Policy Performance And Management In Governance And Intergovernmental Relations

The trend towards multi-level and intergovernmental governance arrangements has created a need for a new analytic language and for new frameworks of analysis. It has changed the nature of decision-making. This timely book combines perspective from public policy, public management and public finance and provides new insights into who governs the multi-level and intergovernmental polity and how it is governed, making it an essential addition to the literature. Steven Van de Walle, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands This innovative book presents a transatlantic comparison of governance and Intergovernmental Relations (IGR) policy, performance and management. By examining both analytical and empirical differences and similarities between the European Union and the United States, this comprehensive book provides a better understanding of (inter) governmental systems, settings and actors operating in the post New Public Management Era. The expert contributors consider processes of policy formulation and implementation from an intergovernmental point of view, examine issues of performance and accountability that rise in IGR settings and zoom in on the importance and implications of IGR for welfare. Taken together, these insights provide an important next step into the world of transatlantic research and comparison. This timely book will appeal to academics and researchers involved in IGR and Multi-Level Governance from the US and Europe as well as post-graduate students in public administration and public policy.

A transatlantic comparison of governance and IGR policy, performance and management. By examining both analytical and empirical differences and similarities between the EU and the US, the book thus provides a better understanding of (inter- ) governmental systems, settings and actors operating in the post New Public Management Era.

A Brookings Institution Press and the National Academy of Public Administration publication America's complex system of multi-layered government faces new challenges as a result of rapidly changing economic, technological, and demographic trends. An aging population, economic globalization, and homeland security concerns are among the powerful factors testing the system's capacity and flexibility. Major policy challenges and responses are now overwhelmingly intergovernmental in nature, and as a result, the fortunes of all levels of government are more intertwined and interdependent than ever before. This volume, cosponsored by the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), defines an agenda for improving the performance of America's intergovernmental system. The early chapters present the current state of practice in intergovernmental relations, including discussion of trends toward centralization, devolution, and other power-sharing arrangements. The fiscal underpinnings of the system are analyzed, along with the long-term implications of current trends in financing at all levels. The authors identify the principal tools used to define intergovernmental management–grants, mandates, preemptions—in discussing emerging models and best practices in the design and management of those tools. In tergovernmental Management for the 21st Century applies these crosscutting themes to critical policy areas where intergovernmental management and cooperation are essential, such as homeland security, education, welfare, health care, and the environment. It concludes with an authoritative assessment of the system's capacity to govern, oversee, and improve. Contributors include Jocelyn Johnston (American University), Shelley Metzenbaum (University of Maryland), Richard Nathan (SUNY at Albany), Barry Rabe (University of Michigan), Beryl Radin (American University), Alice Rivlin (Brookings Institution), Ray Sheppach (National Governors Association), Frank Shafroth (George Mason University), Troy Smith (BYU–Hawaii), Carl Stenberg (University of Nor

Drawing on recent advances in the social sciences, this volume shows how rigorous, theory-based empirical research can help improve the management of public policies and programs—and how better governance can lead to better performance. These original essays demonstrate how better data and improved statistical techniques have allowed researchers to construct more complex models of governance processes and thereby assess the effects of many variables on policy and program outcomes. They present useful research results that illuminate such issues as automatic grade advancement in public schools, management of federally-funded job-training programs, reducing welfare caseloads, and management of welfare-to-work programs. Illustrating a range of theoretical and methodological possibilities, this book shows how more sophisticated research in public management can help improve government performance.

Public reporting has been used experimentally in federal-provincial relations since the mid-1990s as an accountability mechanism to promote policy effectiveness, intergovernmental cooperation, and democratic legitimacy. Our understanding of how well it is working, however, remains limited to very specific policy sectors – even though this information is essential to policy makers in Canada and beyond. Overpromising and Underperforming? offers a deeper analysis of the use of new accountability mechanisms, paying particular attention to areas in which federal spending power is used. This is the first volume to specifically analyse the accountability features of Canadian intergovernmental agreements and to do so systematically across policy sectors. Drawing on the experiences of other federal systems and multilevel governance structures, the contributors investigate how public reporting has been used in various policy fields and the impact it has had on policy-making and intergovernmental relations.

In a unique contributed volume that features chapters written by top scholars paired with practitioner responses, students can see just how much the landscape of intergovernmental relations has evolved in recent years, with diminishing vertical flows of resources, and increased horizontal flows in the form of cross-jurisdictional and interlocal collaboration.

Numerous administrative reforms during the past several decades, referred to as the "New Public Management," have altered government in a number of fundamental ways. These changes have, in turn, produced the need for even greater change if the public sector is to be capable of governing efficiently and responsibly. The challenges now facing government are numerous, including the need to recruit capable and committed young public servants, adapt to new information technology, manage changing intergovernmental relations, and, perhaps most important, hold the reformed administrative structures accountable to both political demands and legal standards. Some countries have already initiated new rounds of reform while others are still attempting to understand and absorb the consequences of changes motivated by new public management ideas. In Governance in the twenty-first century international experts recognise both the difficulty of making predictions and the need to consider the future in order to prepare the public sector for new challenges. The authors' predictions and recommendations are anchored in a thorough understanding of contemporary public administration. They point out that not only have previous reforms made yet more change necessary and inevitable but that the purpose of these reforms is to attempt to return government to the position of respect and competence it enjoyed in the past. B. Guy Peters is Maurice Falk Professor of American Government, Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh. Donald J. Savoie holds the Clément-Cormier Chair in Economic Development at the Université de Moncton, where he also teaches public administration.

This book provides solid academic evidence of a lively debate and dialogue between US and EU scholars about Multilevel Governance (MLG) and Intergovernmental Relations (IGR). Beyond the contingencies of the terms and the path dependency of their historical developments, there are elements of convergence and overlap. This publication is a good example of how academic transatlantic dialogues result in a stronger understanding of the premises of our concepts, and of the functioning of our systems.' - Geert Bouckaert, Public Management Institute and European Group for Public Administration, Leuven, Belgium This book represents a major attempt to draw together two fundamental streams of research; Intergovernmental Relations and Multi-Level governance. Combining US and European schools of thought, this timely volume outlines key areas of convergence and divergence.