Down from bureaucracy : the ambiguity of privatization and empowerment / Joel F. Handler.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Handler, Joel F.

Series:

The William G. Bowen Series ; 24

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Decentralization in government--United States.

Decentralization in government.

Community power--United States.

Community power.

Power (Social sciences)--United States.

Power (Social sciences).

Privatization--United States.

Privatization.

Welfare state.

Schools--Decentralization--Illinois--Chicago.

Schools.

United States--Politics and government--20th century.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (280 pages)

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c1996.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Throughout the world, politicians are dismantling state enterprises and heaping praise on private markets, while in the United States a new rhetoric of "citizen empowerment" links a widespread distrust of government to decentralization and privatization. Here Joel Handler asks whether this restructuring of authority really allows ordinary citizens to take more control of the things that matter in their roles as parents and children, teachers and students, tenants and owners, producers and consumers. Looking at citizens as stakeholders in the modern social welfare state created by the New Deal, he traces the surprising ideological shifts of empowerment from its beginning as a cornerstone of the war on poverty in the 1960's to its central place in conservative market-based voucher schemes for school reform in the 1990's.Handler shows that in the past the gains from decentralization have proved to be more symbol than substance: some disadvantaged members of society will find new opportunities in the changes of the 1990's, but others will simply experience powerlessness under another name. He carefully distinguishes "empowerment by invitation" (in special education, worker safety, home health care, public housing tenancy, and neighborhood organizations) from the "empowerment by conflict" exemplified by the radical decentralization of the Chicago public schools. What emerges is a map of the major pitfalls and possible successes in the current journey away from a discredited regulatory state.

Contents:

Front matter

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Chapter 1. Introduction

PART I: The Organization of the Welfare State: Public and Private

Chapter 2. The Context of Decentralization

Chapter 3. The Uses of Decentralization

Chapter 4. Privatization

PART II: The View from Below: Empowerment by Invitation, Empowerment through Conflict

Chapter 5. Power and Empowerment

Chapter 6. Empowerment by Invitation

Chapter 7. Empowerment through Conflict: School Reform

Chapter 8. Conclusion

References

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [243]-260) and index.

ISBN:

9786612753022

9781400803408

1400803403

9781282753020

1282753029

9781400821983

1400821983

9781400811977

140081197X

OCLC:

700688614