PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION & PUBLIC GOVERNANCE
Open Access e-Books
(See also: Cooperation..; Leadership; Policy Management; Political Science)
*NOTE: Some titles in these lists are not formally Open Access, but all are free (no fee for e-access)
Embedded Files
Accountability in Public Services in South Africa
Publisher: World Bank
Year of publication: 2021
This report discusses selected issues regarding accountability in public services. The introduction discusses the accountability framework that will be used for the report. Chapter 1 assesses South Africa's progress on service access and quality, and summarizes recent policy initiatives. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 describe the international and South African experience with mechanisms that seek to improve accountability - public sector reform, citizen report cards, and others - and posits hypotheses to be explored in the following chapters. Chapter 5 applies the World Bank's accountability framework to a participatory assessment of services in six municipalities in South Africa. Chapters 6 and 7 apply the framework to the education and water and sanitation sectors. Chapter 8 explains why community-driven development does not factor in any main South African development programs. Chapter 9 explains the continuing learning practices pioneered in the manufacturing sector and addresses how these practices might be used by the South African government to effect change. Chapter 10 summarizes the conclusions, translates these into main hypotheses to be tested in future work, and formulates a number of policy recommendations for public debate.
=================================================================================
Bringing Governance Back Home
: Lessons for Local Government regarding Rapid Climate Action
Publisher: MDPI Books
Year of publication: 2022
FREE DOWNLOAD: https://www.mdpi.com/books/pdfview/book/5605
There is a growing recognition that rapid action in response to climate change is urgently necessary, and that many of the responsibilities for this action (e.g., relating to transport, land-use planning and economic development) rest at the local level. This is attested to by the growing number of local authorities that have declared climate emergencies across the globe. Responding to this emergency will require significant changes in the assumptions, expectations, priorities and procedures of locally elected representatives and government officials. This Special Issue will explore the responses of local government, as a key locus of sustainability governance, to the need for rapid climate action, drawing on examples from diverse locations (UK, western Europe, Chile and South Africa) and at various scales (from the smallest local areas, to city regions, counties and provinces.)
==============================================================================
Building State Capability
: Evidence, Analysis, Action
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year of publication: 2017
FREE DOWNLOAD: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/building-state-capability-evidence-analysis-action
Governments play a major role in the development process, constantly introducing reforms and policies to achieve developmental objectives. Many of these interventions have limited impact, however; schools get built but children don’t learn, IT systems are introduced but not used, plans are written but not implemented. These achievement deficiencies reveal gaps in capabilities, and weaknesses in the process of building state capability.
This book addresses these weaknesses and gaps. It provides evidence of the capability shortfalls that currently exist in many countries, analyses this evidence and identifies capability traps that hold many governments back—particularly related to isomorphic mimicry and premature load-bearing. The book then describes a process that governments can use to escape these capability traps. Called PDIA (Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation), this process empowers people working in governments to find and fit solutions to the problems they face. This process is explained in a practical manner so that readers can actually apply tools and ideas to the capability challenges they face in their own contexts. These applications will help readers implement policies and reforms that have more impact than those of the past.
[See Download link for more book details]
===========================================================================================================
Collapsing Structures and Public Mismanagement
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
Year of publication: 2022
This open access book is about mismanagement of public agencies as a threat to life and limb. Collapsing bridges and buildings kill people and often leave many more injured. Such disasters do not happen out of the blue nor are they purely technical in nature since construction and maintenance are subject to safety regulation and enforcement by governmental agencies. The book analyses four relevant cases from Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Germany. Rather than stressing well-known pathologies of bureaucracy as a potential source of disaster, this book argues, learning for the sake of prevention should aim at neutralizing threats to integrity and strengthening a sense of responsibility among public officials.
Reviews:
“In what is certain to become an indispensable book on public failures, their origins, and consequences, Wolfgang Seibel builds piece-by-piece a unique contribution to the study of rare events and the search for resilience in public policy. Bridges and buildings are perhaps the best real-world synonym for rational design and deliberation; proper construction and maintenance is the first and primary goal of entire professions. This book demonstrates how accidents happen, how social processes are fundamental to their occurrence, and how learning and inference about their causes is a core public management function. Along the way, Seibel masterfully musters evidence from a multitude of sources to painstakingly document both bridge and building failures and the organizational pathologies that accompany them. This is a must-read for those who want to better understand such 'black swan' events and the search for resilience.”
--(Andrew B. Whitford, Professor at the School of Public and International Affairs, University of Georgia, USA)
“A must read for practitioners and scholars, Wolfgang Seibel's latest book provides profound insight in the intersection of public administration mismanagement and the absence of responsible leadership. Through a series of devastating cases, he provides a forensic analysis of how and why disasters occur, showing us what happens when we ignore warning signs and fail to act. His work challenges us all to step up, embrace a more strategic approach to learning, and prevent these catastrophic disasters from happening. An exceptional contribution to the field.”
--(Janine O’Flynn, Professor of Public Management, The Australia and New Zealand School of Government, Australia)
=====================================================================================================
Competing for Influence
: The Role of the Public Service in Better Government in Australia
Publisher: ANU Press
Year of publication: 2019
[NOTE: This is an Australian textbook but it includes some general principles that may be applicable in other regions/countries too - see below for the Contents page.]
Amidst growing dissatisfaction with the state of government performance and an erosion of trust in our political class, Competing for Influence asks: what sort of public service do we want in Australia?
Drawing on his experience in both the public and private sectors – and citing academic research across the fields of public sector management, industrial organisation, and corporate strategy – Barry Ferguson argues the case for the careful selection and application of private sector management concepts to the public service, both for their ability to strengthen the public service and inform public policy. These include competitive advantage, competitive positioning, horizontal strategy and organisational design, and innovation as an all-encompassing organisational adjustment mechanism to a changeable environment.
But these are not presented as a silver bullet, and Ferguson addresses other approaches to reform, including the need to rebuild the Public Sector Act, the need to reconsider the interface between political and administrative arms of government (and determine what is in the ‘public interest’), and the need for greater independence for the public service within a clarified role. This approach, and its implications for public sector reform, is contrasted with the straitjacket of path dependency that presently constricts the field.
Contents page:
Foreword
Introduction
Government and governance
The problem of policy formation
Public administration performance measurement
The role and activities of the public service
Organisational design
Arguments for better strategy
The competitive advantage of the public sector
Adjusting to change: The role of innovation
Public policy towards the public service
Reflections
References
========================================================================================================
Consolidating Developmental Local Government
: Lessons from the South African Experience
Publisher: UCT Press
Year of publication: 2013
FREE DOWNLOAD: https://openuctpress.uct.ac.za/uctpress/catalog/book/11
Consolidating Developmental Local Government documents the dynamics of local government transformation and captures the key themes of the debates about policy options, lessons and key strategic decisions. These debates are aimed at ensuring that municipalities play a key role in creating more democratic, non-racial, equitable and sustainable communities, towns and cities.
Compiled and written by people who participated in one way or another in the experience of democratic consolidation, this text will be an indispensable resource for government officials, students, researchers, specialists, community leaders, businesses and the general reader. Critical questions are raised throughout the book about the kinds of challenges that all those involved with the future of local governance will face in the years ahead.
Contents page:
Foreword
Preface
Contributors
1. Consolidating developmental local government
I. DEVELOPMENTAL LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN COMPARATIVE CONTEXT
2. Continuities and discontinuities in South African local government
3. Developmental local government : squaring the circle between policy intent and impact
4. Local governance and the politics of sustainability
5. From spheres to tiers : conceptions of local government in South Africa in the period 1994-2006
6. Rural local governance
7. Local democracy and development in comparative perspective
II. STRATEGIC PRIORITIES OF DEVELOPMENTAL LOCAL GOVERNMENT
8. The emergence and endurance of an evolving human settlements imaginary
9. Reframing urban passenger transport as a strategic priority for developmental local government
10. Social development : an imperative for local government
11. The implications of HIV/AIDS for local governance and sustainable municipal service delivery
12. Institutional arrangements for local economic development implementation in South Africa
13. Key themes and trends in municipal finance in South Africa
III. TOOLS AND REGULATORY INSTRUMENTS OF DEVELOPMENTAL LOCAL GOVERNMENT
14. The origins and outcomes of South Africa's integrated development plans
15. Intergovernmental delivery in municipal areas : reflections on current practice
16. Tools and trade-offs in environmental decision-making
17. Local government planning legal frameworks and regulatory tools : vital signs?
18. Urban land use regulation in the context of developmental local government
19. Municipal entities : a panacea for service delivery constraints?
20. The distribution of power : local government and electricity distribution industry reforms
IV. INSTITUTIONAL MODELS OF DEVELOPMENTAL LOCAL GOVERNMENT
21. Political systems and capacity issues
22. Participatory mechanisms and community politics : building consensus and conflict
23. Beyond cooption and protest : reflections on the FEDUP Alternative
24. A case study of community participation in governance and service delivery in the City of Johannesburg
25. Democratisation with inclusion : revisiting the role of ward committees
26. Rolling back the spatial barriers to socio-economic development : Experiences from the demarcation of district and local municipalities
Index.
Reviews:
"We are confident that policymakers, researchers and practitioners alike will find Consolidating Developmental Local Government a useful, thoughtful contribution to making local government and other spheres of government work better together to overcome poverty and inequality."
- Solomon Lechesa Tsenoli, MP, Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Provincial and Local Government
"Consolidating Developmental Local Government should be required reading for scholars and practitioners everywhere who care about inclusive and poverty-oriented development and are alert to the complexities and rewards of achieving democratic local government in cosmopolitan societies and complex institutional arenas."
- Professor Jo Beall, Development Studies Institute, London School of Economics
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Creating Adaptive Policies
A Guide for Policy-making in an Uncertain World
Publishers: SAGE; IDRC
Year of publication: 2009
FREE DOWNLOAD:
https://www.idrc.ca/en/book/creating-adaptive-policies-guide-policy-making-uncertain-world
Creating Adaptive Policies was written to help policy-makers navigate today’s complex, dynamic and uncertain terrain—to help policies help people. Contained in the chapters of this book are seven tools that have helped policy-makers design and implement policies that perform in highly dynamic and uncertain settings. Adaptive policies anticipate the array of conditions that lie ahead through robust design using: (1) integrated and forward-looking analysis, including scenario planning; (2) multi-stakeholder deliberation to illuminate potential pitfalls and unintended consequences and (3) by monitoring key performance indicators to trigger automatic policy adjustments. But not all situations can be anticipated in advance through diligent use of analytical and deliberative tools. Adaptive policies are also able to navigate towards successful outcomes in settings that cannot be anticipated in advance. The book describes how this can be done by working in concert with certain characteristics of complex adaptive systems, including: (1) enabling self-organizing and social networking in communities (2) decentralizing decision-making to the lowest, and most effective and accountable unit of governance; (3) promoting variation in policy responses; and through (4) regular and systematic policy review and improvement—always examining whether assumptions about intended outcomes are accurate.
====================================================================================================
Decentralised Governance
: Crafting Effective Democracies Around the World
Publisher: LSE Press
Year of publication: 2023
FREE DOWNLOAD: https://doi.org/10.31389/lsepress.dlg
For developing countries, decentralising power from central government to local authorities holds the promise of deepening democracy, empowering citizens, improving public services and boosting economic growth. But the evidence on when and how decentralisation can bring these benefits has been mixed. Under the wrong conditions, decentralised power can be captured by unrepresentative elites or undermined by corruption and the clientelistic distribution of public resources. The picture is complex, and we still do not understand enough about what factors can contribute to creating better local government, and to what effect.
Decentralised Governance brings together a new generation of political economy studies that explore these questions analytically, blending theoretical insights with empirical innovation. Individual chapters provide fresh evidence from around the world, including broad cross-country data as well as detailed studies of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, China, Indonesia, Ghana, Kenya and Colombia. They investigate the pros and cons of decentralisation in both democratic and autocratic regimes, and the effects of critical factors such as advances in technology, citizen-based data systems, political entrepreneurship in ethnically diverse societies, and reforms aimed at improving transparency and monitoring.
This wide-ranging volume examines the conditions under which devolving power can intensify democratic competition, boost transparency, and improve local governance, providing examples of good and bad practice in both. It is essential reading for researchers investigating decentralised governance, development and democratisation, and for policymakers and practitioners drawing lessons for future reforms.
Contents page:
Decentralised governance: crafting effective democracies around the world
Understanding decentralisation: theory, evidence, and practice
Decentralised targeting of transfer programmes: a reassessment
Realising the promise of partial decentralisation
Devolution under autocracy: evidence from Pakistan
Social fragmentation, public goods, and local elections: evidence from China
How does fiscal decentralisation affect local polities? Evidence from local communities in Indonesia
Can parliamentary sanctions strengthen local political accountability? Evidence from Kenya
Centralised versus decentralised monitoring in developing countries: a survey of recent research
Subnational governance in Ghana: a comparative assessment of data and performance
Birth registration, child rights, and local governance in Bangladesh
Administrative decentralisation and its impacts on educational expenditure and student outcomes: evidence from Colombia
Reviews:
"Decentralisation has often been hailed as a panacea for development. However, if not implemented effectively, it can fail to deliver on its promise. This book edited by Faguet and Pal provides —using a wealth of cases covering many parts of the emerging world— the necessary guidance to harness the potential of decentralisation while sidestepping its drawbacks. A must read."
- Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, Princesa de Asturias Chair, London School of Economics
"Decentralization as a way of improving quality of governance and delivery of public services is widely recognised. Yet the experience in its actual performance has been mixed particularly in developing countries. ... This book provides a major step in our understanding the nuances and complexities of the subject, utilises both political and mechanism design insights, and guides us to valuable tools in reforming our beleaguered systems of political accountability."
- Pranab Bardhan, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of California, Berkeley
"An essential and long-awaited book on the effects of decentralisation in developing countries from a comparative perspective. Its reading will help to understand the complexity of decentralised governance and the importance of the role of political, social and cultural variables. It is a must-read for researchers, practitioners and anyone interested in the complexity of policy-making around the world."
- José M. Ruano, Director of the Complutense School of Government, Complutense University of Madrid and Editor of The Palgrave Handbook of Decentralisation in Europe
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Democratising Local Government
: The South African experiment
Publisher: UCT Press
Year of publication: 2002
FREE DOWNLOAD: https://openuctpress.uct.ac.za/uctpress/catalog/book/8
Local government is at the forefront of development. In South Africa the ambitious policy objectives of post-apartheid reconstruction and development hinge on the successful creation of a democratic tier of government close to the people. An entirely new system of ‘developmental local government’ has thus been introduced.
As is the case in many developing countries, the responsibilities of municipalities in South Africa have been extended dramatically, often without adequate resources. Managing municipalities for development therefore requires political will and strategic intervention. Democratising Local Government : the South African Experiment will assist officials, politicians and communities who wish to optimise their development ambitions within the new local governance framework. The book will be of use in many other countries, especially in Africa, where decentralisation is a major emphasis of development theory and practice.
The book provides a comprehensive introduction to developmental local government. It includes:
the design of the new local government system and the issues posed by decentralisation
an overview of specific challenges of urban and rural municipalities
a discussion of special issues facing local government including poverty, gender and environment
new tools for local government, including budgeting, indicators, municipal partnerships and capacity building.
About the authors:
The authors have extensive experience in policy formulation, municipal management and research on local government. They are activists, civil servants, NGO workers, consultants and academics. Their authoritative views are brought together in this important test to provide a solid foundation for working with and understanding local government in the developing world.
[The book is edited by Susan Parnell; Edgar Pieterse; Mark Swilling and Dominique Wooldridge.]
