Public Administration: Understanding Management, Politics, and Law in the Public Sector

Public Administration: Understanding Management, Politics, and Law in the Public Sector, Ninth Edition grounds students in the fundamentals of public administration while embracing its complexity. It describes, explains, and analyses public administration through the lenses of three well-established perspectives: management, politics, and law. In addition to thoroughly refreshed examples and case studies, significant updates to this new edition include:

• The discussion of management has been collapsed into a single category, contemporary public management, to better reflect the blending of traditional/orthodox and new public management approaches in the field
• Significant changes to federal administration initiated by the Trump administration, the emergence of "hyper" partisanship, major court decisions affecting public administration, and newer scholarship and foci in public administration
• A thoroughly rewritten chapter on budgeting and public finance
• New public governance material incorporated throughout the book, including collaborative models for coordinating administration with private organizations, particularly nonprofits
• Additional attention paid to public participation in public administration, including public administration's potential contribution to strengthening democratic citizenship
• Thorough discussion of the latest managerial techniques and concepts as well as the contemporary performance orientation in the public sector.

Together these revisions reinvigorate the book yet retain its core structure, ideas, and familiarity for students and instructors alike. While the new edition retains its focus on the US context, the focus on managerial, legislative, and judicial functions lends itself well to public administration in many developed nations, making the book a popular choice with instructors around the globe. This time-tested and fully up to date textbook is required reading for all students of public administration, public management, and nonprofit management.