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Edward Parr’s life was busy and full of a remarkable array of activities both in Australia and overseas. Inadequate justice can be done to this life in the words here by those of us who knew him, a...

Biographical fiction narratives — often of famous artists — have, claims David Lodge (2014) , become ‘a fashionable form of literary fiction’. Yet in writing about famous people, the novelist is most ofte n faced with countless biograph ies and archival materials in letters, literary notes, diaries, and in the works (and reviews) of the subject author/artist themselves, to say nothing of the academic scholarship surroundin g the subject and their work. The problem for the novelist then in researching their subje ct, is where to draw the line. This paper examines the challenge for biographical fiction writers in imagining the lives of their subjects beyond that which has been documented— the ‘what is left over’, after reading the extant literature. The paper’s focus is on my own work in progress : a biographical novel about the life of the South African writer and social theorist, Olive Schreiner.

The Hong Kong Hospital Authority is the main provider of public health care services in Hong Kong. It operates 41 public hospitals, 74 general out-patient clinics and 45 specialist out-patient clinics. This article examines the reason for its establishment as a statutory body in 1990 and offers an assessment of its success in meeting the goals of the reformers. A belief that health care service delivery would be improved is largely supported by the evidence, but this may have more to do with budget and policy consistency than management autonomy and flexibility. Statutory independence, with its promise of improved efficiency, has its limits in the highly complex field of health where there are multiple players and where professional autonomy remains a key claim. In recent times, the authority has been subject to several reform attempts and, together with the SARS epidemic in 2003, these have had a significant impact on its organizational structure and practices, in particular, on its degrees of autonomy.

There has been a series of comprehensive reform initiatives in recent Chinese history aimed at improving bureaucratic efficiency, flexibility and innovation through management and fiscal decentralization. The local government sector in China carries major functional responsibilities from economic development to social welfare provision. It is responsible for over 70 percent of total government expenditure. Now, in the new millennium, the Chinese central government seeks to transform local government as part of its market liberalization strategy. This includes ‘privatizing’ local enterprises (a process begun during the 1990s) and a rationalization of local bureaucracy. Although still a highly centralized administration, there has been a significant move away from a uniform approach to local government where now differentiation between regions and localities is actively encouraged. Within a still tightly constrained political structure, however, the reforms have done more than improve China’s economic output. They have created incentives for local officials to engage in rent seeking and utility-maximizing behaviours. The article explores the reform initiatives and critically assesses results against this background.

This article focuses on sub-Saharan Africa and its recent history of state sector decentralisation reforms. Over the last ten to fifteen years, new forms of state organisation have emerged reflecting a policy preference for bureau downsizing and devolution. These include semi-autonomous executive agencies, public–private partnerships in infrastructure development, partial privatisations of utilities and performance contracting arrangements between purchasers and providers. Reform policies are, however, heavily conditioned by bilateral and multilateral donors. The limited success of bureau reforms in the region has been explained by others as either a problem of institutional capacity or the absence of grassroots democracy. This article takes a different stance, arguing that reforms are highly political and resisted not only by politicians but also by an aware and sceptical public. A selection of case studies illustrates these reform trends and problems of implementation. The article also draws attention to intra-regional differences between a francophone West Africa and English speaking East Africa. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Many European countries manage social policy programmes through autonomous organisations. This article examines the role of these agencies in four countries, two of which (Sweden and Finland) have long histories of using agencies and two (the Netherlands and the United Kingdom) in which this style of management is more recent. The article focuses particular attention on the use of performance management in the context of devolved organisations. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The purchase of an expensive, debt-financed aircraft tracking system by one of Tanzania's newly created executive agencies suggests that recent bureaucratic restructuring and liberalization in Tanzania could possibly undermine the good use of international debt management schemes for poverty alleviation. Moreover, it raises a question about the uses (and misuses), in countries where governance capacities are weak, of new public management models of organization. This article explores Tanzania's donor-funded executive agency programme, as one part of its wider civil service reforms. Drawing on empirical research, it examines the power structures and interdependencies between Ministers, departments and NPM style semi-autonomous agencies and the potential for rent-seeking behaviour and perverse outcomes. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In the last 15 years, the governments of many OECD countries have transferred a wide range of functions to new, agency-type organizations. Allowing for the fact that, for comparative purposes, it is difficult precisely to define agencies, and further acknowledging that in many countries agencies are far from being new, it nevertheless remains the case that there seems to have been a strong fashion for this particular organizational solution. This article investigates the apparent international convergence towards “agencification.” It seeks to identify the reasons for, and depth of, the trend. It asks to what extent practice has followed rhetoric. The emerging picture is a complex one. On the one hand, there seems to be a widespread belief, derived from a variety of theoretical traditions, that agencification can unleash performance improvements. On the other hand, systematic evidence for some of the hypothetical benefits is very patchy. Furthermore, the diversity of actual practice in different countries has been so great that there must sometimes be considerable doubt as to whether the basic requirements for successful performance management are being met.

