A communitarian perspective on government failure

Abstract

Charles Wolf′s theory of government failure ignores the possibility that government employees may commit themselves to pursue excellence in public service as an expression of their hope in the quests of their agencies. Communitarian thought explains the function of hope in human motivation and intimates how leaders may influence the hopes of their followers and why followers submit to this leadership. Effective leadership can be assigned a role in the execution of public policy which counters the pursuit of private interest in the public domain so that the problems identified by Wolf can be identified not as an inevitable consequence of government intervention but as a manifestation of “leadership failure”.

Citation

Wallis, J. and Dollery, B. (1995), "A communitarian perspective on government failure", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 22 No. 4, pp. 33-48. https://doi.org/10.1108/03068299510084591