Governments have always required large public organizations, or bureaucracies, to deliver on their promises. Yet most people leading and managing those agencies lack understanding of the full toolkit of values, insights and findings that are necessary. Considering how public administration can learn from a wide range of disciplines ranging from history and the humanities to management and the social sciences, Marc Holzer delineates new ways of transforming organizations and building trust in governments.

Reflecting upon the well-established field of studies on public administration, this book examines how it might reposition itself as society’s necessary and best investment. Concise and timely, the book first draws on the arts and humanities for portrayals of bureaucracy’s unintended impacts, before moving to highlight that public organizations must deliver on governmental promises to build trust with their stakeholders, outlining how willful blindness can result in organizational disasters. Holzer concludes by confronting the popular notion that governments should be run according to the principles of the private sector, and provides an insightful rethinking of how public administration should be practiced.



Demonstrating the full range of competencies necessary to manage the public sector, Rethinking Public Administration will be essential reading for all scholars and students of public administration and management, public policy, government and political science. Providing a practical approach to the topic, it will also be advantageous to policymakers and other actors involved in the public sector.