Very sorry to hear of the passing of Christopher Hood, formerly Gladstone Chair of Government at All Soul's College, Oxford. I had the privilege of studying with Christopher and he was both extremely kind and intellectually focused as a supervisor in ways that still benefit me two decades later. - ThreadSky

drjennings.bsky.social • 61 days ago

Very sorry to hear of the passing of Christopher Hood, formerly Gladstone Chair of Government at All Soul's College, Oxford. I had the privilege of studying with Christopher and he was both extremely kind and intellectually focused as a supervisor in ways that still benefit me two decades later.

Reposted from Martin Lodge

Christopher Hood has died today. Public administration has lost one of its absolute best. RIP

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profjanegreen.bsky.social•61 days ago

So sad, Will! How fortunate we have both been, what an honour to have been taught by him. So many fond memories of our formative years. It is hard to imagine Oxford without him.

martymcd.bsky.social•61 days ago

Dreadful news Will

drjennings.bsky.social•61 days ago

There is so much of Christopher's work that was interesting, important and influential. His 1991 article on new public management was seminal, of course, but his work extended across a wide range of topics - public service rewards, targets, transparency, tools of government, blame avoidance, risk.

drjennings.bsky.social•61 days ago

Aside from the analytical precision and empirical rigour that defined Christopher's research, he had an unerring ability to be ahead of the political and academic zeitgeist - identifying research topics and problems before others could see their relevance.

policyrelevant.bsky.social•61 days ago

Hood's article blame avoidance is such a great example of this point

I ended up moving away from public admin, but would always make a point of reading his work

drjennings.bsky.social•61 days ago

His work also has an engaging ideosyncracy and, at times, a very dry sense of humour that made him one-of-a-kind in how we think about government and public administration. We shared an interest in why things go wrong in government.

phkrause.bsky.social•61 days ago

E.g. to use „Stop me before I kill again“ as headline for a section on the OBR is just admirable commitment to a joke just for the hell of it

peterdt847.bsky.social•61 days ago

Such sad news. A brilliant career He made massive, and successful efforts to bridge the gap between academia and Whitehall through the ESRC public services programme, nurturing the careers of a generation of public service reform researchers in the process. A lovely, thoughtful and humble man.

rikkidean.bsky.social•61 days ago

I am really sad to hear this. Christopher gave me my first RA job, even though I was studying pol theory and didn'tknow much about PA. By the time I finished working for him I was inspired to do a PhD in social policy instead. I still regularly go back to The Art of the State. Such a good book.

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