Download or read book Policy Alienation and the Power of Professionals written by Lars Tummers and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ÔTummersÕ book resurfaces alienation as an established and useful concept, but also as a forgotten and ignored reality. Shifts in policies affect the meaning of these policies, and reforms affect power balances. The analyses in this book are crucial to help understand why policies fail and why there is resistance to change. Tummers coins Òpolicy alienationÓ as an increasingly indispensable concept. Reforms would have been different if TummersÕ analysis on powerlessness and meaninglessness was more taken into account.Õ Ð Geert Bouckaert, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium and former President of the European Group for Public Administration ÔLars Tummers has written a must-read book! While systemic changes ushered in by market-oriented reforms have received attention, little is known about the plight of the individual in modern bureaucracies. Tummers presents a masterful and authoritative account of policy alienation that public service professionals experience. The breadth and depth of TummersÕs scholarship is impressive! This book has something of value for everyone from the casual reader to public management scholar.Õ Ð Sanjay K. Pandey, The State University of New Jersey, US ÔWhy do pubic sector professionals resist change? Tummers offers a compelling account of the alienation of professionals following new public management reforms. This timely and methodologically innovative book shows public managers how to implement organisational change, and provides scholars with a set of new measurement scales. Policy Alienation and the Power of Professionals is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how professional organisations operate, and why professionals resist some changes, while embracing others.Õ Ð Steven Van de Walle, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands Professionals often have problems with governmental policies they have to implement. This ranges from Israeli teachers striking against school reforms, via British civil servants quitting their jobs as they have problems with New Public Management reforms focused on cost cutting, to US healthcare professionals feeling overwhelmed by a constant flow of policy changes, resulting in tensions, conflicts, and burn-outs. This eloquent book by Lars Tummers develops a framework to understand these important issues with policy implementation, using the innovative concept of Ôpolicy alienationÕ. Policies in healthcare, social security, and education are analyzed. The conclusions challenge the common assertions regarding the reasons why professionals resist policies. For instance, the impact of professional influence, often viewed as an end in itself, is nuanced. Lars Tummers reveals that it is far more important for professionals that a policy is meaningful for society and for their clients, than they have an influence in its shaping. Policy Alienation and the Power of Professionals is essential for public administration scholars, policymakers, change managers and professionals. To improve its academic and practical significance, a Ôpolicy alienationÕ questionnaire is developed to measure the degree of policy alienation felt by implementers. This instrument can be used to first understand and then improve policy performance in various settings.

Download or read book Marx and Digital Machines written by Mike Healy and published by University of Westminster Press. This book was released on 2020-10-16 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the fundamental contradiction at the heart of the digital environment: technology offers all manner of promises, yet habitually fails to deliver. This failure often arises from numerous problems: the proficiency of the technology or end-user, policy failure at various levels, or a combination of these. Solutions such as better technology and more effective end-user education are often put into place to solve these failures. Mike Healy argues that such approaches are inherently faulty drawing upon qualitative research informed by Marx’s theory of alienation. Using Marx’s theory, he considers participants in three distinct settings: the workplace of information and communications technology (ICT) professionals; university scholars researching the ethical and societal implications of our digital environment; and a group of pensioners living in South London, UK, undertaking ICT training. By delving beneath the surface of how digital technologies are created, researched and experienced, this study illustrates the contradictory nature of our digital lives, as they directly arise from the needs of capitalism. The book also places Marx’s theory in contrast to the mainstream approaches derived from Seaman and Blauner. In researching and comprehending ICT, this book reaffirms the superior explanatory power of Marx’s theory of alienation.

Download or read book Professionals Under Pressure written by Mirko Noordegraaf and published by Care & Welfare. This book was released on 2013 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past decade, public services have come under increasing pressure to perform like private-sector organisations. This study demonstrates that professionals have much leeway in coping with changes caused by IT developments, distributed knowledge and more demanding public which have all created new pressures on public services. The authors conclude that rather than demanding more autonomy and space, public service professionals need renewed and workable professional standards.

Download or read book Policy Entrepreneurship at the Street Level written by Nissim Cohen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-13 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Element aims to connect the literature of street-level bureaucrats with that of policy entrepreneurship in order to analyze why and how bureaucrats operating at the street level can promote policy change in public administration at the individual level. I demonstrate how street-level bureaucrats act as policy entrepreneurs in different contexts around the globe to promote policy change and analyze what they think of policy entrepreneurship and what they do about it in practice. For this purpose, I use multiple research methods: a survey, in-depth interviews, focus groups and textual analyses. I also offer recommendations to decision-makers to promote street-level policy entrepreneurship, highlighting the benefits of doing so. Lastly, I critically discuss the normative aspects of street-level policy entrepreneurship: ultimately, is it desirable?

