Collaborative Governance: Private Roles for Public Goals in Turbulent Times

by John D. Donahue, Richard J. Zeckhauser, Stephen Breyer (Foreword)

How government can forge dynamic public-private partnerships

All too often government lacks the skill, the will, and the wallet to meet its missions. Schools fall short of the mark while roads and bridges fall into disrepair. Health care costs too much and delivers too little. Budgets bleed red ink as the cost of services citizens want outstrips the taxes they are willing to pay. Collaborative Governance is the first book to offer solutions by demonstrating how government at every level can engage the private sector to overcome seemingly insurmountable problems and achieve public goals more effectively.

John Donahue and Richard Zeckhauser show how the public sector can harness private expertise to bolster productivity, capture information, and augment resources. The authors explain how private engagement in public missions―rightly structured and skillfully managed―is not so much an alternative to government as the way smart government ought to operate. The key is to carefully and strategically grant discretion to private entities, whether for-profit or nonprofit, in ways that simultaneously motivate and empower them to create public value. Drawing on a host of real-world examples-including charter schools, job training, and the resurrection of New York's Central Park―they show how, when, and why collaboration works, and also under what circumstances it doesn't.

Collaborative Governance reveals how the collaborative approach can be used to tap the resourcefulness and entrepreneurship of the private sector, and improvise fresh, flexible solutions to today's most pressing public challenges.

Genres: Economics

296 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[E.W. Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall the concept of colalborative governance is one that needs to be expounded on and utilized to a greater extent in the public sector. The basic principles that were touted by the authors align closely to my own thoughts ont he subject, however, I did find the book at times a bit tedious. The excessive examples provided, while insightful, was a bit tiresome and not fully needed. Furthermore I found at times that the book was a bit partisan, more left leaning than neutral, and this could become troublesome when speaking of collaboration. Overall, the authors did attempt to keep the book in a neutral setting but in the end, as happens all to often in government bureacracies, the ideas seemed more liberal than conservative.