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PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION
NINTH EDITION
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION
Concepts and Cases
NINTH EDITION
Richard J. Stillman II
University of Colorado
Australia • Brazil • Japan • Korea • Mexico • Singapore • Spain • United Kingdom • United States
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
Public Administration: Concepts and
Cases, Ninth Edition
Richard J. Stillman II
Editor in Chief: PJ Boardman
Senior Publisher: Suzanne Jeans
Executive Acquiring Sponsoring Editor:
Carolyn Merrill
Acquiring Sponsoring Editor: Edwin Hill
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2009922313
ISBN 13: 978-0-618-99301-7
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Compositor: Macmillan Publishing
Solutions
Printed in Canada
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Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
Contents
Topical Contents
Preface
1
xi
xxi
The Search for the Scope and Purpose of Public
1
Administration
Reading 1.1: Introduction
The Study of Administration
Woodrow Wilson
1
6
Reading 1.2: Introduction
16
The Study of Public Administration in the United States
Richard J. Stillman II
17
Case Study 1: Introduction
30
The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped
John Bartlow Martin
31
PART ONE
The Pattern of Public Administration in America:
Its Environment, Structure, and People
48
2
The Formal Structure: The Concept of Bureaucracy
Reading 2: Introduction
Bureaucracy
54
Max Weber
Case Study 2: Introduction
How Kristin Died
64
George Lardner, Jr.
3
50
50
63
The General Environment: The Concept of Ecology
Reading 3: Introduction
78
The Ecology of Public Administration
John M. Gaus
78
80
v
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
vi
Contents
Case Study 3: Introduction
85
William Robertson: Exemplar of Politics and Public Management
Rightly Understood
87
Terry L. Cooper and Thomas A. Bryer
4
The Political Environment: The Concept
97
of Administrative Power
Reading 4: Introduction
Power and Administration
Norton E. Long
97
99
Case Study 4: Introduction
104
The Columbia Accident
105
Maureen Hogan Casamayou
5
Intergovernmental Relations (IGR): The Concept
117
of Opportunistic Federalism
Reading 5: Introduction
117
From Cooperative to Opportunistic Federalism
Tim Conlan
120
Case Study 5: Introduction
136
Wichita Confronts Contamination
137
Susan Rosegrant
6
Internal Dynamics: The Concept of the Informal Group
Reading 6: Introduction
146
Hawthorne and the Western Electric Company
Elton Mayo
149
Case Study 6: Introduction
158
American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
William Langewiesche
7
160
Key Decision Makers Inside Public Administration:
The Concept of Competing Bureaucratic Subsystems
Reading 7: Introduction
Inside Public Bureaucracy
Richard J. Stillman II
146
171
171
172
Case Study 7: Introduction
194
The Decision to Go to War with Iraq
James P. Pfiffner
195
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
Contents
vii
PART TWO
The Multiple Functions of Public
Administrators: Their Major Activities,
Responsibilities, and Roles
210
8
Decision Making: The Concept of Incremental
212
Choice
Reading 8: Introduction
212
The Science of “Muddling Through”
Charles E. Lindblom
215
Case Study 8: Introduction
226
How a City Slowly Drowned
227
Michael Grunwald and Susan B. Glasser
9
Administrative Communication: The Concept
239
of Its Professional Centrality
Reading 9: Introduction
239
Administrative Communication (Or How to Make All the Rest Work):
The Concept of Its Professional Centrality
242
James L. Garnett
Case Study 9: Introduction
257
The Shootings at Columbine High School: The Law Enforcement Response
Susan Rosegrant
10
Public Management: The Concept of Collaborative
283
Processes
Reading 10: Introduction
283
Collaboration Processes: Inside the Black Box
Ann Marie Thomson and James L. Perry
286
Case Study 10: Introduction
301
Government as Catalyst: Can It Work Again with Wireless Internet Access?
Abhijit Jain, Munir Mandviwalla, and Rajiv D. Banker
11
259
302
Public Personnel Motivation: The Concept of the Public
318
Service Culture
Reading 11: Introduction
The Public Service Culture
Lois Recascino Wise
318
320
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
viii
Contents
Case Study 11: Introduction
330
Who Brought Bernadine Healy Down?
Deborah Sontag
12
331
Public Budgeting: The Concept of Budgeting
343
as Political Choice
Reading 12: Introduction
343
The Politics of Public Budgets
345
Irene S. Rubin
360
Case Study 12: Introduction
Death of a Spy Satellite Program
361
Philip Taubman
13
Administrative Reorganization: The Concept
372
of the Tides of Reform
Reading 13: Introduction
372
The Tides of Reform Revisited: Patterns in Making Government Work
Paul C. Light
Case Study 13: Introduction
Expectations
392
Katherine Boo
375
391
PART THREE
Enduring and Unresolved Relationships: Central
Value Questions, Issues, and Dilemmas of
Contemporary Public Administration
408
14
The Relationship Between Politics and Administration:
410
The Concept of Issue Networks
Reading 14: Introduction
410
Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment
Hugh Heclo
413
Case Study 14: Introduction
422
Reinventing School Lunch: Transforming a Food Policy into
a Nutrition Policy
423
Laura S. Sims
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
Contents
15
ix
The Relationship Between Bureaucracy and the
Public Interest: The Concept of Administrative
438
Responsibility
Reading 15: Introduction
438
Public Policy and the Nature of Administrative Responsibility
441
Carl J. Friedrich
Administrative Responsibility in Democratic Government
447
Herman Finer
Case Study 15: Introduction
452
Torture and Public Policy
454
James P. Pfiffner
16
The Relationship Between Ethics and Public
Administration: The Concept of Competing
469
Ethical Obligations
Reading 16: Introduction
469
Public Administration and Ethics: A Prologue to a Preface
Dwight Waldo
Case Study 16: Introduction
482
George Tenet and the Last Great Days of the CIA
Richard D. White Jr.
Name Index
Subject Index
472
483
495
501
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
Topical Contents
Budget and Finance
Reading 1.2: The Study of Public Administration in the United States
Case Study 4: The Columbia Accident
105
Reading 5: From Cooperative to Opportunistic Federalism
120
Case Study 10: Government as Catalyst: Can It Work Again with
Wireless Internet Access?
302
Reading 12: The Politics of Public Budgets
345
Case Study 12: Death of a Spy Satellite Program
361
Case Study 13: Expectations
392
Reading 14: Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment
413
Case Study 14: Reinventing School Lunch: Transforming a Food Policy
into a Nutrition Policy
423
17
Bureaucracy and its Accountability
Reading 1.1: The Study of Administration
6
Reading 1.2: The Study of Public Administration in the United States
17
Case Study 1: The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped
31
Reading 2: Bureaucracy
54
Case Study 2: How Kristin Died
64
Reading 4: Power and Administration
99
Case Study 4: The Columbia Accident
105
Reading 5: From Cooperative to Opportunistic Federalism
120
Case Study 5: Wichita Confronts Contamination
137
Case Study 6: American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
160
Reading 7: Inside Public Bureaucracy
172
Case Study 7: The Decision to Go to War with Iraq
195
Reading 8: The Science of “Muddling Through”
215
Case Study 8: How a City Slowly Drowned
227
Reading 9: Administrative Communication (Or How to Make All the Rest Work):
The Concept of Its Professional Centrality
242
Case Study 9: The Shootings at Columbine High School: The Law Enforcement Response
Reading 10: Collaboration Processes: Inside the Black Box
286
Case Study 10: Government as Catalyst: Can It Work Again with
Wireless Internet Access?
302
Reading 11: The Public Service Culture
320
Case Study 11: Who Brought Bernadine Healy Down?
331
Reading 13: The Tides of Reform Revisited: Patterns in Making Government Work
375
Case Study 13: Expectations
392
Reading 14: Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment
413
Case Study 14: Reinventing School Lunch: Transforming a Food Policy
into a Nutrition Policy
423
Reading 15.1: Public Policy and the Nature of Administrative Responsibility
441
Case Study 15: Torture and Public Policy
454
Reading 16: Public Administration and Ethics: A Prologue to a Preface
472
Case Study 16: George Tenet and the Last Great Days of the CIA
483
259
xi
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
xii
Topical Contents
Citizens’ Rights and Participation
Case Study 1: The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped
31
Case Study 2: How Kristin Died
64
Case Study 3: William Robertson: Exemplar of Politics and Public Management
Rightly Understood
87
Case Study 5: Wichita Confronts Contamination
137
Reading 6: Hawthorne and the Western Electric Company
149
Case Study 6: American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
160
Case Study 8: How a City Slowly Drowned
227
Case Study 9: The Shootings at Columbine High School: The Law
Enforcement Response
259
Case Study 11: Who Brought Bernadine Healy Down?
331
Case Study 13: Expectations
392
Reading 14: Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment
413
Case Study 14: Reinventing School Lunch: Transforming a Food Policy
into a Nutrition Policy
423
Reading 15: Public Policy and the Nature of Administrative Responsibility
441
Reading 16: Public Administration and Ethics: A Prologue to a Preface
472
Communications in Administration
Case Study 1: The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped
31
Case Study 2: How Kristin Died
64
Case Study 3: William Robertson: Exemplar of Politics and Public Management
Rightly Understood
87
Reading 4: Power and Administration
99
Case Study 4: The Columbia Accident
105
Case Study 5: Wichita Confronts Contamination
137
Reading 6: Hawthorne and the Western Electric Company
149
Case Study 6: American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
160
Reading 7: Inside Public Bureaucracy
172
Case Study 7: The Decision to Go to War with Iraq
195
Reading 8: The Science of “Muddling Through”
215
Case Study 8: How a City Slowly Drowned
227
Reading 9: Administrative Communication (Or How to Make All the Rest Work):
The Concept of Its Professional Centrality
242
Case Study 9: The Shootings at Columbine High School: The Law
Enforcement Response
259
Reading 10: Collaboration Processes: Inside the Black Box
286
Case Study 10: Government as Catalyst: Can It Work Again with
Wireless Internet Access?
