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"This book presents cutting-edge commentaries by leading scholars that address issues of public ethics in the current period of broken politics and challenged legitimacy. The contents of this new edition are completely new and reflect the work of many of the field's leading experts: Carole Jurkiewicz, H. George Frederickson, James Bowman, Rosemary O'Leary, Guy Adams, Danny Balfour, Terry Cooper, and many others. Each of the chapters falls under one of five topical themes: the moral architecture of organizations, reassessing corruption in the twenty-first century, individual volition within public institutions, ethics in nonprofit organizations, and ethical issues in global contexts. Since most chapters address institutional forces that affect organizational and individual behavior, the introductory and concluding chapters demonstrate how institutional matters shape the real world of public service."--Unedited summary from book.

This book offers the most comprehensive consideration of accountability in both government and the contemporary world of governance currently available. Twenty-five leading experts cover varying aspects of the accountability movement and apply them to governments, quasi governments, non-government organizations, governance organizations, and voluntary organizations.

Measuring the Performance of the Hollow State is the first in-depth look at the influence of performance measurement on the effectiveness of the federal government. To do this, the authors examine the influence of the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (with consideration of the later Program Assessment Rating Tool of 2002) on federal performance measurement, agency performance, and program outcomes. They focus a systematic examination on five agencies in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Servicesthe Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service

Annotation

In 1995, U.S. News and World Report ( U.S. News) released its first ranking of public affairs master's degree programs. The rankings have been conducted every 3 years since and have grown in importance to public policy and public administration programs. This study considers the history and background of ranking public policy and administration graduate programs, the rationale used by U.S. News, and the methodology used by U.S. News. This is followed by a longitudinal analysis of these rankings from 1995 to 2016. Findings are presented in a conceptual framework of academic rankings using concepts of equilibrium, specialization, diffusion of innovations, and institutional isomorphism. The implications of this framework and the findings of our analysis are spelled out for public affairs deans, directors, and faculty seeking to improve their ranking as well as those seeking to hold on to their present rankings.

Ordinarily research articles on public sector third-party governance, or the state of agents, turn to the subject of accountability in their conclusions. Rather than leaving it to the conclusions, this article takes up the subject of public sector third-party governance as a problem of accountability. To consider accountability, we studied contemporary performance measurement practices in the federal government, particularly as they are applied in five agencies of the US Department of Health and Human Services. Our findings are presented using a six-part "promises of accountability" heuristic which captured the many and varied uses of accountability in contemporary policy and administration discourse. We found that the characteristics of third parties and the nature of their principal-agent relations are a key determinant of accountability; bureaucratic and hierarchical controls enhance agency and program accountability; building rules and program policies into grants and contracts enhance accountability; agencies that practice lateral trust-based forms of "relational contracting" foster cultures of accountability; auditing and reporting requirements enhance program accountability; federal performance measurement regimes tend to be "top down" and "one size fits all;" federal performance measurement regimes are primarily executive branch forms of accountability; performance measurement often represents attempts to superimpose managerial logic and managerial process on inherently political processes embedded in the separation of powers; there is little evidence that performance-based accountability results in enhancing democratic outcomes or greater justice or equity. Adapted from the source document.

The events of September 11, 2001, have raised troubling questions regarding the reliability and security of American commercial air travel. This article applies the concepts and logic of high–reliability organizations to airport security operations. Contemporary decision theory is built on the logic of limited or buffered rationability and is based on the study of error–tolerant organizations. The concept of high–reliability organizations is based on the study of nearly error–free operations. For commercial air travel to be highly secure, there must be very high levels of technical competence and sustained performance; regular training; structure redundancy; collegial, decentralized authority patterns; processes that reward error discovery and correction; adequate and reliable funding; high mission valence; reliable and timely information; and protection from external interference in operations. These concepts are used to inform early–stage issues being faced by both local airports and the newly established Transportation Security Administration.

Almost all U.S. cities are established by state charter as either mayor-council or council-manager cities. For decades, these two legal-statutory categories have been used by researchers as dichotomous variables in descriptions of city government form and in statistical equations. This study indicates that the mayor-council and council-manager categories, although legally based, mask several important empirical characteristics of U.S. city government. Using a large data set, the authors indicate that the structures of U.S. cities are surprisingly dynamic. Cities tend to change their structures incrementally. Over time, cities with mayor-council statutory platforms will incrementally adapt many of the characteristics of council-manager form cities to improve their management and productivity capabilities. Over time, cities with council-manager statutory platforms will adopt features of mayor-council form cities to increase their political responsiveness, leadership, and accounting capabilities. Because each of the two legal forms of cities adopts primary features of the other, these cities now constitute a third form of the U.S. city—the adapted city.

To explain negative perceptions of government ethics, particularly the ethics of public administrators, the paradox of distance & the absence of role differentiation are employed. In the paradox of distance, the public holds negative views of government generally & public administrators in the abstract, but they have favorable to very favorable views of governmental programs with which they interact & favorable views of the bureaucrats whom they encounter. Much of the negative perception of government ethics & the ethics of public officials is based on public observations of the misdeeds of those who are elected or politically appointed. These negative perceptions are well founded. Unfortunately, the public holds similarly negative views of merit civil servants, although these public officials are much less often associated with corruption or unethical behavior. It is suggested that several contemporary governmental reforms will, in the long run, result in more rather than less government corruption. Adapted from the source document.