Government Institutions: Effects, Changes and Normative Foundations

Research on government institutions is an exciting intellectual area in political science and policy studies. Increasingly it is recognized by scholars in these fields that effective and legitimate policies depend on the design and maintenance of complex institutional arrangements. This book brings together some of the scholars in institutional research in The Netherlands. Their work addresses such perennially difficult questions in institutional research such as: how do we understand institutional change?; how do we measure the effects of institutions on societal sectors and public policy?; how do the normative foundations of government institutions influence their functioning?; and what are the principles of effective and legitimate institutional design? Through analysis of researched examples ranging from the fabled Dutch "poldermodel", through the transformation of the welfare state, through privatizations of the Dutch telecommunications industry, to the work of welfare officials, these authors demonstrate the interpenetration of normative, empirical and design issues in institutional theory.The book is intended for scholars and graduate students in political science, public policy, public administration, and law.