Politics of the Administrative Process

"The rampant spread of COVID-19 in the early 2020s framed one of the biggest challenges to public administration in generations. It not only posed a major threat to the public health of Americans-and, indeed, to people around the world. It also created an enormous collection of major issues to governments at all levels and, in how these governments responded, a fundamental threat to trust in public institutions. To probe COVID-19 thus is not only to explore the connections among people everywhere. It is also to examine the ways that people connect with their government, how they hold government accountable, and how government serves them. To understand government, one needs to understand public administration. COVID-19 can help us understand the fundamental elements of public administration. And understanding public administration can help us frame the ways government can serve the people and their needs for protection against the biggest threats to the public good. The ninth edition of The Politics of the Administrative Process seeks to examine these important issues, set in the tense debates about the "deep state"-a loose confederation of interests that critics believe insulates bureaucratic power from accountability to elected officials. It's a wild and turbulent time for governance, not just in the United States but in countries around the world. Some of this turbulence sets the debate about government's basic purpose: What do we want government to do? Do we trust it to get the job done? How much power does the bureaucracy need to accomplish government's mission? And at what point does this power threaten democratic rule? The many examples in the chapters of this book, along with the detailed cases that dig even more deeply into the basic questions, provide the raw material for examining the complex politics of the politics of the administrative process"--