“A Nervous Area of Government”: A Serious Impediment to Our Realization of Democracy

• Published date: 01 November 2014
• Date: 01 November 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12299
• Author: Elizabeth S. Overman

808 Public Administration Review • November | December 2014

Elizabeth S. Overman is associate

professor at the University of Central

Oklahoma, where she was the 2014

university-wide recipient of the faculty

adjudged award for service to the

university and the community. Her

research and teaching interests include

equity, globalization, program evaluation,

nonprof‌i t management, and sustainable

economic development.

E-mail: eoverman@uco.edu

and public policy in the L. Douglas Wilder School of

Government and Public Af‌f airs, and executive direc-

tor of the Grace E. Harris Leadership Institution at

Virginia Commonwealth University. In this book, she

identif‌i es a distinctly enduring imbalance in American

society that is widely known but, until this tome

was published, seemed so intractable as to defy any

solution short of a total social overhaul. As one of my

graduate students candidly stated, “We all know about

the problems of race. We talk about them all the time

at home, but never in the workplace.” Unfortunately,

Susan T. Gooden, Race and Social Equity: A

Nervous Area of Government (Armonk, NY:

M. E. Sharpe, 2014). 213 pp. $74.95 (cloth),

ISBN: 9780765631785; $34.95 (paper),

ISBN: 9780765637185; eBook ($22.95),

ISBN: 9780765637222.

Susan T. Gooden, author of Race and Social

Equity: A Nervous Area of Government, is a

fellow of the National Academy of Public

Administration, professor of public administration

“A Nervous Area of Government”: A Serious Impediment

to Our Realization of Democracy

Sonia M. Ospina and Rogan Kersh, Editors

Elizabeth S. Overman

University of Central Oklahoma