Politics and administration: Woodrow wilson and American Public Administration. Edited by Jack Rabin and James S. Bowman. Marcel Dekker, Inc., New York, 1984, xii + 320 pp
| Date | 01 October 1984 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230040411 |
| Published date | 01 October 1984 |
| Author | G. W. Jones |
Book
Reviews
385
POLITICS AND ADMINISTRATION: WOODROW WILSON AND AMERICAN
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
Edited
by
Jack Rabin and James
S.
Bowman
Marcel Dekker, Inc., New York, 1984, xii
+
320 pp.
This book is a must for students of public administration. It consists
of
eighteen essays by
leading American academics
on
that most critical issue, the relationship between politics and
administration. It focuses on the contribution of Woodrow Wilson and his seminal article
‘The study
of
administration’. The first part sets the article in the context of its times,
exploring the politics, government and culture of the Wilson era. It shows the precursors of
his thought, Germanic and British influences, and it corrects common misconceptions about
how he viewed the connections between politics and administration. The second part assesses
his impact on practice, examining administration, budgeting, personnel management, inter-
governmental relations, leadership, decision-making in bureaucracy and government
organization. The third part considers his influence
on
the study of public administration.
Here are two superb battling chapters by van Riper and Waldo, who debate whether Wilson
was irrelevant, obfuscating and dysfunctional. Part four looks to the future and seeks to
judge his writings for their contribution to current issues such as morality and bureaucracy,
hierarchical organization, civil servants as citizens and even World Government.
However much scholars try to dissolve the distinction between politics and administration it
keeps returning. They constitute two realms inhabited by two types of people, with distinct
systems
of
thought, clusters of attitudes, forms of association and modes of organization.
They interact in complex ways. Much of the study
of
public administration is engaged in
unravelling these linkages. Practitioners, however much they may encroach across the
dividing lines, are aware of the value
of
preserving the distinction. It is
a
means of reconciling
bureaucracy with democracy, and of ensuring that the former can efficiently serve the latter.
G. W.
JONES
London School
of
Economics and Political Science
SOCIAL RESEARCH IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: SURVEYS AND CENSUSES IN
THE THIRD WORLD
Edited
by
Martin Bulmer and Donald
P.
Warwick
Wiley, Chichester, 1983, 383 pp.
This substantial hardback is the third in
a
series of textbooks on social development in the
Third World. Although the editors recognize that much decision making responds to political
reality rather than ‘objective’ analysis of information, they believe that social research has a
contribution to make to policy making. The quality of data, therefore, is crucial. The book is
concerned with problems
of
conducting social surveys in developing countries and provides
useful insights into ways by which such problems might be overcome.
The editors, both
of
whom have experience of undertaking social survey research in
developing countries, provide an introduction in which they review the research methods
available (census, sample survey, case study) and suggest criteria by which an appropriate
choice of method may be made. The remainder of the book is divided into sections related to
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