W. Avon Drake and Robert D. Holsworth focus on the landmark case of Richmond v. Croson. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled against the city of Richmond's set-aside program requiring that thirty percent of the money in municipal construction contracts go to minority-owned firms. The authors describe the politics that gave rise to the set-aside program, investigate its actual operation, explore its effects, and detail responses to it in both black and white communities. As they show, the program served important political purposes but produced limited economic benefits for the Black community. Drake and Holsworth conclude by examining the politics of development as an alternative to the set-aside framework.

Insightful and path-breaking, Affirmative Action and the Stalled Quest for Black Progress examines the accomplishments and limitations of the set-aside programs once at the center of political debates about affirmative action in the United States.

In the 1980s and ’90s many countries turned to the private sector to provide infrastructure and utilities, such as gas, telephones, and highways—with the idea that market-based incentives would control costs and improve the quality of essential services. But subsequent debacles including the collapse of California’s wholesale electricity market and the bankruptcy of Britain’s largest railroad company have raised troubling questions about privatization. This book addresses one of the most vexing of these: how can government fairly and effectively regulate “natural monopolies”—those infrastructure and utility services whose technologies make competition impractical?

Rather than sticking to economics, José Gómez-Ibáñez draws on history, politics, and a wealth of examples to provide a road map for various approaches to regulation. He makes a strong case for favoring market-oriented and contractual approaches—including private contracts between infrastructure providers and customers as well as concession contracts with the government acting as an intermediary—over those that grant government regulators substantial discretion. Contracts can provide stronger protection for infrastructure customers and suppliers—and greater opportunities to tailor services to their mutual advantage. In some cases, however, the requirements of the firms and their customers are too unpredictable for contracts to work, and alternative schemes may be needed.

Contract management is a critical skill for all contemporary public managers. As more government duties are contracted out, managers must learn to coordinate and measure the performance of private contractors, and to write contract requirements and elicit bids that obtain important services and products at the best possible price and quality. They must also learn to work in teams that include both public and private sector partners.

The Responsible Contract Manager delves into the issues of how to ensure that the work done by private sector contractors serves the public interest and argues for the necessity of making these organizations act as extensions of the public sector while maintaining their private character. Government contract managers have a unique burden because they must develop practices that ensure the production advantages of networked organizations and the transparency and accountability required of the public sector.

The Responsible Contract Manager fills a major gap in public management literature by providing a clear and practical introduction to the best practices of contract management and also includes a discussion of public ethics, governance and representation theory. It is an essential guide for all public management scholars and is especially useful for students in MPA graduate programs and related fields.