A Classic Revisited: In Praise of Red Tape

• Author: Marc Holzer
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12864
• Published date: 01 November 2017
• Date: 01 November 2017

Book Reviews 957

Marc Holzer is distinguished professor

at the Institute of Public Service, Suffolk

University, Boston. He was formerly

founding dean emeritus and university

professor at the School of Public Affairs and

Administration, Rutgers University-Newark.

Previously, he was past president of the

American Society for Public Administration,

and is widely published in the field.

E-mail: mholzer@suffolk.edu

A Classic Revisited: In Praise of Red Tape

Herbert Kaufman , Red Tape: Its Origins, Uses, and Abuses

( Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press , 2015 ).

100 pp. $18.99 (paper), ISBN: 9780815726609 .

F irst published in 1977, Herbert Kaufman ’ s

Red Tape has been widely recognized as a

foundational study of an annoying, debilitating

problem that confronts us all. The term dates back

some two centuries to the red ribbon that bound

British pronouncements of rules and regulations.

It has since become a derogatory element of our

language—indeed of hundreds of languages—and a

seemingly eternal pestilence for which no silver bullet

has yet been found.

Kaufman confronted this beast in the late 1970s, and

in the intervening four decades his slim, but powerful

and prescient, volume has become the sine qua non

of thoughtful perspectives on this topic. This edition,

recently reissued as a “Brookings Classic,” sharpens and

reinforces his arguments. Every faculty member of public

administration, public policy, and government affairs

Danny L. Balfour , Editor

Marc Holzer

Suffolk University