Government by Contract

Government by Contract PDF Author: Jody Freeman
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674032088
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 550

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Book Description
The dramatic growth of government over the course of the twentieth century since the New Deal prompts concern among libertarians and conservatives and also among those who worry about government’s costs, efficiency, and quality of service. These concerns, combined with rising confidence in private markets, motivate the widespread shift of federal and state government work to private organizations. This shift typically alters only who performs the work, not who pays or is ultimately responsible for it. “Government by contract” now includes military intelligence, environmental monitoring, prison management, and interrogation of terrorism suspects. Outsourcing government work raises questions of accountability. What role should costs, quality, and democratic oversight play in contracting out government work? What tools do citizens and consumers need to evaluate the effectiveness of government contracts? How can the work be structured for optimal performance as well as compliance with public values? Government by Contract explains the phenomenon and scope of government outsourcing and sets an agenda for future research attentive to workforce capacities as well as legal, economic, and political concerns.

Government by Contract

Government by Contract PDF Author: Jody Freeman
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674032088
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 550

Get Book Here

Book Description
The dramatic growth of government over the course of the twentieth century since the New Deal prompts concern among libertarians and conservatives and also among those who worry about government’s costs, efficiency, and quality of service. These concerns, combined with rising confidence in private markets, motivate the widespread shift of federal and state government work to private organizations. This shift typically alters only who performs the work, not who pays or is ultimately responsible for it. “Government by contract” now includes military intelligence, environmental monitoring, prison management, and interrogation of terrorism suspects. Outsourcing government work raises questions of accountability. What role should costs, quality, and democratic oversight play in contracting out government work? What tools do citizens and consumers need to evaluate the effectiveness of government contracts? How can the work be structured for optimal performance as well as compliance with public values? Government by Contract explains the phenomenon and scope of government outsourcing and sets an agenda for future research attentive to workforce capacities as well as legal, economic, and political concerns.

Outsourcing and the Duty to Govern

Outsourcing and the Duty to Govern PDF Author: Paul R. Verkuil
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 54

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Book Description
This article, which will be a chapter in Government by Contract (Martha Minow and Jody Freeman eds., Harvard University Press 2008), addresses the proposition that some duties of government may not be transferred to private hands. It views the executive power as requiring public governance and connects Congress to this responsibility through the Appointments Clause. Officers of the United States are those officials directly charged with doing the public's business and any direct or indirect transfer of their responsibilities would run counter to the constitutional plan. Decisions at the margins, where government remains nominally in control, are less easy to categorize and issues of justiciability are always problematic. However, there remains a core of government responsibilities that must be protected from the increasingly robust privatization movement. This chapter is concerned with the transfer to private contractors of government power that might be considered inherent or significant under governing constitutional, statutory or regulatory norms (especially the Appointments Clause, the Subdelegation Act and OMB's A-76 process). Through a study of the Transportation Security Agency, it seeks to offer workable definitions of these limitations. This chapter connects to prior work by the author in Outsourcing Sovereignty (Cambridge University Press 2007).

Outsourcing Sovereignty

Outsourcing Sovereignty PDF Author: Paul R. Verkuil
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0511346360
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Reliance on the private military industry and the privatization of public functions has left our government less able to govern effectively. When decisions that should have been taken by government officials are delegated (wholly or in part) to private contractors without appropriate oversight, the public interest is jeopardized. Books on private military have described the problem well, but they have not offered prescriptions or solutions this book does.

Outsourcing the Government's Most Important Functions: the Impact of Outsourcing Critical Duties on U.S. Federal Government Behavior

Outsourcing the Government's Most Important Functions: the Impact of Outsourcing Critical Duties on U.S. Federal Government Behavior PDF Author: Christopher D. Dishman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Civil service positions
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The levels of outsourcing in the U.S. federal government have increased substantially over the last two decades. The U.S. government now relies on outsourcing to provide many of its products and services. Prior research shows that outsourcing has a negative effect on job satisfaction in the U.S. public sector. This paper expands on that research to understand the impact of outsourcing a certain category of products and services, known collectively as nearly inherently governmental (NG) activities. This paper uses time panel analysis from 2010 to 2019 to understand the influence of outsourcing NG duties on federal employees, and the results show a statistically significant negative association. This paper also analyzes the impact of outsourcing on work intensification because outsourcing could increase the workload of the remaining employees, who are now required to execute contract management duties. This result contradicts this paper’s hypothesis and shows a marginally significant negative relationship between outsourcing and work intensification.

Private Security, Public Order

Private Security, Public Order PDF Author: Simon Chesterman
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191610275
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Private actors are increasingly taking on roles traditionally arrogated to the state. Both in the industrialized North and the developing South, functions essential to external and internal security and to the satisfaction of basic human needs are routinely contracted out to non-state agents. In the area of privatization of security functions, attention by academics and policy makers tends to focus on the activities of private military and security companies, especially in the context of armed conflicts, and their impact on human rights and post-conflict stability and reconstruction. The first edited volume emerging from New York University School of Law's Institute for International Justice project on private military and security companies, From Mercenaries to Market: The Rise and Regulation of Private Military Companies broadened this debate to situate the private military phenomenon in the context of moves towards the regulation of activities through market and non-market mechanisms. Where that first volume looked at the emerging market for use of force, this second volume looks at the transformations in the nature of state authority. Drawing on insights from work on privatization, regulation, and accountability in the emerging field of global administrative law, the book examines private military and security companies through the wider lens of private actors performing public functions. In the past two decades, the responsibilities delegated to such actors - especially but not only in the United States - have grown exponentially. The central question of this volume is whether there should be any limits on government capacity to outsource traditionally "public" functions. Can and should a government put out to private tender the fulfilment of military, intelligence, and prison services? Can and should it transfer control of utilities essential to life, such as the supply of water? This discussion incorporates numerous perspectives on regulatory and governance issues in the private provision of public functions, but focuses primarily on private actors offering services that impact the fundamental rights of the affected population.

Outsourcing Management Functions for the Acquisition of Federal Facilities

Outsourcing Management Functions for the Acquisition of Federal Facilities PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309072670
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 149

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Book Description
In this study outsourcing is defined as the organizational practice of contracting for services from an external entity while retaining control over assets and oversight of the services being outsourced. In the 1980s, a number of factors led to a renewed interest in outsourcing. For private sector organizations, outsourcing was identified as a strategic component of business process reengineering-an effort to streamline an organization and increase its profitability. In the public sector, growing concern about the federal budget deficit, the continuing long-term fiscal crisis of some large cities, and other factors accelerated the use of privatization measures (including outsourcing for services) as a means of increasing the efficiency of government.

Outsourcing the Law

Outsourcing the Law PDF Author: Pauline Westerman
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1785365029
Category : Contracting out
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
Not only can services such as cleaning and catering be outsourced, but also governmental tasks such as making, applying and enforcing the law. Outsourcing the law is usually recommended for its cost-efficiency, flexibility, higher rates of compliance and its promise of deregulation. However, lawmaking is not the same as cleaning and rules are more than just tools to achieve aims. In this timely book, Pauline Westerman analyses this outsourcing from a philosophical perspective.

The Ethics of Outsourcing Information Conflict

The Ethics of Outsourcing Information Conflict PDF Author: James Pamment
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


The best services at the lowest price

The best services at the lowest price PDF Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Government Reform. Subcommittee on Technology and Procurement Policy
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description


One Nation Under Contract

One Nation Under Contract PDF Author: Allison Stanger
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300156324
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Allison Stanger examines the American government's approach to outsourcing, discussing the evolution of military outsourcing, the privatization of diplomacy, and homeland security; and offering an alternative approach.