The Problem-solving Capacity of the Modern State Governance Challenges and Administrative Capacities

Governance Challenges and Innovations examines the capacity of contemporary governments to act upon and address the pressing problems of our time. What can public administration do, or be expected to do, during the current 'age of austerity' after waves of reforms that have changed the architecture of the state? This volume highlights four basic administrative capacities that matter for governance, i.e. coordinating various branches of the state,regulating markets, delivering services and implementing policy, and making sense of increasingly complex tasks through the use of knowledge and analysis. It features chapters that focus on the way in which thesecapacities have become stretched and how they have been adjusted; the way in which states have addressed particular governance challenges; and, finally, governance capacities and innovations outside the boundaries of the state.