Edward Elgar Publishing Continuity and Change in Public Policy and Management

Continuity and Change in Public Policy and Management offers a major reconsideration of patterns in long-term policymaking and organizational change. Christopher Pollitt and Geert Bouckaert use international and inter-sectoral comparison to challenge some currently fashionable models of policymaking.Combining theory development, international comparison and original case study analysis, two of Europe's leading public policy and management scholars apply and develop some of the main models of policy change and offer a revealing long-term view of policy developments since 1965. Drawing on an extensive programme of elite interviews and documentary analysis they provide an integrated treatment of national and local policymaking in two major public services - hospital care and the police - in England and Belgium. This timely book addresses the 'paradigm wars' in public policy, arguing for a nuanced intermediate position that challenges the orthodox and the post-modernists alike.This fascinating core book will be highly sought by advanced students and academics in public administration, public management, government, comparative politics or public policy courses. It will also prove to be an important tool for students in police studies and healthcare management. Review 'This lucid, vivid and intelligent book on "continuity and change" in policy and management by Pollitt and Bouckaert follows in the footsteps of Pollitt's previous book on the issue of time, a vital but often neglected issue. In the present book the focus is on comparisons: Britain and Belgium, hospitals and police, national and local, and comparison over time. Again conceptually rich, this book makes you think. The best a book can do.' About the Author The Late Christopher Pollitt, formerly Emeritus Professor, Public Governance Institute, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium and Geert Bouckaert, Director, Public Management Institute, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and President, European Group for Public Administration, Belgium