In this article knowledge types are combined with forms of organizations. Knowledge is something individual actors have. Organizations in which primary and organizational (secondary) tasks are performed are multi-actor systems. Organizational (secondary) processes consists of tasks, such as planning, control and communication. Individuals with knowledge perform these tasks. Concerning knowledge...

In his first four years as Chief Justice of the United States, William Howard Taft convinced Congress to pass two reform bills that substantially enhanced the power of the federal courts, the Supreme Court, and the Chief Justice. In this article, I explore the causes and the consequences of those reforms. I detail how Taft’s political entrepreneurship— specifically the building of reputations, ...

This article assesses the daunting challenges facing the changing patterns of Public Administration in Ethiopia. It seeks to outline the major determinants that have shaped Ethiopia's system of Public Administration. It is argued in the course of this exercise that Ethiopia's public Administration, as is the case of most developing countries, has had to assume the role of prime mover in the pro...

Ferejohn and Shipan introduce a game theoretic model of sequential statutory policymaking, in which an administrative agency implements a regulatory policy and three actors court, legislature, and executive are then allowed to sequentially respond by not acting or overturning the agency decision in favor of an alternative policy. The authors find that the agency has substantial policymaking dis...

There is currently an increase in the media attention given to yachting harbour management. Some of these harbours have existed since the 1960s and yet, it is only recently that problems have arisen between public and private partners. This paper presents the case of leisure harbours and designs an initial model of their governance issues. An empirical analysis of a single case shows that the u...

This review essay considers Adrian Vermeule’s The System of the Constitution and Richard Epstein’s Design for Liberty. Vermeule’s contribution to the study of constitutions applies some essential tenets of systems thinking that are only barely evident in legal analysis and almost nonexistent in political science, and so if the book is widely read in both fields it has the potential to alter the...

Back in the 1960s, it was established that bureaucracy and innovation tend to oppose each other. However not many “innovative” organisations have managed to banish bureaucracy altogether. Topicus, a young software house in the Netherlands, has done this. It has developed an organisational strategy that creates a “spin-off” whenever the organisation becomes too large and is in danger of losing i...