The City-Manager Plan In America

City-manager plan is one of three major American municipal government forms, also has become the most popular system of local government in America. Although American scholars have studied deep from one point of political science or administrative science, articles about the comprehensive research on the council-manager plan has never been seen. This dissertation, by tracing the dynamics of this plan and using the American scholars'research outcome for reference, attempts to highlights the main reasons of its popularity, and explore the law guiding the development of American municipal government, so as to provide some reference for some related research and urban governance in China.Chapter One is prelude, it expatiates on the important situation of city-manager plan in American municipal government forms. This dissertation will pay more attention to the reason of fast development of city-manager plan and explore the law guiding the development of American municipal government. In this chapter, we make certain that we will study the city-manager plan from the point of system and personnel.Chapter Two probes into the contributing factors to the formation of city-manager plan, and demonstrates that city-manager plan becomes the most important system of American municipal government by its scientific and corporation management style.Chapter Three analyzes the influence on city-manager plan that the theory of initial public administration has and summarizes the features of city-manager plan.Chapter Four gives the answers to those questions: How to prove the dichotomy of politics and administration as aberration in practice and how to insist on separating the constitute of the policy from the implement of the policy? How can the aligned administrator executes his duty effectively and keep the continuity of public policy and management? This chapter attempts to elucidate that the city-manager plan in practice realize the interaction between politics and administration in city management. This chapter also demonstrates that building up the mayors'political situation is a effective solution to solve the problem of lacking of political authority in city-manager plan.From the point of carding the development of city-manager plan, Chapter Five analyzes the reason of why city-manager plan becomes the most popular municipal plan in America from the point of the theory of the Diffusion of Innovation. It points out that the evolvement of American municipal government is associated with the change of social circumstance.Chapter Six begins with reviewing the foundation and development of ICMA, analyzes the source and growth of the administrative management professionals in city-manager plan. It shows that the city-manager plan is a paradise for the administrative management professionals.Chapter Seven analyzes the effect of city manager and mayor in city-manager plan. It also analyzes the correlation between the city manager and mayor, and elucidates the importance of exerting the mayor's action.Epilogue explores the law guiding the development of American municipal government. It also summarizes the fundamental characteristics of city-manager plan, and elucidates that we may analyze city-manager plan during the background of development of new public management in future study.