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Public Administration in America, Eleventh Edition Michael E. Milakovich and George J. Gordon

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The Context, Nature, and Structure of Public Administration in America

This opening section explores essential facts and concepts in public administration in order to set the stage for further detailed discussion of the subject. The central themes are: (1) the roles and functions of public bureaucracies within the larger gov- ernmental and social systems, (2) the impacts of politics within that larger system, as well as the impacts of political and policy-making decisions on administrative actions and decisions, (3) the political implications of organizational and structural arrangements, and (4) the critical, and increasing, importance of information com- munication technologies, intergovernmental relations, and many other types of formal and informal exchanges among administra- tors at all levels of government. In Chapter 1, we first describe the most common structures of executive-branch agencies, stressing the growth of government generally and public administration in particular. We discuss the broader governmental system in which public administration and policy making operate, consider tradi- tional conceptions of how public agencies ought to function, and then compare them with the current realities of American bureau- cracy. We explore similarities and differences between public and private administration, taking note of some ways in which they overlap in practice. We then examine public administration as a field of study, especially its evolution from a relatively uncompli- cated field in the late nineteenth century to the challenging and rapidly changing discipline impacting all societies in the twenty- first century. In addition, we analyze the impacts of domestic and international crises, the mass media (including social media), social change, and technology on our values.

In Chapter 2, we examine in more detail the underlying and sometimes conflicting values in American administrative practice. Of central importance are the tensions between political values—such as individual freedom to make a very wide range of choices in our

OUTLINE

CHAPTER 1 Approaching the Study of Public Administration

CHAPTER 2 Public Administration, Democracy, and Bureaucratic Power

CHAPTER 3 Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations

IPA R T

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personal lives, government accountability, fair representation, and popular control—and administrative values—such as efficiency, econ- omy, responsiveness, and the ideal of “political” (usually meaning partisan) neutrality. We explore the need for political accountability, the extent of citizen participation, new ways to access information about public issues, and how definitions of representativeness have changed. We then focus on the nature and exercise of bureaucratic power and discuss various issues involved in the rise of the “bureaucratic state.” The discussion centers on the dispersal of power throughout government and what that means for public administra- tors, the foundations of bureaucratic power, bureaucrats as political actors as well as public managers, and dilemmas of political and ad- ministrative accountability. Bureaucrats are seen as active participants in a broad range of political interactions that allow for considerable variety and complexity in the manner of their involvement.

Chapter 3 deals with the dynamic nature of federalism and intergovernmental (national-state-local) relations. A description of the formal federal setting is followed by an examination of in- tergovernmental relations within federalism. Particular attention is given to fiscal and administrative relations among the different levels and units of government, federal efforts to stimulate eco- nomic growth, the divisive issues of intergovernmental regula- tion and unfunded mandates (federal and state directives without funds to support them), and the devolution (transfer) of federal program authority to states and local governments. The evolution of American federalism has profoundly affected the management of government programs at all levels, and it is essential that we un- derstand how the two are interrelated. Federalism is an important structural element in public administration that, in turn, creates a challenging organizational dynamic among local, state, and federal officials and other stakeholders.

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Approaching the Study of Public Administration

T he governor of a large state publicly disagrees with the legislature on the condition of state govern- ment finances, taking issue especially over the question of which state employees and services are necessary to cut. A police officer is injured and requires emergency medi- cal treatment following a traffic accident while pursuing a dangerous driver who has stolen a car. A teachers’ union rejects an attempt by the school board to charge teachers higher fees for health insurance coverage. The Lieuten- ant Governor of California and the Governor of Kansas publicly assert that National Guard troops stationed in Iraq are needed at home to provide assistance after the wildfires and tornados that ravaged their states. The chairman of the powerful state legislative appropriations committee in a large Southern state bluntly announces

that “We don’t want any more government.” To meet severe budget deficits, several states increase university fees and tuition for college students, cutting health care programs for the poor and elderly, closing state parks and recre- ation areas, and releasing prisoners before the end of their sentences. The city of Costa Mesa, in affluent Orange County, California, lays off nearly half of its employees. Record high oil prices contribute to an energy crisis that threatens major segments of the U.S. economy. Local government bargaining teams ne- gotiate around-the-clock with a transportation workers’ union in an effort to avert a threatened strike only days away. During the presidential campaign, a candidate promises to cut the size of the federal bureaucracy in half. The pres- ident and Congress fail to agree on federal budget priorities and, as a result, national parks must close, economic reports are delayed, and Social Security recipients fail to receive benefits.

What do these examples, all drawn from real-life situations, have in com- mon? They represent critical aspects of public administration, one of the most

Never before has man had such capacity to control his own environment, to end thirst and hunger, to conquer poverty and disease, to banish illiteracy and massive human misery. We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world—or to make it the last.

John F. Kennedy,

United Nations address, New York City,

September 20, 1963

1 CHAPTER

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CHAPTER 1 Approaching the Study of Public Administration 5

important dimensions of the American governmental process and one with increasing influence both inside and outside of government.

Public administration in America today is a large and highly complex enterprise made up of thousands of smaller units that encompass the every- day activities of literally millions of citizens and government employees. The actions and decisions of public administrators touch the daily lives of virtually every American. The growth and reduction of government activity and pub- lic bureaucracy are among the most significant social phenomena of recent decades. The composition, mission, and size of bureaucracy have become the subject of heated debate among citizens, legislators, scholars, and practitio- ners. At the same time, politicians of every stripe have criticized bureaucracy at all levels of government.

Many politicians have run successfully “against” the bureaucracy: in 1976, Jimmy Carter promised to “clean up the bureaucratic mess in Washington”; in 1980, Ronald Reagan promised to “get the federal government off your backs”; in 1996, Bill Clinton declared prematurely that “the era of Big Government is over”; during the controversial 2000 presidential campaign, Republican candidate George W. Bush accused his opponent, former Vice President Al Gore, of representing “the government” while he (Bush) represented “the people.” As president, however, George W. Bush led one of the largest expan- sions of the federal bureaucracy in history to maintain domestic security after September 11, 2001, respond to natural disasters, and implement U.S. for- eign policy in Afghanistan and Iraq. As a result, President Bush was labeled by his political opponents as a “big government conservative.” Typically, con- servative chief executives such as Bush, Reagan, and George H. W. Bush gain public support and win elections by criticizing bureaucracy and by pledging to reduce government; once elected, however, they must inspire and lead the same government officials to achieve their own policy goals and respond to crises. The task for George W. Bush was even more challenging because he centralized government functions and expanded both presidential power and the role of the federal bureaucracy as no recent president has, primarily be- cause of his administration’s decisions to conduct protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Chief executives at all levels of government are elected by making similar promises and increasing bureaucracy to achieve them; ulti- mately, they are judged by the voters on their ability to fulfill those promises. The extent of Barack Obama’s success as president depends almost entirely upon economic recovery and job growth, sectors of the economy that are only indirectly affected by presidential policies.

Our awareness of bureaucracy varies according to domestic and interna- tional conditions and situations in which we find ourselves. This awareness is usually higher before, during, and after a presidential election cycle; when we cast votes for other elected officials or fill out our income tax returns (espe- cially when we have to pay additional taxes on April 15); apply for government loans to finance a college education; seek federal assistance after a natural

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6 PART 1 The Context, Nature, and Structure of Public Administration in America

disaster; or deal directly with the most visible street-level bureaucrats—“first responders” such as police officers, emergency service workers, and firefighters. We are less conscious of the role of bureaucracy under other more routine circumstances. (Throughout the book, key terms and concepts are high- lighted in bold print, defined in the margins, and listed at the end of each chapter.) Much bureaucratic decision making is obscure or just not directly meaningful to most of us. Consider, for example, decisions by the U.S. State Department to change eligibility formulas for determining international stu- dent visas. Proposals such as these may be important to subsets of citizens (and noncitizens as well) and may even lend legitimacy to the final actions taken by public agencies, but they typically generate little media publicity or public attention by themselves. Some of the most important work of govern- ment agencies takes place away from public view. Yet everyone has a general opinion—usually negative—about bureaucracy and politics.

All Americans are far more aware of the role of bureaucracy in their daily lives as a result of tragic events such as September 11, 2001, the inept govern- mental response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and the assassination attempt on U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona, in early 2011. All forms of security have become much tighter, more intrusive, and time-consuming; international students enrolled in American universities are subject to more thorough background checks; university graduations, public gatherings, and sports and entertainment events have faced increased security precautions and added extra expenses as a result. The era of inexpensive and secure air travel that spurred the development of the global economy is over. Airlines and travel-related rental car, cruise line, hotel, and restaurant busi- nesses worldwide are struggling to regain customers who lost confidence in the ability of government to protect them. Scarce public resources are being diverted from much-needed domestic economic development and social pro- grams to bolster security for Americans who are now more alert and aware of the protective and service responsibilities of public agencies.

Regardless of our level of awareness (or frustration) concerning particu- lar bureaucratic activities or decisions, the institution of bureaucracy sparks strong emotions among millions of Americans. It has even been suggested that the language of bureaucracy (its jargon) has harmed the English language as a whole. In one way or another, most of us are familiar—if not always comfortable—with government bureaucracy. Mention of “the bureaucracy” usually evokes a strong response; bureaucrats are unpopular with many of those they serve. Bureaucracy has been blamed for many of society’s current ills, for several reasons. Government agencies are clearly influential, and in all but a handful of cases, bureaucrats are not elected by the public; thus they are convenient and increasingly visible targets who in most instances can- not be removed from office by popular vote. We hear a great deal about the growing power of bureaucracy and bureaucrats, the arbitrary nature of many decisions, lack of accountability, questionable ethics, poor service quality, impersonal treatment, wasteful spending and cases of simple incompetence.

bureaucracy

(1) a formal organizational arrangement characterized by division of labor, job specialization with no functional overlap, exercise of authority through a vertical hierarchy (chain of command), and a system of internal rules, regulations, and record keeping; (2) in common usage, the administrative branch of government (national, state, or local) in the United States; also, individual administrative agencies of those governments.

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CHAPTER 1 Approaching the Study of Public Administration 7

On the other hand, when natural and man-made disasters strike, citizens turn to government and its bureaucratic institutions for emergency relief and protection. Shifts in public opinion also reflect variations in confidence and trust in government, and are generally associated with government’s ability to deliver services, maintain economic growth, protect citizens, and resolve basic social issues. Expressions of trust or mistrust in government largely reflect feelings about the condition of the economy and the incumbent national administration. Thus, as efforts to curb inflation bore fruit in the early 1980s, public confidence in government moved upward noticeably, but to a level still below that of the 1960s. Public trust in government reflects the national mood, which declined from the mid-1980s until the early 1990s. Trust moved up sharply in the mid-1990s as a result of strong economic growth and policies of the Clinton–Gore administration (1993–2001) (see Figure 1–1). As more citizens are affected by economic decline and job losses, their anger and frustration are focused on government and politicians.

Bureaucracy often becomes a focal point of discontent not only because of its obvious discretionary authority but also because of the widespread perception of its mismanagement of scarce resources, its relatively obscure and secretive decision-making processes, and the degree to which it is insu- lated from or vulnerable to direct (elective) political controls. Protests against the actions of local school boards, taxing authorities, and police departments; impatience with inefficiency and red tape; and negative public responses to

Satisfaction with

state of the nation

Trust in

government

P E

R C

E N

T A

G E

1978 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010

75 FIGURE 1-1

Trust in Government and Views of National Conditions (2011)

Source: “Distrust, Discontent, Anger and Partisan Rancor : The people and Their Government.” Pew Research Center for the People & the Press: Washington, D.C., April 18, 2011. http://people-press.org/2010/04/18/distrust-discontent- anger-and-partisan-rancor/.

discretionary authority

power defined according to a legal and institutional framework and vested in a formal structure (a nation, organization, profession, or the like); power exercised through recognized, legitimate channels. The ability of individual administrators in a bureaucracy to make significant choices affecting management and operation of programs for which they are responsible; particularly evident in systems with separation of powers.

