James L. Perry, ed., Public Service and Good Governance for the Twenty‐First Century (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020). 312 pp. $69.95

• Published date: 01 July 2022
• Author: James Thompson
• Date: 01 July 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13530

776 Public Administration Review • July | A ugus t 202 2

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 82, Iss. 4, pp. 776–778. © 2022 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13530.

James Thompson is associate professor

of public administration emeritus at the

University of Illinois Chicago where he

taught for 25 years.

Email: jthomp@uic.edu

James L. Perry, ed., Public Service and Good Governance for

the Twenty-First Century (Philadelphia, PA: University of

Pennsylvania Press, 2020). 312 pp. $69.95

The all-star cast of contributors to this volume

includes political scientist Norman Ornstein,

political philosopher Francis Fukuyama,

former Senator and presidential candidate Bill

Bradley, former chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance

Corporation, Sheila Bair, dean of the Heinz College

of Information Systems and Public Policy at Carnegie

Mellon University, Ramayya Krishnan, and public

administration scholars Donald Kettl, John DiIulio

Jr., Shelley Metzenbaum, Paul Verkuil, Angela Evans,

and Norma Riccucci. The questions these authors

were asked to address include: “What are the coming

disruptions to government, governance, and public

service?” (2), “What government will emerge as a result

of our past practices and the coming disruptions?” (2),

and, “What institutions and structures will ready us

tomeet the coming changes?” (2).

The questions were posed and the essays were

prepared prior to the events of 2020–2021 including

the COVID-19 pandemic, the denouement of the

Trump presidency, and the movement for racial

justice following the death of George Floyd, and

readers are thus deprived of the authors’ insights

into the consequences of those events for the public

service. Notwithstanding that circumstance, there

is value in having a record of the state of thought

within the discipline just prior to what likely will be

seen as an inflection point in the role of government

in U.S. society and the role of the public service in

governance.

The general take of these authors is that, as of when

the essays were written, the state of governance

in the U.S. was dire. Light describes a “Catch 22

government,” in which “departments and agencies

are caught in a cascade of highly visible breakdowns

that increases public demand for major repairs in how

government works even as the cascade undermines

confidence that such repairs are worth the investment”

(14). Kettl in turn cites, “broken institutions” (121)

and a decline in trust in government, “to a perilous

level” (122), and discerns a, “growing, nagging worry:

that American democracy has gradually become

unmoored from its constitutional roots—and that

Americans have lost confidence that their government

can deliver” (121). According to Kettl, “we are far past

the point of solving the problem by tinkering with

institutions or asking elected officials to reform their

behavior” (132). As to what can be done or how to

proceed, Kettl presents only some very general ideas,

for example, “more focus on the rule of law” (136),

“more attention to data” (136), and “more citizenship

by citizens” (136).

For Ornstein, the impoverished state of the public

service is attributable to actions by members of

the Republican Party that date back to the 1990s

to “delegitimize government, starve its resources,

and trash its employees” (99) with the Trump

administration as the apotheosis of this movement.

Ornstein describes Trump’s approach to governance as

“kakistocracy” (87) which he defines as “government

by the worst and most unscrupulous people

among us” (87). Ornstein cites multiple examples

of individuals appointed by Trump to important

positions for which they were wholly unqualified and

the demoralizing consequences of such appointments

for members of the career service. Ornstein sees

glimmers of hope for the future in “occasional signs

of a return to bipartisan agreement, cooperation, and

compromise” (99), and in having the Democrats in

the majority in the House of Representatives.

None of the proposals or solutions presented by the

contributors to this volume seem to match the scale

of the challenges identified. Perry himself seems

to acknowledge this point in commenting: “The

essays in this volume show that we have large gaps in

knowledge about what courses of action to pursue to

address an array of important questions concerning

technology, institutions, competencies, and more”

(10). One of the more innovative ideas is put forth by

DiIulio who proposes to “rein in” what he regards as

an excessive reliance on contractors by federal agencies

via a new “Volcker rule for federal contractors”

Reviewed by: James Thompson

University of Illinois Chicago

Book Reviews

Galia Cohen, Editor