Refounding Public Administration
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Refounding Public Administration (1990) is a noted text in the public administration field that formulated a multi-faceted argument that government is properly an agential and active servant of the public good. It is among a very few books that have been pivotal in defining public administration as a distinct field from political science with its own theory and raison d'etre. Other works in this genre include Dwight Waldo's The Administrative State and Frederick C. Mosher's Democracy and the Public Service.The work was edited by Gary Wamsley who contributed a classic essay on bureaucratic agency, and also includes works by Charles Goodsell, John Rohr, Camilla Stivers, Orion White, Philip Kronenberg, James Wolf and others.
A follow-on volume called Refounding Democratic Public Administration was edited by Gary Wamsley and James Wolf. These works have strongly influenced the development of the Center for Public Administration and Policy as a center of public administration research.
BOOK REVIEW BY PUNIT ARORA, MAXWELL SCHOOL
This book is a sequel to Wamsley, et al, Refounding Public Administration that outlined “Blacksburg perspective” and seeks to “stimulate discourse on matters of fundamental importance to public administration and American polity.” It was written in the backdrop of the publication of Reinventing Government by Osborne and Gaebler and subsequent National Performance Review of Clinton Administration, and about half the book is devoted to discussion and critique of ‘reinventing government’, the popularity of which is attributed to general dissatisfaction with governance in US. Or as the author states, “we had come to have serious doubts about America’s ability to govern itself unless it developed a new way of thinking about and conducting the activities called public administration” (P 1).
The central theme that emerges throughout the book is the authors’ assertion that the fundamental problem is “the lack of legitimation for a key component in governance process- public administration” (P 5). Similarly, McSwite notes that “public administration has never adequately come to grips with the problem of finding a legitimate place for itself in the American scheme of democratic government” (P198), which the editors contend can be resolved only by finding “ways to create democratic legitimacy for itself that are not elective in nature.” This is for two reasons. It is not enough to have a derivative legitimacy, which means since the public administration is accountable to elected representatives, it automatically becomes democratically legitimate. Second, election is not the only mechanism to earn democratic and constitutional legitimacy. The authors further contend that public administration was the legitimate organ of constitutional government. They use the metaphor of balanced wheel and suggest that public administration is somewhat on the same pedestal as other branches of the government. While there concern for restoring legitimacy and confidence in public administration is justified, there suggestion is fraught with dangers as it is likely to create a professional elite in the same fashion as the other elite groups (eg. Corporations and lobby groups) whose powers authors expressly seek to curtail. I personally like the metaphor of backbone to describe the public administration since it conveys its importance in a democratic polity without undue exaggeration.
While the critique of all the papers in the volume is beyond the scope of this review, I would present some of the key ideas and their critique. Green and Hubbell come down heavily on the 10 principles of reinventing government, which are: steering others rather than rowing, empowering customers rather than serving them, intense customer orientation, injecting competition into service delivery, leveraging change through market-based incentives, organizing by mission than by rules, funding results and not inputs, encouraging entrepreneurial earning than bureaucratic spending, focusing on prevention rather than cure, and decentralizing organizations and fostering teamwork. The authors rightly point out that some of these like ninth principle on prevention are trite and meaningless. “Their (Osborne & Gaebler) suggestion on getting rid of guns rather than building jails is so trite as to invite ridicule” since it is comparable to saying “Arabs and Israelis should make friends rather than fighting so much” (Fallows 1992 on P 59). Their other major critique focuses on negative impact of these principles on rule of law, democratic governance, and performance regime besides failure to account for inequalities among different types of customers. “Osborne and Gaebler neglect to tell us that some customers may be more powerful than others, and can therefore co-opt agencies and policies for their interests. The authors never admit that perhaps some customers should have their powers reduced or compromised to enable agency pursuit of the broadest possible public interest (P49).” But, Green & Hubbell don’t tell us who will determine whose powers have to be curtailed and how, or whether this practice can be considered democratic. Finally, while most of their critique is relevant and useful, the reader is left wishing for an alternative agenda or solution to the problems identified by them
Dudley identifies the challenges posed to the governmental institutions by processes such as third-party, proxy or contractual government. She uses the metaphor of mending the wall for examining the “gaps, boulders, and loaves; building, rebuilding, every spring, in respect for understanding why loaves or boulders were there before” as a step towards understanding what is inherently governmental. She warns that a failure to do so may lead to ‘experimentation beyond prudence’. With the benefit of hindsight, she seems to have underestimated the challenge posed by technological changes to what can be considered ‘inherently government’. There is no recognition in her paper of the fact that what is inherently government today may not be so tomorrow.
Rohr examines the French system of polity and administration to bring out the chief differences from and the lessons for the American system. He examines the elitist system of civil service recruitment, centrality of civil service to French system in the context of “strong-state tradition”. While he is able to draw out similarities in similar elitism in the recruitment practices in the United States, he is also able to elucidate the differences the context makes to the administrative system. Similarly, Wolf presents the importance of considering the entire context from bureaucracy, markets, organizations, networks, institutions, and communities in refounding the democratic administration.
Barth highlights the need for moving beyond innovative management techniques since “by focusing so heavily on managerial procedures and service delivery, the authors underplay the importance for public administrators to think of their fundamental role in the governance process” and “by focusing on infusing competition, entrepreneurship, and decentralization, they miss the equally fundamental importance of cooperation and working across organizations” (P169). He notes the need for involving citizens beyond polling booths into everyday governance. However, he doesn’t provide much guidance on how this process can be accomplished.
Lane writes a very provocative and thought-provoking essay on the public administration and problem of Presidency. He holds that the presidency as it has evolved is anti-constitutional. Stivers examines the Blacksburg perspective on citizenship and related issues. She is cynical about the romanticist tradition in Blacksburg perspective that overstresses the commitment of public administrators to public interest. Little expands on Blacksburg perspective that holds that “the popular will doesn’t solely reside in elected representative, but in a constitutional order that incorporates a remarkable variety of legitimate titles to participate in the government” Dennard stresses the need for listening to the citizens. “Democratic authority is practiced by listening to all citizens for what they have to say, thus empowering their sense of personal efficacy” (P318). The author or editors fail to show, though, how this prescription is different from the principles of reinventing the government.
Lastly, Wamsley concludes the book with his paper on the ontological disclosure as the basis for normatively grounded theorizing in public administration. Ironically, he concludes by emphasizing the need to put the extremes of ideology behind them, just as other western democracies have done. “Though we are unlikely to follow their example in establishing relatively centralized welfare states, we do have to come to a level of maturity that lowers ideological temperatures” (P397). The entire book has a certain ideology and normative bias written across it and therefore the call for setting aside ideology seems ironical at best.
Overall, the book does a good job of presenting the administrator’s perspective on the challenges confronting them. It highlights the need to trust civil servants, which when I wear my administrator’s hat gladdens my heart. The book also offers an excellent critique of the shortcomings in the reinventing agenda. However, the rapid changes in last decade make me wonder just how relevant the ideas expressed in the book are today. The lack of any alternative vision in the book is another weakness of the Blacksburg project that reduces its relevance a bit. However, one of the stated objects of the project is to promote dialogue and discourse which it achieves with considerable success, and this, abstention from reinventing the wheel, alone should be reason enough to keep the book in currency.
[edit] See also
- The Administrative State
- Democracy and the Public Service
- public administration theory
[edit] References
- Wamsley, Gary L. Refounding public administration. Newbury Park, Calif.:Sage Publications, 1990. ISBN 0-8039-3723-7
- Wamsley, Gary L. and James F. Wolf. Refounding democratic public administration: modern paradoxes, postmodern challenges. Sage Publications, 1996. ISBN 0-8039-5976-1
