The public good is not merely an economic idea of goods and services, but a place where thoughtful debate and examination of the polis can occur. In differentiating the university from corporations and other private sector businesses, Governance and the Public Good provides a framework for discussing the trend toward politicized and privatized postsecondary institutions while acknowledging the parallel demands of accountability and autonomy placed on sites of higher learning. If one accepts the notion of higher education as a public good, does this affect how one thinks about the governance of America's colleges and universities? Contributors to this book explore the role of the contemporary university, its relationship to the public good beyond a simple obligation to educate for jobs, and the subsequent impact on how institutions of higher education are and should be governed.

In a time of global political ferment, established ideas are coming under renewed scrutiny. Chief among them is one of the dominant notions of our era: that we should entrust markets with many of the tasks previously carried out by government. In this wide-ranging book, Max Rashbrooke goes beyond anecdote and partisanship, delving deep into the latest research about the sweeping changes made to the public services that shape our collective lives. What he unearths is startling: it challenges established thinking on the effectiveness of market-based reforms and charts a new form of ‘deep’ democracy for the twenty-first century. Refreshing and far-sighted, this stimulating book offers New Zealanders a new way of thinking about government and how it can navigate the turbulent world ahead. The market is often not the solution to our problems. Markets have often been the problem. Max Rashbrooke makes the convincing case for models of government that work better, as well as those to be more wary of. Greater democracy can bring with it greater equality - but, Rashbrooke warns, democracy itself is imperilled by our current levels of inequality. Fast paced, globally informed and wittily written. – Professor Danny Dorling, Oxford University This book provides a wide range of excellent evidence-based arguments that help counter the oft-dominant small-government ideology of our times. Its defence of democracy, government and voter competence is a story that needs to be told more. – Laura O'Connell Rapira, Director of ActionStation

Governance challenges and solutions for the provision of global public goods in such areas as the environment, food security, and development. Global public goods (GPGs)—the economic term for a broad range of goods and services that benefit everyone, including stable climate, public health, and economic security—pose notable governance challenges. At the national level, public goods are often provided by government, but at the global level there is no established state-like entity to take charge of their provision. The complex nature of many GPGs poses additional problems of coordination, knowledge generation and the formation of citizen preferences. This book considers traditional public economy theory of public goods provision as oversimplified, because it is state centered and fiscally focused. It develops a multidisciplinary look at the challenges of understanding and designing appropriate governance regimes for different types of goods in such areas as the environment, food security, and development assistance. The chapter authors, all leading scholars in the field, explore the misalignment between existing GPG policies and actors' incentives and understandings. They analyze the complex impact of incentives, the involvement of stakeholders in collective decision making, and the specific coordination needed for the generation of knowledge. The book shows that governance of GPGs must be democratic, reflexive—emphasizing collective learning processes—and knowledge based in order to be effective.

This book examines the normative principles that guide the governance of education, in particular the notion of education as a public good. Determining whether this concept is still valid is a topic of growing importance, especially considering the phenomena of increasing privatisation and marketisation in the sector. The author posits that the prioritisation of economic aspects of education may lead to the weakening of the role of the State in ensuring equality of opportunity and social justice, and thus to a significant risk of considering education as merely a private, marketable good. The volume argues that considering education as a common good can lead to the strengthening of democratic and participatory approaches to educational governance, based on the recognition of education as a shared endeavour and responsibility. It will be of interest and value to students and scholars of education as a public good, social justice, and the wider neoliberalisation of the education sector.

Drawing on the Fund’s analytical and capacity development work, including Public Investment Management Assessments (PIMAs) carried out in more than 60 countries, the new book Well Spent: How Strong Infrastructure Governance Can End Waste in Public Investment will address how countries can attain quality infrastructure outcomes through better infrastructure governance—an issue becoming increasingly important in the context of the Great Lockdown and its economic consequences. It covers critical issues such as infrastructure investment and Sustainable Development Goals, controlling corruption, managing fiscal risks, integrating planning and budgeting, and identifying best practices in project appraisal and selection. It also covers emerging areas in infrastructure governance, such as maintaining and managing public infrastructure assets and building resilience against climate change.

Governments around the world are turning over more of their services to private or charitable organizations, as politicians and pundits celebrate participation in civic activities. But can nonprofits provide more and higher-quality services than governments or for-profit businesses? Will nonprofits really increase social connectedness and civic engagement? This book, a sequel to Walter W. Powell’s widely acclaimed The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, brings together an original collection of writings that explores the nature of the "public good" and how private nonprofit organizations relate to it. The contributors to this book—eminent sociologists, political scientists, management scholars, historians, and economists—examine the nonprofit sector through a variety of theoretical and methodological lenses. They consider the tensions between the provision of public goods and the interests of members and donors in nonprofit organizations. They contrast religious and secular nonprofits, as well as private and nonprofit provision of child care, mental health services, and health care. And they explore the growing role of nonprofits in the United States, France, Germany, and Eastern Europe, the contribution of nonprofits to economic development, and the forms and strategies of private action.

In this book, internationally renowned scholars and practitioners elaborate on political as well as managerial questions, e.g. how to make overriding Public Governance changes the ’guiding model’ for a now needed stronger strategic approach. More specifically, their focus is on how moves towards a re-positioning as an enabling authority are to be made drivers for adapting management systems across all levels. In accordance with present developments, the authors explain how changes in the overall governance structure have to be used to adapt leadership practices in a more output-oriented or even entrepreneurial fashion. Overall, the underlying idea is to provide some further basics for a public sector type of a design-oriented management science.