MacDonald, Susan Hardie2014-03-142014-03-142000-08-18etd-08272000-10310002http://hdl.handle.net/10919/28808The bankruptcy of the government of Orange County, California in 1994 is treated as a case study depicting a potentially critical problem emerging for democracies. The analysis links finan-cial and fiduciary perspectives by re-examining the actions of Orange County officials and citi-zens through three separate analytical frames: the dynamics of economic globalization; citizen engagement through the channel of civil society; and the theory of risk--both its nature generally and its financial aspect specifically. The conclusion reached is that globalization has made con-tingency and uncertainty ubiquitous and this indicates that the practice of governance in its pub-lic administration dimension should include a return to pragmatic, process approaches to policy and implementation.In CopyrightCivil societyGlobalizationRiskOrange County bankruptcyDissertationhttp://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-08272000-10310002/