An introduction to concepts, issues, problems, theories, and processes in the field of public administration and/or public management is provided.

Theory and behavior in public and nonprofit organizations are examined. Students can expect to focus on the importance of understanding the behavior, motivations, and actions of individuals in public service and on the distinctiveness of management and leadership in public organizations.

Students are introduced to the tools used to investigate empirical questions relevant to politics, policy, and public administration. Students can expect to apply statistical concepts to contemporary social phenomena.

This course will address the role of the budget in shaping public policy, managing public revenues, budgetary theory, politics, and fiscal management, utilizing examples from state, municipal, and federal governments.

Government-business-society relations with an emphasis on the social, economic, political, technological, ethical, and ecological environment will be examined throughout the course.

Students will receive intensive exposure to issues in political ethics. Discussion of moral issues related to political goals and how the method of achieving those goals may lead to unethical or illegal activity. Personal, professional, organizational, and societal levels of ethics analysis are considered. Learn principles of ethical conduct, to clarify personal values, how morally questionable means are used to achieve political ends, ethical problems in determining and implementing public policy, complexities and ambiguities in moral judgment, and how to make government more accountable and responsive. Profile of moral exemplars in public life will be examined.

The course explores the transition from the electronic government (e-gov) to digital or d-governance, emphasizing political participation, citizen-centric public administration, internet connectivity, cloud computing, and the proliferation of global information technologies and social media. The course analyzes strategies for future organizational transformation and their implications for improved and measurable government performance. The shift from bureaucracy-centered to customer-centric service orientation is viewed as a means to reduce costs, restore public trust and improve service quality: digital governance helps governments at all levels to reduce budget deficits, meet citizens’ expectations and help achieve economic recovery goals.

Students will address modern personnel administration, including topics such as job analysis and design, evaluation and appraisal, recruitment and interviewing, training and development, wages and benefits, and health and safety. In addition, students will study unionization, regulation of wages, hours and working conditions, financial security for workers, and job anti-discrimination legislation.

After introducing the NGO concept and debating this associational revolution, the course focus narrows to the NGOs that work in international development. Students explore the dependency and double dependency debates and question the linkage among politics, voice, legitimacy, and who really speaks for whom in international development. The last half of the course focuses on humanitarian NGO activities in five crises: Rwanda (1994), Darfur (2003-present), North Korea (the late 1990s), Indonesia (2004), and Haiti (2010).

A thorough examination of public policy issue areas including education, health, welfare, and urban mass transit will be conducted. Topics will focus on the limits to the effectiveness of federal, and state and local governments in providing services. Students learn techniques for analyzing the effectiveness of public policies and research techniques for the assessment of future policy alternatives.

Not only does this course teach the definitions and measures of productivity, but it also provides an evaluation of government programs and methods of productivity improvement.

This course will contest one or two new topics per week. Topics include (but are not limited to) the politics-administration dichotomy, ideal-type bureaucracies, and Taylorism, 'satisficing', representative bureaucracy, New Public Management, collaborative governance, the "three E's", at-will employment/outsourcing, social capital, public service motivation, and global administrative law.