This engaging book presents a model for personal reflection on what a career in public service means. It's designed not to convince the reader to take up a public service career, but rather to invite him or her to explore the implications for one's identity that are inherent in the public service life. Lively and anecdotal, Invitation to Public Administration directly confronts the various difficult issues involved with a public service career even as it evokes self-reflection. It is equally useful for undergraduate through Ph.D. level readers, and it is ideal supplemental reading for any foundational course in Public Administration. The book will also stimulate public service professionals seeking fresh insights for their own careers.
This engaging book presents a model for personal reflection on what a career in public service means. It's designed not to convince the reader to take up a public service career, but rather to invite him or her to explore the implications for one's identity that are inherent in the public service life. Lively and anecdotal, Invitation to Public Administration directly confronts the various difficult issues involved with a public service career even as it evokes self-reflection. It is equally useful for undergraduate through Ph.D. level readers, and is ideal supplemental reading for any foundational course in Public Administration. The book will also stimulate public service professionals seeking fresh insights for their own careers.
Acknowledged as the nation’s foremost expert on audience development involving America’s growing multicultural population by the Arts and Business Council, Donna Walker-Kuhne has now written the first book describing her strategies and methods to engage diverse communities as participants for arts and culture. By offering strategic collaborations and efforts to develop and sustain nontraditional audiences, this book will directly impact the stability and future of America’s cultural and artistic landscape. Donna Walker-Kuhne has spent the last 20 years developing and refining these principles with such success as both the Broadway and national touring productions of Bring in ’Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk, as well as transforming the audiences at one of the U.S.’s most important and visible arts institutions, New York’s Public Theater. This book is a practical and inspirational guide on ways to invite, engage and partner with culturally diverse communities, and how to enfranchise those communities into the fabric of arts and culture in the United States. Donna Walker-Kuhne is the president of Walker International Communications Group. From 1993 to 2002, she served as the marketing director for the Public Theater in New York, where she originated a range of audience-development activities for children, students and adults throughout New York City. Ms. Walker-Kuhne is an Adjunct Professor in marketing the arts at Fordham University, Brooklyn College and New York University. She was formerly marketing director for Dance Theatre of Harlem. Ms. Walker-Kuhne has given numerous workshops and presentations for arts groups throughout the U.S., including the Arts and Business Council, League of American Theaters and Producers, the Department of Cultural Affairs, and the National Endowment for Arts to name a few. She has been nominated for the Ford Foundation’s 2001 Leadership for a Changing World Fellowship.
"The information age has become a reality, and has brought with it many implications for public administration. New ICT's offer new opportunities for government and governing, but at the same time they pose challenges in some key areas of public administration, like trust, or the idea of checks and balances. This book is an examination of the developments and effects of ICT in public administration over the last 10 to 15 years. It represents a re-visiting of the 1998 IOS Press publication 'Public Administration in an Information Age: A Handbook'. As a point of departure, the authors of this new book have chosen the speed of the succession of theoretical approaches, represented by the 'phase of theories' which has appeared since 1998. This approach, which reflects that of the 1998 handbook, avoids the impression of technological determinism and provides an opportunity to focus on the phases of theory and technological developments. The book is divided into five sections. The first section examines key issues, and the second focuses on aspects of democracy. In the third section, the focus shifts towards structural conditions; the conditions that public administration has to meet in order to maintain its effectiveness and its legitimacy in the information age. Section four addresses some objects of implementation, like IT-inspired redesign, HRM and the phenomenon of Street Level Bureaucrats. Finally, the last section offers some concluding thoughts."--Publisher's website.