Contents page:
Foreword
Acknowledgements
SECTION 1 Participatory Local Governance in the Making
1 Participatory Local Governance in the Making: Opportunities, Constraints and Prospects
2 The Role of Local Government
3 International Trends in Local Government Transformation
4 Local Government in the Emerging National Planning Context
SECTION 2 Origins and Principles of Developmental Local Government
5 A Developmental Role for Local Government
6 Developmental Local Government
7 'Embedded Autonomy' and the Challenges of Developmental Local Government
SECTION 3 Differential Challenges
8 Addressing Rural Poverty: Restructuring Rural Local Government
9 Introducing Metropolitan Local Government in South Africa
10 Infrastructure and Service Delivery in South Africa, 1994-99
SECTION 4 Policy Perspectives
11 Local Government and Poverty in South Africa
12 Integrating Environmental Sustainability Issues into Local Government Planning and Decision-Making Processes
13 Local Government's Role in Realising Gender Equality: From Policy to Practice
14 Social Capital and Local Government
SECTION 5 Policy Tools
15 Local Government Finance Reform
16 The Value of Indicators as a Tool for Local Government
17 Municipal-Community Partnerships
18 Capacity-Building for Sustainable Local Governance in South Africa
19 The Dilemmas of Informality for African Urban Governance
20 'My Soul I Can See': The Limits of Governing African Cities in a Context of Globalisation and Complexity
Index
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The e-Government Development Discourse
: Analysing Contemporary and Future Growth Prospects in Developing and Emerging Economies
Publisher: AOSIS
Year of publication: 2018
More about this e-Book:
This book brings out current research and practice concepts, articulating the research agenda for e-Government. When e-Government was first conceived, it was designed upon basic technologies where the emphasis was only on the simple display of government information for citizens to read. Nowadays, e-Government design comprises many complicated modules such as upload and download consoles, two-way interaction consoles between citizens and government agents, integrated government business processes presenting the whole of government, and it does not depend solely on technology. The complexity of e-Government has now evolved to include political, cultural, economic, social and technical dimensions. Bringing all these difficult aspects together is so complicated that it needs carefully planned strategies informed by local contextual characteristics.
[See Download link for more book details]
========================================================================================================
The Government Analytics Handbook
: Leveraging Data to Strengthen Public Administration
Publisher: World Bank Group
Year of publication: 2023
FREE DOWNLOAD: https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/government-analytics
Governments across the world make thousands of personnel management decisions, procure millions of goods and services, and execute billions of processes each day. They are data rich. And yet, there is little systematic practice to-date which capitalizes on this data to make public administrations work better. This means that governments are missing out on data insights to save billions in procurement expenditures, recruit better talent into government, and identify sources of corruption, to name just a few.
The Government Analytics Handbook seeks to change that. It presents frontier evidence and practitioner insights on how to leverage data to make governments work better. Covering a range of microdata sources—such as administrative data and public servant surveys—as well as tools and resources for undertaking the analytics, it transforms the ability of governments to take a data-informed approach to diagnose and improve how public organizations work.
Main Messages:
Firms are capitalizing on innovations in data science at an unprecedented scale to improve their internal operations, but many governments are lacking behind. This book introduces government analytics – how governments can repurpose their data and records to diagnose public administration and boost public sector productivity.
A wealth of approaches and data sources are available to governments for analytics to identify evidence-based improvements. Many of these approaches rely on data that governments already collect as part of their day-to-day operations.
Government analytics can be undertaken with at least three types of data:
administrative data from government entities (such as procurement data);
surveys of public servants; and
external assessments (such as household surveys or anthropological assessments).
Which data source is appropriate for analytics depends on what aspect of public administration an organization is seeking to diagnose and improve. Some data sources are better suited to assessing inputs into public administration, such as payroll data assessing the costs of different personnel. Some data sources are better suited to assessing the processes, practices, and cultures that convert inputs into outputs, such as surveys of public servants assessing perceptions of management in government. And some data sources are better suited to assessing the outputs and outcomes of public administration, such as citizen satisfaction surveys.
Frontier government analytics integrates different data sources and makes insights accessible to managers across government organizations. For instance, dashboards integrating data sources and updating in real time can provide managers with insights into staffing issues, quality of management, task completion rates and case productivity, among many. Comparative data can allow benchmarking with other government organizations, or where appropriate, other countries. The result is a transformational change, with managers integrating analytic insights with their tacit understanding of their organization to drive continuous public administration improvement.
Governments can advance government analytics by creating government analytics units at the center of government and within each major organization. Centralized units enable economies of scale in analytics, a common data architecture and government-wide benchmarking. Units within organizations can complement central analytics by helping interpret analytics for their organization, and adapting analytics tools to particular organizational needs.
Reviews:
"This pioneering handbook shows how microdata can be used to give ... granular and real insights into how states work."
- Francis Fukuyama, Stanford University, author of State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century
"The most comprehensive work on practically building government administration I have ever seen."
- Francisco Gaetani, Special Secretary for State Transformation, Government of Brazil
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Institutions Taking Root
: Building State Capacity in Challenging Contexts
(authors: Barma, Huybens & Vinuela)
Publisher: World Bank Group
Year of publication: 2014
(Series: New Frontiers of Social Policy)
FREE DOWNLOAD: https://hdl.handle.net/10986/20030
Building and operating successful public institutions is a perennial and long-term challenge for governments, which is compounded by the volatile conditions found in fragile settings. Yet some government agencies do manage to take root and achieve success in delivering results earning legitimacy and forging resilience in otherwise challenging contexts.
Drawing on mixed-method empirical research carried out on nine public agencies in Lao PDR, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, and Timor Leste, this volume identifies the shared causal mechanisms underpinning institutional success in fragile states by examining the inner workings of these institutions, along with the external operational environment and sociopolitical context in which they exist. Successful institutions share and deploy a common repertoire of internal and external operational strategies. In addition they connect this micro-institutional repertoire to the macro-sociopolitical context along three discernible pathways to institutional success. Institutional development is a heavily contextual, dynamic, and non-linear process but certain actionable lessons emerge for policy-makers and development partners.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Integrated Thinking and Reporting
: Focusing on Value Creation in the Public Sector
Publisher: World Bank
Year of publication: 2016
FREE DOWNLOAD: https://hdl.handle.net/10986/25190
This introductory guide has been developed by the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) with the support of the World Bank to explain to public sector leaders and their teams how integrated thinking and reporting can help the sector consider how make the most of resources, encourage the right behaviors and demonstrate to stakeholders how they are achieving the strategy and creating value over the short and longer term.
See Also:
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
International Framework
: Good Governance in the Public Sector
Publisher: IFAC and CIPFA
Year of publication: 2014
FREE DOWNLOAD:
The International Framework: Good Governance in the Public Sector was jointly developed by IFAC and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) to help improve and encourage effective public sector governance. The Framework encourages better governed and managed public sector organizations by improving decision making and the efficient use of resources. Enhanced stakeholder engagement, robust scrutiny, and oversight of those charged with primary responsibility for determining an entity’s strategic direction, operations, and accountability leads to more effective interventions and better outcomes for the public at large.
IFAC and CIPFA also released an Executive Summary, Supplement of additional materials and a Comparison of Principles, available as free downloads.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Knowledge for Governance
Publisher: Springer Cham
Year of publication: 2021
This open access book focuses on theoretical and empirical intersections between governance, knowledge and space from an interdisciplinary perspective. The contributions elucidate how knowledge is a prerequisite as well as a driver of governance efficacy, and conversely, how governance affects the creation and use of knowledge and innovation in geographical context. Scholars from the fields of anthropology, economics, geography, public administration, political science, sociology, and organization studies provide original theoretical discussions along these interdependencies.
Moreover, a variety of empirical chapters on governance issues, ranging from regional and national to global scales and covering case studies in Australia, Europe, Latina America, North America and South Africa demonstrate that geography and space are not only important contexts for governance that affect the contingent outcomes of governance blueprints -- governance also creates spaces. It affects the geographical confines as well as the quality of opportunities and constraints that actors enjoy to establish legitimate and sustainable ways of social and environmental co-existence.
