The Craft of Public Administration

The Craft of Public Administration
Author: George E. Berkley
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities, Social Sciences & World Languages
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2004
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780072817409

This concise and current text introduces readers to the dynamics of the public sector with a down-to-earth style. All new case studies link theory to the real-world practice of public administration.

Constructing the Craft of Public Administration

Constructing the Craft of Public Administration
Author: Christine Shearer
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2022
Genre:
ISBN: 9783030818975

"This is an important and timely assessment of how senior public servants ply their craft, greatly enriched by the manner in which it incorporates the views of departmental secretaries themselves and captures their innate scepticism of managerialism. One is left agreeing that good public administration is a cornerstone of democratic governance but that its application requires much more than textbook knowledge." - Peter Shergold, Chancellor, Western Sydney University, Australia "This book is among the best empirical analyses of Australian departmental secretaries in situ to date." - John Wanna, Emeritus Professor, Australian National University and Griffith University, Australia "Christine Shearer's book is an important contribution to understanding the 'purple zone' between politics and administration. The book's strength comes from presenting the perspective of those directly involved, current and former Australian departmental secretaries." - Andrew Podger, Honorary Professor of Public Policy, Australian National University, Australia "Christine Shearer's terrific exploration of trends in contemporary public administration is essential reading for anyone wanting to make sense of how things work in government. Her clear-eyed study, drawing on interviews with senior public servants, confirms that grand reform ideas must work through complex - often invisible - gear shifts before the rubber meets the road. This book is a treasure trove of insights." - Michael Mintrom, Professor of Public Policy and Director of Better Governance and Policy, Monash University, Australia. This book draws on empirical research to provide unique insight into the craft of public administration of the most senior echelons of the Australian Public Service (APS). An analysis is offered of public sector reforms and contemporary management ideas on which they were based, from the 1980s across Westminster polities. This book addresses how Departmental Secretaries construct their craft today amid such reforms, concluding with a conceptual model of the craft of public administration and implications for theory and practice. Christine Shearer is an Executive Director within the Australian Tax Office.

The Public Administration Workbook

The Public Administration Workbook
Author: Dennis L. Dresang
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2016-08-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1134816154

Public administration is a craft that demands real-world application of concepts and theories often learned in a classroom. Yet many students find it difficult to make the leap from theory to practice completely unaided. The Public Administration Workbook, 8e is specifically designed with the theoretically-grounded, practice-minded student in mind. It reviews scholarship in political science, law, industrial psychology, and the sociology of organizations and then allows students to see how these intellectual fields inform the analytical and managerial tasks that comprise public administration. Where standard public administration textbooks examine the nature of public agencies and explain how bureaucracies relate to other institutions, this workbook promotes a more effective way of learning—by doing—and more directly prepares those who will pursue careers in public agencies. Each chapter begins with a discussion of relevant concepts and scholarship before moving into a hands-on exercise analyzing core analytical and management challenges. This edition includes an all-new exercise on contract negotiation, many international examples interwoven throughout the book, and a fully updated HRM section to reflect alternative ranking and compensation systems. Each chapter is further supported by a detailed Instructor’s Manual written by the author to guide instructors on solutions, explanations, and ideas for using or modifying the exercises to fit a variety of course needs, as well as downloadable datasets and exercises, providing students with a unique opportunity to apply and test classroom concepts outside of the job.

Public Policy

Public Policy
Author: R K Sapru
Publisher: Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2004
Genre: Policy sciences
ISBN: 9788120727038

The Practice of Government Public Relations

The Practice of Government Public Relations
Author: Mordecai Lee
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2017-09-25
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1351541358

In addition to traditional management tools, government administrators require a fundamental understanding of the tools available to address the ever-changing context of government communications. Examining the ins and outs of the regulations influencing public information, The Practice of Government Public Relations unveils novel ways to integrate cutting-edge technologies—including Web 2.0 and rapidly emerging social media—to craft and maintain a positive public image. Expert practitioners with extensive government communications experience address key topics of interest and provide an up-to-date overview of best practices. They examine the specifics of government public relations and detail a hands-on approach for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of the wide-ranging aspects of government public relations—including how to respond during a crisis.In addition to the tools provided on the accompanying downloadable resources, most chapters include a Best Practice Checklist to help you successfully utilize the communication strategies outlined in the book. Focusing on the roles of government managers enacting policies adopted by elected officials and politicians, this book is ideal for program managers seeking innovative and inexpensive ways to accomplish their programs’ missions. While no manager can be an expert in all aspects of public administration, this book helps you understand the external communications tools available to advance the mission and results of your agency.

The Art and Craft of Policy Analysis

The Art and Craft of Policy Analysis
Author: Aaron Wildavsky
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 545
Release: 2017-08-18
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 331958619X

The Art and Craft of Policy Analysis is a classic work of the Public Policy discipline. Wildavsky’s emphasis on the values involved in public policies, as well as the need to build political understandings about the nature of policy, are as important for 21st century policymaking as they were in 1979. B. Guy Peters’ critical introduction provides the reader with context for the book, its main themes and contemporary relevance, and offers a guide to understanding a complex but crucial text.

