524 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 2020, Vol. 30, No.
Revisiting Public Management as a Design Science
Barzelay, Michael. 2019. Public Management as a Design-Oriented Professional Discipline.
Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing Inc. 168 pp.
In recent years, design thinking has conquered the
public and nonprofit sectors by storm. All over the
world, design labs are founded in both academia and
government with an explicit focus on using design
thinking to solve public issues. Examples include the
Erasmus Governance Design Studio at the Erasmus
University Rotterdam, the Policy Lab at the University
of Melbourne, and the EU Policy Lab at the European
Commission. While design thinking in public manage-
ment thus seems rather novel, it has actually been at
the heart of public management as a science. Indeed,
Simon (1996) already emphasized over two decades
ago that public management is a design science that
focuses on developing theory-driven solutions to real-
world problems. Others have followed suit by arguing
that public management is about developing and
testing so-called “middle-range” theory (Abner et  al.
2017)—that is, adapting “grand” theory from classical
disciplines such as economics, sociology or psychology
to the real-world context of public organizations with
the aim of designing theory-driven solutions to real-
world problems. The intellectual underpinnings of
public management thus clearly involve some type of
design-orientation; however, this legacy has not neces-
sarily been incorporated in most textbooks or courses
on public management. This is problematic, as it im-
plies that students of public management—be it at the
undergraduate, graduate, or executive level—do not
necessarily understand the theoretical foundations of
our field nor do they recognize the need for design-
focused competences for twenty-first-century public
managers. In other words, apart from the classical
discussion of Old Public Administration, New Public
Management and Post-New Public Management
movements not much effort has been attributed to the
actual understanding of and debate on the broader in-
tellectual tradition underlying public management.
Michael Barzelay’s (2019) book Public Management
as a Design-Oriented Professional Discipline tackles
this issue by providing a concise (i.e., 168 pages) dis-
cussion of what public management exactly entails in
his informed opinion. Interestingly, the author builds
on the ideas previously stipulated by Simon while
simultaneously arguing throughout the book that
public management is not a design science but ra-
ther a design-oriented professional discipline. In eight
chapters, Barzelay revisits the theoretical foundations
of public management by explaining what a design-
oriented public management encompasses (chapter 1),
how the history of management schools has also
shaped public management (chapter  2), the role of
mechanism-intent thinking and analysis in public man-
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agement (chapter 3), well-established theories in public
management and their relation to design thinking
(chapter  4), what core knowledge entails in public
management (chapter 5), how case studies can be used
to stimulate design thinking (chapter  6), a concrete
example of such a case study (i.e., the Egypt–Japan
University of Science and Technology) (chapter 7), and
finally the future of public management as a design-
oriented discipline (chapter  8). In doing so, the book
provides a well-structured and integrated elaboration
on public management as a discipline while relying
on actual theories devised by public management
scholars (e.g., Moore’s (1995) public value theory and
Bryson’s (2018) strategic planning model) as opposed
to broader contextual frameworks such as New Public
Management.
The book has three clear strengths that could spark
its adoption as a classical read for public management
students, especially at the graduate and executive level,
but also for public management scholars and enthu-
siasts in general. First, the book does not aim to pro-
vide a comprehensive overview of public management
practices but, rather, offers fundamental readings for
those wanting to understand the intellectual founda-
tion of public management. It does so in a succinct
way, without too much detail or elaboration but yet
enough material for debate. This ensures that the book
can easily be incorporated into existing public man-
agement courses at universities and other educational
institutions as essential readings for the first couple of
classes aimed at exploring the intellectual foundation
of public management. Second, the author adopts an
interesting writing style throughout the book, a style
which is rare in any textbook, let alone in public man-
agement. He uses dialogues between fictional charac-
ters as a way to introduce or exemplify crucial parts of
the book. These dialogues are extremely recognizable
for public management scholars and students at all
levels, ranging from a discussion on whether or not to
pick public management as an elective (chapter 1) to a
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 2020, Vol. 30, No. 3
dialogue between the reader and the author concerning
the usage of design-focused case studies (chapter  6).
