Freedom Is Not Enough or Sharing Power Public Governance and Private Markets

Freedom Is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace

Author: Nancy MacLean

In the 1950s, the exclusion of women and of black and Latino men from higher-paying jobs was so universal as to seem normal to most Americans. Today, diversity in the workforce is a point of pride. How did such a transformation come about?

In this bold and groundbreaking work, Nancy MacLeanshows how African-American and later Mexican-American civil rights activists and feminists concluded that freedom alone would not suffice: access to jobs at all levels is a requisite of full citizenship. Tracing the struggle to open the American workplace to all, MacLean chronicles the cultural and political advances that have irrevocably changed our nation over the past fifty years.

Freedom Is Not Enough reveals the fundamental role jobs play in the struggle for equality. We meet the grassroots activists—rank-and-file workers, community leaders, trade unionists, advocates, lawyers—and their allies in government who fight for fair treatment, as we also witness the conservative forces that assembled to resist their demands. Weaving a powerful and memorable narrative, MacLean demonstrates the life-altering impact of the Civil Rights Act and the movement for economic advancement that it fostered.

The struggle for jobs reached far beyond the workplace to transform American culture. MacLean enables us to understand why so many came to see good jobs for all as the measure of full citizenship in a vital democracy. Opening up the workplace, she shows, opened minds and hearts to the genuine inclusion of all Americans for the first time in our nation's history.

Interesting textbook: The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating or Effective Leadership in Adventure Programming

Sharing Power: Public Governance and Private Markets

Author: Donald F Kettl

In the flush of enthusiasm to make govemment work better, reformers from both left and right have urged government to turn as many functions as possible over to the private sector and to allow market competition to instill efficiency and choice. In fact, government has been doing just this for years: every major policy initiative launched since World War II has been managed by public-private partnerships. Yet such privatization has not solved government's problems. While there have been some positive results, there has been far less success than advocates of market competition have promised. In a searching examination of why the "competition prescription" has not worked well, Donald F. Kettl finds that government has largely been a poor judge of private markets. Because government rarely operates in truly competitive markets, contracting out has not so much solved the problems of inefficiency as aggravated them. Government has often not proved to be an intelligent consumer of the goods and services it has purchased. Kettl provides specific recommendations as to how government can become a "smart buyer," knowing what it wants and judging better what it has bought. Through detailed case studies, Kettl shows that as market imperfections increase, so do problems in governance and management. He examines the A-76 program for buying goods and services, the FTS-2000 telecommunications system, the Superfund program, the Department of Energy's production of nuclear weapons, and contracting out by state and local governments. He argues that government must be more aggressive in managing contracts if it is to build successful partnerships with outside contractors. Kettl maintains that the answer is not more government, but a smarter one, which requires strong political leadership to refocus the bureaucracy's mission and to change the bureaucratic culture.

Library Journal

In Government by Proxy: (Mis?)Managing Federal Programs (Congressional Quarterly Press, 1988) political scientist Kettl discussed the increasing reliance of the federal government upon intermediaries to carry out governmental policy. In his current book he continues this theme, explaining that this trend receives support from leaders both on the left and right of the political spectrum who endorse contracting out for services. While not disputing that benefits can be derived from privatization, he does show, through several case studies, that careful scrutiny must be made of this process. To succeed, Kettl believes career government officials must become smart buyers of services and able to negotiate and manage contracts, while elected and appointed officials must become aware of the issues involved in contracting and be able to determine and preserve core governmental functions. Recommended for large business and public administration collections.-- Robert Logsdon, Indiana State Lib . , Indianapolis

Booknews

Political scientist Kettl (U. of Wisconsin, Madison) asserts that government's reliance upon the private sector has grown faster than its ability to manage it, and that aggressive management of contracts (smarter buying) is imperative. He scrutinizes four cases: the A-76 program, the FTS-2000 system, the Superfund program, and management of environmental and health problems at nuclear weapons production facilities. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Table of Contents:

Ch. 1	The Competition Prescription	1
	The Hidden Growth of Public-Private Partnerships	6
	Private Markets	14
	Public Interests	17
	The Myth of the Self-Governing Market	20
Ch. 2	Government and Markets	21
	The Contracting Relationship	22
	Different Markets, Different Problems	29
	Sharing Power	37
Ch. 3	The A-76 Program: Logistics and Libraries	41
	Devising a Competitive Process	43
	The Fruits of Competition	46
	Contracting Out and Government Employees	58
	The Government as Buyer	62
Ch. 4	The FTS-2000 System: Federal Telecommunications	67
	The Problem of Competition	68
	Competition in Contracting	72
	Administering the Contract	85
	Managing Market Competition	94
Ch. 5	Superfund: Red Ice and Purple Dogs	99
	Negotiating Market Behavior	101
	Controlling the Market	105
	Program Oversight	116
	Agency Cultures	122
	An Imperfect Marketplace	126
Ch. 6	Nuclear Weapons Production: Bombs and Bomb Makers	129
	Trouble at Rocky Flats	134
	Changing the Bureaucratic Culture	146
	The Intelligence of Government	152
Ch. 7	Contracting Out in State and Local Governments	155
	The Evidence on State and Local Contracting	157
	Contracting Out for Social Services	165
	Accountability in Service Networks	175
Ch. 8	The Smart-Buyer Problem	179
	The Government as Smart Buyer	180
	Mutual Dependence	182
	Management Issues for Contracting	193
Ch. 9	Managing Versus Governing	199
	Coping with Uncertainty	202
	Governing through Leadership	211
	Index	213