COMPARING LOCAL GOVERNANCE: TRENDS AND DEVELOPMENTS

COMPARING LOCAL GOVERNANCE: TRENDS AND DEVELOPMENTS
Bas Denters and Lawrence E. Rose (eds)
Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, xiv + 293 pp., £18.99 (pb) ISBN: 0333995562     

THE HISTORY OF GOVERNANCE IN THE NETHERLANDS: CONTINUITY AND EXCEPTIONS

THE HISTORY OF GOVERNANCE IN THE NETHERLANDS: CONTINUITY AND EXCEPTIONS
W.J.M. Kickert
Reed Elsevier, 2004, 121 pp., €17.85 (pb) ISBN: 9059014359     

RETHINKING URBAN COMPETITIVENESS,COHESION AND GOVERNANCE

RETHINKING URBAN COMPETITIVENESS, COHESION AND GOVERNANCE
Nick Buck, Ian Gordon, Alan Harding and Ivan Turok (eds)
Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, 317 pp., £19.99 (pb) ISBN: 1403906807     

LAW,LEGITIMACY, AND EUROPEAN GOVERNANCE. FUNCTIONAL PARTICIPATION IN SOCIAL REGULATION

LAW, LEGITIMACY, AND EUROPEAN GOVERNANCE. FUNCTIONAL PARTICIPATION IN SOCIAL REGULATION
Stijn Smismans
Oxford University Press, 2004, 519 pp., £60 (hb) ISBN: 0199270309     

IMPLEMENTING CHANGE IN HEALTH SYSTEMS: MARKET REFORMS IN HEALTH SYSTEMS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM,SWEDEN AND THE NETHERLANDS

IMPLEMENTING CHANGE IN HEALTH SYSTEMS: MARKET REFORMS IN HEALTH SYSTEMS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, SWEDEN AND THE NETHERLANDS
Michael I. Harrison
Sage, 2004, 256 pp., £21.99 (pb) ISBN: 0761961763     

MAKING PUBLIC POLICY

MAKING PUBLIC POLICY
Mark Considine
Polity Press, 2005, 262 pp., £15.99 (pb) ISBN: 0745627544     

COMPARATIVE HEALTH POLICY

COMPARATIVE HEALTH POLICY
Robert H. Blank and Viola Burau
Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, 260 pp., £17.99 (pb) ISBN: 0333985990     

THE NEW POLITICS OF MEDICINE

THE NEW POLITICS OF MEDICINE
Brian Salter
Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, 236 pp., £17.99 (pb) ISBN: 0333801121     

AGRICULTURAL POLICY IN EUROPE

AGRICULTURAL POLICY IN EUROPE
Alan Greer
Manchester University Press, 2005, 238 pp., £55 (hb) ISBN: 071906029X     

THE POLITICS OF MARKETING THE LABOUR PARTY

THE POLITICS OF MARKETING THE LABOUR PARTY
Dominic Wring
Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, 262 pp., £16.99 (pb) ISBN: 0333689534     

THE POLITICS OF DECLINE: AN INTERPRETATION OF BRITISH POLITICS FROM THE 1940s TO THE 1970s

THE POLITICS OF DECLINE: AN INTERPRETATION OF BRITISH POLITICS FROM THE 1940s TO THE 1970s
Geoffrey K. Fry
Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, 307 pp., £55 (hb) ISBN: 0333726227     

BRITISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT INTO THE 21ST CENTURY

BRITISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT INTO THE 21ST CENTURY
Gerry Stoker and David Wilson (eds)
Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, 304 pp., £50.60 (hb), £18.99 (pb) ISBN: 1403918724     

New jobs in urban areas—an evaluation of advance factory building

TEACHING PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Richard A. Chapman, Joint University Council for Social and Public Administration: RIPA, 1973, pp. 95, £1.00.

THE EVOLUTION OF BRITISH TOWN PLANNING, Gordon G. Cherry, Leonard Hill, 1974, pp. 275, £6.00.