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8 PART 1 The Context, Nature, and Structure of Public Administration in America

regulatory actions all testify to the intensity of feeling and, more generally, to growing frustration and a widening sense of distance between the people and their governing institutions. Our attitudes toward both public and private bureaucracies (that is, toward all large organizations) have been affected by the larger complex of feelings and reactions toward corporations, governments, and other major institutions in American society, such as business, labor, the mass media, the military, and especially education. Americans’ confidence in our in- stitutions has declined significantly since the 1960s, a decade of divisive social conflict, followed by the Watergate scandals and a decade of economic decline. The “taxpayers’ revolt” that surfaced swiftly and intensely in the late 1970s was followed by decentralization, deregulation, and devolution of decision-making authority from the federal to state and local governments, in part as a reaction against perceived bureaucratic excesses. The 1980s brought a new Republican administration to Washington and optimism based on tax cuts, higher corporate profits, and less regulation of the economy. As economic conditions improved during the 1990s, public attitudes toward government also began to change for the better, notably in the form of rising support for government deregulation, tax relief, and reductions in government spending. Corporate scandals and the “downsizing” of many jobs resulting from globalization of the economy have significantly influenced people’s feelings about their futures, leaders, and insti- tutions in the early 2000s. President George W. Bush presided over a “Lost Decade” of unpopular wars, outsourcing jobs, tax breaks for the rich, and the loss of income for nearly 90 percent of the entire U.S. workforce. The election of Barack Obama in 2008 renewed optimism and hope for the future, but the nation has faced continued hardships and economic difficulty since.

To the extent that governmental activity is directed toward dealing with these problems but perceived by the public to be ineffective, public confi- dence is adversely affected. So, too, have been the electoral fortunes of incum- bent presidents seeking second terms: Gerald Ford, a Republican, in 1976; Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, in 1980; and George H. W. Bush, a Republican, in 1992. Public trust in government is always a significant concern and, although the level of trust declined measurably during the late twentieth century, it in- creased in the mid-1990s and surged after October 2001. Since then, trust and confidence in both the Congress and the president have receded, related in part to a drop in public support for the war in Iraq. Public support for both Congress and President George W. Bush reached historic lows (38 percent and 28 percent respectively) in the months before the 2008 presidential election.1

By contrast, support for selected federal agencies, such as the U.S. Coast Guard, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. military services, the National Park Service, and the Social Security Administration, has improved dramatically. Fluctuations in pub- lic confidence, respect, and trust appear to be associated more closely with the strength or weakness of the national economy than the political party in power. For example, a worsening economy in the early 1990s was a major

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CHAPTER 1 Approaching the Study of Public Administration 9

factor in Bill Clinton’s victory over George H. W. Bush in the presidential election of 1992. The Clinton–Gore victory in 1996, the first time in thirty- two years that Democrats had been reelected for a second presidential term, reflected a positive national mood about the economy, lower federal budget deficits, job growth, and continued low rates of inflation. The election also reinforced a public preference for “divided government,” with Republicans maintaining majorities in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate as well as many statehouses. George W. Bush was first elected president in 2000 without strong support or a majority of popular votes in one of the closest elections in American history. President Bush was reelected in 2004 by wider electoral and popular vote margins. During his second term (2005–2009), fed- eral budget deficits and public debt ballooned as more money was allocated for unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; ironically, the federal bureau- cracy under Bush expanded more than at any other time since the New Deal (1932–1939). Public discontent with Republican policies contributed to Barack Obama’s election to the presidency. It remains to be seen how voters will respond to the continued frustrations facing the nation currently.

Whether public attitudes toward government bureaucracy in general and bureaucrats in particular have followed broader opinion patterns exactly is unclear. What is certain, however, is that the public’s regard for public administrators has fallen far below what it was seventy years ago, when the civil service was considered an esteemed profession. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, and throughout World War II, public administrators and their organizations enjoyed greater public confidence than they do today.2 The general public, through its elected officials, looked to the administrative apparatus of government to take on increasing responsibility. Congress, state legislatures, and city councils, as well as presidents, governors, and mayors, all delegate certain amounts of discretionary authority to administrative of- ficials, in effect directing them to make the day-to-day choices involved in applying laws and enforcing regulations. No national referendum was held on the question, “should bureaucrats be given more responsibility?” But public acceptance of greater governmental involvement in a wider range of societal activities outweighed any opposition to growth of government in general and government bureaucracy in particular. Indeed, once bureaucratic policy making began to increase, heightened public demand for government services ensured continuation of greater administrative activity; this pattern may have been interrupted by Republican election victories in 2010, reflecting voters’ long-term concerns about federal spending, deficits, and debt.

Variations in bureaucracy’s public standing have coincided with greater demands for a wider range of public services, the increasing complexity of the nation’s problems, and much higher levels of competence and professionalism among government workers. Even as presidents such as Carter, George H. W. Bush, and Clinton tried to reduce the size and change the role of bureaucra- cies, they acknowledged the honesty, integrity, and demonstrated talents of

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10 PART 1 The Context, Nature, and Structure of Public Administration in America

the vast majority of administrative officials. George H. W. Bush, the forty- first president, was openly supportive of public administrators. President Bill Clinton placed considerable emphasis on “empowering” federal employ- ees so that they might do their best work. Clinton went further than any other recent president in suggesting that it was “time to shift from top-down bureaucracy to entrepreneurial government that generates change from the bottom up. We must reward the people and ideas that work, and get rid of those that don’t.”3

Public administration scholar Charles Goodsell, as well as others, has sug- gested that government bureaucracies and administrators do not deserve such harsh criticism.4 The essence of his argument is that, despite shortcomings in- evitably found in all complex organizations, America’s government bureaucra- cies perform quite well. This is the case whether bureaucratic performance is measured by objective standards, in comparison with that in most of the other nations of the world, or (as noted earlier) in terms of citizens’ satisfaction with their dealings with government administrators. Goodsell realistically summa- rizes his position this way:

Our government agencies are riddled with examples of incompetence, negligence, inflexibility, and many other flaws. So, too, our govern- ment bureaucrats include men and women who should not be in their positions for reasons of sloth, bad manners, poor judgment, and other faults. My point, however, is that the flaws and the faults are far fewer on a proportional basis than is generally thought. And they are more than outweighed in frequency and importance by instances of dedi- cated service on behalf of public missions important to all citizens. Most governments of the world would be pleased to possess a public bureaucracy of the quality of our own.5

Goodsell focuses attention on the sometimes unthinking criticisms of bureau- cracy that have characterized much of our national dialogue in the recent past. Scapegoating (that is, blaming bureaucracy as a whole, and individual bureau- crats, for societal ills) only makes it more difficult for the rest of us to acquire a clearer understanding of what it really is and how it really operates in our governmental system and our society at large.

At the same time, although people vent their frustrations on bureau- cracy in general, there is strong evidence of favorable citizen reaction to di- rect dealings with individual bureaucrats and bureaucracies.6 It has even been suggested by a reputable observer that public administrators “could not be engaged in more important or more honorable work . . . however they may be judged by the public they serve.”7 Why, then, has public respect for these officials varied so much?

Part of the answer is that they may appear to constitute something of a government “elite” in an era of economic scarcity when angry and cynical

entrepreneurial

government

emphasizes productivity management, measurable performance, privatization, and change.

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CHAPTER 1 Approaching the Study of Public Administration 11

voices are heard more forcefully. Or, perhaps, the very complexity of the prob- lems currently confronting government decreases the likelihood of complete solutions, despite the serious efforts of competent people. The more complex the problems, the greater the discretionary authority vested in bureaucracies to attempt to deal with them. Finally, perhaps, the public has come to ex- pect too much from government (sometimes encouraged by the mass media and public officials themselves) and has made bureaucrats into scapegoats for not meeting public expectations. Whether bureaucrats are deserving of these harsh sentiments is another matter.

What Is Public Administration?

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, execu- tives, and courts. This definition should be understood to include consider- able administrative involvement in formulation as well as implementation of legislation and executive orders; we will discuss this more fully later. Public administration is simultaneously a field of academic study and of professional training, from which substantial numbers of government employees cur- rently are drawn.

Note that this definition does not limit the participants in public ad- ministration to administrative personnel, or even to people in government. It can and does refer to a wide and varied assortment of stakeholders, that is, individuals and groups with a common interest in the consequences of administrative action. Among stakeholders, the foremost perhaps are the administrators themselves. Also included are members of the legislature, legislative committees, and their staffs; higher executives in the admin- istrative apparatus of government; judges; political-party officials whose partisan interests overlap extensively with issues of public policy; lobby- ists (that is, leaders and members of interest groups) seeking from the government various policies, regulations, and actions; private contractors who perform services or produce goods for public agencies; mass-media personnel (particularly in their “watchdog” role over the actions and deci- sions of public officials); and members of society at large who, even when they are not well organized, can have some impact on the directions of var- ious public policies. Furthermore, public administration involves all those just mentioned in shifting patterns of reciprocal (mutual) relationships—in state, local, and federal governments as well as in national-state-local (that is, intergovernmental) relations. The politics of administration involves agency interactions with those outside the formal structure as well as interactions among those within administrative agencies; we are concerned with both.

public administration

(1) all processes, organizations, and individuals acting in official positions associated with carrying out laws and other rules adopted or issued by legislatures, executives, and courts (many activities are also concerned with formulation of these rules); (2) a field of academic study and professional training leading to public-service careers at all levels of government.

stakeholders

bureaucrats, elected officials, groups of citizens, and organized and unorganized interests affected by the decisions of federal, state, and local governments; those having a stake in the outcome of public policies.

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12 PART 1 The Context, Nature, and Structure of Public Administration in America

The Managerial Role Let us consider another dimension of public administration: the manage- rial, or management, side. Although the emphasis in this book is on the “politics of bureaucracy,” as some have called it, managing government per- formance has always occupied a place of major importance in the discipline of public administration and is becoming increasingly important in making government more productive.8 Managerial aspects of public administration have as their primary focus the internal workings of government agencies, that is, all the structures, dynamics, and processes connected with operating government programs. The terms public administration (as used in this text) and public management are both concerned with implementing policies and programs enacted through authoritative institutions of government. But, even though they may appear to be interchangeable terms, the latter emphasizes methods of organizing for internal control and direction for maximum effectiveness, whereas the former addresses a broader range of civic, electoral, and social concerns.

Despite these differences, there is general agreement that managerial skills and relevant experience are essential prerequisites to operate public agencies. Networking and organizing skills that can be performed with more or less competence are the indispensable foundation on which actual operations are built and sustained. An important point for the public manager is that action is expected, even if it is not necessarily advisable or convenient. Managers must often take actions to move the organization in the face of strict dead- lines within a range of choices that is far less than ideal. (One of the reasons the Bush administration suffered a “competence gap” following its delayed response to Hurricane Katrina was the absence of experienced leadership in key positions within agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA].)9 These elements make up a large part of the public man- ager’s existence in, and contribution to, the totality of public administration.

Another concern is the growing emphasis on individual character and lead- ership (stable personalities providing vision and direction for an organization) as opposed to simply managing established, routine operations (see Chapter 6). There is also a continuing interest in improving the quality and reliability of services provided in both public and private organizations and, with it, the pos- sibility of a new conception of the relationship among managers, frontline service providers, and their “customers.” Unlike the traditional top-down bureaucratic chain of command, this conception envisions a reverse pyramid with line workers responsive to the cust omers of public-service organizations, and managers at the base of the triangle, supporting the frontline employee (at the point or tip of the triangle). Another concern is the prospect of trans- forming organizational structures—given the many changes in information communication technology (ICT) and its enhanced uses regarding the changing roles of managers and leaders.10 Still other concerns for managers

public management

a field of practice and study central to public administration that emphasizes internal operations of public agencies and focuses on managerial concerns related to control and direction, such as planning, organizational maintenance, information systems, budgeting, personnel management, performance evaluation, and productivity improvement.

reverse pyramid

a conception of organizational structure, especially in service organizations, whereby managerial duties focus on providing necessary support to frontline employees (particularly those whose work centers around information and information technology) who deal directly with individuals seeking the organization’s services.

information

communication

technologies (ICT)

various forms of New Media technology connecting Internet users with service providers and websites. ICTs methods include communication protocols, transmission techniques, communications equipment as well as systems for computer storage and information retrieval.

