Holding Government Bureaucracies Accountable PDF Download

Author: Bernard Rosen
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313018847
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
The growth in power of government bureaucracies is one of the more profound developments of 20th-century society. Bureaucracies impact the quality of life of every person in this country and many millions outside American borders. The president, governors, mayors, legislators, judges, and the public now are increasingly concerned with how bureaucracies are using their power, and accountability is at the heart of these concerns. For what and to whom are bureaucracies accountable? This acclaimed text examines these questions, primarily in the context of the federal bureaucracy. Building upon the second edition of the text, Rosen updated the entire work to incorporate significant subsequent developments. Among the most important are the Chief Financial Officer Act of 1990, the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, and the Government Management Reform Act of 1994. These three laws, with the Clinton administration's National Performance Review initiative, could substantially improve performance and accountability. The text clearly and systematically examines issues of accountability that are of concern to students and researchers as well as policymakers in the area of public administration.

Author: Paul Light
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815720165
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Government is under enormous pressure to change. Call it reinventing, reengineering, or plain old change, but the mandate remains the same: produce more with less, and satisfy the customer while doing it. Yet, successful reform must involve more than exhortation and slogans. Paul Light argues that a failure to pay attention to the thickening of government over the past half century may doom any reinventing effort. The federal government has never had so many leaders. There are more layers of management between the top and bottom of government, with more administrative units and occupants at each layer. Bill Clinton is further from the frontlines of government than any president in American history. If the past decades are any indication, he will exit a presidency that is even thicker. Light presents a revealing look at how thick the bureaucracy really is, how and why thickening occurs, what difference it might make, and what can be done to both reverse the process and keep the thickening from growing back. Light shows how the management layers between the top and bottom of government—between air traffic controllers and the Secretary of Transportation, food inspectors and the Secretary of Agriculture, and so on—have steadily increased. In 1960, for example, John F. Kennedy's senior-most appointments came in four layers: secretary, under secretary, assistant secretary, and deputy assistant secretary. By 1992, the number of layers had tripled. In the meantime, the number of occupants at each layer grew geometrically; the number of assistant secretaries jumped from 81 to 212. A government of managers means the president has very little direct access or control over what happens far below, a basic problem of accountability. Information gets distorted on the way up, and guidance gets lost on the way down. Thickening often creates so many bureaucratic baffles that no one can be held accountable for any decision; mid-level workers may have so many bosses that they effectively have none. Light concludes that practically nothing by way of quality management, service-government, or employee involvement can work with these towering government agencies. But practically nothing will fail if a radical "down- layering" is undertaken now.

Author: William T. Gormley (Jr.)
Publisher: C Q Press College
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
How should your students understand the role of the bureaucracy in American democracy? Making many of the policy decisions that most directly affect our lives-from the criteria used to rate the effectiveness of our schools to the rules that govern our retirement savings-bureaucracies and their performance merit our close study. With a focus on accountability, Gormley and Bella examine the factors that ultimately lead to bureaucratic successes and shortcomings.

Author: Robert D. Behn
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780815798101
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
Traditionally, American government has created detailed, formal procedures to ensure that its agencies and employees are accountable for finances and fairness. Now in the interest of improved performance, we are asking our front-line workers to be more responsive, we are urging our middle managers to be innovative, and we are exhorting our public executives to be entrepreneurial. Yet what is the theory of democratic accountability that empowers public employees to exercise such discretion while still ensuring that we remain a government of laws? How can government be responsive to the needs of individual citizens and still remain accountable to the entire polity? In Rethinking Democratic Accountability, Robert D. Behn examines the ambiguities, contradictions, and inadequacies in our current systems of accountability for finances, fairness, and performance. Weaving wry observations with political theory, Behn suggests a new model of accountability—with "compacts of collective, mutual responsibility"—to address new paradigms for public management.

