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The article highlights a symposium on program evaluation. For a number of reasons program evaluation has become an important subject for public administration. In the first place people have become more concerned with keeping government accountable. In varying degrees existing means for providing accountability have been found wanting. Techniques of program evaluation have been used increasingly in this area. Despite the wide interest in program evaluation there are not a great many sources one can turn to for information on the subject. Program evaluation is of concern to both executive and legislative branches, to auditing agencies and management. Both auditing agencies and managers need program evaluation, although not necessarily of the same kind or for the same purposes. The symposium has attempted to draw on practitioners rather than academicians so that the papers will largely indicate what is happening in the field. The symposium has included papers from both the U.S. Office of Management and the U.S. General accounting Office.

The article presents information on the bureaucracy in the U.S. America is a home of frenzy. Whether it has more or less than other countries may be left to philosophers for debate, but it has its full share. Among the latest deliriums is that of waging war on the bureaucracy, now full of noise and promise. Some of the very best people of the U.S. are doing it, usually without discrimination, for discrimination takes the edge off of propaganda. The perfect case against "this new menace to civilization," the bureaucracy, was recently presented in graphic form in a Los Angeles paper. It is to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest, to give as little as possible for as much as one can get. Year in and year out another branch of the bureaucracy, composed of engineers, biologists, and bacteriologists, is supplying the very best citizens with water which they can safely drink and doing this without thought of cutting any melons for themselves.

This article distinguishes the competing interpretations of the politics–administration dichotomy, noting that as, originally framed, it was intended to detach partisan politics and patronage from sound public management. Waldo, the author suggests, concerned himself with the later, more expansive conception of the dichotomy, which included the process of policy making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After 60 years of scholarship on the rule-bound bureaucratic personality, this article turns attention to the unbureaucratic personality. Identified by a willingness to bend rules, the unbureaucratic personality is thought to be influenced by individual and workplace attributes. The individual attributes investigated in this article include nonconformity, risk propensity, and public service commitment, all of which are expected to stimulate the unbureaucratic personality. Workplace attributes include formalization and centralization, which are expected to suppress the unbureaucratic personality, and red tape, which is expected to trigger it. These hypotheses are tested using mail survey data collected from employees of four cities in a midwestern state. The results of ordered probit modeling of the data suggest that nonconformity and risk taking increase the unbureaucratic personality, as do red tape and centralized workplaces. By contrast, the unbureaucratic personality appears to be diminished by public service commitment and workplace formalization. The implications of these results for the normative aspects of rule bending are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the implementation of the Government Performance and Results Act generally has not considered how the strategic plan, annual performance plan, and annual performance report are produced and used. Are the documents good decision and management tools, as the act intends, or are agencies internalizing them to meet the unique needs of their organization? Interviews with representatives of 14 cabinet-level federal agencies suggest that implementation of the act is not standardized. Instead, it is influenced by the unique challenges that agencies face. Further, there is a relationship between the implementation challenges and the overall use of the documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly, public administration in the United States operates in a densely interconnected international system in which local decisions and actions may trigger global repercussions—and vice versa—and the fate of communities in one region is bound to the choices of decision makers elsewhere. Administrative actors have become enmeshed in a complicated, interwoven pattern of governance in ways that shape actions, issues, and opportunities for influencing administrative agencies at national, state, and local levels. These developments call for a critical reappraisal of our inherited notions of governance, management, and accountability. Terrorist tragedy and responses to it call attention to these themes, but they apply broadly across the spectrum of governance challenges. To demonstrate this point, we analyze some implications of transnational governance for the institutions and practices of U.S. public management, with particular attention to another subject: environmental policy and management. A conclusion is that the public administration community must adjust traditional practices to facilitate the effective management of the global processes that, in turn, reshape the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S. government is considering how it should reorganize for homeland security. Consequently, attention has focused on the new Office of Homeland Security (OHS). Much debate focuses on two issues related to OHS: (1) whether the OHS should be a separate executive agency; and (2) whether the OHS director has sufficient authority to direct changes in policies and resource allocation of other departments and agencies. The authors believe the emphasis on these areas of interest is misplaced as measures of the eventual success of the OHS. Rather than focusing on these political issues, this article outlines several questions about how the OHS might approach its complex mission and highlights some organizational and bureaucratic realities that are likely to survive the debate over placement of the OHS within the executive branch and the authorities of the OHS director. This article concludes with a discussion of some organizational tools that the OHS or any coordinating office will require to fulfill its mandate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the more pressing problems of our times is the state of the bureaucracy. Not only have governmental institutions-federal, state, and local-fallen to new lows in public esteem, but there is evidence that the organizational performance that has gotten them this reputation is worsening rather than improving as new tasks are undertaken and level added to level in the hierarchy. Now we have a new President who has vowed to do something about the "horrible bureaucracy" over which he is presiding. This article warns him and his associates that reform isn't as easy as it sounds, and that reorganization, while necessary and useful, is only a part of the answer. It suggests a seven-point approach, the two most important of which are the exploring of new patterns of administration to replace ultimately the bureaucratic form; and the involving of members of the system-the bureaucrats themselves-in its modification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines administrative reform in the comparative context of the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. A reform continuum is presented, which moves from the nonstrategic incremental reforms of the United States to the comprehensive and fundamental reforms adopted in New Zealand. The role of politics and political leadership is linked to the various models of reform. More comprehensive and strategic efforts require great initial political leadership and will, but incremental efforts require more continuous political involvement. In the countries examined, using fundamental reform to create a simplified base from which to launch other initiatives appears to be a key component of success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attacks on government can undermine commitment to and confidence in professional public administration. These attacks should be examined from the perspective of the history, functions, and values of public administration. Dwight Waldo's thought provides such a perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]