The Radical Right, the National Municipal League Smear File, and the Controversy over Metropolitan Government in the United States during the Postwar Years

Public Voices ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
John F. Brennan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Metropolitan Governance ◽  
Metropolitan Government ◽  
The Public ◽  
Grass Roots ◽  
Key Events

This paper reports on activities undertaken by the National Municipal League (NML) and the Public Administration Service (PAS) during the 1950’s and 1960’s to counter libelous and slanderous actions taken by grass roots activists in opposition to efforts to reform metropolitan governance across the United States. I utilize records from the NML archives—and give special attention to their “Smear File”—to chronicle and analyze the key events and actors. Specifically, I focus on the ideas of opponents of metropolitan government reform from the South and West in the United States including Jo Hindman, Dan Smoot, and Don Bell. These individuals used right-wing idea distribution vehicles including magazines, small-town newspapers, and subscription newsletters to disseminate their arguments and rally support for their cause. I also analyze the actions of their foes at the NML and PAS—namely those of Alfred Willoughby, Executive Director of the National Municipal League; H.G. Pope, President of the Public Administration Service;Richard S. Childs, former President of the National Municipal League; and Karl Detzer,Roving Editor for Reader’s Digest and contributing writer for the National Municipal Review, the academic and professional journal of the National Municipal League. This study adds to the literature explaining the lack of metropolitan governmental frameworks at the local level in the United States, which has been built on the work of Charles Tiebout, Vincent Ostrom, Robert Bish, Ronald Oakerson, and Roger Parks. Although this analysis is idiographic and historical in perspective, it does not necessarily challenge the core empirical results of the nomothetic modeling of these scholars.

Celebrity and Presidential Targets

Stalking ◽  
2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert T. M. Phillips
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Figures ◽  
Celebrity Status ◽  
The Status ◽  
Unique Factor ◽  
The Mind

Celebrities have become targets of potentially violent stalkers who instill fear by their relentless pursuit and, in some reported cases, threatened risk of violence. Celebrity stalking may evolve to planned, often violent attacks on intentionally selected targets. The causes of these incidents are complex, and frequently involve delusional obsessions concerning a contrived relationship between the target and stalker. Similar dynamics can be at play for presidential stalkers. Becoming the focus of someone’s delusional obsession is a risk for anyone living in the public eye. Planned attacks by stalkers, however, are not confined to internationally prominent public officials and celebrities. Some of the same themes emerge on a more local level when public figures become the object of pursuit. Celebrity and presidential stalkers often do not neatly fit any of the typologies that have evolved to codify our understanding of the motivation and special characteristics of stalking. Clinicians are often unaware of a “zone of risk” that extends beyond the delusional love object and can lead to the injury of others in addition to the attempted or accomplished homicide of a celebrity or presidential target. Most people can resist the temptation to intrude on a celebrity’s privacy—celebrity stalkers do not. This chapter explores celebrity status, as seen by the public and in the mind of the would-be assailant, as a unique factor in stalking cases that raises issues of clinical relevance and unique typologies. Special attention is given to the behaviors and motivations of individuals who have stalked the presidents of the United States. Many celebrities become targets of stalkers who relentlessly pursue and frighten them and who, in some cases, threaten violence. Though each case of celebrity stalking is unique and complex, such incidents frequently involve delusional obsessions concerning the contrived relationship between the stalker and victim. Stalking is not confined solely to well-known figures, of course. However, it is the very nature of celebrity—the status and the visibility—that attracts the benign (if voyeuristic) attention of an adoring public and the ominous interest of the stalker. Obsessional following of celebrities is not a new phenomenon in the United States.

Defending Government: Why Big Government Works. By Max Neiman. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000. 260p. $27.00 paper.

