module 3

1 Paradigms in Public Administration

‘Philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point is to change it.’5

This often-quoted thesis of Karl Marx is not, in fact, a very perspicacious state- ment. Philosophers and intellectuals in general are continuously attempting to change our world by looking for new and better-fitting interpretations of the events happening around us and by identifying the causes. With their publica- tions, they attempt to win over their colleagues as well as the lay public. Their readers may become convinced of the validity of the interpretations offered by intellectuals and of the explanations of developments in the world. When that happens, they will adapt their behaviour in accordance with these explana- tions. And thus, change comes about. So philosophers and intellectuals do not have to become active in areas other than their own field of expertise in which they interpret and clarify the social movements that have an impact on the world. They are not required to build organisations to shape the course of history. Marx, himself, is the best example of an intellectual providing a revolutionising impact through the reinterpreta- tion of history.

1.1 The Meaning of ‘Public Administration’

This book is about interpretations of facts and functions, of problems and pros- pects related to public administration. It attempts to show that the public admin- istration discipline has interpreted the relationship between politics and public administration in diverse, fundamentally different ways, and how this has affected the functioning of public administration. Figure 1.1 provides an illus- tration.

5 K. Marx, 1888.

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C o p y r i g h t 2 0 1 4 . E l e v e n I n t e r n a t i o n a l P u b l i s h i n g .

A l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d . M a y n o t b e r e p r o d u c e d i n a n y f o r m w i t h o u t p e r m i s s i o n f r o m t h e p u b l i s h e r , e x c e p t f a i r u s e s p e r m i t t e d u n d e r U . S . o r a p p l i c a b l e c o p y r i g h t l a w .

EBSCO Publishing : eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 6/16/2020 11:46 AM via GEORGIA ONMYLINE AN: 787657 ; Snellen, I. Th. M..; Foundations of Public Administration : An Essay in Tis Paradigms Account: ecor.main.ehost

Public administration

Politics

Public administration discipline

Figure 1.1 The relationship between the public administration discipline, public administration and politics

Public administration is defined in this text as the collectivity of public bureaus at the different levels of government, including the members of government under whose supervision and for whose support they function. Ministerial departments and agencies at the central, provincial, or state levels of govern- ment, and regional and municipal offices are the most common public bureau- cracies. They assist in the formulation of policies for the sector of society at their territorial or functional level, and they try to enforce or execute the policies ratified by political actors. Administration is a middle factor between the leadership, in which the policies and goals are determined, and the organisation or collectivism in which these goals and policies are to be realised. As Gladden says: ‘Administration, or the management of affairs, is the middle factor in all social activity, unspectacular but essential to its continuance’.6

Administration may be private or public, and the difference is important. In public administration, ‘everybody’s business takes precedence over anybody’s business’ to paraphrase one of Paul H. Appleby’s illuminating remarks.7 To express the same in a legal sense: every policy approach or activity by pub- lic administration with respect to an individual, group, collectivity or sector must be performed from the perspective of the generality of the people. This means that every individual case − be it of a single person, a specific group or a category of the population − is approached by public administration from the

6 E.N. Gladden, 1972, Volume I, p. 1. 7 P.H. Appleby, 1961, p. 22.

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viewpoint of a generally applicable rule (as if a general rule is applied). This is one of the reasons why precedence is so important in public administration.

Interpretations Matter

Given the way in which public administrations function, the (re-)interpretations of philosophers and intellectuals have had an important impact on the purpose and content of public administration. Originally, lawyers and philosophers were the only intellectuals who developed ideas about public administration. One famous example is Confucius (551-479 B.C.) who criticised the damaging effects of hereditary rule and advocated the separation of administrative from political functions and the entrustment of administration to well-educated offi- cials whose appointment is based on comparative examinations.8 Gladden’s opinion is that it was ‘the early philosophers who were destined to have the greatest impress on China’s administrative history, as upon much else’.9

