PA301 Case Study 13

Exchange Th e Tides of Reform Revisited: Patterns in Making

Government Work, 1945 – 2002

Paul C. Light is the Paulette Goddard

Professor of Public Service at the Robert F.

Wagner School of Public Service, New York

University. He previously served as the

Douglas Dillon Senior Fellow at the

Brookings Institution, founding director of

its Center for Public Service, and vice

president and director of the governmental

studies program. He also has served as

director of the public policy program at the

Pew Charitable Trusts and associate dean

and professor of public affairs at the

University of Minnesota ’ s Hubert

Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.

E-mail: [email protected] .

was at the heart of Alexander Hamilton ’ s plan for a

national bank, not to mention his detailed instruc-

tions that every Coast Guard cutter possess 10

muskets, 20 pistols, two chisels, one broadax, and two

lanterns ( Chernow 2004, 340 ). Th e war on waste

emerged as the centerpiece of Th omas Jeff erson ’ s 1800

campaign and his subsequent downsizing of govern-

ment; watchful eye was the core of the First

Amendment and its guarantees of free speech, press,

assembly, and petition. And liberation management

can be seen in Andrew Jackson ’ s spoils system, which

was originally intended to loosen the grip of the old

guard through “ rotation in offi ce. ”

After defi ning the four philosophies in more detail,

this article will track the ebb and fl ow of recent

reform, examine the impact of public distrust and

congressional and presidential engagement on the

mix of reform, and explore links between reform and

actual government performance, as measured by the

perceptions of federal employees in the summer

of 2001.

Defi ning the Four Tides All government reform is not created equal. Some

reforms seek greater effi ciency through the application

of scientifi c principles to organization and manage-

ment, whereas others seek increased economy through

attacks on fraud, waste, and abuse. Some seek

improved performance through a focus on outcomes

and employee engagement, whereas others seek

increased fairness through transparency in government

and access to information. Although these four

approaches are not inherently contradictory — and can

even be found side by side in omnibus statutes such as

the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act — they emerge

from very diff erent readings of government

motivations.

Th ese approaches also off er an ideology for every

political taste: scientifi c management for those who

prefer tight chains of command and strong presiden-

tial leadership; the war on waste for those who favor

Th e past six decades have witnessed acceleration in both

the number and variety of major administrative reform

statutes enacted by Congress. Th is increase can be ex-

plained partly by the increased involvement of Congress,

a parallel decrease in activity and resistance by the

presidency, and heightened public distrust toward govern-

ment. At least part of the variation in the tides or

philosophies of reform involves a “ fi eld of dreams ” eff ect

in which the creation of new governmental structure

during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s generated increased

interest in process reforms. However, part of the accelera-

tion and variety of reform appears to be related to the

lack of hard evidence of what actually works in improv-

ing government performance. Measured by federal

employees ’ perceptions of organizational performance,

what matters most is not whether organizations were

reformed in the past, but whether organizations need

reform in the future and can provide essential resources

for achieving their mission.

C ongress and presidents have been reforming

government ever since the fi rst federal

de partments and agencies were created. Th ey

have also been applying widely diff erent philosophies of

reform to the task.

Indeed, the Constitution contains harbingers of all

four “ tides, ” or philosophies, of administrative reform

that populate the federal statute books today. It spoke

to the logic of scientifi c management by creating a

single executive with tight day-to-day control over the

offi cers and departments of government. It laid the

basis for future wars on waste by requiring an annual

accounting of expenditures and revenue while

reserving the appropriation power for Congress. It

emphasized the need for a watchful eye on govern-

ment excess through an elegant system of checks and

balances. And it invited future eff orts to liberate

government from excessive regulation by vesting all

executive powers in the president.

Th ese four philosophies expressed themselves almost

immediately in legislation. Scientifi c management

6 Public Administration Review • January | February 2006

Paul C . Light New York University

coordinated retrenchment and what one inspector

general once described as “ the visible odium of deter-

rence ” ( Light 1993 ); a watchful eye for those who

believe that sunshine is the best disinfectant for

misbehavior; and liberation management for those

who hope to free agencies and their employees from

the oppressive rules and oversight embedded in the

three other philosophies.

Th e four reforms also have their iconic statutes: the

1939 Reorganization Act for scientifi c management,

the 1978 Inspector General Act for the war on waste,

the 1964 Freedom of Information Act for watchful

eye, and the Clinton administration ’ s 1994 rein-

venting government package for liberation

management. And they have their own administrative

mechanisms: tight rules governing behavior for

scientifi c management, auditing and investigating for

the war on waste, freedom of information and open

meetings for watchful eye, and devolution, team

building, and employee empowerment for liberation

management. Each conveys a very diff erent view of

government and its employees, as well as a very

diff erent implementation approach (see table 1 ).

Th us, scientifi c management relies on rule-making

agencies such as the Offi ce of Management and

Budget to develop clear guidelines for effi cient admin-

istration, whereas liberation management rests on the

innovation and commitment of agencies, teams, and

individual employees to reap improved performance.

In turn, the war on waste relies on centralized over-

sight and deterrence created by quasi-independent

bodies such as the Offi ce of Inspector General,

whereas watchful eye relies on decentralized and

persistent e-media, interest groups, and ordinary

citizens to prevent abuse.

As I argued in Th e Tides of Reform: Making

Government Work, 1945 – 1995 (1997), each philos-

ophy plays a role in maintaining the Constitution ’ s

delicate balance between government strength and

limits on strength — that is, between a government

that is strong enough to protect the nation from

foreign and domestic threats yet not so strong that it

threatens liberty itself.

However, as this article suggests, there can be such a

thing as too much reform. Hyper-reform can distract

Congress and the president from providing needed

resources to accomplish the core missions of govern-

ment and create confusion about which reform to

implement. To restate the conclusion of my 1997

book, the problem with the federal government today

is not too little reform but too much. Th ere have

never been more reform statutes on the books but so

much employee concern about having enough

resources to do their jobs.

The Pace and Mix of Reform Just as the administrative philosophies of scientifi c

management, war on waste, watchful eye, and an

invitation to liberation management coexist in the

Constitution, they also coexist in the federal statute

books. Th ere, one can fi nd the remnants of great

statutes such as the Civil Service Act of 1883, which

touched all four philosophies of reform: scientifi c

management in its focus on job defi nitions, competitive

examination, a fi xed appointment ladder, and merit-

based hiring; the war on waste in its promise of lower

costs and greater effi ciency; watchful eye in its creation

of a fi ve-member independent commission to monitor

the merit system; and even a bit of liberation manage-

ment in its eff ort to insulate career public servants from

political manipulation ( Skowronek 1982 ).