The problem identified in this paper is twofold. One is the plight of public housing at the end of the decade, with State programs undermined by Commonwealth funding cuts; the other is the problem of intergovernmental reform and its consequences for discrete areas of policy such as housing. The paper traces developments in Commonwealth–State housing arrangements, beginning with the reforms initiated through the Council of Australian Governments through to the still uncertain future of public housing under the Howard government. It examines a number of inquiries into housing and recommendations for reform which served the plans of reformist governments intent on separating out the functional roles and responsibilities of the Commonwealth and the States. In particular, these inquiries advocated an ‘affordability’s benchmark which sought to blur the distinction between public and private rental housing leading, inevitably, to the residualisation of the public housing sector.

Queensland's population growth phenomenon has demanded responses from the state government for greater intervention in planning land use and resources utilisation. Planning, especially regional planning, represents an area of traditional policy neglect in Queensland, explained in part by the division of powers such that local authorities, rather than the state, have the major responsibility for land-use development and physical services. Local government jurisdiction in planning poses a challenge for the state government in how best to strategically manage regional growth, while at the same time respecting local authority autonomy in planning decision-making. Over the last three years, the Goss government has undertaken both administrative reforms and a comprehensive and innovative planning exercise to shape urban development in south-east Queensland, the area of greatest population density and growth. In particular, it has adopted a model of corporate government as a framework for the planning process. The corporate model promotes a “whole of government” approach to strategic planning, emphasising efficient and effective outcomes for clients. The model's client orientation has elevated and formalised the role of community input in decision-making, and provided a process for negotiation between the players in planning policy development. In an intergovernmental environment, consultation with local authorities is important but the managerialist aspects of corporate government are likely to encourage central control of the planning policy agenda. Both are necessary for improved urban outcomes, yet it remains to be seen how these potentially conflicting processes can be reconciled in practice.

"Good local governance" reflects the dual functions of local government. On the one hand, democratic regimes gain input legitimacy by responsiveness and by being inclusive towards the preferences of their citizens. On the other hand, they achieve output legitimacy by effectively delivering public goods and services. Their governance strategies follow three major paths - "decentralisation," "political administrative reforms" and "participatory reforms". But national contexts, actors, political culture and path dependency matter a lot. In this book continent-wide developments are compared by using relevant country studies. This comparative approach focuses on "developing countries" in Asia, Africa and Latin America, comparing and contrasting their experience with that of European countries

In the older democracies in the developed countries local democracy got a tremendous push with democratisation and general enfranchisement which mostly took place in the late 19th-and the early 20th century. Although in some of these countries decentralisation of political structures at the local level already existed before this period these earlier processes were more a deconcentration than devolution. Decentral administrations were less autonomous and often dominated by a small local elite. The general enfranchisement brought mass participation and the election of councils and mayors.

At a time when the democratic governance resurgence of the 90s in developing countries is giving way to the disappointment and disillusionment at the retreat of democracy, it is opportune that the relationship between democratic and local governance is being given serious consideration by the International Association of Political Science globally (Diamond 2008). For quite sometime now, some of us had argued that democracy cannot be consolidated in Africa at the national level if it is not rooted at the local level and also vice versa that democracy at the local level cannot survive if democratic space does not exist for it at the national level. Africa is in a particularly special cultural and political juncture as far as the twin processes of state and nation building are concerned and democratic and effective local governance is critical for the twin processes.

