Making Government Manageable

What are the basic concepts of executive organization and management? How does executive organization affect management? How can executive organization and management be improved? In Making Government Manageable, Thomas H. Stanton and Benjamin Ginsberg bring together a distinguished group of authorities from both the academic and political worlds to explore problems relating to the organization and management of government.

The authors begin with a brief overview of the development of executive organization and management to the present day. They then offer examples of problems in federal department organization and management. They also raise the question of the effectiveness of third-party government—cases in which the private sector under contract with the government performs services for which the government is responsible and, in the process, makes policy for which the government becomes responsible. The authors conclude with a discussion of cases in which agencies have enjoyed some measure of success through reforming and reorganizing their internal structures and processes.

Contributors: Murray Comarow, National Academy of Public Administration; Matthew A. Crenson, the Johns Hopkins University; Alan L. Dean, National Academy of Public Administration; Dan Guttman, The Johns Hopkins University and the National Academy of Public Administration; Dwight Ink, Institute of Public Administration; Ronald C. Moe, the Johns Hopkins University and National Academy of Public Administration; Sallyanne Payton, University of Michigan Law School; Beryl A. Radin, University of Baltimore and National Academy of Public Administration; Harold Seidman, formerly U.S. Bureau of the Budget; Barbara S. Wamsley, National Academy of Public Administration and the Johns Hopkins University.

Thomas H. Stanton is a Washington, D.C., attorney. He provides legal and policy counsel on improving the design and capacity of public institutions. Stanton is a former member of the federal Senior Executive Service. He chairs the Standing Panel on Executive Organization and Management of the National Academy of Public Administration and is a fellow of the Center for the Study of American Government at the Johns Hopkins University. His writings on government include two books and many articles. The concerns he expressed in A State of Risk (1991) helped lead to enactment of legislation and the creation of a new federal financial regulator in 1992. Benjamin Ginsberg is the David Bernstein Professor of Political Science and director of the Center for the Study of American Government at the Johns Hopkins University. He is the author or coauthor of a number of books, including Downsizing Democracy: How America Sidelined Its Citizens and Privatized Its Public (written with Matthew Crenson); Politics by Other Means; The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State; The Consequences of Consent; American Government: Freedom and Power; We the People; and The Captive Public.