Author: Glen Krutz
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781738998470
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Black & white print. American Government 3e aligns with the topics and objectives of many government courses. Faculty involved in the project have endeavored to make government workings, issues, debates, and impacts meaningful and memorable to students while maintaining the conceptual coverage and rigor inherent in the subject. With this objective in mind, the content of this textbook has been developed and arranged to provide a logical progression from the fundamental principles of institutional design at the founding, to avenues of political participation, to thorough coverage of the political structures that constitute American government. The book builds upon what students have already learned and emphasizes connections between topics as well as between theory and applications. The goal of each section is to enable students not just to recognize concepts, but to work with them in ways that will be useful in later courses, future careers, and as engaged citizens. In order to help students understand the ways that government, society, and individuals interconnect, the revision includes more examples and details regarding the lived experiences of diverse groups and communities within the United States. The authors and reviewers sought to strike a balance between confronting the negative and harmful elements of American government, history, and current events, while demonstrating progress in overcoming them. In doing so, the approach seeks to provide instructors with ample opportunities to open discussions, extend and update concepts, and drive deeper engagement.

Author: Saqib Iqbal Qureshi
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
ISBN: 9781544509617
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
A democracy should reflect the views of its citizens and offer a direct connection between government and those it serves. So why, more than ever, does it seem as if our government exists in its own bubble, detached from us? In reality, our democracy is not performing as it should, which has left us fed up with a system we no longer trust. Moreover, we lack a mechanism to fix what's broken, because there is no incentive for politicians and civil servants to make government more accountable, efficient, and representative.  Saqib Iqbal Qureshi is calling on his fellow citizens to assert their voice in the dialogue of democracy. In The Broken Contract, he puts forth solutions-many involving easy-to-implement technologies. It's up to us to turn the ship around. If you're looking for the best way to start a conversation with your elected and unelected officials, this is the book you need.

Author: Ronald N. Johnson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226401774
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
The call to "reinvent government"—to reform the government bureaucracy of the United States—resonates as loudly from elected officials as from the public. Examining the political and economic forces that have shaped the American civil service system from its beginnings in 1883 through today, the authors of this volume explain why, despite attempts at an overhaul, significant change in the bureaucracy remains a formidable challenge.

Author: Joseph Postell
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826273785
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
The rise of the administrative state is the most significant political development in American politics over the past century. While our Constitution separates powers into three branches, and requires that the laws are made by elected representatives in the Congress, today most policies are made by unelected officials in agencies where legislative, executive, and judicial powers are combined. This threatens constitutionalism and the rule of law. This book examines the history of administrative power in America and argues that modern administrative law has failed to protect the principles of American constitutionalism as effectively as earlier approaches to regulation and administration.

Author: Amity Shlaes
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062097970
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 592

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Book Description
Amity Shlaes, author of The Forgotten Man, delivers a brilliant and provocative reexamination of America’s thirtieth president, Calvin Coolidge, and the decade of unparalleled growth that the nation enjoyed under his leadership. In this riveting biography, Shlaes traces Coolidge’s improbable rise from a tiny town in New England to a youth so unpopular he was shut out of college fraternities at Amherst College up through Massachusetts politics. After a divisive period of government excess and corruption, Coolidge restored national trust in Washington and achieved what few other peacetime presidents have: He left office with a federal budget smaller than the one he inherited. A man of calm discipline, he lived by example, renting half of a two-family house for his entire political career rather than compromise his political work by taking on debt. Renowned as a throwback, Coolidge was in fact strikingly modern—an advocate of women’s suffrage and a radio pioneer. At once a revision of man and economics, Coolidge gestures to the country we once were and reminds us of qualities we had forgotten and can use today.

Author: Beryl Radin
Publisher: CQ Press
ISBN: 1483371174
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
PUBLIC AFFAIRS AND POLICY ADMINISTRATION SERIES Edited by Donald Kettl How should a manager handle different accountability expectations? While a commonplace term in government lexicon, accountability has escaped precise definition, leaving managers at a disadvantage when trying to monitor the performance of their programs. Including more than 300 programs, over 60,000 employees, and a budget of over $400 billion, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is an ideal canvas for starkly illustrating competing accountability demands. With a bird's-eye view of the agency's inner workings, Radin tackles big issues such as strategies of centralization and decentralization, coordination with states and localities, leadership, and program design, while using the apt analogy of a juggler to show how managers must keep in the air disparate demands and developments.