“On the one hand, local governments are to act as the vehicle of local democracy, providing services responsive to local needs and conditions. On the other hand, local governments must constitute the local branch of the nation-state administrative apparatus, executing state policies in key-policy areas. Here, bureaucratic efficiency is the key objective.” (Pierre 1995: 38). “Good local governance” reflects this dual function of local government. On the one hand, democratic regimes gain acceptance by their responsiveness and by acting in accordance with the preferences of their citizens. On the other hand, legitimacy can be achieved by effectively delivering public services and promoting the common welfare, which is by increasing the output-legitimacy of the local and the national system of democracy. Although these two paths, “local administrative reform” and “participatory reform”, are often viewed as contradictory, neither of them can be neglected when seeking to promote the stability and survival of a democratic system. In a broader multilevel government framework, functional, fiscal and territorial aspects become important issues.

Partly in response to rapid population growth in south-east Queensland and a growing imbalance in demographic patterns between Brisbane City and surrounding shires, there is renewed activity in planning for the region by all levels of government. The Brisbane City Council, in 1990, engaged a consultant to produce its first large scale strategy plan for the city, and the State government, in 1991, established a regional planning advisory group to undertake a similar planning exercise for the south-east region. Moreover, it is anticipated that federal programs such as ‘Building Better Cities’ will provide financial support to the region for improved transport systems, urban renewal and infrastructure development. The urban sociologist, Harvey Molotch (1976, 1987) has challenged the normative conception of planning as a rational activity by incorporating into his analysis the notion of power, in particular, a form of community power which he has called ‘the growth machine’. While a growth coalition ...

While Chapter 1 introduced the main body of academic theory pertaining to agencies, this chapter analyses what we suggest has become an ’ideal type’ for practitioners — the dominant improvement model in many recent public management reforms. We call this the Tripod Model, for reasons that will soon become apparent.

Government agencies are tremendously important in the everyday lives of citizens. In a considerable number of countries — the United Kingdom and the United States among them — most of the real work of government is carried on through agencies. It is agencies that may admit you to the country, pay your benefits, register your company, collect your taxes, lock you up when you commit crimes and provide you with your passport when you want to leave. It is agencies that eat up a large slice of the government’s total spending and agencies that employ a substantial percentage of the state’s employees. It is not at all unusual for them (as in the United Kingdom) to employ far more staff and spend far more money than their parent ministries. In the public sector, agencies are big business.

Der Gerry Stoker, New Labour and Local Governance in Britain - Neil Marshall and Kevin Sproats, Managing Democracy? Assessing Some of the Outcomes of Australian Local Government Reform - Hellmut Wollmann, Local Government Reforms in Germany: A Trajectory of Change and Persistence - Jean Drage, New Zealand's Local Government: What of the Future? - Helge O. Larsen, Directly Elected Mayors: Democratic Renewal or Constitutional Confusion? - Rosemary Kiss, Democracy or Community? Australian Local Government Electoral Reform - Janice Caulfield, Local Government Finance in OECD Countries - Akira Nakamura, A Paradigm Shift in Japan's Intergovernmental Relations: Reform of Government and Decentralization of Central Power - Andrew Sancton, Local Government in North America: Localism and Community Governance - Harald Baldersheim, Subsidiarity at Work: Modes of Multi-Level Governance in European Countries

In most OECD countries in the last quarter Century there has been a growing mismatch between the functional competencies and fiscal responsibility of local government. Continued population growth, especially in urban areas, has seen a steady increase in demand for municipal services. While measures of legislative and administrative decentralisation to meet these demands have been put in place (reforms which have tended to broaden the economic and social functions of local and regional authorities), they have not been matched by a decentralisation of financial control (OECD 1997). Where financial decentralisation has occurred, it is generally the intermediate governments that have benefitted, often in the name of ‘new federalism’ (Owens and Norregard 1991). In unitary countries without intermediate level governments such as New Zealand and the United Kingdom, the problem of fiscal autonomy for local authorities has not been given a high priority even by reforming governments’ (Martin 1991). The twin problems of fiscal dependency on central government, and inadequate growth in local government own-source revenue are common to many OECD countries, despite wide variations in intergovernmental financial arrangements. This chapter offers a comparative analysis of local government finance in selected OECD countries. Its aims are threefold: first, to trace the dimensions of local government finance in a comparative way; second, to establish patterns and trends across time; and third, to consider the problem of local fiscal autonomy in the context of local government reform.