Transforming American Governance: Rebooting the Public Square (Transformational Trends in Governance and Democracy)

383 Pages·2011·1.8 MB·English

by  Terry F. Buss, Alan Balutis, and Dwight Ink (Editors)

TransformaTional Trends in
Governance and democracy
National Academy of Public Administration
Terry F. Buss, Series Editor
Modernizing Democracy:
Innovations in Citizen Participation
Edited by Terry F. Buss, F. Stevens Redburn, and Kristina Guo
Meeting the Challenge of 9/11:
Blueprints for More Effective Government
Edited by Thomas H. Stanton
Transforming Public Leadership for the 21st Century
Edited by Ricardo S. Morse, Terry F. Buss, and C. Morgan Kinghorn
Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy:
Lessons for the Next Half-Century
Edited by Louis A. Picard, Robert Groelsema, and Terry F. Buss
Performance Management and Budgeting:
How Governments can Learn From Experience
Edited by F. Stevens Redburn, Robert J. Shea, and Terry F. Buss
Reengineering Community Development for the 21st Century
Edited by Donna Fabiani and Terry F. Buss
Innovations in Public Leadership Development
Edited by Ricardo S. Morse and Terry F. Buss
Innovations in Human Resource Management: Getting the Public’s Work
Done in the 21st Century
Edited by Hannah S. Sistare, Myra Howze Shiplett, and Terry F. Buss
Expanding Access to Health Care: A Management Approach
Edited by Terry F. Buss and Paul N. Van de Water
Justice for All: Promoting Social Equity in Public Administration
Edited by Norman J. Johnson and James H. Svara
Transforming American Governance: Rebooting the Public Square
Edited by Alan P. Balutis, Terry F. Buss, and Dwight Ink
About the Academy
The National Academy of Public Administration is an independent, nonprofit
organization chartered by Congress to identify emerging issues of governance
and to help federal, state, and local governments improve their performance. The
Academy’s mission is to provide “trusted advice”—advice that is objective, timely,
and actionable—on all issues of public service and management. The unique source
of the Academy’s expertise is its membership, including more than 650 current
and former cabinet officers, members of Congress, governors, mayors, legislators,
jurists, business executives, public managers, and scholars who are elected as fel-
lows because of their distinguished contribution to the field of public administration
through scholarship, civic activism, or government service. Participation in the
Academy’s work is a requisite of membership, and the fellows offer their experi-
ence and knowledge voluntarily.
The Academy is proud to join with M.E. Sharpe, Inc., to bring readers this and
other volumes in a series of edited works addressing current major public manage-
ment and public policy issues.
The opinions expressed in these writings are those of the authors and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the Academy. To access Academy reports, please
visit our Web site at www.napawash.org.
Transforming
American
Governance
Rebooting the Public Square
Editors
Alan P. Balutis
Terry F. Buss
Dwight Ink
TransformaTional Trends in
Governance and democracy
M.E.Sharpe
Armonk, New York
London, England
Copyright © 2011 by M.E. Sharpe, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
without written permission from the publisher, M.E. Sharpe, Inc.,
80 Business Park Drive, Armonk, New York 10504.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Transforming American governance : rebooting the public square / edited by Alan P. Balutis,
Terry F. Buss, and Dwight Ink.
p. cm.—(Transformational trends in governance and democracy)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–7656–2770–4 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. United States—Politics and government—21st century. 2. Federal government—United
States. 3. Political participation—United States. 4. Administrative agencies—United States—
Management. 5. Executive departments—United States—Management. 6. Administrative
agencies—United States—Reorganization. 7. Executive departments—United States—
Reorganization. I. Balutis, Alan P. II. Buss, Terry F. III. Ink, Dwight, 1922–
JK421.T825 2011
351.73—dc22 2011006072
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z 39.48-1984.
~
IBT (c) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Preface ix
1. American Governance 3.0: Issues and Prospects
