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Honest, objective, and informed political debates are all too rare in today's polarized and partisan climate. Public policy is increasingly driven by ideology while political spin, distortions, and even demonizing opponents by disseminating outright lies are routine practice from Washington to the local city council. Super-heated and hyper-partisan rhetoric, increasingly homogeneous political and ideological communities, and the public's spotty knowledge about our political system all undermine informed and considered responses to policy debates. This digital short identifies common areas of c

Americans increasingly think in terms of red and blue. God and Country examines the religious roots of these cultural divisions in American political life. But instead of pitting a "people of faith" against a "secular humanist elite," God and Country helps Americans understand the religious differences that divide us, appreciate the public agreements that allow us to live with religious differences, evaluate how existing democratic processes alleviate divisions, and identify ways Americans can agree to disagree

Setting the stage. Introduction and background: a new faith in faith ; Asking the right questions -- What we have learned. The implementation of charitable choice in the states ; The role of faith-based service providers ; The management of faith-based service providers ; Measuring effectiveness ; Constitutional concerns -- Summing up. Talking past each other -- Appendixes. A. Methodology and data ; B. Survey questions

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to determine the overarching lessons to be gleaned from 30 years of public management literature.


Design/methodology/approach
The methodology was simple: review the professional literature generated during that time period.


Findings
Despite important contributions to our understanding of everything from bureaucratic motivation, public budgeting processes, the promises and pitfalls of contracting out and identification of the skills needed to be an effective public manager, to the scientific arcana of sustainability and the respective responsibilities of public administrators and elected officials, the profession would benefit greatly from more sustained emphasis upon the history and philosophy of the constitutional choices made by those who framed America's original approach to governance.


Originality/value
The lack of a common understanding of America's legal culture, or even a common vocabulary for exploring our differences poses immense challenges to public administrators, whose effectiveness requires a widely shared, if necessarily superficial, agreement on the purposes of America's governing institutions and an ability to recognize the bases of government legitimacy. In the past 30 years, however, literature that addresses the important connections between constitutional theory and management practice, between the rule of law and the exercise of public power and discretion, has been all too rare. Let us hope that the next 30 years corrects that deficiency.

Lawyers and political scientists focus upon explicitly religious components of American political polarization. A robust scholarship illuminates the nation's religious history. Nevertheless, we fail to appreciate the extent to which conflicting policy preferences are rooted in religiously shaped normative frameworks, or the extent to which scholarship in religious history, sociology, social psychology and culture might be synthesized to inform our understanding of contemporary policy disputes. Like the blind men and the elephant, we encounter different parts of the animal. We see a tree, a wall, a snake - but we fail to apprehend the size, shape and power of the whole elephant. [Copyright 2006 Elsevier Ltd.]

Governance is becoming a more appropriate term than government to explain what is happening with the outsourcing of public services to for-profit, nonprofit, & faith-based organizations. This is not privatization, but 'government by proxy'. For a number of reasons -- including expertise, flexibility, & efficiency -- government is choosing surrogates to perform some of its public services. This does not mean, however, that the surrogate takes on the task of accountability. That still belongs to government, which directs & pays for those services. It is suggested here that policymakers & public managers need to think long & hard before they accept this 'third-party government' system to make sure they understand all its implications -- not only for public administration but also for the idea of a 'limited state'. Public administration is rooted in constitutional values, including responsibility & accountability for its services no matter who actually delivers them. References. J. Stanton

The "Charitable Choice" provisions of 1996 welfare reform legislation inaugurated a policy debate that continues with President George W. Bush's "faith-based initiative." Proponents of greater religious involvement in social service provision argue that faith-based organizations have untapped resources, have encountered unnecessary barriers to participation, and are more effective than are government or secular contractors. Opponents note the absence of evidence of greater efficacy, the historic involvement of religious providers such as Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services, and the Salvation Army, and the absence of additional funding, and charge that the new rules are merely an effort to erode the constitutional separation of church and state. Public administrators are left with a number of thorny questions: how to identify and recruit the faith-based organizations targeted by these initiatives, how to evaluate and augment their capacity to deliver services, and how to encourage their increased participation while adhering to constitutional principles.

It has long been understood that political knowledge in the U.S. is very low. For those who care about the quality of American democracy, this is a big problem. In attempting to find a solution, many people often blame education. While increasing civic knowledge is a laudatory goal, increased political sophistication does not necessarily turn individuals into good democratic citizens. Research in cognitive and social psychology paints a picture of people as motivated reasoners. Instead of having an open-minded engagement with issues, individuals typically only seek, see, and understand information in a manner that reinforces what they already believe. Here, we examine motivated reasoning and argue that the strongest partisans and the most committed ideologues will be the most susceptible to holding contradictory policy positions with regard to same-sex marriage and religious freedom.