Controlling Modern Government

Variety, Commonality and Change

Edited by Christopher Hood, Emeritus Professor of Government, Department of Politics and International Relations and Emeritus Fellow, All Souls College, University of Oxford, Oxford, Oliver James, Department of Politics, University of Exeter, UK, B. Guy Peters, Maurice Falk Professor of Government, University of Pittsburgh, US and Colin Scott, Vice-Principal for Research and Innovation, UCD College of Business and Law and Professor of EU Regulation and Governance, UCD School of Law, University College Dublin, Ireland

Controlling Modern Government explores the long-term development of controls over government across five major state traditions in developed democracies – US, Japan, variants of continental-European models, a Scandinavian case and variants of the Westminster model.

‘The editors and authors are to be congratulated on a book that is unusually well integrated, filled with interesting findings, and, best of all, theoretically sophisticated and stimulating.’
– Joel D. Aberbach, West European Politics

‘Controlling Modern Government is likely to become a seminal text in the field of control and accountability systems. Christopher Hood and his colleagues have produced a majestic volume that exposes and teases apart the multitude of co-existent control mechanisms that are to be found across time, policy fields and jurisdictions. The outcome is a nuanced understanding of the complexity of modern governance and the importance of state traditions and professional cultures.’
– Matthew Flinders, Public Administration

‘. . . a most disciplined book that spells out what it is going to do then does it well.’
– Malcolm Crompton, Public Administration Today

‘This book sets a new standard for systematic use of comparative information in studies on accountability and control. It is a welcome change from the past tendency in this field to build theoretical mountains on empirical molehills.’
– Charles Polidano, Office of the Prime Minister, Malta