Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory articles from January 2006

Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory archives from January 2006

Maybe it is time to rediscover bureaucracy.
January 1, 2006... MAKING SENSE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION Is "bureaucracy" an organizational dinosaur helplessly involved in its death struggle? Is it an undesirable and nonviable form of administration developed in a legalistic and authoritarian society and...

Performance management in practice: A comparative study of executive agencies.
January 1, 2006... Over the past two decades the introduction of performance management and the creation of executive agencies have been two of the most widespread international trends in public management (De Bruijn 2002; Holzer and Yang 2004; Ingraham, Joyce,...

Incentives, capacity, and implementation: evidence from Massachusetts Education Reform.
January 1, 2006... The U.S. public education system is notoriously difficult to change because of its loose coupling and institutional complexity. Since the 1980s, the dominant approach to education reform has been standards-based reform. The goal of...

"Walking the walk" of public service motivation: public employees and charitable gifts of time, blood, and money.
January 1, 2006... A decade ago Robert Behn (1995) identified learning how to motivate employees as one of the "big" questions of public management. Yet typical treatments of motivation in the academic literature are of limited utility for understanding much...

Linking passive and active representation by gender: The case of child support agencies.
January 1, 2006... Does it matter whether the public workplace is diverse? A rich literature exists that explores this question, some of which has found that passive representation leads to active representation for race in the Equal Employment Opportunity...

Sweet-talking the fourth branch: the influence of interest group comments on federal agency rulemaking.
January 1, 2006... Students of politics and public administration have scrutinized the responsiveness of the largely unelected bureaucracy to its many political constituencies for over a century. The vast majority of this work identifies the formal and informal...

Casting light on shadow government: a typological approach.
January 1, 2006... INTRODUCTION Many government agencies and their officials have aspired to the twin goals of political isolation and sophisticated managerial competence, although few have achieved either goal to a significant degree. Perhaps the most...

Regulation in the States.(Book review)
January 1, 2006... Paul Teske. 2004. Regulation in the States. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. 275 pp. At the very moment that state regulatory powers are being extended in new ways in numerous areas of public policy, Paul Teske offers the most...

Bureaucracy and democracy: a happy marriage?(Bureaucracy and Democracy: Accountability and Performance)(Book review)
January 1, 2006... William T. Gormley, Jr. and Steven J. Balla. 2004. Bureaucracy and Democracy: Accountability and Performance. Washington, DC: CQ Press. 215 pp. Bureaucracy is a significant element of American governance; yet, its role in democratic...

Agencies: arm's-length government within easy reach?(Agencies: How Governments Do Things through Semi-Autonomous Organizations)(Book review)
January 1, 2006... Christopher Pollitt, Colin Talbot, Janice Caulfield, and Amanda Smullen. 2004. Agencies: How Governments Do Things through Semi-Autonomous Organizations. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. 304 pp. This book explores the phenomenon of...

Unleashing social psychology on public administration.(Unleashing Change: A Study of Organizational Renewal in Government)(Book review)
January 1, 2006... Steven Kelman. 2005. Unleashing Change: A Study of Organizational Renewal in Government. Washington, DC: Brookings. 308 pp. Steven Kelman served as the U.S. government's senior procurement policy official in the first Clinton...