Third, the book includes a “Public Management
Gallery” (chapter 4), where foundational public man-
agement theories are being discussed. Barzelay right-
fully claims that these are examples of “authors and
readings that everyone who’s educated in [public man-
agement] should know” (p.  59). And, more import-
antly, the gallery pushes readers to be confronted with
a variety of theories about purposeful phenomena in
public management, which induces more generative,
critical thinking. If ever there was a book chapter or
article that proved that public management does in-
deed have its own theory and thus does not exclu-
sively rely on theory coming from other disciplines, it
is chapter four of Barzelay’s book. This chapter pres-
ents public management theory in an innovative and
easy to read format, namely a gallery constituting three
floors of work (i.e., public organizations at the highest
floor, then design projects and finally professional ac-
tivity). Scholars such as Mark Moore, John Bryson,
Herbert Simon, Joan van Aken, and Barzelay himself
are discussed while going through the different floors
of the gallery. This is perhaps one of the most coherent
overviews on public management theory I  have ever
encountered, and it forms the perfect starting point for
further debate on what public management theory ac-
tually entails.
While the above-mentioned strengths emphasize the
quality of Barzelay’s book as a potential enchiridion in
public management, there are some challenges that need
to be considered. First, the book does not necessarily
build much on or present empirical public management
research. Someone interested in reading about the dif-
ferent tools used by public managers, which outcomes
are tied to these tools and under which conditions, will
not find much information in the book. This does limit
the audience for the book somewhat; it is ideal for a
short course or seminar on the intellectual foundations
of public management, but it does not comprehensively
cover the toolbox that public managers have at their
disposal nor the evidence concerning which tool works
best, how and when. In other words, for those interested
in a more comprehensive public management course—
both lecturers and students—the book will need to be
complemented with other material focused more on
concrete tools and evidence developed and tested by
decades of public management research. Second, the
succinct nature of the book also implies that it does not
comprehensively assess the different public management
theories in its developed gallery. This is understandable,
as one cannot cover everything. However, there are two
public management theories that I did miss in the book.
525
Not much is mentioned about public service motivation
(PSM), which is somewhat of a limitation as any descrip-
tion of the intellectual tradition of public management
should include the great theorizing on PSM done by au-
thors such as Perry (1996). Another important public
management theory that could have received more at-
tention in the gallery concerns the literature on govern-
ance networks. Much like the impact Bryson has had
with his strategic planning model, authors such as Klijn
and Koppenjan (2015) have theorized about (and em-
pirically tested) approaches to network governance and
network management that have become core to public
management theory and practice. This would have been
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a welcome addition to the public management gallery,
be it under the umbrella of collaborative governance,
governance networks, cross-sector collaborations or
other related terms, more attention to theories centered
on purposeful phenomena undertaken to optimize inter-
organizational relationships would have been useful. In
other words, Barzelay provides a crucial first attempt at
a public management gallery and it is now up to other
public management scholars to update this gallery by
adding other foundational theories that help us under-
stand what public management—in its very nature—is.
To conclude, the author’s ambition to revisit the
intellectual foundations of public management and
consider our field as a design-oriented professional
discipline is clearly achieved. Barzelay’s book will
spark debate among public management scholars
about our identity as a scholarly field. It will inspire fu-
ture generations of public managers to think of them-
selves as designers who can contribute to solutions
for public issues as opposed to purely technical im-
plementers of policy initiatives. It will motivate those
who seek to become public management scholars
(or who already are) to not only focus on producing
manageable chunks of academic knowledge but ac-
tually help design theory-driven approaches that are
useful for policymakers and public managers. And,
most importantly, it will draw attention away from
the rather mechanical and sequential thinking on Old
Public Administration, New Public Management and
Post-New Public Management as theoretical under-
pinnings of our field towards actual theories designed
and tested by public management scholars in the
broadest sense.
Bert George
Ghent University
References
Abner,  Gordon  B., Sun  Young  Kim, and James  L.  Perry. 2017.
