Bureaucracy And Self Government

A thorough update to this well-regarded political history of American public administration. In this new edition of his provocative book Bureaucracy and Self-Government, Brian J. Cook reconsiders his thesis regarding the inescapable tension between the ideal of self-government and the reality of administratively centered governance. Revisiting his historical exploration of competing conceptions of politics, government, and public administration, Cook offers a novel way of thinking constitutionally about public administration that transcends debates about “big government.” Cook enriches his historical analysis with new scholarship and extends that analysis to the present, taking account of significant developments since the mid-1990s. Each chapter has been updated, and two new chapters sharpen Cook’s argument for recognizing a constitutive dimension in normative theorizing about public administration. The second edition also includes reviews of Jeffersonian impacts on administrative theory and practice and Jacksonian developments in national administrative structures and functions, a look at the administrative theorizing that presaged progressive reforms in civil service, and insight into the confounding complexities that characterize public thinking about administration in a postmodern political order.

The central role that bureaucracy plays in the policy process is played by individuals, namely, by subject matter experts and managers we call political executives. These executives do not play their role in a vacuum, of course, but in a context defined by three key forces--the organizational environment of bureaucracy itself; our governing philosophy stressing responsiveness, respect for individual rights, and accountability; and the demands of the people and the institutions those people have created to govern themselves. This book explores how these three forces collide and how the resulting collision shapes the way in which bureaucracy makes policy, as well as the final product of that policy making process. It provides an in-depth look at each of these forces, with chapters specifically devoted to how bureaucrats interpret their role in the policy process, how the organizational environment influences their ability to play that role, and, most of all, to the interactions between bureaucrats and the institutions of what we call the Constitutional government: the President, the Congress, and the courts. It does this, all the while reminding us that fitting bureaucracy into a society that views itself as self-governing is no easy task.

"The author treats the classic problem of achieving democratic control over powerful bureaucracies very successfully both by treating familiar material in a new and important way and by presenting new empirical evidence on the problem. . . . This is the most sophisticated and systematic work on the subject. . . . exceedingly well written--succinct, direct, and even graceful."--Dale Rogers Marshall, University of California, Davis "The author treats the classic problem of achieving democratic control over powerful bureaucracies very successfully both by treating familiar material in a new and important way and by presenting new empirical evidence on the problem. . . . This is the most sophisticated and systematic work on the subject. . . . exceedingly well written--succinct, direct, and even graceful."--Dale Rogers Marshall, University of California, Davis

Excerpt from National Self-Government: Its Growth and Principles, the Culmination of Modern History The purpose of this book is twofold. In the first place, I have tried to provide a brief historical survey of the development of parliamentary institutions in the modern world, such as will put the ordinary citizen in possession of the facts which he requires if he is to form a sound judgment upon the working of the system in our own and other countries. In the second place, I have tried to use this historical survey as a means of elucidating the problems of self-government, the difficulties which it has to face, the conditions which are necessary for its success, and the ways in which it is affected by the characters and traditions of the various nations which have adopted it. The book makes no pretence to be a scientific historical treatise on its subject. It is not systematic or exhaustive; it includes few facts which are not, or ought not to be, pretty generally known; it leaves almost untouched the development of the institutions of half the countries of Europe, and of all the new lands of the non-European world, excepting the United States; not because these countries do not present features of great interest, but because I had to keep my book within reasonable compass, and the mam points which I wished to elucidate seemed to be adequately illustrated in the countries I have selected for fuller treatment. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The blame game, with its finger-pointing and mutual buck-passing, is a familiar feature of politics and organizational life, and blame avoidance pervades government and public organizations at every level. Political and bureaucratic blame games and blame avoidance are more often condemned than analyzed. In The Blame Game, Christopher Hood takes a different approach by showing how blame avoidance shapes the workings of government and public services. Arguing that the blaming phenomenon is not all bad, Hood demonstrates that it can actually help to pin down responsibility, and he examines different kinds of blame avoidance, both positive and negative. Hood traces how the main forms of blame avoidance manifest themselves in presentational and "spin" activity, the architecture of organizations, and the shaping of standard operating routines. He analyzes the scope and limits of blame avoidance, and he considers how it plays out in old and new areas, such as those offered by the digital age of websites and e-mail. Hood assesses the effects of this behavior, from high-level problems of democratic accountability trails going cold to the frustrations of dealing with organizations whose procedures seem to ensure that no one is responsible for anything. Delving into the inner workings of complex institutions, The Blame Game proves how a better understanding of blame avoidance can improve the quality of modern governance, management, and organizational design.

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.