The incrementalism and rationalist paradigms

Person incrementalism and rationalist paradigms in public policy-making are explored and contrasted. Person models that appeared in both criteria gained particular consideration. The federal, state and municipal levels of government are also covered in public strategic planning. General diplomatic preparation costs and incentives, on the other hand, are compared with those of both the incrementalism and rationalist paradigms (Henry, 2012). Political scientists have devoted a great deal of attention to describing how public policies come into being, taking into consideration the factors and forces influence them as well as the process of passing them through the federal decision-making bodies that affect them. All the discussions of elite-mass interaction, interest groups, institutionalism, and the like, are just generalized descriptions of how policies are made (Henry, 2012). Similarly, the chapter describes the efforts required to improve the quality of policy-making (how administrators can present problems to elected decision-makers in a way to get more desirable results and concepts that might be used to direct and improve the way we think about policy.

Henry argues in this chapter that there are two approaches to public policy. One is descriptive, which is to say that it seeks to understand how plans are made and are characterized principally by the incrementalist paradigm. The incrementalists argue that policies are not created de novo, but rather evolve from the existing systems.

One version of this perspective claims that elites make policies; yet another emphasizes the role of interest groups. The most interesting among this team is the schema presented by Kingdon involving windows where political problems and policy streams converge to result in policy changes. The second approach is normative and prescriptive, which shed light on the manner to which policies are made. Moreover, the normative and the authoritarian school of thought articulates the principles that legislators ought to apply in determining the procedures to enact. As a result, the goal of the approach is not understanding how the policies are made but rather making adequate recommendations about how to make better, more efficient as well as more appropriate procedures (Henry, 2012). Despite being several, I find the discussions concerning policy-making highlighted in this chapter as inconsistent with the reality aspect concerning how decisions are either made or not made in the made in the public arena. Instead, they suggest that what is done in the public sector as the result of some conscious process to establish the objectives, rules, and means.

Chapter 11: Intersectoral Administration

Key Concepts:

Collaboration and Privatization

Federal Privatization

Privatizing in the States

Privatizing by Local Governments

Is Business Better? The Case for Competition

Practical Privatization: Lessons Learned

The Businesses of Governments

The Independent Sector: Experiences in Interdependence

A Case of Independent Governance: Neighborhoods Renascent

Implementation by Individuals: Volunteers and Vouchers

Chapter Summary:

Governments collaborate with many entities, but privatization only occurs with the business and nonprofit sectors. Privatization is a government's use of the private and nonprofit sectors to deliver public services and attempt to improve the content and implementation of federal programs. Motivations to collaborate are discussed as well as various methods of service provision.

In my opinion, this chapter contains the most startling information in the book. The degree to which we rely on privatization is disturbing. For example, Henry says that "The number of employees who work indirectly for Washington under federal contracts with private business, nearly 5.17 million workers, is almost three times the number of federal civilian employees." This growing reliance on private contractors allows officials to claim that they are reducing the size of government while increasing the size of the workforce carrying out public work (Henry, 2012).

Municipal governments similarly rely on private contractors to perform public services. The arguments for contracting out are usually financial, though the savings from privatization are often modest. Ideology is also an essential motivation since there seems to be a general belief that the private sector is always better than the public sector. Greed seems to drive some of it as well. For example, contracts can be lucrative and poor oversight of contractors (Henry refers to it as "chaotic") permits the same service once performed by a government employee to be completed by a private employee at more significant cost (Henry, 2012). Nevertheless, the chapter underlines the role of competition with regards to the provision of services among the contractors. For instance, competition is the basis for determining whether to contract the private sector or improve the performance of the public sector as competition among providers (private or public) is what holds costs down and drives quality up. On the contrary, competition rarely applies to contractors. Accountability is also a crucial question. The chapter suggests that existing oversight mechanisms are not very good even on the financial side of contracting oversight, let alone responsibility regarding performance. The current arrangements become particularly important when we are dealing with an essential public service and those with the most visibility.

Privatization is all the rage nowadays. Extraordinary amounts of money shift from public sector employees to private sector contractors in a startling range of activities, including military service. The logic behind the shift is deceptive but straightforward. In the private sector, competition drives down costs and drives up quality while in reality the claim is reduced to the erroneous assertion that "privately is better than public." Lack of competition in the public sector presumably leads to higher costs and lower quality. Consequently, it is argued that the private sector has skills and knowledge that the public sector does lack a fact that is debatable (Henry, 2012).

Viewing privatization as a technique for getting the public's work done. Nevertheless, carrying out public works might be achieved by merely apportioning the task to some level of government; or to a nonprofit organization or by privatizing. As the state sub-contracts, the pursuit of public objectives to private firms, it becomes all the more important to ask how you make those decisions, how you monitor the work of individual companies, how well they are achieving the public's goals, and at what price are these goals being met (Henry, 2012).

Chapter 12: Intergovernmental Administration

Key Concepts:

The Evolution of Intergovernmental Administration

Fiscal Federalism

Regulatory Federalism

Money, Mandates, and Washington: What Now?

Federalism among Equals: The States

Intergovernmental Administration in the States

Intergovernmental Administration among Local Governments

A Load of Local Governments: Definitions, Scope, Services, Revenue Sources, Government, and Forms of Government for Counties, Municipalities, Townships, School Districts, and Special Districts.

