Provides a general, non-technical introduction to core ideas in positive political theory as they apply to public management and policy.

1. Introduction; 2. Methodological foundations; 3. The power of the purse; 4. Delegation and discretion; 5. Contracts and partnerships; 6. Responsibility and good governance.

Anthony Michael Bertelli holds the C. C. Crawford Chair in Management and Performance in the USC Price School of Public Policy and the USC Gould School of Law at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Madison's Managers: Public Administration and the Constitution (with Laurence E. Lynn, Jr) as well as more than thirty articles and serves as co-editor of the Journal of Public Policy.