Accounting and accountability: bottom lines and basic mistakes

Abstract

Political leaders in the United States and Great Britain over the past several decades have been denigrating the performance of public managers and focusing the reform agenda on emulating the efficiency and cost-savings techniques of business. Recently, however, the English have been taking up another set of problems--those flowing from lack of clarity as to the proper relationship between politics and administration. This article will argue that it is now time for Americans to follow suit and to put the politics-administration relationship at the forefront of the public administration agenda in order to promote a more ethical, more effective, and more attractive public service profession.