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'Greed, Chaos, and Governance: Using Public Choice to Improve Public Law' by Jerry L. Mashaw is reviewed.

Jacksonville/Duval County, Florida / Bert E. Swanson -- Columbus/Muscogee County, Georgia / Arnold Fleischmann and Jennifer Custer -- Tallahassee/Leon County, Florida / Linda S. Johnson -- Sacramento/Sacramento County, California / Glen W. Sparrow -- Athens/Clarke County, Georgia / Dan Durning, William L. Gillespie, and Richard W. Campbell -- Lafayette/Lafayette Parish, Louisiana / Hunter Bacot -- Branch/North Branch, Minnesota / Beth Walter Honadle -- Des Moines/Polk County, Iowa / Paul Coates and Alfred Ho -- Augusta/Richmond County, Georgia / Richard W. Campbell, William L. Gillespie, and Dan Durning -- Wilmington/New Hanover County, North Carolina / Gary Alan Johnson -- Knoxville/Knox County, Tennessee / Anthony Nownes and David J. Houston -- Kansas City/Wyandotte County, Kansas / Suzanne M. Leland -- Louisville/Jefferson County, Kentucky / H.V. Savitch and Ronald K. Vogel

This analysis explores the options for a theoretical model to guide regional collaboration by local governments that is both politically feasible and consistent with core public administration values. The analysis first examines the research on the adoption, implementation and performance of political consolidation. We then examine the theory and research that underlie functional consolidation and assess both types in lieu of the values of public administration. We find that local government managers and elected officials need a theoretical model for regional collaboration that addresses a key obstacle to service consolidation among local governments: the perceived loss of political power and control associated with consolidation efforts. We suggest multilevel governance theory and the concept of shared sovereignty offer an approach to regional problems with an eye to the political as well as administrative issues, and with instruments that promote core public administration values. The concept of shared sovereignty that underpins the regional collaboration of the countries in Europe has both descriptive and predictive theoretical potential as a multilevel governance theory. The EU functions from a web of interlaced, interdependent agreements to share sovereignty in ways that manage political issues, economic factors, and administrative values, and in a fashion aligned with core PA values in the US.

Privatization appeals to citizen and politician desires for more cost‐effective methods of service delivery. For this reason, it is important for public administrators to know when gains can be made by contracting out or privatizing services and when it is better to keep service provision in house. This article assesses the viability of contracting out and privatization of transit services. Following up on the 1986 work of James Perry and Timlynn Babitsky, which used data from the early 1980s, the authors revisit whether certain service delivery arrangements are more efficient and effective than others in the provision of transit services. Twenty‐five years later, they find results similar to those of Perry and Babitsky's original study. Neither the type of government nor whether an agency contracts out has much impact on the efficiency and performance of urban bus services. The main difference between the two studies is that private transit agencies are no longer more efficient or effective than public providers.

Customarily professional legislators are thought to behave more strategically than other legislators in their quest for higher office (Canon 1990; Jacobson & Kernell 1983). The implementation of term limits upsets all the traditional career parameters by restructuring the incentives to remain in political office. For this reason, we posit the following questions: how much difference does a legislature's level of professionalism make in how members respond to term limits? How do term limits affect legislators' responsiveness to available opportunities & willingness to take risks to continue their careers? We use a comparative case study approach & pooled cross-sectional data to analyze individual career decisions of legislators in seven states with varying levels of professionalism & term limit laws from 1992-2002. Using multinomial logit, we find that decisions to seek other offices in response to term limits are highly contingent on a states level of professionalization. Adapted from the source document.