Tracking Reform Th e statute books also contain a long list of recent

reforms representing all four philosophies. In 2002,

for example, Congress returned to scientifi c manage-

ment by merging 22 agencies and more than 170,000

federal employees into a new U.S. Department of

Homeland Security that reports directly to the presi-

dent. In 1998, Congress extended its long-running

war on waste under the Federal Activities Inventory

Reform Act by requiring agencies to list all programs

and activities that are not inherently governmental

and, therefore, potential targets for outsourcing and

budget cutting. In 2000, Congress gave the public —

or more accurately, businesses — a better view of

government by requiring the president to develop

annual estimates of the costs and benefi ts of all

regulations by agency, program, and major rule. And

Congress liberated federal agencies from writing

hundreds of reports by enacting the Federal Reports

Elimination and Sunset Act in 1995 and further

amendments in 1998.

Th e question is not whether Congress and presidents

have adopted eclectic, even contradictory approaches

to reform, but whether there are discernible patterns

in reform over time and how these patterns explain

the success or failure of improvement. Although

there are many ways to track the history of reform —

through administrative regulations, blue-ribbon

commissions, executive orders, budget circulars,

job descriptions, organizational charts, congres-

sional committee hearings, articles in the Public

The Tides of Reform Revisited 7

Table 1 The Four Tides of Reform

Implementation View of Government and Its Employees

Approach Trusting Distrusting

Centralized Scientifi c management

War on waste

Decentralized Liberation management

Watchful eye

Administration Review , and so forth — this article is

based on a careful reading of major administrative

reform statutes enacted between 1945 and 2002. 1

Not only are statutes easier to identify and track, they

tend to be much more durable over time, in part

because they spawn off spring through amendments

and expansions in future sessions of Congress.

Without naively suggesting that they remain relevant

or even enforceable in perpetuity, formal statutes do

endure for a moment or two across the boundaries of

administrations. While the Clinton administration ’ s

heavily promoted National Performance Review

gathers dust in an aptly named “ cybercemetery ” at the

University of North Texas, 2 its most signifi cant reform

statute, the Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994,

remains alive and mostly well in procurement offi ces

across government ( Kelman 2005 ).

In all, Congress enacted 177 major reform statutes in

the 68 years covered by this study. 3 Table 2 shows the

number of major reform statutes enacted each year

and the accumulation over time.

The Pace of Reform Table 2 clearly shows the quickening pace of reform

over time. It took Congress 28 years to enact the fi rst

third of the 177 statutes but just 16 years to produce

the second third and 14 years to produce the fi nal

third. Divided in political time by Watergate and

President Richard Nixon ’ s resignation, it took

Congress 28 years to produce the fi rst 61 reform

statutes, averaging two a year, and another 30 years to

produce the next 116, averaging almost four per year.

By decade, the averages increased from 2.2 per year in

1945 – 54 and 1.7 in 1955 – 64 to 3.5 in 1974 – 85, 4.0

in 1985 – 94, and 4.1 in 1995 – 2002.

Even as the pace of reform has accelerated, so has the

complexity of individual reform statutes, at least as

measured by the number of separate provisions within

each act that represent a diff erent philosophy such as

war on waste and scientifi c management. Between

1945 and 1994, for example, 68 percent of major

reform statutes contained just one philosophy com-

pared with just 46 percent from 1995 to 2002. War on

waste is the most frequent companion of other reforms,

while watchful eye the most likely to be enacted alone .

If the provisions representing each philosophy within

a given law are counted as discrete reforms, the

average number of reforms per year rose from 3.5 in

1945 – 54 to 5.6 in 1985 – 94 and 6.7 in 1995 – 2002,

which suggests continued acceleration, not leveling

off . Simply put, the time between today ’ s reform and

tomorrow ’ s has closed to months, not years — there

were 13 years before Watergate during which

Congress enacted either one or zero reform statutes,

and just six after.

8 Public Administration Review • January | February 2006

Table 2 Cumulative Frequency of Reform, 1945 – 2002

Year Number of

Statutes Enacted Cumulative Percentage

1945 3 1.7 1946 3 3.4 1947 2 4.5 1948 0 4.5 1949 5 7.3 1950 3 9.0 1951 1 9.6 1952 1 10.2 1953 4 12.4 1954 0 12.4 1955 0 12.4 1956 1 13.0 1957 1 13.6 1958 4 15.8 1959 0 15.8 1960 0 15.8 1961 5 18.6 1962 3 20.3 1963 0 20.3 1964 3 22.0 1965 1 22.6 1966 4 24.6 1967 2 26.0 1968 0 26.0 1969 1 26.6 1970 7 30.5 1971 1 31.1 1972 2 32.2 1973 4 34.5 1974 13 41.8 1975 1 42.4 1976 2 43.5 1977 4 45.8 1978 7 49.7 1979 1 50.3 1980 6 53.7 1981 1 54.2 1982 4 56.5 1983 1 57.1 1984 3 58.8 1985 2 59.9 1986 8 64.4 1987 2 65.5 1988 10 71.2 1989 4 73.4 1990 4 75.7 1991 0 75.7 1992 3 77.4 1993 3 79.1 1994 4 81.4 1995 5 84.2 1996 8 88.7 1997 4 91.0 1998 8 95.5 2000 5 98.3 2001 1 98.9 2002 2 100

N = 177

It is not yet clear whether this recent increase in

complexity is the product of Republican control of

Congress because the only years of Republican control

happen to have occurred during the same decade as

the increased complexity. What is clear is that the

complexity is not the result of unifi ed government led

by Democrats, when the percentage of one-philosophy

statutes rested at 68 percent, or divided government

between Republican presidents and either Democratic

or split-party control of Congress, when the percent-

age of one-philosophy statutes stood at 62 percent.

Table 2 also shows fi ve major spikes in reform activity,

the fi rst associated with the implementation of the

fi rst Hoover Commission ’ s agenda in 1949; the

second in 1969, the fi rst year of Nixon ’ s presidency,

during which there was a mix of reorganization and

fi nancial reforms; the third in 1974, with a range of

watchful eye reforms prompted by Nixon ’ s resigna-

tion; the fourth in 1986 and 1988, with a mix of

Reagan administration war on waste statutes and

streamlining reforms; and the fi fth in 1996 and 1998,

with a combination of Clinton administration rein-

venting government programs and a mix of regulatory

reform and reorganizations. Together, these spikes

covered less than a tenth of the time covered by the

analysis but produced more than a third of the stat-

utes. Even here, however, one sees the acceleration of

reform — two of the spike years occurred before

Watergate and four occurred after.

It is useful to note that the recent acceleration in

reform activity has occurred during a period when

overall congressional action has slowed considerably.

