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Government spending plays a crucial role in fiscal policy in any country, both as a tool for implementing individual government policies and as a possible instrument for mitigating uneven economic developments and economic shocks. This chapter provides direct empirical evidence on the development and structure of general government expenditure and its relationship with real economic growth in Czechia and the European Union countries. Compared to theoretical recommendations, general government expenditure has not been used as a stabiliser in Czechia and EU countries and has been observed to be pro-cyclical in the period under review. Granger causality analysis identified the direction of causality between the macroeconomic variables analysed and found that in most cases economic growth came first, followed by government spending.

This chapter describes the business goals, purpose, and strategy of public diplomatic services. It reinforces diplomatic organizations’ fundamental bureaucratic administrative culture (Tier 1). The bureaucratic culture of diplomacy is deconstructed, and each of the five layers is described in detail. The authors also explain why focusing on the artifacts and behavior layers are the dominant and essential starting points for analysis in diplomatic cultures. The public service culture (Tier 2) overlays and mediates the bureaucratic culture.

Additionally, the authors describe the influence that political appointees as leaders may play in shaping public service cultures. Next, the authors explain how diplomatic cultures reflect the core values of a state’s culture. Next, the chapter outlines the landscape of external influencing cultures (Tier 3) in diplomacy. Finally, the knowledge, learning, and collaboration (KLC) culture of diplomacy is considered, with opportunities for future growth.

At the beginning of the 21st century, multiple and diverse social entities, including the public (consumers), private and nonprofit healthcare institutions, government (public health) and other industry sectors, began to recognize the limitations of the current fragmented healthcare system paradigm. Primary stakeholders, including employers, insurance companies, and healthcare professional organizations, also voiced dissatisfaction with unacceptable health outcomes and rising costs. Grand challenges and wicked problems threatened the viability of the health sector. American health systems responded with innovations and advances in healthcare delivery frameworks that encouraged shifts from intra- and inter-sector arrangements to multi-sector, lasting relationships that emphasized patient centrality along with long-term commitments to sustainability and accountability. This pathway, leading to a population health approach, also generated the need for transformative business models. The coproduction of health framework, with its emphasis on cross-sector alignments, nontraditional partner relationships, sustainable missions, and accountability capable of yielding return on investments, has emerged as a unique strategy for facing disruptive threats and challenges from nonhealth sector corporations. This chapter presents a coproduction of health framework, goals and criteria, examples of boundary spanning network alliance models, and operational (integrator, convener, aggregator) strategies. A comparison of important organizational science theories, including institutional theory, network/network analysis theory, and resource dependency theory, provides suggestions for future research directions necessary to validate the utility of the coproduction of health framework as a precursor for paradigm change.

Factors of production (labour, land, capital), technology and technical progress are usually cited as the main sources of economic growth and development. However, there are a number of other factors that have a significant impact on the possibilities and extent of their use or their further improvement and development. These factors undoubtedly include the institutional environment, within which corruption is also a consideration. In this chapter, attention will be focused on the various institutional variables that are used to assess the quality of a country's institutional environment, including corruption. A number of studies have shown that a quality institutional environment and low levels of corruption are prerequisites for long-term economic growth. Using an analysis of individual indicators of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGIs), published annually by the World Bank, supplemented by the Corruption Perception Index (published by Transparency International), we look at where Czechia has moved over the last decade or two in terms of institutional quality and corruption.

The concept of governance recognises the power dependency that exists between institutions that are engaged in collective action. Government, according to UNESCAP, is a process through which choices are made and executed or rejected. Corporate governance, international governance, national governance and municipal governance are just a few examples of how the term governance may be employed. Governance was also cited by UNESCAP as a player in government. To build a smart city and economy, national level of governance focuses on freedom of media, country history and traditions, civil society, private sector and good government. All those elements are important to build a smart economy and smart city. This chapter discusses the role of government to ensure good governance and good citizen policy choices that benefit the smart city and economy in Bangladesh.

Before the pandemic, World’s public debt was considered excessive, mainly by the standards set by the IMF, the European Union and the euro zone. Today, with the pandemic COVID-19, the world economy is facing an economic crisis that only the public authorities can contain, at least in the short term. In France, the Arthuis Commission is proposing to control public debt and return to debt reduction by the end of this decade. However, the economic stakes go beyond the crisis caused by the pandemic. It is also a question of preparing a different society, one that is less unequal and capable of engaging in sustainable economic development in the face of global warming. The concern is more about the excesses of international financial speculation, growing social inequalities and living conditions on Earth, which threaten the economic and social future of new generations much more than public debt.

In the present discourse of university politics, collegiality has come to be viewed as a slow force – seemingly inefficient and conservative compared to popular management models. Concerns have thus been raised regarding the future prospects of such a form of governance in a society marked by haste and acceleration. One way to bring perspectives on this contentious issue is to perceive it in the light of the long history of the university. In this article, I derive insights about the shifting state of collegial governance through a survey of an intense period of reforms in Sweden c. 1850–1920 when higher education was allegedly engaged in a process of modernization and professionalization. Drawing on recent work in historical theory and science and technology studies (STS), I revisit contests and debates on collegiality in connection to a number of governmental commissions. Focusing on the co-existence – and collisions – of multiple temporalities reveals that overcoming potential problems associated with heterogeneous rhythms required an active work of synchronization by universities in order to make them appear timely, as higher education expanded along with the mounting ambitions of national politics, focused on centralization, efficiency, and rationalization. The analysis is structured around three focal issues for which collegial ideals and practices, including their temporal characteristics, were particularly questioned: (a) the composition of the university board, (b) the employment status of professors, and (c) hiring or promotion practices. Pointing at more structural challenges, this study highlights how collegiality requires a constant maintenance paired with an awareness of its longer and complex history.