Lawrence F. Keller

The Political Economy of Public Management An Interorganizational Network Perspective

This article examines the nature and context of public management in the American Polity. It develops an interorganizational theory approach for the task. This approach analyzes public management from a political economy perspective, modifying organizational concepts for use at the interorganizational level. The utility of the approach is demonstrated by using the Water Resources Interorganizational Network as a case study. The attempt by this network to avoid grappling with the crucial problem of groundwater mining is analyzed by looking at the political nature of the network (its polity) and at the task side (its economy). The article concludes by sketching a general political economy approach to network analysis that illuminates the role of public management in the public policy process.

City management, public administration and the American enlightenment

History has often been ignored in examining administration at the local level. In this article the careers of three public administrators are studied, two academics and a practitioner. The practitioner helped shape city management and the ideals of the two academics characterize the field at that time. The foundations they laid have in many ways proved long lasting in spite of their beliefs in some dubious assumptions. Most importantly, these foundations are relevant for the future administration of the American city.

Pragmatism, The New Republic, and American Public Administration at Its Founding:

We argue that philosophical pragmatism explicitly influenced the founding of American public administration. We analyze the case of The New Republic magazine to support our contention. The New Republic was founded in 1914 and edited by two pragmatists—Herbert Croly and Walter Lippmann—and put forth a pragmatic editorial stance that supported administrative innovations in American government that characterized the era. We illustrate the magazine’s pragmatic orientation toward public administration by analyzing the editorials of Croly and Lippmann and the writings of John Dewey, Frederick Cleveland, and Charles Beard—all written during the magazine’s first decade of publication.

The Government and Governance of Ohio Party Politics and the Dismantling of Public Administration

Besides serving as a bellwether in national politics, Ohio illuminates governance issues when public administration functions in highly partisan states. Our analysis of democratic governance emphasizes the role of integrative institutions, those driven by normative public administration. We argue that Ohio has diminished governance capacity because the state lacks a system of integrative political institutions. Thus, the two major parties control all aspects of state government, including its public administration. A case study of Cuyahoga County reform illustrates the adverse effect on citizens when partisan dominance of Ohio’s political institutions overpowers the state’s capacity for integrative governance.

Council-Manager Government at 100: Facilitative Governance & Citizenship Ethics in the Administrative State

This is the second of our two projects about council-manager government in postmodern society. In an earlier ‘Council-Manager Government at 100: Transformational Leadership, Facilitative Governance, and Active Citizenship’ (Vogelsang-Coombs, Keller, and Murray, 2008), we argued that the classic manager form of local government, though adopted in 1908, is the best form for twenty-first-century governance. The classic city manager form rightfully understood and constitutionally practiced facilitates the governance of localities based on active citizenship. Active citizenship is not a neglected reality under the classic manager form but makes it the absolute necessity for effective municipal governance.