This 2007 book describes the largely overlooked process of using private government contractors to perform essential or inherent functions in the military and civilian sectors of government. It shows ...how such practices undermine the capacity effectiveness and morale of government officials and it establishes constitutional and statutory arguments against the practice. It recognizes and accepts the proper role for outsourcing or privatization while safeguarding against its improper use. The argument ultimately turns on the necessity for our democratic system to require the executive branch to perform crucial tasks in-house unless Congress has permitted delegations to private contractors.
Does democracy promote the creation of market economies and robust state institutions? Do state-building and market-building go hand in hand? Or do they work at cross-purposes? This book examines the ...relationship between state-building and market-building in 25 post-communist countries from 1990 to 2004. Based on cross-national statistical analyses, surveys of business managers, and case studies from Russia, Bulgaria, Poland, and Uzbekistan, Timothy Frye demonstrates that democracy is associated with more economic reform, stronger state institutions, and higher social transfers when political polarization is low. But he also finds that increases in political polarization dampen the positive impact of democracy by making policy less predictable. He traces the roots of political polarization to high levels of income inequality and the institutional legacy of communist rule. By identifying when and how democracy fosters markets and states, this work contributes to long-standing debates in comparative politics, public policy, and post-communist studies.
The other invisible hand Le Grand, Julian
2008, 2007., 20090110, 2009, 2007, 2007-01-01, 20070101
eBook, Book
How can we ensure high-quality public services such as health care and education? Governments spend huge amounts of public money on public services such as health, education, and social care, and yet ...the services that are actually delivered are often low quality, inefficiently run, unresponsive to their users, and inequitable in their distribution. In this book, Julian Le Grand argues that the best solution is to offer choice to users and to encourage competition among providers. Le Grand has just completed a period as policy advisor working within the British government at the highest levels, and from this he has gained evidence to support his earlier theoretical work and has experienced the political reality of putting public policy theory into practice. He examines four ways of delivering public services: trust; targets and performance management; "voice"; and choice and competition. He argues that, although all of these have their merits, in most situations policies that rely on extending choice and competition among providers have the most potential for delivering high-quality, efficient, responsive, and equitable services. But it is important that the relevant policies be appropriately designed, and this book provides a detailed discussion of the principal features that these policies should have in the context of health care and education. It concludes with a discussion of the politics of choice.
A new revolution in homeownership and living has been sweeping the booming cities of China. This time the main actors on the social stage are not peasants, migrants, or working-class proletariats but ...middle-class professionals and entrepreneurs in search of a private paradise in a society now dominated by consumerism. No longer seeking happiness and fulfillment through collective sacrifice and socialist ideals, they hope to find material comfort and social distinction in newly constructed gated communities. This quest for the good life is profoundly transforming the physical and social landscapes of urban China.
Li Zhang, who is from Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, turns a keen ethnographic eye on her hometown. She combines her analysis of larger political and social issues with fine-grained details about the profound spatial, cultural, and political effects of the shift in the way Chinese urban residents live their lives and think about themselves.In Search of Paradiseis a deeply informed account of how the rise of private homeownership is reconfiguring urban space, class subjects, gender selfhood, and ways of life in the reform era.
New, seemingly individualistic lifestyles mark a dramatic move away from yearning for a social utopia under Maoist socialism. Yet the privatization of property and urban living have engendered a simultaneous movement of public engagement among homeowners as they confront the encroaching power of the developers. This double movement of privatized living and public sphere activism, Zhang finds, is a distinctive feature of the cultural politics of the middle classes in contemporary China. Theoretically sophisticated and highly accessible, Zhang's account will appeal not only to those interested in China but also to anyone interested in spatial politics, middle-class culture, and postsocialist governing in a globalizing world.
In Low-fee Private Schooling and Poverty in Developing Countries, Joanna H rm draws on primary research carried out in sub-Saharan African countries and in India to show how the poor are being failed ...by both government and private schools. The primary research data and experiences are combined with additional examples from around the world to offer a wide perspective on the issue of marketized education, low-fee private schooling and government systems. H rm offers a pragmatic approach to a divisive issue and an ideologically-driven debate and shows how the well-intentioned international drive towards 'education for all' is being encouraged and even imposed long before some countries have prepared the teachers and developed the systems needed to implement it successfully. Suggesting that governments need to take a much more constructive approach to the issue, H rm argues for a greater acceptance of the challenges, abandoning ideological positions and a scaling back of ambition in the hope of laying stronger foundations for educational development.
Scholars in the Marketplace is a case study of market-based reforms at Uganda's Makerere University. With the World Bank heralding neoliberal reform at Makerere as the model for the transformation of ...higher education in Africa, it has implications for the whole continent. At the global level, the Makerere case exemplifies the fate of public universities in a market-oriented and capital friendly era. The Makerere reform began in the 1990s and was based on the premise that higher education is more of a private than a public good. Instead of pitting the public against the private, and the state against the market, this book shifts the terms of the debate toward a third alternative than explores different relations between the two. The book distinguishes between privatisation and commercialisation, two processes that drove the Makerere reform. It argues that whereas privatisation (the entry of privately sponsored students) is compatible with a public university where priorities are publicly set, commercialisation (financial and administrative autonomy for each faculty to design a market-responsive curriculum) inevitably leads to a market determination of priorities in a public university. The book warns against commercialisation of public universities as the subversion of public institutions for private purposes.
The Edison schools Saltman, Kenneth J
2005, 20050302, 2005-02-02, 2005-03-02
eBook, Book
The story of the Edison Schools is a gripping tale of money, kids, and greed. What began in the 1980s as an enterprise to transform public schools quickly became a troubled business battling falling ...test scores and dismal stock prices. How did the most ambitious for-profit education company in U.S. history lose respect, money, and credibility in such a short time?Revealing how American McEducation went from glory to crisis, The Edison Schools tracks entrepreneur Christopher Whittle's plan to introduce a standardized nationwide curriculum and cut administrative waste. Education specialist Kenneth J. Saltman finds that the critics' predictions came true in Edison schools across the country: Experienced teachers left in droves, students were virtually given answers to standardized tests to drive up scores, and difficult students were "counselored" out.
