directly administer. Federal administrators manage air traYc control, airline
security, and the national parks, and they pay out entitlements. For most govern-
ment programs that remain, contracts, grants, and other programs account for
most activity. Networked forms of action account for a great deal of state and local
government administration as well. The administration of a substantial part of
government activity therefore requiresWnding leverage over government’s network
of partners instead of directly managing the programs. That, in turn, increasingly
requires the development of new capacity for network management.
At the same time, however, public bureaucracy has keenly felt citizen pressure
for a smaller, more responsive, higher-performing government. As the locus for
much of government’s action, and as the center for most government employment,
the taxpayer revolts that have rolled through government since the late 1970 s
have put public bureaucracy under increasing pressure. ‘‘Doing more with less’’
has been the watchword, often with substantially fewer government employees
and fewer rewards (like pay increases) with which to reward good performance.
Indeed, the impulse for government reform has often focused squarely on bureau-
cratic behavior.
5 The Impulse for Reform
.........................................................................................................................................................................................
Americans had periodically reformed their bureaucracies for more than a century, in
a series of changes that Paul Light ( 1997 ) has called the ‘‘tides of reform.’’ By the 1980 s
and 1990 s, reform had become a truly global phenomenon. Governments every-
where, of widely diVerent sizes, faced remarkably similar complaints from their
citizens about government’s size and ineVectiveness, and those complaints launched
a global revolution in public management reform (Kettl 2005 ). The puzzle: how to
make government smaller, more eVective, and more responsive. The diagnosis
centered on the pathologies of bureaucracy. The solutions varied widely.
- 1 The New Public Management
The major initiative was a movement,Wrst launched in New Zealand and quickly
followed in the United Kingdom, called ‘‘the new public management.’’ Reformers
376 donald f. kettl