Leading scholars in the field of governance examine the effectiveness of the different non-institutional strategies at the disposal of modern governments in tackling issues of urban decline, public administrations, governmental regionalization, budget deficits, and global economics.

Leading scholars in the field of governance examine the effectiveness of the different non-institutional strategies at the disposal of modern governments in tackling issues of urban decline, public administrations, governmental regionalization, budget deficits, and global economics.

These essays explore the utility of thinking about public-private partnerships for local economic development. A theoretical examination of theories of governance, institutions and policy instruments is supplemented by empirical analysis and comparisons of their operation in the United Kingdom, Sweden and the United States in the context of debates about the 'limits of politics' and dependence on the institutions of civil society.

Administrative reform in most western democracies over the years has been characterized by bringing in market-based concepts of public-service delivery. This book looks at administrative reform in a comparative perspective. It assesses its scope and objectives, and the impact of reforms, on traditional roles of elective office and civil servants.

One of the persistent claims made about the public sector over the past several decades has been that the public service has become more politicized. Addressing this important area of debate within public administration, this book discusses conceptions and measurements of politicization, as well as some of its causes and consequences. Using a comparative framework, the authors collected here confront the issue of politicization, identifying the nature and extent of political involvement and assessing the real impact of any changes on the legitimacy and effectiveness of the political system....

"The new handbook by Peters and Pierre provides an invaluable addition to the literature. It offers new scholars and practitioners a means to navigate many of the complex theoretical and practical issues in contemporary policy analysis"
- Mark Considine, University of Melbourne

The public policies of governments affect the lives and livelihoods of citizens every day in every country around the world. This Handbook provides a comprehensive review and guide to the study, theory and practice of public policy today.

• Section One, Making Policy, introduces...

Western societies are becoming increasingly complex and challenging to govern, yet the modern state continues to play a central role in governance. This book presents a detailed analysis of the challenges confronting the contemporary state and the processes through which the state addresses those challenges. The notion of 'governing without government' is critiqued; instead, Pierre and Peters argue that what is happening a more a matter of state transformation than state decline.

This broad ranging new text analyses the emerging shape of urban politics in the twenty-first century. The author identifies 4 main "models" of urban governance--"management," "Corporatist." "Pro-Growth" and "Welfare"--and assesses their different implications for the major issues, interests and problems in the contemporary urban arena.

Institutionalism has become one of the dominant strands of theory within contemporary political science. Beginning with the challenge to behavioural and rational choice theory issued by March and Olsen, institutional analysis has developed into an important alternative to more individualistic approaches to theory and analysis. This body of theory has developed in a number of ways, and perhaps the most commonly applied version in political science is historical institutionalism that stresses the importance of path dependency in shaping institutional behaviour.
The fundamental question...

The term 'governance' has become one of the most widely used in debates in Political Science, Public Policy and International Relations - often to mean very different things. Written by two leading political scientists, Governance, Politics and the State is the first systematic introduction to its nature, meaning and significance. Its central concern is with how societies are being, and can be, steered in an increasingly complex world where states must increasingly interact with and influence other actors and institutions to achieve results.