At least measured by statutory output, Congress has

produced less legislation over the past two decades

than at any point since the end of World War II. Even

though they are spending more time in session and

taking more recorded votes, members are introducing

fewer bills and passing fewer laws. As we shall see, the

market for spending legislation and new programs

may have collapsed somewhat in the wake of budget

caps and tax cuts, but the market for administrative

reform has grown stronger.

It is also useful to note that the federal government is

not alone in its high rate of reform. Th e most recent

survey by Bain & Company ( Rigby 2005 ) shows that

private fi rms used 13 diff erent management reforms in

2004, and my own research on the nonprofi t sector

shows a similar level of change (Light 2004). All three

sectors are plagued by a lack of evidence-based research

on which reforms work under which circumstances.

The Mix of Reform As the pace of reform has increased, so has the mix of

potentially competing reform philosophies and the

amount of process reform, including changes in rule-

making systems, personnel management, fi nancial

controls, and administrative procedures. As I have

already noted, major reform legislation has become

more complex over time, perhaps suggesting that

reform must carry more philosophies to assure enact-

ment. Moreover, as noted earlier, adding a war on

waste provision such as an employment ceiling or

promised dollar savings may have become the price of

passage for other reform.

Scientifi c management was the dominant philosophy

of administrative reform from the 1930s to the

1960s, whereas the war on waste, watchful eye, and

liberation management have been ascendant since

then. Congress and presidents built the basic struc-

ture of the modern administrative state during the

fi rst period, creating one department and agency after

another to administer the New Deal and the Great

Society. Once created, the process reforms followed,

whether in the form of new administrative systems,

attacks on bureaucratic waste, or eff orts to give

managers and employees greater space to do their

work through what Lois Recascino Wise (2002) calls

the pursuit of social equity (e.g., pay comparability),

democratization (e.g., labor – management partner-

ships), and humanization (e.g., job enrichment and

employee empowerment). Th e pattern suggests a

“ fi eld of dreams ” eff ect — that is, if Congress and the

president build it, process reforms will come. Table 3

shows the rise and fall and rise again of the four

reform philosophies from 1945 to 2002. 4

Scientifi c management did not disappear entirely

from the reform agenda, of course. Indeed, it supplied

33 (28 percent) of the 116 major post-Watergate

reform statutes. But it clearly had to share the reform

agenda with process reforms, including a long list of

war on waste statutes authored during the fi rst and

second terms of the Reagan administration, the

watchful eye reforms boosted to the agenda after

Watergate, and the liberation management reforms

authored under the aegis of reinventing government.

Table 3 Patterns in Reform Philosophy by Decade, 1945 – 2002 (percentages)

1945 – 54 1955 – 64 1965 – 74 1975 – 84 1985 – 94 1995 – 2002

Scientifi c management 82 82 43 30 18 39 War on waste 9 0 3 37 28 21 Watchful eye 9 12 29 27 33 21 Liberation management 0 6 26 7 23 18

N = 177

The Tides of Reform Revisited 9

Although the proportion of reform statutes associated

with scientifi c management decreased with time, its

infl uence continued and came back forcefully with

reorganizations at the Internal Revenue Service, Food

and Drug Administration, and Amtrak and the

creation of the Transportation Security Administration

and the Department of Homeland Security. It also

was the primary philosophy that underpinned new

rules governing information management under the

Information Technology Reform Act of 1996.

Th e changing mix of reform is expressed in other

characteristics of the 177 reform statutes. Th e per-

centage of statutes that clearly focused on a specifi c

process of government, such as personnel, fi nancial

management, information management, and so forth,

increased from 41 percent in 1945 – 54 to 67 percent

in 1975 – 84, 73 percent in 1985 – 94, and 88 percent in

1995 – 2002. Scientifi c management played a role in

creating strict rules governing some of these processes,

of course, but found dwindling outlets for the

creation of new units of government until September

11 and the call for new agencies to wage the war on

terrorism.

From 1945 to 2002, the nature of compliance

changed dramatically, largely because scientifi c man-

agement tends to emphasize providing the basic

structures and capacity for government to work,

whereas the war on waste and watchful eye place their

faith in compliance with strict rules of accountability.

Despite the rise of liberation management and its

focus on giving managers and employees greater

freedom, compliance accountability rose from just

32 percent of statutes in 1945 – 54 to 57 percent in

1974 – 85, with statutes such as the Ethics in Government

Act; to 53 percent in 1985 – 94, with the expansion of

existing statutes such as the Freedom of Information

Act; and to 64 percent in 1995 – 2002, with passage of a

raft of statutes covering lobbying reform, paperwork

reduction, and electronic freedom of information.

Th e Executive Offi ce Accountability Act of 1996 may

be the best example of all. Under that statute,

Congress applied 11 existing statutes to all compo-

nents of the Executive Offi ce of the President,

including the Fair Labor Standards Act, Title VII of

the Civil Rights Act, Title I of the Americans with

Disabilities Act, and federal laws relating to veterans ’

employment. Th e act also prohibited retaliation

against any whistleblowers making a charge under any

of the 11 statutes. Th e original proposal even created a

White House Offi ce of Inspector General to make

sure the laws were obeyed, but Congress backed off at

the Clinton administration ’ s insistence.

The Return of Structural Reform September 11 sparked a renewed interest in structural

reform as the answer to the nation ’ s vulnerability to

terrorist attacks. Pressed to show they were doing

more than just tinkering with existing structures,

Congress and the president created three entirely new

organizations within 18 months: the Transportation

Security Administration, the Department of

Homeland Security, and the Offi ce of the National

Intelligence Director.

All three statutes refl ected an emerging consensus

among study groups, think tanks, and blue-ribbon

commissions that the structure of government was ill

suited for the war on terrorism. As the second

National Commission on the Public Service, chaired

by former Federal Reserve Board chairman Paul A.

Volcker, argued in 2003,

Federal agencies that share closely related missions

should be administered by the same organizational

entity. A few large departments in which those

agencies are grouped should enhance their

employees ’ sense of purpose and loyalties, provide

opportunities for advancement and job mobility,

and encourage interagency cooperation. It is a

much more sensible approach to government

organization than the current pattern in which

agencies with similar responsibilities have been

scattered throughout the government (2003, 6) .

Such reorganizations are fraught with risk, however,

partly because past reforms create their own sediment

of administrative inertia in the form of implementing

rules, agencies, and new personnel, and partly because

an increasingly active Congress often imposes its own

preferences on the organizational chart. Th e

Department of Homeland Security has struggled to

integrate the customized administrative systems that its

22 agencies brought into the merger, and the

Transportation Security Administration has operated

under persistent hiring and spending caps imposed by

congressional appropriators who opposed the creation

of a federal screener workforce. Both the TSA and DHS

have also struggled to implement the new personnel

systems that many in Congress hoped would accelerate

the hiring and disciplinary process and that some also

expected to weaken employee bargaining rights.

