Assignment:
Identify a major
problem that you’ve detected in modern public administration and recommend one
or more remedies.
How to complete the assignment:
First, in your introduction, state a research question. For example, say your concern is the lack of
efficiency in government services. You
might ask, is privatization a good method for making government services more
efficient?
Second, identify a literature that will help you answer that
question. First, turn to the literature
I’ve assigned in this class for support.
Third, review the literature and build an argument based on
the information, the ideas and the theories you found in your literature
review.
Then, write a conclusion in which you review your findings
and answer, from findings in your literature, the question you posed in your
introduction
Finally, append a bibliography, containing the literature
you’ve consulted, to your paper. The
bibliography should begin at the top of the next page after the end of your
text. It should not begin just below the
end of your text.
Assigned readings:
Please use these two.
Kettl, Donald F.
2017. Politics of the
Administrative Process. 7th or latest
edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press.
Shafritz, Jay M, J. Steven Ott and Yong Suk Jang, eds. 2015.
Classics of Organization Theory.
8th Edition or latest edition.
Boston: Cengage Learning.
First, read chapters 6 and 7 in Kettl. These readings delve into questions
organizational problems and organizational improvement.
Second, read chapters 9 and 10 in Shafritz, Ott and Jang, in
chapter 2. Chapter 2 contains readings
in neoclassical organization theory. I
think you’ll find that “neoclassical” really describes a school of thought that
attacks the bases of classical theory.
You might try comparing the two, and see which you think is more
applicable to modern public administration.
Much of later writing—“later” beginning in the 1960s—by scholars on
public administration often refers back to earlier writers. We’ll get to those later.
