Choice Review

Since the 1960s, performance-based management and its cousin, program budgeting (PPB), have been the holy grail for public administrators seeking a rational method for financial and program decisions. This search has been largely futile, argues West (Texas A&M Univ.), for it runs counter to the realities of bounded rationality and bureaucratic politics. The Department of Defense adopted PPB in the 1960s to rationalize the expansion of the military establishment and its missions, and has survived there in part to this day. President Lyndon Johnson ordered PPB's expansion to the rest of the federal government, but it was abandoned by Richard Nixon in 1969. In 2002 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration adopted a form of PPB, but without significant impact. The 1990s saw advocates of Managing for Results and New Public Management, as well as the Government Performance and Results Act, seek a similar rationalization of administrative decisions. West concludes that however attractive they are in theory, these models are too demanding of time and consensus to be practiced in the nation's decentralized, complex, and contentious political environment. A perceptive analytic history for students of public administration. Summing Up: Recommended. Undergraduate, graduate, and research collections. W. C. Johnson emeritus, Bethel University (MN)