Teaching public policy in a public administration program

An overlooked aspect of academic concern in public administration is the realm of public policy. Policy intrudes into administration at a number of crucial points; administration influences the direction and emphasis of policy in various ways. These interrelationships warrant more attention in the training of public administrators. Regrettably, they have remained largely off-limits in the training of public administrators. Why and how we should proceed to alter this state of affairs is the essence of the symposium that follows.     

State, administration and governance in Germany: competing traditions and dominant narratives

The article explores the evolution of competing views on state, administration and governance in Germany from an historical perspective, with an emphasis on the last five decades. To understand the governance discourse in Germany one has to start from different notions of the state. The first part therefore offers a brief, somewhat polemic, overview about different state traditions in Germany in the twentieth and twenty–first centuries. The second part looks at how discourses about the proper role, the appropriate structures and processes of the public sector and its interactions with its environment have changed during the history of the Federal Republic. The analytic focus is on the different narratives about administrative policies, understood as the various scenarios, assumptions and arguments on which competing policy–suggestions for the public sector have been based. The article argues that it is not sufficient to interpret the ups and downs of different discourses and Leitbilder as more or less erratic, post–modern fashions and fads. Instead, the line up of the central catch–phrases, from democratic via active and lean to the activating state, reflect learning processes, driven above all by the political competition creating a continuous demand for 'better', more appropriate narratives to guide and explain current policies.     

Federal contract policy and management: the small business administration 8(A) program

The federal Small Business Administration's 8(a) program raises issues of minority business empowerment and effective policy implementation. Given the role of enterprise in both addressing the historical and contemporary problems of minority economic and community development and in empowering minority communities, and given the current nature, extent and distribution of minority, particularly African-American business establishments, the performance of the 8(a) program as a substantial infusion of capital and experience into the African-American community is essential. According to a recent report of the Commission on Minority Business Development, the 8(a) is seriously flawed in the management of the problem. Regulation and enforcement, coordination, evaluation and monitoring and accountability are serious challenges to the viability of the program. Entrepreneurial empowerment is enhanced not only by effective policy development but also be effective policy implementation of the 8(a) and other set-aside programs.     

brics in the Contemporary World: changing identities,converging interests

Abstract

This paper aims to address the reasons why the acronym brics is moving from being an easy marker to guide foreign investors interested in emerging markets to denoting an important political group of countries determined to promote major changes in international relations. Theoretically the paper draws on social constructivism to demonstrate that the changing identities of brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) can be treated as the main cause of the convergence of their interests in the international arena. Through a detailed analysis of these countries’ statements at the opening sessions of the UN General Assembly from 1991 to 2011, their social claims about themselves are retraced and the way they have judged the international sphere in which they engage is captured, in order to demonstrate the changing character of their identities. These new identities, it is argued, created the opportunity for converging interests, which explains the emerging political structure of brics . The paper concludes that, after four major summits and a significant number of wide-ranging low-level meetings, brics might be considered one of the major long-lasting forces shaping the new architecture of international relations in the 21st century.     

Ten years of infitah: class,rent, and policy stasis in Egypt

The Political Economy of Income Distribution in Egypt. Edited by Gouda Abdel‐Khalek and Robert Tignor. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1982. $55. ISBN 0 8419 0633 5.

Employment Opportunities and Equity in Egypt: A Labour Market Approach. By Bent Hansen and Samir Radwan. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1982. $25.65 and $19.95. ISBN 92 2 102995 6 and 102996 4.

Egypt: Politics and Society, 1945–1981. By Derek Hopwood. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1982. £12.50. ISBN 0 04 956011 5.

An Economic History of the Middle East and North Africa. By Charles Issawi. London: Methuen, 1982. £12.50. ISBN 0 416 34330 9.

Population and Development in Rural Egypt. By Allen C. Kelley, Atef M. Khalifa, and M. Nabil El‐Khorazaty. Durham, NC: Duke Press Policy Studies, 1982. $22.75. ISBN 0 8223 0475 9.     

Trends in teaching public administration: a view from the proceedings of the national conferences on teaching public administration

This article identifies trends in research on teaching public administration. Topics receiving substantial amounts of attention within years, within multiple years, and across time are identified. Cumulation of research on certain topics is identified. This study is based on data from the Proceedings of the National Conferences on Teaching Public Administration between 1978 and 1989.     

The special action office for drug abuse prevention : drug control during the nixon administration

The creation of the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention, during the Nixon Administration , provides a case study in presidential program management. Much has been said and written about the President-as-manager, especially in terms of hands-on program management. The Special Action Office, an outgrowth of the Nixon-Agnew “law and order” campaign, provided close proximity to the President and increased visibility for drug abuse prevention efforts.

The SAODAP utilized its focal position to coordinate the many and disparate drug abuse programs of the federal government. Many of these programs derived substantial financial as sistance from SAODAP efforts . However, President Nixon's counter-bureau-cracy philosophy caused the organization to become embroiled in controversy.

