A new issue of the journal Administration is out today.
To mark the journal’s ‘re-launch’, this issue is available in full for free online here.
As many readers will know, Administration is published by the Institute of Public Administration, and has been a key locus for research-led debate on economic development, and of course on wider developments in the public sector and society, since 1953.
The current issue includes prefatory articles from the incoming editor Muiris MacCarthaigh, who `sets out his stall’, and from Tony McNamara, who has edited Administration since 1989. These will be of interest no doubt to a wide readership and to various contributor bases, (e.g., from academic, practitioner and civil society perspectives).
As the contents indicate, the focus of this issue is on public sector reform, with an opening piece by Brendan Howlin TD, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. I guess that Ministers historically have been uneven in how or whether they contribute to debate at this level; perhaps this is a good cue to them, and to politicians more generally, to get their quills out.
Contents
Notes from the Editors:
- “Renewing public administration research and practice” by Muiris MacCarthaigh
- “A final word” by Tony McNamara
Articles:
- “Reform of the public service” by Brendan Howlin, TD
- “Progress and pitfalls in public service reform and performance management in Ireland” by Mary Lee Rhodes & Richard Boyle
- “Regulating everything: From mega- to meta-regulation” by Colin Scott
- “Trust and public administration” by Geert Bouckaert
- “The reform of public administration in Northern Ireland: a squandered opportunity?” by Colin Knox
Reviews:
- Third report of the Organisational Review Programme
- The challenge of change: Putting patients before providers
One reply on “New issue/re-launch of journal Administration available”
I read Brendan Howlin’s piece (the website is timing out, so I left it at that).
Howlin’s article was likely drafted by one of his staff as it covers all the official bases that anyone interested in reform would likely agree with but what is lacking are new ideas.
There is no reference to how things work efficiently elsewhere and anyone who believes that change can be implemented in a large organisation by a committee debating day after day over several years, line-by-line work practices, is delusional or a fool.
There has never been a shortage of good intentions at official level but without leadership willing to confront the forces of censervatism, victory will be declared at some point by emissions of white smoke from the Croke Park conclave – – in the shape of a flag.