Later representatives from other disciplines occupied themselves with differ- ent facets of public administration. More than a century ago, Woodrow Wil- son, originally a constitutional lawyer (to whom we will return later) coined the term ‘public administration’ for the discipline which focuses on phenom- ena related to public administration as the governmental activities mentioned above.10 Since then, the interpretations in public administrative theories have had a sizable impact on the functioning of public administration in different parts of the world during different periods of time. As we shall see, interpretations − including non-academic interpretations − of the meaning and purpose of public administration do matter. They help to clarify what citizens expect, rightly or wrongly, from public administrations. For example, people often see public administrative bodies as the handmaidens of power exercised over people. They often react to this exercise of power by mentally distancing themselves from such institutions and by criticising them. Interpretations about the nature of public administrations help us, as well, to determine the nature of their problems, and how we might attempt to solve those problems. In the end, the public’s attitude and reaction to the activities of public administrations are guided by the interpretations which dominate pub- lic opinion at a certain moment. At times, the public administration discipline may be able even to influence the basic notions and tenets which represent and articulate the opinion climate.

8 Confucius was, concurrently, the inventor of the case-study method of teaching. 9 E.N. Gladden, 1972, Volume I, p. 149. 10 W. Wilson, 1887.

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1.2 Public Administration as a Borrowing Discipline

The public administration science as a discipline contributes strongly to other social sciences. This is partly a consequence of the complexity and the multi- disciplinary nature of public administration, its empirical object of study. In Chapter 6, this matter will be discussed in more detail. The eclecticism of public administration, as a discipline, is reflected in the handbooks on the subject. The public administration science offers mostly ad hoc interpretations for the various developments in separate national public administrations. It borrows most of its theoretical approaches from other disciplines, such as organisational sociology, public finance, administrative and constitutional law, and political science. It has borrowed theories from organisational sociology about closed, open and autopoetic systems, and related theories such as contingency theory, inter-organisational and network theory. From general sociology, it borrowed bureaucracy theory and other theories related to specific sectors of applica- tion, which are relevant for the practice of public administration, such as social psychology. In addition, it borrowed theories from political science related to pluralism,11 to coalition formation, and to political agenda setting. From the New Economic Political Science (an application of economic axioms in political theorising) it borrowed approaches such as public choice and game theoreti- cal simulations. Finally, administrative and constitutional law have developed many theorems during the last decades, which regulate public administrative behaviour. Each of these theories has contributed to research in the public administration discipline and has helped public administration theorists and practitioners to reach more clarity. The importance of developing theories for public adminis- trations is to corroborate assumptions that provide a well-reasoned fundament to certain courses of action which is more than mere generalisations can give. Theories explain how certain phenomena derive from underlying conditions and they offer points of application for policy and guidance.12

But, as Appleby has stated correctly, ‘A way of looking at problems is an infinite number of ways of not looking at them’.13 Every theory provides the theorist or practitioner with a set of ‘conceptual lenses’ which, on one hand, enables them to see more clearly, but on the other, brings only partial reality into focus and blinds them to what is out of focus.14 This is also one of the conclusions drawn

11 R.A. Dahl, 1982. 12 A. van Braam and M.L. Bemelmans, 1986. 13 P.H. Appleby, 1961. 14 Allison concludes that in offering an explanation, ‘each analyst attempts to emphasise what

is relevant and important, and different conceptual lenses lead analysts to different judge- ments about what is relevant and important’ (G.T. Allison, 1971, p. 251).

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in the Prologue, where it was explained how the basic assumptions of a para- digm determine the ‘relevance structure’ of a discipline or its branches. The basic assumptions determine what is put in the foreground and what is left in the background, and which problems are discerned and which solutions will be advocated.

1.3 Paradigms as Conceptual Lenses

Graham Allison gives a famous example that clarifies how this focusing and blinding take effect. In his book Essence of Decision, he successively uses three conceptual models to explain the central puzzles of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962.15 His approach is applied to an area of international relations but can be generalised to cover all social sciences. He summarises his argument in three propositions: 1. Professional analysts of foreign affairs (as well as ordinary laymen) consider

problems of foreign and military policy in terms of largely implicit con- ceptual models that have significant consequences for the content of their thought.

