AnyBook4Less.com	Find the Best Price on the Web Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Home  |  Store List  |  FAQ  |  Contact Us  |
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money Keyword AuthorISBN

Title: Making Government Work by Paul J. Andrisani, Simon Hakim, Eva Leeds, Eva Marikova Leeds ISBN: 0-8476-9972-2 Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield (Non NBN) Pub. Date: June, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $48.00

Your Country USA Canada United Kingdom Australia Austria Belgium France Germany Italy Netherlands Switzerland Currency AutoUSD CAD GBP EUR AUD CHF Delivery Only cheapest delivery All delivery options Include Used Books Are you a club member of: Barnes and Noble Books A Million Chapters.Indigo.ca

Average Customer Rating: 3 (1 review)

Rating: 3
Summary: "Making Government Work" Doesn't Work
Comment: If you are a collector of obvious statements that then fail to connect proposed solutions to the stated problems, this book is for you. Perhaps if you are interested in learning how politicians can use large amounts of space to write very little, you may find "Making Government Work" insightful. Otherwise, this book fails.
The concept of the book is intriguing. Take the most recognizable names in American state and local government, from Rudy Guiliani to Jeb Bush, and ask each to analyze their experiences in privatization. What results is a series of glorified press releases. This book is neither an honest presentation on the debates over privatization, as only one side is presented, nor a useful discussion of privatization. Little meaningful insight is offered.
What emerges are grandiose declarations of the need for privatization and how great the privatization programs each implemented are operating. Very little data is presented. We are expected to take these public official at their words they are doing great jobs. Perhaps some of their programs have been successful. Yet the lack of honest evaluation makes their claims suspicious.
This book argues that privatization is needed to counter the recent large growth in state and local governments. Yet, instead of analyzing why this growth occurred, the book immediately concludes this growth is out of control and needs to be curbed. Perhaps some growth is excessive. A more proper analysis would observe a.) the Federal government's recent devolution has transferred more responsibilites from the Federal government to state and local government, something, incidentally, most state and local government officials heralded at the time and b.) government has become more proactive in recent years in providing public services, from increased police protection to improving education, something the pubilc heralded at the time. To ask for growth and then recoil in shock when we realize growth has occurred is contradictory. To assume all this growth has been wrong is incorrect, unless you have a liberatarian ideology. What would have been more useful would have been to examine this growth and try to determine which is proper and which is wasteful.
Many of the writers in this book state public managers should look at government as if it were a business. Yet, business managers need to think in terms of managerial objectives such as maximizing profit rather than providing quality public goods. If public managers operate with bottom line considerations, financial considerations can lead to employee layoffs, decreased employee morale, and reduced public services. The business-like objectives may be met, but the initial purposes of the public services may be defeated.
With early data on prizatizion conflicting, this book is noted as a good collection of what public executives approving of privatization think. Beyond that, though, this book has little more to offer.