Download or read book Structural Reform in Japan written by Eisuke Sakakibara and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this candid book, Japan's former top financial diplomat asserts the urgent need for wholesale structural reform to revitalize the long-stagnant Japanese economy. Eisuke Sakakibara, whose influence over global currency markets earned him the nickname of Mr. Yen, envisions a social and economic revolution that encompasses all sectors of Japanese society. Sakakibara. Profitable investment opportunities are hard to find in the dysfunctional corporate sector, where costs are high and earnings continue to decline. The country's entrenched power elite - the Liberal Democratic Party, the bureaucracy, and vested interest groups - are threatened by reform efforts. It will be difficult to restore economic health to Japan until its political leaders are able to break the grip of this iron triangle and implement aggressive, widespread reforms.

Download or read book The Politics of Structural Education Reform written by Keith A. Nitta and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-01-07 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Education policymaking is traditionally seen as a domestic political process. The job of deciding where students will be educated, what they will be taught, who will teach them, and how it will be paid for clearly rests with some mix of district, state, and national policymakers. This book seeks to show how global trends have produced similar changes to very different educational systems in the United States and Japan. Despite different historical development, social norms, and institutional structures, the U.S. and Japanese education systems have been restructured over the past dozen years, not just incrementally but in ways that have transformed traditional power arrangements. Based on 124 interviews, this book examines two restructuring episodes in U.S. education and two restructuring episodes in Japanese education. The four episodes reveal a similar politics of structural education reform that is driven by symbolic action and bureaucratic turf wars, which has ultimately hindered educational improvement in both countries.

Download or read book Urban Reform and Its Consequences written by Susan Welch and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1988 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout this century, reformers have fought to eliminate party control of city politics. As a result, the majority of American cities today elect council members in at-large and nonpartisan elections. This result of the turn-of-the-century Progressive movement, which worked for election rules that eliminated the power of the urban machine and the working class on which it was based, is today still a subject of lively debate. For example, in the mid-1980s, regular Democrats in Chicago sought to institute a nonpartisan mayoral election. Supporters thought that reform would make the electoral process more democratic, while opponents charged that it was meant to dilute the voting powers of blacks. Clearly, the effect of urban reform remains an important issue for scholars and politicians alike. Susan Welch and Timothy Bledsoe clarify a portion of the debate by investigating how election structures affect candidates and the nature of representation. They examine the different effects of district versus at-large elections and of partisan versus nonpartisan elections. Who gets elected? Are representatives' socioeconomic status and party affiliation related to election form? Are election structures related to how those who are elected approach their jobs? Do they see themselves as representatives concerned with the good of the city as a whole? Urban Reform and Its Consequences reports an unprecedented wealth of data drawn from a sample of nearly 1,000 council members and communities with populations between 50,000 and 1 million across 42 states. The sample includes communities that use a variety of election procedures. This study is therefore the most comprehensive and accurate to date. Welch and Bledsoe conclude that nonpartisan and at-large elections do give city councils a more middle- and upper-middle-class character and have changed the way representatives view their jobs. Reform measures have not, however, produced councils that are significantly more conservative or more prone to conflict. Overall, the authors conclude that partisan and district elections are more likely to represent the whole community and to make the council more accountable to the electorate.

Download or read book Education Governance for the Twenty First Century written by Paul Manna and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013-01-03 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Brookings Institution Press with the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the Center for American Progress publication America's fragmented, decentralized, politicized, and bureaucratic system of education governance is a major impediment to school reform. In this important new book, a number of leading education scholars, analysts, and practitioners show that understanding the impact of specific policy changes in areas such as standards, testing, teachers, or school choice requires careful analysis of the broader governing arrangements that influence their content, implementation, and impact. Education Governance for the Twenty-First Century comprehensively assesses the strengths and weaknesses of what remains of the old in education governance, scrutinizes how traditional governance forms are changing, and suggests how governing arrangements might be further altered to produce better educational outcomes for children. Paul Manna, Patrick McGuinn, and their colleagues provide the analysis and alternatives that will inform attempts to adapt nineteenth and twentieth century governance structures to the new demands and opportunities of today. Contents: Education Governance in America: Who Leads When Everyone Is in Charge?, Patrick McGuinn and Paul Manna The Failures of U.S. Education Governance Today, Chester E. Finn Jr. and Michael J. Petrilli How Current Education Governance Distorts Financial Decisionmaking, Marguerite Roza Governance Challenges to Innovators within the System, Michelle R. Davis Governance Challenges to Innovators outside the System, Steven F. Wilson Rethinking District Governance, Frederick M. Hess and Olivia M. Meeks Interstate Governance of Standards and Testing, Kathryn A. McDermott Education Governance in Performance-Based Federalism, Kenneth K. Wong The Rise of Education Executives in the White House, State House, and Mayor’s Office, Jeffrey R. Henig English Perspectives on Education Governance and Delivery, Michael Barber Education Governance in Canada and the United States, Sandra Vergari Education Governance in Comparative Perspective, Michael Mintrom and Richard Walley Governance Lessons from the Health Care and Environment Sectors, Barry G. Rabe Toward a Coherent and Fair Funding System, Cynthia G. Brown Picturing a Different Governance Structure for Public Education, Paul T. Hill From Theory to Results in Governance Reform, Kenneth J. Meier The Tall Task of Education Governance Reform, Paul Manna and Patrick McGuinn

Download or read book Public Sector Reform written by Jan-Erik Lane and published by SAGE. This book was released on 1997-12-12 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deregulation, privatization and marketization have become the bywords for the reforms and debates surrounding the public sector. This major book is unique in its comparative analysis of the reform experience in Western and Eastern Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Leading experts identify a number of key factors to systematically explain the similarities and differences, map common problems and together reflect on the future shape of the public sector, exploring significant themes in a lively and accessible way.

