Public Administration: A Very Short Introduction

Citation

Theodoulou, S. Z., & Roy, R. K. (2016). Public Administration: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.

Chapter Summary

A pocket-sized book in Oxford's Very Short Introductions series: eight chapters, references and further reading, and an index, in roughly 120 to 144 pages depending on the catalogue (the Library of Congress-based record gives xviii + 122 pages). The publisher begins from a simple observation. Public administration ensures the development and delivery of the essential public services that sustain modern civilization, from public safety and social welfare to transportation and education, yet mandatory budgetary cuts in recent years have forced public administrators to rethink radically how they govern. The authors offer practical insight into the major challenges confronting the public sector in the globalized era, taking in debates such as the privatization of public services and government surveillance, and take the reader on a global journey through history to examine the origins, development and continued evolution of the field. The chapters read as a chronology followed by a look ahead. The descriptions below stay with the titles and the publisher's summary.

Chapter 1: A contemporary overview

Opens with the present state of public administration: the services that governments provide and the pressures under which administrators work.

Chapters 2–3: The journey from Westphalia to Philadelphia; Progressive reform across the globe

The historical core. The second chapter's title points from Westphalia, the usual shorthand for the beginning of the modern state system, to Philadelphia, the setting of the American founding. The third chapter turns to progressive reform across the globe, in line with the publisher's promise of a global journey through history.

Chapters 4–5: The rise of the modern welfare state; The New Public Management goes global

Two chapters on the changes of the twentieth century and the end of the century. The fourth addresses the growth of the welfare state, and the fifth the New Public Management, whose global spread is signalled by the title.

Chapters 6–7: The new administrative age; Globalization and the rise of network governance

The contemporary chapters. The sixth, by its title, describes a new administrative era; the seventh links globalization with the rise of network governance.

Chapter 8: The future of public administration

A closing look forward. The publisher's remarks on budget cuts, privatization and surveillance indicate the pressures the chapter takes up.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–3: Origins

• Public administration: the organisations, people and processes through which governments deliver the essential public services.
• From Westphalia to Philadelphia: the historical span of the book's first account of the field.
• Progressive reform: reform treated in Chapter 3 across the globe.

Chapters 4–7: Modern developments

• Welfare state: the subject of Chapter 4.
• New Public Management: a reform doctrine whose global spread is the subject of Chapter 5.
• Network governance: the idea that Chapter 7 links with globalization.

Chapter 8: The future

• Privatization and surveillance: contested issues named by the publisher among the topics of the present and future.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A history that explains the present. The chapter sequence runs from early modern states through reform movements, the welfare state and New Public Management to network governance, so a reader sees why institutions look as they do.
• A global frame. Professor Steve Ott of the University of Utah's Institute of Public and International Affairs, quoted by the publisher, calls it a crisp, surprisingly thorough and highly readable historical and developmental overview of public administration worldwide, and says the inclusion of trends and examples from countries around the globe makes it a unique contribution to the literature of the field.
• Short and readable. The series is designed to give a quick, engaging route into a subject, and the book is small enough to read in a sitting or two.
• Contemporary debates. The publisher names privatization and government surveillance, so the book does not stop at a history of structures.

Limitations

• Little room for technique. In a book of this size the contents show no chapter on budgeting, personnel management or policy implementation as skills; students who want these will need a textbook.
• Overview rather than argument-by-case. The publisher describes a survey across the globe and history, so any one country's system receives limited space.
• Chapters cannot be described further. Without a sample chapter, only the titles and the publisher's summary are available, so readers should check each chapter's emphasis themselves.

Where It Fits in the Course

In the public policy and administration list this is the one book centred on administration, the carrying out of policy, rather than on the making of it. Thomas Dye's Understanding Public Policy and Michael Kraft and Scott Furlong's Public Policy: Politics, Analysis, and Alternatives are policy textbooks focused largely on the United States; Thomas Birkland's An Introduction to the Policy Process explains how issues travel from agenda setting to implementation and the theories behind it. Theodoulou and Roy add a historical and global account of the field those books address.

Further up the list, John Kingdon's Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies studies why some subjects reach the governmental agenda, and Weible's edited Theories of the Policy Process presents the main analytic frameworks in a graduate text. Both take the machinery of government as given; this very short introduction describes how that machinery came to be.

How to Use This Book

No background in politics, public policy or management is needed. The book suits first-year students, readers interested in careers in government or non-profit work, and anyone who wants a quick orientation before a policy or administration course.

• Core: read the whole book in order; the eight chapters form a single narrative from early modern states to the future.
• Selective use: a student interested only in current reform debates can start with Chapters 5–8 and return to the history for context.
• Alongside the text: choose one public service in your own country, such as transport or education, and trace how it was shaped by the stages named in the chapter titles: reform, welfare state, New Public Management, networks.
• After the book: pair it with Dye or Kraft and Furlong for the policy process, and use its further-reading list to choose a deeper work on any one stage.