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Seizing opportunities, inventing new products, transforming markets--entrepreneurs are an important and well-documented part of the private sector landscape. Do they have counterparts in the public sphere? The authors argue that they do, and test their argument by focusing on agents of dynamic political change in suburbs across the United States, where much of the entrepreneurial activity in American politics occurs. The public entrepreneurs they identify are most often mayors, city managers, or individual citizens. These entrepreneurs develop innovative ideas and implement new service and tax arrangements where existing administrative practices and budgetary allocations prove inadequate to meet a range of problems, from economic development to the racial transition of neighborhoods. How do public entrepreneurs emerge? How much does the future of urban development depend on them? This book answers these questions, using data from over 1,000 local governments.
The emergence of public entrepreneurs depends on a set of familiar cost-benefit calculations. Like private sector risk-takers, public entrepreneurs exploit opportunities emerging from imperfect markets for public goods, from collective-action problems that impede private solutions, and from situations where information is costly and the supply of services is uneven. The authors augment their quantitative analysis with ten case studies and show that bottom-up change driven by politicians, public managers, and other local agents obeys regular and predictable rules.
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PUBLIC ENTREPRENEURS PUBLIC ENTREPRENEURS AGENTS FOR CHANGE IN AMERICAN GOVERNMENT Mark Schneider and Paul Teske with Michael Mintrom PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS P R I N C E T O N, N E W J E R S E Y Copyright 1995 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Chichester, West Sussex All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Schneider, Mark, 1946– Public entrepreneurs : agents for change in American government / Mark Schneider and Paul Teske with Michael Mintrom. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-691-03725-6 1. Entrepreneurship—United States. 2. Government business enterprises—United States. 3. Local government—United States. I. Teske, Paul Eric. II. Mintrom, Michael, 1963–. III. Title. HB615.S353 1995 306.2—dc20 94-21311 CIP This book has been composed in Baskerville Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources Printed in the United States of America 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Contents List of Figures vii List of Tables ix Acknowledgments xi PART ONE: A THEORY OF THE PUBLIC ENTREPRENEUR 1 Chapter 1 Public Entrepreneurs as Agents of Change 3 Chapter 2 Bringing Back the Entrepreneur: Neoclassical Economic Models and the Role of the Entrepreneur 17 Chapter 3 The Functions of Political Entrepreneurs in the Local Market for Public Goods 41 PART TWO: THE DECISION CALCULUS OF THE PUBLIC ENTREPRENEUR 61 Chapter 4 The Market for Entrepreneurs 63 Chapter 5 The Emergence of Political Entrepreneurs 81 Chapter 6 Entrepreneurs, Policy Dimensions, and the Politics of Growth 109 Chapter 7 Entrepreneurial Challenges to the Status Quo: The Case of the Growth Machine 128 Chapter 8 Bureaucratic Entrepreneurs: The Case of City Managers 147