Contents page:
On the Reflexive Relations Between Knowledge, Governance, and Space
How Knowledge Enables Governance
Lessons from Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile) for Governance in Conditions of Environmental Uncertainty
Knowledge of Governance as Knowledge for Governance: Spatialized Techniques of Neutralization
The Atmosphere of Democracy: Knowledge and Political Action
Risk Governance: From Knowledge to Regulatory Action
Knowledge and Governance: Can Systemic Risk in Financial Markets Be Managed? The Case of the Euro Crisis
How Knowledge Drives the Effectiveness of Governance
Explaining Subnational Governance: The Role of Governors’ Codified and Uncodified Knowledge
The (De-)Contextualization of Geographical Knowledge in Forest Fire Risk Management in Chile as a Challenge for Governance
Carbon Markets, Values, and Modes of Governance
The Fight Against Corruption in Brazil: A Case of Good Governance?
Lateral Network Governance
How Governance Affects Learning and Innovation
Knowledge and the Deliberative Stance in Democratic Systems: Harnessing Scepticism of the Self in Governing Global Environmental Change
Nurturing Adaptive Governance Through Environmental Monitoring: People, Practices, Politics in the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere Region, South Africa
Ex Ante Knowledge for Infectious Disease Outbreaks: Introducing the Organizational Network Governance Approach
Collective Learning and Institutional Collective Action in Fragmented Governance
The Remapping of Forest Governance: From Shareholder to Stakeholder
The Governance of Global Innovation Systems: Putting Knowledge in Context
Experimentalist Systems in Manufacturing Multinationals: Recursivity and Continuous Learning Through Destabilization
Networks as Facilitators of Innovation in Technology-Based Industries: The Case of Flat Glass
=====================================================================================================
Marketing Management and Communications in the Public Sector
Publisher: Routledge
Year of publication: 2017 [2nd edition]
This updated edition of Marketing Management and Communications in the Public Sector provides a thorough overview of the major concepts in public sector marketing and communications, two fields that have continued to grow in importance for modern public administrations. With extended coverage of topics such as social marketing and institutional communication, the authors skilfully build on the solid foundations laid down in the previous edition.
Replete with real-world case studies and examples, including new material from the USA, Australia, and Asia, this book gives students a truly international outlook. Additional features include exercises and discussion questions in each chapter and an illustrative extended case study. This refreshed text is essential reading for postgraduate students on public management degrees, and aspiring or current public managers.
The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315622309 , has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Contents Page:
Part I
Ch. 1: Public management and marketing
Ch. 2: Marketing and public marketing
Part II
Ch. 3: Basic marketing concepts
Ch. 4: Marketing information research
Ch. 5: Marketing strategy
Ch. 6: Marketing instruments
Part III
Ch. 7: Public communications – an introduction
Ch. 8: Communications models and strategies
Ch. 9: Communications instruments
Ch. 10: Communication control
Ch. 11: Crisis communication
================================================================================
Opening the Black Box
: The Contextual Drivers of Social Accountability
Publisher: World Bank
Year of publication: 2013
This publication focuses on social accountability (SA), a form of citizen engagement defined in World Bank reports as the “extent and capability of citizens to hold the state accountable and make it responsive to their needs” (World Bank 2012). Accountability and SA are concepts that apply not only to public officials (such as service providers, policy makers, and elected officials), but also to donors, private sector organizations, and nongovernmental organizations. This report focuses on the accountability of public officials.
This publication fills an important knowledge gap by providing guidance on how to assess contextual drivers of social accountability effectiveness. It aims to strategically support citizen engagement at the country level and for a specific issue or problem.
The report proposes a novel framing of social accountability as the interplay of constitutive elements: citizen action and state action, supported by three enabling levers: civic mobilization, interface and information. For each of these constitutive elements, the report identifies 'drivers' of contextual effectiveness which take into account a broad range of contextual factors (e.g., social, political and intervention-based, including information and communication technologies). Opening the Black Box offers detailed guidance on how to assess each driver.
It also applies the framework at two levels. At the country level, the report looks at 'archetypes' of challenging country contexts, such as regimes with no formal space or full support for citizen-state engagement and fragile and conflict-affected situations. The report also illustrates the use of the framework to analyze specific social accountability interventions through four case studies: Sierra Leone, Pakistan, Yemen, and the Kyrgyz Republic.
From the Foreword :
"When governments engage with their citizens it provides opportunities to meet the World Bank’s twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity in a sustainable way. With this spirit in mind, Bank experts took stock of existing evidence in this field with a focus on the role of context (this includes broad social and political factors, and factors linked to specific interventions such as accessibility).
The authors further assess how contextual factors have a pivotal impact on how citizens engage with their governments to bring about accountability (a process also referred to as social accountability). In this way the framework provides a systematic method to assess both opportunities and risks in citizen engagement. It also gives policy makers new tools to help prioritize entry points to support improved public services, transparency, and accountability, and broader institutional outcomes such as state legitimacy.
An important point to underscore is that social accountability is not about state against citizens, but about bridges between stakeholders. Information as well as civic mobilization and the interface of governments and citizens are necessary to support such engagement. The authors also explore how constructive citizen engagement operates in challenging contexts—namely fragile and conflict-affected countries—as well as countries where the space for citizen-state engagement is formally constrained.
This book took shape through multiple interactions and enriching partnerships with numerous civil society organizations, academics, and practitioners who champion transparency and accountability initiatives and reforms all over the world. We offer them our heartfelt thanks for their help and support.
By providing much needed guidance for our colleagues within the institution, as well as practitioners in other organizations, we hope this book will present a convincing case for citizen engagement as a game changer for sustainable development."
=============================================================================
Pathways to Positive Public Administration
: An International Perspective
(Edited by Patrick Lucas and others)
Publisher: Edward Elgar
Year of publication: 2024
FREE DOWNLOAD (book or chapters): https://doi.org/10.4337/9781803929170
Situated in an era of low trust in government and a pervasive negativity bias that has shaped the field, this insightful volume examines the foundations, practices and tools of a distinctly positive strand of public administration (PPA). It advocates for a more optimistic approach to the study of what government does, how they do it, and to what effect.
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. It is free to read, download and share on Elgaronline.com.
Contents page:
Front Matter
Ch. 1: An optimistic state? Pathways to positive public administration / Patrick Lucas, Tina Nabatchi, Janine O’Flynn, and Paul ʼt Hart
Part I: Foundations
Ch. 2: Positive public administration’s long history / Grant Duncan
Ch. 3: Beyond the binary: understanding success and failure / Matthew Flinders
Ch. 4: A configurational approach to positivity: analyzing pathways to success and achievement in public administration / Fernando Nieto-Morales and Liesbet Heyse
Insight 1: Positivity in public administration: what’s love got to do with it? / Susan Keim
Part II: Practices
Insight 2: Reducing administrative burdens: the case of the US student loan forgiveness website / Pamela Herd and Donald Moynihan
Ch. 5: Burkina Faso’s surprisingly successful effort to abandon female genital mutilation and cutting / Susan L. Ostermann and Josephine Wouango
Ch. 6: Making Indigenous self-government happen in Canada / Mason Ducharme, Susanne Thiessen, and Evert Lindquist
Ch. 7: Puerto Rico’s independent community aqueducts: service delivery in a complex setting / Omar Pérez Figueroa and Nicola Ulibarri
Ch. 8: Positive public administration for sustainable development: the crucial role of municipalities in driving success / Jonas J. Schoenefeld, Friederike Edel, Iris Behr, Birte Frommer, Michèle Bernhard, and Britta Stein
Ch. 9: What explains the performance of participatory governance? / Nicolas W. Jager and Jens Newig
Ch. 10: Improving the public purse: the Kenya Revenue Authority as an example of positive public administration in Africa / Gedion Onyango
Ch. 11: Delivering immigration services: a case of positive public administration in Kenya / Eric E. Otenyo
Ch. 12: Understanding and learning from positive policy interventions in the context of Latin American public administration / Pablo Sanabria-Pulido and Cristian Pliscoff
Ch. 13: Pandemic partnerships: politicians, public servants, and the people of Aotearoa New Zealand / Verna Smith, Lesley Middleton, Jocelyn Cranefield, and Lina Guo
Ch. 14: Positive public administration in developing countries during crises: the case of Covid-19 in Pakistan / Usman W. Chohan
Ch. 15: Bhutan’s pandemic response and vaccination campaign: lessons on positive public administration / Sigay Dem
Insight 3: Disruption, iteration, and policy success: lessons from six US cases / Richard F. Callahan and John Kirlin
Part III: Tools
Ch. 16: Transnational approaches to improving public services: the case of the open government partnership / Alex Ingrams, Suzanne J. Piotrowski, and Daniel Berliner
Ch. 17: The Aarhus Model: countering the global wicked problem of radicalization with local pragmatist collaborations / Scott Douglas
Insight 4: Leveraging public-private partnerships for positive public administration in South Africa / Ndangwa Noyoo and Minenhle Matela
Ch. 18: Power to the stakeholders: how co-production turned around a green energy blunder in Ontario, Canada / Matt Wilder
Ch. 19: Sensegiving in multicultural contexts: the role of cultural chameleonizing in the implementation of Mauritiuss light rail transit system / Emamdeen Fohim, Adeelah Kodabux, and Amar Kumar Seeam
Ch. 20: The role of cultural competency in crafting and delivering public services / Cynthia Barboza-Wilkes and Thai V. Le
Ch. 21: The party politics of policy endurance: parliamentary settlements in Norway, 1980-2021 / Jostein Askim, Bjørn Mo Forum, and Bent Sofus Tranøy
Ch. 22: From brown to green: repurposing public procurement / Ana-Maria Dimand and Milena I. Neshkova
Ch. 23: All together now: sustainable solid waste management through interlocal collaboration in Mexico / Alejandra Medina and José Sánchez
Back Matter
Index
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Personalising and Depersonalising Power
: The Appointment of Executive Officers in Key State Institutions
Publisher: New South Institute
Year of publication: 2023
This report emphasizes building an autonomous administration based on merit to avoid corruption and promote democracy in South Africa’s public service. It highlights the urgent need for an impartial and effective administration to serve people’s needs without political interference.
