Values and Virtues in Public Administration: Post‐NPM Global Fracture and Search for Human Dignity and Reasonableness

• Date: 01 March 2012
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2011.02536.x
• Author: Chester A. Newland
• Published date: 01 March 2012

Book Reviews 293

Chester A. Newland is a past ASPA

president and past PAR editor. He has been

a fellow of the National Academy of Public

Administration since 1975. He was initial

director of the Lyndon B. Johnson

Presidential Library, and twice he directed

the Federal Executive Institute. He has

worked in more than a dozen nations. He

has served on the faculties of the University

of North Texas, George Mason University,

and the University of Southern California.

E-mail: newland@usc.edu

Book Reviews

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 72, Iss. 2, pp. 293–302. © 2012 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.111/j.1540-6210.2011.02536.x.

reasoned alarm about what most perceive as continued

wreckage in its wake. Problems identif‌i ed range from

weakened and/or displaced civic and public service

values and performance capacities to what they report

as pandemic public and private corruption.

For several years, these authors have shared ef‌f orts

with others in research and conferences as the IIAS

Working Group on Virtues and Values, seeking

understanding of ways to advance constitutionally

responsible, situationally informed, ef‌f ective govern-

ance behaviors. For example, in a centerpiece chap-

ter in this book, “ e Institutional Perspective on

Values and Virtues,” Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom

and Vincent Ostrom of Indiana University update

and detail research, f‌i ndings, and conclusions of

their institutional analysis and development (IAD)

framework, developed since the start of the 1970s. As

another example among many, Demetrios Argyriades,

a United Nations (UN) professional, presents a near-

monograph-length analysis of cutting-edge challenges

based in deep understanding of the classics, “ e

Relevance of Socrates in Our Days.” Other authors

are from Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, Japan,

Latin America, the Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden,

the United Kingdom, and the United States.

 e shared values and virtues theme is sustained

throughout three groupings of comparative analyses in

this IIAS book.  e f‌i rst four chapters probe contem-

porary conf‌l icts and agreements as well as historical

understandings about governance values and public

virtue fundamentals.  e next four chapters probe

disciplinary perspectives in economics and social

psychology, broader f‌i eld understandings from the

Ostroms’ institutional analysis, and public administra-

tion roots and realities in political theory and practice.

 e f‌i nal chapters deal with recent developments in

varied parts of the world and conclusions drawn from

all of these authors.  ese subject groupings account

for the three principal parts of this review. First, how-

ever, three books that complement the IIAS theme

are introduced.  e concluding analysis focuses on

Michiel S. de Vries and Pan Suk Kim, eds., Value and

Virtue in Public Administration: A Comparative

Perspective (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). xi,

327 pp. $105.00 (cloth), ISBN: 9780230236479.

Daniel T. Rodgers, Age of Fracture (Cambridge, MA:

Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2011). 352 pp.

$29.95 (cloth), ISBN: 9780674057449.

Anne-Marie Slaughter,  e Idea  at Is America:

Keeping Faith with Our Values in a Dangerous

World (New York: Basic Books, 2007). xviii, 254 pp.

$15.95 (paper), ISBN: 9780465078097.

George Kateb, Human Dignity (Cambridge, MA:

Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2011). xiii,

238 pp. $22.95 (cloth), ISBN: 978067404837.

Virtue in public administration, anchored in

shared and varied values of constitution-

ally responsible democratic regimes, is the

fundamental challenge addressed in the 15 broadly

researched and deeply reasoned chapters of the book

that is principally reviewed here, Value and Virtue in

Public Administration: A Comparative Perspective.  is

collection is the work of the International Institute

of Administrative Sciences (IIAS), the most glob-

ally widespread professional organization in public

administration, counting among its membership

nation-states, national sections, international organiza-

tions, corporate members, and individuals. Created in

1930 in Madrid, the IIAS is headquartered in Brus-

sels, and its president (2010–2013) is Pan Suk Kim of

South Korea, a coeditor of the book under review. He

and the other 17 authors, residing in a dozen widely

distanced countries, share concerns that public interests

have been and are being gravely damaged, locally

to globally, by ideological, one-best-way variations

on market economics and government managerialism,

particularly by the remaining vestiges of New Public

Management (NPM). Promoted from the mid-1970s

through the mid-1990s as universal, NPM has become

increasingly passé. However, these authors express

Values and Virtues in Public Administration: Post-NPM

Global Fracture and Search for Human Dignity

and Reasonableness

Sonia M. Ospina and Rogan Kersh, Editors

Chester A. Newland

University of Southern California