Motivation Agency And Public Policy

Can we rely on the altruism of professionals or the public service ethos to deliver good quality health and education services? And how should patients, parents, and pupils behave - as grateful recipients or active consumers? This book provides new answers to these questions - a milestone in the analysis and development of public policy, from one of the leading thinkers in the field. It provides a new perspective on policy design, emphasising the importance of analysing the motivation of professionals and others who work within the public sector, and both their and public service beneficiaries' capacity for agency or independent action. It argues that the conventional assumption that public sector professionals are public-spirited altruists or 'knights' is misplaced; but so is the alternative that they are all, in David Hume's terminology, 'knaves' or self-interested egoists. We also must not assume that individual citizens are passive recipients of public services (pawns); but nor can they be untrammelled sovereigns with unrestricted choices over services and resources (queens). Instead, policies must be designed so as to give the proper balance of motivation and agency. The book illustrates how this can be done by detailed empirical examination of recent policies in health services, education, social security and taxation. It puts forwards proposals for policy reform, several of which either originated with the author or with which he has been closely associated: universal capital or 'demogrants', discriminating vouchers, matching grants for pensions and for long-term care, and hypothecated taxes.

This global encyclopedic work serves as a comprehensive collection of global scholarship regarding the vast fields of public administration, public policy, governance, and management. Written and edited by leading international scholars and practitioners, this exhaustive resource covers all areas of the above fields and their numerous subfields of study. In keeping with the multidisciplinary spirit of these fields and subfields, the entries make use of various theoretical, empirical, analytical, practical, and methodological bases of knowledge. Expanded and updated, the second edition includes over a thousand of new entries representing the most current research in public administration, public policy, governance, nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations, and management covering such important sub-areas as: 1. organization theory, behavior, change and development; 2. administrative theory and practice; 3. Bureaucracy; 4. public budgeting and financial management; 5. public economy and public management 6. public personnel administration and labor-management relations; 7. crisis and emergency management; 8. institutional theory and public administration; 9. law and regulations; 10. ethics and accountability; 11. public governance and private governance; 12. Nonprofit management and nongovernmental organizations; 13. Social, health, and environmental policy areas; 14. pandemic and crisis management; 15. administrative and governance reforms; 16. comparative public administration and governance; 17. globalization and international issues; 18. performance management; 19. geographical areas of the world with country-focused entries like Japan, China, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Russia and Eastern Europe, North America; and 20. a lot more. Relevant to professionals, experts, scholars, general readers, researchers, policy makers and manger, and students worldwide, this work will serve as the most viable global reference source for those looking for an introduction and advance knowledge to the field.

In this timely and unique work, Calum Paton assesses the political economy and politics of current health policy in order to explain the underlying causes of problems in the National Health Service. He argues that the fundamental nature of health policy is dependent upon the prevailing regime in political economy and also that 'policy overload', contradictions and confusion have rendered the task of coherent implementation very difficult.

In this accessible collection, leading academic economists, psychologists and philosophers apply behavioural economic findings to practical policy concerns.

This book explores the behaviours that result from Public Service Motivation (PSM), outside of a firm or agency environment. Covering topics such as volunteering, and political participation, the authors present rich empirical data from the US and the UK, as well as other countries. With fresh insights into a growing area of interest, this book will provide valuable reading for researchers working in the field of PSM, and those involved in working towards a successful and sustainable society.

This book evaluates public service motivation (PSM) within the milieu of a broader conceptual and theoretical landscape beyond public management with a primary focus in management and the social sciences. As the literature around public management has evolved, scholars have suggested that PSM can direct applicants toward public service-oriented careers, and once hired, many have posited that PSM is linked to psychological outcomes and behavioral activity within public service-oriented organizations. Although some scholars have attempted to characterize and study PSM in relation to concepts outside of public management, the vast majority of scholarship has been grounded specifically in the public management literature. This is true when characterizing PSM as a factor that relates to career choice as well as a predictor of motivated states once one occupies a role within an organization. Given its continued vigor and its legitimacy, it could be argued that in recent decades, PSM has indeed become one of the most prominent concepts in public management. This book will be of interest to researchers and students in the fields of public management and public administration, as well as to policy makers and public service managers. The chapters in this book were originally published in Public Management Review.