In a democracy, efficient public administration is after a delicate balance: the bureaucracy must be powerful enough to be effective, yet accountable to elected officials and the people. Kettl and Fesler understand that the push and pull of political forces make the functions of bureaucracy ever more contentious, but no less crucial to governance.

Based on reviewer feedback, and given advances in scholarship and in practice, the authors introduce the crucial topics of ethics, accountability, and leadership early on, utilizing these central ideas as touchstones throughout the book. While this text continues to focus on the core components of public administration such as budgeting, personnel, and implementation it's been thoroughly updated to cover recent developments, including administrative issues spotlighted during the 2008 presidential campaigns, the use of technology in government management, and the changing face of the federal workforce. Fully updated tables and figures feature a wealth of current data, and photos add visual context to the book s core concepts.

What was an appendix showcasing fourteen case studies in the previous edition is now a set of fully-integrated case studies-- one in each chapter-- that challenges readers to apply ideas and analysis as they go. Each case emphasizes the people on the front lines at the local, state, and federal levels with topics ranging from Taser use in law enforcement to the Federal Reserve's response to economic problems.

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This book exposes the reality that our twentieth-century government is no match for twenty-first-century problems and proposes a solution. In this timely and compelling book, Donald F. Kettl demonstrates how the process of governance has fallen out of sync with the problems the government is trying to solve. Pick almost any recent domestic concern—waging a war, protecting our food supply and borders, providing health-care coverage for an aging population or relief after a devastating hurricane—and the standard response is to outsource most of the core tasks to thousands of independent contractors. The government foots the bill, but this strategy provides neither leadership nor accountability. Without anyone in charge, who can formulate innovative solutions to the increasingly complex problems the government faces? Kettl has answers, explaining with precision and clarity how a twenty-first century government must function in order to provide real solutions to the policy problems that face the United States. 9 illustrations....