Download or read book Monastic Reform as Process written by Steven Vanderputten and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-15 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of monastic institutions in the Middle Ages may at first appear remarkably uniform and predictable. Medieval commentators and modern scholars have observed how monasteries of the tenth to early twelfth centuries experienced long periods of stasis alternating with bursts of rapid development known as reforms. Charismatic leaders by sheer force of will, and by assiduously recruiting the support of the ecclesiastical and lay elites, pushed monasticism forward toward reform, remediating the inevitable decline of discipline and government in these institutions. A lack of concrete information on what happened at individual monasteries is not regarded as a significant problem, as long as there is the possibility to reconstruct the reformers’ ‘‘program.’’ While this general picture makes for a compelling narrative, it doesn’t necessarily hold up when one looks closely at the history of specific institutions. In Monastic Reform as Process, Steven Vanderputten puts the history of monastic reform to the test by examining the evidence from seven monasteries in Flanders, one of the wealthiest principalities of northwestern Europe, between 900 and 1100. He finds that the reform of a monastery should be studied not as an "exogenous shock" but as an intentional blending of reformist ideals with existing structures and traditions. He also shows that reformist government was cumulative in nature, and many of the individual achievements and initiatives of reformist abbots were only possible because they built upon previous achievements. Rather than looking at reforms as "flashpoint events," we need to view them as processes worthy of study in their own right. Deeply researched and carefully argued, Monastic Reform as Process will be essential reading for scholars working on the history of monasteries more broadly as well as those studying the phenomenon of reform throughout history.

Download or read book The Political Economy of Reform Lessons from Pensions Product Markets and Labour Markets in Ten OECD Countries written by Tompson William and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2009-08-24 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By looking at 20 reform efforts in ten OECD countries, this report examines why some reforms are implemented and other languish.

Download or read book Public Management Reform written by Christopher Pollitt and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this major new contribution to a rapidly expanding field, the authors offer an integrated analysis of the wave of management reforms which have swept through so many countries in the last twenty years. The reform trajectories of ten countries are compared, and key differences of approach discussed. Unlike some previous works, this volume affords balanced coverage to the 'New Public Management' (NPM) and the 'non-NPM' or 'reluctant NPM' countries, since it covers Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, the UK and the USA. Unusually, it also includes a preliminary analysis of attempts to improve management within the European Commission.

Download or read book Public Sector Reform in the Middle East and North Africa written by Robert P. Beschel and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2020-12-01 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critical examinations of efforts to make governments more efficient and responsive Political upheavals and civil wars in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have obscured efforts by many countries in the region to reform their public sectors. Unwieldy, unresponsive—and often corrupt—governments across the region have faced new pressure, not least from their publics, to improve the quality of public services and open up their decisionmaking processes. Some of these reform efforts were under way and at least partly successful before the outbreak of the Arab Spring in 2010. Reform efforts have continued in some countries despite the many upheavals since then. This book offers a comprehensive assessment of a wide range of reform efforts in nine countries. In six cases the reforms targeted core systems of government: Jordan's restructuring of cabinet operations, the Palestinian Authority's revision of public financial management, Morocco's voluntary retirement program, human resource management reforms in Lebanon, an e-governance initiative in Dubai, and attempts to improve transparency in Tunisia. Five other reform efforts tackled line departments of government, among them Egypt's attempt to improve tax collection and Saudi Arabia's work to improve service delivery and bill collection. Some of these reform efforts were more successful than others. This book examines both the good and the bad, looking not only at what each reform accomplished but at how it was implemented. The result is a series of useful lessons on how public sector reforms can be adopted in MENA.

Download or read book The Limits of Institutional Reform in Development written by Matt Andrews and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-11 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Developing countries commonly adopt reforms to improve their governments yet they usually fail to produce more functional and effective governments. Andrews argues that reforms often fail to make governments better because they are introduced as signals to gain short-term support. These signals introduce unrealistic best practices that do not fit developing country contexts and are not considered relevant by implementing agents. The result is a set of new forms that do not function. However, there are realistic solutions emerging from institutional reforms in some developing countries. Lessons from these experiences suggest that reform limits, although challenging to adopt, can be overcome by focusing change on problem solving through an incremental process that involves multiple agents.

