Description
Book SynopsisIn this innovative book, Jacob Torfing, a leading scholar of the field, critically evaluates emerging ideas, practices and institutions that are transforming how public governance is perceived, theorised and conducted in practice.
Identifying cutting-edge developments in public governance, this incisive book analyses new forms of political leadership, public management, public organisation, administrative steering, cross-boundary collaboration, public regulation and societal problem-solving. Examining some of the most significant instances of public governance transformation, chapters explore the effects of transformations from sovereign to interactive political leadership, from national to multi-level governance, and from hard to soft power. With a novel focus on the production of innovative public value outcomes, the book considers how these developments interact with and are influenced by new digital technologies and increasing globalisation. Torfing concludes with a reflection on how best to comprehend, study and take advantage of current and future transformations in public governance.
A novel rethinking of how current societies are governed, this book will inspire students, scholars and practitioners of political science, public policy, regulation and governance, and public administration management to reconsider how public governance and administration may be organised in the future to present innovative solutions to societal problems.
Trade Review‘With a clarity that belies the difficulty of his task, Jacob Torfing manages to get the whole complex and nettlesome world of public governance into focus. Rethinking Governance
demonstrates Torfing’s gift for showing us where we have come from and where we must go. -- Chris Ansell, University of California, Berkeley, US
‘Rethinking Public Governance
offers a masterful account of the origins, current difficulties, and possible vibrant futures for the governance of liberal democracies. The book is a must-read tour de force that integrates across disciplines in a theoretically rich, practically useful way and presents an ambitious agenda for future work.’ -- John M. Bryson, University of Minnesota, US
‘Scholars and practitioners alike will benefit from this book’s well-informed, comprehensive, and topical overview of current orthodoxies and transformations in Public Governance. It identifies drivers and features of cutting-edge collaborative and democratic governance innovations and provides direction and inspiration for advancing both these practices and the study of public governance.’ -- Joop Koppenjan, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Table of ContentsContents: 1. Introduction 2. The public governance orthodoxy 3. From sovereign to interactive political leadership 4. From policy program implementation to public value creation 5. From control- to trust-based governance and management 6. From the efficient use of existing resources to the mobilization of new ones 7. From unicentric to pluricentric coordination 8. From national- to multi-level governance 9. From hard to soft power 10. From intra-organizational to inter-organizational leadership 11. From stability and continuous improvement to innovation 12. From spectator and counter-democracy to interactive democracy 13. Reinvigorating public governance studies Index