CITY POLITICS AND THE PRESS—JOURNALISTS AND THE GOVERNING OF MERSEYSIDE, Harvey Cox and David Morgan, Combridge University Press, 1973. (reprinted with corrections 1974), pp. 159, £2.80.

DEMOCRATIC THEORY AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT, Dilys M. Hill, Allen &; Unwin, 1974, pp. 243, £5.00 (£2.75 paperback).

GUERRILLAS IN THE BUREAUCRACY: THE COMMUNITY PLANNING EXPERIMENT IN THE UNITED STATES, Martin L. Needleman and Carolyn Emerson Needleman, John Wiley, 1974, pp. 386, £6.90.

THE MANAGEMENT OF URBAN CHANGE IN BRITAIN AND GERMANY, Richard Rose (ed.), Sage Publications, 1974, pp. 267, £5.00.

BIRMINGHAM 1939–1970, Anthony Sutcliffe and Roger Smith, Oxford University Press, 1974, pp. 514, £12.00.

MAKING INSTITUTIONS WORK, Geoffrey Vickers, Associated Business Programmes, 1973, pp. 187, £4.00.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT TRENDS 1973, CIPFA, 1974, pp. 301, £2.50.     

Book reviews

Larry Hirschhorn, REWORKING AUTHORITY: LEADING AND FOLLOWING IN THE POST-MODERN ORGANIZATZON Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, 1997. $25.00 cloth Pp. 129, iv.

Larry S. Lutton, THE POLITICS OF GARBAGE: A COMMUNITY PERSPECTIVE ON SOLID WASTE POLICY MAKING Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996. Cloth. Pp. 307, xii.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Abstract

SOCIAL WORK ADVOCACY: A NEW FRAMEWORK FOR ACTION. Robert L. Schneider and Lori Lester. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole, 2001, 372 pp. Reviewed by Sara-Jane Dodd.

BEST PRACTICES FOR SOCIAL WORK WITH REFUGEES AND IMMIGRANTS. Miriam Potocky-Tripodi. Columbia University Press, 2002, 504 pp., $65.00 cloth. Reviewed by Willie Tolliver.     

REVIEWS

PRIME MINISTER, CABINET AND CORE EXECUTIVE R.A.W. Rhodes and Patrick Dunleavy THE BRITISH CIVIL SERVICE Robert Pyper QUALITY IN PUBLIC SERVICES Lucy Gaster QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN EUROPEAN PUBLIC SERVICES: CONCEPTS, CASES AND COMMENTARY Christopher Pollitt and Geert Bouckaert (eds.) LEADERSHIP OF PUBLIC BUREAUCRACIES Larry D. Terry THEORY AND METHODS OF POLITICAL SCIENCE David Marsh'and Gerry Stoker JUDICIAL REVIEW: LAW AND PROCEDURE Richard Gordon THEORIES OF URBAN POLITICS D. Judge, G. Stoker and H. Wolman (eds.) UNDERSTANDING POLICY FIASCOS Mark Bovens and Paul‘tHart BRITISH SOCIAL POLICY SINCE 1945 Howard Glennerster DISMANTLING THE WELFARE STATE? REAGAN, THATCHER, AND THE POLITICS OF RETRENCHMENT Paul Pierson THE FOUNDATION OF MERIT: PUBLIC SERVICE IN AMERICAN DEMOCRACY Patricia Wallace Ingraham THE REGIONAL IMPERATIVE: REGIONAL PLANNING AND GOVERNANCE IN BRITAIN, EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES Urlan A. Wannop PERPETUATING THE PORK BARREL: POLICY SUBSYSTEMS AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY Robert M. Stein and Kenneth N. Bickers FROM ARM'S LENGTH TO HANDS-ON: THE FORMATIVE YEARS OF ONTARIO'S PUBLIC SERVICE 1867–1940 J. E. Hodgetts THE ROAD TO BETTER PUBLIC SERVICES: PROGRESS AND CONSTRAINTS IN FIVE CANADIAN FEDERAL AGENCIES G. Bruce Doern LES RÉSEAUX DE POLITIQUE PUBLIQUE: DÉBAT AUTOUR DES POLICY NETWORKS Patrick Le Galès and Mark Thatcher (eds.) THE GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS OF SPAIN Paul Heywood ADENAUER TO KOHL: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GERMAN CHANCELLORSHIP Stephen Padgett POLITICAL LEADERSHIP IN LIBERAL DEMOCRACIES Robert Elgie     

Announcing new titles

HABSBURGS AND ZAPOROZHIAN COSSACKS: The Diary of Erich Lassota von Steblau, 1594. Edited by Lubomyr R. Wynar. Translated by Orest Subtelny. Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, Inc., P.O. Box 263, 1975. 148 p., $9.00.

