Book Review: Alka Dhameja and Sweta Mishra (Eds) (2016), Public Administration: Approaches and Applications
| Author | Arvind K. Sharma |
| Published date | 01 December 2017 |
| Date | 01 December 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0019556117726848 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Indian Journal of Public
Administration
63(4) 690–697
© 2017 IIPA
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI:10.1177/0019556117726848
http://journals.sagepub.com/home/ipa
Book Reviews
Alka Dhameja and Sweta Mishra (Eds) (2016), Public Administration:
Approaches and Applications. Delhi, Chennai: Pearson, 53(liii)+394 pp.
ISBN 978-93-325-5507-5.
Public Administration: Approaches and Applications, edited by Alka Dhameja
and Sweta Mishra, scores first on several counts in textbook production, in the
discipline of Public Administration, in this country.
Most notably, the specific themes that form part of the present collection
of twenty-seven chapters have been handled by the subject-matter specialists.
A team of fifteen contributors converges on the scene to develop the discussion
in the given areas. This allows the scope for an in-depth analysis as well as the
inclusion of subjects scarcely visible in the typical single-author textbooks, on the
subject, in this country. Illustratively, the discussion of the unfolding post-NPM
scene (in Chapter 15) and those on the topics presented in the Chapters 16 and 11.
Chapter 16 concerns the antecedents of civil society whereas a feminist perspec-
tive of Public Administration forms the subject-matter of Chapter 11. A recount of
the post-NPM developments and those pertaining to the rise of an assertive civil
society, the reader will appreciate and bear a special significance with reference
to the rise since the 1980s of the non-state players-centric governance paradigm.
The book marks a first also in that, in her Introduction to the anthology, Alka
Dhemeja sketches a panoramic view of what she terms the subject’s ‘trajectory’,
beginning with the rise of the orthodox classical school and culminating, towards
the close of the 20th century, in the emergence of the governance discourse.
The developments between the two ends of the pole—separated by a period of 100
years—are aptly handled in further detail by the individual contributors via the
insights they supply in the discrete chapters. There is, by implication, the appre-
ciation of the need to impart a clear understanding to the undergraduate students
of how in an incremental progression the theory developed and how correspond-
ingly the applications in different domains grew to become more sophisticated.
The editors deserve a big ‘thank you’ for a painstaking, lucid publication and,
in the first place, in fact for assembling a team of scholars who contributed the
valuable chapters on a diverse range of themes. The book marks a momentous
beginning: the message is that textbook writing is a serious enterprise; and that
one can treat it casually only at the expense of the students who deserve nothing
but the best.
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