Despite criticism of inefficiencies and unlimited growth, bureaucracies still fill crucial positions in modern societies. This volume examines ‘varieties in bureaucracies’ across Europe, with a specific focus on the Nordic region.

This comprehensive collection of classical sociological theory is a definitive guide to the roots of sociology from its undisciplined beginnings to its current influence on contemporary sociological debate. Explores influential works of Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Mead, Simmel, Freud, Du Bois, Adorno, Marcuse, Parsons, and Merton Editorial introductions lend historical and intellectual perspective to the substantial readings Includes a new section with new readings on the immediate "pre-history" of sociological theory, including the Enlightenment and de Tocqueville Individual reading selections are updated throughout

This global encyclopedic work serves as a comprehensive collection of global scholarship regarding the vast fields of public administration, public policy, governance, and management. Written and edited by leading international scholars and practitioners, this exhaustive resource covers all areas of the above fields and their numerous subfields of study. In keeping with the multidisciplinary spirit of these fields and subfields, the entries make use of various theoretical, empirical, analytical, practical, and methodological bases of knowledge. Expanded and updated, the second edition includes over a thousand of new entries representing the most current research in public administration, public policy, governance, nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations, and management covering such important sub-areas as: 1. organization theory, behavior, change and development; 2. administrative theory and practice; 3. Bureaucracy; 4. public budgeting and financial management; 5. public economy and public management 6. public personnel administration and labor-management relations; 7. crisis and emergency management; 8. institutional theory and public administration; 9. law and regulations; 10. ethics and accountability; 11. public governance and private governance; 12. Nonprofit management and nongovernmental organizations; 13. Social, health, and environmental policy areas; 14. pandemic and crisis management; 15. administrative and governance reforms; 16. comparative public administration and governance; 17. globalization and international issues; 18. performance management; 19. geographical areas of the world with country-focused entries like Japan, China, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Russia and Eastern Europe, North America; and 20. a lot more. Relevant to professionals, experts, scholars, general readers, researchers, policy makers and manger, and students worldwide, this work will serve as the most viable global reference source for those looking for an introduction and advance knowledge to the field.

Corruption and ineffectiveness are often expected of public servants in developing countries. However, some groups within these states are distinctly more effective and public oriented than the rest. Why? Patchwork Leviathan explains how a few spectacularly effective state organizations manage to thrive amid general institutional weakness and succeed against impressive odds. Drawing on the Hobbesian image of the state as Leviathan, Erin Metz McDonnell argues that many seemingly weak states actually have a wide range of administrative capacities. Such states are in fact patchworks sewn loosely together from scarce resources into the semblance of unity. McDonnell demonstrates that when the human, cognitive, and material resources of bureaucracy are rare, it is critically important how they are distributed. Too often, scarce bureaucratic resources are scattered throughout the state, yielding little effect. McDonnell reveals how a sufficient concentration of resources clustered within particular pockets of a state can be transformative, enabling distinctively effective organizations to emerge from a sea of ineffectiveness. Patchwork Leviathan offers a comprehensive analysis of successful statecraft in institutionally challenging environments, drawing on cases from contemporary Ghana and Nigeria, mid-twentieth-century Kenya and Brazil, and China in the early twentieth century. Based on nearly two years of pioneering fieldwork in West Africa, this incisive book explains how these highly effective pockets differ from the Western bureaucracies on which so much state and organizational theory is based, providing a fresh answer to why well-funded global capacity-building reforms fail—and how they can do better.

In this provocative study, Paul du Gay makes a compelling case for the continuing importance of bureaucracy. Taking inspiration from the work of Max Weber, du Gay launches a staunch defence of `the bureaucratic ethos′ and highlights its continuing relevance to the achievement of social order and good government in liberal democratic societies. Through a comprehensive engagement with both historical and contemporary critiques of bureaucracy and a careful examination of the policies of organizational change within the public services today, du Gay develops a major reappraisal of the so-called `traditional′ ethic of office. In doing so he highlights the ways in which many of the key features of bureaucratic conduct that came into existence a century ago still remain essential to the provision of responsible democratic government.