Continuity and Disruption

by Holden, Matthew

• ISBN13: 9780822956730
• ISBN10: 082295673X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-01-01
• Publisher: Univ of Pittsburgh Pr

Summary

Through thoughtful essays linking historical concepts and practices, current issues, and modern research, Matthew Holden argues that administration is indispensable to politics. Essentially, public administration consists of making decisions about information, money, and force - the three crucial sources of power. Politics and administration cannot be separated, and no political system can be sustained when its administrative core collapses. In Holden's view of administration, a crucial problem is turbulence: the presence of simultaneous pressures toward continuity and toward disruption. Holden examines turbulence in the intellectual history of administration as reflected in traditional political theory and in specific contemporary theories of organization, bureaucracy, and management. He also analyzes political dogmas as a form of control over turbulence, considering such concepts as executive leadership and the emergence of administrative law. He turns an unblinking eye on the practice of public administration today, buffeted by changes in technology and ethnic diversity.

Author Biography

Matthew Holden Jr. is the first Wepner Distinguished Professor in Political Science at the University of Illinois at Springfield. He is also the Henry L. and Grace M. Doherty Professor Emeritus of Politics at the University of Virginia and former president of the American Political Science Association and of the Policy Studies Organization.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(12)
Part I Intellectual History	13	(64)
1 The "Accumulated Wealth of Concepts, Questions, and Generalizations"	13	(30)
2 Why and How Political Science Surrendered the Study of Public Administration	43	(34)
Part II Dogma and Controversy	77	(94)
3 The Dogma and Theory of Executive Leadership: Brownlow, the Judges, and Operating Administration	77	(30)
4 Dogma, Interests, and Administrative Law as Politics, I	107	(30)
5 Dogma, Interests, and Administrative Law as Politics, II	137	(34)
Part III External Sources of Disruption	171	(78)
6 Politics, Technology, and Administrative History: A Tribute to Leonard D. White	171	(18)
7 Politics, Technology, and Administrative History: A Tribute to John Merriman Gaus	189	(19)
8 Public Administration and the Plural Society	208	(41)
Epilogue	249	(10)
Notes	259	(28)
Index	287