Book excerpt: Red tape, like politics or public interest, is one of those terms everyone knows, but for which there is surprisingly little shared meaning. Is red tape perceptual or objective? Is it neutral, or negative, or can red tape even be positive? Does it necessarily entail delays? Does red tape equate with bad management? Does it flow from rules or are rules themselves red tape? Barry Bozeman, author of the classic Bureaucracy and Red Tape, and Mary Feeney re-examine these questions and more with a new focus on their application to public management. Rules and Red Tape provides the most comprehensive treatment available of red tape research and theory. Co-authors Barry Bozeman and Mary Feeney have fundamentally reworked and extended the previous book, and include new chapters that review and integrate the recent work on red tape research that has burgeoned in the fields of public management, public administration, and public policy. In addition, in exploring the path of read tape research and theory, the authors reflect on the topic as an illustration of how research and theory intersect in public administration and provide a critique of theory development.