Download or read book Working Shirking and Sabotage written by John O. Brehm and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 1999-04-23 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIVExamines who influences how federal, state, and local bureaucrats allocate their efforts /div

Download or read book Democratic Backsliding and Public Administration written by Michael W. Bauer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-26 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A timely new perspective on the impact of populism on the relationship between democracy and public administration.

Download or read book Teaching Tasks and Trust written by John Brehm and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2008-06-20 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The mere word "bureaucracy" brings to mind images of endless lines, piles of paperwork, and frustrating battles over rules and red tape. But some bureaucracies are clearly more efficient and responsive than others. Why? In Teaching, Tasks, and Trust, distinguished political scientists John Brehm and Scott Gates show that a good part of the answer may be found in the roles that middle managers play in teaching and supporting the front-line employees who make a bureaucracy work. Brehm and Gates employ a range of sophisticated modeling and statistical methods in their analysis of employees in federal agencies, police departments, and social service centers. Looking directly at what front-line workers say about their supervisors, they find that employees who feel they have received adequate training have a clearer understanding of the agency's mission, which leads to improved efficiency within their departments. Quality training translates to trust – employees who feel supported and well-trained for the job are more likely to trust their supervisors than those who report being subject to constant monitoring and a strict hierarchy. Managers who "stand up" for employees—to media, government, and other agency officials—are particularly effective in cultivating the trust of their workers. And trust, the authors find, motivates superior job performance and commitment to the agency's mission. Employees who trust their supervisors report that they work harder, put in longer hours, and are less likely to break rules. The authors extend these findings to show that once supervisors grain trust, they enjoy greater latitude in influencing how employees allocate their time while working. Brehm and Gates show how these three executive roles are interrelated—training and protection for employees gives rise to trust, which provides supervisors with the leverage to stimulate improved performance among their workers. This new model—which frames supervisors as teachers and protectors instead of taskmasters—has widespread implications for training a new generation of leaders and creating more efficient organizations. Bureaucracies are notorious for inefficiency, but mid-level supervisors, who are often regarded as powerless, retain tremendous power to build a more productive workforce. Teaching, Tasks, and Trust provides a fascinating glimpse into a bureaucratic world operating below the radar of the public eye—a world we rarely see while waiting in line or filling out paperwork. A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Series on Trust

Download or read book Child Soldiers in the Age of Fractured States written by Scott Gates and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2010-01-31 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Current global estimates of children engaged in warfare range from 200,000 to 300,000. Children's roles in conflict range from armed and active participants to spies, cooks, messengers, and sex slaves. Child Soldiers in the Age of Fractured States examines the factors that contribute to the use of children in war, the effects of war upon children, and the perpetual cycle of warfare that engulfs many of the world's poorest nations. The contributors seek to eliminate myths of historic or culture-based violence, and instead look to common traits of chronic poverty and vulnerable populations. Individual essays examine topics such as: the legal and ethical aspects of child soldiering; internal UN debates over enforcement of child protection policies; economic factors; increased access to small arms; displaced populations; resource endowments; forced government conscription; rebel-enforced quota systems; motivational techniques employed in recruiting children; and the role of girls in conflict. The contributors also offer viable policies to reduce the recruitment of child soldiers such as the protection of refugee camps by outside forces, "naming and shaming," and criminal prosecution by international tribunals. Finally, they focus on ways to reintegrate former child soldiers into civil society in the aftermath of war.

Download or read book Democratic Backsliding and Public Administration written by Michael W. Bauer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-26 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Liberal democracy is at risk. Its hallmark institutions – political pluralism, separation of powers, and rule of law—are coming under pressure, as authoritarian sentiment is growing around the globe. While liberal-democratic backsliding features prominently in social science scholarship, especially the branches concerned with political parties and political behavior, public administration research lags behind. However, without considering illiberal approaches towards the executive, efforts of actual and aspiring authoritarians remain only partly understood. State bureaucracies are, after all, important instruments of power. This timely and important volume addresses the administrative implications of liberal-democratic backsliding. It studies public administrations as objects and subjects in the context of illiberal dynamics. For this purpose, the volume brings together an international group of scholars to analyze authoritarian tendencies in several countries. The contributions combine theoretical with empirical work, providing the first comparative perspective on an overlooked aspect of one of the most important contemporary political trends.

Download or read book Bureaucratic Dynamics written by B. Dan Wood and published by Westview Press. This book was released on 1994-08-31 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering readable case studies and well-paired figures and tables (presented in both technical and nontechnical fashion), Bureaucratic Dynamics uses principal-agent theory to explain how the public policy system works.

