This is the second of four Last Lectures delivered by George Frederickson before his death in 2020. In "Giving the Public in Public Administration Its Due," Frederickson explores the changing, if not dissolving boundaries between the public and private sectors. He admonishes us to be more careful in our understanding and articulation of the meaning of "public" and the extent to which this matters for future theory building as well as practice.
AbstractThis is the third of four Last Lectures delivered by George Frederickson before his death in 2020. In "Thick Social Equity," Frederickson returns to an abiding theme of his scholarship: the advancement of social equity in public administration research and practice. He traces the progress in the literature over the decades from "thin" to "thick" social equity, praising advancements in theory and empirical research in the twenty-first century, while decrying the current state of social inequity, particularly in the United States.
AbstractThis is the last of four Last Lectures delivered by George Frederickson before his death in 2020. In "Public Management and Authentic Innovation," Frederickson draws on key studies to demythologize the claims around the origins and diffusion of innovation in the private and nonprofit sectors. He compares and contrasts the managed innovation model with a sustaining innovation model and provides provocative insights into the relevant contributions and limitations of rankings, awards and report cards; strategic planning; and the iron cage.
This article is an intellectual history of the noble endeavors and challenges involved in the creation and evolution of the American Review of Public Administration. It traces the journal's development from its beginning as the Midwest Review of Public Administration ( MRPA) under the leadership of Park College professor Jerzy Hauptmann, a Polish intellectual who entered the United States at the end of World War II. Hauptmann launched MRPA with a regional focus, welcoming contributions from a variety of voices in public service–related occupations. A political scientist suspicious of the power of national governments, Hauptmann favored a less top-down regional approach. The article provides insights from the late 1960s into the growing field of public administration. Behind the scenes, the article chronicles the financial challenges, details of manuscript review processes, and more in an initially low-technology world. This history is also multi-institutional, detailing the journal's transfer from a small college to a team of scholars, including coauthor John Clayton Thomas, at the three public administration programs of the University of Missouri—in Columbia, Kansas City, and St. Louis. We are indebted to our now-departed colleague and coauthor, George Frederickson, for the idea of writing this article.
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.
AbstractUniversity ranking has high public visibility, the ranking business has flourished, and institutions of higher education have not been able to ignore it. This study of university ranking presents general considerations of ranking and institutional responses to it, particularly considering reactions to ranking, ranking as a self‐fulfilling prophecy, and ranking as a means of transforming qualities into quantities. The authors present a conceptual framework of university ranking based on three propositions and carry out a descriptive statistical analysis of U.S. and international ranking data to evaluate those propositions. The first proposition of university ranking is that ranking systems are demarcated by a high degree of stability, equilibrium, and path dependence. The second proposition links ranking to institutional identity. The third proposition posits that rankings function as a catalyst for institutional isomorphism. The conclusion reviews some important new developments in university ranking.
Machine generated contents note: Preface -- Chapter 1 Introduction: The Possibilities of Theory -- Why Do We Need Theory in Public Administration? -- The Uses of Theory -- Is a Useful and Reliable Public Administration Theory Possible? -- Some Contemporary Theories of Public Administration -- Notes -- Chapter 2 Theories of Political Control of Bureaucracy -- Introduction: What Are Theories of Control of Bureaucracy? -- The Difference Between Politics and Administration -- Are Bureaucracies Out of Control? -- Agency Theory -- Conclusions -- Summary -- Chapter 3 Theories of Bureaucratic Politics -- Introduction: What Are Theories of Bureaucratic Politics? -- Administrative Theory as Political Theory -- Allison's Paradigm of Bureaucratic Politics -- Politics, Power, and Organization -- Networks and Bureaucratic Politics -- Representative Bureaucracy -- Conclusions -- Summary -- Chapter 4 Public Institutional Theory -- Institutional Theory -- The Basic Idea -- From Organizations to Institutions -- Hierarchy -- Alternatives to Hierarchy -- Comparing Institutional Forms -- High-Reliability Systems -- Low-Reliability Systems and Their Improvement -- System Fragmentation -- Garbage Cans and Rent Seeking -- The Diffusion of Innovation -- Conclusions -- Summary -- Chapter 5 Theories of Public Management -- Introduction: Developments in Public Management Theory -- Traditional Management Theory Thrust Forward -- Leadership as Public Management -- Managing by Contract -- Governance -- Conclusions -- Summary -- Chapter 6 Postmodern Theory -- Organizational Humanism and Postpositivism -- Postmodern Perspectives in Public Administration -- Looking for Postmodern Public Administration Theory -- Conclusions: Fading Away or Still Useful as a Theory? -- Summary -- Notes -- Chapter 7 Decision Theory -- Introduction -- The Evolution of Decision Theory -- Revisiting the Logic of Consequences -- Bounded Decision Rationality and the Logic of Appropriateness -- Conclusions -- Summary -- Chapter 8 Rational Choice Theory and Irrational Behavior -- Introduction: What Is Rational Choice Theory? -- The Rational, Self-Maximizing Bureaucrat -- Trust and the Irrational Bureaucrat -- The Self-Maximizing Citizen and the Tiebout Hypothesis -- Rational Choice as the New Orthodoxy -- Conclusions -- Summary -- Notes -- Chapter 9 Theories of Governance -- Introduction: Public Administration's Need for a Theory of Governance -- A New Model of Governance > -- Governance as the New Public Management -- Governance as a Unifying Framework for Public Administration? -- Collaborative Governance Theory -- Conclusions -- Summary -- Chapter 10 Conclusion: A Bright Future for Theory? -- Theories of Political Control of Bureaucracy -- Theories of Bureaucratic Politics -- Public Institutional Theory -- Theories of Public Management -- Postmodern Theory -- Decision Theory -- Rational Choice Theory and Irrational Behavior -- Theories of Governance -- Theory in Public Administration -- References -- Index.
1. Social equity and the new public administration -- 2. Social equity in context -- 3. Social equity : the democratic context and the compound theory -- 4. Social equity and the question of administrative discretion -- 5. The state of social equity in American public administration -- 6. An intergenerational social equity ethic -- 7. Social equity, law, and research -- 8. When education quality speaks, education equality answers -- 9. Social equity in the twenty-first century : in memory of Philip J. Rutledge -- 10. Conclusions.
""Ethics and Public Administration"" refutes the arguments that administrative ethics cannot be studied in an empirical manner and that empirical analysis can deal only with the trivial issues in administrative ethics. Within a theoretical perspective,the authors qualify their findings and take care not to over-generalise results. The findings are relevant to the practice of public administration. Specific areas addressed include understanding public corruption, ethics as control, and ethics as administration and policy
Leading scholars present the most complete, as well as the most advanced, treatment of public management reform and innovation available. The subject of reform in the public sector is not new; indeed, its latest rubric, reinventing government, has become good politics. Still, as the contributors ask in this volume, is good politics necessarily good government? Given the growing desire to reinvent government, there are hard questions to be asked: Is the private sector market model suitable and effective when applied to reforming public and governmental organizations? What are the major polit