ENCYCLOPEDIC DIRECTORY OF ETHNIC ORGANIZATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES. Compiled by Lubomyr R. Wynar, with the assistance of Lois Buttlar and Anna T. Wynar. Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, Inc., P.O. Box 263, 1975. 440 p., $19.50

FOR GOD AND COUNTRY; THE RISE OF POLISH AND LITHUANIAN CONSCIOUSNESS IN AMERICA, 1860–1910. Victor Greene (Fellow, Associate Professor, The National Humanities Institute). Madison, Wisconsin: The Society Press, 1975. $17.50. The author writes to say that he feels this work would be of interest to the Association for the Study of Nationalities. It is scheduled to appear in November of 1975.     

Telematics,organization, and the local government mission

PRACTICAL CORPORATE PLANNING IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT, John Skitt (ed.), Intertext Publishing Ltd., 1975, pp. 201, £6.00.

EDUCATIONAL POLICY‐MAKING: A STUDY OF INTEREST GROUPS AND PARLIAMENT, Maurice Kogan, George Allen &; Unwin, 1975, £2.95.

INTRODUCING POLICY OR CORPORATE PLANNING INTO LOCAL GOVERNMENT, PA Management Consultants, 1975.     

THE INTERNET AND DEMOCRACY: THE CAUSAL LINKS BETWEEN TECHNOLOGY AND POLITICS

Abstract

This paper strives to explicate the causal links between changing technology and democratic governance. Its overarching goal is to define the relevant concepts of communication and governance and more importantly, to focus empirical observations on the critical dimensions of a multifaceted phenomenon. The analysis focuses on three key links in this causal chain. The first is the effects of technological in novation on different communication activities. The second link involves the role communication and information play in democratic governance. The final is the social and political mechanisms by which technological innovations are introduced within and transform democratic processes and institutions. We argue that a sharper understanding of these three essential links will enable the growing numbers of researchers interested in electronic democracy to employ the massive social experiment the Internet represents to clarify and further democratic theory itself.

The rise of the Internet has led to a burgeoning literature on the probable effects of emerging information and communication technologies (ICTs) on democratic processes. The breadth of the debate is impressive, largely due to the complexity of democratic governance and the historic implications of the information age. Those venturing into this literature, however, are met with a confusing tangle of propositions, many of which are contradictory and all of which are interrelated in unexplicated ways. Fears of social polarization due to inequitable access to ICTs or of increasing govern-ment intrusion into our private lives are juxtaposed against the promise of rejuvenated political participation engendered by new communication channels. Visions of citizens being empowered by ubiquitous access to government information are tempered by warnings of information overload.

This paper strives to clarify the links between changing technology and democratic governance. Analysts observe technology driving a number of profound changes in our communication systems: costs are plummeting, advanced capabilities are becoming increasingly easy to use, interconnected networks enable users to access information stored on millions of computers, the Internet enables whole new populations to broadcast content, and real time as well as asynchronous multicasting support entirely new modes of communication. Unfortunately, much of the writing on electronic democracy treats technological advance as a deus ex machina inextricably leading to a certain final outcome. Critical causal links remain implicit. In what ways does the Internet improve and qualitatively change existing and already quite advanced communication systems? What specific roles do information and communication play in democratic governance? What are the social and political mechanisms by which technologies affect democratic processes and institutions?

