would seem functionally necessary and normatively desirable, but it is proving increasingly difficult to provide. This accessible introduction to, and analysis of, contemporary global governance explains what it is and the obstacles to its realization. Paying particular attention to the possible decline of American influence and the rise of China and a number of other actors, Mark Beeson explains why cooperation is proving difficult, despite its obvious need and desirability. This is an essential text for undergraduate and postgraduate students studying global governance or international organizations, and is also important reading for those working on political economy, international development and globalization.
