Research in Public Administration – serie

The papers in this volume focus on the broad issues of public sector reform. They address issue-oriented and comparative research such as: analysis of civil service systems at the theoretical level; reforming the wing of national level governments; the wave of public sector reform that has swept the West over the past fifteen years; a comparison of two recent programs to improve efficiency and legitimacy of government in the US and the Netherlands; the problems of insufficient capacity in managing the public sector; the impediments in the current system of public sector job evaluation in the US; the shortcomings in managerial capacities that currently trouble the European Union; Nicaragua and its struggle for public sector reform; the history of Egyptian civil service; and the development of the Argentine civil service.

As the study of public administration becomes more theoretically aware, researchers need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of different theoretical perspectives. This volume examines seven theoretical perspectives of public budgeting: incrementalism, the budget process model, the organizational process model, the median voter model, the 'greedy bureaucrat' model, a post-modern model, and the transaction cost model. Major research from each perspective is examined and critically reviewed. The development of each model is examined in detail, its strengths and weaknesses identified, and the potential for future research discussed, allowing the reader to understand the place of the model and its applicability to their own research. This volume will be a vital resource for researchers in public budgeting, public finance, public administration, and political science.

What is public administration? How can we identify it and characterize it? The meaning of public administration seems more problematic than ever after the late 20th century cry for privatization. Some argue there is no need to elucidate the meaning of public administration, others stick to more limited notions like "public management" or introduce new vocabulary such as "governance". "Retracing Public Administration" deals with our understanding of public administration. Before discarding "public administration", a more profound analysis of its meaning is preeminent. Where did the concept originate, why and how was it grounded, and can we perhaps (re)establish its meaning as a core concept for understanding and changing social reality? This volume presents the reader with a number of conceptual studies that can be regarded as a prerequisite for thinking about public administration. The studies are reflections upon the administrative discourse of relevance to students of both theory and practice that seek insight into the intellectual roots of their enterprise. The topics deal with concern core issues in the discourse on public administration such as the relation between politics and administration, the differentiation of public and private, and the links between state and administrative practice. The volume presents a mixture of argumentation, playful debate, careful analysis and speculative interpretation by authors making their first contribution to the field as well as some of the field's distinguished scholars. All aim at enlightening about what lies beneath our idea of public administration and to reflect upon ways to improve our understanding of this important part of social reality.