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Water management has become a major issue for public policies at any latitude. How and why this happened could not be assessed efficiently without developing a longitudinal and comparative analysis, such as the one in this book. Institutional arrangements for the provision and the use of water are peculiarly persistent as well as remarkably resilient: This makes them an ideal subject of an historical account. Not that history is worth writing about only when it treats immutable phenomena. On the contrary; its main purpose is to record changes and possibly explain them. But long-lasting continuity urges the scholar to venture into the remote past, since only there are to be discovered the initial causes and the deeper meanings of the institutions under scrutiny. Also, continuity makes the strength of path-dependency all the more evident and consequently underlines the weight of history.
This book surveys the changing role of senior civil servants in Western Europe and explores whether they have kept their central role in government decision-making. Looking at these issues in comparative perspective, the contributors provide an insight into the causes and consequences of the changing role of officials.
'This Handbook on civil service systems is truly international and comparative. It covers and compares countries from all continents. It also connects historical (Weberian) legacies to contemporary challenges such as coordination, the hollow state, and trust. Massey's Handbook does not avoid difficult issues for civil service systems such as ruined reforms, fiscal retrenchment, and cultural and political system shocks. Therefore this book is exceptionally rich and stimulating.' Geert Bouckaert, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium While there is no universally accepted definition of civil servant and civil service, this authoritative and informative Handbook compares and contrasts various...
The five elements - governmental authorities, public discourse, corporate and market interests, citizens' associations and international agencies - may help in figuring out the complex and challenging purpose of the research work presented in this volume which is nothing less than the history of the governance of cultural and natural heritage in eleven countries, from its outset to the present. Speaking about governance is challenging. The term has been vastly used and misused. But today, when the feverish popularity of the concept is probably in decline, we rest with one solid conviction at least: that social, economic, cultural and institutional processes are governed not only through gove...
Most public administration texts overly compartmentalize the subject and don't interconnect the various specializations within government, which leaves a serious gap in preparing students for public service. Government: A Public Adminstration Perspective is designed to fill that void. It provides a comprehensive, multidisciplinary view of government that includes perspectives from political science, political theory, international relations, organizational sociology, economics, and history. The text draws on classic and modern literature from all these areas to analyze government at four different levels--ideational, societal, organizational, and individual layers. It links public administration's various subfields--human resource management, budgeting, policy making, organizational theory, etc.--into a holistic framework for the study of government. It also includes an extensive bibliography drawing from American and Europen literature in support of the book's global, historical, and comparative approach.
Most public administration texts overly compartmentalize the subject and don't interconnect the various specializations within government, which leaves a serious gap in preparing students for public service. Government: A Public Administration Perspective is designed to fill that void. It provides a comprehensive, multidisciplinary view of government that includes perspectives from political science, political theory, international relations, organizational sociology, economics, and history. The text draws on classic and modern literature from all these areas to analyze government at four different levels - ideational, societal, organizational, and individual layers. It links public administration's various subfields - human resource management, budgeting, policy making, organizational theory, etc. - into a holistic framework for the study of government. It also includes an extensive bibliography drawing from American and European literature in support of the book's global, historical, and comparative approach.
ÔThis volume confronts one of the most central issues in the study and practice of bureaucracy. Questions about representativeness of public institutions raises key issues about legitimacy, especially in contexts characterised by ethnic diversity and cleavages. Debates are shaped by normatively informed positions that contrasts those in favour of representativeness with those who point to limitations and side-effects. This volume offers a set of important contributions to these debates by linking the long-standing debates about representative bureaucracy with an impressive range of country studies. This volume is a fundamental contribution to the theme of representative bureaucracy.Õ Ð Ma...
The democratic nation state of the post-war era has undergone major transformations since the 1970s, and political authority has been both internationalized and privatized. The thirteen chapters of this edited collection deal with major transformations of governance arrangements and state responsibilities in the countries of the OECD world. A unified conceptual and explanatory framework is used to describe trajectories of state change, to explain the internationalization or privatization of responsibilities in the resource, law, legitimacy and welfare dimensions of the democratic nation state, and to probe the state's role in the today's post-national constellation of political authority. As the contributions show, an unravelling of state authority has indeed occurred, but the state nevertheless continues to play a key role in emerging governance arrangements. Hence it is not merely a 'victim' of globalization and other driving forces of change.
Most of the scholarship regarding the Dutch monk and architect Dom Hans van der Laan OSB (1904-1991) has been narrowly focused on his architectural theory and projects. The liturgical and theological dimensions have been virtually neglected, though they are vital for a proper understanding of his thought. Through a thorough reading of the original sources, including previously unexplored documents from various archives, this book takes an interdisciplinary approach to Van der Laan’s theory. It brings together the different aspects of his work by studying both the liturgical-theological and architectural elements. On this basis the book offers a synthesis of the way in which Van der Laan was able to link earthly matter to the divine Mystery.
Active at the time when the social sciences were founded, Max Weber's social theory contributed significantly to a wide range of fields and disciplines. Considering his prominence, it makes sense to take stock of the Weberian heritage and to explore the ways in which Weber's work and ideas have contributed to our understanding of the modern world. Using his work as a point of departure, The Oxford Handbook of Max Weber investigates the Weberian legacy today, identifying the enduring problems and themes associated with his thought that have contemporary significance: the nature of modern capitalism, neo-liberal global economic policy, nationalism, religion and secularization, threats to legal...