Constructing the Craft of Public Administration

Christine Shearer is currently an Executive Director within the Australian Tax Office, and she holds a Ph.D. in Management from the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.

This book draws on recent empirical research and reports unique insight into the craft of public administration of the most senior echelons of the Australian Public Service (APS).This work is set in the context of a comparative analysis of the significant public sector reforms by successive governments from the 1980s across Westminster polities. Such reforms and the contemporary management ideas on which they were based, including new managerialism and 'new public management' (NPM) travelled, were translated and transformed with some elements accepted and others rejected. This book addresses how the most senior public servants in the APS construct their craft today amid such reforms. Chapter two covers the myriad of public sector reforms across Westminster polities. Chapters three and four cover the environments and contemporary management ideas which influence public administration. Chapters five and six showcase the public actors and the responsibilities they execute when they construct their craft. The final chapter provides a conceptual model of the craft of public administration and provides implications for theory and practice.

Draws on the work of senior echelons in the Australian Commonwealth Public Service to understand public administration

Part I Introduction.- Chapter 1 Public Administration and the Reform Agenda.- Chapter 2 Contemporary Management Ideas and Public Sector Reforms across Westminster Polities.- Part II The Macro Level -Policy Contexts and Environments.- Chapter 3 The Environments in which Departmental Secretaries Construct the Craft of Public Administration.- Chapter 4 The Impact of Contemporary Management Ideas: Their Influence on Public Administration.- Part III Exploring the Everyday Work Life of the Most Senior Public Servants.- Chapter 5 Departmental Secretaries: The Public Actors who Construct the Craft of Public Administration.- Chapter 6 Roles, Responsibilities and Boundary Riding.- Part IV Discussion, Implications and Conclusions.- Chapter 7 Discussion, Conceptual Model, Contributions and Implications.- Chapter 8 Conclusions.