Building the Compensatory State

Building the Compensatory State
Author: Robert F. Durant
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2019-09-24
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000586871

Contemporary public administration research has marginalized the importance of “taking history seriously.” With few exceptions, little recent scholarship in the field has looked longitudinally (rather than cross-sectionally), contextually, and theoretically over extended time periods at “big questions” in public administration. One such “big question” involves the evolution of American administrative reform and its link since the nation’s founding to American state building. This book addresses this gap by analyzing administrative reform in unprecedented empirical and theoretical ways. In taking a multidisciplinary approach, it incorporates recent developments in cognate research fields in the humanities and social sciences that have been mostly ignored in public administration. It thus challenges existing notions of the nature, scope, and power of the American state and, with these, important aspects of today’s conventional wisdom in public administration. Author Robert F. Durant explores the administrative state in a new light as part of a “compensatory state”—driven, shaped, and amplified since the nation’s founding by a corporate–social science nexus of interests. Arguing that this nexus of interests has contributed to citizen estrangement in the United States, he offers a broad empirical and theoretical understanding of the political economy of administrative reform, its role in state building, and its often paradoxical results. Offering a reconsideration of conventional wisdom in public administration, this book is required reading for all students, scholars, or practitioners of public administration, public policy, and politics.

From Warfare State to Welfare State

From Warfare State to Welfare State
Author: Marc Allen Eisner
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 390
Release: 2010-11-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780271043500

When American history is divided into discrete eras, the New Deal stands, along with the Civil War, as one of those distinctive events that forever change the trajectory of the nation&’s development. The story of the New Deal provides a convenient tool of periodization and a means of interpreting U.S. history and the significance of contemporary political cleavages. Eisner&’s careful examination of the historical record, however, leads one to the conclusion that there was precious little &“new&” in the New Deal. If one wishes to find an event that was clearly transformative, the author argues, one must go back to World War I. From Warfare State to Welfare State reveals that the federal government lagged far behind the private sector in institutional development in the early twentieth century. In order to cope with the crisis of war, government leaders opted to pursue a path of &“compensatory state-building&” by seeking out alliances with private-sector associations. But these associations pursued their own interests in a way that imposed severe constraints on the government&’s autonomy and effectiveness in dealing with the country&’s problems&—a handicap that accounts for many of the shortcomings of government today.

Public Administration

Public Administration
Author: Norma M. Riccucci
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2010-06-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1589016173

Is public administration an art or a science? This question of whether the field is driven by values or facts will never be definitively answered due to a lack of consensus among scholars. The resulting divide has produced many heated debates; however, in this pioneering volume, Norma Riccucci embraces the diversity of research methods rather than suggesting that there is one best way to conduct research in public administration. Public Administration examines the intellectual origins and identity of the discipline of public administration, its diverse research traditions, and how public administration research is conducted today. The book’s intended purpose is to engage reasonable-minded public administration scholars and professionals in a dialogue on the importance of heterogeneity in epistemic traditions, and to deepen the field’s understanding and acceptance of its epistemological scope. This important book will provide a necessary overview of the discipline for graduate students and scholars.

The History of the United States Civil Service

The History of the United States Civil Service
Author: Lorenzo Castellani
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2021-03-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000350533

The History of the United States Civil Service: From the Postwar Years to the Twenty-First Century provides a broad, comprehensive overview of the US civil service in the postwar period and examines the reforms and changes throughout that time. The author situates the history of the civil service into a wider context, considering political, social and cultural changes that occurred and have been influential in the history of American government. The book analyzes the development of administrative reorganizations, administrative reforms, personnel policy and political thought on public administration. It also underlines continuity and changes in the structures, organization, and personnel management of the federal civil service, and the evolution of the role of presidential control over federal bureaucracy. Taking an essential, but often neglected organization as its focus, the text offers a rich, historical analysis of an important institution in American politics. This book will be of interest to teachers and students of American political history and the history of government, as well as more specifically, the Presidency, Public Administration, and Administrative Law.

The Oxford Handbook of American Bureaucracy

The Oxford Handbook of American Bureaucracy
Author: Robert F. Durant
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 887
Release: 2010-10-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0199238952

With engaging new contributions from the major figures in the fields of public administration, public management, and public policy The Oxford Handbook of American Bureaucracy is a key point of reference for anyone working in American politics today.

Louis D. Brandeis and the Making of Regulated Competition, 1900-1932

Louis D. Brandeis and the Making of Regulated Competition, 1900-1932
Author: Gerald Berk
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2009-06-22
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0521425964

This book provides an innovative interpretation of industrialization and statebuilding in the U.S. by tracing the development of regulated competition. Conceptualized by Brandeis and implemented by trade associations and the Federal Trade Commission, regulated competition checked economic power by channeling competition from predation into improvement in products and production processes.

A Companion to Woodrow Wilson

A Companion to Woodrow Wilson
Author: Ross A. Kennedy
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 923
Release: 2013-01-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 1118445406

A Companion to Woodrow Wilson presents a compilation of essays contributed by various scholars in the field that cover all aspects of the life and career of America’s 28th president. Represents the only current anthology of essays to introduce readers to the scholarship on all aspects of Wilson's life and career Offers a 'one stop' destination for anyone interested in understanding how the scholarship on Wilson has evolved and where it stands now