Offers a comprehensive exploration of the political and policy-making roles of public bureaucracies. This sixth edition features: international case studies on North America, Western and Eastern European and Asian countries; discussion of how governments have been developing strategies to enhance co-ordination across their programs; and more.

Product Description: What is public administration and what does it do? Though government bureaucracy is much maligned, could the modern state exist without it? Why is public administration and bureaucracy so misunderstood? By invoking enduring ideas about representation and democracy, Anthony Bertelli sheds light on these ellusive questions in a concise but nuanced narrative that relates the history of the modern bureaucratic state to contemporary efforts to treat government more like a business...read more

Brazil was one of the most successful examples of state-led industrialization in the post-1945 era. Yet the Brazilian bureaucracy is very fragmented, personalized, and ad hoc. Turnover is high, all policy-relevant positions are subject to political appointment, and officials spend only a short time in positions for which they often lack expertise. How can such a state function, let alone foster rapid economic transformation? To solve this riddle, Ben Ross Schneider looks beyond the traditional models of organizational behaviour and bureaucratic politics. To explain when and why the Brazilian bureaucracy contributes to industrialization, he analyzes career patterns and appointments which structure incentives and power more than formal organizations or institutions. Politics and personalism, of the right sort, can in fact enhance policy effectiveness and state capacity. Using a survey of the careers of 281 high officials and case studies of four major industrial projects in the 1970s and 1980s (including Acominas and Carajas), Professor Schneider opens up the "black box of the state". This empirical work aims to help revise prevailing interpretations of Brazilian authoritarianism. His alternative careerist approach challenges conventional theories in the comparative study of bureaucracy.

Product Description: In this work the authors present a general theory of bureaucracy and use it to explain behaviour in large organizations and to explain what determines efficiency in both governments and business corporations. The theory uses the methods of standard neoclassical economic theory...read more

Product Description: This book examines in detail the process of change in 240 city, county and state public bureaucracies responsible for local finance administration. Using the longitudinal method of analysis, the data show organizational structures to be much less stable than conventional stereotypes have suggested...read more

Through a series of dangerous and violent misadventures, teenage loser Alfred Kropp rescues King Arthur's legendary sword Excalibur from the forces of evil.

Product Description: In this book David Bachman examines the origins of the Great Leap Forward (GLF), a program of economic reform that must be considered one of the great tragedies of Communist China, estimated to have caused the death of between 14 and 28 million Chinese...read more

Product Description: The central role that bureaucracy plays in the policy process is played by individuals, namely, by subject matter experts and managers we call political executives. These executives do not play their role in a vacuum, of course, but in a context defined by three key forces―the organizational environment of bureaucracy itself; our governing philosophy stressing responsiveness, respect for individual rights, and accountability; and the demands of the people and the institutions those people have created to govern themselves...read more

Co-written by the co-author of the influential 1992 book, Reinventing Government, a practical plan for permanently changing public administrations promises to increase their effectiveness, efficiency, and capacity for innovation. Reprint.

Product Description: NOW IN PAPERBACK!For 13 centuries, throughout China male recruits studied diligently for a long series of grueling examinations in hopes of achieving the civil rank that would enable them to serve the emperor of China. For the fortunate few who passed these exams there were nine possible ranks, each identified by a square badge of finely woven kesi, embroidery, or brocade...read more

Contains the names and positions of Chinese officials at all levels of the government and in military, financial, and educational institutions.

Product Description: The revolution in public management has led many reformers to call for public managers to reinvent themselves as public entrepreneurs. Larry D. Terry opposes this view, and presents a normative theory of administrative leadership that integrates legal, sociological, and constitutional theory...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: In this first in-depth examination of the governance of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) in over twenty-five years, G. Bruce Doern and Richard Levesque show how the agency's history is interwoven with the evolution of Canada's economic and industrial development and with the fostering of science at Canada's universities, in industry, and within the federal government...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)