Summary:

Leading scholars present the most complete, as well as the most advanced,

treatment of public management reform and innovation available.

The subject of reform in the public sector is not new;

indeed, its latest rubric, reinventing government, has become good politics.

Still, as the contributors ask in this volume, is good politics necessarily

good government?

Given the growing desire to reinvent government, there

are hard questions to be asked: Is the private sector market model suitable

and effective when applied to reforming public and governmental organizations?

What are the major political forces affecting reform efforts in public

management? How is public management reform accomplished in a constitutional

democratic government? How do the values of responsiveness, professionalism,

and managerial excellence shape current public management reforms? In this

volume, editors H. George Frederickson and Jocelyn M. Johnston bring together

scholars with a shared interest in empirical research to confront head-on

the toughest questions public managers face in their efforts to meet the

demands of reform and innovation.

Throughout the book, the authors consider the bureaucratic

resistance that results when downsizing and reinvention are undertaken

simultaneously, the dilemma public managers face when elected executives

set a reform agenda that runs counter to the law, and the mistaken belief

that improved management can remedy flawed policy.

H. George Frederickson is Edwin O. Stene Distinguished Professor

of Public Administration at the University of Kansas.

Jocelyn M. Johnston is Jocelyn M. Johnston is Assistant Professor

of Public Administration at the University of Kansas.