Public budgeting and financial management curriculum reform: A conceptual framework

Public budgeting and financial management (PBFM) education has been undergoing intense scrutiny which can be seen through many professional conferences, journal symposia, and recently, the creation in 1984 of a Task Force on Budgeting and Financial Management Curriculum Reform by the Section on Budgeting and Financial Management of the American Society for Public Administration. This study analyzes pedagogic deficits in PBFM, suggests a comprehensive scope of PBFM, points to some dilemmas in PBFM curriculum design or reform, proposes some models for a curriculum reform, and raises some implementation constraints in each model.     

The strategic management of workplace diversity initiatives: Public sector implications

Diversity initiatives have been and continue to be one of the most popular trends in contemporary management practice. Motivations of key decision makers in organizations for diversity initiatives run the gamut from a sincere desire to be socially responsible to reluctant compliance with employment discrimination laws. However, even the most well-intentioned, well-designed diversity programs can run into unanticipated problems. This paper utilizes two actual case studies to explore some of the controversies managers can expect when dealing with diversity and provides recommendations for the strategic conceptualization and management of diversity.     

Public management in South Asia: dimensions and directions of change

Public management in South Asia has been influenced by the colonial past which has resulted in the domination of administrative systems by the bureaucrats. Bureaucracies remained firmly entrenched as powerful groups and performed both administrative and political functions. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka represent cases with similar backgrounds which opted for different political and economic systems after achieving independence. Consequently, a number of issues have emerged in public management in South Asia. These include debureaucratization of the policy process, complex relationship between specialists and generalists, integration of administrative structures, reconciliation of merit and equity, choice between professional and political patronage, revitalization of management, bridging the ever widening gap between the citizens and administrators, and the establishment of a sound ethical base of administration. The success of South Asian governments in dealing with these issues will determine, to a considerable extent, the dimensions and directions of change. While some of the issues will have to be addressed in the natural course of development, others will require a substantial degree of commitment from the governments as well as the societies.     

Public policy and management issues in Taiwan's development

This symposium examines the experience of Taiwan's development and focuses on the role of government and the importance of public policy and management to the development. The symposium introduction paper consists of three sections addressing the following issues. First, the introduction section offers reasons for studying Taiwan's development experience. The second section provides an overview of the literature related to the relationship between government and economic development. Finally, the last section summarizes the major issues and findings emphasized in each symposium paper.     

Public Intellectuals, Online Media, and Public Spheres: Current Realignments

The phenomenon of public intellectuals (PIs) continue to be debated, as their status and significance evolve under changing historical circumstances. I suggest PIs still play an important role in democracies, despite alterations in their circumstances, activities, and practices. While most of the familiar questions remain, it is important to take into account a number of changes that impact on PIs, their situation, and their activities. I explore the contingencies that make possible, as well as delimit and alter, the phenomenon of PIs in contemporary democratic societies. The discussion is organised around three sets of evolving circumstances in which PIs are inexorably embedded: the structural setting of mediated public spheres, with a particular emphasis on the online sector; the dynamic realm of practices associate with online civic participation more broadly; and lastly, the cultural and political climate of democratic societies confronted by serious dilemmas. The interface of these circumstances is ushering PIs into a new historical phase, where the web obviously looms large yet where the contours are still taking shape. These circumstances put new demands on PIs.     

Introduction: Networks in Public Administration

In the introductory article to the special issue on Comparing Networks, the editors discuss the meaning of the concept of networks in relation to other recent conceptual developments in public administration such as (neo)institutional and (neo)managerial analysis. They trace the broadly understood historical development of network analysis back to the late 1960s and early 1970s and highlight some important factors in its development up to the present-day demands placed on public administration by both globalization and decentralization. The result is organizational fragmentation. Network analysis makes it clear that people working in government and administration will have to learn to think of organization as an external, not internal activity. The prospect is that hierarchical control will be replaced by continuing processes of bargaining among interested parties within most fields of public administration.     

