Effective Governance and the Political Economy of Coordination book launch

Date 17 October 2023
Time 5:30 - 7pm
Location 309 Regent Street

This event was organised by the Centre for the Study of Democracy and Palgrave.

About the event

A discussion about the future inter-relationships between governance, policy and academic research. The book provides a novel conceptual and methodological approach to evaluating the effectiveness of governance and policymaking. As is presented, the approach, inspired by and drawing from the Austrian and Bloomington Schools of political economy, is applicable to a broad range of complex socio-economic challenges.  

Discussants: 

  • Dan Greenwood, Reader in Politics at the Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster, UK. His research focuses on policy analysis, governance evaluation and political economy
  • Dr Jayme Lemke, Senior Research Fellow and a Senior Fellow with the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Virginia, USA
  • Professor Gerry Stoker, Chair in Governance, University of Southampton 
  • Chair: Dr Ipshita Basu, Reader in International Relations, University of Westminster

Listen to the event recording

Book testimonials

“This book is admirable both in the interdisciplinary range and depth of analysis in the work. It recognises the  challenges of achieving a desired rather than an unintended change and argues cogently for dynamics of co-ordination that allow for fluid and flexible discovery of the best options and paths forward.”

- Gerry Stoker, Professor, University of Southampton, UK

“This is an extremely valuable and rare contribution to debates about effective governance structures. It provides a well-balanced though critical assessment of arguments about the qualities of different governance arrangements that properly engages all sides and perspectives.”

- Mark Pennington, Professor of Department of Political Economy, King's College, University of London, United Kingdom

“Dan Greenwood’s Effective Governance and the Political Economy of Coordination brings together a variety of perspectives in political science and political economy in order to develop a novel approach to thinking about problems of governance. His emphasis on openness, discovery, and learning is an important and welcome reminder of how governance systems can be improved when we don’t shy away from the challenges associated with using policy to solve complex problems.”

- Jayme Lemke, Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Centre, George Mason University, USA

Link to book

This book provides a conceptual and methodological approach for researchers evaluating governance and policy in the face of complexity, and demonstrates the application of this approach across different governance and policy contexts. It fills a significant gap in the literature on governance, and proposes a theoretical focus on coordination to enable the assessment of multi-tier, cross-sector governance institutions and policy. It also introduces a range of applications for the proposed approach, including two case studies of governance and policy for the built environment and health services. The book introduces, analyses and draws from a range of perspectives in political economy, political science, policy analysis and evaluation. It also engages with longstanding debates in political economy about states and markets, which are largely overlooked by political science analyses of coordination challenges in governance. The book will appeal to scholars and students of governance, public policy and political science.