This unique book enhances our understanding of the links between professions, the state and the market - and their implications for the public in terms of professional practice. In so doing, the book adopts a neo-Weberian perspective, in which professions are seen as a form of exclusionary social closure based on legal boundaries established by the state.

To illustrate the overarching theme, the book considers how healthcare in general, and medicine in particular as a form of professional work, is organized in public and private arenas in three societies with different...

In recent years, the search for innovative, locally relevant and engaging public service has become the new philosophers' stone. Social procurement represents one approach to maximising public spending and social value through the purchase of goods and services. It has gained increasing attention in recent years as a way that governments and corporations can amplify the benefits of their purchasing power, and as a mechanism by which markets for social enterprise and other third sector organisations can be grown.

Despite growing policy and practitioner interest in social procurement,...

• Jenny Lewis is Professor of Public Policy at the University of Melbourne, Australia
• Lykke Ricard is Assistant Professor at The Department of Society and Globalisation, Democratic Network Governance, Roskilde University, Denmark
• Erik-Hans Klijn is Professor at the School of Social Sciences, Erasmus, University, The Netherlands
• Tamyko Ysa Figueras is Associate Professor, Department of Strategy and General Management in ESADE Business School, Spain

This is a book about the modernization of public governance and the development of strategic states. It focuses on six Gulf countries (United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait) and presents research findings from quantitative data analysis and comparative analysis of the trends and developments of the six Gulf states.

The book analyses the workings of the governments of the Gulf States, including the way that they have tackled national development since the mid 1990s. This includes how their strategies for economic diversification have been...

Theory and Practice of Public Sector Reform offers readers differing theoretical perspectives to help examine the process of public sector reform, combined with an overview of major trends in the core areas of the functioning of the public sector. The book consists of three parts, the first addresses a number of conceptual and theoretical perspectives on public sector reform. It shows how different ways of looking at reform reveal very different things. The second part addresses major changes in specific areas of public sectors 'objects of reform. Part three focuses on the study of public...

Has there been a transformation of public service employment relations in Europe since the crisis? "Public Service Management and Employment Relations in Europe" examines public service employment relations after the economic crisis, including analysis of more than thirty years of public service and workforce reform, and addresses the interplay between an emerging post-crisis public service sector and the consequences for the state, employers and trade unions in core public services.

Written by leading national experts, this book places the economic crisis in a longer timeframe and...

In order to address major social policy problems, governments need to break down sectoral barriers and create better working relationships between practitioners, policymakers and researchers. Currently, major blockages exist, and stereotypes abound. Academics are seen as out-of-touch and unresponsive, policymakers are perceived to be justifying policy decisions, and the community sector seeks more funding without demonstrating efficacy. These stereotypes are born out of a lack of understanding of the work and practices that exist across these three sectors.

Drawing on...

Ethics Management in the Public Service offers a new perspective for ethics management in the Public Administration. The traditional approaches, relying on codified rules, regulations, and guidelines, have not yielded the results expected of them and have not managed to serve as an effective tool in the hands of public administrators struggling with ethical and moral questions. Unlike Code-based training strategies, focusing on the written word and its application in real-life situations, the authors introduce a sensory-based strategy to sharpen public administrators senses. This...

As policymakers and scholars evaluate possible ways forward in the reform and renewal of public services by governments caught up in a recessionary environment, this book aims to offer something different a comprehensive analysis of the development of the Scandinavian way of modernizing public-sector management. No book has yet provided an inside view of the development and character of New Public Management (NPM) in Scandinavia. Although there is a general perception that there is a clear-cut Scandinavian model of public policy and management, this book offers a more nuanced...