Why public service matters
Subtitle: public managers, public policy, and democracy
By: Robert F. Durant
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 290
ISBN-13: 9780230341487; 9780230341494
Subjects: Civil service; Public administration
Description: Why Public Service Matters conveys the importance, purpose, and nobility of a career as a civil servant in the United States. It does so, however, with an unflinching eye on the realpolitik that drives public administration in America's "compensatory state" and on the pitfalls of reformers' focus on bureaucratic, rather than democratic, administration. The book links the nation's ability to handle contemporary policy problems with the strategic, tactical, and normative quality of public management. In doing so, it offers newcomers a rare, concise, and accessible overview of the field. Readers will gain an appreciation for the challenges, choices, and opportunities facing public managers as they help advance a sense of common purpose informed by democratic constitutional values in twenty-first century America.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Engaging the call to public service; title: Thinking ecologically; title: Linking problems, policy, and public management; title: Aligning structure and strategy; title: Shooting the political rapids; title: Informing policy decisions; title: Linking people to public purposes; title: Stewarding a nation's treasure; title: Networking in the shadow of hierarchy; title: Revitalizing a sense of common purpose.