Transformational Public Policy

Transformational Public Policy examines how governments can more effectively handle uncertainty and risk in an uncertain and changing world. Unpredictable and changing circumstances often bring nasty surprises that can increase waste in governance and public debt. This book illustrates how new methods derived from signal processing techniques can improve the practice of public policy by transforming it through rapid learning and adaptation. Interventions are processes of discovery, not compliance. Transformational Public Policy shows readers how the power of hypothesis testing in governance can be deployed. The book argues that public policy can be framed as tests of competing hypotheses subject to diagnostic errors. The aim is to learn how to reduce these diagnostic errors through cumulative experience. This approach can reduce the impact of negative unintended consequences -- a topic of great interest to policy makers and academics alike.

Transformational Public Policy examines how governments can more effectively handle uncertainty and risk in an uncertain and changing world. Unpredictable and changing circumstances often bring nasty surprises that can increase waste in governance and public debt. This book illustrates how new methods derived from signal processing techniques can improve the practice of public policy by transforming it through rapid learning and adaptation. Interventions are processes of discovery, not compliance. Transformational Public Policy shows readers how the power of hypothesis testing in governance can be deployed. The book argues that public policy can be framed as tests of competing hypotheses subject to diagnostic errors. The aim is to learn how to reduce these diagnostic errors through cumulative experience. This approach can reduce the impact of negative unintended consequences -- a topic of great interest to policy makers and academics alike.

This edited collection features state-of-the art scholarship by diverse contributors on a contemporary array of compelling and contentious gender and politics concerns.

ePDF and ePUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. During the consolidation of the welfare state in the 1940s, and its reshaping in the 2010s, the boundaries between the state, voluntary action, the family and the market were called into question. This interdisciplinary book explores the impact of these ‘transformational moments’ on the role, position and contribution of voluntary action to social welfare. It considers how different narratives have been constructed, articulated and contested by public, political and voluntary sector actors, making comparisons within and across the 1940s and 2010s. With a unique analysis of recent and historical material, this important book illuminates contemporary debates about voluntary action and welfare.

Argues that traditional political science is failing to identify and address fundamental political phenomena of our time and proposes an alternative value-based political science.

The forces of globalization are shifting our world, including the public sector, away from hierarchy and command and control toward one of collaboration and networks. The way public leadership is thought about and practiced must be, and is being, transformed. This volume in the "Transformational Trends in Governance & Democracy" series explores what the shift looks like and also offers guidance on what it should look like. Specifically, the book focuses on the role of "career leaders" - those in public service - who are agents of change not only in their own organizations, but also in their communities and policy domains. These leaders work in network settings, making connections and collaborating to create public value and advance the common good. Featuring the insights of an authoritative group of contributors, the volume offers a mix of scholarship, from philosophical discussions to conceptual models to empirical studies that, taken together, will help inform the transformation of public leadership that is already underway.

Transformation of Education Policy deals with internalization processes in education policy and their impact on national policy making. It investigates national responses to the PISA study for secondary education and the Bologna study for tertiary education.

Everyone who aspires to more effective public service should read this book. It provides a compelling antidote to the managerial focus of theory and practice in public administration. Written with the aim of inspiring and rekindling a mission for public service, Transformational Public Service weaves together theory and stories from actual practice to show that public service can (and does) advance the goals of democracy, inclusiveness, and social and economic justice. Eight practitioners from government and non-governmental organizations at all levels - from the street to the executive office - tell their personal stories of transformational public service. Theory, poetry, and popular culture references are woven around the stories. Both students and practitioners will discover new ways of thinking in this book that will enable them to transform their own administrative practices. As the authors note in their prologue: "As we listened to these stories, we heard people say that public service can be and is transformational (transforms institutions, practices, and people's lives and experiences) in ways that serve democracy, engagement, and social and economic justice. The public service they practice is collaborative, humanistic, emancipatory, inclusive, and diverse."