Civil Service Reform
Civil Service Reform

Author: Donald F. Kettl

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2010-12-01

Total Pages: 126

ISBN-13: 9780815707356

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The authors of this book contend that the civil service system, which was devised to create a uniform process for recruiting high-quality workers to government, is no longer uniform or a system. Nor does it help government find and retain the workers it needs to build a government that works. The current civil service system was designed for a government in which federal agencies directly delivered most public services. But over the last generation, privatization and devolution have increased the number and importance of government's partnerships with private companies, nonprofit organizations, and state and local governments. Government workers today spend much of their time managing these partnerships, not delivering services, and this trend will only accelerate in the future. The authors contend that the current system poorly develops government workers who can effectively manage these partnerships, resulting too often in a gap between promise and performance. This short, lively, and bipartisan volume, authored by the nation's leading experts on government management, describes what the government of the future will look like, what it will need to work well, and how in particular the nation can build the next generation of workers required to lead it.

Public Service and Good Governance for the Twenty-First Century
Public Service and Good Governance for the Twenty-First Century

Author: James L. Perry

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2020-05-01

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 0812252047

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Expert analysis of American governance challenges and recommendations for reform Two big ideas serve as the catalyst for the essays collected in this book. The first is the state of governance in the United States, which Americans variously perceive as broken, frustrating, and unresponsive. Editor James Perry observes in his Introduction that this perception is rooted in three simultaneous developments: government's failure to perform basic tasks that once were taken for granted, an accelerating pace of change that quickly makes past standards of performance antiquated, and a dearth of intellectual capital that generate the capacity to bridge the gulf between expectations and performance. The second idea hearkens back to the Progressive era, when Americans revealed themselves to be committed to better administration of their government at all levels—federal, state, and local. These two ideas—the diminishing capacity for effective governance and Americans' expectations for reform—are veering in opposite directions. Contributors to Public Service and Good Governance for the Twenty-First Century explore these central ideas by addressing such questions as: what is the state of government today? Can future disruptions of governance and public service be anticipated? What forms of government will emerge from the past and what institutions and structures will be needed to meet future challenges? And lastly, and perhaps most importantly, what knowledge, skills, and abilities will need to be fostered for tomorrow's civil servants to lead and execute effectively? Public Service and Good Governance for the Twenty-First Century offers recommendations for bending the trajectories of governance capacity and reform expectations toward convergence, including reversing the trend of administrative disinvestment, developing talent for public leadership through higher education, creating a federal civil service to meet future needs, and rebuilding bipartisanship so that the sweeping changes needed to restore good government become possible. Contributors: Sheila Bair, William W. Bradley, John J. DiIulio, Jr., Angela Evans, Francis Fukuyama, Donald F. Kettl, Ramayya Krishnan, Paul C. Light, Shelley Metzenbaum, Norman J. Ornstein, James L. Perry, Norma M. Riccucci, Paul R. Verkuil, Paul A. Volcker.

In the Shadow of Good Governance
In the Shadow of Good Governance

Author: Gerhard Anders

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2009-10-26

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 9047444124

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In the Shadow of Good Governance traces the implementation of the good governance agenda in Malawi from the loan documents signed by the representatives of the government and the Bretton Woods institutions to the individual experiences of civil servants who responded in unforeseen ways to the reform measures. Ethnographic evidence gathered in government offices, neighbourhoods and the private homes of civil servants living in Malawi’s urban and peri-urban areas undermines the common perception of a disconnect between state institutions and society in Africa. Instead, the book presents a comprehensive analysis of civil servants’ attempts to negotiate the effects of civil service reform and economic crisis at the turn of the 21st century.

The Politics of Civil Service Reform
The Politics of Civil Service Reform

Author: David Andrew Schultz

Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Political scientists explore the development and politics of such reform in the US from Washington's administration to Clinton's. They nestle them into the context of competing political struggles between Congress, the president, and the federal courts to control the federal bureaucracy and define its organization and values. Of interest to students and scholars in public administration and US politics. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Civil Service Reform
Civil Service Reform

Author: Donald F. Kettl

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2010-12-01

Total Pages: 121

ISBN-13: 0815707355

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The authors of this book contend that the civil service system, which was devised to create a uniform process for recruiting high-quality workers to government, is no longer uniform or a system. Nor does it help government find and retain the workers it needs to build a government that works. The current civil service system was designed for a government in which federal agencies directly delivered most public services. But over the last generation, privatization and devolution have increased the number and importance of government's partnerships with private companies, nonprofit organizations, and state and local governments. Government workers today spend much of their time managing these partnerships, not delivering services, and this trend will only accelerate in the future. The authors contend that the current system poorly develops government workers who can effectively manage these partnerships, resulting too often in a gap between promise and performance. This short, lively, and bipartisan volume, authored by the nation's leading experts on government management, describes what the government of the future will look like, what it will need to work well, and how in particular the nation can build the next generation of workers required to lead it.

Public Service Excellence in the 21st Century
Public Service Excellence in the 21st Century

Author: Alikhan Baimenov

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-01-17

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 9811332150

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book combines academic wisdom and practitioners’ insights to critically examine the challenges faced by civil service systems in the 21st Century. Moreover, the book evaluates what types of civil servants are needed to tackle critical issues such as rapidly ageing populations, increased urbanisation, environmental degradation, swift technological advancement, and globalisation of the market place in the social and economic realm of the 21st Century. Its topics range from civil service development in post-Soviet countries indicating that peer-to-peer learning is the way forward, to civil service reforms in China, Japan, and Korea in their quest to satisfy their citizens demands and expectations in the 21st Century. Other topics span across regional analyses by focusing on current dominant trends and challenges confronting administrative and civil service systems, vis-à-vis technology, innovation and “big data”, and their disruptive effects on society and government. This book will be of interest to both academics and practitioners, and would-be builders of the 21st Century world.

The Higher Civil Service in the United States
The Higher Civil Service in the United States

Author: Mark W. Huddleston

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre

Published: 2010-11-23

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0822974738

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Every time control of the U.S. presidency is passed from one party to another, the entire top layer of the executive branch changes. Thousands of men and women take down their pictures, pack up their desks, and move back into private life, just as others dust off their pictures and move in. The U.S. stands alone in this respect. Nearly every other advanced democracy is managed-save for elected officials and a few top aides-by an elite cadre of top civil servants selected by highly competitive examinations. Hudleston and Boyer tell the story of U.S. efforts to develop higher civil service, beginning with the Eisenhower administration and culminating in the passage of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. Arguing that the highly-politicized U.S. system simply hasn't worked, they examine why and how reform efforts have failed and offer a series of recommendations for the future.