Quangos are now a permanent layer of governance in Britain. This collection challenges the stale debate which portrays quangos as inherently undemocratic. Whilst accepting that problems exist this book accepts that quangos are here to stay. Through a collection of chapters by practitioners, politicians and academics it recognises both the pitfalls and potential offered by these bodies. The book therefore illuminates a new perspective on the debate which for the first time highlights the democratic possibilities of quangos. The book advances and clarifies this complex debate by examining the British reform debate in an international context, and blends theoretical analysis with illuminating case studies from Quango Chief Executives and concrete proposals for reform.

SIR PETER BALDWIN KCB Chairman of the Charities Aid Foundation ALAN BOOKER Formerly Deputy Director General of Water Services (OFWAT) DR JURGEN FIEDLER Sub-Director in the German Federal Ministry of Finance in Bonn ALISTAIR GRAHAM Chief Executive at the Leeds TEC DR CARSTEN GREVE Assistant Professor in Public Administration at the University of Copenhagen BRIAN LANDERS Formerly Finance Director of the Prison Service 1993-96; Chief Executive of Waterstones PROF. FRANS L. LEEUW Professor and Director of the Department of Humanities, Netherlands Open University ANTHONY MAYER Chief Executive of the Housing Corporation HUGH MCCONNEL Formerly PERC Quango Project Officer ANDREW PEET Councillor for Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council ANDREW PURSSELL Currently employed as Environmental Policy Officer PROF. GERRY STOKER Professor of Politics at the University of Strathclyde SANDRA VAN THIEL Research Fellow at the Inter-University Center for Social Science Theory and Methodology (ICS) DR ENID WISTRICH Research Co-ordinator in the School of History and Politics at Middlesex University DR TONY WRIGHT Member of Parliament for Cannock Chase, author of Citizens and Subjects and Socialisms