It is too early to predict whether reorganization will

become fashionable for other government endeavors

such as food safety, job training, and childhood

education, all of which have been the subject of recent

congressional hearings on possible structural reform.

What is clear is that today ’ s reorganizations are mark-

edly diff erent from the reorganizations of the 1950s

and 1960s, which created a host of new agencies such

as the U.S. Departments of Health, Education, and

Welfare, Housing and Urban Development, and

Transportation, the National Aeronautics and Space

Administration, the National Science Foundation,

and the Environmental Protection Agency.

10 Public Administration Review • January | February 2006

First, the newly created organizations have been far

more narrowly specifi ed in terms of what they will

look like and how they will work . Th e Airport

Security Act was loaded with deadlines on everything

from the choice of logos and uniforms to the installa-

tion of baggage-screening equipment, and the

Homeland Security Act carried a long list of instruc-

tions on how the new department would operate. All

three statutes also contained precise language naming

offi cers, duties, and chains of command. Because all

three statutes originated in Congress, they also carried

instructions from a host of committees and subcom-

mittees, all of which were designed to ensure timely

service to the many constituencies involved while

protecting congressional turf through spending

formulas and oversight schedules.

Second, the new organizations carried all the accou-

trements of the war on waste and watchful eye,

including offi ces of inspector generals, long lists of

required studies and reports, and repeated language

about spending priorities. Th e Transportation Security

Administration was to spend as little as possible

on the new federal screener workforce, and the

Department of Homeland Security was to be neutral

on revenue and personnel by using expected econo-

mies of scale to reduce budget demand. As a result,

the statutes gave the president relatively little authority

to design the new agencies.

Th us, even if reorganization is back (as California

governor Arnold Schwarzenegger might say), it is back

in a very diff erent form. Because the Bush administra-

tion resisted all three new agencies created in the war

on terrorism, Congress was very much the designer,

producing a mix of reform philosophies that has re-

quired a much greater focus on congressional politics

than the reorganizations that came through the fi rst

Hoover Commission of the late 1940s.

The Market for Reform Th e broad patterns in the tides of reform refl ect deep

shifts in the market for administrative reform that

are rooted in changing public attitudes, rising con-

gressional involvement in administrative reform, and

declining presidential engagement in either generating

legislative initiatives or resisting Congress. Th e fol-

lowing section describes this marketplace for reform.

The Rhetoric of Reform Th ere is little doubt that the war on waste and

watchful eye rose in tandem with increasing public

distrust of government. In 1945 – 54, for example,

59 percent of statutes carried a trusting view of

government, meaning that legislative text or history

conveyed a sense of confi dence in the ability of

government to achieve its mission. Watergate and

Nixon ’ s resignation marked a signifi cant change in

tone. In 1975 – 84, 73 percent of statutes were wrapped

in retrenchment and antigovernment rhetoric,

a percentage that is not signifi cantly diff erent from

the 75 percent in 1985 – 94 and 70 percent in

1995 – 2002.

Some of the harshest rhetoric has been reserved for

the reform of specifi c agencies, such as the Internal

Revenue Service (IRS), which was reorganized in

1998 following a long investigation of taxpayer abuse.

Rising to support passage of his Internal Revenue

Service Restructuring and Reform Act, Senate Finance

Committee chairman William Roth (R-DE) described

the agency as a “ hall of mirrors ” in which taxpayers

have no place to turn:

What we bring with this important legislation is a

new era of openness to an agency that has too long

been able to operate beyond the view of

Congress … .We bring a new era of accountability

to an agency marked by a culture that protects

even the most lawless employees from the

consequences of their actions. We bring an era of

effi ciency and modern management to an

organizational structure that dates back to before

the industrial age.

Ironically, there is good reason to argue that at least

some of the taxpayer abuse was provoked by the

implementation of an earlier reform sponsored by

Senator Roth. Under the 1993 Government

Performance and Results Act, the IRS had created the

Field Offi ce Performance Index to measure progress

toward agency-wide goals. Pressured to increase their

property-seizure rates, some IRS managers set pro-

ductivity quotas that led to increasingly aggressive

collection tactics. In a letter to the Finance

Committee, then – Deputy Treasury Secretary

Lawrence H. Summers said, “ Not a single staff mem-

ber or member of Congress expressed any concern

about the IRS ’ s use of revenue measurements, or

suggested that there should be less emphasis on the

revenue-related goals ” ( Barr 1997 ). Th us, one reform

begot another and another.

It is hardly surprising to fi nd antigovernment rhetoric

toward the IRS, which remains one of the nation ’ s

least popular agencies in spite of an aggressive eff ort to

improve citizen satisfaction ( Rossotti 2005 ). It is more

surprising, perhaps, to fi nd such rhetoric surrounding

the creation of entirely new agencies, particularly ones

established after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Th e Transportation Security Administration is a case in

point. Mixed in with references to the need for action

are repeated attacks on the federal government and its

employees. Representative Walter B. Jones (R-NC) said,

Previous experiences with various federal

workforces, in particular the Immigration and

The Tides of Reform Revisited 11

Naturalization Service, is an example of a federal

workforce that faces diffi culties performing at

acceptable levels of accountability. Time and again

taxpayer dollars are spent to fund agencies that talk

a good game while training through a diffi cult

learning curve and providing very little in the way

of actual services. … Th e American people deserve

to feel safe when they fl y. Th ey also deserve and

demand an accountable federal government. I

believe strongly in the free enterprise system and I

further believe that the least economical and least

effi cient way that you can do anything is to give

the federal government more power. 5

What the Public Wants Th is rising tide of distrust is part of what Peri Arnold

describes as the role of reform as an instrument of

presidential public politics. “ Contemporary reform

confronts a diff erent, newer problem of regime-level

politics, the widespread public doubt about the

legitimacy of the big, administrative state, ” writes

Arnold. “ From Carter through Reagan to Clinton,

executive reorganization ’ s promise is not better gover-

nance but, rather, a transformation that promises a

government that is less disquieting to the American

electorate. Existing government is portrayed as

wasteful, incompetent and inexplicable ” (1995, 416).

Arnold also notes that the Clinton administration ’ s

complaint was diff erent from previous antigovern-

ment attacks. Whereas the Reagan administration

operated from the president ’ s famous inaugural

statement that government was not the solution but

the problem, the Clinton administration ’ s reinventing

government program argued that bureaucracy was the

problem, not the bureaucrats. According to a content

analysis of every slogan uttered during the 1992

presidential campaign, candidate Bill Clinton used

the word “ bureaucrat ” exactly twice in more than 100

speeches, advertisements, and debates, compared with

23 times by his opponent, incumbent president

George H. W. Bush (see Light 1999 for a more

detailed analysis of campaign rhetoric in 1960, 1980,

1992, and 1996).