Download or read book The New Case for Bureaucracy written by Charles T. Goodsell and published by CQ Press. This book was released on 2014-02-28 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Goodsell has long taken the position that U.S. bureaucracy is neither a generalized failure nor sinkhole of waste as mythologized by anti-government ideologues. Rather, it is one of the most effective and innovate sets of administrative institutions of any government in the world today. Indispensable to our democracy, it keeps government reliable and dependable to the citizens it serves. However, The New Case for Bureaucracy goes beyond empirically verifying its quality. Now an extended essay, written in a conversational tone, Goodsell expects readers to form their own judgments. At a time when Congress is locked in partisan and factional deadlock, he argues for the increased importance of bureaucrats and discusses how federal agencies must battle to keep alive in terms of resources and be strong enough to retain the integrity of their missions.

Download or read book Hard Choices Easy Answers written by R. Michael Alvarez and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 8 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Those who seek to accurately gauge public opinion must first ask themselves: Why are certain opinions highly volatile while others are relatively fixed? Why are some surveys affected by question wording or communicative medium (e.g., telephone) while others seem immune? In Hard Choices, Easy Answers, R. Michael Alvarez and John Brehm develop a new theory of response variability that, by reconciling the strengths and weaknesses of the standard approaches, will help pollsters and scholars alike better resolve such perennial problems. Working within the context of U.S. public opinion, they contend that the answers Americans give rest on a variegated structure of political predispositions--diverse but widely shared values, beliefs, expectations, and evaluations. Alvarez and Brehm argue that respondents deploy what they know about politics (often little) to think in terms of what they value and believe. Working with sophisticated statistical models, they offer a unique analysis of not just what a respondent is likely to choose, but also how variable those choices would be under differing circumstances. American public opinion can be characterized in one of three forms of variability, conclude the authors: ambivalence, equivocation, and uncertainty. Respondents are sometimes ambivalent, as in attitudes toward abortion or euthanasia. They are often equivocal, as in views about the scope of government. But most often, they are uncertain, sure of what they value, but unsure how to use those values in political choices.

Download or read book Making Bureaucracy Work written by Akshay Mangla and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2024-01-25 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines when and how public bureaucracies work for disadvantaged citizens through a comparative study of primary education in rural India.

Download or read book International Encyclopedia of Political Science written by Bertrand Badie and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2011-09-07 with total page 4511 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With entries from leading international scholars from around the world, this eight-volume encyclopedia offers the widest possible coverage of key areas both regionally and globally. The International Encyclopedia of Political Science provides a definitive, comprehensive picture of all aspects of political life, recognizing the theoretical and cultural pluralism of our approaches and including findings from the far corners of the world. The eight volumes cover every field of politics, from political theory and methodology to political sociology, comparative politics, public policies, and international relations. Entries are arranged in alphabetical order, and a list of entries by subject area appears in the front of each volume for ease of use. The encyclopedia contains a detailed index as well as extensive bibliographical references. Filling the need for an exhaustive overview of the empirical findings and reflections on politics, this reference resource is suited for undergraduate or graduate students who wish to be informed effectively and quickly on their field of study, for scholars seeking information on relevant research findings in their area of specialization or in related fields, and for lay readers who may lack a formal background in political science but have an interest in the field nonetheless. The International Encyclopedia of Political Science provides an essential, authoritative guide to the state of political science at the start of the 21st century and for decades to come, making it an invaluable resource for a global readership, including researchers, students, citizens, and policy makers. The encyclopedia was developed in partnership with the International Political Science Association. Key Themes: Case and Area Studies Comparative Politics, Theory, and Methods Democracy and Democratization Economics Epistemological Foundations Equality and Inequality Gender and Race/Ethnicity International Relations Local Government Peace, War, and Conflict Resolution People and Organizations Political Economy Political Parties Political Sociology Public Policy and Administration Qualitative Methods Quantitative Methods Religion

Download or read book Work and the Welfare State written by Evelyn Z. Brodkin and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-14 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Work and the Welfare State places street-level organizations at the analytic center of welfare-state politics, policy, and management. This volume offers a critical examination of efforts to change the welfare state to a workfare state by looking at on-the-ground issues in six countries: the US, UK, Australia, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands. An international group of scholars contribute organizational studies that shed new light on old debates about policies of workfare and activation. Peeling back the political rhetoric and technical policy jargon, these studies investigate what really goes on in the name of workfare and activation policies and what that means for the poor, unemployed, and marginalized populations subject to these policies. By adopting a street-level approach to welfare state research, Work and the Welfare State reveals the critical, yet largely hidden, role of governance and management reforms in the evolution of the global workfare project. It shows how these reforms have altered organizational arrangements and practices to emphasize workfare’s harsher regulatory features and undermine its potentially enabling ones. As a major contribution to expanding the conceptualization of how organizations matter to policy and political transformation, this book will be of special interest to all public management and public policy scholars and students.