Building evidence for public human resource management: Using
middle range theory to link theory and data. Review of Public
526 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 2020, Vol. 30, No. 3
Personnel Administration 37 (2): 139–159. doi:10.1177/07343
71X17697248
Bryson, John M. 2018. Strategic planning for public and nonprofit
organizations: A guide to strengthening and sustaining organiza-
tional achievement. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Klijn, Erik-Hans, and Joop Koppenjan. 2015. Governance networks
in the public sector. New York, NY: Routledge.
Moore, Mark H. 1995. Creating public value: Strategic management
in government. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Political Institutions and the State: Pathways to
Providing Local Public Goods
Charles R. Hankla, Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, and Raúl A. Ponce Rodriguez. (2019). Local
Accountability and National Coordination in Fiscal Federalism: A Fine Balance. North
Hampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc. 217 pp.
Local Accountability and National Coordination in
Fiscal Federalism: A Fine Balance, by Charles Hankla,
Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, and Raúl Alberto Ponce
Rodriguez is a book rooted in the political economy
literature. It asks the question of why governments
spend resources on public goods and services that are
often used by residents outside of their jurisdictions.
For example, the public transportation networks and
highways that are built and maintained by city govern-
ments are often used by the residents of neighboring
jurisdictions. Even more so, city governments often pay
for this infrastructure to extend into neighboring jur-
isdictions that do not pay for this infrastructure. The
assumption is that this is an inefficient outcome (this is
otherwise known as free-ridership by non-paying jur-
isdictions or a negative externality). The authors start
from this assumption and formally and empirically test
the circumstances under which this spillover effect can
be Pareto efficient.1
The book theoretically and conceptually begins
with Oates’ (1973) decentralization theorem, which
suggests that the decentralized provision of local
public goods is more efficient than its centralized pro-
vision. The specific reference is to decentralized dem-
ocracies, which are defined as having elected officials
and fiscally autonomous subnational governments.
Put simply, and this is important for the purpose of
the book, democratic decentralization is the pres-
ence of competitive local elections that encourage
1 The authors define efficiency in the classical sense of Pareto efficiency
wherein resources cannot be reallocated to make one individual better
off without making at least one individual worse off. In other words, it is
the most efficient possible outcome.
Perry, James L. 1996. Measuring public service motivation: An as-
sessment of construct reliability and validity. Journal of Public
Administration Research and Theory 6 (1): 5–22. doi:10.1093/
oxfordjournals.jpart.a024303
Simon, Herbert A. 1996. Sciences of the artificial, 3rd ed. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
doi:10.1093/jopart/muaa015
Advance Access publication April 10, 2020
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accountability and good governance. This is said to
be preferable to centralization because local leaders
have a better sense of the needs of their local constitu-
ents and centralized provision tends to ignore these
specific needs.
The authors want to extend the decentralization
theorem. They suggest that the truth of the decentral-
ization theorem depends on whether the political par-
ties are integrated. Countries with integrated parties
have institutionalized parties that exist across mul-
tiple levels of government, where national leaders have
some power over their subnational partisans through
nomination and other mechanisms of control such as
career advancement.
The first chapter introduces the core research ques-
tion and then describes and defines democratically cen-
tralized (and decentralized) systems and political party
(integrated and nonintegrated) structures. This chapter
prepares readers for chapters 2 through 5, which con-
tain formal explanation of the theory, including the de-
velopment of propositions. Chapters 2 and 3 examine
the effect of party integration and non-integration, re-
spectively, in majoritarian party systems. Chapters 4
and 5 examine the effect of party integration and non-
integration, respectively, in systems of proportional
representation and open party lists. Overall, the pur-
pose of chapters  2 through 5 is to formally examine
forms of political institutions under party integration
(and non-integration). This is useful because, although
public good spillover is said to be efficient under de-
centralized democracies that are integrated, demo-
cratic electoral systems are different.
The sixth chapter (specifically Table 6.1) sums
up the formal propositions advanced in chapters  2