Breaking Through Bureaucracy: A New Vision for Managing in Government Book

"Simple, clear, and persuasive, Breaking Through Bureaucracy contains a lot of good advice on how to make government agencies work better."—Aaron Wildavsky, University of California, Berkeley

"An invaluable overview of the way government can change. This book doesn't simply identify problems, it also provides solutions. Right on!"—Lowell P. Weicker, Jr., Governor of Connecticut"Breaking Through Bureaucracy provides a diagnosis of what inhibits effective governance and offers a highly workable remedy for those ills."—Stephen Goldsmith, Mayor of
Indianapolis

Library Journal

Barzelay teaches at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, and his study of Minnesota state government reform was funded by the Program on Innovations in State and Local Government. Barzelay's text offers a practical examination of government management, while his extensive notes provide a theoretical critique of political leadership and bureaucratic administration. While similar to David Osborne and Ted Gaebler's Reinventing Government (Addison-Wesley, 1992) in arguing for more attention to outcomes (rather than inputs), empowered employees, and a customer orientation, Barzelay is less antigovernment and more pragmatic in his approach. His ``post-bureaucratic paradigm'' recognizes the importance of government and the problems of market-based operations. In addition, Barzelay's theoretical and less generalized arguments will make his work the more lasting critique of modern bureaucratic government. For academic and special collections.-- William Waugh Jr., Georgia State Univ., Atlanta