2. Most analysts (of international relations) explain (and predict) the behaviour of national governments in terms of one basic conceptual model, here enti- tled Rational Actor or ‘Classical’ Model (Model I).

3. Two alternative conceptual models, here labelled as an Organisational Pro- cess Model (Model II) and a Governmental (Bureaucratic) Politics Model (Model III), provide a base for improved explanations and predictions.

The message of Allison’s book is clear: the explanatory power of the conven- tional view of international relations as relations between rational unified actors, the United States and the Soviet Union, is great. This particular ‘con- ceptual lens’ focuses upon important motives and actions of the nation states concerned. But this same lens has blind spots, as the user overlooks what is going on inside the governments of the two actors. The various departments and agencies of the United States and the Soviet Union which prepare and develop the international policies stay out of focus when only the ‘national actor’ lens is used. The political struggles between these parts of the public authorities in both countries are ignored. Allison’s analysis of the Cuban crisis shows that the diverging ambitions and motives and conflicts they create play an important role in international exchanges. Every conceptual lens provides us with a picture that is valuable as such. But the fact remains that we miss relevant points, where the relevance of the missing

15 G.T. Allison, ibid.

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points depends, of course, on our overall interest. To put it in entirely different terms: when we are interested in the composition of seawater we may examine it with a microscope and, as a consequence, overlook the waves. That we miss the great structure of the sea by doing so does not bother us, as long as we are only interested in the finer structure of the water. The more fully we want to explain developments in our object of study, the more explanatory strength we can derive from using different conceptual lenses at the same time. The application of different lenses and models enhances the explanatory power of our theories. Allison shows with his threefold reconstruc- tion of the Cuban crisis how each conceptual lens enriches our understand- ing of the course of events and of the steps taken by the contending parties. However, every model brings a different reality in focus and leaves the realities exposed by the other models in the haze. Moreover, the realities of the different models do not fit together. Each of them zooms in on a different structural level and to a different depth. The ‘stories’ developed at one level do not simply con- nect with the ‘stories’ developed at the other levels. That is exactly the problem which the administration discipline faces as a result of eclectically borrowing from other disciplines in the social sciences. The latter provide implicit frames of reference, conceptual lenses, and paradigms which simultaneously help and obstruct the public administration discipline. So, if it is true that each paradigm has its blind spots, the public administration discipline is doubly handicapped as it applies not only the paradigms it borrows from other disciplines but also those it developed on its own. As is clearly shown by Morgan’s Images of Organization,16 focusing the conceptual lens of a paradigm is set in motion by the metaphors used by the paradigm.

1.4 The Late Development of Public Administration Paradigms

A public administration discipline which takes the relationship between public administration and politics as its analytical and empirical point of departure is of relatively recent vintage. As was indicated in the Prologue to this book, the paradigmatic development of public administration as a discipline derives from the way in which it conceptualised its relationship to ‘everybody’s busi- ness’; that is, the way in which it conceptualised over time its relationship to its ‘political master’ as being the representative of everybody’s business, i.e., of society.17 The paradigmatic theoretical and practical self-understanding and self-interpretation of public administration are naturally expressed in terms of

