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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Public Administration

Leadership

Thomas A Bryer

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

William Robertson: Exemplar Of Politics And Public Management Rightly Understood, Terry Cooper, Thomas Bryer Dec 2006

William Robertson: Exemplar Of Politics And Public Management Rightly Understood, Terry Cooper, Thomas Bryer

Thomas A Bryer

William Robertson, director of the City of Los Angeles' Bureau of Street Services, is profiled here as an exemplary public administrator. The authors suggest that Robertson practices politics appropriately in his role in order to achieve great outcomes for his bureau, the citizens with whom he works, and the city as a whole. To adequately define the ways in which Robertson uses politics, Sherry Arnstein's "ladder of participation" is reconceptualized as a circle of participation in which Robertson uses multiple strategies of interaction with citizens, elected officials, employees, and peers. Lessons for public administrators are offered based on Robertson's example.


Negotiating Bureaucratic Responsiveness In Collaboration With Citizens: Findings From Action Research In Los Angeles, Thomas Bryer Dec 2006

Negotiating Bureaucratic Responsiveness In Collaboration With Citizens: Findings From Action Research In Los Angeles, Thomas Bryer

Thomas A Bryer

The Collaborative Learning Project conducted an action research program in the City of Los Angeles between 2003 and 2006, in which researchers facilitated a collaborative process between recently created neighborhood councils and city departments of council choosing. In two cases conducted, the patterns of administrative responsiveness to the neighborhood councils differed substantially. This dissertation asks: How can we explain the patterns of administrator responsiveness observed in each of two cases of collaboration between administrators and neighborhood council representatives? To answer the question, an exploratory assessment of each case was conducted from multiple emergent perspectives using an inductive analysis. Data from …