Download or read book Public Management written by Carolyn J. Hill and published by CQ Press. This book was released on 2015-09-23 with total page 729 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Managing in the public sector requires an understanding of the interaction between three distinct dimensions—administrative structures, organizational cultures, and the skills of individual managers. Public managers must produce results that citizens and their representatives expect from their government while fulfilling their constitutional responsibilities. In Public Management: Thinking and Acting in Three Dimensions, authors Carolyn J. Hill and Laurence E. Lynn, Jr. argue that one-size-fits-all approaches are inadequate for dealing with the distinctive challenges that public managers face. Drawing on both theory and detailed case studies of actual practice, the authors show how public management that is based on applying a three-dimensional analytic framework—structure, culture, and craft—to specific management problems is the most effective way to improve the performance of America’s unique scheme of governance in accordance with the rule of law. The book educates readers to be informed citizens and prepares students to participate as professionals in the world of public management.

Download or read book Cops Teachers Counselors written by Steven Williams Maynard-Moody and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2009-11-10 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether on a patrol beat, in social service offices, or in public school classrooms, street-level workers continually confront rules in relation to their own beliefs about the people they encounter. Cops, Teachers, Counselors is the first major study of street-level bureaucracy to rely on storytelling. Steven Maynard-Moody and Michael Musheno collect the stories told by these workers in order to analyze the ways that they ascribe identities to the people they encounter and use these identities to account for their own decisions and actions. The authors show us how the world of street-level work is defined by the competing tensions of law abidance and cultural abidance in a unique study that finally allows cops, teachers, and counselors to voice their own views of their work. Steven Maynard-Moody is Director of the Policy Research Institute and Professor of Public Administration at the University of Kansas. Michael Musheno is Professor of Justice and Policy Studies at Lycoming College and Professor Emeritus of Justice Studies, Arizona State University.

Download or read book From the Active to the Enabling State written by E. Page and published by Springer. This book was released on 2006-10-24 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book surveys the changing role of senior civil servants in Western Europe and explores whether they have kept their central role in government decision-making. Looking at these issues in comparative perspective, the contributors provide an insight into the causes and consequences of the changing role of officials.

Download or read book Rural Politics in Contemporary China written by Emily T. Yeh and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-01-22 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection provides an overview of China’s rural politics, bringing scholarship on agrarian politics from various social science disciplines together in one place. The twelve contributions, spanning history, anthropology, sociology, environmental studies, political science, and geography, address enduring questions in peasant studies, including the relationship between states and peasants, taxation, social movements, rural-urban linkages, land rights and struggles, gender relations, and environmental politics. Taking rural politics as the power-inflected processes and struggles that shape access and control over resources in the countryside, as well as the values, ideologies and discourses that shape those processes, the volume brings research on China into conversation with the traditions and concerns of peasant studies scholarship. It provides both an introduction to those unfamiliar with Chinese politics, as well as in-depth, new research for experts in the field. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Peasant Studies.

Download or read book Encyclopedia of Public Administration and Public Policy 5 Volume Set written by Domonic A. Bearfield and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-08-14 with total page 3897 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in its third edition, Encyclopedia of Public Administration and Public Policy remains the definitive source for article-length presentations spanning the fields of public administration and public policy. It includes entries for: Budgeting Bureaucracy Conflict resolution Countries and regions Court administration Gender issues Health care Human resource management Law Local government Methods Organization Performance Policy areas Policy-making process Procurement State government Theories This revamped five-volume edition is a reconceptualization of the first edition by Jack Rabin. It incorporates over 225 new entries and over 100 revisions, including a range of contributions and updates from the renowned academic and practitioner leaders of today as well as the next generation of top scholars. The entries address topics in clear and coherent language and include references to additional sources for further study.

Download or read book Public Personnel Management written by Norma M. Riccucci and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-08-09 with total page 495 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public Personnel Management has served as an essential, concise reader for public personnel and human resource management courses in the fields of public administration, political science, and public policy over the last 25 years. Since the first edition published in 1991, the book has offered professors and students alike an in-depth look at cutting-edge developments beyond standard textbook coverage, to provide a broad understanding of the key management and policy issues facing public and nonprofit HRM today. Original chapters are written expressly for the text by leading public administration scholars, each focusing on specific and often controversial concerns for public personnel management, such as pensions, gender and sexuality, healthcare, unions, and a multi-generational workforce. Now in an extensively revised sixth edition, Public Personnel Management presents new, original chapters to examine developments of interest to researchers and practitioners alike, including: remote working, cybersecurity, public service motivation, the abandonment of traditional civil service at the state and local levels, the Affordable Care Act and its implications for practice, pension systems and labor relations, affirmative action, social equity, legislation surrounding LGBT rights, and – as the field of public personnel management becomes more internationalized – a chapter addressing public personnel management across Europe. This careful and thoughtful overhaul will ensure that Public Personnel Management remains a field-defining book for the next 25 years.