Wither human resources management among the states.(Civil Service Reform in the States: Personnel Policy and Politics at the Subnational Level)(Book review)

J. Edward Kellough and Lloyd G. Nigro, eds. Civil Service Reform in the States: Personnel Policy and Politics at the Subnational Level (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006).

This is an extraordinary book. It is scholarly, with applied implications; analytical, with description; and orderly, with a consistent theme throughout. It proceeds from a broad-based conceptual framework into actual operations at several selected state governments. The book is informative and useful to elected officials, human resource professionals, and anyone seeking to enhance their understanding of contemporary human resource policies and functioning and their implications in the various departments of government that provide distinctive services. Citations are impressive, quantitatively and qualitatively. Also, the information provided by the various authors in this anthology represents a time capsule of government personnel policy and concomitant politics early in the twenty-first century for use by subsequent generations of those interested in human resource (personnel) policy development.

The title of the book signals that it focuses on personnel policy at the subnational level. To …