Governing Fables

Governing Fables
Author: Sandford Borins
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2011-08-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1617354929

Governing Fables: Learning from Public Sector Narratives advocates the importance of narrative for public servants, exemplifies it with a rigorously selected and analyzed set of narratives, and imparts narrative skills politicians and public servants need in their careers. Governing Fables turns to narratology, the inter-disciplinary study of narrative, for a conceptual framework that is applied to a set of narratives engaging life within public organizations, focusing on works produced during the last twenty-five years in the US and UK. The genres discussed include British government narratives inspired by and reacting to Yes Minister, British appeasement narratives, American political narratives, the Cuban Missile Crisis narrative, jury decision-making narratives, and heroic teacher narratives. In each genre lessons are presented regarding both effective management and essential narrative skills. Governing Fables is intended for public management and political science scholars and practitioners interested in leadership and management, as well as readers drawn to the political subject matter and to the genre of political films, novels, and television series.

Fables and Futures

Fables and Futures
Author: George Estreich
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2019-03-19
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0262351803

How new biomedical technologies—from prenatal testing to gene-editing techniques—require us to imagine who counts as human and what it means to belong. From next-generation prenatal tests, to virtual children, to the genome-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9, new biotechnologies grant us unprecedented power to predict and shape future people. That power implies a question about belonging: which people, which variations, will we welcome? How will we square new biotech advances with the real but fragile gains for people with disabilities—especially when their voices are all but absent from the conversation? This book explores that conversation, the troubled territory where biotechnology and disability meet. In it, George Estreich—an award-winning poet and memoirist, and the father of a young woman with Down syndrome—delves into popular representations of cutting-edge biotech: websites advertising next-generation prenatal tests, feature articles on “three-parent IVF,” a scientist's memoir of constructing a semisynthetic cell, and more. As Estreich shows, each new application of biotechnology is accompanied by a persuasive story, one that minimizes downsides and promises enormous benefits. In this story, people with disabilities are both invisible and essential: a key promise of new technologies is that disability will be repaired or prevented. In chapters that blend personal narrative and scholarship, Estreich restores disability to our narratives of technology. He also considers broader themes: the place of people with disabilities in a world built for the able; the echoes of eugenic history in the genomic present; and the equation of intellect and human value. Examining the stories we tell ourselves, the fables already creating our futures, Estreich argues that, given biotech that can select and shape who we are, we need to imagine, as broadly as possible, what it means to belong.

Leaders in the Shadows

Leaders in the Shadows
Author: David Siegel
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2015-02-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1442619821

In most municipalities across Canada, the top public servant is the chief administrative officer (CAO) or city manager. Compared to elected politicians such as the mayor and the council, the work of a CAO is often overlooked and not well understood. In Leaders in the Shadows, David Siegel brings the CAO into the limelight, examining the leadership qualities of effective municipal managers. Using the examples of five exceptional CAOs who have worked in municipalities of varying sizes across Canada, Siegel identifies the leadership traits, skills, and behaviours which have made them successful. Interweaving the stories of his subjects with insights drawn from leadership theory, Siegel offers an engrossing account of how CAOs must lead “up, down, and out” in order to succeed. Offering well-rounded accounts of the challenges and opportunities faced by public servants at the municipal level, Leaders in the Shadows is a valuable resource for academics and practitioners alike.

MLN.

MLN.
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 320
Release: 1908
Genre: Electronic journals
ISBN:

Provides image and full-text online access to back issues. Consult the online table of contents for specific holdings.

Systems from Hell

Systems from Hell
Author: David A. Rochefort
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2024-12-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

This book approaches contemporary fiction as a medium for policy advocacy, one whose narrative devices both link it to, and distinguish it from, other forms of public discourse. Using the framework of political agenda setting, David A. Rochefort analyzes the rhetorical function of problem definition played by literary works when they document and characterize social issues while sounding the call for systemic reform. Focusing on a group of noteworthy realist novels by American authors over the past twenty years, this study maintains that fictional narrative is a potentially influential instrument of "empathic policy argument." The book closes by examining the agenda-setting dynamics through which a social problem novel can contribute to the process of policy change.

The Persistence of Innovation in Government

The Persistence of Innovation in Government
Author: Sandford F. Borins
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2014-06-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0815725612

A Brookings Institution Press and Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation publication Sandford Borins addresses the enduring significance of innovation in government as practiced by public servants, analyzed by scholars, discussed by media, documented by awards, and experienced by the public. In The Persistence of Innovation in Government, he maps the changing landscape of American public sector innovation in the twenty-first century, largely by addressing three key questions: • Who innovates? • When, why, and how do they do it? • What are the persistent obstacles and the proven methods for overcoming them? Probing both the process and the content of innovation in the public sector, Borins identifies major shifts and important continuities. His examination of public innovation combines several elements: his analysis of the Harvard Kennedy School's Innovations in American Government Awards program; significant new research on government performance; and a fresh look at the findings of his earlier, highly praised book Innovating with Integrity: How Local Heroes Are Transforming American Government. He also offers a thematic survey of the field's burgeoning literature, with a particular focus on international comparison.

