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Honest Review – Caught Between the Dog and the Fireplug, or How to Survive Public Service (Texts & Teaching/Politics, Pol)

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Replete with practical advice for anyone considering a career in federal, state, or local government, “Caught between the Dog and the Fireplug, or How to Survive Public Service” conveys what life is really like in a public service job. The book is written as a series of lively, entertaining letters of advice from a sympathetic uncle to a niece or nephew embarking on a government career. Kenneth Ashworth draws on more than forty years of public sector experience to provide advice on the daily challenges that future public servants can expect to face: working with politicians, bureaucracy, and the press; dealing with unpleasant and difficult people; leading supervisors as well as subordinates; and, maintaining high ethical standards. Ashworth relates anecdotes from his jobs in Texas, California, and Washington, D.C., that illustrate with humor and wit fundamental concepts of public administration. Be prepared, says Ashworth, to encounter all sorts of unexpected situations, from the hostile to the bizarre, from the intimidating to the outrageous. He shows that in the confrontational world of public policymaking and program implementation, a successful career demands disciplined, informed thought, intellectual and personal growth, and broad reading. He demonstrates how, despite the inevitable inefficiencies of a democratic society, those working to shape policy in large organizations can nonetheless effect significant change – and even have fun along the way. The book will interest students and teachers of public administration, public affairs, policy development, leadership, or higher education administration. Ashworth’s advice will also appeal to anyone who has ever been caught in a tight spot while working in government service.

Review:

This is an excellent book for beginning students of public administration or practitioners new to public service. It makes an excellent companion to an introductory textbook in Public Administration or American Government. Ashworth wrote the book as a series of letters to a niece who has decided to enter public service as a career. Each letter covers a theme of public service from an experienced practitioner’s viewpoint, and is jam packed with useful advice. I especially found Ashworth’s reflections on the political nature of public service useful and insightful.

I have very few problems with this book. One problem is that some of the chapters ramble, just like a real letter would. This makes each chapter very readable and a welcomed break from the dry approach most textbooks take to the subject. This is why it makes an excellent supplementary text to an introductory public administration textbook. However, this approach might make it difficult for students to remember the insights and practical advice of each letter.

Another problem is that a few of Ashworth’s reflections are superficial. For example, his chapter on ethics comes across to me as pontification, not unlike a good person who has rarely studied the foundations of ethics, but now ponders such questions after a successful and fulfilling career. I have found that older professors in universities often believe they are qualified to teach ethics merely because they have lived a long time and want to indulge in some personal reflections. They ask questions about ethics without taking a disciplined approach to discover how others have attempted to answer such questions or why they reached their conclusions. Then, such professors make some remarks about their own ethics, leaving the foundational questions unanswered. In other words, the assumption made is that we need to be good and assume the great ethical questions do not need to be answered. This unstructured approach may reflect many people’s approach to ethics. However, ethics is a discipline that, while being more like an art and than a science, is more structured and logical than Ashworth seems to indicate (for a better approach to public ethics, I recommend Practical Ethics in Public Administration by Dean Geuras and Charles Garofalo, or for a more academic approach, Ethics in the Public Service, by the same authors). As a result of his approach, I didn’t find this chapter in his book very useful. Still, it is one small chapter out of a larger selection of excellent reflections about government service.

So, I strongly recommend this book for its practical advice and insights into the everyday workings of government. I use it as a required supplementary text in my introductory public administration courses.