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The Roles and Relationships of City Managers in the United States

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The Palgrave Handbook of the Public Servant

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Abstract

City managers in the United States provide a positive example of public servants as policy-makers. They have developed the policy-making role in the American governmental system that is based on elected executives rather than appointed executives. Since the founding of the council-manager form in local governments early in the twentieth century, the appointed executives have filled a broad range of roles including providing policy advice to elected officials despite being labeled the “managers” of their government in contrast to the accepted title of appointed chief executive officers in Europe. Examination of the documents explaining the rationale for the council-manager form and review of the performance of these officials in the early years show that managers were expected to be comprehensive contributors to the governmental process. Over time, this role has come to be accepted by practitioners and academic researchers.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Visiting Scholar, School of Government, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    James H. Svara

Authors
  1. James H. Svara
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Correspondence to James H. Svara .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Helen Sullivan

  2. Public Service Research Group, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Helen Dickinson

  3. Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Hayley Henderson

Section Editor information

  1. EAESP/Department of Public Management, Fundacao Getulio Vargas (FGV), Sao Paulo, Brazil

    Evan Berman

  2. Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Yijia Jing

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Svara, J.H. (2021). The Roles and Relationships of City Managers in the United States. In: Sullivan, H., Dickinson, H., Henderson, H. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of the Public Servant. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29980-4_11

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