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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 Personnel Management, now at Brookings; Mark Ala

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• The Brookings Institution(p. v)
• Foreword(p. vii)
• Introduction Democracy and Public Service(p. xi)
• 1 What Is Deregulating The Public Service?(p. 1)
• 2 Sources of Public Service Overregulation(p. 12)
• 3 Can the Bureaucracy Be Deregulated? Lessons from Government Agencies(p. 37)
• 4 The Ethics of Deregulation--or the Deregulation of Ethics?(p. 62)
• 5 Deregulating the Federal Service: Is the Time Right?(p. 85)
• 6 Deregulating Federal Procurement: Nothing to Fear But Discretion Itself?(p. 102)
• 7 Is Deregulation Enough?Lessons from Floridaand Philadelphia(p. 129)
• Notes(p. 155)
• 8 Deregulating State and Local Government: What Can Leaders Do?(p. 156)
• 9 Deregulating at the Boundaries of Government Would It Help?(p. 175)
• 10 Policing: Deregulating or Redefining Accountability?(p. 198)
• 11 Mass Transit Agencies Deregulating Where the Rubber Meets the Road?(p. 236)
• 12 A Coup against King Bureaucracy?(p. 249)
• Appendix Excerpts from Commission Reports(p. 288)
• Index(p. 301|)

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CHOICE Review

This book of 12 essays is a most welcome addition to recent literature on administrative reform in government, in that it does not merely spout silly rhetoric on "reinventing government" but instead explores realistic possibilities for improvement in an informed way. By the phrase "deregulating the public service" the authors generally refer to removing constraints on the federal personnnel process, although certain chapters also address state and local civil service systems, procurement reform, community-based policing, and other subjects. Particularly valuable, in terms of solid substance and creative proposals, are chapters by Constance Horner on simplifying federal personnel procedures, John P. Burke on federal ethics regulation, and Steven Kelman on federal procurement reform. Horner, former director of the Office of Personnel Management, says federal executives are competent, hardworking, creative, and motivated, but trapped in a system that prohibits superior accomplishment. At the same time, she says, the current reform efforts of Vice President Gore have "an unfortunate tendency to repair to the language of mere enthusiasm and old nostrums" while reflecting theoretical chaos. This volume deserves close scrutiny by all those in government and the academy who wish to be serious about improving our public institutions while not simultaneously bashing them by implication. General; graduate; faculty; professional. C. T. Goodsell Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University