302
Reading 11: The Public Service Culture
320
Case Study 13: Expectations
392
Reading 14: Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment
413
Case Study 14: Reinventing School Lunch: Transforming a Food Policy
into a Nutrition Policy
423
Case Study 15: Torture and Public Policy
454
Case Study 16: George Tenet and the Last Great Days of the CIA
483
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
Topical Contents
xiii
Congress, State Legislatures, County Boards,
or City Councils
Case Study 1: The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped
31
Reading 4: Power and Administration
99
Case Study 4: The Columbia Accident
105
Reading 5: From Cooperative to Opportunistic Federalism
120
Case Study 5: Wichita Confronts Contamination
137
Reading 7: Inside Public Bureaucracy
172
Case Study 7: The Decision to Go to War with Iraq
195
Case Study 8: How a City Slowly Drowned
227
Case Study 9: The Shootings at Columbine High School:
The Law Enforcement Response
259
Reading 12: The Politics of Public Budgets
345
Case Study 12: Death of a Spy Satellite Program
361
Reading 13: The Tides of Reform Revisited: Patterns in Making Government Work
Case Study 13: Expectations
392
Reading 14: Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment
413
Case Study 14: Reinventing School Lunch: Transforming a Food Policy
into a Nutrition Policy
423
Reading 15.1: Public Policy and the Nature of Administrative Responsibility
441
Case Study 15: Torture and Public Policy
454
Case Study 16: George Tenet and the Last Great Days of the CIA
483
375
Decision Making
Reading 3: The Ecology of Public Administration
80
Case Study 3: William Robertson: Exemplar of Politics and Public Management
Rightly Understood
87
Case Study 4: The Columbia Accident
105
Case Study 5: Wichita Confronts Contamination
137
Reading 6: Hawthorne and the Western Electric Company
149
Case Study 6: American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
160
Case Study 7: The Decision to Go to War with Iraq
195
Reading 8: The Science of “Muddling Through”
215
Case Study 8: How a City Slowly Drowned
227
Reading 9: Administrative Communication (Or How to Make All the Rest Work):
The Concept of Its Professional Centrality
242
Case Study 9: The Shootings at Columbine High School: The Law
Enforcement Response
259
Reading 10: Collaboration Processes: Inside the Black Box
286
Case Study 10: Government as Catalyst: Can It Work Again with
Wireless Internet Access?
302
Reading 11: The Public Service Culture
320
Case Study 11: Who Brought Bernadine Healy Down?
331
Reading 12: The Politics of Public Budgets
345
Case Study 12: Death of a Spy Satellite Program
361
Case Study 13: Expectations
392
Reading 14: Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment
413
Case Study 14: Reinventing School Lunch: Transforming a Food Policy
into a Nutrition Policy
423
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
xiv
Topical Contents
Case Study 15: Torture and Public Policy
454
Reading 16: Public Administration and Ethics: A Prologue to a Preface
472
Case Study 16: George Tenet and the Last Great Days of the CIA
483
Ethical and Moral Issues of Public Administration
Case Study 1: The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped
31
Case Study 2: How Kristin Died
64
Case Study 3: William Robertson: Exemplar of Politics and Public Management
Rightly Understood
87
Reading 4: Power and Administration
99
Case Study 4: The Columbia Accident
105
Case Study 5: Wichita Confronts Contamination
137
Case Study 6: American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
160
Case Study 7: The Decision to Go to War with Iraq
195
Case Study 8: How a City Slowly Drowned
227
Reading 9: Administrative Communication (Or How to Make All the Rest Work):
The Concept of Its Professional Centrality
242
Case Study 9: The Shootings at Columbine High School: The Law
Enforcement Response
259
Reading 11: The Public Service Culture
320
Case Study 11: Who Brought Bernadine Healy Down?
331
Case Study 13: Expectations
392
Case Study 15: Torture and Public Policy
454
Reading 16: Public Administration and Ethics: A Prologue to a Preface
472
Case Study 16: George Tenet and the Last Great Days of the CIA
483
Health and Human Services
Case Study 1: The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped
Case Study 2: How Kristin Died
64
Case Study 3: William Robertson: Exemplar of Politics and Public Management
Rightly Understood
87
Case Study 5: Wichita Confronts Contamination
137
Reading 6: Hawthorne and the Western Electric Company
149
Case Study 6: American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
160
Case Study 9: The Shootings at Columbine High School: The Law
Enforcement Response
259
Reading 11: The Public Service Culture
320
Case Study 11: Who Brought Bernadine Healy Down?
331
Case Study 14: Reinventing School Lunch: Transforming a Food Policy
into a Nutrition Policy
423
Case Study 15: Torture and Public Policy
454
31
Implementation
Case Study 1: The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped
Reading 3: The Ecology of Public Administration
80
Case Study 3: William Robertson: Exemplar of Politics and Public Management
Rightly Understood
87
Case Study 4: The Columbia Accident
105
Reading 5: From Cooperative to Opportunistic Federalism
120
31
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
Topical Contents
Case Study 5: Wichita Confronts Contamination
137
Reading 6: Hawthorne and the Western Electric Company
149
Case Study 6: American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
160
Reading 7: Inside Public Bureaucracy
172
Case Study 8: How a City Slowly Drowned
227
Case Study 9: The Shootings at Columbine High School: The Law
Enforcement Response
259
Reading 10: Collaboration Processes: Inside the Black Box
286
Case Study 10: Government as Catalyst: Can It Work Again with
Wireless Internet Access?
302
Reading 11: The Public Service Culture
320
Case Study 11: Who Brought Bernadine Healy Down?
331
Reading 13: The Tides of Reform Revisited: Patterns in Making Government Work
Case Study 13: Expectations
392
Reading 14: Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment
413
Case Study 14: Reinventing School Lunch: Transforming a Food Policy
into a Nutrition Policy
423
Case Study 15: Torture and Public Policy
454
Case Study 16: George Tenet and the Last Great Days of the CIA
483
xv
375
Intergovernmental Programs and Policies
Case Study 1: The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped
Case Study 2: How Kristin Died
64
Reading 5: From Cooperative to Opportunistic Federalism
120
Case Study 5: Wichita Confronts Contamination
137
Case Study 6: American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
160
Case Study 9: The Shootings at Columbine High School: The Law
Enforcement Response
259
Case Study 11: Who Brought Bernadine Healy Down?
331
Reading 12: The Politics of Public Budgets
345
Case Study 13: Expectations
392
Reading 14: Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment
413
Case Study 14: Reinventing School Lunch: Transforming a Food Policy
into a Nutrition Policy
423
31
National Defense and International Relations
Case Study 6: American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
160
Reading 7: Inside Public Bureaucracy
172
Case Study 7: The Decision to Go to War with Iraq
195
Case Study 12: Death of a Spy Satellite Program
361
Reading 14: Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment
413
Case Study 15: Torture and Public Policy
454
Case Study 16: George Tenet and the Last Great Days of the CIA
483
Organizational Behavior
Case Study 1: The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped
Reading 2: Bureaucracy
54
Case Study 2: How Kristin Died
64
Reading 3: The Ecology of Public Administration
80
31
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
xvi
Topical Contents
Case Study 3: William Robertson: Exemplar of Politics and Public Management
Rightly Understood
87
Case Study 4: The Columbia Accident
105
Case Study 5: Wichita Confronts Contamination
137
Reading 6: Hawthorne and the Western Electric Company
149
Case Study 6: American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
160
Reading 7: Inside Public Bureaucracy
172
Case Study 7: The Decision to Go to War with Iraq
195
Reading 8: The Science of “Muddling Through”
215
Case Study 8: How a City Slowly Drowned
227
Reading 9: Administrative Communication (Or How to Make All the Rest Work):
The Concept of Its Professional Centrality
242
Case Study 9: The Shootings at Columbine High School: The Law
Enforcement Response
259
Reading 10: Collaboration Processes: Inside the Black Box
286
Case Study 10: Government as Catalyst: Can It Work Again with
Wireless Internet Access?
302
Reading 11: The Public Service Culture
320
Case Study 11: Who Brought Bernadine Healy Down?
331
Reading 12: The Politics of Public Budgets
345
Case Study 12: Death of a Spy Satellite Program
361
Case Study 13: Expectations
392
Reading 14: Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment
413
Case Study 14: Reinventing School Lunch: Transforming a Food Policy
into a Nutrition Policy
423
Case Study 15: Torture and Public Policy
454
Reading 16: Public Administration and Ethics: A Prologue to a Preface
472
Case Study 16: George Tenet and the Last Great Days of the CIA
483
Organization and Management
Reading 1.1: The Study of Administration
6
Reading 1.2: The Study of Public Administration in the United States
17
Case Study 1: The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped
31
Reading 2: Bureaucracy
54
Case Study 2: How Kristin Died
64
Reading 3: The Ecology of Public Administration
80
Case Study 3: William Robertson: Exemplar of Politics and Public Management
Rightly Understood
87
Reading 4: Power and Administration
99
Case Study 4: The Columbia Accident
105
Reading 5: From Cooperative to Opportunistic Federalism
120
Case Study 5: Wichita Confronts Contamination
137
Reading 6: Hawthorne and the Western Electric Company
149
Case Study 6: American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
160
Reading 7: Inside Public Bureaucracy
172
Case Study 7: The Decision to Go to War with Iraq
195
Reading 10: Collaboration Processes: Inside the Black Box
286
Case Study 10: Government as Catalyst: Can It Work Again with
Wireless Internet Access?
