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Public and economic life: End-Of-The-Century public administration theory in the united states

Richard C. Box (Associate Professor Graduate School of Public Affairs University of Colorado at Colorado Springs Post Office Box 7150 Colorado Springs, Colorado 80933)

International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior

ISSN: 1093-4537

Article publication date: 1 March 1998

28

Abstract

The literature of American public administration theory in the 1990s reveals the difficulty of defining the public sector in a time of anti-government sentiment and calls for devolution of functions from the national to state and local governments, privatization or contracting out of services at all levels, and "reinventing" government so that it operates more like the private sector. In this societal context, writing in the field often devotes attention to the relationship of the public sector to the broader society and to attempts to cope with the effects of market-based, economic thinking on the public sector. This paper examines some of the recent writing in public administration journals and books on the roles of public practitioners, the status of the public sector as a social institution, and approaches such as postmodernism, feminism, and discourse as alternative models of action in the public sphere. It concludes with discussion of the implications of the market-oriented political culture on public administration theory and practice.

Citation

Box, R.C. (1998), "Public and economic life: End-Of-The-Century public administration theory in the united states", International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior, Vol. 1 No. 3, pp. 363-392. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOTB-01-03-1998-B005

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 1998 by Marcel Dekker, Inc.

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