Book Description:
This book advances innovative arguments and presents original evidence to shed light on the Western diversity of administrative strategies of our time. In an excellent way, it presents an original account of national governance politics. The authors demonstrate persuasively that the strengthening of strategic thinking has had important consequences for the domestic strategies of collaboration and mobilization for redistribution, counteracting negative globalization effects. For its thoughtful arguments and rich empirical basis, this book deserves to become a key reference in the literature on diversified administrative strategies and governance in a world of change. What about the survival of New Public Management (NPM) governance? What about democracy?

The book contributes to the political economy of administrative strategies and governance processes in the realm of the Nordic welfare state model, with a specific focus on the states of Norway and Sweden as contributors to the subject. Beyond that, the chapter authors have already made their mark through joint and individual works. In this volume, they take their thinking one-step further, inquiring into theory and the manner in which the adjudication of disputes can be a catalyst for democracy and agreements in partnerships and national governments. The book further presents a number of highly insightful case studies to tease out the projected linkages.
This thought-provoking book is a must-read for all theoreticians and practitioners in the field of political and social sciences. (Imprint: Nova)

Table of Contents:
Preface

Chapter 1. Strategic Management: The Modern Policy Religion (Jan-Evert Nilsson, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona, Blekinge, Sweden)

Chapter 2. Regulatory Governance Strategies: What about Democracy? (Noralv Veggeland, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Economics and Organization Science, Lillehammer, Norway)

Chapter 3. Innovation and the Creation of Public Value (Rolf Rønning, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, Lillehammer, Norway)

Chapter 4. Dimensions of Collaborative Administrative Strategies and Policy Innovation (Ulla Higdem, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Economics and Organization Science, and
Centre of Innovation in Service, Lillehammer, Norway)

Chapter 5. The Adventurous State and the Valley of Death: A Comparative Study of State and Venture Capital Strategies in Norway and Sweden (Tor Helge Pedersen, Department of Economics and Organization Science, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Lillehammer, Norway)

Chapter 6. Societal Governing Efficiency: Problem Relevance or System Dependency? The Case of Norway (Per Kristen Mydske, Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway)

Chapter 7. Automatic Stabilization and the Active State (Håvard Teigen, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Economics and Organization Science, Lillehammer, Norway)

Chapter 8. Management by Objectives as an Administrative Strategy in Norwegian Schools: Interpretations and Judgments in Contrived Liberation (Yngve Nordkvelle and Lene Nyhus, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Lillehammer, Norway)

Chapter 9. Foreign Policy Strategies: Norway and the High North (Geir Hønneland, Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Oslo, Norway)

Index