Foundations
Public Policy
Human Resources
Ethics
Advanced Management
100
How does New Public Governance differ from NPM?
It emphasizes collaboration, networks, stakeholder participation, and public value creation.
100
What is a market failure?
When the free market fails to efficiently allocate resources, leading to inefficient or harmful outcomes.
100
What did Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes have to say about the right to speech of government employees in 1892?
“A policeman may have the constitutional right to talk politics, but he has no constitutional right to be a policeman.” (i.e., no constitutional right to free speech for government employees at the time.)
100
5 Steps of Cooper's Prescriptive Model of Ethical Decision-Making
Step 1: Describe the situation.
Step 2: Define the ethical issue.
Step 3: Identify alternative courses of action.
Step 4: Project the probable consequences.
- Step 5: Finding a fit. Selecting a course of action.
100
What is the definition of collaborative governance?
Where three or more organizations are working together toward a common
purpose of serving the public (Popp et al)
200
Key ideas behind the Denhardts' "New Public Service"?
Government should serve citizens, not customers, focusing on democratic values over efficiency.
200
What are the four main types of market failures?
Public Goods (Non-rivalrous & Non-excludable), Externalities (Positive or Negative), Natural Monopoly (One firm dominates due to lower costs), Information Asymmetry (One party has more information than another)
200
What are the three personnel strategies or selection mechanisms for public administrators?
1. Elections
2. Appointment
3. Rule-based selection systems (these rule based systems can be, but are not always, merit based systems)
200
What is an example of administrative evil?
Little recognition of problem: One can be “good” or responsible as an administrator and simultaneously commit/aide to considerable acts of administrative evil.
Moral void is evidenced by the fact that many people that participated in the Holocaust weren’t punished and even received jobs in postwar Germany.
200
The Popp et al. (2014) article covers the potential benefits and challenges associated with
inter-organizational networks (pp. 21; 24-5). List what you all find are the most significant challenges and benefits of using the various governance tools
Benefits: Access to and Leveraging Resources, Efficiency, Service Quality, Coordination, Seamlessness, Shared Risk and Learning, Capacity Building
Challenges: Achieving Consensus on and Varied Commitment to Network Purpose and Goals, Culture Clash, or Competing “Institutional logics”, Developing Trusting Relationships, Power Imbalance and Resulting Conflict, Power Imbalance and Resulting Conflict and Loss of Autonomy
300
Core principles of New Public Management?
Efficiency, performance measurement, privatization, competition, and market-driven reforms.
300
What is the role of public administrators in the policy process?
Provide expertise to policymakers. Ensure proper policy implementation. Evaluate policy effectiveness. Maintain public accountability.
300
What is the Pendleton Act of 1883?
This was the United States first attempt at introducing the concept of Merit into its civil service system at the federal level.
300
3 Parts of The Svara Ethical Triangle?
Principles, Consequences, Virtues
300
After completing the above, make a list of what practitioners should consider before implementing one of these governance tools in their organization.
Is the identified problem beyond the capacity of any one organization?
Is this a problem or issue where the stakes are high?
Is the issue complex?
Have other traditional methods already been tried?
Is it likely a common aim could be identified and agreed to?
Do the organizations involved have similar culture and values?
Is there enough diversity among potential participants to provide multiple perspectives on the problem?
Is there a history of trusting relationships among the organizations that would comprise the network? If not, is there enough time to develop them before tangible outcomes are expected?
Will you have the necessary resources to develop and implement a network?
Is the issue one that will require long-term collaboration?
400
Key features of Max Weber's bureaucratic model?
Hierarchy, formal rules, impersonal relationships, merit-based hiring, and specialization.
400
What are the main stages of the Policy Process/Cycle?
1) Problem Definition - Issue recognition. 2) Agenda Setting - Government prioritizes the issue. 3) Policy Formulation - Developing alternative solutions. 4) Policy Legitimation - Gaining public and political support. 5) Implementation - Putting policy into action. 6) Evaluation - Assessing effectiveness and making adjustments.
400
What is a process theory?
These theories emphasize how the
motivational process works. They describe how goals, values, needs or rewards operate together to determine motivation.
For example, Expectancy Theory
400
Friedrich-Finer Debate: How do we best ensure the accountability of public administrators?
Friedrich (Trust administrators to be accountable)
It has long been customary to distinguish between policy-making and policy execution....
But while the distinction has a great deal of value as a relative matter of emphasis, it cannot any longer be accepted in this absolute form....
Public policy, to put it flatly, is a continuous process, the formulation of which is inseparable from its execution
Public policy is being formed as it is being executed, and it is likewise being executed as it is being formed.
Finer (Can’t trust administrators to be accountable)
“Are the servants of the public to decide their own course, or is their course, or is their course of action to be decided by a body outside themselves? My answer is that the servants of the public are not to decide their own course; they are to be responsible to the elected representatives of the public, and these are to determine the course of action of the public servants to the most minute degree that is technically feasible.”
400
Key elements of New Public Management?
Focus on management rather than professional roles
Performance management and auditing
Use of market mechanisms and competition in resource allocation
500
How did Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan influence public administration?
They promoted deregulation, privatization, and reduced government intervention.
500
What is the Multiple Streams Model?
A theory by Kingdon that explains policy change through three independent streams: Problem Stream - Issues that gain attention. Policy Stream - Available solutions. Political Stream - Political will & public support.
500
What is the importance of Supreme Court's decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, 2022?
This 2022 SCOTUS decision upended years of legal precedent (see: Roberts, 2023).
Now religious activities have much more protections as long as their actions are not coercive or unduly disruptive.
Public employees are acting as private citizens when they engage in religious practices during work breaks
Acknowledging and embracing religious pluralism (i.e., diversity) now more important.
500
Ethics is an active process that involves:
Systematically examine and analyze the logic, values, beliefs, and principles that are embedded in choices
Understanding and justifying the choices we make as public servants
500
What are the fundamental Principles of New Public Service?
Serve citizens, not customers
Seek the public interest
Value citizenship above entrepreneurship
Think strategically, act democratically
Recognize accountability complexity
Serve rather than steer
Value people over productivity