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CHAPTER 1 Approaching the Study of Public Administration 13

include the challenge of providing career development and job enrichment for employees, encouraging participatory management, and applying emer- gent customer service management techniques to the tasks of running large, complex bureaucratic organizations. Public managerial responsibilities have be- come more complicated and, at the same time, more challenging and potentially beneficial to employees, citizens, managers, and their organizations.

Principal Structures of the National Executive Branch

Constitution of the United States The U.S. Constitution is silent on the subjects of public administration and management, except to refer to Congress’s legislative authorization and appropriation authority and the president’s responsibility to “faithfully exe- cute the laws.” The structures that exist today are products of congressional action, as are many of the procedures followed within public administration. The national executive branch is organized primarily into five major types of agencies, four formal bases, or foundations, of organization, and four broad categories of administrative employees. These deserve consideration because they affect both the way administrative entities function and the content of policies they help to enact.

Cabinet-Level Executive Departments Sometimes referred to simply as “departments,” they are the most visible, though not necessarily the largest, national executive organizations; this is also true in most states and localities. There are fifteen departments in the national executive branch—examples include the Departments of State, Defense, Commerce, the Treasury, Justice, Labor, and the Interior (see Figure 1–2). Each department is headed by a secretary and a series of top-level subordinates, all of whom are appointed by the president with the approval of the Senate (such approval is rarely withheld). Their main function is to provide policy leadership to their respective departments on behalf of the president but, in practice, they also speak to the president for their departments (see Chapter 6). One of the newest cabinet-level divisions is the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the prod- uct of controversial reorganization of all or parts of twenty-two existing federal agencies with nearly a $50 billion budget (which more than tri- pled its available resources following Hurricane Katrina) and 180,000 employees, that centralizes functions as diverse as customs, immigra- tion, transportation security, the Secret Service, and emergency management (see Figure 1–3).

Department of

Homeland Security (DHS)

a U.S. federal “mega-agency” created in 2002 by merging twenty-two existing agencies. Its mission is to respond to natural and man-made disasters, secure our borders, and prevent domestic terrorism and violence.

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16 PART 1 The Context, Nature, and Structure of Public Administration in America

The U.S. Customs Service (Department of the Treasury), Immigration and Naturalization Service (Department of Justice), Federal Emergency Manage- ment Agency (General Services Administration), the Transportation Security Administration (Department of Transportation [DOT]), and the U.S. Coast Guard (DOT) were transferred from their former departments (in parenthe- ses) to the reorganized DHS. One of the major functions of the Transporta- tion Security Administration (TSA) is the hiring and training of all of the new federal airport security screeners. In addition, the TSA has many other respon- sibilities under the Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001. Secu- rity at U.S. ports as well as safety on other forms of commercial travel is also a responsibility of the TSA. The TSA and DHS Undersecretary for Border and Transportation Security are charged with ensuring the safety of traveling Americans and coordinating efforts with law enforcement so that intelligence gathered concerning possible threats to transportation safety can be shared and appropriate steps taken to ensure security.

Departments are composed of many smaller administrative units with a variety of titles, such as bureau, office, administration, and service. Within DOT, for example, one finds such diverse units as the Urban Mass Transpor- tation Administration (UMTA), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is subsumed within the Interior Department; and the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), the Public Health Ser- vice (PHS), and (most significant) the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are all part of the Department of Health and Human Services. The fact that bureaus or offices are located within the same departmental structure does not necessarily mean that they work cooperatively on any one venture; in fact, conflict among agencies within the same department is not uncommon (though efforts such as the creation of a Department of Homeland Security have been made to reduce such conflict). Finally, departments and their sub- units generally are responsible for carrying out specific operating programs enacted by Congress; they have, and attempt to maintain, fairly specific pro- gram jurisdiction and often concrete program objectives. For examples of the various divisions of the DHS, and the approximate percentage of total 2011 budget devoted to each agency or function, see Table 1–1. The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), for instance, received the largest share (20 percent) of the total DHS budget; the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) received 18 percent; TSA was allocated 14 percent; and FEMA 12 percent.

Independent Regulatory Boards and Commissions Among such organizations are the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Federal Reserve Board (FRB), National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and U.S. International Trade Commission

jurisdiction

in bureaucratic politics, the area of programmatic responsibility assigned to an agency by the legislature or chief executive; also a term used to describe the territory within the boundaries of a government entity such as “a local jurisdiction.”

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CHAPTER 1 Approaching the Study of Public Administration 17

(USITC). These organizations are a second major type of administrative entity and differ from cabinet-level departments in a number of important ways. First, they have a different function—namely, to oversee and regulate activi- ties of various parts of the private economic sector. Second, their leadership is plural rather than singular; that is, they are headed by a board or commission of several individuals (usually five to nine) instead of a secretary. Third, they are designed to be somewhat independent of other institutions and political forces. Members of these entities are appointed by the president with Senate approval (as are senior department officials) but have more legal protection than do Cabinet members against dismissal by the president; in addition, they normally serve a term of office longer than that of the appointing president. In relation to Congress, these entities are supposedly somewhat freer to do their jobs than are departments and their subunits; in practice, this is question- able, but the design does have some impact. Finally, these entities are designed to regulate private-sector enterprises in a detached and objective manner and are expected to prevent abuses, corruption, and the like. Some controversy has existed, however, over just how detached and objective these organizations have been in relation to those they regulate.

Independent regulatory boards and commissions are not, however, the only government entities having regulatory responsibilities. A pheno- menon of considerable importance is the growth of government regulation since the 1960s through a wide variety of other administrative instru- ments. Examples include the FAA, state departments of transportation,

TABLE 1-1

Percent of Total Budget Authority by Organization, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Fiscal Year 2011.

Note: Departmental Operations is comprised of the Office of the Secretary & Executive Management, the Office of the Undersecretary for Management, the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, the Office of the Chief Information Officer, the National Special Event Security Fund, and the DHS Headquarters Consolidation Project.

Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Budget in Brief, FY 2008, p. 17.

CBP 20%

ICE 10%

TSA 14%

A&O 1%

Dept. Ops 2%

USCIS 5% S&T

2% DNDO 1%

FLETC, OIG, OHA 1%

FEMA: Grants 7%

USCG 18%

USSS 3%

NPPD 4%

FEMA 12%

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18 PART 1 The Context, Nature, and Structure of Public Administration in America

the NTSB, and the FDA. These agencies play important roles in their re- spective policy areas with regard to setting rules and standards for those in the private sector. The increasing incidence of government regulation has spawned rising political discontent over the scope and content of regula- tory activity. Former President Clinton and Vice President Gore ordered a cost-benefit analysis (detailed in Chapters 10 and 11) of what were called “important” regulations and recommended the dissolution of those that were deemed “insignificant.” They found that it is very difficult in a large bureaucracy to eliminate the bad rules and make the good ones easier to understand. Sorting out the necessary from the unnecessary is a task—involving significant discretionary authority—heavily influenced by private interests, congressional intent, and procedures governing regulatory agencies, boards, and commissions. The Obama administration has attempted to broaden the scope of regulation to include consumer protection, financial institutions, and the provision of affordable health care to millions of Americans. In Chapter 11, we will explore the politics of regulatory reform more fully.

Government Corporations These are national, state, or local government organizations that are identi- cal to private corporations in most of their structures and operations except one—they are government-owned. Also, while some (such as the National Railroad Passenger Corporation or Amtrak and local public utilities) seek to make a profit, others (such as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation [FDIC] and the Lower Colorado River Authority of the state of Texas) do not. These are conceived as corporate entities for a number of reasons. First, their legislative charters allow them somewhat greater latitude in day-to-day operations than other agencies enjoy. Government corporations also have the power to acquire, develop, and dispose of real estate and other kinds of property while acting in their own names (rather than in the name of the par- ent government). Finally, they can bring suit in a court of law and are legally liable to be sued, also in their own name. Each is headed by a board of direc- tors, much as private corporations are, and is engaged in a wide variety of governmental activities. Three of the newest and largest of such entities are Amtrak, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the U.S. Postal Ser- vice (with nearly 550,000 employees, almost one-fourth of all civilian federal workers); two of the oldest, both founded in the 1930s, are the FDIC and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).

Executive Office of the President (EOP) The EOP is a collection of administrative bodies that are physically and organizationally housed close to the Oval Office and designed to work for the president. Several of these entities are especially prominent

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CHAPTER 1 Approaching the Study of Public Administration 19

and important: (1) The White House Office consists of the president’s key staff aides and staff directors. (2) The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) assists the president in assembling budget requests for the entire executive branch and forwards them to Capitol Hill as the pres- ident’s annual budget message, coordinates operating and regulatory pro- grams, develops high-quality executive talent, and improves management processes throughout the executive branch. (3) The Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) is the president’s principal research arm for economic pol- icy; it frequently influences the president’s economic thinking. (4) Enti- ties such as the National Security Council (NSC), designed originally as forums for generating a broad overview of policy directions, consist of the president, vice president, key cabinet secretaries, and other officials. The formal purpose of these entities is to monitor and assess administration policies. Most of these entities become directly involved in policy making to a greater or lesser degree, according to each president’s preferences. As staffs have grown larger, however, actions can be taken without direct presidential supervision, as the Iran–Contra affair during the second Rea- gan administration (1985–1989) involving the NSC clearly illustrates (for elaboration, see Chapter 6).11

Other Independent Executive Agencies Finally, there are miscellaneous independent agencies that have no bureau- cratic departmental “home” but fit no other category we have discussed. Among these are the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), formerly combined as the U.S. Civil Service Commission, which together oversee the national government’s per- sonnel system; the U.S. Mint; the General Services Administration (GSA), the government’s office of procurement, property, and supply; the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) discussed in Chapter 5; and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Foundations of Organization The foundations of organization, mentioned earlier, are function, geographic area, clientele, and work process. The most common organizational foun- dation is according to function, indicating that an agency is concerned with a fairly distinct policy area but not limited to a particular geographic area. Organization according to geography indicates that an agency’s work is in a specific region; examples include the TVA, the Pacific Command of the Navy, and the Southern Command of the U.S. Army.

Clientele-based agencies are agencies that appear to address problems of a specific segment of the population, such as the (old) Veterans Administration (VA) or the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the “new” Social Security

Office of Management

and Budget (OMB)

an important entity in the Executive Office of the President that assists the president in assembling executive-branch budget requests, coordinating programs, developing executive talent, and supervising program management processes in national government agencies.

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Administration (SSA), which was separated from the Department of Health and Human Services and became an independent agency on March 31, 1995. The label clientele-based agency may be misleading for two reasons. First, every agency has a clientele of some kind—a group or groups in the general population on whose behalf many of the agency’s programs are conducted. For example, farm- ers are clients of the Department of Agriculture, skilled and semiskilled laborers are associated with the Labor Department, and coal interests are linked to the Bureau of Mines. Similarly, the decision to reestablish a separate SSA in 1995 (as an independent agency as it was before merging with the Department of Health, Education and Welfare in 1953) recognized the increasing the political influence of its clientele as well as the importance of domestic spending of about $2.5 tril- lion for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and other human resources in fiscal year (FY) 2011—over 65 percent of all funds appropriated by the federal government. (According to austere 2011 federal budget estimates, total spend- ing for these three programs and their administrative agencies is estimated to decrease slightly to $2.4 trillion in 2012.)

The label also may be misleading because these clienteles may not always be satisfied clienteles. The VA and the BIA are, in fact, excellent illustrations of agencies whose clienteles often have complained about some aspect of agency performance. In 1975, various veterans’ groups and indi- vidual veterans protested vigorously about the VA’s alleged shortcomings in awarding and processing veterans’ benefits, to the point that a virtual sit- in took place in the VA director’s office. Likewise, the BIA was, for a time, a principal target of the American Indian Movement and others who expressed dissatisfaction with government management of Native American problems on and off the reservation. With both the VA and the BIA, a clientele was the most dissatisfied group—a not uncommon situation in bureaucratic politics. Likewise, the decision to re-create an independent SSA anticipated the inter- generational conflict and continuing controversy over the future of federal Social Security retirement benefits and Medicare, the federally funded health care program for the elderly.12

Work process agencies engage predominantly in data gathering and analysis for some higher-ranking official or office and rarely if ever partici- pate formally in policy making. Agencies such as the Economic Research Staff of the Department of Agriculture, the Economic Studies Division of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the Soils Research Staff of the U.S. Geological Survey fall into this category.

Individual administrators occupying the multitude of positions in the various agencies can be categorized several different ways. For example, most national government administrators are merit employees, which means that they are presumably hired, retained, and promoted because they have the skills and training necessary to perform their jobs. Of the approximately 3.2 million

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CHAPTER 1 Approaching the Study of Public Administration 21

full-time civilian employees in the federal government, about 92 percent work under a merit system of some kind. The remaining 8 percent include unionized employees not subject to merit hiring procedures as well as politi- cal appointees, some of whom can be removed by the president. In the latter group, numbering some 3,000 individuals, are the highest-ranking officials of the executive branch, including cabinet secretaries and undersecretaries, reg- ulatory commissioners, and EOP personnel (see Chapter 7). Another way of viewing administrative employees is as either specialists or generalists. The term specialist refers to employees at lower and middle levels of the formal hierarchy whose responsibilities center on fairly specific programmatic areas. The term generalist is used to describe those in the higher ranks of an agency whose responsibilities cover a wider cross section of activities within the agency, involving some degree of supervision of various specialists in the ranks below.

The national executive branch, then, is organized primarily into five major types of agencies, with four formal bases of organization (function being the most common) and four broad categories of employees. State and local governments are different, though, and are worth considering briefly for the same reasons that we have examined the national execu- tive branch: the administrative structure has some impact on the way the machinery of government functions and on the content of policies it helps to implement.

State and Local Government Structures

In general, states and larger local governments resemble the national govern- ment in composition and organization of their executive-branch agencies. Most states now have numerous cabinet-level departments; states also have a wide variety of regulatory bodies, some government corporations, and miscel- laneous agencies. Similarly, most governors have fairly strong executive-office staffs responsive to the governor’s leadership (see Chapter 6).

There are more than 88,000 governments within the United States and, except for the federal and state governments, all are local governments such as cities, counties, townships, and school or special districts. Individual state and local agencies are smaller and more numerous than their federal govern- ment counterparts. Despite the relatively large number of governments, over 90 percent of all public agencies are comprised of fewer than fifty employ- ees. There are also more elected local officials than state and federal ones: 96 percent of all 513,195 elected officials serve on elected boards or commissions in states or local governments (Table 1–2). These elected governments are small governmental units averaging only about six elected representatives per jurisdiction. States and communities also vary in terms of climate, economies,

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Level of Government Elected Officials (Percent)

Federal 1 National 537 (3.8)

State 50 State 18,828

Local

Special districts

Municipalities

Townships

School districts

Counties

87,974

35,356

19,431

16,629

13,522

3,034

Local

Special districts

Municipalities

Townships

School districts

Counties

493,830

84,089

135,531

126,958

88,434

58,818

(96.2)

(17.0)

(27.0)

(26.0)

(18.0)

(12.0)

TOTAL 88,023 513,195 (100)

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Governments Division, Governments Integrated Directory (GID) (Washington, D.C., 2002); accessed August, 15, 2005 at http://www.census.gov/govs/cog/2002 COGprelim_report.pdf; U.S. Census Bureau, 2002 Census of Elected Officials (Washington, D.C., 2002) http://www.census.gov/govs/www/gid.html.

TABLE 1-2

The Number of Governments and Elected Officials in the United States

geography, population size, topography, type of government, and urbaniza- tion, as well as the individual characteristics of residents. For example, the state of Hawaii has only twenty-one governments (and only one municipal or city government) as compared to the state of Illinois with 6,723 govern- ments. Citizens of Hawaii have just 1.7 governments per 10,000 residents, whereas citizens of North Dakota have almost 243 for the same number of residents. These extreme variations among states and local governments re- flect a history of independence from the federal government and a tradition of self-governance and local control.

Some state agency structures reflect past or present influences of partic- ular interest groups more than those in Washington do. One example was Pennsylvania’s powerful Department of Mines and Mineral Industries, indica- tive of the role played in that state’s economy by coal mine owners over the years. Another is the Illinois Department of Aging, created in response to the emergence of a growing constituency with common problems of senior citizenship. These so-called special interests have “their” agencies in the na- tional government, of course, but a pattern found in many states is the creation of somewhat higher-level agencies in response to constituency pressures. An- other distinctive feature of some state executive structures is greater legislative control over some individual agencies’ budgets and personnel, in comparison to Congress’s hold over national government agencies. This varies, however, from state to state.

Larger cities like New York, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Boston, and Los Angeles have bureaucratic arrangements not unlike those in state and national governments. There is a great deal of administrative specialization, a directly elected chief executive (mayor) with a highly devel- oped executive-office staff, and similar bases of organization.

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CHAPTER 1 Approaching the Study of Public Administration 23

There are, however, some differences between local governments and state and national governments. Local party politics frequently play a more prominent role in shaping municipal policy making (notably in Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York), and local public-employee unions have a great deal of influence in many cities. Local government activity is more heavily oriented to providing such essential services as water, sew- age disposal and sanitation, and police and fire protection than to broader policy concerns, such as education, health care, welfare reform, and mass- transit development.

In smaller communities, as well as in many counties and townships, bureaucratic structures are not very numerous or sophisticated. This can sometimes mean that professional expertise is not as firmly established in local government as it is in most state governments and the national govern- ment. This lack of expertise is often reflected in the limited quantity and quality of programs enacted by many local governments, a pattern particu- larly visible in some rural county governments, many smaller towns and vil- lages, and most special districts. As noted earlier, many local governments concentrate on providing basic urban services, with less emphasis on the sort of operating programs and regulatory activities that characterize state and national administration. The larger the unit of local government, the more likely its bureaucracy is to resemble state and national adminis- trative agencies.

Politics, Policies, and Organizational Structure

This section reviews several traditional conceptions relating to bureaucratic activity and discusses how our political system has affected American bureau- cracies in light of these conceptions. This is an introductory treatment only, for our complex political processes cannot be described adequately in a few words; the same is true of the impacts of political complexity on our public administrative institutions. Even this brief discussion, however, will help to set the stage for a fuller exploration of the political values that underlie our gov- ernmental processes, the administrative values that have helped to shape the conduct of public administration, and the many facets of intergovernmental relationships (see Chapter 3).

At first glance, questions of organizational structure may not appear to carry major political overtones. But formal organizational arrangements do not simply appear, and they are anything but neutral in their conse- quences. The choice of organizational structure may both reflect and pro- mote some interests over others because a particular structure is the product of decisions reached through the political process by a particular majority coalition, whether directly (as through congressional action) or indirectly (as when the president proposes executive reorganization). Those who

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24 PART 1 The Context, Nature, and Structure of Public Administration in America

organize or reorganize an agency in a certain way obviously have reasons for doing so, one of which is usually promotion of their own policy inter- ests. For example, President George H. W. Bush highlighted his concern for our nation’s military veterans and expanded the access of veterans’ groups to top policy makers in Washington by creating the Department of Veter- ans Affairs in March 1989. Similarly, the Clinton administration’s decision to separate the SSA from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services highlighted the importance of recognizing the rights of disabled, elderly, and retired persons, and all others who might be eligible for supplemental social-insurance income. In effect, the SSA was protected from future presi- dents who might seek to change, dismantle, or privatize the agency’s basic functions. Despite George W. Bush’s concerted lobbying efforts to fulfill his 2004 campaign promise to make fundamental changes in the Social Security system, opposition from bureaucratic interests, among others, contributed to the defeat of several legislative proposals in 2005 to privatize a portion of individual Social Security contributions for younger workers. President Obama has also undertaken major health care reforms that will require significant structural changes.

The Politics of Organizational Structure Another important dimension of administrative organization is the political setting in which agencies operate; at the same time, structural arrangements can have significant political implications for administrative agencies. Here we will take a closer look at the political importance of structural arrange- ments, at both the national and local government levels, using as illustrations the establishment of the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) by the first Bush administration, the DHS in 2003, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in 2005, both by the second Bush administra- tion. The generalizations cited below apply with equal force to the executive branches of state and local governments.

Organizational form can signify a number of things. First, a particular organizational structure demonstrates commitment to one set of policy objec- tives instead of another. It can also foreshadow adoption of a distinct policy direction, either in an individual policy area or in broader policy terms. The first President Bush’s action to promote the Veterans Administration (VA) to cabinet status as the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) was taken in opposition to career administrators and even some influential leaders of the president’s own party. It contradicted the general strategy of other Republi- can policies (such as the New Federalism of the 1980s) that were designed to reduce bureaucracy, save expenses, and weaken federal management of gov- ernment programs. Despite these concerns and intraparty inconsistencies, however, the DVA was organized, largely in response to pressures from veter- ans’ groups.

Office of the Director

of National Intelligence

(DNI)

federal office created in 2005 by restructuring fifteen intelligence agencies to coordinate national intelligence-gathering and analysis efforts.

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CHAPTER 1 Approaching the Study of Public Administration 25

Second, a particular structure helps to order priorities by promoting some programs over others. President George H. W. Bush was a decorated World War II veteran himself, and elevation of existing veterans’ services agencies into the cabinet changed both the symbolism and reality of admin- istrative politics. The relatively higher priority of issues affecting veterans was also highlighted by the creation of a cabinet department to deal with them; such status carries with it increased prestige, not to mention visibility, both of which can be very useful to an agency. Furthermore, that sort of commitment from the chief executive, combined with more prominent orga- nizational status, often leads to increased access to committees and influence in the legislature.

Finally, a particular structure may provide greater access to influence for some interests and less for others. Structure and jurisdiction are at least in- directly related and, although changes in jurisdiction may not necessarily be accompanied by a change in structure, any change in structure will inevitably result in some reallocation of program jurisdiction.

Access and jurisdiction are also related. Stakeholders have meaningful access, at best, only to those administrators responsible for the programs with which these groups are concerned. Changes in jurisdiction, however, will often force affected groups to reestablish lines of access. Such changes could cause difficulties for these groups, especially in persuading new work- ing partners to their points of view. Furthermore, stakeholders normally prefer to have all related programs clustered under one administrative um- brella because that allows them to influence the full range of programs. It is also likely that such an arrangement will be managed by administrators sympathetic to programs for which they are responsible. Scattering the same programs among different agencies and administrators may result in more hostile treatment of both programs and interest groups. Executive reorgani- zations involving the merger of existing agencies and congressional relation- ships may also create problems for stakeholders.

The politics surrounding structural rearrangements are often highly controversial, as the second Bush administration discovered while imple- menting its cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security. The tragic events of September 11, 2001 exposed conflicts and lack of coordination and communication among federal, state, and local law enforcement offi- cials, and fragmentation of information-sharing procedures and capabilities. Creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the largest reorgani- zation of the federal government since the Department of Defense was es- tablished in the late 1940s, illustrates the dynamics that fostered the very problems the new department is expected to solve (Table 1–1). Combining agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Immigra- tion and Naturalization Service, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the U.S. Customs Services into a single “superagency” did not erase historical lines of com- munication between constituents, officials, and members of Congress that

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26 PART 1 The Context, Nature, and Structure of Public Administration in America

have existed for decades. Although Congress agreed with the reorganization of homeland security functions, no changes were made in the committee structures responsible for authorization and appropriation of funds for the various components of the new agency.13

After several years of congressional debate, extensive public hearings, and the publication of a critical investigating commission report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) was created by Congress in early 2005.14 Amid similar post-September 11 controversies, the DNI was forged by the merger of fifteen agencies—including various defense intelligence agencies and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)—to encourage greater cooperation and coordination among intelligence functions (Figure 1–4). Although the new office now reports directly to the president and controls about 70 percent of the total national nondefense budget for intelli- gence gathering and analysis, it has yet to define its jurisdictional boundaries. In this case, centralization could negatively impact agency influence and access to congressional authorization and appropriation committees. In addition, some observers note that separating the DNI from the analytical offices of each of the operational agencies may complicate rather than simplify the overall intelli- gence analysis effort.15 Despite the additional bureaucracy and centralization of

FIGURE 1-4 Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Strategy, Plans &

Requirements

Strategic Partnerships

Security

Policy

POLICY, PLANS &

REQUIREMENTS COLLECTIONANALYSIS

ACQUISITION &

TECHNOLOGY

ADNI/Chief Financial Officer Director James R. Clapper, Jr.

Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence (PDDNI) David Gompert

Director of Intelligence Staff LTG John Kimmons. USA

Civil Liberties

Protection Officer General Counsel

Inspector General

Protocol

DD/Defense Intelligence

(USD(I))

Communications

Equal Employment

Opportunity & Diversity

Executive Secretariat

ADNI/Chief Human Capital Officer

ADNI/IC Chief Information Officer

ADNI/Systems

and Resource Analyses

Acquisition

Integration &

Technology*

Analytic Integrity &

Standards

Analytic Mission

Management

Analytic Transformation

& Technology

Community Support

Cyberspace

Management

HUMINT

Open Source

Technical Collection

Source: Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

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CHAPTER 1 Approaching the Study of Public Administration 27

management authority in Washington, the redrawn jurisdictional boundar- ies are likely to reflect the same conflicts and interests expressed in past arrangements.

When state and local governments reorganize, downsize, or privatize programs and policies, they are also subject to shifting coalitions and political struggles over power and administrative jurisdiction. This is clearly illustrated by the periodic effort in cities and towns across the country to redefine their local government structures. This controversy has its roots in the late nine- teenth and early twentieth centuries, when growing concentrations of Euro- pean immigrants appeared in America’s larger cities, as well as some smaller ones. Their arrival was accompanied by more—and more powerful—political party organizations and their “bosses.”

Efforts to reform American municipal government, according to the rheto- ric of the time, were designed to bring about “economy and efficiency” in gov- ernment, “to take the politics out of local government,” and to promote “good government in the interests of the whole community.” Municipal reform, then as now, usually involved one or more of the following structural arrangements: (1) the method of selecting the chief executive, that is, whether to have a popularly elected mayor or a professional city manager chosen by, and responsible to, the city council; (2) the extent of the chief executive’s powers—this usually meant whether the office of the mayor was formally strong or weak; (3) whether municipal elec- tions were to have candidates selected by political parties or on a nonpartisan basis; and (4) whether members of the city council were to be elected from specific geo- graphic areas of the city, that is, by districts or wards, or selected at large.

Political rhetoric aside, decisions about these fundamental arrangements carry with them major implications for the distribution of political power. For example, citywide minorities have little chance of winning representation in at-large council elections but a better chance in district or ward elections (provided ward boundaries were drawn up to reflect, rather than fragment, their population concentrations). Similarly, there are numerous instances in which a chief executive elected under the strong-mayor form was almost cer- tain to be more politically sympathetic to ethnic or minority concerns than one chosen under a weak-mayor or city-manager form. It seems clear that group preferences for or against structural reform were not arrived at by chance but arose out of perceived group self-interest. This perception occurs because ethnic voters constitute the political majority in many cities that employ the strong-mayor form. Attempts by mayors in cities or counties with- out the strong-mayor form of government to reconstitute their governmen- tal systems are likely to be opposed by elected local boards and commissions that have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

In sum, there are clear winners and losers in this facet of politics as in all others. Organizational structures, jurisdiction, and access in different settings reflect changing alliances and the relative power of competing political forces, race and ethnic conflicts, and values.

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28 PART 1 The Context, Nature, and Structure of Public Administration in America

The Dynamics of Policy Making in the United States

Governmental power and authority in America are, by design, highly frag- mented and scattered, for the Framers of the Constitution feared nothing as much as excessive concentrations of power. Therefore, they did all they could to divide power among the different branches of the national government, and they gave each branch various means of checking the power of the other two. This horizontal division of power is called checks and balances. Such a divi- sion of power within national, state, and (to a lesser extent) local governments places bureaucracy in the United States in a very different position from the one it occupies in many other countries which have adopted parliamentary systems.

There is little question in parliamentary forms of government about how, by whom, and through what channels authority is exercised. In parlia- mentary governments, the chief executive and top-level ministers are them- selves members of the legislature. Parliamentary government is practiced in most democratic nations, and the chief executive (prime minister or premier) is usually the leader of the majority party in the legislature (parliament). In this situation, bureaucratic responsiveness to the chief executive and to the legislature are one and the same thing. In the United States, however, such questions take on added importance because, in our system, there are no similarly convenient answers.

The West Wing, an award-winning television series that aired on NBC from 1999 to 2006, took a close look at the orga- nizational structure of American bureaucracy and the poli- tics involved in running the United States of America. The series followed fictional President Bartlet, played by Martin Sheen, and his staff as they negotiated legislative and politi- cal issues throughout a presidential administration. Viewers see the Bar tlet administration confront domestic terror- ism; midterm, primary, and general elections; and legisla- tive battle controversies. As the series progressed, deeper issues were confronted and addressed in connection with events occurring in American life, such as the terrorist at- tacks on September 11, 2001. Tying the show’s topics to current American events demonstrated and conveyed the

difficulties that arise in getting administrators and politicians to work together toward a common goal. The show aimed to present viewers with a “real” view of politics and bureau- cracy and to create a positive view of public service.

A particular structure helps to order priorities by pro- moting some programs over others, as shown throughout The West Wing and in actual presidential administrations. Shifting coalitions and political struggles over power and administrative jurisdiction lead to major implications for the distribution of political power.

How would you determine the best organizational

structures for an administration and thus for a nation?

Source: http://www.nbc.com/The_West_Wing/, accessed April 25, 2011.

The West Wing

HOW WOULD YOU DECIDE?

checks and balances

a governing principle, following from separation of powers, that creates overlapping and interlocking functions among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. These include the president’s power to veto an act of Congress (and Congress’s power to override a presidential veto by a two-thirds majority), the Senate’s power to confirm or reject presidential appointments to executive and judicial positions, and the power of the courts to determine the constitutionality of the actions of other branches.

parliamentary form

of government

a form of government practiced in most democratic nations, including France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan, in which the chief executive and top-level ministers are themselves members of the legislature.

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CHAPTER 1 Approaching the Study of Public Administration 29

The making of public policy in the United States is characterized by a number of major features. For one thing, the process lacks a centralized mech- anism that comprehensively directs traffic. Rather, many centers of power are scattered throughout the executive and legislative branches. This lack of centralization produces a great deal of slack in the decision-making system. That is, in the absence of tight legislative or executive control, there are many opportunities for lower-ranking executives to affect implementation of a law. This phenomenon of administrative discretion is widespread, arising not only from structural separation of powers but also from conflicts that characterize executive-legislative relations and from statutory language that is often broad or even vague.

It follows that there are many power vacuums throughout the decision- making process. This is the basis for some, but not all, of the conflict between the president and Congress and between many governors and their legislatures. The existence of a power vacuum also allows those involved in the decision-making process to compete for relatively small amounts of power, thereby increasing their influence a little at a time. Among the most active contenders for these small quantities of power are interest groups and bureaucratic agencies, both of which seek to dominate policy areas of greatest concern to them.

It is not only formal governmental power that is fragmented and scat- tered in American politics. So, too, is the ability to influence policy mak- ing in specific subject areas. The policy-making process is broken into many parts, and responsibility for each component is determined by a combination of factors. In such a setting, it is not uncommon for pub- lic administrators to become significant players in the political game, to assume an advocacy stance, and to take initiatives that influence the long- term development of policies, especially in specific programs under their jurisdictions.

Thus, bureaucracy in American government differs from traditional notions of bureaucracy in important ways: it functions in a system in which power is far from centralized; bureaucracy has a great deal of discretionary power in making day-to-day decisions and in dealing with broader policy ques- tions; and accountability is enforced through multiple channels as a result of the fragmentation of higher political authority.

How does all this affect the behavior of public administrators and the growth of bureaucratic institutions? It is impossible to answer that ques- tion entirely in a few words, but two general observations suggest the nature of the political environment. Bureaucracies often have independent momentum with which political leaders must contend if they are to influ- ence bureaucratic activity—hardly the conditions suggested by traditional conceptions of bureaucracy. Top executives are not always able to com- mand the civilian bureaucracy to act. Quite the contrary, senior appointed officials are viewed as part-timers, whose influence on the “permanent”

power vacuum

where power to govern is splintered, there will inevitably be attempts by some to exercise that power that is not clearly defined and is, therefore, “up for grabs.”

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30 PART 1 The Context, Nature, and Structure of Public Administration in America

bureaucracy is limited. One advantage of this situation, however, is that public bureaucracies can more easily develop continuity in their opera- tions because career employees are directed more by strong “institutional memory” than by the influence of any one appointed senior official (see Chapters 6 and 7). Second, bureaucratic activity focuses predominantly on the respective areas of agency jurisdiction; a bureaucracy will usually con- test any significant change in the policy area for which it is responsible. Both of these phenomena indicate the non-neutral stance of American public bureaucracy. This is one of the most important differences between bureaucratic practice and any ideal model of bureaucracy against which its acceptance by the American public might be measured.

Traditional Conceptions of Bureaucracy Bureaucracy has traditionally been conceived of in terms of implementing directives of other government institutions as a servant of political forces external to it but not as a political force in its own right. This notion of bu- reaucratic neutrality is central to an understanding of the way executive- branch bureaucracies have been designed to function in Western governments for over a century. A number of companion assumptions have also been evi- dent in administrative practice.

Bureaucratic behavior is assumed to follow the intent of the legislature in the form of legislative enactments and guidelines for implementation. With legislative intent assumed as a principal guiding force, the bureaucracy’s responsibility to the legislature is clearly established: it relies on the legislature for substantive policy direction and for financial and political support. The legislature, in turn, looks to the bureaucracy for faithful and competent admin- istration of the laws.

There is a legitimate function of legislative oversight, or supervi- sion, of bureaucratic behavior that logically complements legislative in- tent. In other words, the legislature is expected to supervise the work of the bureaucracy. Present in both assumptions is the expectation that the bureaucracy is distinctly subordinate to the will and initiative of other parts of the government.

Bureaucratic behavior is assumed to be subject to direction by the chief executive of the government. The apparent contradiction between chief-executive direction and legislative direction of the bureaucracy stems from the fact that these traditional assumptions were derived from parliamen- tary forms of government, in which the chief executive and top-level ministers are themselves members of the legislature. There is, however, a real contra- diction between chief-executive and legislative control of the bureaucracy in a system such as ours. In the United States, the chief executive and top-level executives are independent of the legislature. In fact, they are almost always

bureaucratic neutrality

a central feature of bureaucracy whereby it carries out directives of other institutions of government (such as a chief executive or a legislature) in a politically neutral way, without acting as a political force in its own right; a traditional notion concerning bureaucratic behavior in Western governments; also called political neutrality.

legislative intent

the goals, purposes, and objectives of a legislative body, given concrete form in its enactments (though actual intent may change over time); bureaucracies are assumed to follow legislative intent in implementing laws.

legislative oversight

the process by which a legisla- tive body supervises or oversees the work of the bureaucracy in order to ensure its conformity with legislative intent.

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prohibited from serving in the legislature at the same time that they hold executive office.

Finally, it was traditionally assumed that the bureaucracy would be a neutral, professional, competent structure staffed by specialists in both general administrative processes and their respective specific policy areas. The notion of a competent bureaucracy responding in a politically neutral manner to the initiatives of executives and legislators external to it seems to conform to the image of administration held by many Americans and has had a powerful influence on administrative design and practice in this country.

