Anna A. Amirkhanyan and Kristina T. Lambright, Citizen Participation in the Age of Contracting: When Service Delivery Trumps Democracy (New York, NY: Routledge, 2018). 172 pp. $145.00 (hardcover), ISBN: 9781138505391; $49.46 (eBook), ISBN: 9781315146577

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13121
• Date: 01 November 2019
• Author: Pamela S. Medina
• Published date: 01 November 2019

Book Reviews 943

Reviewed by: Pamela S. Medina

California State University San Bernardino

Anna A. Amirkhanyan and Kristina T. Lambright, Citizen

Participation in the Age of Contracting: When Service

Delivery Trumps Democracy (New York, NY: Routledge,

2018). 172 pp. $145.00 (hardcover), ISBN: 9781138505391;

$49.46 (eBook), ISBN: 9781315146577

The only title in our democracy superior to that

of President is the title of citizen.

—Justice Louis Brandeis

The New Public Management (NPM)

emphasized efficiency and decentralization

in service delivery (Osborne and Gaebler

1992), and the impact of NPM’s client-oriented

approach on citizen participation has been widely

debated (Denhardt and Denhardt 2000; Kathi and

Cooper 2005). While public administration literature

has been moving toward a “New Public Service”

approach (Denhardt and Denhardt 2000), the impact

of NPM attitudes is still largely present in public

organizations, and this is particularly evidenced

through the consistent use of contracting, a $2 trillion

annual market (Onvia Exchange 2017). In their book

Citizen Participation in the Age of Contracting: When

Pamela S. Medina is assistant

professor of public administration at

California State University San Bernardino.

Her research interests include citizen

participation and advocacy, as well as the

role of technology in facilitating deliberative

democracy. Her most recent work has been

published in the Journal of Health and

Human Services and the Journal of

Nursing Administration.

E-mail: pamela.medina@csusb.edu