Paul 't Hart

"This major new text by one of the leading figures in the field worldwide, provides a systematic, and up-to-date introduction to political, public service and civic leadership drawing on a wide range of examples from across the western world. Rather than uncritically importing concepts and themes from the world of business, the author takes full account of the distinctive character of public leadership. Drawing on a wide range of both established approaches and cutting edge research - including his own - he provides an intellectually sophisticated but accessible state-of-the-art assessment which will meet the needs of students and practitioners alike"--

Understanding public leadership

Karen Tindall

The global economic downturn that followed the collapse of major US financial institutions is no doubt the most significant crisis of our times. Its effects on corporate and governmental balance sheets have been devastating, as have been its impacts on the employment and well being of tens of millions of citizens. It continues to pose major challenges to national policymakers and institutions around the world. Managing public uncertainty and anxiety is vital in coping with financial crises. This requires not just prompt action but, most of all, persuasive communication by government leaders. At the same time, the very occurrence of such crises raises acute questions about the effectiveness and robustness of current government policies and institutions. With the stakes being so high, defining and interpreting what is going on, how and why it happened, and what ought to be done now become key questions in the political and policy struggles that crises invariably unleash. In this volume, we study how heads of government, finance ministers and national bank governors in eight countries as well as the EU engage in such 'framing contests', and how their attempts to interpret the cascading events of the economic downturn were publicly received. Using systematic content analysis of speeches and media coverage, this volume offers a unique comparative assessment of public leadership in times of crisis.

Crisis Rhetoric and the Politics of Recessions

Framing the Global Economic Downturn

Bengt Sundelius

Eric Stern

DIVEffects of group dynamics on decision making /div

Political Group Dynamics and Foreign Policy-making

Beyond Groupthink

Jaakko Kauko

Daniel Nohrstedt

Caroline de la Porte

Guðný Björk Eydal

Bent Sofus Tranøy

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. This book presents twenty-three in-depth case studies of successful public policies and programs in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Iceland. Each chapter tells the story of the policy's origins, aims, design, decision-making, and implementation processes, and assesses in which respects - programmatically, process-wise, politically, and over time - and to what extent it can be considered to have been successful. It also points towards the driving forces of success, and the challenges that have had to be overcome to achieve it. Combined, the chapters provide a resource for researchers, educators, and students of public policy both within and beyond the Nordic region.

Cases, Lessons, Challenges

Successful Public Policy in the Nordic Countries

David Ulrich

Jean-Louis Denis

John Storey

Jean Hartley

Leadership has never been more important – and divisive – than it is today. The idea and discourse of the leader remains a critical factor in organizational and societal performance, but there is evident tension between the persistent focus on the critical importance of individual leaders and the increasing emphasis on collective leadership. The Routledge Companion to Leadership provides a survey of the contentious and dynamic discipline of leadership. This collection covers key themes in the field, including advances in leadership theory, leadership in a range of contexts and geographies, leadership failure, leadership process, and leadership development. Topics range from micro studies to wider political analyses of leadership, taking in unusual but important aspects such as portrayals of leadership in architecture, media, and science fiction. Contributions from 61 internationally renowned authors from 16 countries make available the full range of perspectives, approaches, and insights on the idea of leadership. Providing both a social sciences and a psychological approach, these go beyond common themes to offer diverse perspectives on such topics as emotion and leadership, portrayals of leadership. This volume situates leadership debates and evidence within contemporary leadership crises, while ensuring that the explorations of the issues are of enduring relevance. With wide and critical coverage of the key topics and potent contextualization of themes in current events, The Routledge Companion to Leadership is the ideal resource for graduate study in leadership.

The Routledge Companion to Leadership

Pat Gray

This book considers some recent and spectacular failures in policy-making and asks what is meant by policy 'disaster', the different forms that they can take and why they have occured. These issues are explored in nine contrasting cases drawn from both the European Union and its member states. These include: the devastating crisis in the Belgium political system following the exposure of a paedophile ring; the crisis in the Dutch fight against drugs; 'Mad Cows', the 'Arms to Iraq' affair in the UK; monetary union between West and East Germany; the Swedish monetary crisis of 1992; and the EU's common fisheries policy and policies towards civil war in Yugoslavia. This book is an excellent study of how and why policies can go wrong and highlights the limits of what governments can achieve in Western Europe.

Public Policy Disasters in Europe

Political leadership has returned to the forefront of research in political science in recent years, after several years of neglect. This Handbook provides a broad-ranging and cohesive examination of the study of political leadership.

The Oxford Handbook of Political Leadership

Mallory Compton

With so much media and political criticism of their shortcomings and failures, it is easy to overlook the fact that many governments work pretty well much of the time. Great Policy Successes turns the spotlight on instances of public policy that are remarkably successful. It develops a framework for identifying and assessing policy successes, paying attention not just to their programmatic outcomes but also to the quality of the processes by which policies are designed and delivered, the level of support and legitimacy they attain, and the extent to which successful performance endures over time. The bulk of the book is then devoted to 15 detailed case studies of striking policy successes from around the world, including Singapore's public health system, Copenhagen and Melbourne's rise from stilted backwaters to the highly liveable and dynamic urban centres they are today, Brazil's Bolsa Familia poverty relief scheme, the US's GI Bill, and Germany's breakthrough labour market reforms of the 2000s. Each case is set in context, its main actors are introduced, key events and decisions are described, the assessment framework is applied to gauge the nature and level of its success, key contributing factors to success are identified, and potential lessons and future challenges are identified. Purposefully avoiding the kind of heavy theorizing that characterizes many accounts of public policy processes, each case is written in an accessible and narrative style ideally suited for classroom use in conjunction with mainstream textbooks on public policy design, implementation, and evaluation.

Great Policy Successes

R. A. W. Rhodes

Mirko Noordegraaf

The behaviour of politicians and public servants often strikes outside observers as erratic, inconsistent and sometimes foolish. One way of understanding their behaviour is political anthropology. This book focuses on the everyday life of ministers and senior public servants in different countries, describing their world through their eyes. It analyses how such practices are embedded in political and administrative traditions. It explores how their beliefs, practices and traditions create meaning in politics and public policy making. It provides unique data on the everyday life government elites and practical advice on how to conduct such fieldwork.

Paul 't Hart

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