The Executive Branch - General & Miscellaneous, Change Management, U.S. Politics - Public Affairs & Administration

High-Performance Government: Structure, Leadership, and Incentives

Name: High-Performance Government: Structure, Leadership, and Incentives
Author: Robert Klitgaard
ISBN: 9780833036629

by Robert Klitgaard (Editor), Paul Light, Paul C. Light (Editor), Paul Charles Light

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Overview

In one of the most important critiques of U.S. government in more than a decade, the 2003 report of the Volcker Commission pulled no punches in describing an underperforming, dysfunctional U.S. government. The commission's report urged improvements in reorganization, leadership, and performance, but stopped short of specifying how to put its recommendations into practice. In High-Performace Government: Structure, Leadership, Incentives experts from the RAND Corporation offer practical ways to reorganize and restructure, enhance leadership, and create flexible, performance-driven agencies. Edited by Robert Klitgaard, Dean and Ford Distinguished Professor of International Development and Security at the Pardee RAND Graduate School, and Paul C. Light, Founding Director of the Center for Public Service at the Brookings Institution and Senior Adviser to the Volcker Commission, this new book presents an innovative approach for rethinking government. This book looks at examples of successful reforms and examines what can be learned from them to improve the way our government works. High-Performance Government includes an opening discussion by Robert Klitgaards, the full text of the Volcker Commission report, and a dozen chapters by senior RAND researchers. These chapters discuss how to confront the challenges posed by the changing role and increasing uncertainty of government; restructure under the constraints of structural politics; reorganize the national security apparatus; tailor public-private partnerships to particular needs; reform the system of presidential appointments; enhance leadership and incentives in the civil service; and much more.

Synopsis

Improving how our government works is urgent business for America. In this book experts from the RAND corporation provide practical ways for government to reorganize and restructure, enhance leadership, and create flexible, performance-driven agencies.

About the Author, Robert Klitgaard

Robert Klitgaard is dean and Ford Distinguished Professor of International Development and Security at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. His books include Controlling Corruption and Choosing Elites. Paul C. Light is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Public Service at New York University. He was the Founding Director of the Center for Public Service at the Brookings Institution and Senior Adviser to the Volcker Commission. Light is the author of several books, including The Four Pillars Of High Performance: How Robust Organizations Achieve Extraordinary Results and Government's Greatest Achievements: From Civil Rights to Homeland Security .

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Editorials

Futuribles

High-Performance Government is worthy of attentive reading because it plunges right into the heart of the debates on government reform. In conclusion, the contribution of High-Performance Government is evading a naive rationalism and simplification that would arise from the benchmarking of the private sector as a source of truth for the state, and instead be built from what the anthropologist Clifford Geertz calls a 'size-up-and-solve social science': a social science of evaluation and resolution.