Continuity and disruption
Subtitle: essays in public administration
By: Matthew Holden.
Series: Pitt series in policy and institutional studies
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Pittsburgh, Pa
Language: eng
Number of pages: 291
Subjects: Public administration.
Description: Through thoughtful essays linking historical concepts and practices, current issues, and modern research, Matthew Holden argues that administration is indispensable to politics. Essentially, public administration consists of making decisions about information, money, and force - the three crucial sources of power. Politics and administration cannot be separated, and no political system can be sustained when its administrative core collapses.

In Holden's view of administration, a crucial problem is turbulence: the presence of simultaneous pressures toward continuity and toward disruption. Holden examines turbulence in the intellectual history of administration as reflected in traditional political theory and in specific contemporary theories of organization, bureaucracy, and management.

He also analyzes political dogmas as a form of control over turbulence, considering such concepts as executive leadership and the emergence of administrative law. He turns an unblinking eye on the practice of public administration today, buffeted by changes in technology and ethnic diversity.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 259-285) and index.