South Africa’s struggle with corruption, nepotism and lack of accountability in the public service is hampering its ability to build a non-racial, non-sexist society based on democratic values and respect for human rights. The report emphasises the need to build an autonomous civil service, which is fundamental to strengthening the functioning of democratic institutions and preventing the abuse of power. It contextualises the appointment of public officials in South Africa against the legacy of apartheid, which denied civil and political rights to the majority. The Constitution grants broad powers to transform the state apparatus and build a non-racial, non-sexist society, but the separation between the political and administrative spheres is not clearly defined, allowing political criteria to dominate public appointments.
While recognising and welcoming the legislative and jurisprudential move to strengthen the policy conditions for the appointment of public officials, the report emphasises the need for further action. It recommends the institutionalisation of policy conditions that promote the assessment of managerial competencies as a precondition for the appointment of executive officers in the public service. This is crucial to ensure that limits on political discretion translate into better public service delivery.
Ivor Chipkin, Michelle Le Roux and Rafael Leite’s report ‘Personalising and Depersonalising Power’ is a crucial call to action for anyone interested in promoting good governance in South Africa and strengthening the capacity of the state to deliver what citizens need, thereby fostering trust in democracy. The fact that nearly five hundred people were in attendance at the report’s launch is a reflection of the high level of interest in this issue. The report underscores the need for South Africa to build a professional civil service that operates on merit, serves the needs of the people, and takes bold steps to build an impartial and effective administration free from excessive political interference. Policy makers, civil society organisations and citizens who want to promote transparency, accountability and good governance in South Africa’s public service must read this report.
======================================================================================================
The Politics of Bad Governance in Contemporary Russia
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Year of publication: 2022
"Human history is in reality a history of corrupt governments". In this book, Vladimir Gel’man considers bad governance as a distinctive politico-economic order that is based on a set of formal and informal rules, norms, and practices quite different from those of good governance. Some countries are governed badly intentionally because the political leaders of these countries establish and maintain rules, norms, and practices that serve their own self-interests. Gel’man considers bad governance as a primarily agency-driven rather than structure-induced phenomenon.
He addresses the issue of causes and mechanisms of bad governance in Russia and beyond from a different scholarly optics, which is based on a more general rationale of state-building, political regime dynamics, and policy-making. He argues that although these days, bad governance is almost universally perceived as an anomaly, at least in developed countries, in fact human history is largely a history of ineffective and corrupt governments, while the rule of law and decent state regulatory quality are relatively recent matters of modern history, when they emerged as side effects of state-building. Indeed, the picture is quite the opposite: bad governance is the norm, while good governance is an exception. The problem is that most rulers, especially if their time horizons are short and the external constraints on their behavior are not especially binding, tend to govern their domains in a predatory way because of the prevalence of short-term over long-term incentives. Contemporary Russia may be considered as a prime example of this phenomenon. Using an analysis of case studies of political and policy changes in Russia after the Soviet collapse, Gel’man discusses the logic of building and maintaining the politico-economic order of bad governance in Russia and paths of its possible transformation in a theoretical and comparative perspective.
Contents page:
Preface and Acknowledgments
The Politics of Bad Governance: A Framework for Analysis
Post-Soviet Bad Governance: A Vicious Circle?
Authoritarian Modernization: Illusions and Temptations
Opportunities and Constraints: Policy Reforms in the 2000s
The Technocratic Traps of Policy Reforms
Success Stories amid Bad Governance
The Politics of Bad Governance: Russia in Comparative Perspective
Notes
Reviews:
“This powerful new book persuasively explains why contemporary Russia, like many other countries in the world, suffers from bad governance. For Gel’man, bad governance is neither an inevitable consequence of problematic institutional legacies nor a regrettable failure of elite attempts to govern well. Instead, bad governance represents a purposeful, self-serving, and perverse success story for Russia’s authoritarian elites.”
—Juliet Johnson, McGill University
“In this engaging work, Gel'man challenges long-standing ideas about good governance, why Russia has bad governance, and the assumption that governance in Russia may improve. In doing so, he presents us with an enormously valuable and timely perspective about how we should think about Russian politics today.”
—Sarah Wilson Sokhey, University of Colorado Boulder
“An original contribution to the study of Russian governance, rent-seeking, state building, and regime change. This is a serious piece of scholarship assessing the development of Russia’s political system in the post-Communist era, offering valuable insights into how and why Russia, despite its high level of economic development, exhibits so many features of bad governance, such as weak rule of law, near-universal rent-seeking, corruption, poor regulation, and government ineffectiveness.”
—Hilary Appel, Claremont McKenna College
“Gel’man has long been one of the most original voices on Russian politics and his lively prose and vivid analogies are on full display in The Politics of Bad Governance in Contemporary Russia. By reframing the study of governance, Gel’man helps us understand why the Russian state usually, but not always, underperforms. An important work that will be required reading for anyone interested in governance or Russian politics.”
—Timothy M. Frye, Columbia University
“Vladimir Gel’man’s new book provides a brilliant analysis of the evolution of Russian political institutions in the last thirty years as well as a rigorous discussion of the scenarios for escaping the authoritarian trap. While the book is based on recent research in political science, it is written for a general audience who wants to understand the past, the present, and the future of Russian politics.”
—Sergei Guriev, Sciences Po, Paris
=====================================================================================================
The Power of Partnership in Open Government
: Reconsidering Multistakeholder Governance Reform
Publisher: The MIT Press
Year of publication: 2022
At the 2011 meeting of the UN General Assembly, the governments of eight nations—Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, Philippines, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States—launched the Open Government Partnership, a multilateral initiative aimed at promoting transparency, empowering citizens, fighting corruption, and harnessing new technologies to strengthen governance. At the time, many were concerned that the Open Government Partnership would end up toothless, offering only lip service to vague ideals and misguided cyber-optimism.