16 G. Morgan, 1986. 17 This leaves open the question who was counted as ‘everybody’ or as a member of society.

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this relationship between administrative bodies and politicians as representa- tives of society. The public administrative practice has differentiated itself from royal and republican politics very slowly and gradually. For most of its history, it remained connected to the royal household or as part of the role of the ruler’s personal assistant.18 Public officials were, in fact, mere personal extensions of the ruler or of the ruling class.19 There was, therefore, not much reason to question the relationship of public administration to its political master. As Gladden states: ‘... there is little evidence that governing bureaucracies20 ever existed for long or as a constituted form of government.’21 Bureaucracies were vociferously criticised only when administrators acquired a certain degree of independ- ence from their political masters: government bureaus existed more for the well being of the officers, clerks, secretaries, and inspectors etc., than to benefit the public interest.22 It lasted, moreover, until the beginning of the nineteenth cen- tury before the royal administration became a real public administration and the relationship of this Executive Power to the Legislative Power became a subject for concern and for study. At that time, also, the different ways in which the relationship between Executive Power and Legislative Power were shaped led to the formation of the implicit paradigmatic base of public administration as a discipline. We distinguish between a proto-paradigm that was dominant during most of the 19th century, and about twenty paradigms that developed mainly during the last decade of the 19th century and in the course of the 20th century. The proto-paradigm was developed by Montesquieu and further elaborated upon by the German philosopher Kant. As we shall see subsequently, according to this proto-paradigm, the relationship between public administration and poli- tics is one of formal logic. Although the public administration practice would eventually differentiate itself gradually from the royal household and from the republican masters, this formal logical starting point has impeded the resolu- tion of the relationship between politics and public administration for almost a century.

18 E.N. Gladden, 1972. 19 For instance, ‘royal government in seventeenth-century France was personal government.

All political action was taken in the King’s name and Louis XIII’s ministers did not receive delegated powers of any consequence’ (Gladden, 1972, Volume II, p. 143).

20 Meaning administrative services exercising undue and irresponsible power or usurping the executive functions of government.

21 E.N. Gladden, 1972. 22 E. Kamenka, 1989.

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Groups of Paradigms in Public Administration

The Prologue presented a provisional list of public administrative paradigms on the relations between public administration and politics that have been developed since the start of public administration as a discipline. As we shall see in subsequent chapters, each of these paradigms introduces its own pair of theoretical and practical economic, legal, political, and professional lenses. Using the method of induction, these paradigms were tentatively grouped there under four headings or overarching paradigms. Below we briefly discuss the four cat- egories and then add a fifth category for possible future use.

Category 1: Public administration as a submissive instrument of politics This view on public administrations derives from Wilson and Weber, the found- ing fathers of the discipline. Public administrations are seen merely as adminis- trative and executive instruments as required by politicians. See also Chapter 2.

Category 2: Public administration as a policy production system As political and public administrative bodies expand and as expertise on related subjects deepens, there is further reason to delegate the formulation of policies to specific groups inside the system and to outsource tasks to specific organisations such as ‘quangos’ (quasi autonomous non-governmental organi- sations). This on-going process, labelled ‘agencification’, has given rise already to hundreds of such organisations remaining under some form of political, legal, financial, and professional supervision. See also Chapter 3.

Category 3: Public administration, politicians, stakeholders, and citizens as par- ties in demand and supply relationships The continuity and functioning of public administrations depend to a large extent on the ‘exchange relations’ (or ‘contractualisation’) between politicians and public administrators. Also important in this respect may be the condi- tions created for citizens and stakeholders to participate in decision processes. Three problems are generally brought forward, relating to legitimacy, represen- tation, and control and accounting, respectively. Governance is only part of the answer. See also Chapter 4.

Category 4: Public administration as a modernising agent of politics The paradigms grouped under this heading emphasize the importance of a sci- entific approach to policy formulation and thus aim to reduce the ‘irrational component’. Public administration embodies this approach and uses its supe- rior information and expertise when addressing sectors of society. See also Chapter 5.

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Category 5: public administration as a multi-rational agent of politics This category, contrary to the above-mentioned categories, aims to incorporate the phenomenon that in public management appear to co-exist several ration- alities which correspond with different disciplines. Its content is discussed in Chapter 6.