Introducing Public Administration

Introducing Public Administration
Author: Jay M. Shafritz
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 682
Release: 2022-07-19
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000607224

Now in an extensively revised tenth edition, Introducing Public Administration provides students with the conceptual foundation they need, while introducing them to important trends in the discipline. This classic textbook—blending historical accounts with contemporary events—examines the most important issues in the field of public administration through the use of examples from various disciplines and modern culture. Its approach of using extensive case studies at the end of each chapter encourages students to think critically about the nature, purpose, and public value of public administration today. Refreshed and revised throughout, the tenth edition contains a number of critical updates for the field: All-new case studies at the end of each chapter to address various challenges, including social justice, climate change action, smart cities, transforming governmental institutions, and economic responses to the global pandemic. The case studies—many with legal dimensions as well—cover emerging issues and are well suited for further research by students. Two chapters by contributing authors on 1) Social equity and justice, covering contemporary challenges in the US, from police reform to voting rights and homelessness, and 2) Public budgeting, contrasting government fiscal efforts between two recessions, illuminating successes and failures with a case study on the federal government shutdown in 2019 over border wall funding. Keynotes at the start of each chapter to help introduce students to historical figures, contemporary dilemmas, and examples of public service in action, including subjects such as diversity and inclusion, marijuana legalization, organizational effects of remote work, and examining scenarios for the future. A completely rewritten concluding chapter on leadership, followership, and leading teams with a discussion of destructive leadership types and a flipped case study on defining what leadership effectiveness is. Complete with a fully updated companion website containing instructor slides for each chapter, a chapter-by-chapter instructor’s manual and sample syllabus, student learning objectives, and self-test questions, Introducing Public Administration is the ideal introduction to the discipline for first year masters students, as well as for the growing number of undergraduate public administration courses and programs.

The Power of Narrative

The Power of Narrative
Author: Raul P. Lejano
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2020-09-18
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0197542123

There is an ideological war of words waging in America, one that speaks to a new fundamentalism rising not just within the American public, but across other ideologically-torn nations around the globe as well. At its heart is climate skepticism, an ideological watershed that has become a core belief for millions of people despite a large scientific consensus supporting the science of anthropogenic climate change. While many scholars have examined the role of lobbyists and conservative think tanks in fueling the climate skepticism movement, there has not yet been a systematic analysis of why the narrative itself has resonated so powerfully with the public. Pulling from science and technology studies, narrative and discourse theory, and public policy, The Power of Narrative examines the strength of climate skepticism as a story, offering a thoughtful analysis and comparison of anti-climate science narratives over time and across geographic boundaries. This book provides fresh insight into the rhetorical and semantic properties on both sides of the climate change debate that preclude dialogue around climate science, and proposes a means for moving beyond ideological entrenchment through language mediation, further ethnographic study, and research-informed teaching. The Power of Narrative culminates in the revelation of a parallel between narratives about climate skepticism and those in other issue areas (e.g., gun rights, immigration, health crises), exposing a genetic meta-narrative of public distrust and isolation. Ultimately, The Power of Narrative is not a book about climate change in itself: it is, instead, a book about how our society understands and interacts with science, how a social narrative becomes ideology, and how we can move beyond personal and political dogma to arrive at a sense of collective rapprochement.

Interpretive Political Science

Interpretive Political Science
Author: R. A. W. Rhodes
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2017-06-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 019108932X

Interpretive Political Science is the second of two volumes featuring a selection of key writings by R.A.W. Rhodes. Volume II looks forward and explores the 'interpretive turn' and its implications for the craft of political science, especially public administration, and draws together articles from 2005 onwards on the theme of 'the interpretive turn' in political science. Part I provides a summary statement of the interpretive approach, and Part II develops the theme of blurring genres and discusses a variety of research methods common in the humanities, including: ethnographic fieldwork, life history, and focus groups. Part III demonstrates how the genres of thought and presentation found in the humanities can be used in political science. It presents four examples of such blurring 'at work' with studies of: applied anthropology and civil service reform; women's studies and government departments; and storytelling and local knowledge. The book concludes with a summary of what is edifying about an interpretive approach, and why this approach matters, and revisits some of the more common criticisms before indulging in plausible conjectures about the future of interpretivism. The author seeks new and interesting ways to explore governance, high politics, public policies, and the study of public administration in general. Volume I collects in one place for the first time the main articles written by Rhodes on policy networks and governance between 1990 and 2005, and explores a new way of describing British government, focusing on policy making and the ways in which policy is put into practice.