B. G. Peters - Böcker

This expansive Handbook discusses key conceptual and theoretical issues in politicization and patronage. With contributions from leading academics across the globe, it presents diverse perspectives on politicization and patronage practices, exploring the positive and negative implications of both concepts.Chapters analyze detailed case studies from a range of countries, regime types and levels of governance, providing critical insights into the variations of politicization and patronage practices and advocating for a clear differentiation between the two terms. Expert authors examine the methodologies involved in the study of these concepts, including prosopography, experimental methods and the difficulties of conducting research within authoritarian regimes. The Handbook emphasizes the recent increase in both patronage and politicization, particularly within democratic regimes, and makes timely suggestions for future research.This comprehensive Handbook is vital for students and scholars of public administration and management, public policy, political science and regulation and governance. It is also a valuable resource for government officials and public policymakers.

In this illuminating book, B. Guy Peters explores the common governmental practice of reforming the public bureaucracy. He identifies widespread successes and failures, while evaluating the efficacy of governmental reforms through political, economic and organisational lenses.Peters examines the difficulties in determining the objective success or failure of administrative reforms. He outlines the diverse perceptions of key actors such as politicians, administrators, citizens and analysts, as well as the different criteria they use to define effective implementation. Additionally, he highlights the drawbacks of using instruments like performance management to measure outcomes. Drawing on both theoretical and practical perspectives, the book investigates common barriers to successful reform including poor coordination, organizational failure and complexity. Peters analyses crucial strategic choices for reformers, with a particular focus on public personnel systems and administrative procedures.Administrative Reform,/i> will be warmly welcomed by scholars and students of administration, management, politics and public policy. It is also an essential resource for policymakers and practitioners within politics, administration and civil society seeking deeper understanding of valuable strategies for reform.

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas.In this updated second edition, internationally renowned scholar B. Guy Peters provides a succinct introduction to public policy and illustrates the design approach to policy problems. Peters demonstrates how decision-makers can make more effective choices and why a design approach to public intervention can improve policy formulation.Key features of the second edition include:Analytical identification and evaluation of the vital components of policy designReflections on the challenges posed by Covid-19 and public policy solutionsAn expanded overview of evaluation and behavioral public policy analysisCritical discussions of alternatives to cost-benefit analysis.Offering a timely and concise approach to the field, this book will be crucial for high-level students who are new to public policy, as well as scholars and researchers hoping to improve and advance their understanding of the design perspective. Its analytic and theoretical grounding will also prove useful for policy practitioners, enabling sophisticated solutions to common policy problems.

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas.In this updated second edition, internationally renowned scholar B. Guy Peters provides a succinct introduction to public policy and illustrates the design approach to policy problems. Peters demonstrates how decision-makers can make more effective choices and why a design approach to public intervention can improve policy formulation.Key features of the second edition include:Analytical identification and evaluation of the vital components of policy designReflections on the challenges posed by Covid-19 and public policy solutionsAn expanded overview of evaluation and behavioral public policy analysisCritical discussions of alternatives to cost-benefit analysis.Offering a timely and concise approach to the field, this book will be crucial for high-level students who are new to public policy, as well as scholars and researchers hoping to improve and advance their understanding of the design perspective. Its analytic and theoretical grounding will also prove useful for policy practitioners, enabling sophisticated solutions to common policy problems.

Bringing together an array of expert scholars, this perceptive Handbook presents an in-depth overview of bureaucratic autonomy across the globe. It examines the opportunities and implications of autonomy at the institutional, organizational and individual level, highlighting diverse perspectives as well as avenues for future research.Exploring a variety of concepts, methods, and approaches to bureaucratic independence, this volume provides a comprehensive explanation of the agency model and delves into core issues such as measuring and explaining bureaucratic autonomy. Chapters draw on detailed case studies from Europe to Sub-Saharan Africa, analyzing the impact of commercialization, collaborative governance and policy ambiguity on political control. Raising key theoretical and empirical questions, the book ultimately underscores the need to consider normative issues including those surrounding accountability and the consequences of autonomy.The Handbook of Bureaucratic Autonomy is an invaluable resource for students and academics in public administration and management, public policy, political science, regulation and governance, and organization theory. It will also greatly benefit policymakers and public sector administrators seeking a deeper understanding of developments in bureaucratic autonomy.

This visionary Research Handbook presents the state of the art in research on policy design. By conceiving policy design both as a theoretical and a methodological framework, it provides scholars and practitioners with guidance on understanding policy problems and devising accurate solutions.Chapters discuss the major approaches to policy design as well as the challenges that confront policy designers and academics interested in improving this framework. More than 40 expert contributors operationalise the policy design framework around different models of causation, evaluation, instrumentation and intervention to explain and improve policy outcomes. This framework sheds new light on the nature of policy problems and the means to address these problems, while also explaining if and how a policy fits into the broader social and political environment. The Research Handbook considers not only the process of designing, and the roles that individuals and institutions play in the political process of revising and creating new policies, but also the outcome of the designing process: policy design as a plan for action.Providing a practical alternative to the conventional theories of the policy process like the policy cycle, this Research Handbook will be critical reading for scholars and students of public policy, political theory and public administration and management. It will also be beneficial for policy makers interested in improving the ways in which they formulate public policies.