Handbook of Public Administration, 3rd Edition

Chapter 35Effective Governance, Effective Administrators

James L. Perry and Robert K. Christensen

This concluding chapter summarizes what we know about effective public governance in order to underscore what it means to be an effective public administrator in today's environment. In the Preface we noted a shift in the paradigms of public administration. The chapters in this third edition of the Handbook underscore that public administration has transitioned in its focus from government enterprises to enterprising governance. While the definition of government enterprise in the second edition was perhaps broad enough to capture some of this shift, the focus on governance is critical to better understand what it means to be an effective public ...