Terry F. Buss, Alan Balutis, and Dwight Ink 3
2. Administration in the Coming Public Era
H. George Frederickson 40
3. Crises, Governance, and the Administrative State in a Post-
Neoliberal World
Robert F. Durant 49
Part I. Challenges for a 21st-Century Government
4. Experts and the Fiscal Challenge: Strategies of Influence
F. Stevens Redburn 69
5. Improving Collaboration by Federal Agencies
Thomas H. Stanton 86
6. Governance Implications of the Bush Administration’s War on Terror
Nathaniel J. Buss 98
Part II. Whither American Federalism?
7. Effective Governance: Withering Without Federalism
John Kincaid 111
8. Collaborative Regional Networked Systems
Thom Reilly and Robert J. Tekniepe 126
v
vi Contents
9. Will New State Government Management Models Emerge from the
Economic Crisis?
Susan Urahn and W. Frederick Thompson 145
10. Turning Citizen “Enragement” into Citizen Engagement:
Managing Expectations with Web 2.0 and Social Media
Alan R. Shark 155
11. A New Kind of Public Square for Urban America
Norman Jacknis 169
Part III. How Will Government Respond?
12. The Horizon Problem in Public Administration: Shifting from
Crisis du Jour to Deliberate Management
John Callahan and Alan Lyles 187
13. Design Lessons for Smart Governance Infrastructure
Erik W. Johnston and Derek J. Hansen 197
14. Creating and Sustaining Change
Gary A. Christopherson 213
Part IV. Is the Force Already with Us?
15. Reforms Needed to Meet Future Challenges
Dwight Ink 249
16. American Governance: The Role of the White House Staff
Brad Patterson 272
17. Obama’s Stealth Revolution: Quietly Reshaping the Way
Government Works
Donald F. Kettl 285
Part V. What Does the Future Hold?
18. Government at the Edge
Paul Johnston and Martin Stewart-Weeks 293
19. The Millennial Generation
Robert D. Childs, Paulette Robinson, Terry M. McGovern, and
Gerry Gingrich 307
Contents vii
20. Leadership-Purpose Chain in Governmental Organizations
Scott Blanchard, Drea Zigarmi, Dobie Houson, and Vicky Essary 322
21. The Evolution of Collaboration
Lena Trudeau 339
Index 351
About the Editors and Contributors 367
Preface
Our nation faces a large—and growing—long-term fiscal imbalance driven by
an aging population, which will dramatically increase health care and retirement
costs. “The government is on an unstable path,” says the recently released Federal
Government’s Financial Health. This report, prepared by the U.S. Department of
the Treasury and Office of Management and Budget (with the assistance of the
Government Accountability Office, or GAO), puts the challenge in stark terms:
This year, 2008, is the year in which the first of the approximately 80 million
baby boomers—those born between 1946 and 1964—become eligible to draw
Social Security benefits. Scheduled Social Security and Medicare benefits together
with other federal programs’ projected long-term costs are much greater than the
resources (revenue and borrowings) available to pay for them. Unless action is
taken to bring program costs in line with available resources, the coming surge
of entitlement spending will end in a fiscal train wreck that will have an adverse
effect on the U.S. economy and on virtually every American.
In 2019, the Medicare Part A trust fund, which finances inpatient hospital services
for elderly Americans, will not have enough money to pay full benefits. In 2080,
the total cost of government will be more than three times the revenue.
Other Challenges
President Obama certainly faces other challenges: the continuing war on terror,
increasing economic competition from emerging world powers like China and In-
dia, rising energy costs, environmental concerns, and unknown new problems and
threats. As the baby boom generation retires and health care costs rapidly rise, Social
Security, Medicare, and Medicaid programs—as well as interest on the national
debt—will account for a growing portion of government cost, creating immense
budget pressure on initiatives to fund the other challenges. Interest on the debt in
FY2009 totaled $260 billion—about what was spent by the U.S. Departments of
Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and
Urban Development, Interior, and Justice combined.
Any one of the challenges would be a large enough agenda for a new administra-
tion. Their convergence creates an environment of unparalleled complication for the
ix