Substituting new forms of collaboration and management for hierarchical, bureaucratic chains of command cannot and should not mean abandoning traditional commitments to the public values of liberty, equality, and fairness. Public actors have an obligation to meet the standards for government behavior that grow out of those values and are incorporated in public law. As Donald Kettl has observed, the government ?is not just another principal dealing with another agent.? Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in the ongoing scandal over the abuse of prison inmates in Iraq.
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Public Ethics, Legal Accountability, and the New Governance
We take issue with the notion that the transfer of sovereignty to nongovernmental agents is merely a management problem, because legal restrictions on the use and reach of public authority are fundamental to the United States? political and constitutional order. Explicit legal standards of right and wrong are a defining feature of American government (Frederickson 1993, 248; see also Rohr 1998). Substituting new forms of collaboration and management for hierarchical, bureaucratic chains of command cannot and should not mean abandoning traditional commitments to the public values of liberty, equality, and fairness.
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Holding ‘Governance’ Accountable
Public administration scholars and schools of public affairs increasingly use the term ?governance? to describe the processes they study and teach. Governance?rather than the older word ?government??is thought to be a more accurate descriptor of the reality of contemporary state structures, where an ever-increasing percentage of the work of the state is outsourced to for-profit, non-profit and faith-based organizations. It is the intent of this article to suggest that before policymakers and public managers accept third-party government as a fait accompli, to be reconceptualized and relabeled accordingly, we be sure that we really understand the implications for public administration theory and practice.
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What Separation of Church and State? Constitutional Competence of Congregational Leaders
While government units have provided services through religious nonprofits for decades,[6] Charitable Choice and the President?s initiative encourage direct contracts with religious congregations, rather than with the 501(c)3 affiliates that have traditionally delivered social services with government dollars. Those traditional providers?Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services, Jewish Family Services and the like?have generally displayed a sensitivity to the constitutional constraints that accompany public funds.[7] Congregations, however, unlike religious social service agencies, are first and foremost communities of worship.[8] It is fair to ask whether the leaders of such communities are as familiar with those constitutional constraints, and as willing, or able, to operate within them.
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Privatization and Social Capital: Unasked Questions
Interestingly, despite a widespread belief that the voluntary sector is an important generator of social capital, no one to date has studied whether the seemingly inexorable growth of government contracting with nonprofit organizations might be contributing to a decline, slowing that decline, or changing the character of the social capital that is produced.
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