Charles Goodsell's New Vision

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Goodsell’s New Vision: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle The call to public service cannot be answered by one who lacks a direction, a focus, or a clearly articulated goal: a “vision.” Charles Goodsell discusses the idea of vision at length in his article, A New Vision for Public Administration, but falls short of granting the “new” vision we are promised, giving us little more than fodder for a strategic planning session and recycled ideas from our nation’s founders. The “vision” for the discussion herein is to dismantle Goodsell’s “New Vision” by reducing those ideas into manageable moving parts, identifying the ideas that have been reused, and recycling those pieces that are redundant to the current system. It cannot go without mention that Goodsell’s …show more content…

He contends that “[public] administration’s contribution to public trust tends to be invisible because most of its contribution is at a routine or below-the-surface-level” (2006, Pg. 633). Is it the role of the public to recognize the contributions of public administrators or is it better that public administrators be those who are behind the scenes, working tirelessly for the common good? Thomas Jefferson said “in a virtuous government, public offices are what they should be: burdens to those appointed to them […] foreseen to bring with them intense labor and great private loss” (as cited in Light, 2011, pg. s10). Charles Goodsell’s New Vision for Public Administration is one which has been idealized since the signing of the constitution. He draws greatly from the utopia of government envisioned by Thomas Jefferson and other framers. What he presents to us is a repackaged version of the current system, and the dream of an era of public trust in government. Perhaps the “new vision” of public administration is one in which the public has their eyes closed. Goodsell, C. (2006). A New Vision for Public Administration. Public Administration Review, 66(4), 623-635. Light, P. (2011). Federalist No. 1: How would Publius define good government today? Public Administration Review, Special Issue (December), s7-s14. Stillman, R. (1990). The Peculiar ‘Stateless’ Origins of Public Administration and the Consequences

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