Routledge Critical Studies in Public Management
About the Book Series
The study and practice of public management has undergone profound changes across the world. Over the last quarter century, we have seen
- the increasing criticism of public administration as the over-arching framework for the provision of public services
- the rise (and critical appraisal) of the ‘New Public Management’ as an emergent paradigm for the provision of public services
- the transformation of the ‘public sector’ into the cross-sectoral provision of public services
- the growth of the governance of inter-organizational relationships as an essential element in the provision of public services
In reality these trends have not so much replaced each other as elided or co-existed together – the public policy process has not gone away as a legitimate topic of study, intra-organizational management continues to be essential to the efficient provision of public services, whist the governance of inter-organizational and inter-sectoral relationships is now essential to the effective provision of these services.
This series is dedicated to presenting and critiquing this important body of theory and empirical study. It will publish books that both explore and evaluate the emergent and developing nature of public administration, management and governance (in theory and practice) and examine the relationship with and contribution to the over-arching disciplines of management and organizational sociology. Books in the series will be of interest to academics and researchers in this field, students undertaking advanced studies, and reflective policy makers and practitioners.
Visual Culture and Public Policy: Towards a visual polity?
1st Edition
By Victor Bekkers, Rebecca Moody
March 29, 2018
Traditionally, images have played an important role in politics and policy making, mostly in relation to propaganda and public communication. However, contemporary society is inundated with visual material due to the increasing ubiquity of media and visual technologies that facilitate the ...
Governance and Public Management: Strategic Foundations for Volatile Times
1st Edition
Edited
By Charles Conteh, Thomas J. Greitens, David K. Jesuit, Ian Roberge
January 22, 2018
The key difference between success and failure for most governance systems is adaptation, specifically the ability to resolve the existing social, cultural, economic and environmental challenges that constrain adaptation. Local, regional and national systems differ in how they are designed to ...
Making Public Policy Decisions: Expertise, skills and experience
1st Edition
Edited
By Damon Alexander, Jenny Lewis
April 10, 2017
To understand public policy decisions, it is imperative to understand the capacities of the individual actors who are making them, how they think and feel about their role, and what drives and motivates them. However, the current literature takes little account of this, preferring instead to frame ...
Critical Leadership: Leader-Follower Dynamics in a Public Organization
1st Edition
By Paul Evans, John Hassard, Paula Hyde
February 10, 2017
Critical approaches to leadership studies have sought to challenge the normative position of leadership as residing solely within the formal leader and have gone as far as to undermine the traditionally held assumption of leadership as a "real" phenomenon. The book offers a critical account of the...
Public Policy beyond the Financial Crisis: An International Comparative Study
1st Edition
By Philip Haynes
August 03, 2016
The economic crisis of 2008-2009 and beyond has provided the greatest challenge to public policy in the developed world since the Second World War, as the use of public monies to support banks and declining tax revenues have resulted in rising government borrowing and national debt. This book ...
Public Service Efficiency: Reframing the Debate
1st Edition
By Rhys Andrews, Tom Entwistle
August 03, 2016
The current economic and political climate places ever greater pressure on public organizations to deliver services in a cost-efficient way. Focused on the costs of service delivery, governments across the world have introduced a series of business like practices – from performance management to ...
Rethinking Public-Private Partnerships: Strategies for Turbulent Times
1st Edition
Edited
By Carsten Greve, Graeme Hodge
August 03, 2016
The global financial crisis hit the world in a remarkable way in late 2008. Many governments and private sector organizations, who had considered Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) to be their future, were forced to rethink their strategy in the wake of the crisis, as a lot of the available private...
Public Innovation through Collaboration and Design
1st Edition
Edited
By Christopher Ansell, Jacob Torfing
July 12, 2016
While innovation has long been a major topic of research and scholarly interest for the private sector, it is still an emerging theme in the field of public management. While ‘results-oriented’ public management may be here to stay, scholars and practitioners are now shifting their attention to the...
Making Public Services Management Critical
1st Edition
Edited
By Graeme Currie, Jackie Ford, Nancy Harding, Mark Learmonth
September 03, 2015
This book brings together public services policy and public services management in a novel way that is likely to resonate with academics, policy makers and practitioners engaged in the organization of public services delivery as it is from a perspective that challenges many received ideas in ...
New Public Governance, the Third Sector, and Co-Production
1st Edition
Edited
By Victor Pestoff, Taco Brandsen, Bram Verschuere
July 22, 2015
In recent years public management research in a variety of disciplines has paid increasing attention to the role of citizens and the third sector in the provision of public services. Several of these efforts have employed the concept of co-production to better understand and explain this trend. ...
Branding in Governance and Public Management
1st Edition
By Jasper Eshuis, E.H. Klijn
November 13, 2012
Politicians and public managers utilize branding to communicate with the public as well as to position themselves within the ever-present media now so central to political and administrative life. They must further contend with stakeholders holding contradictory opinions about the nature of a ...
Public Management and Complexity Theory: Richer Decision-Making in Public Services
1st Edition
By Mary Lee Rhodes, Joanne Murphy, Jenny Muir, John Murray
July 11, 2012
That public services exhibit unpredictability, novelty and, on occasion, chaos, is an observation with which even a casual observer would agree. Existing theoretical frameworks in public management fail to address these features, relying more heavily on attempts to eliminate unpredictability ...