The debate over the need to reorganize government and how best to accomplish that has been raging in academic and public administration circles for some time, but the debate has become a national and very public issue first because of the considerable dissatisfaction expressed in recent years on the part of much of the public with their public institutions and leaders and second because of the present effort by the Clinton Administration to do something about it. With the announcement early in September of Vice-President Gore's analysis of the issue and his recommendations for change, the debate is likely to become more heated in the months to come. One complaint has been that government is inefficient, especially when compared with the private sector where efficiency is linked to profits, while the public sector lacks incentives to spur managers to be efficient. Some feel that management techniques taken from the private sector would benefit the public sector, while others see the two sectors as so different that private-sector management techniques would not be transferable to the public sector in any meaningful way.
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTOR MANAGEMENT
The major issues in public administration today include privatization, decentralization, choice, and incentives. Most of these issues have developed in response to changes in the economic, social, and legal framework for public administration at all levels of government and to a perception that the existing system is not adequate to serve a given function. Privatization, for instance, is a response to the perception that the changed environment has reduced whatever efficiency government-operated programs may once have had. It is based on the belief that private organizations are more efficient because they operate from the profit motive and thus institute economies and controls that public organizations, which do not have to make a profit, fail to do. Other inefficienci...