Customer Reviews

The Future of Governing (Studies in Government and Public Policy)

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What's the point of writing a book if you are going to make the language so complex that no one understands it? I am an intelligent grad student who has read a LOT of books, but I found myself having to read sentences three or four times to figure out what point was being made. My classmates all felt the same.

Peters's book The Future of Governing (2001) is an interesting theoretical synopsis of continual challenges joined with an emerging obsession to reform the global public sectors. In the other words this book, with its comparative intention and partial historical analysis, provides very complex picture of the current situation with several implications how the public administration should look like in the future.
Moreover, by reading this book I've got an impression that the reforms are mostly based on good governance practices which should indirectly create one ideal system which would fit to the public sectors all around the world. However, the concept of New Public Management and principals of democracy - where citizens are not anymore only receivers but also active players, have created situation which requires unceasing improvements of public performance - only because people are different and they have different needs which constantly change with the time.
I highly recommend this book to everybody who wants to find inspiring answers on often contradictory activities occurring in the current public sector.

If this is the second edition, I'd be scared to open the first. This book reads like the rough draft of a lengthy working paper. The sentences are convoluted and don't flow from one to the next, and the author seems to go out of his way to make everything passive tense and start every sentence with "it". Combine this with the breezy way in which he briefly invokes concepts from other papers or recent history (sometimes three or four in a sentence) without providing any explanation whatsoever, and you have a difficult read. If you're educated enough to catch most of his "inside jokes" (he loves quotes), you probably don't need to read the book anyway.

I'm also frustrated by the way he slips personal opinions in as facts, often without providing any substantiating argument or background. I'm new to political science, but I know that in the social sciences if you espouse a certain view you should at least explain why, and probably also mention that there are other opinions on the matter. For example, on page 2:

"Despite the popular mythology to the contrary, it is rare that governments are imperialistic and go looking for new problems to solve; they are more likely to be handed the poisoned chalice of an insuperable problem."

Peters states this as plain, bald truth: no mention is made of public choice theory, which makes a valid rebuttal to Peters' opinion. I'm sure the book could be a useful EDITORIAL on the subject of 20th century policy reform after some thorough editing, but it shouldn't parade as a text.