Moreover, Clinton only talked about bureaucrats

when promising to fi re them. “ He won ’ t streamline

the federal government and change the way it works, ”

Clinton said of President George H. W. Bush when he

accepted the Democratic nomination. “ Nor will he

cut a hundred thousand bureaucrats and put a

hundred thousand new police offi cers on the streets

of American cities. But I will. ” By turning the debate

away from the term “ bureaucrats ” and toward

“ bureaucracy, ” which he used 54 times during the

campaign, Clinton set the stage for liberation manage-

ment, albeit liberation with a war on waste justifi ca-

tion. Bureaucrats get fi red; federal employees get

reinvented.

Th e question is why Clinton decided to streamline

rather than dismantle, to trim rather than eviscerate.

Th e answer is that the market for reform contains an

inherent contradiction: Americans cannot live with

government, but they cannot live without it —

government may be wasteful toward others, but not

toward them. Th is leads to a conundrum for

reformers, especially those who want a more activist

government. How can they justify new programs and

agencies when 93 percent of the public says that the

federal government in Washington wastes a great deal

or fair amount of money and that federal employees

are motivated more by pay, job security, and benefi ts

than by pride in their organizations, the chance to

help people, and the desire to accomplish something

worthwhile? 6

One answer can be found in public opinions toward

the size and scope of government. Asked whether

government programs should be cut back greatly to

reduce the power of government or maintained to

deal with important problems, approximately 55 – 65

percent of Americans consistently say they want

programs maintained to one degree or another. Asked

next whether the bigger problem is that government

has the wrong priorities or that it has the right priori-

ties but runs its programs ineffi ciently, approximately

55 – 65 percent of Americans consistently pick the

latter response.

When the two questions are combined, one can

discern four segments of the public, each with a

distinct attitude toward reform: (1) the dismantlers,

who believe that government programs should be

cut back and that government has the wrong priori-

ties; (2) the realigners, who also believe that

government has the wrong priorities but still say

that government should maintain programs to deal

with important issues; (3) the downsizers, who

believe that government has the right priorities and

is ineffi cient but should cut back greatly; and (4)

the reinventors, who believe that government has the

right priorities and is ineffi cient but should maintain

its programs to deal with important issues. Table 4

shows the relative lack of movement in public

attitudes on these combined questions from

1997 to 2003. 7

Th e opinion surveys suggest remarkable stability in

contemporary public attitudes toward reform — a

have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too attitude that would

encourage precisely the kind of rhetoric that sur-

rounded the Clinton administration ’ s reinventing

government campaign. Despite all of the underlying

support for employee empowerment, job enrichment,

labor – management partnerships, and liberation, the

reinvention campaign also carried a strong dose of

downsizing, which allowed the administration to

capture the support of roughly 6 in 10 Americans,

12 Public Administration Review • January | February 2006

assuming that these attitudes were similar in the early

1990s.

Th e opinion surveys also help to explain the second

Bush administration ’ s general reluctance to cut gov-

ernment and its modest management agenda built

around outsourcing, performance management, and

personnel reform. Th ere is simply no support for

widespread cutbacks — the administration could claim

the support of barely a quarter of Americans (the

dismantlers and realigners) for an aggressive attack on

the federal bureaucracy.

The Congressional Response Th e rising tide of public distrust has created electoral

incentives for congressional participation in govern-

ment reform ( Fiorina 1977 ), especially reforms that

exploit the sizable majority of Americans who appear

to support downsizing and reinventing government.

In turn, congressional engagement appears to have

generated the rising tides of war on waste and

watchful eye. When Congress has been the source of

ideas for reform, the institution has usually, though

not always, brought its own skepticism and preference

for compliance accountability to the debate.

Th is is not to argue that Congress suddenly discov-

ered government reform when public confi dence

began to sag during the 1960s and early 1970s. To the

contrary, 41 percent of the reform statutes passed in

1945 – 54 originated in Congress, including the

legislation that created the fi rst and second Hoover

Commissions, the Administrative Procedure Act, the

1949 Classifi cation Act, and the 1950 National

Science Foundation Act.

However, much of this early activity involved legisla-

tion that had been deferred during World War II (e.g.,

the Administrative Procedure Act) or came from a

Republican Congress looking for ways to constrain

the New Deal and weaken the four-term Democratic

hold on the presidency. From 1954 to 1964, the

number of congressionally initiated reforms fell

dramatically to just 18 percent compared with 51

percent in 1964 – 74. Congressional initiatives rose

steadily thereafter, rising to 60 percent in 1975 – 84,

83 percent in 1985 – 94, and 88 percent in

1995 – 2002.

Th e increased activity may have been driven partly by

public disquiet, but there has always been a strong

link between congressional involvement and a

distrusting approach to administrative reform. In

1945 – 54, 56 percent of congressionally initiated

reforms were coded as distrusting toward government

compared with just 31 percent of presidentially

initiated ideas during the decade.

Congressional preferences for compliance account-

ability show a much stronger imprint of public

distrust. In 1945 – 54, just 33 percent of the 110

congressionally initiated reforms carried a compliance

or rules-based approach to accountability. Th e percent-

ages rose to 56 percent in 1965 – 74 and 72 percent in

1975 – 84, dropped back to 60 percent in 1985 – 94,

then rose again to 69 percent in 1995 – 2002.

The Presidential Retreat Public distrust also had an impact on the presidential

reform agenda. In the three decades before Watergate,

only 31 percent, 7 percent, and 24 percent of presi-

dentially initiated statutes, respectively, were coded as

distrusting; in the three decades after, the percentages

rose to 58 percent in 1975 – 84, 57 percent in

1985 – 94, and 75 percent in 1995 – 2002. Just 20

percent of statutes that came before Watergate were

coded as distrusting, whereas the percentage jumped

to 58 percent in the decades after. As presidents

became less active in generating reform ideas, they

became more distrusting.

What did not change was the natural presidential

aversion to compliance-based accountability.

Altogether, just 20 percent of the 67 presidentially

initiated statutes carried a compliance orientation,

and the percentage never exceeded 33 percent in any

decade.

