'Explores the current models of government reform across the world, examining the basic tool kit of reformers and probing the underlying issues of government management and the puzzles of governance in the twenty-first century, with special focus on New Zealand and the United States'--Provided by publisher.

Product Description: On March 1, 2002, the most extensive reorganization of federal agencies since the end of World War II occurred. With the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), twenty-two agencies comprising 180,000 federal workers were merged into a single department whose principal mission is to prevent and respond to terrorist attacks...read more

Offers an analysis of the leadership style of President George W. Bush, concentrating on the methods and techniques employed by the first MBA president to build a highly qualified management team.

The theory of public administration has long been based on the notions of hierarchy and authority. However, the way managers actually manage has increasingly become at odds with the theory. The growing gap between theory and practice poses enormous challenges for managers in determining how best to work -- and for American government in determining how best to hold public administrators accountable for effectively doing their jobs.In the quest to improve the practice of public administration, Kettl explains, political scientists and other scholars have tried a number of approaches, including formal modeling, implementation studies, a public management perspective, and even institutional choice. This book offers a new framework for reconciling effective administration with the requirements of democratic government. Instead of thinking in terms of organizational structure and management, Kettl suggests, administrators and theorists need to focus on "governance,"or links between government and its broader environment -- political, social, and administrative. Government is the collection of institutions that act with authority and create formal obligations;governance is the set of processes and institutions, formal and informal, through which social action occurs. Linking government and governance, Kettl concludes, is the foundation for understanding the theory and practice of government in twenty-first century America -- for making public programs work better and for securing the values on which the American republic has been built.

Product Description: Environmental policy has been the focus of reform efforts for more than a generation. Now policymakers face a new and challenging set of issues: how to develop strategies for attacking new environmental problems, how to develop better strategies for solving the old ones, and how to do both in ways that are more efficient, less taxing, and engender less political opposition...read more

Product Description: Public management stands at the unique intersection of theory and practice. It seeks to help scholars frame questions that will improve their understanding of how policy ideas become transformed into practice and to help government managers see past the narrow issues on their desks to the broader implications of their work...read more