With great joy, I present my most recent book, Advancing and Negotiating Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This book presents a negotiation framework based on network/collaborative governance principles in implementing the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Trialed in the classroom and workplace, the practical toolkit we developed gives the reader the tools necessary for facilitating future collaboration and knowledge transfer to all those working to strengthen the formulation, implementation, and achievement of SDG-oriented policies.
Achieving all 17 goals (collectively SDGs) necessitates capable public administration in all nations and at various levels of their governments. Moreover, Goal 16 commits Member States of the UN to build effective, inclusive, and accountable institutions. Public administration can only ensure these with significant qualitative transformation in its capacities, including ideological orientation, institutions, organization, systems, processes and procedures, practices, behavior, methods, and many aspects that improve public administration outcomes.
These challenges require a renewed sense of governance among sectors instead of just government. The former term implies that the development and implementation of public policy and administration are increasingly shared among a plurality of actors.
In this book, we use this topic of governance, and more importantly, “collaborative governance,” to frame our subject matter in addressing the advancement and negotiation of SDGs. Governance requires a different mindset and collaborative effort to search for the common good. Successful governance is about the quest for a win-win, which mirrors the negotiation process we explored in our book Newgotiation for Public Administration Professionals and our various student-ledresearch projects on effective institutions and negotiation frameworks.
This book, Advancing and Negotiating Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), is essential reading for those interested in a better and more sustainable future for all.
This book is dedicated to my remarkable graduate students at the University of Southern California Sol Price School of Public Policy and my long-time and dear friends at the United Nations, with whom I am privileged to work for the common good of humanity.
Fight on!
Frank V. Zerunyan is a Professor of the Practice of Governance at the University of Southern California (USC) Sol Price School of Public Policy (USC Price) and Director of Executive Education at USC Price Bedrosian Center on Governance. Professor Zerunyan oversees USC’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) as the Director and University Liaison for the U.S. Air Force, Army, Naval Reserves ROTC, and Nautical Science Programs.
Professor Zerunyan’s principal areas of expertise include governance, public-private partnerships, civic and ethical leadership, land use, medical regulation, negotiation, and executive education. He lectures locally and globally to build capacity and foster leadership among public executives worldwide. He is the author of books, book chapters, and many short articles published nationally, internationally, and on USC Price’s “Faculty Perspectives.” Professor Zerunyan is often quoted in the media and is a USC resource for journalists as an expert in governance and leadership. He is also an expert on public administration at the United Nations Innovation Branch (formerly Capacity Building Branch).
For his influential advisory role in the Republic of Armenia, he was awarded LL.D. Doctor of Laws – Honoris Causa by the Public Administration Academy of the Republic of Armenia. Professor Zerunyan designs curricula and teaches at the American University in Armenia, Yerevan State University, and the Vazgen Sargsyan Military University in Armenia, with an honorary rank of colonel. He also teaches for the U.S. Navy at the U.S. Naval Service Training Command.
Professor Zerunyan serves on the editorial boards of the Public Administration Scientific Journal for the Republic of Armenia and the Ukrainian Law Review. He is on the board of councilors of Anahuac University Law School, Xalapa, Mexico (Consejo Consultivo de la Escuela de Derecho).
Professor Zerunyan earned his Doctor of Jurisprudence (Doctor of Laws) degree from Western State University College of Law and his Bachelor of Arts degree from California State University Long Beach. He also completed his advanced legal education in Corporate Taxation at the University of Southern California Law Center (USC Gould). He is a graduate of the California League of Cities’ Civic Leadership Institute.
Professor Zerunyan, trained and practiced as a lawyer, is a four-term Mayor and Councilmember in the City of Rolling Hills Estates, California. He serves on several city, county, and regional policy boards and committees. He was also a gubernatorial appointee under Governor Schwarzenegger, serving 38 million medical consumers on the Medical Board of California.