Performance, Accountability, and the Debate over Rules

116

What are the apparent research and methodological trends in PAR’s content over the past decade? From the perspective of the journal’s 70‐year history, with its aim to “mesh” practitioner and academic knowledge creation, topical coverage since 2000 reflects striking continuity, emphasizing many of the “bread and butter” administrative issues such as planning, human resources, budgeting, and public management. A marked increase in coverage is apparent in the application of more sophisticated quantitative statistical methodology, as well as in the number of female authors, while the number of practitioner authors declined sharply. Throughout the first turbulent decade of the twenty‐first century, three intellectual themes stood out: evaluations of New Public Management, connections between practitioners and academicians, and responsiveness to immediate social, economic, and political challenges. Given the constant demand for usable knowledge, scholars seem to have marginalized attention to the historical context and epistemological foundations of the study. The central challenge in the years ahead will be to effectively use research methods in response to the big questions of government and society that defy measurement. Since many [empiricists], especially the younger, do not know very much about epistemology, they tend to be quite dogmatic about the one set of canons that dominate them. —C. Wright Mills, 1959

Section: Qualitative Observations About the Past Decade: Three Importmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trends in the Study of Public Administration: Empirical and Qualitative Observations from Public Administration Review, 2000–2009

Raadschelders

Lee

2011

116

“…Raadschelders and Lee observe, for example, that the success of NPM is based on the administrative capacity of government (see Brown and Potoski ; Yang, Hsieh, and Li ), that it has not paid adequate attention to politics, law and culture (Haruna ; Kassel ; Riccucci and Thompson ), that it is less efficient and effective than expected (Leland and Smirnova ; Lenkowsky and Perry ; Moynihan ; Thompson ), and that there remains a disconnect between theory and practice (Van Slyke ; Williams ). Some scholars maintain that legislative and judicial constraints have been overlooked (Reed and Meyer ) and that NPM has eroded accountability to citizens and civil society (Eikenberry and Kluver ; Kelly ; Romzek and Johnston ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The New Public Service Revisited

Denhardt

2015

268

164

Th e New Public Service describes a set of norms and practices that emphasize democracy and citizenship as the basis for public administration theory and practice. Th is article revisits some of the core arguments of the New Public Service and examines how they have been practiced and studied over the past 15 years. Th e authors conclude that neither the principles of the New Public Service nor those of the New Public Management have become a dominant paradigm, but the New Public Service, and ideas and practices consistent with its ideals, have become increasingly evident in public administration scholarship and practice.

“…More broadly, the association between mission‐extrinsic public values and agency performance has been the focus of much empirical research for decades (Kassel ). For example, some scholars have found that citizen participation contributes to improving government decisions and government‐citizen relationships (Yang and Pandey ), whereas others have found no such positive effect of citizen participation under certain conditions (Irvin and Stansbury ).…”

Section: Mission‐extrinsic Public Valuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Levels of Value Integration in Federal Agencies' Mission and Value Statements: Is Open Government a Performance Target of U.S. Federal Agencies?

Piotrowski

Rosenbloom

Kang

et al. 2018

The Barack Obama administration advanced open government initiatives to make federal administration more open, accountable, and responsive to citizens. Yet a question remains whether federal administrators took notice. This article examines changes in the extent to which U.S. federal agencies have integrated the three core principles of open government-transparency, public participation, and collaboration-into their performance planning. By analyzing 337 annual performance plans of 24 major federal agencies from fiscal years 2001 to 2016, the authors found that, overall, the level of integration of open government into performance planning has been trending higher since the early 2000s. During the Obama presidency, integration initially rose sharply but later declined. Findings also show that agencies' stated core values regarding open government are not consistently integrated into their performance plans. The implications of these findings for incorporating democratic-constitutional values into holistic performance management are considered. Evidence for Practice • U.S. federal agencies can, and do, incorporate democratic-constitutional values into their performance management schemes. • Agencies with open government values explicitly listed in their value statements are no more likely than other agencies to include open government in their performance plans. In other words, agencies' stated core values are not consistently integrated into their performance plans. • The declining level of integration of open government activities into performance planning may result in less attention, reduced investment of resources, and weaker efforts by federal agencies to foster more transparent, participatory, and collaborative governance. • It is important for agencies to incorporate democratic-constitutional values (which are not central to agency mission but are important governmental attributes in their own right) into performance planning. Models such as the GPRA Modernization Act may offer a starting point for balanced approaches.