2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (1) ◽  
pp. 217-218
Author(s):  
John C. Pierce
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Goal Achievement ◽  
Graduate Courses ◽  
The Public

Max Neiman provides a concise, well-written, and compre- hensive critical analysis of "the conservative attack on the public sector, especially its explanation for and evaluation of the size and growth of the public sector in the United States" (p. viii). In doing so, however, he only partially fulfills what is promised in the subtitle, namely, explaining why big govern- ment works. Rather than explicitly assess the reasons for goal achievement in a variety of policy areas, as the title implied to me, Neiman focuses on why we have big government and on the various critiques of that size. To be sure, the book is appropriate for upper division and graduate courses in political science, public policy, or public administration.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Alasdair Roberts
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Public Management ◽  
The United States ◽  
Management Approach ◽  
The Public ◽  
Change Of Direction

This introductory chapter provides a background of public administration. In the United States, the field of public administration was launched almost a century ago by people with bold aspirations. They were not interested only in the efficiency of government offices; they wanted a thorough overhaul of the American state so that it could manage the pressures of modern-day life. Unfortunately, this expansive view of the field's purpose has been lost. Over the last four decades in particular, the focus within the field has been mainly on smaller problems of management within the public sector. This is sometimes called the “public management approach.” This narrowing of focus might have made sense in the United States and a few other advanced democracies in the waning decades of the twentieth century, but it does not make sense today. Many people have recently protested this shrinking of ambitions. Thus, there is a need for a change of direction and to recover an expansive view of the field. This book proposes a way to do so.

scholarly journals The "coming day" of digital government in the United States: a strategy for artificial intelligence

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1 SI) ◽  
pp. 103-106
Author(s):  
Oleksii Onufriienko
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
United States ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Department Of Defense ◽  
Pilot Project ◽  
The United States ◽  
Digital Government ◽  
Public Governance ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Us

The US Department of Defense Artificial Intelligence Strategy (2018) as a pilot project of promising e-modernization of the public sector of this country is analyzed, its place among other initiatives on digitalization of public administration of the current US Presidential Administration is determined, its specific public-administrative logic is clarified. the specifics of this project through the prism of the tasks of modernization of public governance in transforming societies.

scholarly journals Revealing public opinion towards COVID-19 vaccines using Twitter data in the United States: a spatiotemporal perspective

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tao Hu ◽  
Siqin Wang ◽  
Wei Luo ◽  
Yingwei Yan ◽  
Mengxi Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Sentiment ◽  
Spatiotemporal Trends ◽  
The Us ◽  
Key Events

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed a large, initially uncontrollable, public health crisis both in the United States (US) and across the world, with experts looking to vaccines as the ultimate mechanism of defense. The development and deployment of COVID-19 vaccines have been rapidly advancing via global efforts. Hence, it is crucial for governments, public health officials, and policy makers to understand public attitudes and opinions towards vaccines, such that effective interventions and educational campaigns can be designed to promote vaccine acceptance. Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate public opinion and perception on COVID-19 vaccines by investigating the spatiotemporal trends of their sentiment and emotion towards vaccines, as well as how such trends relate to popular topics on Twitter in the US. Methods: We collected over 300,000 geotagged tweets in the US from March 1, 2020 to February 28, 2021. We examined the spatiotemporal patterns of public sentiment and emotion over time at both national and state scales and identified three phases along the pandemic timeline with the significant changes of public sentiment and emotion. We further linked the changes to eleven key events and major topics as the potential drivers to induce such changes via cloud mapping of keywords and topic modeling. Results: An increasing trend of positive sentiment in parallel with the decrease of negative sentiment are generally observed in most states, reflecting the rising confidence and anticipation of the public towards COVID-19 vaccines. The overall tendency of the eight types of emotion implies the trustiness and anticipation of the public to vaccination, accompanied by the mixture of fear, sadness and anger. Critical social/international events and/or the announcements of political leaders and authorities may have potential impacts on the public opinion on vaccines. These factors, along with important topics and manual reading of popular posts on eleven key events, help identify underlying themes and validate insights from the analysis. Conclusions: The analyses of near real-time social media big data benefit public health authorities by enabling them to monitor public attitudes and opinions towards vaccine-related information in a geo-aware manner, address the concerns of vaccine skeptics and promote the confidence of individuals within a certain region or community, towards vaccines.

scholarly journals The US American Self-criticism. Stories of Anger and Bewilderment

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-74
Author(s):  
Montserrat Huguet
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
The United States ◽  
American People ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Us History ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Us ◽  
Limited Company ◽  
Paranoid Style