Download or read book Research Handbook on Street Level Bureaucracy written by Peter Hupe and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2019 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the objectives of public policy programmes have been formulated and decided upon, implementation seems just a matter of following instructions. However, it is underway to the realization of those objectives that public policies get their final substance and form. Crucial is what happens in and around the encounter between public officials and individual citizens at the street level of government bureaucracy. This Research Handbook addresses the state of the art while providing a systematic exploration of the theoretical and methodological issues apparent in the study of street-level bureaucracy and how to deal with them.

Download or read book Lacan and Education Policy written by Matthew Clarke and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-06-13 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lacan and Education Policy draws on the rich conceptual resources of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Using Lacan's four discourses Matthew Clarke offers a sophisticated critique of recent education policy and the neoliberal model of political economy within which it sits, including the ways in which education has been diminished and trivialised through the economistic and depoliticising moves of policy. Clarke articulates possibilities for thinking differently about education and education policy beyond the reductive narratives of neoliberalism. He argues that psychoanalytic theory is valuable, not so much for allowing us to see what education 'really is', but for offering insights into what prevents education from 'being', enabling us to shift our focus instead into the possibilities education offers as a space of 'becoming'. The book suggests possibilities for conceptualising and creating 'the other side' of education.

Download or read book Innovating in Practice written by Tiziana Russo-Spena and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-11-13 with total page 523 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The purpose of the book is to devise an alternative conceptual vocabulary for studying innovation by stressing the role of social, contextual and cultural perspectives. This vocabulary is drawn on a service and on sociological perspectives on innovation based on the ontological assumption that innovation is a value co-creation matter and that it takes place in a reality that is multiple, constructed and socially embedded. The aim is to tackle key issues such as social construction, service innovation, knowledge and learning processes, value (co) creation, innovating and innovation activities networking and collaborative innovation.

Download or read book Theory and Practice of Public Sector Reform written by Steven Van de Walle and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-10 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theory and Practice of Public Sector Reform offers readers differing theoretical perspectives to help examine the process of public sector reform, combined with an overview of major trends in the core areas of the functioning of the public sector. The book consists of three parts, the first addresses a number of conceptual and theoretical perspectives on public sector reform. It shows how different ways of looking at reform reveal very different things. The second part addresses major changes in specific areas of public sectors – 'objects of reform.’ Part three focuses on the study of public sector reform. Aimed at academics, researchers and advanced students; this edited collection brings together many of the most eminent academics in the area of Public Policy and Management seeking to link to theory in part one and insights into specific thematic areas in part two, offering readers a display of theoretical perspectives to look at public sector reform.

Download or read book Nobody s Law written by Marc Hertogh and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-06-14 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nobody’s Law shows how people – who are disappointed, disenchanted, and outraged about the justice system – gradually move away from law. Using detailed case studies and combining different theoretical perspectives, this book explores the legal consciousness of ordinary people, businessmen, and street-level bureaucrats in the Netherlands. The empirical research in this study tells an original and alternative narrative about the role of law in everyday life. While previous studies emphasize the law’s hegemony and argue that it’s ‘all over’, Hertogh shows that legal proliferation makes it harder for people to know, and subsequently identify with, the law. As a result, official law has become increasingly remote and irrelevant to many people. The central finding presented in this highly topical text is that these developments signal a process of ‘legal alienation’— a gradual and mundane process with potentially serious consequences for the legitimacy of law. A timely and original study, this book will be of particular interest to scholars in the fields of law and society, socio-legal studies and legal theory.

