Bureaucratic Responsibility

Bureaucratic Responsibility

by John P. Burke
Bureaucratic Responsibility

Bureaucratic Responsibility

by John P. Burke

Paperback

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Overview

A civil servant in the Pentagon blows the whistle on the Defense Department by leaking to the press stories of gross overspending. A high-level official in the Environmental Protection Agency publicly reports irregularities in the handling of toxic waste cleanup and the agency's head is forced to resign. The Energy Department fines oil companies for overcharging consumers; does an official overstep his bounds in ordering that the money be distributed to help the poor and elderly pay their heating bills?

How much do bureaucrats know? And how much should they tell? In "Bureaucratic Responsibility", John Burke moves from case study to theory to explore what is perhaps the most basic problem confronting modern democracy: How are we to make those bureaucracies upon which government relies both accountable and responsive? Responsibility, Burke contends, must not be primarily to the formally defined terms and obligations of a particular office, but to the institutions of American democracy and the public consent. "Bureaucratic Responsibility" is a provocative combination of descriptive analysis, political theory, and prescriptive speculation-- and makes a timely case for a more responsible bureaucracy.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780801836541
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date: 03/01/1988
Pages: 296
Product dimensions: 5.75(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

John P. Burke is associate professor and chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Vermont. He is co-author of How Presidents Test Reality: Decisions on Vietnam, 1954 and 1965 and author of Bureaucratic Responsibility, the latter available from Johns Hopkins.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1. Bureaucratic Responsibility I: External Control?
Chapter 2. Bureaucratic Responsibility II: An Inner Sense of Duty?
Chapter 3. A Democratic Alternative and Its First Principle
Chapter 4. The Second Principle. The Responsible Bureaucrat and Policy Formation
Chapter 5. The Third Principle. The Responsible Bureaucrat and Policy Implementation
Chapter 6. Harm, Social Justice, and the Scope of Bureaucratic Intervention
Chapter 7. Hard Cases, Principles, and the Problem of Rights
Chapter 8. Incorporating Professional Expertise
Chapter 9. Dirty Hands. Moral Duty versus Political Obligation
Chapter 10. Lying and Leaking Information
Chapter 11. The Place of Individual and Group Participation
Conclusion
Notes
Index

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