ISBN : 9780198843719
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.
1 Mallory E. Compton and Paul 't Hart: How to 'see' great policy successes: A field guide to spotting policy successes in the wild
2 Luis Henrique Paiva, Tereza Cristina Cotta, and Armando Barrientos: Brazil's Bolsa Familia programme
3 M. Ramesh and Azad Bali: The Remarkable health care performance in Singapore
4 Adrian Kay: Cutting the wait - at least for a while: The NHS's assault on waiting times
5 Paul Cairney: The transformation of UK tobacco control
6 Mallory E. Compton: The 'Social Warfare State': Americans' making of a civic generation
7 Jaakko Kauko: The Finnish comprehensive school: conflicts, compromises, and Institutional Robustness
8 Rainer Kattel and Ines Mergel: Estonia's digital transformation: mission mystique and the hiding hand
9 Richard F. Callahan: Infrastructure partnership success in Southern California: building and paying for the Alameda Corridor rail project
10 Emma Blomkamp and Jenny M Lewis: 'Marvellous Melbourne': making the world's most liveable city
11 Arwin van Buuren: The Dutch Delta approach: the successful reinvention of a policy success
12 Jacob Torfing and Eva Sorensen: The Copenhagen metropolitan 'Finger Plan': a robust urban planning success based on collaborative governance
13 Camilla Bakken Ovald, Bent Sofus Tranoy, and Ketil Raknes: The Norwegian Petroleum Fund as institutionalised self-Restraint
14 Michael Mintrom and Madeline Thomas: New Zealand's economic turnaround: how public policy innovation catalysed economic growth
15 Florian Spohr: Germany's labour market policies: how the sick man of Europe performed a second economic miracle
16 Frederike Albrecht and Charles F. Parker: Healing the ozone layer: the Montreal Protocol and the lessons and limits of a global governance success story
