Global Dimensions of Public Administration and Governance

Praise for GLOBAL DIMENSIONS of PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND GOVERNANCE This book offers an effective GPS for our complex maps of public administration and governance. Raadschelders and Vigoda-Gadot show us where and why we are now (roots, culture, traditional activities), where we could go (modern government, state making, and nation building), and how to do so (development of governance, visions for practice). With this book, we are not on a 'lonely planet' but in the company of excellent guides in a complex world of different countries, organizations, and policies. -Geert Bouckaert, Professor, KU Leuven; President, International Institute of Administrative Sciences Professors Raadschelders and Vigoda-Gadot, leading scholars with particularly well-developed international perspectives, provide a genuinely valuable resource for understanding the globalization that increasingly infuses the theory and practice of public administration and public policy. Moving across 33 nations, they analyze the similar challenges that nations face in advancing public policies, but also the differences in the ways they address those challenges. -Hal G. Rainey, Alumni Foundation Distinguished Professor, School of Public and International Affairs, The University of Georgia This is a necessary policy and administration tour for public administrators who are dedicated to delivering public services as promised in the founding documents of hundreds of nation states and millions of their component units of government. Raadschelders and Vigoda-Gadot have written a path-breaking volume that is a vital guide for all public sector stakeholders in a globalized society. The authors distill theory and clarify practice in an effective style that makes the book all the more valuable. If it were required reading across the curriculum, if all practitioners of governance kept it at the ready, then the efficacy and performance of public organizations would help rebuild trust in our most basic institutions. -Dean Marc Holzer, PhD, Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of Public Affairs and Administration, Rutgers University-Newark This is the first compendium about comparative politics, administration, and policy truly written for a globalized world. The emphasis is on seeking out both commonalities in institutional structures that appear repeatedly and also on differences emerging from variations in history and culture. Material does not just come from the 'usual suspect' countries, but includes discussions from Laos, Romania, and Columbia, as well as considerable material on China. This book will be read with profit by a wide audience. -Steve Kelman, Weatherhead Professor of Public Management, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University