Although the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention eventually fell from presidential grace, the organization's creation and operation provide further insight into presidential management styles and the view of the President as a “general manager” of government.     

Subnational governments in a stabilization program: lessons learned in Argentina

Autonomous subnational governments pose a serious challenge to national stabilization strategies. As illustrated by the case of Argentina, fiscal reforms that have been successfuly implemented at the national level have proved to be much harder to induce among subnational governments. Provincial reform is still largely pending and provincial governments continue to generate large public deficits, posing a threat to the success of Argentina's overall reform program in the medium and long term.

This paper provides a retrospective on Argentina's reform program with a focus on subnational governments. It identifies elements within the reform program itself, such as windfall increases of guaranteed central transfers, that systematically undermined early efforts to induce provincial reform. It also examines the government's strategy to neutralize their effects through the decentralization of services and the negotiation of two fiscal pacts, as well as its success in introducing major reforms by capitalizing on the financial pressure that resulted from the Mexican crisis. Finally, it draws lessons of experience that may be useful for policy makers faced with the similar challenge of inducing fiscal reform within autonomous subnational goverments.     

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.     

The development of public administration from a global perspective: the case of italy

What is the impact of globalization on the Italian state and the development of the Italian public administration? Italy is one of those countries where the forces of globalization are challenging the strong state tradition and the predominance of the legal model of public administration. Globalization and the European regional integration push toward a diminished role of the state and a managerial public administration with an increased emphasis on efficiency and better quality of government activities.     

不幸家庭孩子的权益亟待保护

震惊全国、导致25人死亡的北京“蓝极速网吧”纵火案的,犯罪嫌疑人,竟然是两个年仅13岁和14岁的初中生,而且均来自离异家庭,这似乎又一次印证了“离异或单亲家庭中成长的孩子容易形成不健康的性格心理,犯罪率高”一类说法。但是透过这一事件的表象,我们是否应该做一点更深层次的思考呢?是仅仅归咎于他们个人和各自的家庭,还是必须同时追问社会与有关职能部门的责任?     

Private administration of a public function: The news election service

The United States government has no elections office and does not attempt to administer congressional and presidential elections. The responsibility for the administration of elections and certification of winners in the United States national elections rests with the states. The states divide election administration responsibilities between state and local election officials, whose objective is an efficiently administered honest election, with the ballots correctly tabulated. The formal structure of election administration in the United States is not capable of providing tirely results of the presidential and congressional election. Similar structural difficulties in other policy areas often result in ad hoc operating agreements or informal cooperation among agencies at different levels of the federal system. In the case of election administration, however, the public officials have abdicated responsibility for election night aqgregation of the national Vote totals to a private organization, News Election Service, which is owned by five major news organizations. This private organization performs without a contract, without public compensation, and without supervision by public officials. It makes decisions concerning its duties according to its own criteria. The questions of responsibility and accountability have not arisen in part because of the private organization's performance record and in part because the responsibility was assumed gradually over a lengthy period without ever being evaluated as an item on the public agenda.     

最新司法解释是维护未成年人权益的重要举措和法制建设的重大突破

2006年1月23日《最高人民法院关于审理未成年人刑事案件具体应用法律若干问题的解释》(也即法释[2006]1号,简称《解释》)的颁布是维护未成年人权益的重要举措和法制建设的重大突破,它兼顾到了对一些特殊群体的特殊保护和法律实施中的社会公正,保证了适用法律的统一,维护了刑法的严肃性,推动了我国少年司法制度的进一步完善。     

Upholding justice in an unjust world: a practitioner's view of public administration ethics

This article presents the author's approach to profes sional ethics as a practitioner of public adrninistra tion. Public administrators are held to be personally responsible for their actions. Therefore, professional ethical standards are both possible and necessary, not only to prevent: wrongdoing but also to guide and promote right behavior. An ideally just regime is first hypothesized, based on the principles of justice developed in John Rawls's A Theory of Justice. A normative ethical standard of neutral competence is then postulated for agents of such a hypothetical regime- The author then addresses the implications of real-world injustice, and discusses the exceptions to neutral competence which are justifiable when confronted by injustice. The suggested approach establishes a high ethical st-andard, providing justification for not only avoiding wrongdoing, but also for doing right. This approach also provides practical and realistic guidance for et.hica1 decision-making. Both justifiability and applicability are held to be necessary if such an ethical. system is to be followed by public administrators.     

Foundations of public administration: Introduction to the symposium

The nature of retrospectives on the literature of public administration has taken a turn in recent years away from polite respect for our heritage, and toward a belief that the older literature can solve some of our most pressing current problems in administration. Specifically, modern works often bemoan a lack of fundamental purpose or moral direction for administration, and these were among the strongpoints of more dated literature. The articles of this symposium largely seek to find current answers in the investigations of long ago.