Place, People, and Power: The Puzzle of Metropolitan Governance

Chapter Summary

The interactions between federal, state, and local governments are discussed. The financial, legal, political, and administrative relationships between all levels and units of government are defined and explained. Particular attention is paid to the evolution of intergovernmental administration and the historical development of fiscal federalism. The chapter concludes with a discussion about the growing importance of municipal governance.

Americans have several governments. For instance, the local governments come in many configurations with the individual districts and independent authorities proliferating. The relationships among these parties have long been a subject of contention in the United States beginning with the relationship between the federal government and the states: known as federalism. This link has changed over the last 150 years, and it is still subject to controversy. Related problems have plagued states and cities (Henry, 2012). The rules create towns and counties, and state legislators are often known to interfere with the local affairs much to the dismay of local politicians. Still, smaller units of government have come to rely on the levels above them for money, through intergovernmental transfers, so while they may complain about interference, they continue to need, and to welcome, the help.

The most exciting issue in this chapter is the debate over ultra-localism and sizeable metropolitan government. Cities within the county resent interference and often prefer to separate from the large county government so that they can provide their services at lower cost. The lower price is usually because they no longer have to contribute to the county's efforts to redistribute wealth from richer to more impoverished areas and because they have fewer poor residents and fewer social problems to address. Incorporation, in other words, is a form of ultra-localism. The current controversy involves recently-incorporated cities that no longer wish to pay the "mitigation fee" that the county charges after allowing them to form their towns. The failure to pay the mitigation fee implies that those towns continue to contribute tax revenues to the county, which was a way of slowing the tide of incorporation and preventing the wealthier areas of the county from withdrawing their resources from the more deprived areas. When we speak of government in this country, we are talking about a multitude of governmental units – federal, state, local – with a variety of reserved, enumerated, and implied powers to address the range of issues that sometimes overlap or conflict (Henry, 2012).

Federalism is the idea that different levels of government should be concerned with various issues and activities. For example, the federal government is in charge of immigration policy (states and cities do not decide who can enter the country) but rules are in charge of marriage policy (there is no discussion of marriage in the federal constitution). However, even with these two examples, there may be good reasons for governments at every level to break out of their traditional boundaries. The local governments who face with a large number of illegal immigrants in their jurisdictions would like to take measures to restrict immigration. At the federal level, there is an effort to make gay marriage unconstitutional. In both cases, governments seek to go beyond their traditional spheres of authority. The underlined themes being the increasing role of the federal government especially in the area of grants to states and localities as well as the related controversies. Subdividing the government into smaller units create its problems. Although the ultra-local government theoretically may be more responsive to citizens, it also leads to exclusion and fragmentation (Henry, 2012).

Chapter 13: Toward a Bureaucratic Ethic

Key Concepts:

Codes and Commissions: The Rise of Public Sector Ethics

Practicing Ethical Public Administration

Do Morals Matter?

Bureaucracy's Bane: Determining the Public Interest

Can Normative Theory Help? Four Philosophies of the Public Interest

The Passion for Public Administration

Big Bureaucracy, Big Decisions

Chapter Summary

The importance of ethics in the public-sector highlights particular attention being paid to the development of formal codes of ethics as well as why ethics is essential to the public administration. The grounding of public ethics in normative theory is discussed before the chapter concludes with a request to do no harm through public service.

This chapter brings us back to the fundamental issues raised by Tweed and Plunkitt. Tweed was a thief, though he was adept at getting things done. As with many political bosses, Tweed's enviable success as building infrastructure (roads, bridges, parks, docks) came at a high price. Tweed served himself more than he was serving the public. Plunkitt seemed more interested in helping himself, and his lifelong cause of getting re-elected rather than in serving the public. Consequently, he provided jobs and resources to those who voted for him. But with Plunkett as well, the price seemed too high, and it was unclear whether his efforts to respond to public needs were going to alleviate problems or merely perpetuate them and capitalize upon them for political and personal gain (Henry, 2012).

At several spots in the text, Henry has complained that the response to Tweed and Plunkitt tended to produce bureaucrats who might be honest, but not very efficient. The desire to avoid corruption resulted in red tape that slowed the process of governance to a crawl and reduced efficiency. This chapter further complicates the problem by adding to the long list of things we now expect from the proper public administration: it is not enough, to be honest, effective, efficient, and responsive; administrators must also be just and promote fairness. Henry has also said that one of the things that makes public organizations different from private companies is the fact that their missions are less clear and they are more affected by their environments; where there are social injustices and were addressing those inequities requires redistribution of resources, the public mission can become overwhelming.

Henry makes the case that public administration is a distinctive undertaking, not subsumed under political science or management or business, a growing range of institutions pursue the general goals including the private sector and the nonprofit sector. Public administrators as pledged with continuing the public interest. Because that is hard to define and difficult to prosecute, especially in organizations that can be inflexible and yet open to a broad range of environmental influences, it is essential that public employees adhere to ethical principles in their work (Henry, 2012). This chapter briefly describes the kinds of considerations that come into play in a discussion of general ethics. How to hire and promote, how to award contracts, how to distribute services – these involve ethical problems that deserve sustained attention.





















Works Cited

Henry, N. (2012). Public Administration & Public Affairs-12th edition. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge.