| Contracting for public services is an increasingly important fact of life at all levels of government. This study attempts to understand that practice in the contexts of American business-government relations and public administrative practice. The Superfund contracting program of the United States Environmental Protection Agency provides the case study that has been selected for analysis. The topics that are addressed in this study include the organizations that shape contracting policy, the contractual mechanisms that help determine public policy, the political considerations that influence the contracting process, and the role of business and the professions.; Following a discussion in chapter 1 of the literature of government contracts, organizational history, business-government relations, and government administrative capacities, this study proceeds to a discussion in chapter 2 of the political origins of the Superfund program and the contracts created for its support.; In chapter 3, the discussion moves to an examination of the organizational structures within the EPA (and to a lesser extent, the private sector) that shaped the contracting program for hazardous waste remediation. The legal and regulatory environment of these procurements receives extended discussion in chapter 4.; Chapter 5 concludes with an essay that attempts to define the major problems created by government service contracting by placing the practice in the larger context of business-government relations. The current and doubtless future reliance on service contractors by governmental agencies goes beyond the corporatist affinity of business and government found in more traditional military procurement practices. The author argues that government service contracting has substantially eroded the authority and competence of government, and, in the process, significantly altered business-government relations. |