Interesting though they may be, these trends in

presidential preferences are far less important than

the dramatic decline in presidential participation in

statute-based administrative reform. It could be that

presidents have simply given up on legislative

solutions to administrative tasks, turning more to

executive orders and memoranda, blue-ribbon com-

missions, task forces, management agendas, and even

reinvention labs ( Th ompson and Ingraham 1996 )

Table 4 Patterns in Public Opinion toward Reform, 1998 – 2004 (percentage of respondents)

Dismantlers Realigners Downsizers Reinventors

October 1997 16 14 22 39 August 2001 13 14 21 39 October 2001 7 12 17 43 May 2002 10 17 17 35 October 2003 10 17 19 35

N = 1,782 (1997), 1,003 (August 2001), 1,033 (October 2001), 986 (2002), and 770 (2003).

The Tides of Reform Revisited 13

to accomplish their ends. What such vehicles lack in

durability, they may more than make up for in

pliability.

Yet there is also ample evidence that presidents may

be participating less because they no longer have the

capacity or interest to develop the kinds of statutes

that emerged in this study. None of the recent reorga-

nizations in homeland security came from the White

House, for example, nor did most of the major

process reforms, such as the Chief Financial Offi cer

Act, Government Performance and Results Act, or

Information Technology Reform Act (better known as

the Clinger-Cohen Act, in honor of its House and

Senate cosponsors). Notwithstanding the handful of

statutes associated with reinventing government,

presidents have mostly relied on Congress and the

Government Accountability Offi ce to set the reform

agenda.

Relying on Congress as the engine of reform may be

the best that presidents can do to generate new ideas

or to resist congressional involvement given the

weakening of their own ability to set the reform

agenda through the Offi ce of Management and

Budget (OMB). Th is decline has been well docu-

mented in PAR ’ s pages by scholars such as Ronald C.

Moe (1990 , 1994), who summarized the state of the

“ M ” in OMB in 1999 before the House Government

Reform Committee:

Th e contemporary presidency has been steadily

losing its capacity to lead the executive branch on a

day-to-day basis, in large measure because of the

absence of a supportive institutional presence to

project and protect the President ’ s interests in

government operations. … It is not enough for

management purposes to rely on the budget

process with its short-term deadlines and spending

biases. Nor can ad-hoc groups tied to some unit

without the Executive Offi ce … substitute for

permanent management leadership, properly

defi ned and understood (1999, 9).

Th is is not to suggest that presidents are incapable of

crafting a reform agenda or unable to participate in

the reform process, as the Bush administration did

in expanding the homeland security merger to

include more agencies. However, it does suggest that

presidents cannot go very deep in building such

agendas, nor can they mount particularly eff ective

counterarguments to the rising fl ow of reform from

Congress.

Explaining the Choice of Reform Th ese institutional preferences help to explain at

least some of the variation in the tides of reform

over the past 60 years. As the percentages in table 5

show, Watergate, the source of ideas, and links to

blue-ribbon commissions are the strongest explana-

tions for the rise or fall of a particular philosophy of

reform.

Th e statistics confi rm three points. First, presidents

have been the source of most scientifi c management

reform — they are the Kevin Costners of their fi elds

of dreams — whereas Congress has been the source

of most watchful eye statutes. Second, Watergate

marked a critical dividing line in three of the four

reform philosophies: It diminished scientifi c manage-

ment and intensifi ed both war on waste and watchful

eye statutes. Th ird, divided government shows a

strong relationship with watchful eye — separation of

powers, not partisan politics, is the signifi cant driver.

Table 5 also shows a strong relationship between blue-

ribbon commissions and both scientifi c management

and war on waste. Under pressure to fi x a problem,

blue-ribbon commissions either recommend new

structure, as the Hart-Rudman Commission on U.S.

Table 5 Predictors of Reform Philosophy, 1945 – 2002

Condition

Presence of Each Reform Philosophy under Each Condition (percentage and chi-square)

Scientifi c management War on waste Watchful eye Liberation management

Watergate: Before, after 71%, 28% 28.8 *** 5%, 25% 10.9 *** 13%, 29% 5.8 * 12%, 17% 1.0 Party control of Congress: Republican, Democratic

47%, 46% 0.03 18%, 10% 1.9 18%, 27% 1.0 16%, 18% 0.06

Party control of presidency: Republican, Democratic

37%, 48% 2.2 21%, 15% 0.9 28%, 20% 1.6 14%, 17% 0.2

Party control of government: Unifi ed, divided

59%, 34% 10.1 *** 11%, 22% 3.7** 17%, 28% 2.6 14%, 16% 0.16

Origin of ideas: President, Congress

59%, 27% 29.1 *** 13%, 21% 1.6 2%, 27% 29.5 *** 16%, 15% 0.1

Blue-ribbon commission involvement: No, yes

37%, 83% 17.0 *** 4%, 20% 3.4* 2%, 27% 8.2 *** 13%, 16% 0.1

N = 177 * p < .05 ; ** p < .01 ; *** p < .001 .

14 Public Administration Review • January | February 2006

Security in the 21st Century and the 9/11

Commission did, or enunciate new rules to reduce

government waste, as the Grace Commission and the

Packard Commission on Defense Procurement did. As

the percentages suggest, commissions almost never

suggest more sunshine and relaxation.

Finally, table 5 off ers little help in explaining the

rise and fall of liberation management, largely

because it peaked between the beginning of the Nixon

administration and the end of Clinton’s term. As a

result, liberation management rose both before and

after Watergate, when Congress was controlled by

Democrats and Republicans, when the White House

was occupied by Democrats and Republicans, and

when the two branches were unifi ed (1993 – 94) and

divided (1969 – 74, 1995 – 2000).

Assessing the Impact of Reform Th e crucial measure missing from the tides of reform

database is the extent to which a given statute

worked. Has the Freedom of Information Act pro-

duced greater access or just more secrets? Has

the Government Performance and Results Act gener-

ated greater performance or just more internal

paperwork? Has the Department of Homeland

Security produced more homeland security or just

more layers of government? Has the Unfunded

Mandates Act produced fewer mandates or just

political cover for new unfunded mandates such as

the No Child Left Behind Act?

Alas, the questions are impossible to answer systemati-

cally. Despite the “ longest and best ” rhetoric

surrounding each reform campaign, legislation takes

time to work its will, whether for good or ill, and is

best seen as an expression of the conventional wisdom

about making government work.

Moreover, all but four of the 177 major reforms in

this analysis were implemented without a preliminary

test somewhere in the executive branch. If a reform is

good enough for one unit or agency, or so the history

suggests, it must be good enough for the entire

government.

Perceptions of Improvement Th ere are plenty of opinions about whether reform

actually works, not the least of which comes from the

reformers themselves. Whether they are seen as

victims or benefi ciaries, however, federal employees

may have the greatest insight into the sediment of past

reforms. Asked in 2001 whether their organization

had been reformed, reorganized, or reinvented in the

past fi ve years, 75 percent of a random sample of

1,051 federal employees said “ yes ” compared with 60

percent of a random sample of 1,140 nonprofi t

employees and 56 percent of a random sample of

1,005 private-sector employees. 8

In turn, 50 percent of the federal employees said the

reforms had made their jobs either somewhat or

much more diffi cult, compared with 31 percent of

nonprofi t employees and 30 percent of private

sector employees. 9 In turn, 80 percent of the federal

employees said their organizations were basically

sound or did not need much change at all, compared

with 88 percent of nonprofi t employees and 87

percent of private sector employees. 10

Nevertheless, members of the Senior Executive Service

were much more positive regarding the impact of past

reforms on their jobs. For example, 60 percent of the

senior executives said the reforms had made their jobs

a lot or somewhat easier to do, compared with 43

percent of middle- and lower-level managers and 41

percent of middle- and lower-level nonmanagers. It is

not clear who is right. Senior executives have the

higher perch from which to view organization-wide

impacts, but middle- and lower-level employees have

the front-row seats.

Th ere are two obvious problems with asking

employees about reform. First, as Steven Kelman

cautions, not all federal reforms are designed to make

jobs easier. 11 Moreover, as Terry Moe argues, some

reforms are even designed to make federal jobs

impossible. According to Moe, government organiza-

tions refl ect an amalgam of choices that lead almost

inexorably to disaster: “ Just as policy can get watered

down through compromise, so can structure — and

it almost always does. … In the economic system,

organizations are generally designed by participants

who want them to succeed. In the political system,

public bureaucracies are designed in no small measure

by participants who explicitly want them to fail ”

(1990, 127).

Second, all employees have an obvious self-interest in

downplaying the need for major reform, particularly

because it might involve more work for them, not to

mention the potential loss of their freedom and jobs.

Given the heavy dose of compliance in the recent

past, one might expect federal employees in particular

to worry about any invitation they might give to

further reform.

Explaining Perceptions of Performance One way to address these biases is to ignore employees ’

impressions of reform altogether and focus instead on

perceptions of their organizations ’ overall performance

in four basic tasks: (1) helping people, (2) spending

money wisely, (3) being fair in decisions, and (4)

running programs and services. After all, improved

performance is the theoretical goal of reform.

Fortunately, perceptions of federal performance in

these four areas are highly correlated and sum to a

very useful measure of just how well government was

The Tides of Reform Revisited 15

doing its job at the time of the 2001 survey, which

was completed before September 11. Using ordinary

least-squares regression, table 6 shows the relationships

between perceptions of work life and this summed

measure of performance.

Th ese fi ndings provide a simple message to Congress

and the president: Reform only matters if it actually

strengthens organizational capacity. Th is message

should be reassuring to those who worry about the

steady erosion of capacity ( Ingraham 2005 ), as well as

those who have invested enormous energy in improving

the federal government ’ s antiquated personnel system.

Th us, recruiting and retaining quality employees while

disciplining poor performers clearly matters greatly to

perceptions of successful reform, as does giving employ-

ees the opportunity to do what they do best. So do

providing needed resources and creating a market bas-

ket of satisfaction with opportunities for advancement,

the chance to develop new skills, public respect, and the

ability to accomplish something worthwhile.

Th e results are also reassuring for those who, like this

author, worry about layering in government, which

emerges as one of the most signifi cant predictors of

organizational performance. Th e further employees are

from the top, the more they lose track of the mission

of the organization, how their jobs contribute to that

mission, and the basic resources to do their jobs. It

appears to be a sense of drift and isolation that these

employees attribute to their colleagues.

Th ere is other evidence that the view of performance

looks better from the top — the number of years of

service is correlated with one ’ s rank in the organiza-

tion, which is correlated with perceived performance.

Years of service and rank are also correlated with

perceptions of layering — obviously, the distance

between the top and bottom of government is greatest

at the bottom. Years of service may also capture a bit

of the numbing that comes from repeated reforms,

cutbacks, and hiring and pay freezes. Th e longer one

stays in government, the greater the reservoir of doubt

about access to the resources one needs.

Th e analysis also reinforces the general notion that

reform does not improve employees ’ perceptions of

performance unless it contributes to organizational

Table 6 Determinants of Reform Success, 2001

Independent Variable

Standardized Beta Weight in Predicting Job Improvement

Fellow employees are not competitive with each other .040 Fellow employees are open to new ideas – .030 Fellow employees are willing to help other employees learn .027 Fellow employees are concerned about achieving their organization ’ s mission .158 *** Organization encourages employees to take risks or try new ways of doing work .070 ** Respondent is given a chance to do the things he or she does best – .015 Respondent is satisfi ed with job overall .043 Respondent is satisfi ed with opportunities for advancement, opportunities to develop new skills, public respect, and chance to accomplish something worthwhile (summed scale of four questions)

.082 **

Respondent can describe how his/her job contributes to mission .074 ** Respondent ’ s job contributes to the organization ’ s mission – .007 Overall morale of fellow employees is high .002 Estimated percentage of fellow employees who are not doing their job well .013 Overall competence of senior leaders, middle-level managers, middle-level employees, and lower-level employees is high (summed scale of four ratings)

.221 ***

Quality of senior leaders has increased in past fi ve years .059 Quality of middle-level managers has increased in past fi ve years – .002 Quality of middle-level employees has increased in past fi ve years .001 Quality of lower-level employees has increased in past fi ve years – .033 Respondent is a senior leader or middle-level manager .101 *** Respondent ’ s organization has been reformed in past fi ve years – .010 Respondent thinks organization does not need major reform in the future .129 *** Organizations always or often provides access to information, technology, training, and enough employees to do its job well (summed scale of four ratings)

.099 ***

Respondent ’ s length of service in government .055 * Respondent believes there are too many layers between him/her and top of organization

.077 ***

R 2 .579 Adjusted r 2 .568 F test 52.130 ***

N = 1,051 * p < .05 ; ** p < .01 ; *** p < .001.

16 Public Administration Review • January | February 2006

capacity. What matters most is whether employees

believe their organizations need major reform in

the future, not whether they have been reformed in

the past.

Th ese fi ndings should caution future reformers,

including members of Congress and senior presiden-

tial appointees, to think carefully about both the

rhetoric and reality of change. To the extent that they

exploit public distrust through caps and cuts, they

may create intense resistance to future reforms. Th ey

also create a climate of internal distrust that weakens

commitment to the organization.

Although trust in one ’ s organization may be as much a

consequence of perceived performance as a cause, it

clearly matters to satisfaction, morale, and the

embracing of mission. Th e more government can do

to build a climate of trust, explain the overall mission

of each agency and unit, and reduce the distance

between top and bottom, the higher the perceived

performance. Although these perceptions are just

perceptions, they do suggest the value of plain-

speaking reforms designed to help employees

understand how they contribute to the greater good.

Th is understanding is of little help, however, if

employees do not have the resources to do their jobs.

Conclusion Th is article has suggested that the deluge of recent

reform may have done little to actually improve

government performance. On the contrary, it may

have created confusion within government about what

Congress and the president really want, distraction

from needed debates about organizational missions

and resources, and the illusion that more reform will

somehow lead to better government. As the Internal

Revenue Service example illustrated, every reform, no

matter how well intended, has at least some unin-

tended consequences, whether through

misinterpretation, maladministration, or confl icts

with already existing reforms.

Moreover, the acceleration of reform gives govern-

ment and its employees little time to fully test and

implement the most promising ideas for improve-

ment. Yesterday ’ s reform is swept aside by today ’ s,

which will be quickly forgotten by tomorrow, just as

yesterday ’ s training is rendered obsolete by today ’ s,

which will be overwritten tomorrow. All the while,

federal employees are left to wonder when or whether

Congress and the president might tackle the systemic

problems that act as barriers to the high performance

they want to achieve.

Reluctant though one should be about proposing

blue-ribbon commissions, it seems reasonable to

suggest a moratorium on new reform until an inde-

pendent body can complete a detailed examination of

just how past reforms have worked. When coupled

with an action-forcing device of the kind used in the

military base closing exercise, such a commission

could provide Congress and the president with a

single list of statutes, rules, and reforms that should be

abolished.

Th ere comes a time when the sediment of past re-

forms becomes so thick that agencies simply cannot

operate with any semblance of the effi ciency, econ-

omy, fairness, or performance envisioned in the four

tides of reform. Nor is it possible to implement new

reforms within a hierarchy that is packed with offi ces

and titleholders who are still struggling to implement

past reforms. Much as a blue-ribbon commission

would embrace scientifi c management, it could also

strengthen the other tides by reconciling the continu-

ing confl icts between often-contradictory goals such

as openness and privacy, speed and fairness, compli-

ance and creativity, and consistency and innovation.

As past reformers might say, at least it ’ s worth a try.

Acknowledgments Th e research on which this article is based was funded

by a number of foundations, including the Ford

Foundation, William and Flora Packard Foundation,

and the Douglas Dillon Foundation. Th e analysis for

this article was funded by the Carnegie Corporation. I

thank all of the research assistants and associates who

worked with me on this, and I especially wish to

acknowledge the insights of Mary McIntosh, vice

president of Princeton Survey Research Associates,

Inc. My colleagues at New York University ’ s Robert F.

Wagner School of Public Service were exceedingly

supportive as I worked through some of the puzzles in

this analysis, most notably Ellen Schall, dean of the

Wagner School, and my colleagues Joe Magee and

Beth Weitzman. I remain grateful to David C.

Mayhew for his suggestions on the original tides of

reform research.

Notes 1. I defi ne major statutes by judgment through a

reading of the legislative history of each law, media

coverage, and status accorded by Congressional

Quarterly Weekly . Many statutes crossed over into

my database from other organizations, such as the

Administrative Conference ’ s Federal Administrative

Procedure Sourcebook (1992) and Ronald C. Moe ’ s

General Management Laws: A Selective Compendium

(1997). Others crossed over from David C.

Mayhew ’ s Divided We Govern (2005) and from my

own database on the president ’ s agenda. Still others

made the list through reviews of legislative hearings

conducted by the U.S. Senate Governmental

Aff airs Committee and the U.S. House

Government Operations and Government Reform

Committees, as well as reviews of U.S.

Government Accountability Offi ce reports.

The Tides of Reform Revisited 17

2. Th e National Performance Review can be found in

a cybercemetery at the University of North Texas at

http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/ .

3. My original tides of reform database consisted of

141 statutes. In updating the database for this

study, I added three additional statutes: the 1950

National Science Foundation Act, the 1969 Tax

Reform Act, and a 1977 act prohibiting the fi rst

year of salary increases authorized under the 1977

Federal Salary Act Amendments. Th e fi rst of these

was listed in the appendix to Th e Tides of Reform

(Light 1997) but was not actually included in the

database.

4. Th e table shows the primary focus of each reform

statute. Sixty-four percent of the 177 statutes

embraced one reform philosophy only, whereas 29

percent included a primary and secondary

philosophy, and 7 percent contained a primary,

secondary, and tertiary theme. Th e determination

of primary, secondary, and tertiary emphasis was

based on a plain reading of the legislative text and

history. Each major provision of the 177 statutes

was coded for its basic philosophy, using the

legislative text, committee hearings and reports,

and fl oor debate to discern the underlying purpose

of the reform.

5. See the Congressional Record, September 23, 2001,

p. H7643.

6. Th ese statistics come from ongoing surveys by

Princeton Survey Research Associates ( www.psra.

com ) on behalf of the now-defunct Brookings

Institution Center for Public Service. Th e percent-

ages on perceived waste in government came from a

telephone survey of 770 randomly selected

Americans conducted in October 2003, in which

73 percent said the federal government in

Washington wastes “ a great deal ” of money and 20

percent said “ a fair amount. ” Th e opinions on the

perceived sources of federal employee motivation

came from telephone surveys of 1,003, 1,033, and

986 randomly selected Americans conducted by the

Center for Public Service in August and October

2001 and May 2002, respectively. Additional

information on the 2001 – 03 surveys can be found

at www.brookings.edu/gs/cps/cps_hp.htm.

7. Th ese fi gures came from a 1997 telephone survey

of 1,762 Americans conducted by the Pew

Research Center for the People and the Press

(1998) and the four surveys described in footnote

6. Further details on the Pew Center survey can be

found at http://people-press.org/reports/display.

php3?pageID = 592.

8. Th ese surveys were conducted by Princeton Survey

Research Associates on behalf of the Brookings

Institution Center for Public Service. Th e samples

were identifi ed through random-digit dialing.

To protect against biases associated with being

identifi ed as a government, nonprofi t, or private

sector employee, respondents were told that they

were participating in a survey about work life. All

questions were designed to elicit opinions about

each respondent ’ s job or organization without

reference to sector.

9. Th is question was only asked of employees who

said their organizations had been reformed,

reinvented, or reorganized in the past fi ve years.

10. Th is question was asked of all employees in the

samples.

11. Personal communication with the author.

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Reform: Competing Drivers of Change . Public

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THE SKY’S THE LIMIT: IDEALISM AND INNOVATION IN PUBLIC SERVICE A M E R I C A N S O C I E T Y F O R P U B L I C A D M I N I S T R A T I O N N A T I O N A L C O N F E R E N C E

The Tides of Reform Revisited 19