The Power of Partnership in Open Government offers a close look, and a surprising affirmation, of the Open Government Partnership as an example of a successful transnational multistakeholder initiative that has indeed impacted policy and helped to produce progressive reform. By 2019 the Open Government Partnership had grown to 78 member countries and 20 subnational governments. Through a variety of methods—document analysis, interviews, process tracing, and quantitative analysis of secondary data—Suzanne J. Piotrowski, Daniel Berliner, and Alex Ingrams chart the Open Government Partnership's effectiveness and evaluate what this reveals about the potential of international reform initiatives in general. Their work calls upon scholars and policymakers to reconsider the role of international institutions and, in doing so, to differentiate between direct and indirect pathways to transnational impact on domestic policy. The more nuanced and complex processes of the indirect pathway, they suggest, have considerable but often overlooked potential to shape policy norms and models, alter resources and opportunities, and forge new linkages and coalitions—in short, to drive the substantial changes that inspire initiatives like the Open Government Partnership.
=================================================================================
Public Administration and Governance in Democratic South Africa
(Edited by Izimangaliso Malatjie and others)
Publisher: UJ Press
Year of publication: 2024
FREE DOWNLOAD (book or chapters): https://doi.org/10.36615/9781776489602
There is a national emergency, and it has become more pronounced as South Africa faces challenges of Ethical leadership in both the private and public sector. Recently the Zondo Commission, Public Investment Corporation (PIC) Commission and Courts of Law released reports that cast light on the conduct of public officials. There have also been several reports by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) dealing with the same matter. This phenomenon is not only unique to South Africa. Reports of multinational companies that have been implicated in unethical and corrupt abound. These include corporate scandals such as those of Enron, WorldCom, Nortel, and AIG. These malfeasances have demonstrated abundantly that corporate leaders are not immune to unethical behaviour (Bedi, Alpasla & Green, 2015; Naidoo, 2012a). What this showed is that the issue of ethics is important in the public sector.
Contents page:
Foreword by Mashupye H. Maserumule
Introduction by Izimangaliso Malatjie, Busani Ngcaweni , Mzukiso Qobo, Thanyani S. Madzivhandila
1. Improving governance in the public sector: can ethics be taught? / Izimangaliso Malatjie, Busani Ngcaweni , Ntobeko Magubane
2. The battle of ethical leadership and political power in South Africa / Mohale E. Selelo , Pearl T. Mnisi
3. Corruption and economic growth in the emerging markets: empirical evidence from heterogenous dynamic panel data / Thanyani S. Madzivhandila, Ferdinand Niyimbanira, Nghamula Nkuna
4. Whistleblowing in South Africa: a vulnerable watchdog / Uduak Johnson , Premlall Ramlachan , Radipatla T. Rathaha, Andile Magqirana
5. Audit outcomes and the state of service delivery as indicators of the quality of governance: the case of Nelson Mandela metropolitan municipality / Kanyisa Z.D. Ntsundwana , Reuben S. Masango
6. Innovative recruitment and selection processes: a key factor for leveraging public sector performance with reference to Eastern Cape Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs / Phillemon S. Makgopela, Mzikayise S. Binza , Paul S. Radikonyana
7. Transformational leadership and employee attitudes in a public sector context: the role of trust in management and employee core self-evaluation / Ntseliseng Khumalo, Leon T.B. Jackson
8. Leadership as governance practice in post-colonial Africa: post- independence flaws, formative theoretical faultlines, and the need for ‘African Wisdom’ / Ntsako S. Mathonsi, Sello L. Sithole
9. The effects of the mass media on municipal governance: review of literature and a case study / Maxhobandile Ndamase, Yusuf Lukman, Beauty Makiwane
10. The role of the youth in socio-economic development / Adelaide Selemela, Michael N. Khwela
11. South Africa’s national development plan vision 2030: the context of entrepreneurship and small businesses since 1994 / Madumetsa G. Manamela, Kgalema A. Mashamaite
12. The fourth industrial revolution and government of the future: a case of South African Social Security Agency during the covid-19 pandemic / Izimangaliso Malatjie, Busani Ngcaweni , Raphaahle Ramokgopa
13. Curriculum reforms in the scholarship of public administration / Vuyani Khumalo
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Public Administration Challenges
: Cases from Africa
(Edited by J.S Wessels, T. Potgieter & T. Naidoo)
Publisher: Juta
[Funded by the European Union]
Year of publication: 2021
FREE ACCESS To eBOOK: https://www.thensg.gov.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Complete-Book-Public-Administration-Challenges_BOOK-1.pdf
This book offers useful knowledge about typical lived realities of public administration in an African context.
Researched case studies enrich scholarly knowledge and understanding for public officials to better understand and manage the complex public administration challenges that they face. The case studies in this volume serve to integrate contextual knowledge and experience with theory in view of building an ethical, capable and developmental public service.
The case studies in this volume were borne from the partnership between the South African National School for Government (NSG) and European Union (EU). The project involved 25 researchers from five South African universities, the Ghana Institute of Public Management and Administration (GIMPA) and Particip (Germany).
[From the Foreword by Busani Ngcaweni, Principal of the National School of Government:]
This book is a premier product of the the NSG and the EU's partnership that will promote learning and professionalisation. In addition to institutional support and enhancing our training programmes, the partnership has contributed to the intellectual growth of the institution. This inaugural compilation of case studies crowns this achievement.
Why a book on case studies, some may ask? In-depth researched case studies have proven to be of value and are widely used by leadership and management schools worldwide to help individuals make decisions, which accounts for their popularity in post-graduate studies, especially in the social sciences.
Although this is a growing field worldwide, it is one in which South Africa is still lagging behind. Recognising this gap, the NSG sought to obtain support from the EU to commission 10 researched case studies to inform the teaching and learning of public officials in South Africa and Africa. However, as the project developed, support was solicited from a project team consisting of no fewer than 25 researchers from five South African universities, the Ghana Institute of Public Management and Administration (GIMPA) and Particip (Germany). This made it possible to expand the project and in the end 15 researched case studies were completed on a range of typical public administration challenges in the broader context of Africa.
Considering the substantial scholarly contribution of these case studies, the NSG, with support from the EU, is publishing them as a collection in a scholarly work which will be equally of relevance to subject specialists, practising public officials and all of those interested in public affairs.
We envisage that this book will make a really meaningful contribution to case-study research in the African context, and so unrestricted access to it is critical. For this reason, in addition to the printed edition, the book will also be available as an e-book.
The book’s 15 case studies report on typical challenges in public administration in South Africa and Ghana by looking at:
The Disastrous Gauteng Mental Health Marathon Project
Child Support, School Nutrition And Feeding Programmes In South Africa And Ghana
Governance And Accountability In Securing A Service-Provider To Pay Social Grants
Financial Governance Challenges In South African Municipalities
Problems With Wastewater In Emfuleni And With Providing Public Toilets In Ghana
Access To Higher Education And Sustainable Risk Management At A Technical And Vocational Education And Training (TVET) College In South Africa
Implementing Monitoring And Evaluation Frameworks And Social Innovation In South African Municipalities
Employment Equity In The South African Police Service
Employee Health And Wellness In The Kwazulu-Natal Provincial Administration.
Public Administration Challenges: Cases from Africa makes an original contribution to public administration scholarship. It can aid public servants in mastering statecraft and can enhance the skills and expertise needed to serve the public efficiently and professionally.
