Race and Public Administration

Issues of race permeate virtually every corner of policy creation and implementation in the United States, yet theoretically driven research on interactions of policy, race, and ethnicity rarely offers practical tools that can be readily applied by current and future civil servants, private contractors, or nonprofit boards. Arguing that scholarship can and should inform practice to address issues of equity in public affairs, rather than overlook, ignore, or deny them, Race and Public Administration offers a much-needed and accessible exploration of current and cutting-edge research on race and policy.

This book evaluates what contradictions, unanswered questions, and best (or worst) practices exist in conducting and understanding research that can provide evidence-based policy and management guidance to practitioners in the field. Individual chapters are written by established and emerging scholars and explore a wide range of policy areas, including public education, policing, health and access to healthcare, digital governance, nonprofit diversity, and international contexts. Together, the chapters serve as a link between theoretically informed research in public administration and those students and professionals trained to work in the trenches of public administration. This book is ideally suited as a text for courses in schools of public administration, public policy, or nonprofit management, and is required reading for those actively involved in policy analysis, creation, or evaluation.

Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Amanda Rutherford is an Assistant Professor in the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University, USA. Her research focuses on organizational accountability and performance, inequality between majority and minority groups, and executive careers and decision-making processes and is often situated in the context of U.S. education. Her work has appeared in leading journals in the fields of political science, public administration, and higher education. In her spare time, Amanda swaps stories with her husband, Jeff (an administrator), plays in the part with her daughter, Kendall, and generally tries to keep Ken Meier sane.

Kenneth J. Meier is a Distinguished Scholar in Residence in the Department of Public Administration and Policy in the School of Public Affairs at American University, Washington DC, USA. His research considers institutional theories of organizations and politics and spans areas of representation and equity, comparative public administration, education, health care, and local government. Ken has published over 20 books and over 250 articles and has served as the editor of four journals in the fields of political science and public administration. Ken enjoys a good Cajun dish, watching NCAA track and field championships, and, above all, time with his wonderful wife, Diane.