The Public Sector

This book addresses the increasing need for organizations to make the knowledge and experience of individuals and groups explicit by a providing comprehensive set of methods for capturing that personal and organizational knowledge.

This textbook, revised and expanded for its Second Edition, outlines and illuminates recent theories about public policy and public administration. Jan-Erik Lane analyzes the public sector within a three-part framework: public resource allocation, redistribution and regulation. He explains the basic concepts in these areas and examines their consequences for various approaches to the making and implementation of public policy.

The book explores models of management, effectiveness and efficiency, and assesses some problems inherent in public choice and neo-institutionalist approaches. It gauges the contribution of organizational theory as well as models of normative policy-making. This new edition includes additional chapters on public sector reform, and contrasting the logic of the new management state with that of the old administrative state. It incorporates important insights from the new economics of information. The Public Sector is an ideal introduction to modern political science analysis of the state and government.