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Using the TV show The Sopranos to illustrate, & drawing in personal experience, it is argued that the honor culture as manifest in the Mafia as well as the armed forces is not only obsolete but indicative of low social status. The fighting culture's move toward unofficial status & underground is traced before addressing the character of the culture now ascending to dominance in the US by virtue of the moral education provided by Hollywood & other popular culture institutions given to universalism. This ethical teaching is seen to be causing the disappearance from young people's perspective of the "moral datum" referred to here as the "honor group." The implications of this evolving aversion to the honor culture, or the fighting culture, for the US military are examined. D. Edelman

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Table of Contents -- List of Tables, Figures, and Exhibits -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Public Service Today: Complex, Contradictory, Competitive -- 2. The Technical Professional: Developing Expertise -- 3. The Ethical Professional: Cultivating Scruples -- 4. The Consummate Professional: Creating Leadership -- 5. The Future of Public Service: Cases and Commentary for the New Millennium -- References -- About the Authors -- Index

The new context and character of public service - shifting values, entrepreneurship, information technology, multi-sector careers - require enhanced technical, ethical, and leadership skills. This concise and readable work describes what it means to be a consummate professional public servant. It sets standards for everyone who conducts the public's business and links them with performance management, human resource administration, and information technology skills. The authors identify the ethical foundations of public service and how to integrate them in practice. They also address individual leadership, what it means, and how it is based on a foundation of technical and ethical skills. Filled with original illustrative examples and case studies from government, the non-profit sector, and business, The Professional Edge is an ideal supplement for any introductory course in Public Administration or Ethics in the Public Service.

This normative article examines the contemporary record of pay-for-performance plans in the federal government.These programs, extending back nearly two generations, have consistently malfunctioned. Nonetheless, the state of the field today is one of continued attempts to use the technique despite agency history and research data that document its problematic nature. Based on scholarly literature, news media reports, and interview data, the analysis assesses the practical experience, policy findings, and political realities of this compensation method. The discussion raises questions about rational decision-making models and suggests that belief in performance pay is akin to an urban legend.

The cornerstone of the merit system—employee protection from partisan intrigue—is now at risk because of the civil service reform movement. This article examines the American business philosophy of employment at will—unique in the developed world—as an attempt to corporatize state government career service. The origins of the modern civil service, objectives of contemporary reform, and the role of career officials in government are first briefly reviewed. Then, the 2001 radical reform initiative in the "megastate" of Florida known as "Service First" and its defining feature—employment at will—are analyzed. The conclusion speculates on the future of this attempt to change state government.