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The reasons for this growth in" government by proxy" are varied, but all are rooted in a distrust of government and an often-reflexive preference for markets or civil society. Those who hold that reflexive preference fail to recognize that con tracting out is not" privatization," properly understood; that is, the choice of private surrogates to deliver services on behalf of government agencies obscures but does not alter the fact that government is choosing, directing, and paying for those services.(Reflexive opponents of contracting, however, fail to recognize that often the choice of a private intermediary will provide needed flexibility or expertise.) Whatever the merits of these opposing ideological positions, my objective in this article is to sug gest that before policymakers and public managers accept third-party government as a