Fred Thompson – författare

This important volume looks at conflicts of interest, codes of ethics, and the regulation of corruption in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the European Community. It finds that there is less corruption than ever before, but the gap between public expectations and perceptions has nevertheless widened. Moreover, it questions the dominant academic approach to applied ethics, with its emphasis on training, standards and procedures, and, ultimately, regulation. In contrast, the authors featured in this volume argue that governance is a social process. Ethical governing means attending to the relational aftermath of complex decisions - the ways in which decisions and their execution affect and sustain social relationships. Moreover, applied ethical reasoning in this context must not only confront certain stock issues, but must also lead to widespread participation in decision making processes. Viewed in this way, ethical governing means a respectful discourse involving widespread participation of legitimate viewpoints. Consequently, the authors suggest that the nearly universal dissatisfaction with the state of public ethics is a manifestation of something deeper and more profound. As one author explains, public perceptions won't look up so long as politics remains a spectator sport, dominated by 'sleaze ball tactics and shrinking sound bites'.

The impact of information technology (IT) on government in the last five years has been profound. Using the governments of Canada and Ontario (both recognized as international leaders in the use of IT) as case studies, Digital State at the Leading Edge is the first attempt to take a comprehensive view of the impact of IT upon the whole of government, including politics and campaigning, public consultation, service delivery, knowledge management, and procurement.Using the concepts of channel choice, procurement market analysis, organizational integration, and digital leadership, this study explores the inter-relationships among all these aspects of the application of IT to government and politics. The authors seek to understand how IT is transforming government and what the nature of that transformation is. In the process, they offer an explanation of Canada's relative success, and conclude with practical advice to politicians and public servants about how to manage IT in government more effectively.Based on new and original research undertaken over the last five years, the findings of this intriguing study will be of interest to those studying or working in the fields of public administration, political science, and information technology.

Presenting emphases on and approaches to issues such as government spending, reporting, pricing and fiscal federalism, the Handbook of Public Finance demonstrates the utility of integrating public finance theory with actual public policy practices. It discusses applications in major subfields of public finance, including public education, environmental regulation, energy policy, social welfare programs, and local and state politics. Other topics of discussion include the theory and practice of tax incidence analysis; the marginal costs of taxation and regulation, the economics of expenditure incidence, discounting and the social discount rate; passive use benefits, and public sector pricing.

From the earliest days of European settlement in the South, as in many rural economies around the globe, cured pork became a main source of sustenance, and the cheaper, lower-on-the-hog cuts--notably, bacon--became some of the most important traditional southern foodstuffs. In this cookbook, Fred Thompson captures a humble ingredient's regional culinary history and outsized contributions to the table. Delicious, of course, straight out of the skillet, bacon is also special in its ability to lend a unique savory smokiness to an enormous range of other foods.Today, for regular eaters and high-flying southern chefs alike, bacon has achieved a culinary profile so popular as to approach baconmania. But Thompson sagely notes that bacon will survive the silliness. Describing the many kinds of bacon that are available, Thompson provides key choices for cooking and seasoning appropriately. The book's fifty-six recipes invariably highlight and maximize that beloved bacon factor, so appreciated throughout the South and beyond (by Thompson's count, fifty different styles of bacon exist worldwide). Dishes range from southern regional to international, from appetizers to main courses, and even to a very southern beverage. Also included are Thompson's do-it-yourself recipes for making bacon from fresh pork belly in five different styles.

This book focuses on the inherent contradiction between bureaucracy, hierarchy, and the vision inspired by the architecture of modern information technology of a more egalitarian culture in public organizations. We agree with Evans and Wurster and others who have argued that, in the future, knowledge-based productive relationships will be designed around fluid, teambased collaborative communities, either within organizations (i.e., deconstructed value chains), or in collaborative alliances such as those with "amorphous and permeable corporate boundaries characteristic of companies in the Silicon Valley" that is, deconstructed supply chains. In such relationships everyone can communicate richly with everyone else on the basis of shared standards and, like the Internet itself, these relationships will eliminate the need to channel information, thereby eliminating the trade-off between information bandwidth and connectivity. "The possibility (or the threat) of random access and information symmetry," they conclude, "will destroy all hierarchies, whether of logic or power."

This book focuses on the inherent contradiction between bureaucracy, hierarchy, and the vision inspired by the architecture of modern information technology of a more egalitarian culture in public organizations. We agree with Evans and Wurster and others who have argued that, in the future, knowledge-based productive relationships will be designed around fluid, teambased collaborative communities, either within organizations (i.e., deconstructed value chains), or in collaborative alliances such as those with "amorphous and permeable corporate boundaries characteristic of companies in the Silicon Valley" that is, deconstructed supply chains. In such relationships everyone can communicate richly with everyone else on the basis of shared standards and, like the Internet itself, these relationships will eliminate the need to channel information, thereby eliminating the trade-off between information bandwidth and connectivity. "The possibility (or the threat) of random access and information symmetry," they conclude, "will destroy all hierarchies, whether of logic or power."