r things, be an individual who recognizes the signif icance of public administration in contemporary Amrican soci ety. It would probably surprise many people both within pub lic administration and outside of government to learn that the general public had any interest at all in public administra tion. The discipline of public administration is, after all, one which, in the public mind, can compete with economics for the title of the most arcane, and with accounting for supremacy in dullness. In spite of such public perceptions, however, there is a genuine public interest in public administration in the last years of the twentieth century.
The interest of the general public in public administra tion in contemporary American society is centered in effici ency, responsiveness, and accountability (Klinger and Nalban dian, 1990). Unfortunately for the public administrator, the general public typically does not consider the implications that demands in one of these interest areas may have on the ability of the public administrator to perform in one of the other areas. As an example of such conflict, consider the paradox of simultaneous public demands for both improved effic iency and responsiveness in the public sector, which, at first blush, might not appear to be a conflict of demands. In the Reagan Bush era, however, efficiency in government is typi cally interpreted by the public as lower costs and lower taxes, while the responsiveness of public bodies is evaluated in terms of how well interest group demands are met. The effective public administrator in contemporary American society, thus, must somehow find ways to satisfy both demands.
The behavior of farmers and ranchers in the summer of 1988 typified the contemporary interest of the general public in public administration. The agricultural sector, in general, had advocated less government spending on most domestic pro grams, and less bureaucratic interference in the o...