Reinventing Government: A Fifth-Year Report Card

by Donald F. Kettl

" As the Clinton administration marks the fifth anniversary of its ""reinventing government"" campaign, what has it produced? This report, one of Brookings' continuing analyses of management reform, examines the content and accomplishments of reinventing government, as well as the missing pieces it has yet to tackle. Reinventing government has often been presented as a revolution in government management. In truth it is less a revolutionary than an evolutionary movement. To its great credit, reinventing government has evolved to the point that it has recognized the central redefining accountability for performance in the many programs where government's partners share responsibility for performance. However, reinventing government has yet to develop or implement strategies to solve this problem. For that matter, though, it is a problem bedeviling government reformers around the world. If the answers are as yet unclear, the question at least is the right one. It is the question ensuring that, whoever is elected president in 2000, reinventing government in some form must continue. "

140 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1998

About the author

Donald F. Kettl is a professor at the School of Public Policy and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He served as the dean of the school from 2009-2014. Prior to Maryland, he was the Robert A. Fox Leadership Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Professor of Political Science.

Professor Kettl is a student of public policy and public management and specializes in the management of public organizations. He has appeared on national television on shows including Good Morning America, the ABC World News Tonight, the CBS Evening News, CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" and "The Situation Room," the Fox News Channel, as well as public television's News Hourand the BBC. He has testified frequently at congressional hearings in Washington and contributed to op-ed pages in major newspapers, including The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Newsday, and The Los Angeles Times. Since 1998, he has been writing a regular column for Governing magazine, "Potomac Chronicle," which is read by leading state and local government officials around the country.

Professor Kettl is the author or editor of a dozen books and monographs, including: The Next Government of the United States: Why Our Institutions Fail Us and How to Fix Them; On Risk and Disaster: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina; The Global Public Management Revolution; and Leadership at the Fed.

Two of his books have been co-winners of the Louis Brownlow Book Award of the National Academy of Public Administration for the best book published in public administration. He is the recipient of the Warner W. Stockberger Achievement Award of the International Public Management Association for Human Resources for outstanding contributions in the field of public sector personnel management (2007); the Donald C. Stone Award of the American Society for Public Administration for significant contributions to the field of intergovernmental management (2005); and the Charles H. Levine Memorial Award of the American Society for Public Administration, in recognition of contributions to research, teaching, and outreach (1998). In 2008, Kettl won the American Political Science's John Gaus Award for a lifetime of exemplary scholarship in political science and public administration.

He has consulted for a broad array of public organizations, including the U.S. Departments of Defense, Energy, Labor, Health and Human Services, and Treasury; the Forest Service, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Budget, the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal National Mortgage Association, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Commission on the Public Service (Volcker Commission), and the National Commission on the State and Local Public Service (Winter Commission). He has advised the White House during both Republican and Democratic administrations and has worked with the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Professor Kettl has also taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Vanderbilt University, the University of Virginia, and Columbia University. He has earned his bachelor's and doctorate degrees from Yale University. He is a fellow of Phi Beta Kappa and the National Academy of Public Administration. He is also a shareholder in the Green Bay Packers.