The war on terrorism raises profound questions of governance, not primarily about power or policy, but about the capacities of government agencies: their personnel, procedures, working habits and styles and ability to interface with other agencies. The contributors to this volume discuss these attributes as "workways of governance." The scholar-analysts who have contributed to this book attempt to examine and suggest answers to the public's doubts about the effectiveness of government agencies. Using a periodic assessment of the quality of institutional life and work in government, the contributors propose establishing guidelines for evaluating government entities and monitoring the entities on an annual or biennial basis. In this volume, the scholars apply the proposed establishing guidelines to the leading institutions of the federal government: the House of Representatives, the Senate, the presidency (focusing on White House organization and staffing), the executive branch (focusing on the civil service), and the federal judiciary.
Roger H. Davidson is a professor emeritus of government and politics at University of Maryland, a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, and a founding director of the Governance Institute. He has been a visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, as well as Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, American, and George Washington universities, and has lectured or conducted seminars on U.S. politics and policymaking throughout this country and in Europe, South America, Africa, India, and Japan. His many works on national government and policymaking include (with Walter J. Oleszek) Congress and Its Members (8th edition, CQ Press, 2002), the leading textbook on the subject.
"The book, edited by Roger H. Davidson, founding director of the Governance Institute, is laid out in essay format and drawn predominantly from academics....Each essay provides essential information about a given institution, a wide assortment of data, interviews and first-hand observations to provide practical evidence for the author's judgments. From this, the authors then suggest specific institutional checkups that could be used to help measure the health of that branch....[T]hose who seriously care about the way the government operates would be well served to page through these essays." -Bryan O'Keefe, National Journal, National Journal, 12/4/2003 |"WORKWAYS OF GOVERNANCE is worth reading for scholars of American institutions and others who are concerned about the decline of civic engagement, the morale of federal government employees, and the recruitment and retention of civil servants, elected officials, and White House staffers." -Karen M. Kedrowski, Winthrop University, Presidential Studies Quarterly, 9/1/2004
