Product Description

The seventh edition of PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN AMERICA offers a streamlined, accessible, and up-to-date design of the most comprehensive and widely used introduction to contemporary public administration.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1791091 in Books
• Published on: 1998-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 513 pages

Review
"All in all this is a very solid text and an excellent basis for teaching a course. The writing is thoughtful, logical, and helps students further understand Public Administration. It is clearly one of the most thorough texts in the field."

"The book covers important topics that generate the discussion necessary to introduce the profession to students."

"This is the first Public Administration text I’ve reviewed that dealt comprehensively with government regulatory bodies and administrative law. Most other texts just mention these very important topics. They are important because for most people, these entities are their contact with government."

About the Author
Michael E. Milakovich is a professor of political science at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, and serves on the National Center for Public Productivity's board of directors. A member of the American Society for Public Administration, he serves as an expert witness, advises public and nonprofit organizations on policy analysis and quality improvement, and consults with various agencies domestically and abroad. Dr. Milakovich is a widely published author of journal articles and textbooks on a variety of subjects in political science and public administration.

George J. Gordon is a professor of political science at Illinois State University at Normal and a prolific author of articles on federalism and intergovernmental relations. Active in political and civic affairs, Dr. Gordon is a past presidential elector, a member of the McLean County Board, and the section head for the Convention of the Midwest Political Science Association.

Customer Reviews

Great survey book; ideal for intro undergraduate courses
I have used several editions of this book in my introduction to public administration courses; I have been very pleased by the breadth of coverage as well as the clarity of the exposition. In particular, the book adopts a strongly political view of administration in the public sector that is easily translatable to the classroom.

In particular, the authors adopt Yates' framework of administrative efficiency vs. pluralistic democracy early in the work and this framework serves to inform the discussion of policy, personnel, budgeting, decision making, et cetera. This provides the book with a strong thematic component that I have found lacking in other books of this type.

A couple of criticisms: The sections on ensuring democratic processes in public administration is a bit confusing and lacks a unifying theme. However, the elements of the discussion are there and can be easily clarified in a classroom discussion.

Secondly, and this is a quibble is that the treatment of alternative decision making models is a bit sketchy, but then again this is an introductory tome.

All in all a good, useful and CLEAR book for undergrad courses.

A Dense Read
Very dense material... made me want to fall asleep while reading! Informative, nonetheless.

My main complaint is the authors' overt ideological beef with Republicans and Republican policy. It's pretty biased for a textbook.

Thanks for this book
Not sure what to write about here. Book was needed for Master's class I just started so it was good to see it still available. Ordering process was easy and for this book, very timely. I think it only took 4 days to come in. I hope to use it the entire time as a resource while I am in school.