Marketing-oriented planning in public administration: The case of the state development agency

Noting that concepts from marketing are not often found in the public management: literature, the authors present a multi-stage marketing-oriented planning model which can be used in the public sector. the mods1 is applied to the case of industrial development agencies, wit11 emphasis on the use of the model in recruiting foreign direct investment. The model includes the determination of organization mission, goals and objectives, resources, and growth strategies as elements of the management planning process. The marketing planning stage of the model includes opportunity analysis, positioning for target markets, marketing mix selection, and control. The two main stages of the process are mediated by factors in the internal and external environments of the organization.     

Supplier behaviour and public contracting in the English agency nursing market

The worldwide expansion in the use of private firms to deliver public services and infrastructure has promoted a substantial literature on public sector contract and relationship management. This literature is currently dominated by the notion that supplier relationships should be based upon trust. Less prominent are more sceptical approaches that emphasize the need to assiduously manage potential supplier exploitation and opportunism. This article addresses this imbalance by focusing upon the recent experience of the English National Health Service (NHS) in its dealings with its nursing agencies. Between 1997 and 2001, the NHS was subjected to considerable exploitation and opportunism. This forced managers to adopt a supply strategy based upon an assiduous use of e-auctions, framework agreements and quality audits. The article assesses the effectiveness of this strategy and reflects upon whether a more defensive approach to contract and relationship management offers a viable alternative to one based upon trust.     

Teaching public administration,public management and policy analysis: some international comparisons

This article compares the design and content of domestic and foreign programs for teaching public administration and management. At the Master's level, curriculum designers, irrespective of location, emphasize organization theory, personnel, policy analysis, and microeconomics. However, domestic programs place much more emphasis on research methods and budget management. International programs place more emphasis on public law and management information systems. At this time, neither domestic nor international programs report much required training in leadership, bargaining, or institutional design.     

Coordination processes and outcomes in the public service: the challenge of inter-organizational food safety coordination in Norway

In 2004 Norway implemented a food safety reform programme aimed at enhancing inter‐organizational coordination processes and outcomes. Has this programme affected inter‐organizational coordination processes and outcomes, both vertically and horizontally – and if so how? This article employs the concept of inter‐organizational coordination as an analytical tool, examining it in the light of two theoretical perspectives and coupling it with the empirical findings. The argument presented is that the chances of strong coordination outcomes may increase if inter‐organizational processes feature a clear division of labour, arenas for coordination, active leadership, a lack of major conflicting goals, and shared obligations.     

Historical change and the administrative state: An analysis of the theoretical foundations of public administration

This article offers an explanation for the theoretical underdevelopment of Public Administration. It argues that Public Administration studies the relations among elements of the administrative state and between the administrative state and its environment dissociated from time. The ahistorical orientation of the discipline has drastically reduced its capacity for theory building.     

Perspectives on rebuilding the public service: Critique of an inadequate managerial orientation

The National Commission on the Public Service recently reported its recommendations for revitalizing the federal service, and this significant effort deserves and requires searching analysis. This critique highlights several inadequacies of scope and approach, all falling under the rubric of the Commission's “managerial orientation,” viewed from both narrow and broad perspectives. In the present view, these inadequacies raise serious doubts about the actions which the Commission associates with the basic recommendations about increasing federal compensation. Some observers will insist that the Commission recommendations are political documents with a narrow focus on necessary increases in federal compensation, and that this worthwhile goal places critical commentary in the class of niggling or whining.     

Roward a public philosophy of public administration: a civic perspective of the public

The thesis of this article is that a publicphilosophy of public administration needs to be formulated. It must not be based upon romantic and technocratic approaches as past efforts have been. It must rest instead upon a revitalized concept of the public that stresses the importance of public interdependency, public learning, public language, and a critical evaluation of the relationship between the role of the state and public administration. This emphasis has important implications for the respective responsibilities of both academicians and practicing administrators.     

International perspectives on public sector management and productivity: an introductory synthesis

The last ten years have seen the adoption of many significant public sector productivity initiatives globally. This special edition grew out of the first World Congress of the International Productivity Network, held in Canberra, Australia, in July 1992. Four themes are explored.     

Inside perceptions of public policy making in france: preliminary analysis

The study, based on interviews in Paris with government officials from the Office of the Pres-identify, Prime Minister's Cabinet, cabinets of five important ministries including that of the Economy, grands corps members, and Leaders of the trade unions, seeks to determine the reality of the process of goverrimentai policy making in the Fifth Republic and, most importantly, the influence of the major participants in policy formulation.

Cumulatively, the responses point out that the president and prime minister are viewed as the top arbiters of public policy, in the general and social and economic areas. They are followed, in decreasing order , by the Minister of the Economy, the ministers of important ministries, National Assembly, higher civil servants (especially members of the grands corps), Senate, and trade unions. Characteristically, all groups of participants interviewed have tended to rate their own part in the policy process more highly than the other groups had rated it.

In general, the preliminary analysis up-holds and corroborates the strength of the executive in the Fifth Republic.     

The democratic polity's search for the knowledgeable public administrator: an argumentative essay

Today public administrators, as many others, desire to be known as professionals or those knowledgeable enough to carry out their tasks without outside interference. By examining their claims to have expertise to carry out their public tasks, we provide a critical evaluation of the professionalism of public administrators. Our argument is that public administrators may not have sufficient knowledge to carry out their public tasks without the knowledge (help) of others. Suggesting that public administrators need to have more “public” knowledge of the public interest, we suggest ways that they can become more knowledgeable and more compatible with the tenets of political democracy.     

