Policy capacity and governance: assessing governmental competences and capabilities in theory and practice

1: Policy Capacity: Conceptual Framework and Essential Components; Wu Xun, M Ramesh and Michael Howlett -- Part I -- Conceptual and Measurement Issues -- 2: Policy Capacity in Public Administration; B. Guy Peters -- 3: Policy Analytical Capacity: The Supply and Demand for Policy Analysis in Government; Michael Howlett -- 4: Measuring Policy Capacity through Governance Indices; Kris Hartley and Jingru Zhang -- 5: Measuring Policy Analytical Capacity for the Environment: A Case for Engaging New Actors; Angel Hsu -- Part II -- Theoretical and Empirical Issues -- 6: Innovation and the State: Towards an Evolutionary Theory of State Capacity; Erkki Karo and Reiner Kattel -- 7: The Role of Analysts in Public Agencies: Toward an Empirically Grounded Typology; Karol Olejniczak, Paweł Śliwowski and Rafał Trzciński -- 8: Policy Analytical Practice Investigated: Exploring Sectoral Patterns in Use of Policy Analytical Techniques; Ellen Fobé, Valerie Pattyn and Marleen Brans -- 9: Government's Credible Accountability and Strategic Policy Capacity: Evidence from the Asian NICs of Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore; Fiona Yap -- 10: Does Political Legitimacy Matter for Policy Capacity? A Cross-National Study of Perceived Legitimacy; Honorata Mazepus -- 11: Interest Groups and Policy Capacity: Modes of Engagement, Policy Goods and Networks; Carsten Daugbjerg, Bert Fraussen and Darren Halpin -- Part III -- Case Studies -- 12: Building Organizational Political Capacity through Policy Learning: Communicating with Citizens on Health and Safety in the UK; Claire A. Dunlop -- 13: Exploring Capacity for Strategic Policy Work: Water Policy in Australia; Yvette Bettini and Brian Head -- 14: Philanthropic Foundations in the City Policy Process: a Perspective on Policy Capacity from the United States; Madeleine Pill -- 15: Policy Capacity within a Federation: The Case of Australia; Scott Brenton -- 16: Dynamic Mechanisms for Resolving Collective Incidents in China: A Policy Capacity Analysis; Jieren Hu, Guoqin Wang and Jingyan Fei -- 17: Policy-Related Expertise and Policy Work in Czech Political Parties: Theory and Methods; Martin Polasek, Vilém Novotny, and Michel Perottino -- 18: The Dynamic Nature of Policy Capacity: Internet Policy in Italy, Belarus and Russia; Nina Belyaeva.

This book provides unique insights into the role of policy capacity in policymaking and policy change, as it is being uncovered at the research frontier in contemporary policy studies. The book is structured into a series of sections on policy capacity in theory and practice, each focusing on a specific aspect of policy capacity and its influence on policy formulation, decision-making, implementation and evaluation. In addition to making a significant contribution to the body of literature on the theoretical approaches to researching the role of capacity in policymaking, it also provides practical examples of the application of these approaches through a variety of national and sectoral case studies. Including contributions from authors working in a wide variety of disciplines, the book demonstrates, across the various topics investigated, many commonalities and consistencies in relation to the study of policy capacity and policy-making. This work has interdisciplinary appeal and will engage scholars in fields ranging from geography to communications, health, social work and political science, amongst others with an interest in public policy. Michael Howlett is Burnaby Mountain Chair in the Department of Political Science at Simon Fraser University, Canada, and Yong Pung How Chair Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. M Ramesh is Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.WU Xun is Professor in the Division of Social Science and the Division of Environment at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.