302
Reading 11: The Public Service Culture
320
Case Study 11: Who Brought Bernadine Healy Down?
331
Reading 13: The Tides of Reform Revisited: Patterns in Making Government Work
Case Study 13: Expectations
392
375
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
Topical Contents
Reading 15: Public Policy and the Nature of Administrative Responsibility
Case Study 15: Torture and Public Policy
454
xvii
441
Personnel and Civil Service
Reading 1.1: The Study of Administration
6
Reading 1.2: The Study of Public Administration in the United States
17
Case Study 1: The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped
Reading 2: Bureaucracy
54
Case Study 2: How Kristin Died
64
Case Study 3: William Robertson: Exemplar of Politics and Public Management
Rightly Understood
87
Reading 4: Power and Administration
99
Reading 6: Hawthorne and the Western Electric Company
149
Case Study 6: American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
160
Reading 7: Inside Public Bureaucracy
172
Reading 11: The Public Service Culture
320
Case Study 11: Who Brought Bernadine Healy Down?
331
Case Study 13: Expectations
392
Reading 14: Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment
413
Case Study 14: Reinventing School Lunch: Transforming a Food Policy
into a Nutrition Policy
423
Case Study 15: Torture and Public Policy
454
Reading 16: Public Administration and Ethics: A Prologue to a Preface
472
Case Study 16: George Tenet and the Last Great Days of the CIA
483
31
Planning and Policy Development
Reading 3: The Ecology of Public Administration
80
Case Study 3: William Robertson: Exemplar of Politics and Public Management
Rightly Understood
87
Reading 4: Power and Administration
99
Case Study 4: The Columbia Accident
105
Reading 5: From Cooperative to Opportunistic Federalism
120
Case Study 5: Wichita Confronts Contamination
137
Case Study 6: American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
160
Reading 7: Inside Public Bureaucracy
172
Case Study 7: The Decision to Go to War with Iraq
195
Reading 8: The Science of “Muddling Through”
215
Case Study 8: How a City Slowly Drowned
227
Reading 9: Administrative Communication (Or How to Make All the Rest Work):
The Concept of Its Professional Centrality
242
Case Study 9: The Shootings at Columbine High School:
The Law Enforcement Response
259
Reading 12: The Politics of Public Budgets
345
Case Study 12: Death of a Spy Satellite Program
361
Reading 14: Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment
413
Case Study 14: Reinventing School Lunch: Transforming a Food Policy
into a Nutrition Policy
423
Reading 15.1: Public Policy and the Nature of Administrative Responsibility
441
Case Study 15: Torture and Public Policy
454
Case Study 16: George Tenet and the Last Great Days of the CIA
483
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
xviii
Topical Contents
Power and Politics in Administration
Case Study 1: The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped
Reading 2: Bureaucracy
54
Case Study 2: How Kristin Died
64
Case Study 3: William Robertson: Exemplar of Politics and Public Management
Rightly Understood
87
Reading 4: Power and Administration
99
Case Study 4: The Columbia Accident
105
Reading 5: From Cooperative to Opportunistic Federalism
120
Case Study 5: Wichita Confronts Contamination
137
Case Study 6: American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
160
Reading 7: Inside Public Bureaucracy
172
Case Study 7: The Decision to Go to War with Iraq
195
Case Study 8: How a City Slowly Drowned
227
Case Study 9: The Shootings at Columbine High School: The Law
Enforcement Response
259
Reading 11: The Public Service Culture
320
Case Study 11: Who Brought Bernadine Healy Down?
331
Reading 12: The Politics of Public Budgets
345
Case Study 12: Death of a Spy Satellite Program
361
Case Study 13: Expectations
392
Reading 14: Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment
413
Case Study 14: Reinventing School Lunch: Transforming a Food Policy
into a Nutrition Policy
423
Case Study 15: Torture and Public Policy
454
Case Study 16: George Tenet and the Last Great Days of the CIA
483
31
The Presidency, Governors, Mayors,
or County Commissioners
Case Study 1: The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped
31
Reading 4: Power and Administration
99
Reading 5: From Cooperative to Opportunistic Federalism
120
Case Study 6: American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
160
Case Study 7: The Decision to Go to War with Iraq
195
Case Study 8: How a City Slowly Drowned
227
Reading 12: The Politics of Public Budgets
345
Reading 13: The Tides of Reform Revisited: Patterns in Making Government Work
Case Study 13: Expectations
392
Reading 14: Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment
413
Case Study 15: Torture and Public Policy
454
375
Regulation, Rule Enforcement, and Law Enforcement
Reading 1.1: The Study of Administration
6
Case Study 1: The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped
Reading 2: Bureaucracy
54
Case Study 2: How Kristin Died
64
Reading 4: Power and Administration
99
Case Study 4: The Columbia Accident
105
Reading 5: From Cooperative to Opportunistic Federalism
120
31
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
Topical Contents
Case Study 5: Wichita Confronts Contamination
137
Case Study 6: American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
160
Case Study 8: How a City Slowly Drowned
227
Case Study 9: The Shootings at Columbine High School: The Law
Enforcement Response
259
Case Study 12: Death of a Spy Satellite Program
361
Case Study 13: Expectations
392
Case Study 14: Reinventing School Lunch: Transforming a Food Policy
into a Nutrition Policy
423
Reading 15.1: Public Policy and the Nature of Administrative Responsibility
Case Study 15: Torture and Public Policy
454
xix
441
State and Local Government
Case Study 1: The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped
31
Case Study 2: How Kristin Died
64
Reading 3: The Ecology of Public Administration
80
Case Study 3: William Robertson: Exemplar of Politics and Public Management
Rightly Understood
87
Reading 5: From Cooperative to Opportunistic Federalism
120
Case Study 5: Wichita Confronts Contamination
137
Case Study 6: American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
160
Reading 7: Inside Public Bureaucracy
172
Case Study 8: How a City Slowly Drowned
227
Reading 9: Administrative Communication (Or How to Make All the Rest Work):
The Concept of Its Professional Centrality
242
Case Study 9: The Shootings at Columbine High School: The Law
Enforcement Response
259
Case Study 10: Government as Catalyst: Can It Work Again with
Wireless Internet Access?
302
Reading 11: The Public Service Culture
320
Case Study 11: Who Brought Bernadine Healy Down?
331
Reading 12: The Politics of Public Budgets
345
Reading 13: The Tides of Reform Revisited: Patterns in Making Government Work
Case Study 13: Expectations
392
375
The Study of Public Administration as a Discipline
Reading 1.1: The Study of Administration
6
Reading 1.2: The Study of Public Administration in the United States
17
Case Study 1: The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped
31
Reading 2: Bureaucracy
54
Case Study 2: How Kristin Died
64
Reading 3: The Ecology of Public Administration
80
Reading 4: Power and Administration
99
Reading 5: From Cooperative to Opportunistic Federalism
120
Reading 6: Hawthorne and the Western Electric Company
149
Reading 7: Inside Public Bureaucracy
172
Reading 10: Collaboration Processes: Inside the Black Box
286
Reading 11: The Public Service Culture
320
Reading 13: The Tides of Reform Revisited: Patterns in Making Government Work
Reading 14: Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment
413
Reading 15.1: Public Policy and the Nature of Administrative Responsibility
441
375
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xx
Topical Contents
Third-Party Government
Case Study 3: William Robertson: Exemplar of Politics and Public Management
Rightly Understood
87
Case Study 4: The Columbia Accident
105
Case Study 5: Wichita Confronts Contamination
137
Reading 7: Inside Public Bureaucracy
172
Case Study 9: The Shootings at Columbine High School: The Law
Enforcement Response
259
Case Study 10: Government as Catalyst: Can It Work Again with
Wireless Internet Access?
302
Case Study 11: Who Brought Bernadine Healy Down?
331
Reading 13: The Tides of Reform Revisited: Patterns in Making Government Work
Case Study 13: Expectations
392
Case Study 14: Reinventing School Lunch: Transforming a Food Policy
into a Nutrition Policy
423
Case Study 15: Torture and Public Policy
454
375
Women and Minority Issues
Case Study 2: How Kristin Died
64
Case Study 6: American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center
Case Study 8: How a City Slowly Drowned
227
Case Study 11: Who Brought Bernadine Healy Down?
331
Case Study 13: Expectations
392
Case Study 14: Reinventing School Lunch: Transforming a Food Policy
into a Nutrition Policy
423
160
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
Preface
The publication of this ninth edition marks thirty-three years since this text’s first
appearance in print. When the first edition was published, I hoped that this text would
offer an improved way to teach the “basics” of public administration that would be
both exciting and challenging for students. Over the intervening three decades, it has
succeeded more than I could have imagined. I hope that readers of this ninth edition
will find that this edition continues to meet their needs for a different and better way
of introducing the field of public administration to both new students and “old hands.”
Format and Approach
The methodological format and design of the first eight editions remain intact in the
ninth edition. The approach seeks to interrelate many of the authoritative conceptual
works in public administration with contemporary case studies.
By pairing a reading with a case study in each chapter, the text serves four important purposes:
1. The concept-case study method permits students to read firsthand the work of leading administrative theorists who have shaped the modern study of public administration. This method aims at developing in students a critical appreciation of the
classic administrative ideas that are the basis of modern public administration.
2. The text encourages a careful examination of practical administrative problems
through the presentation of contemporary cases—often involving major national
events—that demonstrate the complexity, the centrality, and the challenge of the
current administrative processes of public organizations.
3. The book seeks to promote a deeper understanding of the relationship between the
theory and practice of public administration by allowing readers to test for themselves the validity of major ideas about public administration in the context of actual situations.
4. Finally, the concept-case method develops a keener appreciation of the eclectic
breadth and interdisciplinary dimensions of public administration by presenting
articles—both conceptual and case writings—from a wide variety of sources, using
many materials not available in the average library.
The immense quantity of literature in the field has always made selecting the writings a challenge. My final choice of what to include is based upon affirmative answers
to the following four questions:
1. Do the writings focus on the central issues confronting public administrators?
2. Does the material, individually and collectively, give a realistic view of the
contemporary practice of public administration?
xxi
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
xxii
Preface
3. Do the individual conceptual readings and case studies relate logically to one another?
4. Are the writings interesting and long enough to convey the true sense and spirit intended
by the authors?
The arrangement of the selections follows an order of topics used by many instructors
in the field, moving from a definition of public administration to increasingly specific issues and problems. Many subjects (such as headquarters-field relationships, position classification, enforcement, government regulation, productivity, and personnel recruitment),
though not treated separately, are discussed within various chapters under other headings
(refer to the topic index for additional cross-references).
This diagram may help readers to understand the design of the book more clearly.
PART THREE
litics and Adm
tween Po
inistr
e
B
atio
ship
hapter 14
C
n
n
o
ti
a
l
Re
PART TWO
n Making
e
D cisio
Chapter 8
at
i
d
an
ics r 16
h
t
e
t
E
ap
n
ee Ch
tw
Intergovernmental
Relations
Chapter 5
t
ing
get
u d 12
B
ic pter
bl
Pu Cha
Political
Environment
Chapter 4
es
ter
Internal
Dynamics
Chapter 6
Pub
tration
The Scope and
Purpose of Public
Administration
Chapter 1
In
trati
ve
Cha Reo
pte
r
r 1 gan
iz
3
General
Environment
Chapter 3
ic
bl
Key
Decision Makers
Chapter 7
tion
nica
Admin
is
Formal
Structure
Chapter 2
Relationship B
e
t
w
e
en B
ure
a
Cha ucra
pte cy
r 1 an
d
5
t
he
Exe
c
u
Pu
t
i ve
M
Cha ana
p
g
t
e
r 1 em
en
0
t
is
dmin
m
in
mu
om
eC r9
tiv apte
ra
ist Ch
lic A
Pub
Ad
PART ONE
on
rsonnel Motivation
lic Pe
Chapter 11
Re
lat
ion
sh
ip
Be
At the center of this schematic figure is chapter 1, which discusses “The Scope and
Purpose of Public Administration,” perhaps the most difficult, central intellectual problem
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
Preface
xxiii
in public administration today. The first ring outward is Part One, “The Pattern of
Public Administration in America.” These six chapters present concepts and cases
pertaining to the broad environment surrounding public administration and the work
of public administrators. The second ring is Part Two, “The Multiple Functions of
Public Administrators.” These six chapters focus on the major activities, roles, and
responsibilities of practicing administrators in the public sector. The exterior ring is
Part Three; these three chapters discuss “Enduring and Unresolved Relationships” in
public administration, ones especially critical during the dawn of the 21st century for
the field as a whole.
New Material in the Ninth Edition
Readings and cases have been carefully selected with an eye to readability and contemporary appeal to ensure that the text stays current and continues to reflect the ideas
and events shaping public administration today. In this edition, special attention has
been paid to ensuring the accessibility of writings for students: contemporary topics
and issues that students want and need to know about are addressed in the new
selections.
Seven new cases (nearly half of the total case studies) and five new conceptual readings (almost one-third of the conceptual writings) appear in this edition:
Case Study 3: William Robertson: Exemplar of Politics and Public Management
Rightly Understood (Terry L. Cooper and Thomas A. Bryer)
Reading 5: From Cooperative to Opportunistic Federalism (Tim Conlan)
Case Study 8: How a City Slowly Drowned (Michael Grunwald and Susan B. Glasser)
Reading 10: Collaboration Processes: Inside the Black Box (Ann Marie Thomson and
James L. Perry)
Case Study 10: Government as Catalyst: Can It Work Again with Wireless Internet
Access? (Abhijit Jain, Munir Mandviwalla, and Rajiv D. Banker)
Case Study 12: Death of a Spy Satellite Program (Philip Taubman)
Reading 13: The Tides of Reform Revisited: Patterns in Making Government Work
(Paul C. Light)
Case Study 13: Expectations (Katherine Boo)
Reading 15.1: Public Policy and the Nature of Administrative Responsibility (Carl J.
Friedrich)
Reading 15.2: Administrative Responsibility in Democratic Government (Herman Finer)
Case Study 15: Torture and Public Policy (James P. Pfiffner)
Case Study 16: George Tenet and the Last Great Days of the CIA (Richard D.
White, Jr.)
Revised introductions, alerting students to the main ideas that follow, open each
selection. Also updated are the review questions, key terms, and suggestions for further reading that conclude each chapter, as well as the subject index and topic correlation chart.
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
xxiv
Preface
The Instructor’s Guide
The Instructor’s Guide complements the text by offering insights, practical suggestions, and resources for teaching introductory and graduate students. The guide is organized as a set of memoranda from myself to the instructor. Each memo addresses
a separate important topic, such as “How to use case studies in the classroom.” The
guide also includes sample quizzes, exams, and course evaluation forms, as well as
helpful student handouts such as the Federalist Papers, nos. 10 and 51.
Acknowledgments
Thanks must also go to my editors at Cengage Learning for their generous support
and enthusiastic encouragement throughout this difficult writing and editing assignment, particularly Edwin Hill, Nathan Gamache, and Aileen Mason. Also, I could not
have developed this new edition without the invaluable research and editorial assistance of Ms. Elizabeth Couch, as well as Mr. Keith Blue’s suggestion for adding the
new case study no. 13. To these and many others, I owe a debt of gratitude for their
assistance.
R.J.S. II
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
CHAPTER 1
The Search for the Scope and Purpose
of Public Administration
O
ur own politics must be the touchstone for all theories. The principles on which
to base a science of administration for America must be principles which have
democratic policy very much at heart.
Woodrow Wilson
READING 1.1
Introduction
A definition of the parameters of a field of study, that is, the boundaries, landmarks, and terrain that distinguish it from other scientific and humanistic disciplines, is normally considered
a good place to begin any academic subject. Unfortunately, as yet, no one has produced a simple definition of the study of public administration—at least one on which most practitioners
and scholars agree. Attempting to define the core values and focus of twenty-first–century public administration provides lively debates and even deep divisions among students of the field.
A major difficulty in arriving at a precise and universally acceptable definition arises in
part from the rapid growth in the twentieth century of public administration, which today
seems to be all-encompassing. Public administrators are engaged in technical, although not
necessarily mundane details: they prepare budgets for a city government, classify jobs in a
post office, have potholes patched and mail delivered, or evaluate the performance of a city’s 公共管理作
drug treatment centers. At the same time, they are also concerned with the major goals of ⽤用
society and with the development of resources for achieving those goals within the context
of a rapidly changing political environment. For instance, if an engineering staff of a state
agency proposes to build a highway, this decision appears at first glance to be a purely administrative activity. However, it involves a wide range of social values related to pressing
concerns such as community land-use patterns, energy consumption, pollution control, and
mass transit planning. Race relations, the general economic well-being of a community,
and the allocation of scarce physical and human resources affect even simple administrative decisions about highway construction.
Public administration does not operate in a vacuum but is deeply intertwined with the
critical dilemmas confronting an entire society. The issue then becomes: How can a theorist reasonably and concisely define a field so interrelated with all of society?
1
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2
Chapter 1/ The Search for the Scope and Purpose of Public Administration
The rapidly increasing number and scope of activities involving public administration
have led theorists to develop a variety of definitions. Consider fifteen offered during the
past two decades by leading textbook writers:
Public Administration is the production of goods and services designed to serve the needs
of citizens-consumers.
Marshall Dimock, Gladys Dimock, and Douglas Fox,
Public Administration (Fifth Edition, 1983)
We suggest a new conceptual framework that emphasizes the perception of public administration as design, with attendant emphasis on participative decision making and
learning, purpose and action, innovation, imagination and creativity, and social interaction and “coproduction.”
Jong S. Jun,
Public Administration (1986)
In ordinary usage, public administration is a generic expression for the entire bundle of
activities that are involved in the establishment and implementation of public policies.
Cole Blease Graham, Jr., and
Steven W. Hays,
Managing the Public Organization (1986)
Public administration:
1. is a cooperative group effort in a public setting.
2. covers all three branches—executive, legislative, and judicial—and their interrelationships.
3. has an important role in the formulation of public policy, and is thus part of the political process.
4. is different in significant ways from private administration.
5. is closely associated with numerous private groups and individuals in providing services to the community.
Felix A. Nigro and Lloyd G. Nigro,
Modern Public Administration (Seventh Edition, 1989)
. . . Public administration is centrally concerned with the organization of government policies and programs as well as the behavior of officials (usually nonelected) formally responsible for their conduct.
Charles H. Levine, B. Guy Peters, and Frank J. Thompson,
Public Administration: Challenges, Choices, Consequences (1990)
The practice of public administration involves the dynamic reconciliation of various
forces in government’s efforts to manage public policies and programs.
Melvin J. Dubnick and Barbara S. Romzek,
American Public Administration: Politics and the Management of
Expectations (1991)
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
Reading 1.1/ Introduction
Public administration is concerned with the management of public programs.
Robert B. Denhardt,
Public Administration: An Action Orientation (1995)
Public Administration can be portrayed as a wheel of relationships focused on the implementation of public policy.
William C. Johnson,
Public Administration: Policy, Politics and Practice (Second Edition, 1995)
Public Administration in all modern nations is identified with the executive branch.
James W. Fesler and Donald F. Kettl
The Politics of the Administrative Process (Second Edition, 1996)
Public administration is the use of managerial, political, and legal theories and processes
to fulfill legislative, executive, and judicial governmental mandates for the provision of
regulatory and service functions for the society as a whole or for some segments of it.
David H. Rosenbloom and Deborah D. Goldman,
Public Administration: Understanding Management, Politics, and Law in
the Public Sector (Fourth Edition, 1997)
Public service is service, and as such must always be seen in personal terms. . . . This is
what public administration means to me . . . the only path along which personal human
development can proceed.
O. C. McSuite,
Invitation to Public Administration (2002)
All administration, including public administration, depends on the cooperative effort
of the individuals who make up the administration. Therefore, administration is affected
by all the complexities of human nature.
N. Joseph Cayer, and Louis Weschler,
Public Administration: Social Change and Adaptive Management
(Second Edition, 2002)
Public administration is not only instrumental—public sector decisions and actions are
often complex, involve multiple possibilities, and change with time; and public sector practitioners are involved with determining what government does in addition to how it does it.
Richard C. Box,
Public Administration and Society (2004)
Public administration may be defined as all processes, organizations, and individuals (the
latter acting in official positions and roles) associated with carrying out laws and other
rules adopted or issued by legislatures, executives, and courts.
Michael E. Milakovich,
Public Administration in America (Ninth Edition, 2006).
Traditionally, public administration is thought of as the accomplishing side of government.
It is supposed to comprise all those activities involved in carrying out the policies of
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
3
4
Chapter 1/ The Search for the Scope and Purpose of Public Administration
elected officials and some activities associated with the development of those policies.
Public administration is . . . all that comes after the last campaign promise and electionnight cheer.
Grover Starling,
Managing the Public Sector (Eighth Edition, 2007)
Generally, these attempts at defining public administration seem to identify it with the
following: (1) the executive branch of government (yet it is related in important ways to the
legislative and judicial branches); (2) the formulation and implementation of public policies;
(3) the involvement in a considerable range of problems concerning human behavior and co- 定义、理解
operative human effort; (4) a field that can be differentiated in several ways from private administration; (5) the production of public goods and services; and (6) rooted in the law as
well as concerned with carrying out laws. However, trying to pin down public administration in more specific detail becomes, according to specialists such as Harold Stein, a fruit- 对公共管理
less endeavor. The many variables and complexities of public administration make almost 进⾏行特殊细
节的限制
every administrative situation a unique event, eluding any highly systematic categorization. 失败
As Harold Stein writes: “public administration is a field in which every man is his own codifier and categorizer and the categories adopted must be looked on as relatively evanescent.”1
For some writers like Frederick C. Mosher, the elusiveness of a disciplinary core for public administration gives the subject its strength and fascination, for students must draw upon
many fields and disciplines, as well as their own resources, to solve a particular administrative problem. As Mosher writes: “Perhaps it is best that it [public administration] not
be defined. It is more an area of interest than a discipline, more a focus than a separate
science. . . . It is necessarily cross-disciplinary. The overlapping and vague boundaries
should be viewed as a resource, even though they are irritating to some with orderly minds.”2
But for others like Robert S. Parker, the frustrations of dealing with such a disorderly discipline mitigate against its being a mature, rewarding academic field of study. “There is really no such subject as ‘public administration,’” writes Parker. “No science or art can be
identified by this title, least of all any single skill or coherent intellectual discipline. The term
has no relation to the world of systematic thought. . . . It does not, in itself, offer any promising opportunity to widen or make more precise any single aspect of scientific knowledge.”3
Despite Parker’s pessimistic assessment of the present and future status of public administration, the search for a commonly accepted definition of the field, both in its academic
and professional applications, continues by many scholars.
Indeed, defining public administration—its boundaries, scope, and purpose—has become, in recent decades, a preoccupation and difficulty confronting public administration
theorists. The field’s “identity crisis,” as Dwight Waldo once labeled the dilemma, has now
become especially acute because a plethora of models, approaches, and theories now purport to define what public administration is all about.
To help us understand public administration today, it is useful to study the rationale for creating this field, as outlined in an essay written in 1887 by Woodrow Wilson, a young political
Harold Stein, Public Administration and Policy Development: A Case Book (New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1952), xxv.
2
Frederick C. Mosher, “Research in Public Administration,” Public Administration Review, 16 (Summer 1956): 177.
3
Robert S. Parker, “The End of Public Administration,” Public Administration, 34 (June 1965): 99.
1
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Reading 1.1/ Introduction
5
scientist at the time. Wilson (1856–1924) is better known as the twenty-eighth President of
the United States (1913–1921), father of the League of Nations, Commander-in-Chief during
World War I, and author of much of the “New Freedom” progressive reform legislation. Wilson
is also credited by scholars with writing the first essay on public administration in the United
States and therefore is considered by many as its American founder. His short but distinguished
essay, “The Study of Administration,” was published a century after the U.S. Constitution’s
birth. Wilson had just begun his academic career, teaching political science at Bryn Mawr
College in Pennsylvania, after earning his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University. The editor of
a new journal (Political Science Quarterly) asked Wilson to contribute an essay on this developing subject. At that time, public administration had been a well-established discipline in
Europe but was largely unknown in America.
Geographic isolation, agrarian self-sufficiency, the absence of threats to national security,
and limited demands for public services, among other things, had allowed the United States
to get along reasonably well during its first century of existence without the self-conscious
study of public administration. However, many events were forcing Americans to take notice
of the need for public administration. By the late nineteenth century, technologic innovations
such as the automobile, telephone, and light bulb and growing international involvement in
the Spanish-American War, combined with increasing public participation in a democratic government, created urgent needs for expanded, effective administrative services. As a consequence, we also required an established field of administrative study. Wilson wrote his essay
at the time when civil service reform had been instituted in the federal government (the Civil
Service Act or “the Pendleton Act,” named for its legislative sponsor, had been passed in 1883).
Much of Wilson’s centennial essay was, not surprisingly, a plea for recognizing the central
importance of administrative machinery, especially a well-trained civil service based on merit,
rather than politics, to operate a modern democratic government.
Just as the Federalist Papers, authored by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John
Jay had a century before advocated the passage of the U.S. Constitution, Wilson called in
1887 for the necessity of this new field “to run a constitution” during its second century.
His essay strived to encourage the development of public administration and to underscore
the importance of effective administration for the Constitution’s survival in the future.
But how could Americans graft public administration into their Constitution, which had
not mentioned this subject? For Wilson—and modern students of the field—this was the critical issue. In developing public administration—both practically and academically—Wilson’s
basic difficulty was to reconcile the notions of constitutional democracy with inherent concerns
for popular control and participation with theories of efficient, professional administration, and
their stress on systematic rules and internal procedures as distinct from democratic oversight
and influence. For Wilson, this inevitable conflict could be settled by dividing government
into two spheres—“politics,” in which choices regarding what government should do are two parts
determined by a majority of elected representatives, and “administration,” which serves to which
carry out the dictates of the populace through efficient procedures relatively free from po- are most
litical meddling.
importan
Although modern administrative scholars generally reject the possibility or desirt in
ability of drawing any hard-or-fast line between politics and administration, or what most
call “the politics-administration dichotomy,” the issues Wilson raised are enduring and Wilson's
important. Read the essay for yourself and see how you judge the validity of Wilson’s mind
arguments.
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
6
Chapter 1/ The Search for the Scope and Purpose of Public Administration
How did Wilson define public administration, and why did he believe it was so critical to
the future of the United States? Are his arguments for its basic rationale and value still valid?
Why did Wilson distinguish between “politics” and “administration” as important terms
for creating public administration? In your opinion, is such a “politics-administration dichotomy” practical and workable? What are the advantages and disadvantages of using
such a dichotomy today as a way to advance this field of study?
What sources did Wilson believe the United States should draw on in developing this new
field? And what sources should Americans avoid in shaping their administrative enterprise?
And why?
What issues and challenges did Wilson pose for administrative study and practice? Are
these still priorities today?
The Study of Administration
WOODROW WILSON
I suppose that no practical science is ever studied
where there is no need to know it. The very fact, therefore, that the eminently practical science of administration is finding its way into college courses in this
country would prove that this country needs to know
more about administration, were such proof of the
fact required to make out a case. It need not be said,
however, that we do not look into college programmes
for proof of this fact. It is a thing almost taken for
granted among us, that the present movement called
civil service reform must, after the accomplishment
of its first purpose, expand into efforts to improve, not
the personnel only, but also the organization and
methods of our government offices: because it is plain
that their organization and methods need improvement only less than their personnel. It is the object
of administrative study to discover, first, what gov1ernment can properly and successfully do, and, secondly, how it can do these proper things with the
utmost possible efficiency and at the least possible
cost either of money or of energy. On both these
points there is obviously much need of light among
us; and only careful study can supply that light.
Reprinted with permission from Political Science Quarterly, 2
(June 1887): 197–222.
Before entering on that study, however, it is needful:
I. To take some account of what others have done
in the same line; that is to say, of the history of
the study.
II. To ascertain just what is its subject-matter.
III. To determine just what are the best methods by
which to develop it, and the most clarifying political conceptions to carry with us into it.
Unless we know and settle these things, we shall
set out without chart or compass.
I.
The science of administration is the latest fruit of that
study of the science of politics which was begun some
twenty-two hundred years ago. It is a birth of our own
century, almost of our own generation.
Why was it so late in coming? Why did it wait till
this too busy century of ours to demand attention for
itself? Administration is the most obvious part of government; it is government in action; it is the executive,
the operative, the most visible side of government,
and is of course as old as government itself. It is
Copyright 2009 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
Woodrow Wilson / The Study of Administration
government in action, and one might very naturally
expect to find that government in action had arrested
the attention and provoked the scrutiny of writers of
politics very early in the history of systematic
thought.
But such was not the case. No one wrote systematically of administration as a branch of the science
of government until the present century had passed
its first youth and had begun to put forth its characteristic flower of systematic knowledge. Up to our
own day all the political writers whom we now read
had thought, argued, dogmatized only about the constitution of government; about the nature of the state,
the essence and seat of sovereignty, popular power
and kingly prerogative; about the greatest meanings
lying at the heart of government, and the high ends
set before the purpose of government by man’s nature and man’s aims. The central field of controversy
was that great field of theory in which monarchy
rode tilt against democracy, in which oligarchy would
have built for itself strongholds of privilege, and in
which tyranny sought opportunity to make good its
claim to receive submission from all competitors.
Amidst this high warfare of principles, administration
could command no pause for its own consideration.
The question was always: Who shall make law, and
what shall that law be? The other question, how law
should be administered with enlightenment, with equity, with speed, and without friction, was put aside
as “practical detail” which clerks could arrange after
doctors had agreed upon principles.
That political philosophy took this direction was
of course no accident, no chance preference or perverse whim of political philosophers. The philosophy
of any time is, as Hegel says, “nothing but the spirit
of that time expressed in abstract thought”; and political philosophy, like philosophy of every other
kind, has only held up the mirror to contemporary affairs. The trouble in early times was almost altogether about the constitution of government; and
consequently that was what engrossed men’s
thoughts. There was little or no trouble about administration,—at least little that was heeded by administrators. The functions of government were
simple, because life itself was simple. Government
went about imperatively and compelled men, without
没有⼈人关注pa,只关⼼心政府的宪法
当时政府的职能是单⼀一的
7
thought of consulting their wishes. There was no
complex system of public revenues and public debts
to puzzle financiers; there were, consequently, no
financiers to be puzzled. No one who possessed
power was long at a loss how to use it. The great and
only question was: Who shall possess it? Populations
were of manageable numbers; property was of simple sorts. There were plenty of farms, but no stocks
and bonds; more cattle than vested interests.
•••
There is scarcely a single duty of government
which was once simple which is not now complex;
government once had but a few masters; it now has
scores of masters. Majorities formerly only underwent government; they now conduct government.
Where government once might follow the whims of a
court, it must now follow the views of a nation.
And those views are steadily widening to new
conceptions of state duty; so that, at the same time
that the functions of government are every day becoming more complex and difficult, they are also
vastly multiplying in number. Administration is
everywhere putting its hands to new undertakings.
The utility, cheapness, and success of the government’s postal service, for instance, point towards the
early establishment of governmental control of the
telegraph system. Or, even if our government is not
to follow the lead of the governments of Europe in
buying or building both telegraph and railroad lines,
no one can doubt that in some way it must make it-国家
self master of masterful corporations. The creation铁路
of national commissioners of railroads, in addition部⻓长
的产
to the older state commissions, involves a very im-⽣生预
portant and delicate extension of administrative⽰示着
functions. Whatever hold of authority state or federalpa发
governments are to take upon corporations, there展
must follow cares and responsibilities which will require not a little wisdom, knowledge, and experience. Such things must be studied in order to be well
done. And these, as I have said, are only a few of the
doors which are being opened to offices of government. The idea of the state and the consequent ideal of
its duty are undergoing noteworthy change; and “the
idea of the state is the conscience of administration.”
Seeing every day new things which the state ought
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8
Chapter 1/ The Search for the Scope and Purpose of Public Administration
to do, the next thing is to see clearly how it ought to
franchise, the reason will doubtless be found to be
do them.
twofold: first, that in Europe, just because governThis is why there should be a science of adminisment was independent of popular assent, there was
tration which shall seek to straighten the paths of govmore governing to be done; and, second, that the deernment, to make its business less unbusinesslike; to
sire to keep government a monopoly made the mostrengthen and purify its organization, and to crown
nopolists interested in discovering the least irritating
its duties with dutifulness. This is one reason why
means of governing. They were, besides, few enough
there is such a science.
to adopt means promptly.
公共管理学科存在的意义
But where has this science grown up? Surely not
•••
on this side of the sea. Not much impartial scientific
method is to be discerned in our administrative pracThe English race . . . has long and successfully
tices. The poisonous atmosphere of city government,
studied the art of curbing executive power to the
the crooked secrets of state administration, the confuconstant neglect of the art of perfecting executive
sion, sinecurism, and corruption ever and again dismethods. It has exercised itself much more in concovered in the bureaus at Washington forbid us to
trolling than in energizing government. It has been
believe that any clear conceptions of what constitutes
more concerned to render government just and modgood administration are as yet very widely current in
erate than to make it facile, well-ordered, and efthe United States. No; American writers have hitherto
fective. English and American political history has
taken no very important part in the advancement of this
been a history, not of administrative development,
science. It has found its doctors in Europe. It is not of
but of legislative oversight,—not of progress in govour making; it is a foreign science, speaking very liternmental organization, but of advance in law-maktle of the language of English or American principle.
ing and political criticism. Consequently, we have
It employs only foreign tongues; it utters none but
reached a time when administrative study and crewhat are to our minds alien ideas. Its aims, its examation are imperatively necessary to the well-being
ples, its conditions, are almost exclusively grounded
of our governments saddled with the habits of a
in the histories of foreign races, in the precedents of
long period of constitution-making. That period has
foreign systems, in the lessons of foreign revolutions.
practically closed, so far as the establishment of esIt has been developed by French and German prosential principles is concerned, but we cannot shake
fessors, and is consequently in all parts adapted to
off its atmosphere. We go on criticizing when we
the needs of a compact state, and made to fit highly
ought to be creating. We have reached the third of
centralized forms of government; whereas, to anthe periods I have mentioned,—the period, namely,
swer our purposes, it must be adapted, not to a simwhen the people have to develop administration in
ple and compact, but to a complex and multiform
accordance with the constitutions they won for themstate, and made to fit highly decentralized forms of
selves in a previous period of struggle with absolute
government. If we would employ it, we must Amerpower; but we are not prepared for the tasks of the
icanize it, and that not formally, in language merely,
new period.
but radically, in thought, principle, and aim as well.
Such an explanation seems to afford the only esIt must learn our constitutions by heart; must get the
cape from blank astonishment at the fact that, in
bureaucratic fever out of its veins; must inhale much
spite of our vast advantages in point of political lib需要彻底将他国⽂文化转变为⾃自⼰己的财富erty, and above all in point of practical political skill
free American air.
If an explanation be sought why a science manand sagacity, so many nations are ahead of us in adifestly so susceptible of being made useful to all
ministrative organization and administrative skill.
governments alike should have received attention
Why, for instance, have we but just begun purifying
first in Europe, where government has long been a
a civil service which was rotten full fifty years ago?
monopoly, rather than in England or the United
To say that slavery diverted us is but to repeat what I
States, where government has long been a common
have said—that flaws in our Constitution delayed us.
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Woodrow Wilson / The Study of Administration
Of course all reasonable preference would declare
for this English and American course of politics rather
than for that of any European country. We should not
like to have had Prussia’s history for the sake of having Prussia’s administrative skill; and Prussia’s particular system of administration would quite suffocate
us. It is better to be untrained and free than to be
servile and systematic. Still there is no denying that
it would be better yet to be both free in spirit and proficient in practice. It is this even more reasonable
preference which impels us to discover what there
may be to hinder or delay us in naturalizing this muchto-be desired science of administration.
What, then, is there to prevent?
Well, principally, popular sovereignty. It is harder
for democracy to organize administration than for
monarchy. The very completeness of our most cherished political successes in the past embarrasses us.
We have enthroned public opinion; and it is forbidden us to hope during its reign for any quick schooling of the sovereign in executive expertness or in the
conditions of perfect functional balance in government. The very fact that we have realized popular
rule in its fullness has made the task of organizing
that rule just so much the more difficult. In order
to make any advance at all we must instruct and
persuade a multitudinous monarch called public
opinion,—a much less feasible undertaking than to
influence a single monarch called a king. An individual sovereign will adopt a simple plan and carry
it out directly; he will have but one opinion, and he
will embody that one opinion in one command. But
this other sovereign, the people, will have a score of
differing opinions. They can agree upon nothing
simple: advance must be made through compromise,
by a compounding of differences, by a trimming of
plans and a suppression of too straightforward principles. There will be a succession of resolves running through a course of years, a dropping fire of
commands running through a whole gamut of
modifications.
