摘要：Academic books emerge in a variety of ways. Some are the result of pure serendipity. For instance, in February 2011 Brian Dollery and I were completing a report that delved into the conceptual and theoretical foundations of shared services. Brian had also co-authored several case studies of shared services in Australian local government over the years, some of which I had contributed to.
关键词：Political science; Local government; local democracy; citizenship; Commonwealth; community participation; strategic leadership; strategic planning; decentralisation; urbanisation; climate change; social inclusion; development; poverty alleviation;Local government; reform; shared services; public policy; public administration
