Public Management in a Pluralistic Arena

Governing institutions are undergoing profound changes as responsibilities for designing and implementing public policies continue to be dispersed among a number of organizations. Observers refer to indirect government, third-party government, and government by proxy to describe how the public sector is increasingly relying on a number of organizations, units, and individuals to carry out programs.1 According to Mosher, writing in 1980, the diffusion has been of such magnitude as to alter fundamentally the nature of federal responsibilities and modes of operating, calling for a quite different approach to the role of federal management....2