Public Administration Reader

Designed as a one-step guide to the issues, perspectives and vocabulary of modern public administration, this reader considers topics such as public choice, total quality management and deregulation, while delivering the classic material essential for mastery of the special language, concepts, analysis, history and practice of public administration. The text blends classic and contemporary topics, some from management, some from accounting, others from political science, which define public administration. There is a separate section on public policy, highlighting policy implementation as well as policy design. The ideas, concepts and history of public administration are covered by classic contributions by Waldo, Ostrom & Ostrom and the Federalist papers, giving students conceptual and historical support in addition to the modern techniques provided throughout. Ethics coverage is highlighted through a comprehensive review of ethical concerns and issues.

Table of Contents:
Contemporary public administration. Part 1 The practice and discipline of public administration - competing concerns: what is administration?; bureaucracy; public administration in the third century of the constitution - supply-side management, privatization, or pubic investment?; public choice - a different approach to the study of public administration; the perils and prospects of public administration. Part 2 The American administrative state: the federalists; what the anti-federalists were for; bureaucracy and constitutionalism; political foundations of the American Federal Service - rebuilding a crumbling base; congress and the administrative state; mandates or Mandarins? control and discretion in the modern administrative state; public managers, judges and legislators - redefining the new partnership. Part 3 Federalism and intergovernmental relations: federalism, intergovernmental relations and intergovernmental management - historical reflections and conceptual comparisons; American Federalism - Madison's middle ground in the 1980s. Part 4 Administrative organization - structure and process: public and private management - are they fundamentaly alike in all unimportant respects?; adapting Total Quality Management (TQM) to government; formal models of bureaucracy - a review; the politics of governmental organization; toward a theory of street-level bureaucracy. Part 5 Public personnel systems: the state of merit in the federal government; the motivational bases of public service; state civil service and collective bargining - systems in conflict; the federal career executive in search of a system; environmental change and the personnel funtion - a review of the research; organizational involvement and representative bureaucracy - can we have it both ways?; the lack of a budgetary theory; the political economy of efficiency - cost-benefit analysis, systems analysis and programme budgeting; why does government grow?; organization decline and cutback management; budget theory and budget practice - how good the fit? Part 7 Decision making: administrative decision making; the science of "muddling through"; mixed scanning revisited; evaluating public sector informaton systems - more than meets the eye. Part 8 Public policy. Part 9 Public administration and the public. Part 10 Accountability and ethics. (Part contents).