ABSTRACT
For the last three decades public administration has been grappling with at least two fundamental and intertwined challenges to the foundations of its guiding theories and practices. First, there is widespread recognition that the conventional divisions between the public, private, and nonprofit sectors are blurring. More and more of the work of public policy formulation and service delivery is taking place outside the realm of the government bureau through partnerships, contracts, interagency agreements, and various forms of networked arrangements (Kjaer 2004; Rhodes 1996; Stoker 1998). While, of course, there remain legal and institutional differences among, for example, public and private organizations, an important consequence of this blurring is that the societal division of labor that sectoral distinctions represented is increasingly problematic. The work of traditional politics and administration and the provision of public goods are now clearly happening-and acknowledged to be happening-in the private and nonprofit spheres. In conjunction with this expansion of the realm of politics, greater numbers of citizens, advocacy groups, and other stakeholders are playing vital roles in the daily work of governing. This all makes pinpointing the location of the work of governing and government more difficult. In a telling metaphor, Denhardt and Denhardt (2003) illustrate the two dimensions of this challenge: “The game of public policy formation is no longer played primarily by those in government. You might even say that now the audience is no longer in the stands, but right there on the field, participating in every play” (84).