In government, as in virtue, the hardest of hard
things is to make progress. Formerly the reason for
this was that the single person who was sovereign
was generally either selfish, ignorant, timid, or a
fool,—albeit there was now and again one who was
9
wise. Nowadays the reason is that the many, the people, who are sovereign have no single ear which one
can approach, and are selfish, ignorant, timid, stubborn, or foolish with the selfishnesses, the ignorances, the stubbornnesses, the timidities, or the
follies of several thousand persons,—albeit there are
hundreds who are wise. Once the advantage of the reformer was that the sovereign’s mind had a definite
locality, that it was contained in one man’s head, and
that consequently it could be gotten at; though it was
his disadvantage that that mind learned only reluctantly or only in small quantities, or was under the influence of someone who let it learn only the wrong
things. Now, on the contrary, the reformer is bewildered by the fact that the sovereign’s mind has no definite locality, but is contained in a voting majority of
several million heads; and embarrassed by the fact
that the mind of this sovereign also is under the influence of favorites, who are none the less favorites
in a good old-fashioned sense of the word because
they are not persons but preconceived opinions; i.e.,
prejudices which are not to be reasoned with because
they are not the children of reason.
Wherever regard for public opinion is a first principle of government, practical reform must be slow
and all reform must be full of compromises. For wherever public opinion exists it must rule. This is now an
axiom half the world over, and will presently come to
be believed even in Russia. Whoever would effect a
change in a modern constitutional government must
first educate his fellow-citizens to want some change.
That done, he must persuade them to want the particular change he wants. He must first make public
opinion willing to listen and then see to it that it listen to the right things. He must stir it up to search
for an opinion, and then manage to put the right
opinion in its way.
The first step is not less difficult than the second.
With opinions, possession is more than nine points
of the law. It is next to impossible to dislodge them.
Institutions which one generation regards as only a
makeshift approximation to the realization of a principle, the next generation honors as the nearest possible approximation to that principle, and the next
worships as the principle itself. It takes scarcely three
generations for the apotheosis. The grandson accepts
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10
Chapter 1/ The Search for the Scope and Purpose of Public Administration
his grandfather’s hesitating experiment as an integral
part of the fixed constitution of nature.
Even if we had clear insight into all the political
past, and could form out of perfectly instructed
heads a few steady, infallible, placidly wise maxims
of government into which all sound political doctrine would be ultimately resolvable, would the
country act on them? That is the question. The bulk
of mankind is rigidly unphilosophical, and nowadays the bulk of mankind votes. A truth must become not only plain but also commonplace before it
will be seen by the people who go to their work very
early in the morning; and not to act upon it must involve great and pinching inconveniences before
these same people will make up their minds to act
upon it.
And where is this unphilosophical bulk of mankind
more multifarious in its composition than in the
United States? To know the public mind of this country, one must know the mind, not of Americans of the
older stocks only, but also of Irishmen, of Germans,
of Negroes. In order to get a footing for new doctrine,
one must influence minds cast in every mould of race,
minds inheriting every bias of environment, warped
by the histories of a score of different nations, warmed
or chilled, closed or expanded by almost every climate
of the globe.
•••
II.
The field of administration is a field of business. It is
removed from the hurry and strife of politics; it at most
points stands apart even from the debatable ground of
constitutional study. It is a part of political life only as
the methods of the counting-house are a part of the life
of society; only as machinery is part of the manufactured product. But it is, at the same time, raised very
far above the dull level of mere technical detail by the
fact that through its greater principles it is directly connected with the lasting maxims of political wisdom, the
permanent truths of political progress.
The object of administrative study is to rescue executive methods from the confusion and costliness of
empirical experiment and set them upon foundations
laid deep in stable principle.
It is for this reason that we must regard civil service reform in its present stages as but a prelude to a
fuller administrative reform. We are now rectifying
methods of appointment; we must go on to adjust executive functions more fitly and to prescribe better
methods of executive organization and action. Civil
service reform is thus but a moral preparation for what
is to follow. It is clearing the moral atmosphere of official life by establishing the sanctity of public office
as a public trust, and, by making the service unpartisan, it is opening the way for making it businesslike.
By sweetening its motives it is rendering it capable of
improving its methods of work.
Let me expand a little what I have said of the
province of administration. Most important to be observed is the truth already so much and so fortunately
insisted upon by our civil service reformers; namely,
that administration lies outside the proper sphere of
politics. Administrative questions are not political questions. Although politics sets the tasks for administration, it should not be suffered to manipulate its offices.
This is distinction of high authority; eminent German
writers insist upon it as of course. Bluntschli, for instance, bids us separate administration alike from politics and from law. Politics, he says, is state activity “in
things great and universal,” while “administration, on the
other hand,” is “the activity of the state in individual and
small things. Politics is thus the special province of the
statesman, administration of the technical official.”
“Policy does nothing without the aid of administration”; but administration is not therefore politics. But
we do not require German authority for this position;
this discrimination between administration and politics
is now, happily, too obvious to need further discussion.
There is another distinction which must be
worked into all our conclusions, which, though but
another side of that between administration and politics, is not quite so easy to keep sight of; I mean the
distinction between constitutional and administrative questions, between those governmental adjustments which are essential to constitutional principle
and those which are merely instrumental to the
possibly changing purposes of a wisely adapting
convenience.
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Woodrow Wilson / The Study of Administration
One cannot easily make clear to every one just
where administration resides in the various departments of any practicable government without entering upon particulars so numerous as to confuse
and distinctions so minute as to distract. No lines of
demarcation, setting apart administrative from nonadministrative functions, can be run between this and
that department of government without being run up
hill and down dale, over dizzy heights of distinction
and through dense jungles of statutory enactment,
hither and thither around “ifs” and “buts,” “whens”
and “howevers,” until they become altogether lost to
the common eye not accustomed to this sort of surveying, and consequently not acquainted with the use
of the theodolite of logical discernment. A great deal
of administration goes about incognito to most of the
world, being confounded now with political “management,” and again with constitutional principle.
Perhaps this case of confusion may explain such utterances as that of Niebuhr’s: “Liberty,” he says, “depends incomparably more upon administration than
upon constitution.” At first sight this appears to be
largely true. Apparently facility in the actual exercise
of liberty does depend more upon administrative
arrangements than upon constitutional guarantees; although constitutional guarantees alone secure the existence of liberty. But—upon second thought—is even
so much as this true? Liberty no more consists in easy
functional movement than intelligence consists in the
ease and vigor with which the limbs of a strong man
move. The principles that rule within the man, or the
constitution, are the vital springs of liberty or servitude.
Because dependence and subjection are without chains,
are lightened by every easy-working device of considerate, paternal government, they are not thereby transformed into liberty. Liberty cannot live apart from
constitutional principle; and no administration, however perfect and liberal its methods, can give men more
than a poor counterfeit of liberty if it rest upon illiberal
principles of government.
A clear view of the difference between the province
of constitutional law and the province of administrative function ought to leave no room for misconception; and it is possible to name some roughly definite
criteria upon which such a view can be built. Public
administration is detailed and systematic execution of
11
public law. Every particular application of general
law is an act of administration. The assessment and
raising of taxes, for instance, the hanging of a criminal, the transportation and delivery of the mails, the
equipment and recruiting of the army and navy, etc.,
are all obviously acts of administration; but the general laws which direct these things to be done are as
obviously outside of and above administration. The
broad plans of governmental action are not administrative; the detailed execution of such plans is administrative. Constitutions, therefore, properly concern
themselves only with those instrumentalities of government which are to control general law. Our federal
Constitution observes this principle in saying nothing
of even the greatest of the purely executive offices,
and speaking only of that President of the Union who
was to share the legislative and policy-making functions of government, only of those judges of highest
jurisdiction who were to interpret and guard its principles, and not of those who were merely to give utterance to them.
This is not quite the distinction between Will and
answering Deed, because the administrator should
have and does have a will of his own in the choice
of means for accomplishing his work. He is not and
ought not to be a mere passive instrument. The distinction is between general plans and special means.
There is, indeed, one point at which administrative
studies trench on constitutional ground—or at least
upon what seems constitutional ground. The study of
administration, philosophically viewed, is closely connected with the study of the proper distribution of constitutional authority. To be efficient it must discover the
simplest arrangements by which responsibility can be
unmistakably fixed upon officials; the best way of dividing authority without hampering it, and responsibility without obscuring it. And this question of the
distribution of authority, when taken into the sphere of
the higher, the originating functions of government, is
obviously a central constitutional question. If administrative study can discover the best principles upon
which to base such distributions, it will have done constitutional study an invaluable service. Montesquieu
did not, I am convinced, say the last word on this head.
To discover the best principle for the distribution
of authority is of greater importance, possibly, under
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12
Chapter 1/ The Search for the Scope and Purpose of Public Administration
a democratic system, where officials serve many matters, than under others where they serve but a few. All
sovereigns are suspicious of their servants, and the
sovereign people is no exception to the rule; but how
is its suspicion to be allayed by knowledge? If that
suspicion could but be clarified into wise vigilance,
it would be altogether salutary; if that vigilance could
be aided by the unmistakable placing of responsibility, it would be altogether beneficent. Suspicion in itself is never healthful either in the private or in the
public mind. Trust is strength in all relations of life;
and, as it is the office of the constitutional reformer
to create conditions of trustfulness, so it is the office
of the administrative organizer to fit administration
with conditions of clear-cut responsibility which shall
insure trustworthiness.
And let me say that large powers and unhampered discretion seem to me the indispensable conditions of responsibility. Public attention must be
easily directed, in each case of good or bad administration, to just the man deserving of praise or
blame. There is no danger in power, if only it be not
irresponsible. If it be divided, dealt only in shares to
many, it is obscured; and if it be obscured, it is made
irresponsible. But if it be centred in heads of the
service and in heads of branches of the service, it is
easily watched and brought to book. If to keep his office a man must achieve open and honest success,
and if at the same time he feels himself entrusted with
large freedom of discretion, the greater his power the
less likely is he to abuse it, the more is he nerved and
sobered and elevated by it. The less his power, the
more safely obscure and unnoticed does he feel his position to be, and the more readily does he relapse into
remissness.
Just here we manifestly emerge upon the field of
that still larger question,—the proper relations between public opinion and administration.
To whom is official trustworthiness to be disclosed,
and by whom is it to be rewarded? Is the official to look
to the public for his meed of praise and his push of promotion, or only to his superior in office? Are the people to be called in to settle administrative discipline as
they are called in to settle constitutional principles?
These questions evidently find their root in what is undoubtedly the fundamental problem of this whole
study. That problem is: What part shall public opinion take in the conduct of administration?
The right answer seems to be, that public opinion
shall play the part of authoritative critic.
But the method by which its authority shall be
made to tell? Our peculiar American difficulty in organizing administration is not the danger of losing liberty, but the danger of not being able or willing to
separate its essentials from its accidents. Our success
is made doubtful by that besetting error of ours, the
error of trying to do too much by vote. Self-government
does not consist in having a hand in everything, any
more than housekeeping consists necessarily in cooking dinner with one’s own hands. The cook must be
trusted with a large discretion as to the management of
the fires and the ovens.
In those countries in which public opinion has yet
to be instructed in its privileges, yet to be accustomed
to having its own way, this question as to the province
of public opinion is much more readily soluble than in
this country, where public opinion is wide awake and
quite intent upon having its own way anyhow. It is pathetic to see a whole book written by a German professor of political science for the purpose of saying to
his countrymen, “Please try to have an opinion about
national affairs”; but a public which is so modest may
at least be expected to be very docile and acquiescent
in learning what things it has not a right to think and
speak about imperatively. It may be sluggish, but it
will not be meddlesome. It will submit to be instructed
before it tries to instruct. Its political education will
come before its political activity. In trying to instruct
our own public opinion, we are dealing with a pupil apt
to think itself quite sufficiently instructed beforehand.
The problem is to make public opinion efficient
without suffering it to be meddlesome. Directly exercised, in the oversight of the daily details and in the
choice of the daily means of government, public criticism is of course a clumsy nuisance, a rustic handling
delicate machinery. But as super-intending the greater
forces of formative policy alike in politics and administration, public criticism is altogether safe and beneficent, altogether indispensable. Let administrative
study find the best means for giving public criticism this control and for shutting it out from all
other interference.
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Woodrow Wilson / The Study of Administration
But is the whole duty of administrative study done
when it has taught the people what sort of administration to desire and demand, and how to get what they
demand? Ought it not to go on to drill candidates for
the public service?
There is an admirable movement towards universal political education now afoot in this country.
The time will soon come when no college of respectability can afford to do without a well-filled
chair of political science. But the education thus imparted will go but a certain length. It will multiply
the number of intelligent critics of government, but
it will create no competent body of administrators.
It will prepare the way for the development of a
sure-footed understanding of the general principles
of government, but it will not necessarily foster skill
in conducting government. It is an education which
will equip legislators, perhaps, but not executive officials. If we are to improve public opinion, which
is the motive power of government, we must prepare
better officials as the apparatus of government. If we
are to put in new boilers and to mend the fires which
drive our governmental machinery, we must not
leave the old wheels and joints and valves and bands
to creak and buzz and clatter on as the best they may
at bidding of the new force. We must put in new running parts wherever there is the least lack of strength
or adjustment. It will be necessary to organize democracy by sending up to the competitive examinations
for the civil service men definitely prepared for standing liberal tests as to technical knowledge. A technically schooled civil service will presently have become
indispensable.
I know that a corps of civil servants prepared by a
special schooling and drilled, after appointment, into
a perfected organization, with appropriate hierarchy
and characteristic discipline, seems to a great many
very thoughtful persons to contain elements which
might combine to make an offensive official class,—
a distinct, semi-corporate body with sympathies
divorced from those of a progressive, free-spirited
people, and with hearts narrowed to the meanness of
a bigoted officialism. Certainly such a class would be
altogether hateful and harmful in the United States.
Any measures calculated to produce it would for us
be measures of reaction and of folly.
13
But to fear the creation of a domineering, illiberal
officialism as a result of the studies I am here proposing is to miss altogether the principle upon which
I wish most to insist. That principle is, that administration in the United States must be at all points sensitive to public opinion. A body of thoroughly trained
officials serving during good behavior we must have
in any case: that is a plain business necessity. But the
apprehension that such a body will be anything unAmerican clears away the moment it is asked, What
is to constitute good behavior? For that question obviously carries its own answer on its face. Steady,
hearty allegiance to the policy of the government they
serve will constitute good behavior. That policy will
have no taint of officialism about it. It will not be the
creation of permanent officials, but of statesmen
whose responsibility to public opinion will be direct
and inevitable. Bureaucracy can exist only where the
whole service of the state is removed from the common political life of the people, its chiefs as well as
its rank and file. Its motives, its objects, its policy, its
standards, must be bureaucratic. It would be difficult
to point out any examples of impudent exclusiveness
and arbitrariness on the part of officials doing service
under a chief of department who really served the
people, as all our chiefs of departments must be made
to do.
•••
The ideal for us is a civil service cultured and selfsufficient enough to act with sense and vigor, and yet
so intimately connected with the popular thought, by
means of elections and constant public counsel, as to
find arbitrariness or class spirit quite out of the question.
III.
Having thus viewed in some sort the subjectmatter and the objects of this study of administration, what are we to conclude as to the methods best
suited to it—the points of view most advantageous
for it?
Government is so near us, as much a thing of our
daily familiar handling, that we can with difficulty see
the need of any philosophical study of it, or the exact
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14
Chapter 1/ The Search for the Scope and Purpose of Public Administration
point of such study, should it be undertaken. We have
been on our feet too long to study now the art of walking. We are a practical people, made so apt, so adept
in self-government by centuries of experimental drill
that we are scarcely any longer capable of perceiving
the awkwardness of the particular system we may be
using, just because it is so easy for us to use any system. We do not study the art of governing: we govern. But mere unschooled genius for affairs will not
save us from sad blunders in administration. Though
democrats by long inheritance and repeated choice,
we are still rather crude democrats. Old as democracy
is, its organization on a basis of modern ideas and conditions is still an unaccomplished work. The democratic state has yet to be equipped for carrying those
enormous burdens of administration which the needs
of this industrial and trading age are so fast accumulating. Without comparative studies in government
we cannot rid ourselves of the misconception that administration stands upon an essentially different basis
in a democratic state from that on which it stands in
a non-democratic state.
After such study we could grant democracy the
sufficient honor of ultimately determining by debate
all essential questions affecting the public weal, of
basing all structures of policy upon the major will; but
we would have found but one rule of good administration for all governments alike. So far as administrative functions are concerned, all governments
have a strong structural likeness; more than that, if
they are to be uniformly useful and efficient, they
must have a strong structural likeness. A free man
has the same bodily organs, the same executive parts,
as the slave, however different may be his motives,
his services, his energies. Monarchies and democracies, radically different as they are in other respects,
have in reality much the same business to look to.
It is abundantly safe nowadays to insist upon this
actual likeness of all governments, because these are
days when abuses of power are easily exposed and arrested, in countries like our own, by a bold, alert, inquisitive, detective public thought and a sturdy
popular self-dependence such as never existed before. We are slow to appreciate this; but it is easy to
appreciate it. Try to imagine personal government in
the United States. It is like trying to imagine a national
worship of Zeus. Our imaginations are too modern for
the feat.
But, besides being safe, it is necessary to see that
for all governments alike the legitimate ends of administration are the same, in order not to be frightened
at the idea of looking into foreign systems of administration for instruction and suggestion; in order to get
rid of the apprehension that we might perchance
blindly borrow something incompatible with our principles. That man is blindly astray who denounces attempts to transplant foreign systems into this country.
It is impossible: they simply would not grow here. But
why should we not use such parts of foreign contrivances as we want, if they be in any way serviceable? We are in no danger of using them in a foreign
way. We borrowed rice, but we do not eat it with
chopsticks. We borrowed our whole political language
from England, but we leave the words “king” and
“lords” out of it. What did we ever originate, except
the action of the federal government upon individuals and some of the functions of the federal supreme
court?
We can borrow the science of administration with
safety and profit if only we read all fundamental differences of condition into its essential tenets. We
have only to filter it through our constitutions, only
to put it over a slow fire of criticism and distill away
its foreign gases.
•••
Let it be noted that it is the distinction, already
drawn, between administration and politics which
makes the comparative method so safe in the field of
administration. When we study the administrative
systems of France and Germany, knowing that we are
not in search of political principles, we need not care
a peppercorn for the constitutional or political reasons
which Frenchmen or Germans give for their practices
when explaining them to us. If I see a murderous fellow sharpening a knife cleverly, I can borrow his way
of sharpening the knife without borrowing his probable intention to commit murder with it; and so, if I see
a monarchist dyed in the wool managing a public bureau well, I can learn his business methods without
changing one of my republican spots. He may serve his
king; I will continue to serve the people; but I should
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Woodrow Wilson / The Study of Administration
like to serve my sovereign as well as he serves his. By
keeping this distinction in view,—that is, by studying
administration as a means of putting our own politics
into convenient practice, as a means of making what
is democratically politic towards all administratively
possible towards each,—we are on perfectly safe
ground, and can learn without error what foreign systems have to teach us. We thus devise an adjusted
weight for our comparative method of study. We can
thus scrutinize the anatomy of foreign governments
without fear of getting any of their diseases into our
vein...