Greater attention to these linkages is warranted for a number of reasons. Both democratic governance and modern communication systems are complex and multifaceted. Theory is needed to define the relevant concepts and to focus empirical observations on the critical dimensions of these phenomena. Moreover, the history of technological prognostication is littered with faulty predictions of the impacts of new technologies.[1] Pool, I., ed. 1977. The Social Impact of the Telephone 502Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.  [Google Scholar] These impacts only become apparent slowly over many years, and they are often small and unanticipated.[2] Abramson, J.R., Arterton, F.C. and Orren, G.O. 1988. The Electronic Commonwealth: The Impact of New Media Technologies on Democratic Politics 331New York: Basic Books. They argue that television did not significantly effect campaign politics until the late 1960s, about 20 years after the boom in television broadcasting began. See also, Berry, J.M.; Portnoy, K.E.; Thomson, K. The Rebirth of Urban Democracy; The Brookings Institution: Washington, DC, 1993; 326 pp. In their thorough examination of the effects of formal citizen participation mechanisms, they found that political institutions designed to improve communication between citizens and their local governments led to only small changes in political outcomes, processes, and citizen attitudes. [Google Scholar] Consequently, researchers require a comprehensive understanding of the phenomena under investigation to interpret the long-run implications of intermediate outcomes. Finally, with a sharper understanding of the linkages between technology and governance, researchers will be better prepared to employ the massive social experiment represented by the Internet to clarify and further democratic theory itself.

This project extends well beyond the scope of a single paper, and our aims here are accordingly modest. We do not present a grand theory of communication technology and governmental reform. Rather, we define the necessary elements of such a theory and elaborate these elements employing existing concepts from communication studies, political science, and other disciplines. The paper proceeds as follows. We begin by noting five empirical observations that must shape theory. Then we proceed to define and discuss three necessary elements of a theory of communication technology and democracy. Conclusions follow.     

PUBLIC ENTREPRENEURSHIP: RHETORIC,REALITY, AND CONTEXT

ABSTRACT

Public Entrepreneurship: Rhetoric, Reality, and Context

The concept of entrepreneurship has entered the discourse of public management amongst practitioners and scholars across a range of different public service organisations in different countries. It has been recognised, for example, in the UK,[1] 1999. Modernising Government: White Paper London: HMSO. Cabinet Office [Google Scholar]the USA[2] Osborne, D. and Gaebler, T. 1992. Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector Reading MA: Addison Wesley. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]and Australia[3] Wanna, J., Forster, J. and Graham, P., eds. 1996. Entrepreneurial Management in the Public Sector Brisbane, , Australia: Centre for Australian Public Sector Management.  [Google Scholar]and variously interpreted by its promoters as:

• An integral part of a transformational political philosophy, affecting not just the delivery of public services but also community life (e.g., the ‘Third Way’ in the UK).

• More modestly, a response to the ‘dead hand’ of bureaucracy which inhibits public organisations becoming more responsive to their customers, clients and communities,

• A way of allowing public service managers the ‘freedom to manage’, deploying skills and approaches identified with private sector management.

Entrepreneurship is used primarily to make normative judgements. The form that entrepreneurship takes in a public service management context and the extent to which it exists, are undeveloped empirical questions. This paper examines three main sets of questions:

• Why there has been a call for entrepreneurial government–the rhetorical dimension.

• What practising managers perceive the term to mean to the services they are responsible for–the reality dimension.

• Whether public entrepreneurship has any meaning outside of the particular political, economic and social context found in western, industrialised democracies–the context dimension.

The paper explores the nature of the discourse within which notions of public entrepreneurship are located and given legitimacy by different groups of stakeholders. It also seeks to uncover some variables that have an impact upon the practice of public entrepreneurship in different countries, organisations and social, economic and political cultures and organisations.

Although organisations such as the OECD identify universal themes and trends in the delivery of public services, there is little empirical evidence of convergence or universality.[4] Pollitt, C. 2001. ‘Clarifying Convergence: Striking Similarities and Durable Differences in Public Management Reform’. Public Management Review, 3(4): 471–492. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]This paper notes that although the concept of entrepreneurship is not unique to one or two contexts, there is limited convergence on what it means and whether and how it is ‘practised’.