Outlandish Perspectives On Public Administration

Not all collections of an author’s past works need be a dull revisitation of the best-forgotten. This book brings together Charles T. Goodsell’s works on public administration, some of which are of ancient vintage or go outside the field for inspiration, possibly earning the appellation ‘outlandish’. Such essays draw from fields including symbol analysis, theory of art, room phenomenology, and theories of public space. The book also deals with more orthodox topics, such as bureau culture, government contracting, and the early New Deal. The author’s methodological biases, placed in full view, will assure controversy. The book ends by encouraging young new scholars to have fun by picking unusual topics and treating them at a fresh angle.

Throughout its history, public administration has used a number of different perspectives for analyzing the discipline's theory and practice, and both mainstream and alternative lenses have produced valuable insights and prescriptions. At the same time, an individual way of looking at PA can be misleading. Alone, a solitary lens can miss critical aspects and often gives only part of the picture. Public Administration in Perspective has been specifically crafted to give new life to public administration theory and practice by helping readers view the discipline through a variety of perspectives. Designed for the capstone course in public administration programs, as well as a fresh approach for courses in PA theory and organizational theory, this unique book provides a culminating experience--bringing together what has been learned in previous MPA courses without simply rehashing old content. It offers a comprehensive guide to eleven major approaches to PA, and synthesizes them to deepen our understanding of the discipline. Each chapter in Part I describes the key features of the selected perspective--history, content, and proponents--and discusses the strengths and weaknesses related to PA theory and practice. Part II synthesizes the various perpectives, with specific implications for PA management and practice. Part III concludes with a complete overview, identifying ways in which readers can think more creatively and productively about PA, putting the perspectives themselves into perspective.

"International Perspectives on Public Administration uses civilizational theory for grouping and analyzing systems of public administration in different countries around the world, thus offering a global perspective which reveals how different systems may be divided by cultural borders of the modern day. The author uses different scientific disciplines, namely political theory, political philosophy, law and economics, to offer comparative analysis of the genesis and development of public administration systems in the Western, Orthodox, Islamic, Confucian, Hindu, Buddhist, Japanese and African civilizations, together with reviewing their experience in application of the most modern and progressive practices of public management. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of public administration, political science, public management, public policy, and civilizational theory"--

First published in 1977. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A digest of current materials.

This book reframes theoretical, methodological and practical approaches to public administration by drawing on complexity theory concepts. It aims to provide alternative perspectives on the theory, research and practice of public administration, avoiding assumptions of traditional theory-building. The contributors explain both how ongoing non-linear interactions result in macro patterns becoming established in a complexity-informed world view, and the implications of these dynamics. Complexity theory explains the way in which many repeated non-linear interactions among elements within a whole can result in processes and patterns emerging without design or direction, thus necessitating a reconsideration of the predictability and controllability of many aspects of public administration. As well as illustrating how complexity theory informs new research methods for studying this field, the book also shines a light on the different practices required of public administrators to cope with the complexity encountered in the public policy and public management fields. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Public Management Review journal.