Everyone who aspires to more effective public service should read this book. It provides a compelling antidote to the managerial focus of theory and practice in public administration. Written with the aim of inspiring and rekindling a mission for public service, Transformational Public Service weaves together theory and stories from actual practice to show that public service can (and does) advance the goals of democracy, inclusiveness, and social and economic justice. Eight practitioners from government and non-governmental organizations at all levels - from the street to the executive office - tell their personal stories of transformational public service. Theory, poetry, and popular culture references are woven around the stories. Both students and practitioners will discover new ways of thinking in this book that will enable them to transform their own administrative practices. As the authors note in their prologue: "As we listened to these stories, we heard people say that public service can be and is transformational (transforms institutions, practices, and people's lives and experiences) in ways that serve democracy, engagement, and social and economic justice. The public service they practice is collaborative, humanistic, emancipatory, inclusive, and diverse."
What is at the root of current antigovernment sentiment? Some see it primarily in moral terms, others emphasize government's performance failures and managerial inefficiency. This work demonstrates that the crisis of government originates in the uncritical manner in which we have accepted the idea of "the People".
In The Black Hole of Public Administration experienced public servant Ruth Hubbard and public administration iconoclast Gilles Paquet sound a wake-up call to the federal public service. They lament the lack of "serious play" going on in Canada's public administration today and map some possible escape plans. They look to a more participatory governance model -"open source" governing or "small g" governance - as a way to liberate our public service from antiquated styles and systems of governing. --
This global encyclopedic work serves as a comprehensive collection of global scholarship regarding the vast fields of public administration, public policy, governance, and management. Written and edited by leading international scholars and practitioners, this exhaustive resource covers all areas of the above fields and their numerous subfields of study. In keeping with the multidisciplinary spirit of these fields and subfields, the entries make use of various theoretical, empirical, analytical, practical, and methodological bases of knowledge. Expanded and updated, the second edition includes over a thousand of new entries representing the most current research in public administration, public policy, governance, nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations, and management covering such important sub-areas as: 1. organization theory, behavior, change and development; 2. administrative theory and practice; 3. Bureaucracy; 4. public budgeting and financial management; 5. public economy and public management 6. public personnel administration and labor-management relations; 7. crisis and emergency management; 8. institutional theory and public administration; 9. law and regulations; 10. ethics and accountability; 11. public governance and private governance; 12. Nonprofit management and nongovernmental organizations; 13. Social, health, and environmental policy areas; 14. pandemic and crisis management; 15. administrative and governance reforms; 16. comparative public administration and governance; 17. globalization and international issues; 18. performance management; 19. geographical areas of the world with country-focused entries like Japan, China, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Russia and Eastern Europe, North America; and 20. a lot more. Relevant to professionals, experts, scholars, general readers, researchers, policy makers and manger, and students worldwide, this work will serve as the most viable global reference source for those looking for an introduction and advance knowledge to the field.
To Kill the King sketches post-traditional consciousness in terms of three rejuvenating concepts - thinking as play, justice as seeking, and practice as art. In a series of critical essays on each of these concepts, the book describes a post-traditional consciousness of governance that can yield enormous improvement in the quality of life for each individual. To Kill the King will appeal to any professor (whether in the post-modern camp or not) who wants to expose students to fresh challenges and insights.
Throughout its history, public administration has used a number of different perspectives for analyzing the discipline's theory and practice, and both mainstream and alternative lenses have produced valuable insights and prescriptions. At the same time, an individual way of looking at PA can be misleading. Alone, a solitary lens can miss critical aspects and often gives only part of the picture. Public Administration in Perspective has been specifically crafted to give new life to public administration theory and practice by helping readers view the discipline through a variety of perspectives. Designed for the capstone course in public administration programs, as well as a fresh approach for courses in PA theory and organizational theory, this unique book provides a culminating experience--bringing together what has been learned in previous MPA courses without simply rehashing old content. It offers a comprehensive guide to eleven major approaches to PA, and synthesizes them to deepen our understanding of the discipline. Each chapter in Part I describes the key features of the selected perspective--history, content, and proponents--and discusses the strengths and weaknesses related to PA theory and practice. Part II synthesizes the various perpectives, with specific implications for PA management and practice. Part III concludes with a complete overview, identifying ways in which readers can think more creatively and productively about PA, putting the perspectives themselves into perspective.
