Challenges to Public Value Creation

"This powerful collection shows that 'public value' has come of age. Launched in the 1990s mainly as an inspirational heuristic for public managers, it has matured well. It has philosophical debate about the nature and purpose of government and public service. It has informed an ever expanding array of empirical studies across sectors and levels of government. Its reach has extended far beyond the Anglosphere from which it has emerged. And it provides a prism for strategic thinking about how governments are to deal with the grittiness of the contexts and challenge they currently face. This must-read volume sits at the cutting edge of these important developments."—Paul 't Hart, Professor of Public Administration, Utrecht University, The Netherlands 
"Challenges to Public Value Creation is a wonderful addition to the growing literature on public value creation. The authors engage deeply with the many challenges – especially those related to authority, process, and complexity – in trying to produce what the public values and is also good for the public in democratic societies. Academics and reflective practitioners will find great value in this book!"
—John M. Bryson, McKnight Presidential Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota, USA

“The purpose of government is to create public value.” While this has become an increasingly accepted refrain in public policy, administration, and management, numerous questions remain about how where, when, why, how, and by whom public value is created. With everything from philosophical and conceptual arguments to empirical analyses and cases, the contributors to this noteworthy volume begin to address those questions. In doing so, they offer new ideas, reveal important insights, suggest exciting directions for research and practice, and ultimately give more substance and shape to the idea of public value creation."—Tina Nabatchi, Joseph A. Strasser Endowed Professor in Public Administration, Syracuse University, USA
This volume examines fundamental questions about the public value of public decisions. More specifically, it seeks to assess whether all public decisions create public value, if it is possible to know what value for the public as a whole a government decision will create, and how government officials can justify their decisions in terms of public value. Leading experts bring a diverse array of perspectives on the normative, epistemological, and processual challenges to identifying, describing, measuring, and evaluating the public value claims that public officials often articulate in defending their decisions, and the results that citizens often seek. The book will appeal to scholars and students of public policy and public administration.
Brian J. Cook is Emeritus Professor of Public Administration and Policy at Virginia Tech, USA. He served as chair of the Center for Public Administration and Policy from 2010 to 2014 and 2018 to 2019. He also served on the political science faculty at Clark University from 1984 to 2008.