中国公共外交:风生水起正当时

近年来,伴随着中国经济的高速发展和国际影响力的不断提升,中国公共外交开始受到越来越多的关注。2009年冬,外交部新闻司公共外交处升格为公共外交办公室,表明公共外交在中国总体外交中的地位获得了重要提升。尽管中国的公共外交机制目前仍处在建设和磨合中,但中国公共外交的新局面已经展现出了光明的前景。     

Public organizations: A value-conflict view

That values are at the core of public administration is a notion that has gained popularity and credibility in recent years. From this perspective, public administrators have become inextricably involved in both adjusting to and promoting institutionalized values. Certain values shaping public organizations may, however, be distinctive in quality and magnitude from those of private organizations. Our purpose in this essay is to suggest criteria for identifying the distinctive values of public organizations, to propose and define three such values, to briefly examine the dynamics of change engendered by value conflicts and dilemmas, and to speculate on the theoretical and practical implications of our proposed values framework. In the process an inchoate perspective is outlined in which values occupy the centerpiece of inquiry in public administration.     

The Public Sector In An In-Between Time: Searching For New Public Values

A number of new governance structures has been introduced in the Danish public sector. These include contract agencies, user boards, boards of directors, marketization, corporatization, involving voluntary organizations in public services, EU-funded state border crossing co-operation, and Europeanization in many forms. Despite their obvious dissimilarities, these governance structures have one thing in common: they challenge the foundations of the public sector and territorial representative democracy by blurring the distinctions between politics and administration; between public and private; and between national and international. If politicians and voters are deprived of the capacity to make these distinctions, political responsibility is bound to fade away. Also, each new governance structure down-loads degrees of indeterminateness in the public sector since they may interact in unforeseen ways and introduce new actors, roles and practices in the public sector. This may cause the development of a more flexible public sector marked by 'local' appropriateness and adaptability but also by a multitude of inconsistent models and principles. To avoid the latter, a general discourse on values and their institutional requirements and the invention of public 'domains' is needed.     

Improving emergency management: A total quality management approach

We address the problem of managing emergencies in complex environments and examine the concepts of total quality management (TQM) as a means of increasing organisational capacity to reduce and/or respond to threatening events. The TQM approach initiates and integrates improvement in three fundamental areas of organisational design and operation: technical, organisational, and cultural. We apply this approach to the interactive environment of hazardous materials management and present an “action plan” for introducing TQM into community planning for risk reduction and response, focusing on the technical, organisational, and cultural components of the process. We present evidence of increased performance in reducing hazardous materials risk from field reports of communities that have adopted TQM practices. Finally, we conclude that TQM serves as a generative means of revitalising, renewing, and enabling community engagement in hazardous materials management.     

The Autopoiesis of Administrative Systems: Niklas Luhmann on Public Administration and Public Policy

This article offers an introduction to Niklas Luhmann's theory of social systems as it pertains to public administration and policy, as a first step towards both a critique and its empirical application to empirical reality. It reconstructs Luhmann's early writings on bureaucracy and policy-making and shows how this early, more empirical work grounded his abstract theory of social systems in general and the political system in particular. The article also introduces some central concepts of Luhmann's more recent work on the autopoietic nature of social systems and considers the latter's consequences for bureaucratic adaptiveness and governmental steering in the welfare state. One of the main benefits of applying Luhmann's theory to public administration, the article concludes, is that it conceptualizes the central concerns of public administration within a complex picture of society as a whole, in which both the agency that issues decisions and the realm affected by these decisions are included.     

Public executives: Actualization and conflict approaches

This study represents a test of Maslow's hypotheses that the management styles of self-actualized executives differ from those of less-actualized executives. The sample was drawn from among executives of seven state governments. The correlation of levels of actualization and executive behavior revealed that the more self-actualized executives were more willing to actively lobby for their decisional preferences than to simply accept decisions from superiors.     

Public Administration in Norway: a rejoinder

Public administration studies have had a prominent role in Norwegian political science. Here, I argue for a revitalization of its role based on what gave it prominence – the merger of the rather opposite traditions of organization theory and democratic theory. A new merger between the two, i.e. by bringing discussions of democracy back in, is necessary to understand and discuss principally prominent changes in Norwegian politics and administration where the role of democratic decision making has been reduced. Also, a merger will contribute to the development of new theoretical insights in the current debate over 'governance'. As it is a goal for public administration to study the whole pattern of the political system it is further argued for a revitalization of the study of the role of interests outside the state, and for a fusion of the separte tables of studies of different levels in politics and administration.