| Description |
xii, 191 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm |
| Contents |
1. Introduction: motivation, agency, and public policy -- Part I. Theory of knights and knaves -- 2. Knights and knaves in the publc sector: what do we mean and what do we know? -- 3. Motivation and the policy context -- 4. A theory of public service motivation -- Part II. Theory: of pawns and queens -- 5. Agency and public services -- 6. Agency and public finance -- Part III. Policy -- 7. Health care -- 8. School education -- 9. A demogrant -- 10. Partnership savings -- 11. Hypothecation -- Epilogue Doux commerce publique |
| Summary |
"Can we rely on the altruism of professionals or the public service ethos to deliver good quality health and education services? And how should National Health Service Patients, and state school pupils and their parents behave - as grateful recipients or as active consumers? This book provides new answers to these questions - a milestone in the analysis and development of public policy from one of the leading thinkers in the field. It provides a new perspective on policy design, emphasising the importance of analysing the motivation of professionals and others who work within the public sector, and both their and public service beneficiaries' capacity for agency or independent action. It argues that the conventional assumption that public sector professionals are public-spirited altruists or 'knights' is misplaced; but so is the alternative that they are all, in David Hume's terminology, 'knaves' or self-interested egoists. We also must not assume that individual citizens are passive recipients of public services (Pawns); but nor can they be untrammelled sovereigns with unrestricted choices over services and resources (queens). Instead, policies must be designed so as to give the proper balance of motivation and agency"--Dust jacket |
| Notes |
Includes index |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Also available online |
| Subject |
Welfare state.
|
|
Agent (Philosophy)
|
|
Motivation (Psychology)
|
|
Public administration.
|
| SUBJECT |
Great Britain -- Social policy.
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh90001105
|
| Author |
Oxford University Press.
|
| LC no. |
2004297406 |
| ISBN |
0199266999 |
|