Paradigms and Levels of Aggregation

As mentioned previously, each paradigm implicitly establishes which phenom- ena in public administration are deemed as relevant; what kind of balance is (or should be) struck between costs and benefits when changes in public bureau- cracies are planned; where problems of public administration are localised; and which solutions for these problems suggest themselves or are found appropri- ate. The paradigms discussed in this book can be applied to different levels of aggregation. Relevant levels of aggregation include: the macro-level of politics and administration, the meso-level consisting of the organisational parts of public administration and their intra- and inter-organisational relationships; and the micro-level of the individual bureaucrat with professional obligations towards, for example, individual citizens and clients. Again, at each level the reigning paradigm will implicitly favour and select certain theories and forego others. For example, during the period when public administration was seen as an instrument of politics, theories which promised to improve the instrumen- tal aspects of public administration, such as scientific management theory, were invoked (see Chapter 2). Similarly, when the demand and supply paradigm dominated, new economic political theories were broadly applied. In follow- ing chapters, we will see many other cases where dominating paradigms bring to the fore compatible theories borrowed from other fields of science, such as organisational sociology and welfare economics which serve there as auxilia- ries to the public administration discipline.

A Proto-Paradigm

In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn distinguishes a pre-para- digmatic phase23 during which the discipline concerned lacks a common basic exemplary complex of theories and practices and consists only of an array of ad hoc propositions. This situation held for the public administration discipline during most of the nineteenth century. Interestingly, the relationship between politics and public administration was conceptualised in a way which excluded

23 T.S. Kuhn, 1962.

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a scientific approach. The contributions by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant and Charles-Jean Bonnin, an early French author on public administration discipline, are cases in point. For Kant, the relationship between politics and public administration, as part of the Trias Politica, was purely logical. In his view, the Trias Politica (Montes- quieu’s distinction between the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judiciary Power that have to be separated carefully in order to guarantee basic freedoms) represented a classical way of logical reasoning. He arrived at this view by strict adhesion to the syllogism as developed by Aristotle. The syllogism consists of three parts: a Major statement (all men are mortal), a Minor statement (Socrates is a man) and a Conclusion (Socrates is mortal). Applying this logical form to the Trias Politica, Kant argues as follows. The Legislative Power, the Major, sets the general rules in the form of laws and regulations. The Executive Power, as the Minor, brings individual cases under the general rules as set by the Legislative. And the Judiciary, as Conclusion, gives a decisive opinion about differences that exist between litigating parties and about the right application of the general law in an individual case. In this view, the executive branch is no more than a logical extension of the legislative branch. Therefore, the Executive Power, or public administration, does not have a substantial base of its own. The substance of public administration is fully derived from the substance of the legislation. Without a substantial base of its own, public administration can hardly be a problem for its political masters, because it is, by definition, a power without a will of its own. Charles-Jean Bonnin reached the same conclusion, although he used a different reasoning. He argued that Montesquieu was mistaken when he spoke of the three Powers.24 According to Bonnin, there is only one power, the Legislative Power.25 Public administration has no power, because it lacks the will and the initiative to be called a power,26 so it is not worthy of a separate analysis.

1.5 The Politics-Administration Relation as a Practical and Theoretical Problem

For Kant and Bonnin the relationship between politics and public administra- tion was never a problem. However, there remains the intriguing, and nagging, question of how the relationship between them can best be understood. Are the two entities fundamentally different? Can we be satisfied with the answer that

24 C.-J. Bonnin, 1812. 25 Which he calls ‘Gouvernement’. 26 The same could, of course, have been said about the Judiciary, because the judge is merely

considered to be ‘le bouche de la loi’ (the mouth of the law), without any personal addition or interpretation.