Rethinking agency and structure in the study of regime change

The oscillation of the study of political regime change between voluntarist and structural approaches has increasingly led scholars to seek research strategies for synthesizing the two approaches. This article addresses the conceptual and practical difficulties of achieving such a synthesis by evaluating several strategies for integrating voluntarist and structural factors in the analysis of regime change. It examines competing ways of conceptualizing agency and structure and assesses the varied consequences that different conceptualizations have for explaining regime transformation. The article also analyzes three distinct strategies for integrating agency and structure: the funnel, path-dependent, and eclectic strategies. Each integrative strategy isanchored by a different conceptual base and has characteristic strengths and limitations. The conclusion explores future directions for developing integrative strategies. The authors are listed in alphabetical order and share equal responsibility for the content of this analysis. We appreciate helpful comments and suggestions from Christopher Ansell, Ruth Berins Collier, Michael Bratton, David Collier, Larry Diamond, Giuseppe di Palma, Peter Evans, John Foran, Jeff Goodwin, Tomasz Grabowski, Ernst Haas, Stephan Haggard, Jonathan Hartlyn, Terry Karl, Steven Levitsky Juan Linz, Gerardo Munck, Pierre Ostiguy, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Eric Selbin, Michael Sinatra, Jutta Weldes, Alexander Wendt, and Brendan Works. James Mahoney is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Brown University. He is currently finishing a book that analyzes liberalism and regime change in five Central American countries during the 19th and 20th centuries. Richard Snyder is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has published numerous articles on both regime change and the politics of economic reform. He is currently completing a forthcoming book entitledPolitics after Neoliberalism.     

The agency perspective and the future of local government administration

Much of the recent political dialogue in the U. S. A. has included criticism of government bureaucracy.An especially significant response to this criticism was developed by Gary L. Wamsley and others in what has been c:alled the ‘Blacksburg Manifesto.’ They use the concept of the Agency Perspective to provide a basis for the legitimacy of a role in the governance process for public administration.

This essay explores the application of the concept of the Agency Perspective, which was developed primallly with reference to the national government, to local government and considers the implications of the Agency) Perspective for the future role of local government administration.

The essay concludes that the concept of the Agency Perspective fits local governments as well. If these arguments meet with widespread acceptance, this suggests a growing, more active role for public administration in U. S. local governments.     

A tale of three bridges: agency and agonism in peace building

This article explores agonistic processes of peace, which are situated within and constitutive of different spaces and places. Three contested cities, Sarajevo, Mostar and Vi?egrad in Bosnia-Herzegovina, provide us with local sites where peace and peace building in various forms ‘take place’ as people come together in collective action. Through a close reading of three symbolically and materially important bridges in the towns, we reveal meaning-making processes, as agentive subjects struggle around competing claims in the post-conflict everyday world. The collective, situated and fleeting agency that we explore through the Arendtian notion of ‘space of appearance’ invests space with meaning, belonging and identity. Thus, this article grapples with agonistic peace as it manifests itself in materiality and spatial practices. We use the social and material spaces of the city to locate agency and agonism in peace building as they relate to the conflict legacy in Mostar, Vi?egrad and Sarajevo in order to advance the critical peace research agenda.     

Introduction: the politics of public justification

ABSTRACT

Introducing the special issue, this introduction sketches a broad frame for studying public justification. Addressing the relevance of studying this phenomenon, we contend that justificatory processes are very much at the core today’s politics. Defining the concept inclusively, we highlight the relevance of communicative agency and, at the same time, the salience of communicative contexts that enable this agency. Casting our net widely, we show how public justification is related to other, more thoroughly studied concepts, such as legitimacy, authority and power. Encouraging students of public justification to add to our understanding of justificatory processes, we highlight multiple fruitful methodological avenues for studying the concept.     

The forgotten worker: Neglected aspects of public service in an information age

One of the most consistent themes among contemporary administrative theorists is that the workplace of the future will be a more hospitable environment for public workers than is currently the case. Decentralization, participative management, and intrinsically satisfying work are commonly forecast. Using survey data from state employees, this study identifies a large class of civil servants that has not yet, and probably will not, enjoy the enriched jobs that are so often predicted. The discussion identifies a number of factors in the work environment of these workers that are likely to frustrate attempts to make their jobs more meaningful and pleasant. Having acknowledged their existence and assessed their plight, the study concludes with a summary of measures that can be taken to address the needs of these “forgotten workers.”     

Opening the black box: an analysis of the Russian economy

The article develops a simple framework for a discussion of the structure of property rights in the Russian economy. The framework suggests how barter and enterprise restructuring can be evaluated simultaneously with political motivation. Using the notion of politicians with inefficient control over the private sector, it also assesses the recent virtual economy hypothesis. It emphasizes the importance of incentives that were carried over from the Soviet era, which, it is suggested, must be duly considered while analyzing parametric changes in the Russian economy. This point is supported with the help of two examples at the end of the paper.     

Modernizing the public service in latin america: faradoxes of latin american public administration

This article presents impediments to the moderization of the public bureacracy in the Latin American region. These impediments are presented as paradoxes in order to emphasize both the contradications found in, and the America. The article presents examples from various cases it central and South America in order to show the lack of a public service tradition, the obstacles of patronage and corruption, the Opportunity costs of bureacratic development, the difficulty of reform, and the drawbacks of professionalization. It concludes with some suggestions, groped under the general strategies of insulation and fortification, about how to evercome these impeciments.     

Minorities and the public service: a future perspective

This paper analyzes the future prospects of blacks and other minorities in the public service. It examines studies on race/role expectations of minority administrators, tokenism and marginality to discern trends in interethnic relations. It also discusses future demographic projections and their implications for majority/minority relations. Finally, the essay explains why public service careers are particularly significant for blacks and other minorities.