Download or read book Restructuring Welfare Governance written by Tanja Klenk and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2015-10-30 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together cutting-edge scholarship on an under-researched and topical issue. Quasi-marketization and managerialization of welfare organizations are found to constitute common reform trends in many European countries and across social policy domains, following similar timings albeit with different intensities. The analysis, carried out at the meso and micro levels, reveals that ex-post control by states has been strengthened, managers are becoming relevant or even central actors, while professionals in public welfare institutions are seeing their role and autonomy challenged.' - Ana M. Guillén, University of Oviedo, Spain 'In the contemporary welfare state public management has become a profession of its own. At the same time professionals in public welfare bureaucracies have incorporated market considerations and managerial objectives in their daily work. This current evolution of welfare governance, path dependent as it is, has been documented thoroughly in this book, both in depth and from a comparative perspective. It makes the book a must read for all who are interested in the welfare state and care about its future.' - Peter Hupe, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands 'This edited collection on welfare governance across Europe will prove itself invaluable for research and teaching purposes. It usefully brings together the whole range of social sciences in a series of well organized, evidenced and argued chapters. The book is organized into two parts, the first focusing on the impact of marketization and managerialization across Europe and across sectors within the welfare state, while the second half focuses on the professions and the emerging human resource management issues. Both are crucial aspects of the new governance and together deliver a coherent and comprehensive set of papers addressing a highly pertinent set of questions for policymakers, analysts and managers for the next decade and will become recommended reading for the students, the welfare state, social and health policy as well as public sector management and administration.' - Mike Dent, Staffordshire University, UK Quasi-markets and managerial steering techniques have spread in the provision of welfare state services and are now a salient feature. This innovative book explores the introduction and impact of marketization and managerialism in social policy by adopting a dual perspective - one on regulation and governance, the other on human resources - covering five fields of social service delivery. Welfare governance (for example, welfare mix, regulation, employment conditions and customer involvement) has changed significantly in the past decade. In particular, the new governance models not only clash with traditional ideas of bureaucratic regulation but also with the norms and standards of professional service delivery. The fact that the labor force in welfare organizations is made up of 'professionals' implies that the introduction of new modes of welfare governance often results in organizational conflicts. The editors and contributors collectively assesses these processes not only by comparing different policy fields and countries, but also by taking a close look inside organizations, examining the coping strategies of professionals, and how they adapt to new models of governing welfare organizations. An ideal compliment to undergraduate and postgraduate study, Restructuring Welfare Governanceis essential reading for scholars in the fields of social policy, public administration and comparative welfare state analysis. Contributors: K. Baadsgaard, V. Burau, F.A. Ceravolo, B. Jantz, H. Jørgensen, T. Klenk, E. Kuhlmann, R. Moscati, M. Noordegraaf, I. Nørup, E. Pavolini, T. Peetz, M. Rostan, U. Schimank, A. Stanchi, C. Teelken, H. Theobald, M. Thunnissen, M. Turri

Download or read book Handbook on Policy Process and Governing written by H.K. Colebatch and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2018-12-28 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Handbook covers the accounts, by practitioners and observers, of the ways in which policy is formed around problems, how these problems are recognized and understood, and how diverse participants come to be involved in addressing them. H.K. Colebatch and Robert Hoppe draw together a range of original contributions from experts in the field to illuminate the ways in which policies are formed and how they shape the process of governing.

Download or read book Handbook on Performance Management in the Public Sector written by Deborah Blackman and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2021-05-28 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This timely Handbook examines performance management research specific to the public sector and its contexts, and provides suggestions for future developments in the field. It demonstrates the need for performance management to be reconceptualized as a core component of business both within and across organizations, and how it must be embedded in both strategic decision-making and as a day-to-day leadership and management practice in order to be effective.

Download or read book Education Policy Theories and Trends in the 21st Century written by Izhak Berkovich and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-01-25 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a highly accessible overview of public education policy. It organizes knowledge about 21st century education policy around two main topics: the policy process, and the discourse on public education policy. This unique organization provides a novel lens for better understanding the dynamics and contents of current education policy making. The work also offers a broad overview of theories of public policy, economics, demography, sociology, history, and psychology. Each chapter includes a discussion of data derived from the international and Israeli contexts. The book provides a series of valuable insights relevant to researchers, practitioners, and policymakers interested in understanding the multifaceted aspects that shape contemporary education policy.

Download or read book Professions and Professional Service Firms written by Mike Saks and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-03-05 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Professions are increasingly linked with enterprise at a number of interrelated levels. By considering the relationship of professions to the enterprise contexts in which they work, this book reveals the dilemmas posed to professional groups, and the opportunities and constraints that can arise in their organisational frameworks. Addressing both private and public sectors, this collection explores questions including: what are the implications for the culture, practices and identities of professions of working in enterprise contexts, including with increased globalisation? Are professions becoming more entrepreneurial in a knowledge economy? What are the tensions between professionalism and enterprise and how are these resolved? These are themes that are extremely important to professionals and their managers, especially with the rise of large-scale professional service firms serving corporate clients with truly global reach. This cutting-edge collection will be of interest to researchers, educators and advanced students studying professional behaviour in fields such as business studies, management, organisational analysis, public administration, political science, social policy and sociology, as well as students on focused programmes of professional study in fields such as health, law and social care.