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public administration differs from politics ‘by definition’? Or is the question an anomaly and do we have to conclude that the public administration discipline did not succeed, until now, in clarifying this relationship? Can there be any doubt that public administration plays an important role in the allocation of values in a society, and that such allocation is the heart of poli- tics? Studies of the behaviour of street level bureaucrats,27 on one hand, and of the influence of higher echelon functionaries on policy making on the other, make it crystal-clear that public administration interferes in politics and is not just a logical and powerless extension of its political masters. The separation between politics and public administration still remains an unsolved matter, an anomaly shifted aside for the time being and that, as yet, has not led to the introduction of a new paradigm. It may well be that, with the development of a postmodern paradigm, (discussed in Chapter 6) we come closer to a solution of this difficult problem that has been examined by scores of public administration scientists, but has so far remained undecided. As an example of the way in which the separation of politics and administration still intrigues the public administration discipline, we refer to B. Guy Peters’ The Politics of Bureaucracy28. Peters is ambiguous regarding the proverb ‘that politics and administration are separate enterprises and that such a separation is valid both in the analysis of institutions and behaviours of government and in the actual conduct of public business.’ He even calls it a ‘demon’. Still, the prov- erb must serve some purposes for both administrators and politicians because, notwithstanding severe empirical and theoretical criticism, it shows ‘amaz- ing powers of survival’. In this respect, his analysis corresponds with those of Appleby and the German sociologist Luhmann. As Appleby states, the myth of the separation allows politicians to ‘protect the civil servants from the full impact of politics’.29 And, as Luhmann30 adds, it allows administrators to engage in politics without being held accountable and politicians to disregard political aspects of details of application, cleverly considering them to be ‘technical’. It may deflect administrative decisions from undesirable political partisan inter- ference31 but could, as Peters contends,

‘… actually subject them to different and more invidious types of political influ- ences. These influences are believed to be the more invidious, as they have already

27 M. Lipsky, 1980, and J.F. Prottas, 1979, p. 111-121. 28 B.G. Peters, 1989, p. 152. 29 P.H. Appleby, 1961. 30 N. Luhmann, 1985. 31 See also E. Etzioni-Halevy, 1983.

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been defined out of existence. They are difficult for the citizenry to identify and even more to control’.32

Ultimately, however, Peters is prepared to accept the psychological reality of the separation of politics and administration for the main actors concerned. However, it remains questionable whether the public administration discipline may be left at the point where Peters and most public administrators are pre- pared to leave it. In the last chapter of this book, where the postmodern para- digm is discussed, this subject will be re-visited.

The Vocation of the Public Administration Discipline

The five fundamental views regarding the role of the public administration discipline in the relation between public administration and politics could be summarised as follows: 1. the public administration discipline has to ascertain that public administra-

tion functions as an obedient, effective and efficient instrument of its political master(s).

2. the public administration discipline has to provide the ‘autonomy’ and insights such that public administration can become a more effective and reliable policy production system in the service of politics. ‘Turnkey’ projects and outsourcing typically belong to this kind of system.

3. the public administration discipline has to design structural and procedural conditions through which the demand and supply relations between politics and public administration will be optimised.

4. the public administration discipline has to further the social and technical rationality (scientification) of public administration’s contribution to political decision making.

5. the public administration discipline has to enlighten public administration’s diverse rationalities to assist politics honour and devise structures and proce- dures.

Note that, contrary to Section 1.4, these paradigms of the public administration discipline are phrased in the form of normative statements, because at the basic level of these paradigms, empirical statements and normative statements are indistinguishable. As is shown in this chapter, a paradigm determines which phenomena are considered relevant, which actors or factors must be taken into account, and which may be neglected or shifted to the background of the sketch. A paradigm also determines the guise of problems and solutions, and

32 B.G. Peters, 1989, pp. 152-153.

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the criteria used to evaluate the costs and benefits of the proposed solutions. Ergo: a paradigm implicitly sets priorities and adheres to certain values. To state, as paradigms do, that certain aspects of public administration are rel- evant to its relationship with politics and thus have to be taken seriously, is the same as stating that these aspects are worthwhile. At this point, it is useful to note that, although all theories depend on a para- digm, their proponents may be unaware of their paradigmatic basis and posit them as merely empirical. Such theories, of which the paradigmatic basis remains without reflection, are generally suited to political and ideological preferences of any kind. The paradigms of the public administration discipline as proposed in this book are basically ways in which the discipline understands the relationship between the practice of politics and that of public administration, and implicitly how it understands its own function with respect to the relationship between public administration and politics. Thus, two different relationships are involved at the same time: the relationship between politics and administration, and the positioning of public administration discipline with respect to that relationship. By defining its own position with respect to the relationship between politics and administration it also defines, be it implicitly, the relationship between pol- itics and public administration.

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