The true measure of the successful practice of public service is its ability to remain faithful to the tenets of democratic society. This introductory text links the practice of public administration to the core concepts of American democracy. It covers the nuts and bolts of public administration in the context of "delivering democracy" in public service - providing what the public really wants as opposed to what self-serving bureaucracies may call for. Chapters in "Democracy and Public Administration" discuss the functional topics covered in other texts, but from the perspective of this democratic ideal. Each chapter is written by an expert in the area, and summarizes previous research in the area, presents the author's research and thought, and offers ways in which practitioners can apply the concepts discussed to their daily work.

For instructors who want to expose their students to the social, political, and historical context of the practice of public administration, this book provides a unique approach to the introductory PA course. The author's own text is skilfully 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. More than an overview of public administration, Public Administration and Society offers students a broad perspective on the American Founding Era, the relationship of citizens to government, and how the structure of government reflects societal values. The premise of the book is that understanding the societal context is important to the success of the practitioner and to the practitioner's role as a responsible agent of change in a democratic society. Introductory essays and readings offer students perspectives on five important thematic areas in public administration: the Founding-Era debate over the size and scope of government, the relationship of the community to the individual, public organizations and policy making, values and public administration, and the role of the public service practitioner in a democratic society. This new edition of features five new readings, and, based on input from adopters, an entirely new section on public policy making (Part IV: Public Organizations and Policy). The author's part-opening sections have all been extensively revised and updated.

Building the Republican State is an insightful analysis of the new state and the new public management that is emerging in the twenty-first century. It presents the historical stages that led to the modern state, identifies a crisis of the nation-state and its origins in a fiscal crisis and in globalization, and situates public management in the last phase - the social-liberal and republican state. To understand such stages the author develops the theory of republicanrights, as a fourth type of citizenship right, after the civil, the political, and the social rights.The book contains an original model of reform, in which the roles of the state, the forms of ownership, the types of public administration, and the organizational-institutions indicated in each situation are put together. Additionally, the book discusses the political theories behind the reform, and its political implications. Throughout the book, the author underlines the complementary roles of markets and the state, and the importance of building state capacity to assure administrativeefficiency, always having in count the 'democratic constraint', i.e., the prevalence of the political over the economic realm.This is essential reading both for those studying political theory and government reform, as well as for anyone interested in state politics and globalization.

The American political system is undergoing a serious governmental crisis--our political leaders know only how to campaign, not how to gain consensus on goals or direct a course that is for the good of the nation. Continuing research that began over a decade ago with Gary L. Wamsley′s Refounding Public Administration, this informative new volume continues the argument that public administration is at the center of the governance process and is therefore forced to compensate for the growing inadequacy of our leaders. Refounding Democratic Public Administration offers a revisualization of the relationship between public servants and the citizens they serve, as well as a continuing discourse on how public administration can constructively balance forces of change and stability in order for democracy to evolve and mature. This eye-opening volume will be required reading for students and professionals in public administration, political science, and management/organization studies.

In this "postmodern, end-of-the-century" moment, the question of what role public administration can legitimately play in a democratic society has deepened and taken on increased urgency. At the same time the movement toward global marketization has gained enormous momentum, traditional prejudices and racial and ethnic violence have appeared with a renewed virulence, presenting unprecedented challenges to democratic governments. Legitimacy in Public Administration reveals how the issue of administrative legitimacy is directly implicated, indeed central, to this broader issue. It argues that legitimacy hinges at the generic level on the question of alterityùhow to regard and relate to "different others." This book reviews the history of the legitimacy issue in the literature of American public administration with the purpose of demonstrating that this discourse has been distorted by an underlying and undisclosed commitment to an elitist "Man of Reason" model of the public administratorÆs role. Current attempts to reformulate administration to meet the challenge of new conditions will fail, the author argues, because they have not escaped the grip of this implicit distortion. Legitimacy in Public Administration includes a challenging concluding chapter that uses insights from gender theory and demonstrates the connection between the legitimacy question and the critical problem of alterity. The author also offers a new way to fundamentally reframe the legitimacy question, so as not only to help the field of public administration resolve it, but to show how this resolution can create a new understanding of the problem of racial and ethnic prejudice.