Serving The Public Interest

Download or read book Serving the Public Interest written by Norma M Riccucci and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-18 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This reader presents a balanced collection of 16 administrative profiles of high-level government and nonprofit officials for course use. The profiles were originally published as part of a series for Public Administration Review. The profiles themselves cover a wide range of public service professionals at the local, state, and federal levels, and are written by a distinguished cast of authors. A concluding chapter by Riccucci pulls together and synthesizes the various themes of the profiles.

Download or read book Public Policy and the Public Interest written by Lok-sang Ho and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-07-03 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a book on public policy, this book is unique in addressing explicitly the role of human nature. Only with a good understanding of human nature can policy makers address their foremost needs and anticipate how people may respond to specific designs in policy. This way policy makers can avoid "unintended consequences." The book also provides a new perspective on the meaning of public interest, which is based on intellectual roots dating back to J.S.Mill and more recently Harsanyi and Rawls. Traditionally, economists have referred to either the Hicksian criterion or the Kaldorian criterion as the yardstick to whether a policy is welfare enhancing, not realizing that both of these criteria fail abjectly in producing a convincing test for welfare improvement. This is because ex post, typically some people will gain and some people will lose from any policy. The author argues for an alternative, ex ante welfare increase criterion that is based on how people would assess a policy if they were completely impartial and totally ignored their personal interests. It applies the principles to key policy concerns such as health policy, tort law reform, education and cultural policy, and pension reform. The healthcare reform proposals in the book illustrate the application of the principles. The author proposes a basic protection plan under which standard basic healthcare services are priced the same whether they are provided by public or private caregivers—at levels that can contain both demand side and supply side moral hazard. Annual eligible healthcare expenses are capped to alleviate worries. A "Lifetime Healthcare Supplement" that includes an element of risk sharing adds to patients’ choice and protection without compromising fiscal sustainability.

Download or read book Public Values and Public Interest written by Barry Bozeman and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2007-10-24 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economic individualism and market-based values dominate today's policymaking and public management circles—often at the expense of the common good. In his new book, Barry Bozeman demonstrates the continuing need for public interest theory in government. Public Values and Public Interest offers a direct theoretical challenge to the "utility of economic individualism," the prevailing political theory in the western world. The book's arguments are steeped in a practical and practicable theory that advances public interest as a viable and important measure in any analysis of policy or public administration. According to Bozeman, public interest theory offers a dynamic and flexible approach that easily adapts to changing situations and balances today's market-driven attitudes with the concepts of common good advocated by Aristotle, Saint Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, and John Dewey. In constructing the case for adopting a new governmental paradigm based on what he terms "managing publicness," Bozeman demonstrates why economic indices alone fail to adequately value social choice in many cases. He explores the implications of privatization of a wide array of governmental services—among them Social Security, defense, prisons, and water supplies. Bozeman constructs analyses from both perspectives in an extended study of genetically modified crops to compare the policy outcomes using different core values and questions the public value of engaging in the practice solely for the sake of cheaper food. Thoughtful, challenging, and timely, Public Values and Public Interest shows how the quest for fairness can once again play a full part in public policy debates and public administration.

Download or read book Regulation and Public Interests written by Steven P. Croley and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-10 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Not since the 1960s have U.S. politicians, Republican or Democrat, campaigned on platforms defending big government, much less the use of regulation to help solve social ills. And since the late 1970s, "deregulation" has become perhaps the most ubiquitous political catchword of all. This book takes on the critics of government regulation. Providing the first major alternative to conventional arguments grounded in public choice theory, it demonstrates that regulatory government can, and on important occasions does, advance general interests. Unlike previous accounts, Regulation and Public Interests takes agencies' decision-making rules rather than legislative incentives as a central determinant of regulatory outcomes. Drawing from both political science and law, Steven Croley argues that such rules, together with agencies' larger decision-making environments, enhance agency autonomy. Agency personnel inclined to undertake regulatory initiatives that generate large but diffuse benefits (while imposing smaller but more concentrated costs) can use decision-making rules to develop socially beneficial regulations even over the objections of Congress and influential interest groups. This book thus provides a qualified defense of regulatory government. Its illustrative case studies include the development of tobacco rulemaking by the Food and Drug Administration, ozone and particulate matter rules by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Forest Service's "roadless" policy for national forests, and regulatory initiatives by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission.

Download or read book Global Media and Communication Policy written by P. Iosifidis and published by Springer. This book was released on 2011-08-26 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Petros Iosifidis addresses an increasingly prominent subject area in the field of media and communications, and one that has attracted increased attention in areas such as sociology, economics, political science and law: global media policy and regulation. Specifically, he considers the wider social, political, economic and technological changes arising from the globalization of the communications industries and assesses their impact on matters of regulation and policy. By focusing on the convergence of the communication and media industries, he makes reference to the paradigmatic shift from a system based on the traditions of public service in broadcast and telecommunications delivery to one that is demarcated by commercialization, privatization and competition. In doing so, Iosifidis tackles a key question in the field: to what extent do new media developments require changes in regulatory philosophy and objectives. It considers the various possible meanings of the public interest concept in exploring the different regulatory modes and the interplay between the local and the global in policy-making.

Download or read book The Ethics Challenge in Public Service written by Carol W. Lewis and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-04-18 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thoroughly revised and updated third edition of The Ethics Challenge in Public Service is the classic ethics text used in public management programs nationwide. It also serves as a valuable tool for public managers who work in a world that presents more ethical challenges every day. It contains a wealth of practical tools and strategies that public managers can use when making ethical choices in the ambiguous pressured world of public service. The book contains new material on topics including social networking, the use of apology, ethics as applied to public policy, working with elected officials, and more.

Download or read book Communications Policy and the Public Interest written by Patricia Aufderheide and published by Guilford Press. This book was released on 1999-01-15 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 inaugurated a new and highly volatile era in telecommunications. The first major overhaul of U.S. communications law since 1934--when no one had a television set, a cordless phone, or a computer--the Act was spurred into being by broad shifts in technology use. Equally important, this book shows, the new law reflects important changes in our notions of the purpose of communications regulation and how it should be deployed. Focusing on the evolution of the concept of the public interest, Aufderheide examines how and why the legislation was developed, provides a thematic analysis of the Act itself, and charts its intended and unintended effects in business and policy. An abridged version of the Act is included, as are the Supreme Court decision that struck down one of its clauses, the Communications Decency Act, and a variety of pertinent speeches and policy arguments. Readers are also guided to a range of organizations and websites that offer legal updates and policy information. Finalist, McGannon Center Award for Social and Ethical Relevance in Communication Policy Research