Public values and public interest

Description

Economic individualism and market-based values dominate today’s policymaking and public management circles – often at the expense of the common good. In his new book, Barry Bozeman demonstrates the continuing need for public interest theory in government. “Public Values and Public Interest” offers a direct theoretical challenge to the “utility of economic individualism,” the prevailing political theory in the western world. The book’s arguments are steeped in a practical and practicable theory that advances public interest as a viable and important measure in any analysis of policy or public administration. According to Bozeman, public interest theory offers a dynamic and flexible approach that easily adapts to changing situations and balances today’s market-driven attitudes with the concepts of common good advocated by Aristotle, Saint Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, and John Dewey. In constructing the case for adopting a new governmental paradigm based on what he terms “managing publicness,” Bozeman demonstrate