Deregulating the Public Service

John J. DiIulio

doi:10.5771/9780815707196

Summary

The nation's federal, state, and local public service is in deep trouble. Not even the most talented, dedicated, well-compensated, well-trained, and well-led public servants can serve the public well if they must operate under perverse personnel and procurement regulations that punish innovation and promote inefficiency. Many attempts have been made to determine administrative problems in the public service and come up with viable solutions. Two of the most importantthe 1990 report of the National Commission on the Public Service, led by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul A. Volcker, and the 1993 report of the National Commission on the State and Local Public Service, led by former Mississippi Governor William F. Winterrecommended "deregulating the public service."

Deregulating the public service essentially means altering or abolishing personnel and procurement regulations that deplete government workers' creativity, reduce their productivity, and make a career in public service unattractive to many talented, energetic, and public-spirited citizens. But will it work? With the benefit of a historical perspective on the development of American public service from the days of the progressives to the present, the contributors to this book argue that deregulating the public service is a necessary but insufficient condition for much of the needed improvement in governmental administration. Avoiding simple solutions and quick fixes for long-standing ills, they recommend new and large-scale experiments with deregulating the public service at all levels of government.

In addition to editor John DiIulio, the contributors are Paul A. Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, now at Princeton University; former Mississippi Governor William F. Winter; Gerald J. Garvey, Princeton; John P. Burke, University of Vermont; Melvin J. Dubnick, Rutgers; Constance Horner, former director of the Federal Office of Personnel Management, now at Brookings; Mark

Search publication

Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2011
ISBN-Print: 978-0-8157-1853-6
ISBN-Online: 978-0-8157-0719-6
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 308
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. Introduction: Democracy and Public Service No access
1. What Is Deregulating the Public Service? No access Pages 1 - 11
2. Sources of Public Service Overregulation No access Pages 12 - 36
3. Can the Bureaucracy Be Deregulated? Lessons from Government Agencies No access Pages 37 - 61
4. The Ethics of Deregulation—Or the Deregulation of Ethics? No access Pages 62 - 84
5. Deregulating the Federal Service: Is the Time Right? No access Pages 85 - 101
6. Deregulating Federal Procurement: Nothing to Fear But Discretion Itself? No access Pages 102 - 128
7. Is Deregulation Enough? Lessons from Florida and Philadelphia No access Pages 129 - 155
8. Deregulating State and Local Government: What Can Leaders Do? No access Pages 156 - 174
9. Deregulating at the Boundaries of Government: Would It Help? No access Pages 175 - 197
10. Policing: Deregulating or Redefining Accountability? No access Pages 198 - 235
11. Mass Transit Agencies: Deregulating Where the Rubber Meets the Road? No access Pages 236 - 248
12. A Coup against King Bureaucracy? No access Pages 249 - 287
Appendix: Excerpts from Commission Reports No access Pages 288 - 300
1. A No access
2. B No access
3. C No access
4. D No access
5. E No access
6. F No access
7. G No access
8. H No access
9. I No access
10. J No access
11. K No access
12. L No access
13. M No access
14. N No access
15. O No access
16. P No access
17. Q No access
18. R No access
19. S No access
20. T No access
21. U No access
22. V No access
23. W No access