Ideas And Issues In Public Administration

Update and expanded, and featuring three new readings, this book provides a unique approach for instructors who want to expose their students to the social, political, and historical context of the practice of public administration. While most introductory texts cover a wide range of topics and are oriented toward details of management technique, this innovative volume focuses instead on the broader society within which public service practitioners work. The author's own text is skillfully interwoven with a collection of seminal readings and documents that illuminate the key issues of past and present for public service professionals in a democratic society. "Public Administration and Society" develops two important themes. One is an emphasis on the historical development of institutions and practices, giving students in-depth background and knowledge to effect meaningful change. The second theme involves local government and the public practitioner's role in fostering democracy, citizenship, citizenship, and community self-government.

Philosophy and Public Administration provides a systematic and comprehensive introduction to the philosophical foundations of the study and practice of public administration. In this revised second edition, Edoardo Ongaro offers an accessible guide for improving public administration, exploring connections between basic ontological and epistemological stances and public governance, while offering insights for researching and teaching philosophy for public administration in university programmes.

The prevailing notion that the best government is achieved through principles of management and business practices is hardly new—it echoes the early twentieth-century "gospel of efficiency" challenged by Dwight Waldo in 1948 in his pathbreaking book, The Administrative State. Asking, "Efficiency for what?", Waldo warned that public administrative efficiency must be backed by a framework of consciously held democratic values. Revisiting Waldo's Administrative State brings together a group of distinguished authors who critically explore public administration's big ideas and issues and question whether contemporary efforts to "reinvent government," promote privatization, and develop new public management approaches constitute a coherent political theory capable of meeting the complex challenges of governing in a democracy. Taking Waldo's book as a starting point, the authors revisit and update his key concepts and consider their applicability for today. The book follows Waldo's conceptual structure, first probing the material and ideological background of modern public administration, problems of political philosophy, and finally particular challenges inherent in contemporary administrative reform. It concludes with a look ahead to "wicked" policy problems—such as terrorism, global warming, and ecological threats—whose scope is so global and complex that they will defy any existing administrative structures and values. Calling for a return to conscious consideration of democratic accountability, fairness, justice, and transparency in government, the book's conclusion assesses the future direction of public administrative thought. This book can stand alone as a commentary on reconciling democratic values and governance today or as a companion when reading Waldo's classic volume.