Contents page:
INTRODUCTION
Ch. 1: Case studies as an approach to challenges in public administration
PART 1: CARING AND PROTECTING
Ch. 2: The management of a policy implementation project: The disastrous Gauteng Mental Health Marathon Project
Ch. 3: A policy instrument to relieve child poverty: The case of the child support grant in South Africa
Ch. 4: Implementation of a national school nutrition programme:The case of selected South African schools
Ch. 5: The political-administrative interface and unintended consequences of public policy: The case of the Ghana School Feeding Programme
PART 2: PROMOTING QUALITY OF LIFE
Ch. 6: Perspectives from below on Emfuleni’s wastewater woes: In search of resolving a wicked problem
Ch. 7: Democratic governance and development: The case of public toilet provision in district communities in Ghana
Ch. 8: A rapid change in public policy: The case of access to higher education in South Africa
Ch. 9: Social innovation to enhance service delivery by local government: The case of the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality
PART 3: ENABLE FOR SUCCESS
Ch. 10: Governance and accountability in public-sector procurement: The case of procuring a service-provider for social grant payments
Ch. 11: Co-operative financial governance: A case study of the distressed Mpofana Local Municipality in South Africa
Ch. 12: Sustained poor audit outcomes: The case of the Amathole District Municipality
Ch. 13: Employment equity and an improved quality of life: The case of a white woman and the South African Police Service
Ch. 14: Supervisor training as antecedent to employee health and wellness programmes: The case of the Provincial Administration of KwaZulu-Natal
Ch. 15: Sustainable risk management in the TVET sector: The case of a typical college
Ch. 16: Implementing monitoring and evaluation at local government level: The case of a South African district municipality
PART 4: RESEARCH-INFORMED PRACTICE
Ch. 17: Researched cases: Authentic scenarios as a way of learning for public administrators
Index
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Public Policy
: Why ethics matters
Publisher: ANU Press
Year of publication: 2010
This book brings together original contributions from leading scholars and practitioners with expertise in various academic disciplines, including economics, philosophy, physics, political science, public policy and theology. The volume addresses three main issues: fist, the ethical considerations that should inform the conduct of public officials and the task of policy analysis; second, the ethics of climate change; and third, ethics and economic policy. While the contributors have varying views on these important issues, they share a common conviction that the ethical dimensions of public policy need to be better understood and given proper attention in the policy-making process.
Contents page:
1. Ethics and public policy
Part I: Ethical foundations of public policy
2. Justice, humanity, and prudence
3. Doing ethical policy analysis
4. The public servant as analyst, adviser, and advocate
5. Be careful what you wish for
Part II: Ethics of climate change
6. The most important thing about climate change
7. Recognising ethics to help a constructive climate change debate
8. Sharing the responsibility of dealing with climate change: Interpreting the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities
9. Virtue and the commons
Part III: Perspectives on ethics and the economy
10. Tackling economic inequality
11. Is ethics important for economic growth?
12. Regulation of financial markets: Panics, moral hazard, and the long-term good
13. An alternative reply to the free-rider objection against unconditional citizenship grants
References
=====================================================================================================
Public Procurement
: Theory, Practices and Tools
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year of publication: 2023
FREE DOWNLOAD: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18490-1
This upper-level open access textbook uses an interdisciplinary perspective to discuss the ‘what and why’ of public procurement, providing insight into the ‘how’ of contemporary procurement in the public sector. The authors use theories and exemplary practices to show the next generation of public procurement professionals how public value can be created via the acquisition of works, supplies, or services by organizations operating in the public domain.
Perfectly tailored to university students in public administration, law, economics, or management and those in executive education, the book first describes and explains the public procurement process, the concept of public value, the legal context of procurement and how the procurement function is organized in public organizations. The book subsequently explains how a procurement policy can be developed and translated into a procurement strategy, how tenders can be organized, suppliers selected, and contracts designed and evaluated. A final discussion chapter addresses the changes and developments in public procurement and how public procurement is moving forward. The reader of this innovative and accessible book will therefore not only learn what public procurement entails, but also how they can become a professional change agent in the field of public procurement.
Forward-thinking and comprehensive, this book offers ideal reading for anyone interested in public procurement.
Contents page:
Introducing Public Procurement
Public Values in Procurement
Public Procurement Law in the European Union
Organizing Public Procurement
Public Procurement Policy and Purchasing Strategy
Tendering and Supplier Selection
Public Sector Contracting
Ways Forward in Public Procurement
Reviews:
"Those of us who concentrate on public management and organizational analysis need to be well-informed about public procurement, a crucially important topic in contemporary government. Jolien Grandia’s and Leentje Volker’s and their colleagues’ Public Procurement – Theories, Practices and Tools provides a valuable resource for those of us who want to enhance our understanding of the topic. It can serve as an effective supplemental reading in courses on public management and many related topics. The authors provide multidisciplinary expertise, including specific practical guidance along with concepts and frameworks that support broader systematic and strategic thinking about procurement."
- Hal G. Rainey, Alumni Foundation Distinguished Professor Emeritus, The University of Georgia
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Reaching the Potential for the Digital Economy in Africa
: Digital Tools for Better Governance
Publisher: World Bank
Year of publication: 2023
That digital technologies can be tools for better governance is widely accepted - the degree to which they can meet their potential in Africa in the near future is an open question. Are the countries in Africa caught in a trap with digital progress limited by the very governance problems that such technologies could address? Or have they already progressed with large leaps forward? What are the factors that limit progress from being even faster?
This study examines the progress and challenges in establishing the analog foundations for the use of digital technologies for better governance in Africa, and the degree of implementation of those GovTech tools. It covers the use of digital tools for providing information to the public, for streamlining the provision of government services including those related to taxation and business and land registration, courts and one-stop shops, digital identification systems, and interoperability between systems. The report similarly covers the use of digital tools for strengthening participation in policy making, accountability systems including grievance redress, and anticorruption. Finally, the report examines the adoption of electronic government procurement (eGP), as well as the procurement of IT systems by governments. The report concludes with recommendations for reaching the potential for the use of digital tools for better governance in Africa.
Contents page:
1. Introduction
Africa’s governance challenge
Can digitization help?
Data and stories
Roadmap for the report
2. Progress in the adoption of digital tools and complements for better governance
Digital adoption by government and its impact on good governance
Laying the foundation of digital infrastructure, institutions, and other analog complements
Chapter summary: Progress in digital adoption shows results, but they are hampered by weaknesses in analog complements and institutions
3. Governance risks in public procurement of ICT solutions
Understanding the governance risks in ICT procurement
Minimizing governance risks in ICT procurement
Chapter summary: Governance risks are large but manageable
4. Digital tools for providing information to the public
Online provision of information by government
Online publication of budget documents
Online publication of laws and regulations
Chapter summary: Digital tools are often used to provide information, but details and institutional foundations are lacking
5. Digital tools for streamlining the provision of government services and supporting efficiency
E-government procurement
Digital tools for filing and paying taxes
Digital land registration systems
E-services for business registration
E-court systems
One-stop-shops for digital services and payments
Digital identification systems
Interoperable government systems and data infrastructure
Chapter summary: Basic functions can be found, but transactional features are rare
6. Digital tools for strengthening participation, accountability, and anticorruption
Digital tools for public participation in policy making
Digital tools for citizen feedback on services and projects
Digital tools for reporting and detecting corruption
Chapter summary: Countries are just scratching the surface on digital tools for participation, accountability, and anticorruption
7. Summary of main findings
Index
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Reforming the Public Administration in South Africa
: A Path to Professionalisation
Publisher: Siber Ink
Year of publication: 2021
FREE DOWNLOAD:
FREE DOWNLOAD:
This short book analyses three distinct and key features of the state:
the system of appointment and removal in the public service and municipalities,
high-level appointments and removals within the criminal justice sector, and
public procurement.
A state’s politics and its capacities are constituted in important ways by how it fills its public administrative offices (including its prosecution service) and purchases its necessities. The book, considering outcomes in South Africa, advocates for specific reforms in each area. It argues that the timely consideration and adoption of reforms along these lines is an urgent task.
With that in mind, the book has been written chiefly for two audiences: both for activists keen to build a state which can play its role in advancing the progressive transformation of South African society, and for scholars who are interested in understanding the character and possibilities of the evolving South African public administration.
======================================================================================================
Running to Stand Still
: Politics and Path Dependency in South Africa’s Municipal Electricity Sector
(author: Theo Covary)
Publisher: Unlimited Energy (Pty) Ltd
Year of publication: 2021
The electricity supply crisis that gripped South Africa in 2007 impacted heavily on economic productivity, political stability, and every citizen.
To date, all attempts to understand how the country’s Electricity Supply Industry (ESI) has evolved focus narrowly on Eskom. This approach has become increasingly limited over the last 15 years as the national utility continues to spiral deeper into operational failure. Yet, commentators and analysts have paid little attention to Municipal Electricity Undertakings (MEUs) – the utilities responsible for distributing electricity at municipal level – which started operating two decades before Eskom was formed in 1923.
