Based on two years of unprecedented access to the inner workings of Whitehall, this book by a leading team of scholars examines the army of inspectors, auditors, grievance-chasers and other bodies devoted to oversight of public organisations while documenting their remarkable growth over the last two decades.
Based on two years of unprecedented access to the inner workings of Whitehall, this book by a leading team of scholars examines the army of inspectors...
Why does regulation vary so dramatically from one area to another? Why are vast sums spent on controlling some risks but not on others? Is there any logic to the techniques we use in risk regulation? In this work, Hood explores these crucial questions explored. It looks at a number of risk regulations' regimes, considers the respects in which they differ, and examines how these differences can be justified.
Why does regulation vary so dramatically from one area to another? Why are vast sums spent on controlling some risks but not on others? Is there any l...
Providing a novel, analytical perspective on executive government, this timely book examines recent public sector reform policies in a number of countries. The book exposes key dimensions of the relationship between public servants and the wider political system, examining both the formalized and the implicit understandings between the two.
Providing a novel, analytical perspective on executive government, this timely book examines recent public sector reform policies in a number of count...
Why does regulation vary so dramatically from one area to another? Why are vast sums spent on controlling some risks but not on others? Is there any logic to the techniques we use in risk regulation? In this work, Hood explores these crucial questions explored. It looks at a number of risk regulations' regimes, considers the respects in which they differ, and examines how these differences can be justified.
Why does regulation vary so dramatically from one area to another? Why are vast sums spent on controlling some risks but not on others? Is there any l...
Much has been written on telecommunications regulation, but little has been written on the actual processes used in regulation. Using access to the key actors inside the UK Office of Telecommunications (Oftel). This text explains how telecommunications regulation works on the inside. It provides an insight into the dynamic process of regulation in the United Kingdom - a pioneer in the development of regulatory institutions and practices and includes a re-evaluation of key regulatory issues including: the importance of culture in the decision-making process; the role of information in...
Much has been written on telecommunications regulation, but little has been written on the actual processes used in regulation. Using access to the ke...
Bureaucratic cutbacks are in the air all over the world. Many people appear sure that taxes are too high and that there are too many bureaucrats. The British government under Margaret Thatcher is generally seen as having been most successful in this regard, particularly on staff reduction. Between 1976 and 1985 there was a drop of nearly 20 per cent, from three-quarters of a million to fewer than 600,000 civil servants in the United Kingdom central government. How were these cutbacks implemented? Did certain civil servants and policy programmes take the brunt, or was the misery shared...
Bureaucratic cutbacks are in the air all over the world. Many people appear sure that taxes are too high and that there are too many bureaucrats. The ...
This book explores the unintended and unanticipated effects associated with 'modernization' projects and tackles the key question that they provoke - why do policy-makers persist in such enterprises in the face of evidence that they tend to fail? Paradoxes of Modernization first discusses what is meant by 'modernization' and 'unintended consequences', placing public policy reform within more general intellectual and social trends. It presents eight case study 'modernization' projects. Their architects promised faster trains, a more efficient and reactive health service, a more motivated...
This book explores the unintended and unanticipated effects associated with 'modernization' projects and tackles the key question that they provoke - ...
Just as the sinking of the Titanic is embedded in the public consciousness in the English-speaking world, so the crash of JAL flight JL123 is part of the Japanese collective memory. The 1985 crash involved the largest loss of life for any single air crash in the world. 520 people, many of whom had been returning to their ancestral home for the Obon religious festival, were killed; there were only four survivors.
This book tells the story of the crash, discusses the many controversial issues surrounding it, and considers why it has come to have such importance for many Japanese. It shows...
Just as the sinking of the Titanic is embedded in the public consciousness in the English-speaking world, so the crash of JAL flight JL123 is part ...
The blame game, with its finger-pointing and mutual buck-passing, is a familiar feature of politics and organizational life, and blame avoidance pervades government and public organizations at every level. Political and bureaucratic blame games and blame avoidance are more often condemned than analyzed. In The Blame Game, Christopher Hood takes a different approach by showing how blame avoidance shapes the workings of government and public services. Arguing that the blaming phenomenon is not all bad, Hood demonstrates that it can actually help to pin down responsibility, and he...
The blame game, with its finger-pointing and mutual buck-passing, is a familiar feature of politics and organizational life, and blame avoidance pe...
Forging a Discipline analyses the growth of the academic discipline of politics and international relations at Oxford University over the last hundred years. This century marked the maturation and professionalization of social science disciplines such as political science, economics, and sociology in the world's leading universities. The Oxford story of teaching and research in politics provides one case study of this transformation, and the contributors aim to use its specifics better to understand this general process. In their introductory and concluding chapters the Editors argue that...
Forging a Discipline analyses the growth of the academic discipline of politics and international relations at Oxford University over the last hundred...