Criticism to the system is a core place in the US American culture.The self-criticism gets its roots in the permanent restlessness of the American People, in their fears, in their dissatisfaction, and even in their insane self-destructive behabiour. Many episodes in the American history have worked out from attitudes of paranoia, disgust or anger towards communities or the public administration. The natural rhythm of society in the United States is far from acceptance and calm. On the contrary, the US history is defined by restlessnees and doubious sentiments. Thus, one might think that the American dream is fundamentally a state of permanent crisis in which people, unable to deal with their present vital conditions, transmute these conditions into havoc and creation. In the pages of this article, a breaf tour into the historical and cultural trend of discouragement is offered. It also pays attention to the American ability to self-analyze its own historical experiences. The fictionated stories, that come from the imagination but also from people’s voices and memories, convey a sense of dissatisfaction and of struggle to improve the American way of behaving. Those citizens, especially uncomfortable with themselves or with the administration, may not be aware that they are precisely those who constitute the best US image abroad. In the ostentation of a self- criticism, of a subversive thought, these Americans, opposed to the official positions,feature the virtue of the relentless self-purge.Therefore,looking at past and present times, this paper is composed by six related arguments that rely on both historical events and fictionated stories, with the titles of: “Under the paranoid style”; “The angry nation”, “Hate: Public Limited Company”, “Images of anger”, “Guilty, ashamed and redeemed”, and “The legacy of disenchantment”.

scholarly journals The Open Public Value Account and Comprehensive Social Development: An Assessment of China and the United States

2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (6) ◽  
pp. 852-881 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bing Wang ◽  
Tom Christensen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Development ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Public Values ◽  
Public Value ◽  
The Public ◽  
Policy Tool

Human society can be roughly divided into three spheres and each has different public values. While public values should be at the heart of public administration and social development, they are often significantly weakened by their philosophical ambiguity and immeasurability. This article seeks to clarify the nature of public values, how they are created, and how they can be measured. An open public value account is constructed as a policy tool for assessing as many public values as possible. It is used to examine the public values creation in China and the United States.

Government Corporations; a Focus of Policy and Administration, I

1949 ◽  
Vol 43 (5) ◽  
pp. 899-921 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marshall E. Dimock
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Corporation ◽  
The World ◽  
The Government ◽  
Government Corporations

The government corporation has become a familiar device of public administration all over the world; and yet in some countries, and especially in the United States, uncertainty as to its distinctive purpose and underlying principles seems to grow, rather than to diminish, as the public corporation becomes older and more extensively used. Lack of interest and research cannot be blamed, because in recent years the degree of concentration in this area has probably been relatively as great as in any other sphere of political science. The basic explanation is that administrative formulas and management principles are rarely, if ever, capable of immunization against group pressures and public policy controls, which bend administration to their own designs, sometimes in conformity with what the impartial experts consider sound principle and practice, but just as often in knowing disregard of such considerations and in a determined effort to support their own interests and economic viewpoints.

scholarly journals From "Danwei" Society to New Community Building: Opportunities and Challenges for Citizen Participation in Chinese Cities

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaifeng Yang
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Community Building ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Administrators ◽  
Administrative Process ◽  
The Public ◽  
New Community

Exploring the appropriate role of the public in public administration has been an active and ongoing area of inquiry and experimentation since the birth of the United States (King, Feltey and Susel 1998). Especially in last three decades, public administration has struggled to bring the public into the administrative process in the recognition that many programs cannot be effective without the collaboration between citizens and public administrators.

Neutrality narratives, gender, and fear of cuckoldry in public administration

Organization ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 135050842110153
Author(s):  
Sharon Mastracci ◽  
Arthur J Sementelli
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Democratic Accountability ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
The Public ◽  
Cultural Roots ◽  
The Public Sphere

Administration draws its legitimacy from neutrality in cultural contexts where power relations are shaped by gendered norms. Neutrality bestows legitimacy where power is vested in the male generative force and is heritable. In the public sphere, neutrality renders administration nonthreatening to politicians and justifies administrators’ use of discretion despite their lack of democratic accountability and oversight. We examine historical and cultural roots of administrative neutrality as embodied by the physiologically transformed man and the resulting genderedness of public administration. We highlight two examples of power and sexuality in anime and different implications of neutered maleness. We also discuss enforced administrative neutrality in practice—the Hatch Act in the United States—which prevents administrators from engaging in political activity, rendering them “political eunuchs.”

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