The American Review of Public Administration

This article reviews and synthesizes diverse streams of literature to assess the potential of deliberative democracy for American public administration. It asserts that the field should refocus its attention on the role of citizens in the work of government to help address the pervasive citizenship and democratic deficits in the United States. American public administration has an obligation to address these deficits because (a) it is required to do so by democratic ethos, (b) it has contributed to the deficits with its widespread embrace of bureaucratic ethos, and (c) it must find ways to effectively engage citizens within modern network and collaborative governance structures. This article identifies deliberative democracy as one potential method to help fulfill these obligations and explains how deliberative processes may help address the deficit problems. The article concludes by identifying a preliminary research agenda for exploring the potential of deliberative democracy for public administration.

To what extent do local revenue decisions depend on the opportunities and constraints created by provisions for direct democracy in local charters? We treat local government charters as a constitutional contract to identify the potential consequences for local government revenue decisions that arise from provisions for direct democracy. This framework bridges competing models and empirically tests propositions linking local revenues in large cities between 1981 and 2004 to the incentive structure resulting from city charter provisions for initiative, referendum, and recall. We find that initiative provisions stimulate demands for public goods leading to greater revenues but that referendum and recall provisions constrain revenue growth.

Researchers have suggested that American counties are emerging as leaders in local governance. This is mainly attributed to counties being called on to provide a whole host of new services to an ever-growing population. County managers are known to play a critical role in the provision of these services. Thus, the extent of turnover among county managers can significantly affect the services provided to a community. To date, researchers know very little about the factors contributing to county manager turnover. Several empirical analyses have explored tenure and turnover patterns of top-level government executives, yet these analyses have principally focused on cities. The purpose of this article is to extend existing research on city and county manager turnover. In this study, the authors test hypotheses with data on county manager turnover from 32 large counties with populations greater than 500,000 over a period of 15 years (1992-2006). As with prior studies performed on city manager turnover, the authors posit that county manager turnover in counties with a commission—manager form of government are influenced by forces of political uncertainty, fiscal stress, and community instability. The results show that increases in measurements of political uncertainty, fiscal stress, and community instability positively influence county manager turnover. Furthermore, the results show that increases in a county manager’s level of formal education increase the odds that a county manager will remain in office. Similar increases were found when county managers who were promoted from within the organization were compared with those who were recruited from external sources.

The oath of office is perhaps the ultimate means to set public office apart: Public functionaries in most countries have to swear to let public interests prevail over private concerns. This seems at odds with the prevailing liberal/managerial idea that public and private employment is not distinct at all. The oath of office establishes a moral commitment to the office that transcends a contractual, managerial, and/or legal approach to public authority. It signifies the guardianship of public officers and links personal conscience with public values and public interests. This article concludes that we should guard against using an oath of office as a remedy against increased reliance on private interests and motivations; rather the latter may endanger a public service ethics and annul any meaning and function an oath may still represent to begin with.

Assessing public network performance is conceptually and methodologically challenging, because it is difficult to account for a public network’s multidimensional characteristics. This is one of the reasons why there are few fully developed conceptual frameworks that are supported by field-based empirical evidence. This theoretical underdevelopment makes it problematic for researchers to propose ways that professional managers may better develop, coordinate, and evaluate public networks.This article helps address this problem by extending and operationalizing Provan and Milward’s framework for multilevel (i.e., organizational, network, community) network effectiveness with Herranz’s concept of multisectoral network coordination strategies (i.e., bureaucratic, entrepreneurial, community). This article addresses the research question of whether network coordination is associated with network performance. The study finds that different network coordination approaches are associated with differential multilevel network performance and suggests that researchers and public managers consider network performance implications within the context of a strategic network coordination framework. Rather than offering a new theory to explain network effectiveness, this article aims to help build out “middle-range” theory as a step toward helping to construct more robust conceptual frameworks that inform the development of network management strategies and performance measurement tools for practitioners.

Since the 2000 election, one of the most contentious issues in election administration has been voter identification requirements. This article provides the results of a survey of registered voters in Indiana, Maryland, and Mississippi, which aimed to explore the extent to which ID requirements pose a problem (if any) to registered voters. The survey found that only 1.2% of registered voters in all three states lack a photo ID and in Indiana, which has the most stringent requirements, only 0.3% lacked an ID. The survey also found that more than two-thirds of respondents believe the U.S. electoral system would be trusted more if voters were required to show a photo ID. The article concludes with a proposal on how to construct an ID system that will assure ballot integrity while attracting new and more voters.