Through a detailed historical account, Running to Stand Still shows how MEUs have contributed to the country’s broader ESI. The book disentangles the complex linkages that have developed between Eskom, MEUs, and the three spheres of government. In doing so, it examines two fundamental but diametrically opposed government objectives. First, the ideal of having financially self-sufficient municipalities that in reality are over-burdened and have to rely heavily on revenue from electricity distribution to cross-subsidise their operations. And second, to have a national utility that generates electricity at the lowest cost to provide the country’s energy-intensive economy with a competitive advantage.
These path-dependent practices have endured for more than a century and have cemented institutional lock-in that blocks much-needed sectoral reform. This is aptly demonstrated through the case study of the country’s most powerful financial centre and largest MEU, Johannesburg, which is currently in a state of crisis.
================================================================================
State, governance and development in Africa
Publisher: UCT Press
Year of publication: 2016
The inspiration for this book was a Summer School on State, Governance and Development presented by distinguished academics from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. Written by young African scholars, the chapters here focus on state, governance and development in Africa as seen from the authors’ vantage points and positions in different sectors of society.
The book opens with three forewords by eminent African scholars – Ben Turok, Johan Burger and Mohamed Halfani. The chapters that follow examine rent-seeking, patronage, neopatrimonialism and bad governance. They engage with statehood, state-building and statecraft and challenge the mainstream opinions of donors, funders, development banks, international non-governmental organisations and development organisations. They include the role of China in Africa, Kenya’s changing demographics, state accountability in South Africa’s dominant party system, Somalia’s prospects for state-building, urban development and routine violence, and resource mobilisation.
At a time in which core institutions are being tested – the market, the rule of law, democracy, civil society and representative democracy – this book offers a much-needed multi- and inter-disciplinary perspective, and a different narrative on what is unfolding, while also exposing dynamics that are often overlooked.
Summary of Contents page:
pt. 1. Contemporary statecraft and state engineering.
Overview.
The state, governance and the political settlement: To walk questioningly and to make the road while walking
China in Africa: Quo vadis governance?
Governance, aid and institutional traps
pt. 2. Government, governance and party systems in Africa.
Overview.
Changing demographics: Is Kenya's political stability guaranteed?
Public participation in South Africa: Strengthening state accountability in a dominant party system
pt. 3. Governance, policy reform and institution-building.
Overview.
The Somali question and prospects for state-building
Landscapes of terror: Cityness, routine violence and urban development
pt. 4. Governance, resource mobilisation and financing.
Overview.
Mining in Malawi: Another missed opportunity?
Green economy, realpolitik and resource mobilisation in Rwanda, Mozambique and South Africa
=================================================================================
Theories and Stories in African Public Administration
Publisher: African Studies Centre / University of Groningen / Mzumbe University
Year of publication: 2011
Public administration in developing countries is administration in transformation. The main concepts that guide this transformation are universal. Yet those concepts are most often presented in Western literature, embedded in Western administrative practice. This book provides an overview of these main concepts seen from a different angle: an African perspective. The general concepts of the study of public administration and public management are illustrated with sub-Saharan African stories, written by Tanzanian scholars. This introductory book can be used to learn and to teach the basic concepts of public administration and public management and aims to prepare the students for the administrative realities they face in their society.
Contents:
1. Theories & Stories in African Public Administration: Introduction
PART I THE ESSENCE OF PUBLIC POLICY
2. Collective Action
3. Good Governance
4. Developing Public Policy
5. Implementation of Policy
6. Community Participation
7. Symbolic Legislation
PART II INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
8. Dynamics of Stakeholders Perspective
9. Professionalism
10. Intergovernmental Relations
PART III PUBLIC MANAGEMENT AND PUBLIC ORGANISATIONS
11. Staffing
12. Leadership
13. E-Government and E-Governance
PART IV NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT
14. Public-Private Partnership in Social Service Provision
15. Rent-Seeking Behaviour and the Organisation of Utilities
===============================================================================
Toward a Culture of Consequences
: Performance-Based Accountability Systems for Public Services
Publisher: RAND Corporation
Year of publication: 2010
FREE DOWNLOAD: https://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG1019.html
Performance-based accountability systems (PBASs), which link incentives to measured performance as a means of improving services to the public, have gained popularity. While PBASs can vary widely across sectors, they share three main components: goals, incentives, and measures. Research suggests that PBASs influence provider behaviors, but little is known about PBAS effectiveness at achieving performance goals or about government and agency experiences.
This study examines nine PBASs that are drawn from five sectors: child care, education, health care, public health emergency preparedness, and transportation. In the right circumstances, a PBAS can be an effective strategy for improving service delivery. Optimum circumstances include having a widely shared goal, unambiguous observable measures, meaningful incentives for those with control over the relevant inputs and processes, few competing interests, and adequate resources to design, implement, and operate the PBAS. However, these conditions are rarely fully realized, so it is difficult to design and implement PBASs that are uniformly effective.
PBASs represent a promising policy option for improving the quality of service-delivery activities in many contexts. The evidence supports continued experimentation with and adoption of this approach in appropriate circumstances. Even so, PBAS design and its prospects for success depend on the context in which the system will operate. Also, ongoing system evaluation and monitoring are integral components of a PBAS; they inform refinements that improve system functioning over time.
From the Preface:
The monograph is directed toward decisionmakers charged with designing PBASs for public services—typically, committees consisting of government agency directors, consultants, service providers, and researchers—who want to know how to develop and implement a system effectively. It should also be of interest to policymakers and their staffs who are charged with deciding whether to adopt a PBAS and why and how to evaluate one.
Copyright note:
This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited; linking directly to this product page is encouraged. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial purposes. For information on reprint and reuse permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Using Evidence in Policy and Practice
: Lessons from Africa
Publisher: Routledge
Year of publication: 2020
This book asks how governments in Africa can use evidence to improve their policies and programmes, and ultimately, to achieve positive change for their citizens. Looking at different evidence sources across a range of contexts, the book brings policy makers and researchers together to uncover what does and doesn’t work and why.
Case studies are drawn from five countries and the ECOWAS (west African) region, and a range of sectors from education, wildlife, sanitation, through to government procurement processes. The book is supported by a range of policy briefs and videos intended to be both practical and critically rigorous. It uses evidence sources such as evaluations, research synthesis and citizen engagement to show how these cases succeeded in informing policy and practice. The voices of policy makers are key to the book, ensuring that the examples deployed are useful to practitioners and researchers alike.
This innovative book will be perfect for policy makers, practitioners in government and civil society, and researchers and academics with an interest in how evidence can be used to support policy making in Africa.
====================================================================================================
Wicked Problems in Public Policy
: Understanding and Responding to Complex Challenges
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year of publication: 2022
This book offers the first overview of the ‘wicked problems’ literature, often seen as complex, open-ended, and intractable, with both the nature of the ‘problem’ and the preferred ‘solution’ being strongly contested. It contextualises the debate using a wide range of relevant policy examples, explaining why these issues attract so much attention.
There is an increasing interest in the conceptual and practical aspects of how ‘wicked problems’ are identified, understood and managed by policy practitioners. The standard public management responses to complexity and uncertainty (including traditional regulation and market-based solutions) are insufficient. Leaders often advocate and implement ideological ‘quick fixes’, but integrative and inclusive responses are increasingly being utilised to recognise the multiple interests and complex causes of these problems. This book uses examples from a wide range of social, economic and environmental fields in order to develop new insights about better solutions, and thus gain broad stakeholder acceptance for shared strategies for tackling ‘wicked problems’.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Debates in Public Policy—Problem Framing, Knowledge and Interests
The Rise of ‘Wicked Problems’—Uncertainty, Complexity and Divergence
Political Governance of Wicked Problems
Complexity, Crises and Coping Strategies
Managing Environmental and Sustainability Challenges
Improving Social Well-Being and Social Equity
Policy Innovation in Turbulent Times
===============================================================================
APPROVAL DISCLAIMER:
Views and sources provided on/through this site do not necessarily reflect views or policy of the Free State Department of Sport, Arts, Culture & Recreation (DSACR). Any link to other information or resources does not necessarily represent approval by the DSACR of that source, nor does it represent a promotion of that information or organisation.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse