Book review: Strategies for Governing: Reinventing Public Administration for a Dangerous Century
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0144739421997509 |
| Published date | 01 March 2023 |
| Date | 01 March 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Book Review
Book review
Alasdair Roberts (2019) Strategies for Governing: Reinventing Public Administration for a Dangerous
Century. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 210 pp, $115.00 cloth, $25.95 paper
Reviewed by: James L Perry , Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
DOI: 10.1177/0144739421997509
This is an interesting and engaging book. Alasdair Roberts offers a coherent and com-
prehensive new direction for the field of public administration. His position is clearly
argued. His proposals are provocative because they depart sharply from recent ortho-
doxy. At the outset, I want to be clear that I agree with much of Roberts’s argument.
Although I offer critical perspective in this review, it is important that readers put my
criticism in context. Roberts’s goals are ambitious, and what he delivers sometimes falls
short of his aspirations.
Let me begin by summarizing Roberts’s argument. I condense it here to four
premises:
1. The public management approach has become dominant in public administration;
2. The public management approach has largely focused conversations about public
administration at the micro-level;
3. An intellectually robust public administration demands attention to macro-,
meso- and micro-levels of discourse;
4. Filling the void that has materialized requires renewed attention to macro-
constructs, specifically the “state,” “strategies for governing,” and “institutional
stewardship.”
Roberts is transparent about his intent. He tells readers he is not arguing that the
public management approach be abandoned. He is interested instead in complementing
the public management approach with an alternative that looks at big questions and the
big picture.
After establishing in the introductory chapter that the public management approach is
dominant and needs to be complemented by an alternative that looks at big questions and
the big picture, Roberts fleshes out key ideas in Part I. He proceeds to define what he
means by the state, strategies for governing, which he defines as “an overall view about
how state authority ought to be exercised” (p. 43), and institutional stewardship. His
Teaching Public Administration
ªThe Author(s) 2021
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2023, Vol. 41(1) 28–31
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