Public Management

Public Management
Author: Carolyn J. Hill
Publisher: CQ Press
Total Pages: 737
Release: 2015-09-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1506316301

Managing in the public sector requires an understanding of the interaction between three distinct dimensions—administrative structures, organizational cultures, and the skills of individual managers. Public managers must produce results that citizens and their representatives expect from their government while fulfilling their constitutional responsibilities. In Public Management: Thinking and Acting in Three Dimensions, authors Carolyn J. Hill and Laurence E. Lynn, Jr. argue that one-size-fits-all approaches are inadequate for dealing with the distinctive challenges that public managers face. Drawing on both theory and detailed case studies of actual practice, the authors show how public management that is based on applying a three-dimensional analytic framework—structure, culture, and craft—to specific management problems is the most effective way to improve the performance of America’s unique scheme of governance in accordance with the rule of law. The book educates readers to be informed citizens and prepares students to participate as professionals in the world of public management.

Constructing the Craft of Public Administration

Constructing the Craft of Public Administration
Author: Christine Shearer
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2021-11-11
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3030818969

This book draws on recent empirical research and reports unique insight into the craft of public administration of the most senior echelons of the Australian Public Service (APS).This work is set in the context of a comparative analysis of the significant public sector reforms by successive governments from the 1980s across Westminster polities. Such reforms and the contemporary management ideas on which they were based, including new managerialism and ‘new public management’ (NPM) travelled, were translated and transformed with some elements accepted and others rejected. This book addresses how the most senior public servants in the APS construct their craft today amid such reforms. Chapter two covers the myriad of public sector reforms across Westminster polities. Chapters three and four cover the environments and contemporary management ideas which influence public administration. Chapters five and six showcase the public actors and the responsibilities they execute when they construct their craft. The final chapter provides a conceptual model of the craft of public administration and provides implications for theory and practice.

Bending the Rules

Bending the Rules
Author: Rachel Augustine Potter
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2019-06-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 022662188X

Who determines the fuel standards for our cars? What about whether Plan B, the morning-after pill, is sold at the local pharmacy? Many people assume such important and controversial policy decisions originate in the halls of Congress. But the choreographed actions of Congress and the president account for only a small portion of the laws created in the United States. By some estimates, more than ninety percent of law is created by administrative rules issued by federal agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services, where unelected bureaucrats with particular policy goals and preferences respond to the incentives created by a complex, procedure-bound rulemaking process. With Bending the Rules, Rachel Augustine Potter shows that rulemaking is not the rote administrative activity it is commonly imagined to be but rather an intensely political activity in its own right. Because rulemaking occurs in a separation of powers system, bureaucrats are not free to implement their preferred policies unimpeded: the president, Congress, and the courts can all get involved in the process, often at the bidding of affected interest groups. However, rather than capitulating to demands, bureaucrats routinely employ “procedural politicking,” using their deep knowledge of the process to strategically insulate their proposals from political scrutiny and interference. Tracing the rulemaking process from when an agency first begins working on a rule to when it completes that regulatory action, Potter shows how bureaucrats use procedures to resist interference from Congress, the President, and the courts at each stage of the process. This exercise reveals that unelected bureaucrats wield considerable influence over the direction of public policy in the United States.

The Regulatory Craft

The Regulatory Craft
Author: Malcolm K. Sparrow
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2011-01-01
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0815798288

The Regulatory Craft tackles one of the most pressing public policy issues of our time—the reform of regulatory and enforcement practice. Malcolm K. Sparrow shows how the vogue prescriptions for reform (centered on concepts of customer service and process improvement) fail to take account of the distinctive character of regulatory responsibilities—which involve the delivery of obligations rather than just services.In order to construct more balanced prescriptions for reform, Sparrow invites us to reconsider the central purpose of social regulation—the abatement or control of risks to society. He recounts the experiences of pioneering agencies that have confronted the risk-control challenge directly, developing operational capacities for specifying risk-concentrations, problem areas, or patterns of noncompliance, and then designing interventions tailored to each problem. At the heart of a new regulatory craftsmanship, according to Sparrow, lies the central notion, "pick important problems and fix them." This beguilingly simple idea turns out to present enormously complex implementation challenges and carries with it profound consequences for the way regulators organize their work, manage their discretion, and report their performance. Although the book is primarily aimed at regulatory and law-enforcement practitioners, it will also be invaluable for legislators, overseers, and others who care about the nature and quality of regulatory practice, and who want to know what kind of performance to demand from regulators and how it might be delivered. It stresses the enormous benefit to society that might accrue from development of the risk-control art as a core professional skill for regulators.