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The Oxford Handbook of American Bureaucracy

Robert F Durant editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

Published:14th Oct '10

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The Oxford Handbook of American Bureaucracy cover

One of the major dilemmas facing the administrative state in the United States today is discerning how best to harness for public purposes the dynamism of markets, the passion and commitment of nonprofit and volunteer organizations, and the public-interest-oriented expertise of the career civil service. Researchers across a variety of disciplines, fields, and subfields have independently investigated aspects of the formidable challenges, choices, and opportunities this dilemma poses for governance, democratic constitutionalism, and theory building. This literature is vast, affords multiple and conflicting perspectives, is methodologically diverse, and is fragmented. The Oxford Handbook of American Bureaucracy affords readers an uncommon overview and integration of this eclectic body of knowledge as adduced by many of its most respected researchers. Each of the chapters identifies major issues and trends, critically takes stock of the state of knowledge, and ponders where future research is most promising. Unprecedented in scope, methodological diversity, scholarly viewpoint, and substantive integration, this volume is invaluable for assessing where the study of American bureaucracy stands at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, and where leading scholars think it should go in the future. The Oxford Handbooks of American Politics are a set of reference books offering authoritative and engaging critical overviews of the state of scholarship on American politics. Each volume focuses on a particular aspect of the field. The project is under the General Editorship of George C. Edwards III, and distinguished specialists in their respective fields edit each volume. The Handbooks aim not just to report on the discipline, but also to shape it as scholars critically assess the scholarship on a topic and propose directions in which it needs to move. The series is an indispensable reference for anyone working in American politics. General Editor for The Oxford Handbooks of American Politics: George C. Edwards III

The Oxford Handbook of the American Bureaucracy is an integrative attempt to get scholars of bureaucracy who are working in different fields and traditions to talk to each other. The Handbook debates whether or not we have made any progress since the classic works of Max Weber. The volume convinces me the answer is "yes." * Kenneth J. Meier, Charles H. Gregory Chair in Liberal Arts, Texas A&M University *
The Oxford Handbook of the American Bureaucracy is an indispensable reference work for scholars of public administration and for graduate students. The essays cover the state of the art on a wide variety of topics including, among others, the historical development of the bureaucracy in the US, street level delegation, the paradoxes of performance measurement, public-NGO collaboration, statistical methods for discerning multi-level effects, controversies about appropriate models for understanding how bureaucracy actually works in a context demanding both accountability and problem-solving, and the various meanings of representative bureaucracy. The essays do not merely cover the extant literature. They bring fundamental controversies to the surface and clarify them analytically. The editor, Robert Durant, has organized this Handbook superbly and has written a broad-gauged and compelling introductory essay for it. * Bert A. Rockman, Purdue University *

ISBN: 9780199238958

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 1668g

888 pages