REVITALIZING PUBLIC MANAGEMENT-TRAINING IN THE AMERICA

The decade of the 1980s signalled major changes within public administ ration and development-oriented activities. As a consequence of the in ternationalization of the agendas of practitioners and academics worki ng in these areas, there is today a growing convergence among public p olicy, public management, public administration and political science. Given the complexity of the public sector cross-nationally, what has become necessary in public management education is the design of progr ammes that meet specific needs and priorities and which are responsive to very different national settings. This particular case study is ce ntred around one endeavour to achieve more effective interfacing betwe en theory and practice, in the teaching of public management and the d esign of development programmes in the United States (US). It is based on an assessment of a 10-year co-operative endeavour between the Nati onal Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration and t he US Agency for International Development. The outcomes of this proje ct provided not only leverage for important changes in the teaching pr ogrammes of schools concerned with international management education but also built a new relationship between government and a non-governm ental organization through the contacting out of management developmen t work.