Read complete books and articles on: U.S. Government Bureaucracy

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16 of the Best Books and Articles on: U.S. Government Bureaucracy

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1.

Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It » Read Now
by James Q. Wilson. 442 pgs.

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Y2K! The world waits anxiously to see what millennial mischief crops up. But at Basic Books the year 2000 is cause for celebration. Fifty years ago Basic was founded as a home for works by outstanding scholars on topics of wide importance and broad general interest. Over the years our authors have...
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Y2K! The world waits anxiously to see what millennial mischief crops up. But at Basic Books the year 2000 is cause for celebration. Fifty years ago Basic was founded as a home for works by outstanding scholars on topics of wide importance and broad general interest. Over the years our authors have inspired and informed, pleased and provoked generations of readers; indeed, many Basic titles have changed the very culture from which they emerged.
To commemorate our fiftieth year, we are proudly reissuing a selection of our most distinguished books from the last half-century. Here, in brand new packages, with new introductions and editorial comments by leading contemporary figures, are ten exemplars of the intellectual vigor that is the hallmark of Basic Books: classic titles by John Bowlby, Sigmund Freud, Josef Breuer, Claude Levi-Strauss, James Q. Wilson, Clifford Geertz, and Michael Walzer. That books like these remain in print is itself a testament to their enduring value. By calling attention to their sustained presence we hope to introduce new readers to landmark works that will continue to roil cultural waters for decades to come.
Bureaucracy is the classic study of the way American government agencies work and how they can be made to work better. Examining a wide range of bureaucracies, including the Army, the FBI, the FCC, and the Social Security Administration, James Q. Wilson provides the first comprehensive, in-depth analysis of what government agencies do, why they function as they do, and how they might become more responsible and effective. With a new introduction by the author.
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2.

Holding Government Bureaucracies Accountable » Read Now
by Bernard Rosen. 234 pgs.

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This updated and revised third edition of Rosen's acclaimed text incorporates the Chief Financial Officer Act of 1990, the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, and the Government Management Reform Act of 1994. These three laws, with the Clinton administration's National Performance...
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This updated and revised third edition of Rosen's acclaimed text incorporates the Chief Financial Officer Act of 1990, the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, and the Government Management Reform Act of 1994. These three laws, with the Clinton administration's National Performance Review, initiated in 1993, could substantially improve the performance and accountability of the federal bureaucracy.
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3.

The Case for Bureaucracy: A Public Administration Polemic » Read Now
by Charles T. Goodsell. 226 pgs.

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4.

Keeping a Watchful Eye: The Politics of Congressional Oversight » Read Now
by Joel D. Aberbach. 288 pgs.

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5.

Congress, the Bureaucracy and Public Policy » Read Now
by Grace A. Franklin, Randall B. Ripley. 241 pgs.

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6.

Executive Governance: Presidential Administrations and Policy Change in the Federal Bureaucracy » Read Now
by Cornell G. Hooton. 254 pgs.

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Citizens and interest groups are not the only ones who complain about bureaucratic intractability: so do presidents. This study explores the difficulties of translating presidential policy initiatives into ground-level policy implementation by the "permanent government" -- the career officials of...
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Citizens and interest groups are not the only ones who complain about bureaucratic intractability: so do presidents. This study explores the difficulties of translating presidential policy initiatives into ground-level policy implementation by the "permanent government" -- the career officials of executive agencies. Drawing on organization theory, it focuses on the ways that bureaucratic behaviors shape an agency's responsiveness to top-down directives that may not simply disturb established routines but also strain capacities, challenge the professional ethos, and evoke resistance.
The empirical grounding of the study is an intensive examination of the Urban Mass Transportation Administration with respect to the transit-related policy preferences of the Carter administration. The study demonstrates how bureau-level routines, predispositions, patterns of attention, and active calculation interact and impact the implementation of presidential directives, and underscores the political and organizational importance of a bureau-level process of policy legitimization to support the establishment of durable policy.
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7.

Bureaucracy and Foreign Policy » Read Now
by Francis E. Rourke. 86 pgs.

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8.

Improving Government Performance: An Owner's Manual » Read Now
by John J. DiIulio, Gerald Garvey, Donald F. Kettl. 90 pgs.

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The Clinton administration's National Performance Review of the federal government (also called the Reinventing Government Initiative) is the eleventh effort this century to improve the executive branch and reform the federal service. Most previous efforts have faltered. How can present and future...
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The Clinton administration's National Performance Review of the federal government (also called the Reinventing Government Initiative) is the eleventh effort this century to improve the executive branch and reform the federal service. Most previous efforts have faltered. How can present and future recommendations avoid the same fate? This book provides practical and timely guidance to those trying to improve government performance. The focus of successful attempts, the authors argue, should be sustained evolution, not bursts of invention aimed at sweeping transformation. Specific proposals address ways to change government over the long term, ways to streamline bureaucracy, attract more resourceful and innovative workers, and make agencies more responsive to their customers, the citizens.
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9.