Download or read book Newcomers Navigating the Welfare State written by Hanne Vandermeerschen and published by Leuven University Press. This book was released on 2023-12-15 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The topic of social assistance for migrant newcomers often sparks heated public debate and remains a prominent concern on the policy agenda. Society has experienced a growing level of diversity. This reality gives rise to new demands and changing profiles of individuals who benefit from welfare services. Welfare institutions, which are responsible for providing social assistance, play a crucial role in granting access to social benefits for newcomers. Moreover, the provision of social assistance can significantly influence the settlement and integration processes of migrants. This book provides empirical insights into the alignment between the needs of newcomers and the service provided to them. It examines the accessibility of social assistance for newcomers from a comprehensive perspective, encompassing aspects such as gaining access (including equal access for all) and service availability. By focusing on the Belgian Public Centres for Social Welfare as a case study, the authors explore the policies and practices related to social assistance and labour market activation for newcomers and the factors that influence individuals’ access to their rights. By incorporating the perspectives of all the relevant stakeholders involved, drawing on the insights of social workers and managers as well as the experiences of newcomers themselves, this book offers a unique understanding of the interactions between immigrants, the welfare state, and street-level bureaucrats. It provides valuable insights for enhancing service provision, striving for a more inclusive approach.

Download or read book Making and Managing Public Policy written by Karen Johnston Miller and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding how public policy is made and managed is a key component in studying the disciplines of public management and administration. Such are the complexities associated with this topic, a deeper understanding is vital to ensure that practising public managers excel in their roles. This textbook synthesizes the key theories, providing a contemporary understanding of public policy and how it relates to private and other sectors. It integrates this with the management and implementation of public policy, including outlines of organizations, practices and instruments used. Pedagogical features include chapter synopses, learning objectives, boxed international cases and vignettes and further reading suggestions. This useful, concise textbook will be required reading for public management students and all those interested in public policy.

Download or read book Quality of Governance written by Hester Paanakker and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-11-23 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Quality of governance: Values and violations arrives at a time when governance faces new and often dire challenges and as traditional democratic values strain against the rise of authoritarian forms of populism and anti-government sentiment. This comprehensive volume considers these challenges from a variety of angles- transparency, bureaucratic pathologies, public values, sector relations- but at the same time manages a higher degree of integration than one usually finds in most edited volumes. The individual selections focus on topics of widespread interest but with new theories, analytical frameworks and insights. This book should be read by anyone interested the values bases of governance and in exploring good ideas about how to improve policy and management. The book serves a professional academic audience but could also prove quite useful as a text or supplementary book for graduate and undergraduate courses in public affairs."Barry Bozeman, Regents' Professor, Arizona State University, School of Public Affairs, USA. "Public governance matters. It touches almost every aspect of our lives, from the most mundane to the most important, the most commonplace to the most intimate. This book critically examines some of thorniest values and issues for governance in the 21st century -- democracy, legitimacy, accountability, transparency, integrity, professionalism, and more -- all of which are of crucial importance for practice and research on the quality of governance."Tina Nabatchi, Syracuse University, USA, Co-Chair of the Study Group ‘Quality of Governance’ of the International Institute of Administrative Sciences. "This volume provides an up-to-date overview of key themes and theories about the quality of governance. Many of the field's most thoughtful scholars have contributed chapters on both the positive and problematic dimensions of good governance, providing fascinating insights in this important topic. Therefore, this book is a must read for all scholars, students, and practitioners interested in improving the quality of governance in their countries and institutions."Zeger van der Wal, National University of Singapore and Leiden University The Netherlands. This volume unravels the meaning of public values for the quality of governance, for good and bad governance, and examines their significance in governance practices. It addresses public values in context, in different countries, policy sectors and levels of governance. In a series of in-depth studies, a critical eye is cast over eight central values: democratic legitimacy, accountability, transparency, integrity, lawfulness, effectiveness (in terms of service quality), professionalism and craftsmanship, and robustness. How does for instance integrity or lawfulness contribute to the accomplishment and preservation of quality, and what happens if we fail to address it adequately? This unique exercise yields important lessons on the differences in normative interpretation and application of often abstract values in the demanding administrative settings of today. Practitioners, scholars and students of public administration, public management and political science will find the volume a vital resource for theory and practice.