Bureaucracy and Self-Government: Reconsidering the Role of Public Administration in American Politics

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JHU Press, Nov 20, 1996 - Business & Economics - 201 pages

For more than two centuries, argues Brian J. Cook in Bureaucracy and Self-Government, two conceptions of public administration have coexisted in American politics: the "instrumental" (bureaucracy's job is to carry out the orders of elected officials) and the "constitutive" (bureaucracy shapes public policy and thus the character of the political community). Through an examination of key conflicts in American political development—from the debates of 1789 through the Jacksonian era controversies and the confrontations of the New Deal—Cook shows how these two views of public administration have been in constant tension, with the instrumental view eventually dominating public discourse.

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Contents

Preserving the Chain of Dependence
24
Restoring Republican Virtue
49
Perfecting the Neutral Instrument
65
Serving the Liberal State
98
Recovering a Constitutive Understanding of Public
131
Bureaucracy and the Future of American SelfGovernment
155
References
181
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About the author (1996)

Brian J. Cook is a professor of public administration and policy at Virginia Tech. He is the author of Democracy and Administration: Woodrow Wilson’s Ideas and the Challenges of Public Management, also published by Johns Hopkins.