Deregulating the Public Service: Can Government Be Improved » Read Now
by John J. Diiulio. 308 pgs.

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The nation's federal, state, and local public service is in deep trouble. Not even the most talented, dedicated, well- compensated, well-trained, and well-led public servants can serve the public well if they must operate under perverse personnel and procurement regulations that punish innovation...
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The nation's federal, state, and local public service is in deep trouble. Not even the most talented, dedicated, well- compensated, well-trained, and well-led public servants can serve the public well if they must operate under perverse personnel and procurement regulations that punish innovation and promote inefficiency. Many attempts have been made to determine administrative problems in the public service and come up with viable solutions. Two of the most important--the 1990 report of the National Commission on the Public Service, led by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul A. Volcker, and the 1993 report of the National Commission on the State and Local Public Service, led by former Mississippi Governor William F. Winter--recommended "deregulating the public service." Deregulating the public service essentially means altering or abolishing personnel and procurement regulations that deplete government workers' creativity, reduce their productivity, and make a career in public service unattractive to many,talented, energetic, and public-spirited citizens. But will it work? With the benefit of a historical perspective on the development of American public service from the days of the progressives to the present, the contributors to this book argue that deregulating the public service is a necessary but insufficient condition for much of the needed improvement in governmental administration. Avoiding simple solutions and quick fixes for long-standing ills, they recommend new and large-scale experiments with deregulating the public service at all levels of government. In addition to editor John DiIulio, the contributors are Paul A. Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, now atPrinceton University; former Mississippi Governor William F. Winter; Gerald J. Garvey, Princeton; John P. Burke, University of Vermont; Melvin J. Dubnick, Rutgers; Constance Horner, former director of the Federal Office of P
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10.

Inside the Reinvention Machine: Appraising Governmental Reform » Read Now
by Donald F. Kettl, John J. Diiulio. 206 pgs.

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...Management. 4. Government productivity...States. 5. Bureaucracy--United States...is to make government "work better...Streamlining bureaucracy, cutting unnecessary...drive...
11.

The Promise of Representative Bureaucracy: Diversity and Responsiveness in a Government Agency » Read Now
by Sally Coleman Selden. 176 pgs.

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12.

Public Service and Democracy: Ethical Imperatives for the 21st Century » Read Now
by Louis C. Gawthrop. 180 pgs.

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...democracy. Democracy and bureaucracy did not form a seamless...policymaking arenas of our governmental systems, they were to...environments of the government were becoming...
13.

Bureaucratic Dynamics: The Role of Bureaucracy in a Democracy » Read Now
by B. Dan Wood, Richard W. Waterman. 186 pgs.

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...when centralized government and bureaucracy were considered...branch of U.S. government, and for understanding how bureaucracy functions within...done by the U.S...
14.

Bureaucracy at War: U.S. Performance in the Vietnam Conflict » Read Now
by Robert W. Komer. 174 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
15.

Presidents and the Politics of Agency Design: Political Insulation in the United States Government Bureaucracy, 1946-1997 » Read Now
by David E. Lewis. 224 pgs.

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The administrative state is the nexus of American policy making in the postwar period. The vague and sometimes conflicting policy mandates of Congress, the president, and courts are translated into real public policy in the bureaucracy. As the role of the national government has expanded, the...
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The administrative state is the nexus of American policy making in the postwar period. The vague and sometimes conflicting policy mandates of Congress, the president, and courts are translated into real public policy in the bureaucracy. As the role of the national government has expanded, the national legislature and executive have increasingly delegated authority to administrative agencies to make fundamental policy decisions. How this administrative state is designed, its coherence, its responsiveness, and its efficacy determine, in Robert Dahl's phrase, "who gets what, when, and how." This study of agency design, thus, has implications for the study of politics in many areas. The structure of bureaucracies can determine the degree to which political actors can change the direction of agency policy. Politicians frequently attempt to lock their policy preferences into place through insulating structures that are mandated by statute or executive decree. This insulation of public bureaucracies, such as the Social Security Administration, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the Internal Revenue Service, is essential to understanding both administrative policy outputs and executive-legislative politics in the United States. This book explains why, when, and how political actors create administrative agencies in such a way as to insulate them from political control, particularly presidential control.
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16.

Controlling the Bureaucracy: Institutional Constraints in Theory and Practice » Read Now
by William F. West. 220 pgs.

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