Explaining the Growth of Bureaucracy

The reasons for the growth of public administrative functions are not readily apparent. A number of possibilities exist, each of which is worth examining for the influence it has had on the expansion of public admin- istrative agencies.

One explanation commonly cited is that, beginning in the 1800s and con- tinuing today, technological complexity gradually exceeded the capacities of legislative bodies and of political generalists to cope successfully. This view assumes that professional specialization in a host of fields, in effect, invaded the public service just as it assumed far greater importance in society at large. Thus, as both the nation’s problems and methods of addressing them became more complex, specialized bureaucracies became more necessary in the process of discharging government’s responsibilities. To some ex- tent, technological complexity has had an important effect on bureaucracy, but whether it alone triggered bureaucratic growth is not certain. On the contrary, technological innovations such as the widespread implementa- tion of electronic government (e-gov) strategies are designed to increase access to information about government and decrease citizen dependence on bureaucracy. The rapid dissemination of new types of online social networks has provided a framework for the broader application of ICTs in govern- ment agencies.

According to a second view, public pressures helped create a diversi- fied and responsive bureaucracy, primarily because economic and social interests (stakeholders) became increasingly diverse throughout our soci- ety and government began to recognize those interests. Political scientist James Q. Wilson has referred to the phenomenon of clientelism, a term that describes the relationships between individual government agencies and particular economic groupings, a pattern that first appeared at about the time of the American Civil War. Wilson cites another political scien- tist, Richard L. Schott, who noted that “whereas earlier departments had

electronic government

(e-gov)

takes the information technology concept further by integrating disparate information sources into one-stop web “portals” for improving access to information about government; for example, http://www.usa.gov.

clientelism

a phenomenon whereby patterns of regularized relationships develop and are maintained in the political process between individual government agencies and particular economic groupings; for example, departments of agriculture, labor, and commerce, working with farm groups, labor groups, and business organizations, respectively.

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32 PART 1 The Context, Nature, and Structure of Public Administration in America

been formed around specialized governmental functions (foreign affairs, war, finance, and the like), the new departments of this period—Agriculture, Labor, and Commerce—were devoted to the interests and aspirations of particular economic groups.”16 That trend intensified in the twentieth century to such a degree that it is now entirely appropriate to speak of bu- reaucratic clienteles or constituencies in the same sense as legislative con- stituencies. This view, then, suggests that bureaucracies have been created or disestablished in response to popular demand for government action or inaction in specific policy fields.

A third explanation, which has its roots in the disciplines of economics and international relations, maintains that governmental responses to crisis situations, such as economic depressions or military conflicts, cause both revenues and expenditures of government to move sharply upward. More important, after the crisis has passed, the levels do not return to their pre- crisis status, and new ideas of what is acceptable emerge, resulting in new “routine” levels of government activity. As we shall see in Chapter 8 on gov- ernment budgeting, national government expenditure levels underwent pre- cisely this sort of shift after World War II and also after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, with political acceptance of the change generally high in both cases. This explanation indirectly emphasizes society’s increasing readiness to turn to government for managing responses to major (and, perhaps, not so major) problems. The George W. Bush administration’s homeland security and intelligence reorganizations were undertaken to prevent further acts of terrorism and respond to one of the greatest challenges facing public administrators since World War II. The estimated $500 billion to $1 trillion expended on strengthening these functions resulted in the successful operation to cap- ture and kill al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on May 1, 2011. This is a clear example of a response to crisis circumstances prompting bureaucratic and budgetary growth. One final explanation, which also dates back to the late 1800s, overlaps all the previous ones. As the private economy became both more national in scope and more industrial in nature compared to the period before 1850, there developed a need for greater regulation by the national government of private economic activities. Many of those regu- lative actions spawned new ones that, combined with the other forces at work (particularly crisis-related actions), led to the steady growth of public administrative entities.

All four of these explanations appear to have some merit; together, they paint a clearer picture of how government bureaucracy has reached its present size and scope. Considering “how we got here” may be use- ful in light of contemporary efforts to deregulate, downsize, privatize, or impose curbs or restraints on administrative agencies. Such explanations may also contribute to our knowledge and appreciation of government

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CHAPTER 1 Approaching the Study of Public Administration 33

agencies and actions at times when civil rights, domestic security, health care coverage, housing values, personal liberties, and retirement savings are threatened.

Social Change and Public Administration

The social setting of public administration, like its structural and organi- zational arrangements, has both direct and indirect impacts, and changes in that setting, like others, carry with them potentially far-reaching implications. Several social-demographic changes during the past sixty years have been of particular importance in shaping contemporary public administration.

The most obvious changes are population growth and shifts in the de- mographic makeup of the population. We have become a nation of nearly 309 million inhabitants, from less than one-third that many a century ago and just less than half that number (151 million) in 1950.17 This striking growth in numbers has been paralleled by increases in demands for public services. More often than not, these demands have been directed at admin- istrative personnel, such as police officers, firefighters, teachers and other educators, sanitation workers, and health care workers. Intensifying this in- creased demand for service is a second development: the continuing concen- tration of people in urban areas. The greatest population growth occurred in suburban rings around larger cities, mainly in the Southeast, Northwest, and Southwest.

Perhaps more important have been major shifts in both population and economic activity from the Northeast/Midwest (Snow Belt) to the South/West (Sun Belt). During the 1970s, population growth increased faster outside the Snow Belt as states in this region lost nearly 1 million manufacturing jobs. In the 1980s, more than 90 percent of the nation’s population growth occurred outside the Snow Belt. Such changes continued during the 1990s and entailed serious social, economic, policy, and administrative implica- tions for regions on both ends of the migration streams. Even within the Sun Belt, growth has been concentrated in particular areas. In Florida, for example, the coastal population doubled between 1964 and 1984. Today, 12 million people live in that state’s Atlantic and Gulf Coast counties. Sim- ilarly, the population of the seventeen coastal counties of Texas increased by 64 percent in the period 1960–1994 and now numbers 6 million people. Today, a total of nearly 50 million Americans live in counties adjacent to coastal areas. This demographic reality has major implications for large numbers of government programs, including emergency management, flood insurance, beach replenishment, and coastal zoning. Noncoastal states such as Arizona and Nevada have experienced similar increases in

social-demographic

changes

shifts in the population and economies of various regions that impact the delivery of public services.

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34 PART 1 The Context, Nature, and Structure of Public Administration in America

general population. The 2010 census, however, confirmed that the Lost Decade resulted in the slowest population growth and the smallest inter- nal population movement in the United States since the Great Depression in 1940.18

Several other important demographic changes also should be mentioned. First, according to the 2010 Census, more than 50 percent of the total popu- lation growth in the U.S. in the period 2000–2010 was due to the increase in the Hispanic population. That population group increased by 15.2 million, out of a total increase of 27.3 million. Secondly, about 30 percent of the U.S. population age five or older speaks a foreign language at home, and over 50 percent of those individuals speak Spanish as their first lan- guage. Third, the overall minority population grew in every region of the nation, but most significantly in the South and West. In the South, minor- ity populations increased by 34 percent, and in the West, by 29 percent. In the Northeast and Midwest, the corresponding figures were 21 percent and 24 percent, respectively.19 These changes, and others like them, pose new and complex problems for those who administer government programs in education, economic development, housing, and other social- service areas.

Globalization of the international economy has also permitted mass production and the distribution of durable goods on a larger scale than ever before. Improvements in technology, transportation, and telecommunications now allow literally billions of people to participate in a “networked,” that is, less centralized and hierarchical, world economy. Consequently, a number of new concerns have emerged in the field of public management, concerns that have affected managers in both the public and private sectors. For example, it is increasingly apparent that equipment budgets and employee skills within all types of organizations must keep pace with developments in ICTs. All ser- vice organizations are coping with technological change brought about by the new global economy. Adopting new technologies and adapting to these changes have become increasingly important to public administration. We have experienced a revolution in electronic communications in terms of instantaneously linking widely separated parts of the world via the Internet and satellites. An important outgrowth in this area within the public sector is the emergence of electronic government, to improve access to information and facilitate communication among government agencies and businesses, citizens, and interested consumers. The knowledge revolution is another dimension of technological change and is giving rise to both the education industry and the expansion of privately and government-sponsored scien- tific research. Government regulation of, and participation in, increasingly complex technologies requires more and more sophisticated and specialized bureaucracies. This drastic alteration in technical capacity and responsibili- ties has had a permanent effect on the nature and course of American politics and public administration.20

technological change

rapidly emerging patterns of change (related in part to the knowledge explosion) in communication, medical, and transportation technologies, among others, with significant implications both for the societal challenges confronting government and for the means and resources increasingly available to government for conducting public affairs.

knowledge revolution

a global social phenomenon of the past forty years, particularly in Western industrial nations, creating new technologies and vast new areas of research and education; examples include biogenetic engineering, space exploration, mass communications, nuclear technology, mass production, and energy research.

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The need for increased specialization is evident throughout much of both public and private administration. Of course, specialization is a core value in tra- ditional conceptions of public bureaucracy; thus, movement toward greater spe- cialization represents the extension of an existing feature rather than an entirely new one. It has been a very important consequence for public administration that specialists both inside and outside of government have been able to be in closer working contact with one another as part of the policy-making process. Technol- ogy has allowed for the creation of electronic communication networks such as blogs that make it easier for computer users to communicate with others on the Internet and to exchange data in the blogosphere. This reinforces the dual patterns of more informed decision making that results from the use of various knowledge resources that can be brought to bear, and of less centrally directed decision making. Patterns of decentralization have been identified as a signifi- cant offshoot of the knowledge explosion that has become so much a part of American life.21

The desire for specialization is a major reason for fragmenting and compartmentalizing decision-making responsibility within a bureaucracy. Specialization gives a staff or organization considerable discretionary author- ity within its jurisdiction. To the extent that personnel systems are based on job-related competence that includes increasingly specialized knowledge, these tendencies toward specialization are likely to be reinforced.

Political decisions to address new problems, or to identify as problems certain conditions already present in society, have almost always enlarged the responsibilities of administrative bodies. This suggests that many of today’s challenges, such as climate change, environmental pollution, energy use and conservation, population growth and stability, health care reform, and mass transit, have actually been with us for some time. In all of these cases, changes in societal values preceded identification of the problems. Even though certain situations may not as yet have been widely regarded as areas requiring public action, there is still a need for debate over the scope and nature of particular governmental actions to address them.22 Administrative entities empowered to deal with these problems are thus drawn into controversies surrounding the na- ture of the problems themselves as well as the methods used to resolve them.

In sum, the combined effects on bureaucracy of population growth and geographic redistribution, vast changes in our knowledge and technological capabilities, specialization, and the rise of new, complex environmental and social problems have been profound and probably irreversible. Many of these changes are global in nature and impact governance in many different coun- tries (as detailed in Chapter 12). Clearly, change in American society has led to new, unforeseen, and complex pressures on our machinery of government at all levels. Public administration has a history of conflict with its parent dis- cipline (political science), and growing controversy exists over just where pub- lic administration belongs intellectually and institutionally. It is within this volatile setting that we take up our study of public administration.

blogosphere

is that portion of the World Wide Web consisting of weblogs or blogs and their interconnections. Community of amateur and professional journalists commenting on a variety of subjects.

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36 PART 1 The Context, Nature, and Structure of Public Administration in America

Public and Private Administration: Similarities and Differences

Many similarities exist between administrative activities in the public and pri- vate sectors. In fact, many elements of public administration have their roots in the private sector. There are those who assume that whatever differences exist are relatively minor and that what works effectively in one setting will also work in the other; thus, for example, the recurring themes that we should make government more businesslike, provide public services equal to the best in business, and bring sound management methods from business into gov- ernment. But the notion that there are few if any important differences be- tween public and private administration is undergoing intense scrutiny. There is no consensus about the nature of “publicness” in organizations. Scholars are divided over the importance of an organization’s public or private status.23 Along with other factors, this has led to increasing proposals to rely more on nonprofit, faith-based, or “third-sector” organizations to deliver government services. Although some parallels do exist, there are also critical differences among the public, private and non-profit sectors.

First, the similarities. In both settings, managers and those to whom they are accountable have an interest in running programs and other activities that are properly designed, appropriately directed to meeting their intended goals, efficient in expenditure of organizational resources, and effective in their results. Public and private managers are both concerned with meet- ing their staffing needs, motivating subordinates, obtaining financing, and otherwise conducting their operations so as to promote the survival and maximum impact of their programs. All this involves some “politics,” both internal and external to the organization. There are agreements to be reached and maintained, elements of persuasion and coercion to be weighed, and gains and losses to be realized. The president of the Ford Motor Company and the secretary of the Treasury—as well as Ford’s chief research engineer and the administrator at the IRS—have to be concerned with many of these same managerial issues, which must be carefully planned for and acted on to promote their organization’s interest.

On the other hand, important elements of the managerial environment dif- fer for public, non-profit and private managers.24 One fundamental difference is that, in the private sector, products or services are furnished to individuals based on their own needs or wants in exchange for a direct (usually monetary) payment—a quid pro quo transaction. In the public sector, however, the goal of the manager historically has been to operate programs or provide services on a collective basis (rather than directly to individuals), supported in the great majority of cases by tax revenues, not direct payments (such as user charges or fees) for services rendered. Another key difference is that private organizations define their markets and set their own broad goals, whereas public organizations

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CHAPTER 1 Approaching the Study of Public Administration 37

and managers are obligated to pursue goals set for them by their legislatures. Public managers have relatively little freedom to alter basic organizational goals. Thus, whereas private managers can use an internal measure to evalu- ate their organization’s performance, public managers are subject ultimately to evaluation by outside forces, and it is those outside forces, not open markets, that have the critical last word in judging how well a public organization fulfills its responsibilities. Public managers, moreover, have been evaluated in some- what nebulous and ill-defined terms. Until recently, for example, many man- agers have had more incentive to focus on satisfying interested clienteles and on holding and expanding political support than on substantive performance by itself. Meaningful, objective performance measures were largely lacking in the public sector until the mid-1970s, even where managers had sought to use them. New emphases on efficiency, productivity, and accountability for results have produced fresh concern for such measures (see Chapter 10)—another sign of increasing similarity between public and private organizations.

Other differences also exist. For one thing, many public organizations have held a virtual monopoly on providing certain essential public services and, consequently, have been able to survive without necessarily providing the highest-quality performance of their functions. Often, these functions are shared with non-profit agencies such as the Red Cross and United Way. Another difference is that achieving results in the public sector must compete for administrators’ attention with political and procedural concerns. Values such as participation and public accountability make it necessary for public managers to divide their attention between the results they seek and how to obtain those results. It is difficult to achieve maximum economy and efficiency while keeping a wary eye on possible political repercussions—and many public managers must do just that.

In contrast to the narrowly focused profit-oriented concern shared by most of private-sector management, there are often conflicting incentives among citizens, elected representatives, and administrative supervisors and leaders. If a consensus is lacking on what is to be done and why (not to men- tion how, as noted earlier), an organization will not function with the same smoothness it would if incentives were agreed on. Just as economic measures of performance have no counterpart in the public sector, general economic incentives have no parallel either.

Furthermore, most public organizations suffer from diffuse responsibil- ity, often resulting in absence of accountability for decisions made. Sepa- ration of powers among branches of government is one factor in this, but fragmented executive-branch authority in most large governments (includ- ing those at the local level) is another. In contrast, centralized executive responsibility is a key feature of many profit-oriented organizations. Also, unlike private corporations, public organizations entrust a fair amount of decision-making responsibility to citizen groups, courts, and various types

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38 PART 1 The Context, Nature, and Structure of Public Administration in America

of boards or commissions. Thus, an absolutely clear chain of command may not be possible because of numerous opportunities for outside pressures to influence the power hierarchies.

There are still other important differences. Public-sector managers fre- quently must operate within structures designed by other groups, work with people whose careers are in many respects outside management’s control, and accomplish their goals in less time than is usually allowed to corporate manag- ers. Unlike many private managers, public managers must operate in a gold- fish bowl of publicity in which they are subject to scrutiny and criticism from the press, others outside the agency, and the general public. As for the media spotlight, public managers must cope with critical comments from outside, regardless of how well others understand agency purposes, empathize with operating difficulties, or consider political constraints on the manager. Con- versely, the skilled public manager may be able to turn the media, as well as crit- ical stakeholders, to the agency’s side, which can make it easier to recruit new staff, acquire more operating funds, or perhaps prevent potential critics from gaining credibility. At times, private-sector managers may have to face the same types of public criticism or have similar opportunities to generate good press. But, for the most part, their activities are significantly less exposed to public view until the final product or service has been delivered and evaluated.

In comparing the changing roles of public, private, and nonprofit sectors, two other dimensions merit consideration. In practice, these sectors are becom- ing increasingly interdependent: examples of this are the multibillion-dollar gov- ernment bailout of failed savings and loan institutions in the early 1990s and more recent federal efforts to deal with financial and housing crises triggered by the so-called sub-prime mortgage meltdown since 2007 (see Chapter 9). There is also a growing tendency for governments, especially on the local and federal levels, to enter into contractual arrangements with private firms and non-profit firms for delivery of certain services, such as corrections, homeland security, gar- bage collection, military security, social services and fire protection. For many, the distinction among the three sectors is becoming less important as functions continue to overlap. There has been a considerable blurring of what many once believed were well-defined boundaries among the three sectors. Nonetheless, a growing body of scholarly opinion holds that public organizations, and the roles of those who occupy key decision-making positions within them, are distinctive in important respects and that we need to develop a broader conceptual under- standing of their design, function, and behavior.

Thus, although many administrative activities are common to both pub- lic and private sectors, major differences also are evident. As a result, there are obvious limits to how much the public sector can borrow advantageously from the private sector to improve the management of public policies. As we shall see, however, those limits are breaking down as governments everywhere are being asked to do more with less (and, increasingly, to do less with less). At the same time, options are expanding as public administrators are able to

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choose from a much wider range of strategies to address public problems. This has led to greater interest in, and experimentation with, privatization, as well as partnerships and direct delivery of services through faith-based and nonprofit agencies. Even these emerging realities, however, do not change the fact that there are significant differences between public and private management.25

Public Administration as a Field of Study

The principal focus of public administration as a field of academic study has changed often since its emergence in the late 1800s. Changing and overlap- ping conceptions of the subject sometimes reflected and sometimes preceded evolution in administrative practice in the real world of government, and cross-fertilization of ideas between practitioners and academics was promi- nent throughout the twentieth century. Because so many public administra- tors were trained in formal academic programs, thus increasing the impact that academic disciplines have had on government administrative practices, it is useful to briefly review major emphases that have characterized and helped shape the academic field.26

In its earliest period, from roughly 1887 to 1933, public administration was viewed as distinct and separate from politics, more akin to business and business methods than to anything political. In his classic essay, The Study of Administration, Woodrow Wilson wrote that administration “is removed from the hurry and strife of politics. . . . Administrative questions are not political questions. Although politics sets the tasks for administration, it should not be suffered to manipulate its offices.”27 The concept of a politics–administration dichotomy was widely accepted during this period, based not only on the writ- ings of Wilson but also on the first textbook in the field, published by Frank Goodnow in 1900 and significantly entitled Politics and Administration. Admin- istrative discretion was also an important, though often overlooked, element in the thinking and writing of administrative reformers of a century ago. In his classic essay, Woodrow Wilson argued that administrators should be granted “large powers and unhampered discretion”—both “administrative energy and administrative discretion”28—as essential elements of their functioning in accordance with the notion of “political” neutrality. His expectation was that, given the opportunity, administrators would exercise competent professional judgment as they carried out their assigned duties. This would serve the public interest and, in turn, the interests of elected officials of either political party (who could then take the credit for effective governance). In sum, Wilson saw discretion as necessary for administrative effectiveness as well as ensuring politi- cal neutrality.

The bureaucracy was to administer, in an impartial and nonpolitical fashion, the programs created by the legislative branch, subject only to judicial interpretation. The dichotomy between politics and administration

politics–administration

dichotomy

originally proposed by Woodrow Wilson in the 1880s, it divides politics and policy making from policy implementation and public administration.

privatization

a practice in which governments either join with, or yield responsibility outright to, private-sector enterprises to provide services previously managed and financed by public entities; a pattern especially evident in local government service provision, though with growing appeal at other levels of government.

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was reiterated in Leonard D. White’s Introduction to the Study of Public Admin- istration, published in 1926. White summarized the conventional wisdom of administrative theory: politics and administration were separate; management could be studied scientifically to discover the best methods of operation; pub- lic administration was capable of becoming a value-free science; and politi- cally neutral administration should be focused exclusively on attainment of economy and efficiency in government.

The next phase in the development of the discipline was the movement toward discovering fundamental “principles” of administration. This offshoot of the scientific approach to administration was based on the belief that there existed certain permanent principles of administration that, if they could only be discovered and applied, could transform the performance of administrative tasks. Publication in 1927 of F. W. Willoughby’s Principles of Public Administra- tion marked the beginning of a decade in which identifying and correctly ap- plying these principles was the predominant concern of many, both inside and outside of academic circles. Luther Gulick and Lyndall Urwick’s Papers on the Science of Administration, published in 1937, defined seven principles that have become professional watchwords: planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting, and budgeting (collectively known by the acronym POSDCORB). Gulick and Urwick reemphasized the importance of these administrative principles, declared their applicability to almost any human organization, regardless of what the organization was or why it existed, and stressed the fundamental desirability of efficiency as the underlying goal for administrative “science.”29

Even as Gulick and Urwick wrote these words, however, the dominant themes of public administration were changing. The willingness of most of those in public administration to “embrace, without basic skepticism, the Wilsonian dichotomy”30 between politics and administration was no longer as widely shared as it had been. The New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt, accom- panied by a vastly expanded governmental role and the creation of scores of new administrative agencies in Washington, significantly changed the social and political contexts of public administration and sparked a crisis in the field. There were three major developments in the period 1933–1945: (1) a “drastic expansion in the public conception of the obligations and responsibilities of government in social and economic affairs”; (2) the emergence of an “enduring emphasis upon presidential leadership”; and (3) a change in the nature of the fed- eral system, with a shift to “the national scene [of] the responsibility for most of the important policy decisions” in the economy and society at large.31 According to political scientist Alan Altshuler, Roosevelt had demonstrated “that patronage might be of great value in aiding a vigorous President to push through programs of social and economic reform.”32 Emphasis on nonpartisan neutrality could have obstructed presidential leadership in achieving social reforms supported by many academics. Blurring the politics-administration dichotomy caused con- siderable turmoil in the study of public administration as the discipline was

POSDCORB

acronym standing for the professional watchwords of administration: Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing, COordinating, Reporting, and Budgeting.

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cast loose from its original intellectual moorings without a clear alternative direction.

In the 1940s, with World War II commanding an even greater commitment in terms of government activity, the turmoil increased. Academics who worked for national government agencies during the war effort took back to their post- war campuses a considerably altered perspective on what was important to teach about administration, especially in relation to the political process and public administration’s explicit role in making public policy.33 During this same period (less than a decade after Gulick and Urwick had published their Papers), the principles of administration were coming under increasing fire. Critics claimed that the principles were logically inconsistent and potentially contra- dictory and that they gave no clues concerning how to choose the one most appropriate for particular situations. For example, one principle held that, for purposes of control, workers should be grouped according to function, work process, clientele, or geography. There was nothing to suggest standards for the use of one instead of another or to suggest whether these were mutually exclu- sive categories.34 Critiques of this sort came from many scholars in the field but, in 1946 and 1947, few scholars had greater impact than Herbert Simon. In “The Proverbs of Administration,”35 Simon likened the principles to con- tradictory proverbs or paired opposites. For example, Simon pointed out that, whereas “look before you leap” is a useful proverb, so also is “he who hesitates is lost.” Both are memorable, often applicable, and mutually exclusive, without any hint of how to choose between them. Simon argued that the principles underlying these proverbs were much the same; that is, they were interesting but of little practical value in defining administrative processes. His book Administrative Behavior (1947) developed this line of argument further and contributed significantly to the weakening of the principles approach.

No comparable set of values replaced the POSDCORB principles, but different concerns began to emerge. Through the 1940s and into the 1950s, public administration found its relationship to political science to be one of growing uneasiness. Political science itself was undergoing significant changes in the post–World War II period. Most of these changes were in the direction of developing more sophisticated, empirical (including statistical) methods of researching political phenomena but were always based on the assumption that objectivity in research methodology was of the highest importance.

The problem for public administration in this “behavioral” era was that many functions and processes of administration do not lend themselves to the same sorts of quantitative research as do, for example, legislative voting patterns, election data, and public-opinion surveys. Altshuler points out that administra- tive decision making is frequently informal and that many decisions are made in partial or total secrecy. He also states that the exact values of administrators and the alternatives they consider are difficult to identify and analyze and that the traditional emphasis on efficiency contrasts sharply with the core concerns of modern political science.36 Consequently, public administration became, in

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Altshuler’s words, a “rather peripheral subfield of political science,” with many questioning its relevance to the larger discipline. In addition, he questioned whether this direction, as valuable as it was for furthering our understanding of human behavior in an increasingly organized society, resulted in research find- ings that have political relevance, that is, relevance to the research directions of contemporary political science.37

Another related development has been the growth of research into admin- istrative change and organizational behavior—research that seeks to examine all sorts of organizations, not only public entities. This movement began with the assumption that the social psychology of organizations made less important the question of precisely what kind of organization was to be studied and sought to integrate research from not only social psychology but also business adminis- tration, information science, sociology, and statistics. This field, currently known as organizational change and development, represents an attempt to synthesize much of what is known about organized group behavior within the boundaries of formal organizations. Organizational change concentrates on the character- istics within a group or team that promote or slow change in response to, or in anticipation of, changes in demands from the external environment, particularly with regard to needs and desires for the services produced by the organization.38 In contrast, “organizational development” focuses on analysis of organizational problems and formulation of possible solutions.39 This approach aims at increas- ing the capacity of an organization to identify, analyze, and solve internal prob- lems as a regular function within its ongoing routines, using social-psychological approaches (see Chapter 4). It conceives of organizations as entities that do not follow a single structure or format from top to bottom, but rather depend on the skill set of particular units within the organization, which are shaped structurally, socially, and technologically in the most appropriate manner. Thus, in large and complex modern organizations, there is likely to be considerable diversity in the arrangements of different units designed to accomplish specific tasks.

Equally important to the context of public administration is social change in, among other things, the makeup of the population, the health of the econ- omy, social relationships, and where people choose to live. Social change is important because emerging social arrangements and patterns of behavior are inevitably accompanied by new problems with which government policy mak- ers must contend. It is also important because, as society changes, so do our values, expectations, and priorities.

Many departments and schools of public administration have attempted to respond to such changes by declaring their intellectual and institutional independence from political science and business administration, moving instead toward the establishment of autonomous departments, programs, or schools. Public administration as an academic field of study, then, is far from a settled discipline.40 Boundaries between it and other fields such as political science are blurred, and there are many loose ends in terms of what to study and how the study of bureaucracy relates to changes in society.

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THE ISSUE It is assumed that most of those working in a bureaucracy are professionals in their specialties and that their occupational loyalties rest with their organization rather than with a political par ty or other external affiliation. Because much of public manage- ment in American governments occurs within bureaucratic structures, however, there is a tendency for political perspectives to factor into decisions at times.

Arguments for Political Involvement Arguments against Political Involvement

• Public administers work for, and with, government officials and should thus have some level of political involvement to ensure that the collective bureaucracy is working together as smoothly as possible as opposed to working in opposition to other bureaucracies, to the legislative branch, and to the chief executive.

• Once elected, politicians must inspire and lead government officials to achieve their own policy goals and respond to crises. Getting high-level administrators politically involved will help address pol- icy matters sooner rather than later.

• The actions and decisions of public ad- ministrators touch the lives of vir tually ever y American and need to remain politically neutral so that the most prac- tical option is chosen, as opposed to following the platform of any par ticular political party.

• With increasing political uncer tainty and strife in the United States over the past few decades, it is impor tant that administrators remain politically neutral and focused solely on the or- ganization of their specialty, doing what they know best.

POINT/COUNTERPOINT

Should administrators, who are ideally supposed to remain politically neutral, have political involvement?

About This Book

Four essential and recurring themes appear in the pages that follow: ( 1 ) i n c r e a s i n g t h e i n t e r n a l e f f i c i e n c y a n d e c o n o my o f u s i n g p u b l i c resources, (2) improving the performance or results of public programs— especially through the application of information technology, electronic government, and performance management systems—in the real world of public management, (3) maintaining the ethics and accountability of pub- lic administrators within the context of the larger political system, and (4) more effectively anticipating, planning for, and securing the resources neces- sary to respond to ever greater complexity in our nation and around the world. An effort is made to treat these issues separately, but it is inevitable that they overlap, both in our treatment of them and in the working envi- ronments of public administration.

The discussion of public bureaucracy and management can and does go on at three different (but interrelated) levels of analysis, that is, with a focus on distinct dimensions of the administrative process. One is the role and function

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of government bureaucracy in society at large—what differences large, com- plex, and influential agencies make in a nation founded on diffuse notions of popular rule (note the implicit importance of the accountability theme). A second dimension or level of analysis is the management of performance in public organizations, broadly defined as issues and challenges confronting the individual public manager. A third topic is the role of the individual—the contribution, in whatever form, of a person working as a public administra- tor and the challenges, opportunities, and problems associated with that role. All these are ultimately interrelated, and explaining why that is so is a major purpose of this book.

Summary

Public administration is an influential force in American government and society. Most of us are familiar with bureaucracy, and many of our most press- ing current political issues are related to administrative agencies and actions. Public administration is the set of processes, organizations, and individuals associated with implementing laws and other rules enacted by legislatures, executives, and courts. Administrative agencies are involved in the formulation of many of these rules, as well as their application. Public administration is si- multaneously an academic field of study and an active field of training. Public administration and its politics involve interactions both internal and exter- nal to the formal agency structure. Public administration is also characterized by a distinctly managerial component, focusing on the internal dynamics of public organizations. Public managers must possess certain skills, includ- ing an understanding of computers, data analysis, technology, management systems, personnel, and budgeting. A successful public manager must direct both short- and long-term activities and is responsible for defining and bring- ing about action. Most managers operate within a bureaucratic and political environment that shapes both formal structure and operational policies of their organizations.

Public administration in the national government is characterized by several different types of agencies and ways of categorizing administrative employees; each of these may affect what agencies do and how they do it. The principal agencies are cabinet-level departments, independent regula- tory boards and commissions, government corporations, divisions of the Executive Office of the President, and other miscellaneous agencies. These are most commonly organized according to function but can also be organized according to geographic area, clientele served, or work process. Administra- tive personnel can be classified according to whether they were hired through merit procedures or political appointment and whether they are specialists or generalists.

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In larger states and local governments, essentials of organization are the same as those at the national levels. But the influence of local political par- ties and employee unions and the nature of government activity serve to dif- ferentiate local governments from the national government. Smaller local governments usually have less extensive bureaucratic development and less professional expertise than the national government.

Organizational structure is politically significant in a number of respects as it demonstrates commitment, symbolic or substantive, to particular policy objectives; it can signal adoption of specific policy directions; it serves to order political priorities by emphasizing some programs over others; and it provides different degrees of access to decision makers. The politics of organization is also significant in settings other than executive-branch arrangements. Con- temporary public administration is shaped by the larger political system of which it is a part, by past and present political and administrative values, and by technology and social change.

The fragmented nature of policy making forces administrators to function in a political environment where there is no central policy coordinator with total control; administrators possess considerable discretion; not all decision- making power or authority is clearly allocated. In such a setting, public ad- ministrators are often politically active and take policy initiatives that are not neutral, thus departing from traditional views about bureaucratic roles and functions. Furthermore, bureaucratic activity is organized around jurisdiction over particular policy areas; bureaucracies seek to prevent changes in jurisdic- tion that might harm their interests or those of their supporters.

Several explanations have been advanced for the rise of government bureaucracy, including technological complexity, public pressures in an in- creasingly diverse society, and government responses to global, social, and economic crises. In addition to adapting to changing trends in political and economic thought, public administration has also had to adapt to rapid social and technological change. Especially during the beginning of the twenty-first century, public administration must deal with rapid population growth and urbanization, increased specialization, the threat of terrorism, and the possible consequences of complex technological advances. Many similari- ties, and a number of more significant differences, exist between public and private management. Two of the most important differences are that public managers must pursue broad goals set by others and evaluated by outside forces; neither is true of private managers. In addition, public managers gen- erally cannot design their own organization’s structures or control the careers of many subordinates. They generally have far less time than private managers to accomplish their goals and must operate under considerable public scru- tiny. Both public and private managers are expected to be similarly competent, effective, and efficient in producing results. There is growing overlap of the two sectors. As an academic field of study, public administration has been shaped by several major and partially overlapping schools of thought.

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Discussion Questions

1. How has public support of government bureau- cracy changed in recent years? In the past, what has accounted for public support of bureaucracy? What actions can be taken to restore trust and confidence in bureaucracy?

2. How is the American structure of government and public administration different from that of other nations with a parliamentary form of gov- ernment? Why is it different?

3. How can organizational structure be politically significant? Discuss and cite recent examples. What are public administration’s intellectual links to economics? To political science? To sociology? To psychology? To business administration?

4. Discuss the changing roles of public, private, and nonprofit agencies in addressing public problems. What difficulties might a public manager face in trying to implement management techniques bor- rowed from the private sector?

5. How have technological changes affected gov- ernment in general and public administration in particular? Discuss the effects of electronic- government (e-gov) on bureaucracies. Be sure to describe changing public expectations as well as the size and structure of bureaucracies in your discussion.

6. What elements of social change have contributed to the expansion of administrative responsibilities in American government? Discuss specific impacts

of social change on the scope and activities of administrative agencies.

7. A fundamental assumption of administrative re- formers in the late 1800s and early 1900s was that politics could have only adverse effects on administration. How valid is that belief? Why? How, and to what extent, do current admin- istrative structures and practices reflect that assumption?

8. Discuss the contributions to the academic field of public administration made by the follow- ing individuals: (a) Woodrow Wilson, (b) Luther Gulick and Lyndall Urwick, (c) Herbert Simon, and (d) Alan Altshuler.

9. During the early 2000s, state and local govern- ments faced severe fiscal constraints. How has this trend affected the field of public admin- istration? If this trend continues, how will it affect the field of public administration? If growth declines, what are the implications for public employment?

10. In recent years, how has the role of the bureau- cracy become more apparent in the daily lives of Americans? Is there anything in your own per- sonal or career experience that shows a similar expression of public sentiment? Can you think of areas or agencies in which the public has shown a positive attitude toward government and public administration? Discuss.

Key Terms and Concepts

bureaucracy, 6 discretionary authority, 7 entrepreneurial government, 10 public administration, 11 stakeholders, 11 public management, 12 reverse pyramid, 12 information communication

technology (ICT), 12 Department of Homeland

Security (DHS), 13

jurisdiction, 16 Office of Management and Budget

(OMB), 19 Office of the Director of National

Intelligence (DNI), 24 checks and balances, 28 parliamentary form of

government, 28 power vacuum, 29 bureaucratic neutrality, 30 legislative intent, 30

legislative oversight, 30 electronic government (e-gov), 31 clientelism, 31 social-demographic change, 33 technological change, 34 knowledge revolution, 34 blogosphere, 35 privatization, 39 politics–administration

dichotomy, 39 POSDCORB, 40

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