Download or read book The Theory and Practice of Local Government Reform written by Brian Dollery and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Structural reform has been one of the most important, and yet one of the most neglected, aspects of modern local government. This book represents the first attempt, since the early seventies, at providing a comprehensive account of both the theory and practice of structural reform in local government in developed countries. Using recent policy experience from seven different countries, the authors present seminal theoretical perspectives on structural reforms in local governance and the policy implications deriving from them. Written by well-known scholars of local government from around the world, this volume is a "must-read" for all academics, practitioners, students and policymakers.' - Giorgio Brosio, University of Turin, Italy

Download or read book Education Reform written by Stephen Ball and published by McGraw-Hill Education (UK). This book was released on 1994-09-16 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book builds upon Stephen J Ball's previous work in the field of education policy analysis. It subjects the ongoing reforms in UK education to a rigorous critical interrogation. It takes as its main concerns the introduction of market forces, managerialism and the National Curriculum into the organization of schools and the work of teachers. Ball argues that these reforms are combining to fundamentally reconstruct the work of teaching, to generate and ramify multiple inequalities and to destroy civic virtue in education. The effects of the market and management are not technical and neutral but are essentially political and moral. The reforms taking place in the UK are both a form of cultural and social engineering and an attempt to recreate a fantasy education based upon myths of national identity, consensus and glory. The analysis is founded within policy sociology and employs both ethnographic and post-structuralist methods.

Download or read book The Party Decides written by Marty Cohen and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-05-15 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the contest for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, politicians and voters alike worried that the outcome might depend on the preferences of unelected superdelegates. This concern threw into relief the prevailing notion that—such unusually competitive cases notwithstanding—people, rather than parties, should and do control presidential nominations. But for the past several decades, The Party Decides shows, unelected insiders in both major parties have effectively selected candidates long before citizens reached the ballot box. Tracing the evolution of presidential nominations since the 1790s, this volume demonstrates how party insiders have sought since America’s founding to control nominations as a means of getting what they want from government. Contrary to the common view that the party reforms of the 1970s gave voters more power, the authors contend that the most consequential contests remain the candidates’ fights for prominent endorsements and the support of various interest groups and state party leaders. These invisible primaries produce frontrunners long before most voters start paying attention, profoundly influencing final election outcomes and investing parties with far more nominating power than is generally recognized.

Download or read book The Politics of Institutional Reform written by Terry M. Moe and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-21 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this ground breaking analysis, Terry M. Moe treats Hurricane Katrina as a natural experiment that offers a rare opportunity to learn about the role of power in the politics of institutional reform. When Katrina hit, it physically destroyed New Orleans' school buildings, but it also destroyed the vested-interest power that had protected the city's abysmal education system from major reform. With the constraints of power lifted, decision makers who had been incremental problem-solvers turned into revolutionaries, creating the most innovative school system in the entire country. The story of New Orleans' path from failure to revolution is fascinating, but, more importantly, it reveals the true role of power, whose full effects normally cannot be observed, because power has a 'second face' that is hidden and unobservable. Making use of Katrina's analytic leverage, Moe pulls back the curtain to show that this “second face” has profound consequences that stifle and undermine society's efforts to fix failing institutions.

Download or read book Roots of Reform written by Elizabeth Sanders and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1999-08 with total page 543 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering a revision of the understanding of the rise of the American regulatory state in the late 19th century, this book argues that politically mobilised farmers were the driving force behind most of the legislation that increased national control.

Download or read book Designing Reform written by Cole Roskam and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-30 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Investigating the rich architecture of post-Mao China and its broad cultural impact In the years following China's Cultural Revolution, architecture played an active role in the country's reintegration into the global economy and capitalist world. Looking at the ways in which political and social reform transformed Chinese architecture and how, in turn, architecture gave structure to the reforms, Cole Roskam underlines architecture's unique ability to shape space as well as behavior. Roskam traces how foreign influences like postmodernism began to permeate Chinese architectural discourse in the 1970s and 1980s and how figures such as Kevin Lynch, I. M. Pei, and John Portman became key forces in the introduction of Western educational ideologies and new modes of production. Offering important insights into architecture's relationship to the politics, economics, and diplomacy of post-Mao China, this unprecedented interdisciplinary study examines architecture's multivalent status as an art, science, and physical manifestation of cultural identity.

Download or read book Structural Reforms and Economic Performance in Advanced and Developing Countries written by Mr.Jonathan David Ostry and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2009-10-15 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines the impact on economic performance of structural policies-policies that increase the role of market forces and competition in the economy, while maintaining appropriate regulatory frameworks. The results reflect a new dataset covering reforms of domestic product markets, international trade, the domestic financial sector, and the external capital account, in 91 developed and developing countries. Among the key results of this study, the authors find that real and financial reforms (and, in particular, domestic financial liberalization, trade liberalization, and agricultural liberalization) boost income growth. However, growth effects differ significantly across alternative reform sequencing strategies: a trade-before-capital-account strategy achieves better outcomes than the reverse, or even than a "big bang"; also, liberalizing the domestic financial sector together with the external capital account is growth-enhancing, provided the economy is relatively open to international trade. Finally, relatively liberalized domestic financial sectors enhance the economy's resilience, reducing output costs from adverse terms-of-trade and interest-rate shocks; increased credit availability is one of the key mechanisms.