In The Politics of State and City Administration, Abney and Lauth take a penetrating look at the relationships of state and city administrators to the people with whom they work: legislators, councilors, chief executives, and numerous interest groups seeking to influence administrative decisions and upon whom administrators depend to achieve their objectives. The analysis is based upon information obtained from national surveys of approximately 800 state and 600 city government department heads.

The reader of this book will learn, for example, that governors are perceived by their...