Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2017 -

This book by Torfing (Roskilde Univ.) makes an important and comprehensive contribution to the understanding of collaborative innovation in the public sector. Replete with theoretical and empirical support for its conclusions, it makes a major impact on the literature of public administration. Torfing points out that there is a "dearth of studies focusing on collaborative innovation," and the purpose of the book is to demonstrate "that collaborative innovation is a key tool for public value production" in facing the challenges in the public sector. It is also timely given citizens' demand for the public sector to provide key services and tackle difficult problems.The book is well organized, painstakingly researched, and thorough in its arguments. One of its strongest features is its reliance on multidisciplinary literature and examples from governments on multiple continents to point out the strengths, weaknesses, and possibilities of collaborative innovation in the public sector to take on pressing problems. The book is a must for scholars in public administration, practitioners, and graduate students, and for upper-level undergraduates with a solid background in public administration.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals.

This volume is a "must have" for collections in behavioral economics, economic policy, and healthcare economics and policy. The editors have put together a collection of papers by some of the best writers in the field and have structured the book in seven parts that address everything from the ethics of nudges in healthcare to issues in costs and policy design. This reviewer highly recommends the book for the included papers, for the exceptional organization, and for the foreword written by Cass R. Sunstein. It was, of course, Sunstein's 2008 book that ignited the work in this area, and in the foreword he provokes the reader even further, stating that the opposition of "paternalism and active choosing" that runs as given in much of the work in this area is, in fact, an illusion. Sunstein argues that an insistence on active choosing may itself be a form of paternalism, as there is a difference between "not choosing" (as per Sunstein, making no choice at all) and "choosing not to choose" (i.e., to choose to let someone else decide on one's behalf). Choosing not to choose, Sunstein adds, is a form of choice. This is the focal point for this volume.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

Hobson (William and Mary School of Law) provides a tour de force analysis of an important early 19th-century case, Fletcher v. Peck (1810). Beginning in 1795 when Georgia sold land to a number of land companies, only to have those sales revoked by the Georgia legislature in 1796, the case included accusations of corruption and resulted in a significant decision from the Marshall Court with implications for judicial review and the Court's understanding of Article 1, Section 10, of the Constitution. Hobson's book is much more than a study of the Marshall Court's work. The author spends considerable time discussing the role Congress played in the unfolding of the case. The text also gives insight into political activities of companies and the impact of the Court's decision on members of Congress. The book, discussing "a mere feigned case," will be of special interest to students of the contract clause and the jurisprudence of Chief Justice John Marshall.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals.

The American criminal justice system is in a state of meltdown; standard approaches have failed. Increasingly, influential scholars and practitioners are abandoning traditional approaches and thinking outside the box in diagnosing problems and offering new solutions. The editors of this book have assembled an all-star cast of interdisciplinary scholars, who present new and thoughtful perspectives on the enduring problems of criminal justice administration and mass incarceration. Together, they offer an array of provocative new approaches to diagnosing the ills of the American criminal process and ways of ameliorating its many problems. The volume does a superb job of covering the range of problems. Chapters include the analysis of crime policy in the administrative state, constitutional criminal procedure, prisoners' rights, race and criminal justice administration, the many by-products of punishment, and other topics. Together, the contributors make a powerful case for a radical rethinking and restructuring of the American criminal process. This book can profitably be read by criminal justice practitioners, policy makers, and students at all levels. It is a necessary read.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals.