2001 Lynn-The Myth of The Bureaucratic Paradigm What Traditional Public Administration Really Stood For

The Myth of the Bureaucratic Paradigm: What Traditional Public Administration Really
Stood for
Author(s): Laurence E. Lynn, Jr.
Source: Public Administration Review , Mar. - Apr., 2001, Vol. 61, No. 2 (Mar. - Apr.,
2001), pp. 144-160
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Society for Public Administration
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Laurence E. Lynn Jr.
University of Chicago
The Myth of the Bureaucratic Paradigm: What

Traditional Public Administration Really Stood For
For a decade, public administration and management literature has featured a riveting story: the
transformation of the field's orientation from an old paradigm to a new one. While many doubt
claims concerning a new paradigm-a New Public Management-few question that there was an
old one. An ingrained and narrowly focused pattern of thought, a "bureaucratic paradigm," is
routinely attributed to public administration's traditional literature. A careful reading of that litera-
ture reveals, however, that the bureaucratic paradigm is, at best, a caricature and, at worst, a
demonstrable distortion of traditional thought that exhibited far more respect for law, politics,
citizens, and values than the new, customer-oriented managerialism and its variants. Public ad-
ministration as a profession, having let lapse the moral and intellectual authority conferred by its
own traditions, mounts an unduly weak challenge to the superficial thinking and easy answers of
the many new paradigms of governance and public service. As a result, literature and discourse
too often lack the recognition that reformers of institutions and civic philosophies must show how
the capacity to effect public purposes and accountability to the polity will be enhanced in a man-
ner that comports with our Constitution and our republican institutions.
We can safely pronounce that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to
produce a good administration.
-Alexander Hamilton
The student of administration must ... concern himself with the history of his subject, and will gain
a real appreciation of existing conditions and problems only as he becomes familiar with their
background.
-Leonard D. White'
Introduction2
For nearly a decade, public administration and manage- when the old habits and their brainchild, "bureaucracy,'"5
ment literature has featured a riveting story: the transfor- began to crumble under the forces of global change.
mation of the field's orientation from an old paradigm to a Ironically, the traditional paradigm now under attack was
new one.3 While many in public administration doubt that declared dead more than 50 years ago by some of public
there is a new paradigm4-a "New Public Management"
(Pollitt 2000)-few doubt that there was an old one. Vari- Laurence E. Lynn Jr. is the Sydney Stein, Jr., Professor of Public Manage-
ment in the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies and
ously termed the "bureaucratic paradigm," the "old ortho-
the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago.
doxy," the "old-time religion," or simply "traditional pub-
His most recent research has focused on theories, models, methods, and
lic administration," an ingrained and narrowly focused data for the empirical study of governance and public management. Gov-
ernance and Performance: New Perspectives, which he coedited with
pattern of thought is routinely attributed to public Carolyn J. Heinrich, was recently published by Georgetown University Press.
administration's scholars and practitioners from the publi- A companion volume, Improving Governance: A New Logic for Research,
which he coauthored with Heinrich and Carolyn J. Hill, is forthcoming.
cation of Woodrow Wilson's 1887 essay until the 1990s,E-mail: lynn@midway.uchicago.edu.
144 Public Administration Review * March/April 2001, Vol. 61, No. 2

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administration's own intellectual leaders. A profession that Relying on literature is not altogether satisfactory: Authors
has virtually abandoned its traditions is unlikely to defend are not always clear or consistent, and differing interpreta-
them later. From my vantage point in an adjacent profes- tions of their views are possible. A thorough reconsidera-
sion, this state of affairs seems odd. A careful reading of tion ought to include a sociological analysis of thought
the traditional literature reveals that the "old orthodoxy" and practice. The historian Karl (1976) suggests that the
is, at best, a caricature and, at worst, an outright distortion popularity of a particular work or idea may owe as much
of traditional thought. The caricature better depicts the to one's affection for the author or to the prestige an au-
views of the judges, legislators, the increasingly powerful thor confers on the field than to its intellectual merit. In-
business community, and urban professional elites who tramural rivalries of a personal or professional nature doubt-
have shaped the emerging administrative state than of the less play a role in the way ideas have been selected or
profession's scholars, who have supplied broader, more rejected, but that is a subject for another essay.
thoughtful perspectives on practical issues of state build-
ing based on their grasp of Constitutional and democratic
theory and values.
What Is the Traditional Paradigm?
In this article, I first identify those habits of thought Public administration literature contains both retrospec-
that are attributed to traditional public administration. Next,tive accounts of traditional thinking and summaries of such
I address the questions: How did the traditional public ad- thinking found in the traditional literature itself.
ministration mind actually work? Does the "old orthodoxy"
shoe fit? I conclude with comments about the consequences Retrospective Views
of a profession's being unduly careless of its past. Retrospective critics of traditional thinking tend to cite
In undertaking this analysis, several ideas have helped relatively few sources, so it is not always clear whose hab-
to bring a sprawling, heterodox literature into clearer fo- its of mind are at issue. The wellsprings of tradition appar-
cus. Gerald Garvey (1995) succinctly summarizes the di- ently are to be found primarily in Woodrow Wilson's fa-
lemma of democratic administration as follows: "Admin- mous 1887 lecture, in the works of Frederick Taylor, Max
istrative action in any political system, but especially in a Weber, and Luther Gulick, and in the report of the
democracy, must somehow realize two objectives simul- President's Committee on Administrative Management-
taneously. It is necessary to construct and maintain admin- the Brownlow Report (1937). Less widely known authors
istrative capacity, and it is equally necessary to control it such as Frank J. Goodnow, Leonard D. White, and W. F.
in order to ensure the responsiveness of the public bureau- Willoughby are cited only occasionally.6
cracy to higher authority" (87). Herbert Kaufman (1956) The assault on traditional thinking began with the well-
saw administrative institutions as having been organized known critiques of scientific principles of administration
and operated in pursuit, successively, of three values: rep- by Herbert A. Simon and Robert A. Dahl (Simon 1946,
resentativeness, neutral competence, and executive lead- 1947; Dahl 1947). Their criticisms-that such principles
ership. "The shift," he says, "from one to another gener- were inconsistent and unscientific-were quickly endorsed
ally appears to have occurred as a consequence of the and embellished by mainstream public administrationists,
notably Dwight Waldo and Wallace Sayre. As a result, a
difficulties encountered in the period preceding the change"
(1057). Barry Karl (1976) notes the consequences of the new, revisionist interpretation of traditional thinking be-
American commitment to democratic compromise. Re- came the conventional wisdom in the profession.7
forms, he argues "tended to institutionalize defeated op- Waldo's view was unequivocal. In The Administrative
positions.... The result is often to sustain in the new ad- State (1948), he subjected orthodoxy to devastating criti-
ministrative structure ... the old opposition and to give cism: "The indictment against public administration can
that opposition a lifeline to continuity" (495). Finally, ac- only be that, at the theoretical level, it has contributed little
cording to James Morone (1990), "The institutions de- to the 'solution' or even the systematic statement of [fun-
signed to enhance democracy expand the scope and au- damental] problems" (101), producing instead "a spate of
shallow and spurious answers" (102). Public administra-
thority of the state, especially its administrative capacity.
A great irony propels American political development: the he concluded, "is only now freeing itself from a strait
tion,
search for more direct democracy builds up the bureau- jacket of its own devising-the instrumentalist philoso-
cracy" (1). Regimes do not simply succeed one another; phy of the politics-administration formula-that has lim-
rather, institutions, ideas, and values are woven into theited its breadth and scope" (208). "[S]ince publication of
complex institutional fabric that constitutes democratic the Papers [on the Science of Administration] in 1937,"
governance. Waldo wrote in 1961 (see also Gulick and Urwick [1937]),
My argument is based on a selective reconsideration of "a generation of younger students have demolished the
the literature, not the practice of public administration. classical theory, again and again; they have uprooted it,
The Myth of the Bureaucratic Paradigm 145

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threshed it, thrown most of it away. By and large, the criti- amount of resources it controls and by the tasks it per-
cisms of the new generation have been well-founded. In forms; controls costs; sticks to routine; fights for turf; in-
many ways the classical theory was crude, presumptuous, sists on following standard procedures; announces poli-
incomplete-wrong in some of its conclusions, naive in cies and plans; and separates the work of thinking from
its scientific methodology, parochial in its outlook" (220). that of doing (8-9).
In 1968, Waldo insisted that postwar intellectual challenges In David Osborne and Ted Gaebler's immensely influ-
had "brought public administration to the point of crisis, ential Reinventing Government (1992), they argued that,
of possible collapse and disintegration" (4), a viewpoint "American society embarked on a gigantic effort to con-
echoed by Vincent Ostrom in 1973. Waldo's critique has trol what went on inside government-to keep the politi-
been accepted as definitive. "[T]o the best of my memory,"cians and bureaucrats from doing anything that might en-
said Frank Marini, "the terms 'orthodox public adminis- danger the public interest or purse.... In attempting to
tration' and 'politics-administration dichotomy' appear first
control virtually everything, we became so obsessed with
in Waldo's statements (and the import of these concepts dictating how things should be done-regulating the pro-
and their influence upon our field has been profound if notcess, controlling the inputs-that we ignored the outcomes,
always obvious)" (1993, 412).8 the results" (14). Bureaucratic government had been ap-
Sayre (1951, 1958) further stigmatized traditional pub- propriate, Osborne and Gaebler said, for the conditions that
lic administration with his reference to "the high noon of prevailed until roughly the 1960s and 1970s. But those
orthodoxy," achieved with the 1937 publication of Gulick conditions have been swept away, and new forms of gov-
and Urwick's Papers and the Brownlow Report. In Sayre's ernance have begun to emerge, first at the local level, then
view, the underlying orthodoxy had first been codified in more broadly.'0
Leonard White's Introduction to the Study of Public Ad- The Barzelay-Osborne-Gaebler line of argument has
ministration (1926) and in W. F. Willoughby's Principles caught on with many both inside and outside of public
of Public Administration (1927), which espoused, accord-administration. From the policy schools, Mark Moore
ing to Sayre, "a closely knit set of values, confidently and (1995), dismissing traditional public administration as
incisively presented" (1951, 1): the politics-administra- merely "politically neutral competence," asserted that
tion dichotomy, scientific management, the executive bud-
... [T]he classic tradition of public administration
get, scientific personnel management, neutral competence,
does not focus a manager's attention on questions
and control by administrative law. Sayre, like Waldo, de-
of purpose and value or on the development of le-
clared these values obsolete and applauded the field's
gitimacy and support. The classic tradition assumes
movement toward heterodoxy.9 that these questions have been answered in the de-
In the early 1970s, the public policy schools' pro- velopment of the organization's legislative or policy
genitors, perhaps unaware that traditional doctrine was mandate ... managers must pursue the downward-
already widely regarded as dead and without intellec- and inward-looking tasks of deploying available re-
tual traditions of their own, piled on, charging traditional sources to achieve the mandated objectives as effi-
public administration with insufficient rigor and an af- ciently as possible. In accomplishing this goal, man-
finity for institutional description rather than analysis agers rely on their administrative expertise in
of choice and action (Lynn 1996)-failings, it must be wielding the instruments of internal managerial in-
fluence: organizational design, budgeting, human
noted, that these schools have since shown little incli-
resource development, and management control.
nation to remedy. The latter-day flogging of orthodoxy
(74)
by outsiders gathered momentum with two highly in-
fluential publications in 1992. From inside the profession, Robert B. Denhardt and Janet
To an academic audience, the Kennedy School's Michael Vinzant Denhardt (2000) similarly dismiss "old public
Barzelay described traditional public administration in administration" as neutral, hostile to discretion and to citi-
terms of a "bureaucratic paradigm." Its essence was "the zen involvement, uninvolved in policy, parochial, and nar-
prescribed separation between substance and institutionalrowly focused on efficiency.11
administration within the administration component of the That there was an old orthodoxy has thus become the
politics/administration dichotomy" (1992, 179, n. 18). new orthodoxy. The essence of traditional public adminis-
Barzelay summarized the bureaucratic paradigm first in a tration is repeatedly asserted to be the design and defense
series of normative principles and then in a series of asser- of a largely self-serving, Weberian bureaucracy that was
tions used to set off the postbureaucratic paradigm he fa-to be strictly insulated from politics and that justified its
vored. In Barzelay's view, a bureaucratic agency is focused actions based on a technocratic, one-best-way "science of
on its own needs and perspectives and on the roles and administration." Facts were to be separated from values,
responsibilities of the parts; defines itself both by the politics from administration, and policy from implemen-
146 Public Administration Review a March/April 2001, Vol. 61, No. 2

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tation. Traditional administration is held to be sluggish, the affairs of the city with integrity and efficiency and loy-
rigid, rule bound, centralized, insular, self-protective, and alty to the council, without participating in or allowing
profoundly antidemocratic. In Garvey's terms, the tradi- their work to be affected by contending programs or parti-
tional paradigm is thought to be preoccupied with capac- sans" (301).12
ity, to the almost total neglect of democratic control. Why haven't critics of orthodoxy simply taken these self-
characterizations as its authentic expression? Inadequate
Contemporaneous Views scholarship might be one reason. But such complex charac-
Interestingly, numerous paradigms or synopses of tra- terizations are obviously embedded in a wider intellectual
ditional premises and values are found in the traditional and historical context that makes ahistorical and out-of-con-
literature itself. text interpretations and "out-of-hand" pejorative dismissals
* Charles E. Merriam (1926) summarized the late Progres- plainly suspect. A caricature serves polemical ends better
sive view of the "outstanding features in the develop- than scrupulous historical scholarship. As we shall see, the
ment of institutions and the theory of the executive story that emerges from such scholarship is quite incongru-
branch of the government" as "(1) [t]he strengthening ous with the critics' caricatures.
of the prestige of the executive and the development of
the idea of executive leadership and initiative ... (2) [t]he
Traditional Thinking: A Reconsideration
development of a new tendency toward expertness and
efficiency in democratic administration ... and (3) [t]he Even if the roster of traditional authors is restricted to
tendency toward administrative consolidation and cen- those cited most often by critics, the case for a traditional
tralization" (126-7). paradigm is surprisingly shaky. Wilson's 1887 article
* In a monograph prepared for President Hoover's Re- wasn't widely read or cited until it was reprinted in 1941
search Committee on Social Trends, Leonard White (Fesler and Kettl 1991; Van Riper 1987); ' 3Weber's 1911-
(1933) summarized the "New Management" as "a con- 13 work on bureaucracy wasn't available in English trans-
temporary philosophy of administration" which had been lation or cited in the United States until after World War II.
concisely summarized in a series of principles by Gov- Weber, Taylor, and, arguably, even Wilson were not closely
ernor William T. Gardner of Maine on January 21, 1931: associated with the profession of public administration, and
consolidation and integration in departments of similar scholars have convincingly refuted interpretations of Wil-
functions; fixed and definite assignments of administra- son, Goodnow, and Gulick as advocating a politics-ad-
ministration dichotomy. Moreover, traditional authors
tive responsibility; proper coordination in the interests
whose habits of thought seem to be at issue if an entire
of harmony; executive responsibility centered in a single
individual rather than a board (144).
profession is to be denounced are simply ignored. To know
what traditional public administration really stood for re-
* Schuyler Wallace (1941) believed the thinking of the New
York Bureau of Municipal Research to be seminal, and quires a much more scrupulous look at its literature.
he identified seven essential elements: the centrality of
The Classical Period
the executive budget; an "integrated administrative sys-
tem, departmentalized and coordinated ... subject to leg- In its first century, the American state was
islative scrutiny" (15); personnel administration; a cen- prebureaucratic. Administrative officers-a great m
them elected-functioned independently of executive au-
tral purchasing system; systematic legislative review of
thority, with funds appropriated directly to their offices
the budget; a planning and advisory staff; and a scheme
of accounts and controls. (Merriam 1926).'4 According to Waldo, "The lack of a
* Both Sayre (1958) and Van Riper (1987) provided codi- strong tradition of administrative action ... contributed to
fied summaries of the traditional bureaucratic paradigm, ... public servants acting more or less in their private ca-
including some of the Weberian formulas derided by pacities" (1948, 11).15 A "spoils system" governed nine-
contemporary critics. teenth-century selection and control of administrators
Critics might also have quoted, albeit out of context, (Rosenbloom 1998; White 1954, 1965), 16 and haphazard
Frank Goodnow (1900)-"The necessity for this separa- oversight of administration was exercised by legislators,
tion of politics from administration is very marked in the political parties, and the courts (White 1933).7
case of municipal government" (84)-and White (1927), The gradual emergence of permanent government (be-
who said, "It ought to be possible in this country to sepa- ginning in the latter part of the nineteenth century) cre-
rate politics from administration. Sound administration can ated considerable confusion about the nature of adminis-
develop and continue only if this separation can be trative responsibility. As Frederick Mosher (1968) noted,
achieved. Over a century, they have been confused, with "The rise of representative democracy in the Western
evil results beyond measure.... [Tiheir job is to administer countries ... resulted in contests for political control of

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administration ... and recognition of the need for a per- ity of political conditions makes it practically impossible
manent, protected and specialized civil service" (5). At for the same governmental organ to be intrusted in equal
the federal level, argued Stephen Skowronek (1982), "As degree with the discharge of both [politics and administra-
the American state was being fortified with an indepen- tion]" (10). According to Haddow, Goodnow's purpose was
dent arm of national administrative action, it was also "to show that the formal governmental system as set forth
becoming mired in operational confusion.... The national in the law is not always the same as the actual system, and
administrative apparatus was freed from the clutches of to suggest remedies to make the actual system conform to
party domination, direct court supervision, and localistic the political ideas upon which the formal system is based"
orientations only to be thrust into the center of an amor- (1939, 251).
phous new institutional politics" (286-7). Issues relating While Goodnow held that the executive function was
to control of the regulatory state divided president and subject to "the expression of the state will" (1900, 9ff, 79),
party and left administrative officials with no clear defi- he also noted that the "semi-scientific, quasi-judicial, and
nition of political responsibility (Skowronek 1982, 212).18 quasi-business or commercial" functions of administration
This practical and intellectual void encouraged scholars might be relieved from the control of political bodies (1900,
to pursue clarity. 85).22 In lieu of political control, officials charged with
executing the law concerning such functions were to be
Foundations subject to the control of judicial authorities upon the ap-
Reconciling the emerging tensions between creating plication of aggrieved parties.23 In advancing this complex
adequate administrative capacity and ensuring that it was scheme, Goodnow was prescient, perfectly expressing the
under firm democratic control became the intellectual dilemma of reconciling capacity with control:
project facing scholars concerned with defining and un-
[D]etailed legislation and judicial control over its
derstanding public administration. The most significant
execution are not sufficient to produce harmony be-
were Woodrow Wilson, Frank Goodnow, and Frederick
tween the governmental body which expresses the
Cleveland. They appeared to share the idea of assigning
will of the state, and the governmental authority
primary, but not exclusive, responsibility for establishing which executes that will.... The executive officers
collective purposes (politics) and for carrying out these may or may not enforce the law as it was intended
purposes (administration) to separate spheres: the legisla- by the legislature. Judicial officers, in exercising
ture and the administrative state, respectively. That this control over such executive officers, may or may
subtle idea would be reduced to the simplistic politics- not take the same view of the law as did the legisla-
administration dichotomy should not obscure its original ture. No provision is thus made in the governmental
intellectual subtlety and practical merit. organization for securing harmony between the ex-
Early readers of Wilson scarcely remarked upon his so- pression and the execution of the will of the state.
The people, the ultimate sovereign in a popular gov-
called dichotomy. Anna Haddow's (1939) pre-World War
ernment, must ... have a control over the officers
II assessment of "The Study of Administration" did not
who execute their will, as well as over those who
mention it; she noted instead that Wilson saw administra-
express it. (97-8)
tion as reform, a solution to the governmental problems of
the day. More recently, Walker (1990) argued that "Wil- V. 0. Key Jr. (1942) argued the notion that politics and
son never sought to erect a strong wall between politics administration are compartmentalized is "a perversion of
and administration. In his lectures and writings after 1887, Goodnow's doctrine" (146). "[Goodnow] saw that 'prac-
Wilson backtracked considerably from the strong tical political necessity makes impossible the consideration
dichotomistic expressions in the 1887 essay" (85). His pri- of the function of politics apart from that of administra-
mary influence as a scholar lay in his contributions to the tion"' (146). Goodnow expressed this view as follows:
political reform movement of his day and to the emergence "That administrative hierarchies have profound influence
of academic public administration (87).'9 on the course of legislative policy is elementary" (1900,
Frank Goodnow (1900) offered a more coherent per- 24). Merriam (1926) interpreted Goodnow this way: "[H]e
spective on the distinctive roles of politics and administra-drew a line between political officials who are properly
tion.20 Goodnow argued that politics and administration elective and the administrative officials, who are properly
constitute separate spheres of governance to preclude un- appointive. 'Politics' should supervise and control 'admin-
due political and judicial interference in the performance istration,' but should not extend this control farther than is
of administrative tasks.21 In explicating this distinction, necessary for the main purpose" (142). Merriam cites
Goodnow was careful to disavow the implication that each Goodnow and Wilson in urging us to think "less of separa-
sphere was the province of a separate branch of govern- tion of functions and more of the synthesis and action"
ment. His subtle argument was that "[t]he great complex- (142). Paul Appleby (1949) believed that "Goodnow's early

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istration was given content by Frederick Taylor's (1911)
discussion drew a line less abrupt between policy and ad-
ministration than some who later quoted him" care to ac-ideas concerning scientific management, which divided
knowledge (16).24 formal responsibility for administration between a mana-
While Frederick A. Cleveland was a founder of the gerial group and a group that performed the work. This
New York Bureau of Municipal Research, he was also division of labor-that is, between those who are manag-
the author of The Growth of Democracy in the United ing ("figuring out what to do and how to do it") and those
States (1898). In that work, he advocated "studying po- who are working ("doing it")-became popular in both
litical life as a continuous process" (vi) and enumerated business and public administration practice. Organization
the problems that reformed government should address: and management came into the foreground.
"incompetency in office ... inequality in elections ... the In the profession's first textbook, published in 1926,
employment of the spoils system in appointments ... the Leonard White focused on the organization and manage-
corruption of our legislatures ... the subversion of mu- ment of the bureaucratic state. He took pains to rebuke the
nicipal government in the interest of organized spolia- public law tradition, arguing that "[t]he study of adminis-
tion" (387). To Cleveland, expansion of the civil service tration should start from the base of management rather
would lead to a government to which every citizen could, than the foundation of law, and is therefore more absorbed
in principle, aspire rather than constituting a class-based in the affairs of the American Management Association
fiefdom, as in Germany and Great Britain (see also W. than in the decisions of the courts" (White 1926, preface).25
W. Willoughby 1919). At the same time, he acknowledged the "traditional evils
Cleveland introduced his book Organized Democracy of bureaucracy," noting that "[t]he action of the adminis-
(1913) as follows: "The picture drawn [in this book] is tration has now become so important and touches such
one of the continuing evolution of the means devised by varied interests" that means must be found "to ensure that
organized citizenship for making its will effective; for the acts of administrative officers shall be consistent not
determining what the government shall be, and what theonly with the law but equally with the purposes and tem-
government shall do; for making the qualified voter an per of the mass of citizens" (1935, 420, 419). In other
efficient instrument through which the will of the people words, capacity and control go hand in hand.
may be expressed; for making officers both responsive In his 1927 textbook Principles of Public Administra-
and responsible ... government should exist for common tion, W.F. Willoughby saw the task of administrators as
welfare" (v). The contemporary problem, he argued, "is establishing an appropriate formal organization and ensur-
to provide the means whereby the acts of governmentaling adequate constraints on the administrator. Willoughby's
agents may be made known to the people-to supply thewas an "institutional" (or what we would today call a "struc-
link which is missing between the government and citi- tural") approach to administration in which "the emphasis
zenship" (454). is shifted from legal rules and cases to the formal frame-
Cleveland was undoubtedly a technocrat, but not work
the and procedures of the administrative machine"
kind derided by contemporary critics. "Technically," (Dimock
he 1936a, 7). His preface reveals his purpose: "[It
said, "the problem is to supply a procedure which will is now recognized that, if anything, a popularly controlled
enable the people to obtain information about what is government is one which is peculiarly prone to financial
being planned and how plans are being executed-infor- extravagances and administrative inefficiency" (1927, viii).
mation needed to make the sovereign will an enlightenedThus the separation of powers needed to be reconsidered,
expression on subjects of welfare" (454-5). To Cleve- administrative responsibility centralized and coordinated,
land, "a budget, a balance sheet, an operation account, a and the new, highly technical tasks of government held to
detail individual efficiency record and report, a system standards of efficiency and honesty no lower than those
operative in the business world. In other words, to
of cost accounts, and a means for obtaining a detail state-
ment of costs" were means by which government could Willoughby, efficient bureaucracy was a solution to the
be made transparent to citizens. His entire goal was "an manifold problems of democratic governance.
enlightened people" and "an informed public conscience" White and Willoughby can be understood, then, as at-
(465), as well as a government that provided service to tempting to advance the democratic project in America that
the people to counter "the threatened dominancy of a had been systematically assayed by Wilson, Goodnow, and
Cleveland. But, as Sayre (1958) noted, "In these pioneer
privileged class and of institutions inconsistent with the
spirit of democracy" (26). texts the responsibility of administrative agencies to popu-
lar control was a value taken-for-granted" (103), that is, it
Early Textbooks was paradigmatic. A new logic of democratic control that
Public administration, Wilson had argued, was a field challenged the premises of the spoils system had begun to
take form: Bureaucratic, technocratic government subject
of business. Businesslike professionalism in public admin-
The Mythl of the Bureaucratic Paradigm 149

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to judicial oversight was a way to ensure transparent gov- centrifugal forces of the spoils system still prevalent in
ernance that would be obedient and accountable to the con- local government.26 Owing to pressure from organizations
stitutionally expressed public will. such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, interests engaged
in foreign commerce, and the demands for administering
Consolidation relief, administrative power should be further consolidated.
From the appearance of the first textbooks until White
Sayre's noted the proliferation of [good government] orga-
"high noon of orthodoxy"-a conservative era during which pressing for efficient administration: the National
nizations
the public elected Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover to the Municipal League, the Governmental Research Associa-
presidency-Leonard White, John Dickinson, John Gaus,tion, the state Leagues of Municipalities, the American
Marshall Dimock, and Pendleton Herring, among others, Municipal Association, the National Legislators Associa-
probed issues of democratic governance more deeply. tion, and the Public Administration Clearing House (5).
Dickinson (1927) considered the proper role of the But, he warned, "We have not been deeply concerned on
courts, troublesome opponents of legislative delegation of the whole with more effective ways and means of citizen
power to administrators, in the emerging administrative participation in administration ... [or] with developing
state: "[W]ithin the field of matters which do not admit of machinery for employee participation ... [or] with the fun-
reduction to hard and fast rules, but must be trusted to the damental alteration of administrative relations between
discretion of the adjudicating body, can we say that there federal and state governments" (4-5).
is a regime of law?.... It would be unfortunate, if it were In 1936, Gaus, White, and Dimock produced a remark-
possible, for men to commit all their decisions to minds able little book that still repays careful reading, Frontiers
which run in legal grooves. The needs of the moment, the of Public Administration. In it, Dimock enunciated an ex-
circumstances of the particular case, all that we mean and pansive view of the public manager's role: "Those who
express by the word 'policy,' have an importance which view administrative action as simple commands ... fail to
professional lawyers do not always allow to them" (150- comprehend the extent to which administration is called
1). He drew a fundamental distinction between adminis- upon to help formulate policy and to fashion important
realms of discretion in our modern democracies" (1936c,
trative adjudication in regulation and in "matters as to which
the government is a direct party in interest, i.e., the distri-127). He held that "[t]he important problem is the manner
bution of pensions or public lands, collection of the rev- in which discretion is exercised and the safeguards against
enue, direct governmental performance of public services abuse of power which are provided" (1936b, 60).
and the like" (156). He asked: "If ... we ... imply that the Gaus (1936a) expatiated on his ideas concerning demo-
main purpose of the technical agency is to adjudicate ac- cratic participation: "Much of the effort of public admin-
cording to rules, will we not have abandoned the charac- istration today is rightly expended upon establishing pro-
teristic and special advantages of a system of administra- cedures and agencies whereby the general policy enacted
tive justice, which consists in a union of legislative, in the law is given precision and application with the ac-
executive, and judicial functions in the same body to se- tive collaboration of groups of citizens most affected....
cure promptness of action, and the freedom to arrive at [O]nly this process of conference, adjustment, statement
decisions based on policy?" (156). and restatement of facts and opinions will bring any wide-
John Gaus (1931) called attention to "the increasing spread conviction to a substantial group of citizens that
role of the public servant in the determination of policy,the resulting policy is their policy and that the administra-
through either the preparation of legislation or the mak-tors of it are their officials" (89). He noted "the fact of the
ing of rules under which general legislative policy is givencontemporary delegation of wide discretionary powers by
meaning and application" (123). He called for more ex- electorates, constitutions, and legislatures to the adminis-
tended inquiry into the "relationship between represen- trators. They must, of necessity, determine some part of
tatives of 'pressure groups' ... the political heads, legis- the purpose and a large part of the means whereby it will
lative committees, and permanent civil servants or be achieved in the modern state" (91). Thus, "[u]nless [the
semi-judicial administrative commissions" (124). He civil servant's] sense of responsibility is encouraged, the
noted the contributions to "the techniques of public man- responsibility of administration is incomplete, negative,
agement" (130) of extra-legal organizations, such as as- and external" (1936b, 43-4).
sociations of government professionals, functionally-ori- In Public Administration and the Public Interest, not-
ented study/advocacy organizations, and new institutions ing that "... the despised bureaus are in a sense the cre-
of governmental research. ations of their critics"(15), Herring (1936) explored the
In a monograph prepared for President Hoover's Re- tensions between administrative capacity and popular sov-
search Committee on Social Trends, White (1933) argued ereignty. "The bureaucrat ... does not suffer so much from
that strong central administration was an antidote to the an inability to execute the law unhampered as from an

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uncertainty in direction. Where is the official to look for work by the over-all administrative staff and auxiliary agen-
guidance on the broad plain of public interest?"(22). On cies and by Congress. If there is the proper attention to
one hand, he argued, "the bureaucracy must be guarded these matters, the viewpoint of the civil service will differ
from domination by economic groups or social classes. from the surrogacy that one expects from the officials of a
On the other hand, it must be kept free of the abuses of pressure group" (283).
aloof, arbitrary, and irresponsible behavior to which pub- In his deeply analytical Federal Departmentalization
lic servants are so often prone.... In short, it must not de- (1941), Schuyler Wallace scorned the notions that orga-
velop a group interest within itself that will become its nization could be designed by rote application of abstract
raison d'etre" (384). To preclude such aloofness, "Consul- principles or that administration could be a true science.
tation with the persons and groups most directly concerned "That administrative hierarchies have profound influence
must ... become a regular feature of administration. This on the course of legislative policy," said V. 0. Key Jr. in
is the greatest safeguard against arbitrary or ill-considered a volume honoring Brownlow Committee member
action" (388).27 Charles Merriam, "is elementary" (1942, 146).28 In fact,
Thus, we find in the habits of thought characteristic of Key said, "The close communion of pressure group, con-
classical public administration a recognition of the policy- gressional bloc, and subordinate elements of the admin-
making role of civil servants, the inevitability of administrative hierarchy obstructs central direction in the gen-
istrative discretion, the importance of persuading the eral interest" (152). The view that "administrative
courts to formally recognize the necessity for adminis- hierarchies" are "will-less instruments wielded by politi-
trative discretion, the concomitant requirement for respon- cians," said Key, is "not now widely held" (160). In the
sible conduct by managers and civil servants, and the same volume, White (1942) quoted Merriam and his col-
necessity for ensuring that citizens can somehow partici- leagues on the Brownlow Committee: "The safeguard-
pate actively in matters affecting their well-being based ing of the citizen from narrow-minded and dictatorial
on adequate information. bureaucratic interference and control is one of the pri-
mary obligations of democratic government" (212). Said
High Noon White, "A formal system of responsibility is ... essen-
It is against this background that we must assess Sayre's tial; it is unsafe to rely wholly on official codes and a
assertion that the 1937 publication of Gulick and Urwick's sense of inner responsibility; but, on the other hand, a
Papers and the Brownlow Report implied that "adminis- formal system in itself is inadequate" (215). Charles
tration was perceived as a self-contained world, with its Hyneman (1945) argued, "The essential feature of demo-
own separate values, rules, and methods" (1958, 102). As cratic government lies in the ability of the people to con-
trol the individuals who have political power" (310).
should be clear by now, it is difficult to find a justification
for this assertion in the literature. As these excerpts suggest, the literature of the "high noon"
Not long after these momentous 1937 publications, period was rife with insightful commentary about demo-
White, in the 1939 revision of his textbook, said that "[a] cratic governance. Where is Sayre's "self-contained world"?
responsible administration, cherished and strengthened by
those to whom it is responsible, is one of the principal foun-
dations of the modem democratic state" (578). Charles A.
Controversies
Beard cited as an axiom or aphorism of public administra- Skepticism that there was a close-knit "orthodoxy" in
tion that "[u]nless the members of an administrative sys- traditional thinking deepens when reviewing the period's
tem ... are subjected to internal and external criticism of a two great controversies concerning the administrative state:
constructive nature, then the public personnel will become the debate over the Walter-Logan Act and the Friedrich-
a bureaucracy dangerous to society and to popular gov- Finer debate over administrative responsibility.
ernment" (1940,234). Gaus and Wolcott (1940) asked: "At

what point in the evolution of policies in the life of the The Walter-Logan Act
community shall the process take place of transforming a The issue of executive control of administration from
specialist point of view and program, through compromise an administrative law perspective came into sharp focus
and adjustment, into a more balanced public program?" in the period surrounding the enactment and veto of the
Their answer was that "[m]uch of this process must takeWalter-Logan Bill (H.R. 6324, 76th Congress [1939]).
place in the administrative agencies through the selectionDean Roscoe Pound (1942) argued that administrative
agencies are under none of the safeguards that character-
of personnel, their continued in-service training, the con-
tent and discipline of their professions, researches, and ize judicial proceedings, especially when they are engaged
responsibilities, and attrition of inter-bureau and inter-de- in adjudication and thus acting as prosecutor and judge in
partment contact and association, and the scrutiny of their the same case. He advocated stringent procedural safe-

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guards. In contrast, supporters of the New Deal urged that, Friedrich's (1940) argument had two parts. First, "Pub-
in the absence of relevant standards, narrow procedural lic policy, to put it flatly, is a continuous process, the for-
safeguards and private law values were an inadequate ba- mation of which is inseparable from its execution.... Poli-
sis for defining administrative jurisdiction and responsi- tics and administration play a continuous role in both
bility in the welfare state. formation and execution, though there is probably more
Inspired partly by anti-New Deal sentiment and partly politics in the formation of policy, more administration in
by a desire (supported by the American Bar Association) the execution of it" (6). Second, "[W]e have a right to call
to harness federal agencies and their haphazard approach ... a policy irresponsible if it can be shown that it was
to rule making, Congress enacted the Walter-Logan Bill.30 adopted without proper regard to the existing sum of hu-
According to Don K. Price (1959), the act established "a man knowledge concerning the technical issues involved"
single rigid method for the issuing of regulations" (484). or that "it was adopted without proper regard for existing
The act allowed anyone significantly affected by an ad- preferences in the community, and more particularly its
ministrative rule to challenge that rule in federal court, and prevailing majority.... Any policy which violates either
it required agencies to issue rules within a year of authori- standard, or which fails to crystallize in spite of their ur-
zation to do so. President Roosevelt vetoed it, calling it gent imperatives, renders the official responsible for it li-
the result of "repeated efforts by a combination of lawyers able to the charge of irresponsible conduct" (12).32 Spe-
who desire to have all the processes of government con- cialists with a passion for impartiality and objectivity, he
ducted through lawsuits and of interests which desire to argued, will know when to shrink from arbitrary and rash
escape regulation" (Breyer, Stewart, Sunstein, and Spitzer decisions and when to await the expression of the "will of
1998, 22). He acknowledged the legitimacy of the issue the people" (1946, 413).
by appointing the Attorney General's Committee on Ad- These controversies suggest that public administration
ministrative Procedure to study procedural reform of ad- was passionately engaged with the problems and dilem-
ministrative law. The governor of New York appointed mas of balancing capacity and control.
Robert Benjamin to do the same thing. The resulting re-
ports "agreed that the courts could not do the job the ad- Death in the Afternoon
ministrative agencies were doing, and that the administra- What happened in the immediate postwar world is surely
tive agencies themselves could not do it if anyone made the most puzzling development in the intellectual history
them imitate the court" (Price 1959, 485). The Adminis- of public administration, at least to an outsider. At a time
trative Procedure Act of 1946 was a compromise between of seemingly robust heterodoxy, when traditional thought
New Dealers, who had engineered the veto of the Walter- had identified but had hardly resolved fundamental issues
Logan Bill in 1940, and the Attorney General's commis- of democratic governance, Herbert Simon and Robert A.
sion, which had made its report in 1941.31 Dahl brought an influential profession to its knees by at-
tacking the seemingly innocuous tendency of Gulick and
Friedrich, Finer, and Administrative others to assert scientific principles of administration. Such
Responsibility principles are unscientific and inconsistent, they argued,
Within political science, Carl J. Friedrich and Herman and a public administration based on them scarcely de-
Finer were debating the nature of administrative respon- serves respect.
sibility. Finer (1940) doubted that a sense of duty, the Both Sayre and Waldo, who were thoroughly familiar
conscience of the official, "is sufficient to keep a civil with the pre-war literature, urged the intellectual redirec-
service wholesome and zealous" Thus political responsi- tion of the field, celebrating not so much the
bility must be introduced as the adamant monitor of the behavioralism of Simon as what they saw as an emergent
public service. "[T]he first commandment," he argued, heterodoxy of public administration literature following
"is Subservience" (335). Finer cited Rousseau: The people World War II. Said Sayre, "Our values ... have moved
can be unwise, but they cannot be wrong. He acknowl- from a stress upon the managerial techniques of organi-
edged the many drawbacksl] of political control" but zation and management to an emphasis upon the broad
said they could be remedied, and their consequences were sweep of public policy-its formulation, its evolution,
less ominous than those of granting administrators addi- its execution, all either within or intimately related to the
tional discretion. "[T]he result to be feared is the enhance-
frame of administration" (1958, 4).
ment of official conceit" (340). He goes on: "Moral re- Thus tradition was dead, stuffed, and mounted on the
sponsibility is likely to operate in direct proportion to the wall. Or was it? Did the contributions of the postwar lit-
strictness and efficiency of political responsibility, and erature constitute a sharp departure from traditional think-
to fall away into all sorts of perversions when the latter is ing, as Sayre and Waldo claimed?
weakly enforced" (350).

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Voices from the Grave of subordinate echelon of government subject in our
scheme of things to the supervision of legislature,
Surely an era of heterodoxy had ensued, although it is
chief executive, and judiciary.... The administrator
beyond the scope of this article to assay it. But the voice of
in the public service is concerned with all three, and
traditional public administration continued to be heard.33
ignores any one branch only at his peril. So it seems
Paul Appleby, Charles Hyneman, John Gaus, John Millett, to me that the politics of public administration is
Arthur Macmahon, Herbert Kaufman, Fritz Morstein Marx, concerned with how administrative agencies in our
Frederick Mosher, and Emmette Redford, among others, government are kept subject to popular direction and
continued to influence the profession's agenda in ways that restraint in the interests of a free society, through
were entirely consonant with the traditional theme of demo- the operation of three coordinate branches. (vii-viii)
cratically responsible public management, though with
In a discussion of public management that rebuked con-
perhaps less emphasis on administrative capacity.
temporary critics, Millett said that "[t]he challenge to any
Lauded by Sayre as a postorthodox thinker, Paul
administrator is to overcome obstacles, to understand and
Appleby (1949) argued the pre-war theme that "adequate
master problems, to use imagination and insight in devis-
centralization of responsibility for performance of the func-
ing new goals of public service. No able administrator can
tion agreed upon at the level agreed upon is essential to
be content to be simply a good caretaker. He seeks rather
popular control" (162). Why? "Public administration is
to review the ends of organized effort and to advance the
policy-making. But it is not autonomous, exclusive or iso-
goals of administrative endeavor toward better public ser-
lated policy-making. It is policy-making on a field where
vice" (401). But, Millett went on, "[I]n a democratic soci-
mighty forces contend, forces engendered in and by the
ety this questing is not guided solely by the administrator's
society. It is policy-making subject to still other and vari-
own personal sense of desirable social ends.... Manage-
ous policy-makers. Public administration is one of a num-
ment guided by [the value of responsible performance]
ber of basic political processes by which this people
abhors the idea of arbitrary authority present in its own
achieves and controls governance" (170).
wisdom and recognizes the reality of external direction and
In an incisively argued book, Charles Hyneman, con-
constraint" (401, 403).
cerned that bureaucracy might otherwise act in a manner
In Arthur Macmahon's view, "Our main problem lies
inimical to the public interest, argued that elected officials
where the law imposes a special purpose while it leaves
must be our primary reliance for direction and control
some leeway for judgment. What is the bearing of the
(1950, 6). There must, he said, be "a structure of govern-
public interest in such a situation?" (1955, 38). His an-
ment which enables the elected officials really to run the
swer was that "[t]he essence of rational structure for any
government" (15).34 Conceding "that the administrative
purpose frequently lies in recognizing how far adminis-
official cannot obtain from the political branches of the
tration is an argumentative as well as a deliberative pro-
government all of the guidance he needs" (52), Hyneman
cess that goes on within the frame of legislation" (40).
nonetheless argued that other methods for obtaining guid-
The safeguards against misuse of discretion or poor judg-
ance must supplement, not replace or supplant, political
ment concerning legislative intent "lie in attitudes that
direction. "The American people have authorized nobody
should be diffused throughout administration" or a "per-
except their elected officials to speak for them" (52).
spective of public interest" (50).
According to Gaus (1950), "The fact is that administra-
In reviewing the values governing administration and
tion is an aspect, a process, of every phase of government,
their interrelationships, Kaufman (1956) noted that "the
from the first diagnosis of an emerging problem by a chem-
quest for neutral competence has normally been made not
ist in a health department to the final enforcement in detail
as an alternative to representativeness, but as a fulfillment
of a resulting statute and regulation" (165). Thus, we must
of it" (1060), valued at least as much by the public as by
"steer between the extremes of a vague, general, ambigu-
civil servants themselves. But representativeness and neu-
ous comprehensiveness without savor or focus, and a re-
tral competence tended to produce fragmentation. The an-
finement and specialization that detaches us from the tang
swer was to build up the power of the chief executive to
and urgency of human action" (166). He famously con-
ensure executive leadership as the counterforce. Kaufman
cluded: "A theory of public administration means in our
stressed, however, that neutral competence and its succes-
time a theory of politics also" (168).
sor, executive leadership, nonetheless acknowledged rep-
Like Gaus, John Millett (1954) had much to say about resentativeness as their governing value.
politics and administration: In his book on the administrative state, Morstein Marx
Are administrative agencies ... to be regarded as a (1957) listed four essentials of administration: "(1) the es-
'fourth branch' of government? I believe that they sential of rationality, (2) the essential of responsibility, (3)
have no such exalted status. Rather, they are a kind the essential of competence, and (4) the essential of conti-

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nuity" (34). Rationality had numerous aspects or mean- budgeting, and planning, was purely instrumental to a more
ings: the pursuit of purpose (administration as a means to humane and just society" (1992, 200-1). In a similar vein,
an end); a source of cohesion (as opposed to "countless Gary Wamsley and James Wolf (1996) argue that tradi-
clusters of personal influence" [36]); application of knowl- tional public administration incorporated such ideas as
edge; application of reason; a gatherer of intelligence. collaboration, a moral perspective on the public interest, a
Concerning responsibility, he argued that "[i]n structures concern for democratic administration, and pragmatism.35
as elaborate and hence as rich in opportunities for obstruc- My own reading of traditional literature has led me to dis-
tion as is large scale organization, control could not ac- cern, beginning with Wilson, a professional reasoning pro-
complish coordination in the interplay of human wills. cess that took for granted (and thus did not always expli-
Control requires as well "well-formed habits of deference cate) the interrelationships among the values of democracy,
sustained by reason" (43). the dangers of an uncontrolled, politically corrupted, or
The logic of administrative responsibility was summa- irresponsible bureaucracy, the instruments of popular con-
rized by Emmette Redford in his 1958 book, Ideal and trol of administration, and judicial and executive institu-
Practice in Public Administration. He argued that thoughuh
tions that can balance capacity with control in a constitu-
administration is permeated and circumscribed by law, dis-
tionally appropriate manner.
cretion is vital to its performance.... Discretion is neces- As paradigmatic thinking should, traditional perspec-
sary in administration [because] law is rigid, and policy tives raise fundamental questions: To what extent should
must be made pragmatically" (43). Integrated and hierar- powers be separated? In the exercise of administrative dis-
chical structures, he argued, are essential to ensuring that cretion, what values should guide administrative behav-
bureaucracy is subject to control from outside. In other ior? How might the public interest be identified? What are
words, exercising authority over subordinates is not anti- the sources of legitimacy for administrative action? As we
democratic, but the opposite; capacity and control are two have seen, there was hardly unanimity on the answers:
sides of the same coin. Electorally supervised hierarchy, or expertise and an "in-
"Responsibility," Mosher argued, "may well be the most ner check" on the discretionary behavior of officials? Stat-
important word in all the vocabulary of administration, utes and judicial rulings, or public opinion and group pres-
public and private" (1968, 7). The threats to objective re- sures as the expression of the public will? Technical
sponsibility are not, he said, in politics but, echoing Her- solutions or human judgment as a basis for operational
ring, in "both professionalization and unionization with decisions? Management or organization as the source of
their narrower objectives and their foci upon the welfare "good government"? "Public will" or "public interest" as
and advancement of their members" (209). As for repre- the basis of legitimacy?
sentativeness, "who represents that majority of citizens who If there are assumptions that are taken for granted, or a
are not in any [represented group or interest]?" (209). In paradigm, in traditional thought, it is that the structures
general, "The harder and infinitely more important issue and processes of the administrative state constitute an ap-
of administrative morality today attends the reaching of propriate framework for achieving balance between ad-
decisions on questions of public policy which involve com- ministrative capacity and popular control on behalf of pub-
petitions in loyalty and perspective between broad goals lic purposes defined by electoral and judicial institutions,
of the polity ... and the narrower goals of a group, bureau, which are constitutionally authorized means for the ex-
clientele, or union" (210). pression of the public will. In other words, preserving bal-
These postwar traditionalists were perhaps more sensi- ance between the capacity to effect the public interest and
tive to the nuances of policy making and the dangers of the democratic accountability of governance was, and ar-
unaccountable power than their predecessors, for whom guably still is, the task of our democracy.
the organization and management of the fledgling admin-
istrative state were pressing issues. But the argument that
the postwar period marked a sharp break from a pre-warConclusion
orthodoxy is clearly unsustainable. A reconsideration of traditional literature leads to the
ironic insight that contemporary critics of traditional
Was There a Traditional Paradigm? thought pose a greater threat to democratic values than the
In a letter to George Frederickson regarding the authors of the so-called "bureaucratic paradigm." Tradi-
recipient's ideas on a "new public administration," tional habits of thought exhibited far more respect for law,
Frederick Mosher protested that "[a]lmost all of the early politics, citizens, and values than customer-oriented
leaders-until about 1950were devoted to government managerialism or civic philosophies that, in promoting
that is representative, responsive, compassionate, con- community and citizen empowerment, barely acknowledge
cerned with equal opportunity. Structure, like personnel, the constitutional role of legislatures, courts, and execu-

202.43.93.30 on Wed, 09 Aug 2023 08:25:32 +00:00
tive departments. The idea of separating administration March, Terry Moe, and Oliver Williamson, and for dis-
from politics is more clearly expressed in Reinventing course concerning public-administration theory and nor-
Government (is not steering versus rowing a dichotomy?) mative perspectives on governance.
and in contemporary attacks on "top-down" democracy These important fruits of heterodoxy notwithstanding,
than it is in Wilson or Goodnow, White or Herring, Merriam public administration as a profession seems to have let lapse
or Dimock.36 In the guise of "performance," efficiency as the moral and intellectual authority conferred by its own
the ultimate value permeates the New Public Management recognition that enacting democracy in our constitutional
more than it did the old public administration. There are order requires us to confront the dilemmas of reconciling
far more principles in the reinvention literature-lists and capacity with control and that legislatures, courts, and pub-
lists of them-than there ever were in Willoughby or lic officials with discretion are inevitable components of
Gulick. our constitutional scheme.37 As a result, the profession
Managerialism, marketization, and reinvention are far mounts an unduly weak challenge to various revisionists
from the whole story of public administration discourse, and to the superficial thinking and easy answers of the
of course. Post-traditional intellectual developments in policy schools and the ubiquitous management consult-
public administration have been diverse and significant. ants.38 New paradigms of dubious constitutional merit and
The rigorous interdisciplinary study of governance, bureau- prominent personalities and ideas that appeal to elected
cracy, and public management is flourishing (Heinrich and executives and consultants are too readily embraced in
Lynn 2000; Rainey and Steinbauer 1999), easily overshad- order to appropriate their popularity (see the National Acad-
owing contributions to public-management scholarship of emy of Public Administration's uncritical endorsement of
the policy schools. Debate over alternatives to traditional the analysis and prescriptions of Osborne and Gaebler).
republican concepts of democracy, initiated by Waldo, Often missing in literature and discourse is recognition that
Sayre, Norton Long, and others, has been ongoing and reformers of institutions and civic philosophies must show
lively, if not always precise concerning those traditional how the capacity to effect public purposes and account-
concepts (Frederickson 1982, 1997; Marini 1971; Wamsley ability to the polity will be enhanced in a manner that com-
et al. 1990; Wamsley and Wolf 1996). The heterodoxy ports with our Constitution and our republican institutions.39
hailed by Sayre has produced valuable intellectual divi- Basic political and legal issues of responsible management
dends and has moved the profession forward on many in- in a postmodern era are inadequately defined and addressed.
tellectual fronts. The profession now provides numerous Such a result ill becomes a profession that once owned
forums for integrating social scientific contributions as impressively deep insight into public administration in a
apparently diverse as those of James Q. Wilson, James representative democracy.
Notes
1. White (1926, 463). thinking, valuing, and doing associated with a particular
2. H. George Frederickson, Laurence J. O'Toole Jr., David vision of reality. A dominant paradigm is seldom if ever
Rosenbloom, and Gary Wamsley provided valuable com- stated explicitly; it exists as unquestioned, tacit understand-
ments and criticisms on an earlier draft of this paper. ing that is transmitted through culture and in succeeding
generations through direct experience rather than being
3. Howard Margolis (1993) says of paradigmatic thinking,
taught" (Barzelay 1992, 178).
"[S]hared habits of mind are the only essential constituents
tying together a community in the way that makes talk of4. James D. Carroll (1998) characterizes New Public Manage-
sharing a paradigm fruitful.... [T]he essential component ment in paradigmatic terms: "reducing and deregulating bu-
of a Kuhnian paradigm is an intrinsically invisible (though reaucracy, using market mechanisms and simulated mar-
not undetectable) component, habits of mind.... A paradigm kets to conduct government action, devolving responsibility
shift ... is a special sort of change in habits of mind" (23). downward and outward in organizations, increasing produc-
Margolis distinguishes between "points of view," which an tivity, energizing agencies, and empowering employees to
individual is conscious of, and "habits of mind," which the pursue results, improve quality, and satisfy customers" (402).
individual is unconscious of. He says we cannot identify 5. Morstein Marx (1957) attributes the first coinage of the term
complete paradigms and we don't need to; we need only "bureaucracy" (bureaucratic) to Vincent de Gournay, "an
identify "those habits of mind that are critical for distin- eighteenth-century French minister of commerce. In all prob-
guishing the community from outsiders or rivals" (26). ability he intended to express the critical point of view of
Barzelay's definition of paradigm is drawn from Harmon private enterprise ... the new word gained a footing because
(1970) and Barker (1985): "[T]he basic way of perceiving, of its nice argumentative edge" (17-18).

202.43.93.30 on Wed, 09 Aug 2023 08:25:32 +00:00
6. Sayre (1951), "at the risk of oversimplification," equates ment, and possibly of other management zones" (203-4).
"the dominant administrative values" as of 1940 with Gulick 13. Van Riper (1983) argues that "any connection between the
and Urwick's Papers on the Science of Administration and [Wilson] essay and the later development of the literature is
the Brownlow Report. Though he makes passing reference pure fantasy!" (9).
to traditional sources, Barzelay has no attributions or cita- 14. Charles Merriam (1926) noted "the almost unqualified ad-
tions to support his assertion that he has identified "habits herence to the practice of popular election of a very large
of thought." Moore cites Woodrow Wilson's 1887 article number of officials, most with administrative duties" (7).
and excerpts from Goodnow's Politics and Administration,
15. With respect to the capacity and control of the pre-bureau-
White's 1926 edition of Introduction to the Study of Public
cratic state, Leonard White said, "So long as American ad-
Administration, and Gulick's "Notes on the Theory of Or-
ministrative systems remained decentralized, disintegrated,
ganization," all of which were quoted from material reprinted
and self-governmental and discharged only a minimum of
in Shafritz and Hyde (1987). Ostrom (1973, 1989) cites the
responsibilities, the necessity of highly developed machin-
high point of the pre-Simon era as the publication of Gulick
ery for its control was unknown. Administration was weak
and Urwick's Papers and the Brownlow Report ("The Pa-
and threatened no civil liberties; it was unorganized and
pers stated the theoretical foundations for the science of ad-
possessed no power of resistance; it was elective and quickly
ministration. The Report proposed a bold new reorganiza-
responsive to the color and tone of local feeling" (1935,
tion plan based on that science of administration ..." [5]);
418).
Fesler and Kettl (1991) cite a single historical source,
16. Criteria for executive appointments prior to the Jacksonian
Wilson's 1887 essay; and Gabrielian and Fischer (1996) at-
era were fitness of character, political loyalty, and, after
tribute "The American Model of Public Administration" to
Jefferson, representativeness, to ensure that a unitary politi-
the work of Wilson (1887 essay), Taylor, and Weber.
cal philosophy did not dominate administration (White
7. Scholars such as O'Toole (1984) and Wamsley and Wolf
1965). After Jackson, ordinary citizens were considered
(1996) reject such "wisdom," but the evidence from
qualified for public office in accordance with their political
boilerplate characterizations of traditional scholarship in
loyalties (White 1954).
both published and submitted manuscripts strongly attests
to its wide acceptance. 17. White (1933) quoted Tocqueville: "[T]here is no point
which serves as a center to the radii of the administra-
8. According to O'Toole (1982), Waldo demonstratede] con-
tion." As a result, said White, "responsibility, both of a
clusively that 'orthodox' American public administrative
civil and public order, was ... determined and enforced by
thought was itself a political theory [with] possible incon-
the courts, not by order of a chief executive."
sistencies between it and democratic government ... Waldo
18. With respect to judicial review of administrative decisions,
assisted in the destruction of the oversimplified doctrines
that earlier had united administrative reformers" (119). Skowronek argues that although "[m]odern American state
building shattered an outmoded judicial discipline [,...] it
9. Sayre makes this argument "at the risk of oversimplifica-
failed to reconstruct a vital role for the judiciary in regulat-
tion" (1951, 1). He points out that there was not unanimity,
ing the new political economy" (1982, 286).
citing a number of authors, for example, John Gaus and
19. According to Wilson, "There is no danger in power, if only
Pendleton Herring, as examples of how "the values of pub-
it be not irresponsible" (1941, 481). Charles Merriam at-
lic administration were not yet settled and finite" (2).
tributed to Wilson the view that powerwr and strict accoun
10. The chief virtue of Osborne and Gaebler's argument is its
ability for its use are the essential constituents of a good
recognition that the form of the administrative state is en-
government.... The chief significance of his method lay in
dogenous to the prevailing political, economic, and social
the importance attached to the study of politics as made up
context; to them, the traditional paradigm is a political, not
of living facts and forces, institutional as well as constitu-
an intellectual, construct. However, they failed to justify the
tional, organic rather than mechanic" (1926, 381-2).
view that governmental accountability and reliability are
no longer political priorities. 20. To Charles Beard (1935), Goodnow was the first scholar to
recognize the importance of administration in modern soci-
11. See Frederickson (1982, 20).
ety and to sketch the outlines of the field.
12. Peering into the future, White (1942) argued that "[s]cience,
21. This distinction is implied by the Constitution's "faithful
the professions, technology, and management press steadily
execution of the laws" clause. Deliberations that gave rise
toward the technical improvement of public administration;
to this clause contemplated the idea of specific legislative
localism, humanitarianism, and 'politics' tend to delay the
delegations of authority to carry the will of the legislature
emergence of forms of organization which seem technically
into effect (Newland 1997).
superior but which run counter to deep-seated American
22. Thus Goodnow might be considered a founder of the New
preferences" (200). Further, he said, "[n]t seems probable
that a slow and gradual differentiation of function in the Public Management.
public service may develop, leading to a clearer recogni- 23. As we shall see, a distinction between so-called technical
tion of the special tasks of higher administration, of busi- and quasi-judicial activities and activities infused with policy
ness management, of the professions, of middle manage- significance is crucial to understanding how public admin-

202.43.93.30 on Wed, 09 Aug 2023 08:25:32 +00:00
istration and administrative law are conjoined (Bertelli and 32. The idea of customer orientation can be attributed to
Lynn 2000). Friedrich: "There is a laudable tendency ... to adopt the
24. In a 1919 essay, W. F. Willoughby provides the earliest at- department store slogan: 'The customer is always right"'
tribution that I have found to Goodnow initiating the idea (1940, 19).
of a dichotomy between politics and administration. John 33. Wamsley and Wolf (1996), O'Toole (1984), and others see
Rohr, who sees a very sharp distinction in Goodnow, notes significant continuity between traditional and subsequent
that commentators differ on this point. Appleby also noted public administration thought. I emphasize in this section
that "Gulick as far back as 1933 positively denied their sepa- authors who seem to be in a direct line of succession with
ration" (1949, 16). pre-war authors.
25. The courts had become a hindrance, in White's view, par- 34. Hyneman (1950) enumerates the harms that a bureaucracy
ticularly with respect to "new aspects of social policy, the can do: (1) administrative officials and employees may in-
conditions and effects of which are in the process of discov- terfere with or prejudice elections; (2) they may misinform
ery and exploration" (White 1935, 456). the people about the issues that confront the public about
26. White noted the persistence of the spoils system in the larger how these issues may be dealt with, and about what is being
cities and "the almost unqualified adherence to the practice done to meet them; (3) they may inaugurate and pursue poli-
of popular election of a very large number of officials, most cies of government that are positively contrary to the public
with administrative duties" (1933, 7). will; (4) they may fail to take the initiative and supply the
leadership that is required of them in view of their relation
27. For Herring, citizen participation occurred through the pres-
to particular sectors of public affairs; and (5) they may, by
sure of public opinion and through association with pres-
sheer inefficiency in their operations, destroy popular faith
sure groups that combined interest with expertise.
in democratic government" (26).
28. Merriam himself had said, "It cannot escape observation ...
35. O'Toole (1984) likewise characterizes traditional thought
that the ends or purposes of policy are very general in na-
as featuring "a continual, tension-filled struggle on the part
ture and must be so, and that the practical application of the
of those who are deeply committed to some vision of de-
end is often as important or more important than the origi-
mocracy but who see the seeming inevitability of large-scale
nal end itself. This application is often in the hands of ad-
governmental bureaucracy" (149).
ministrative officials, however, and therefore the nature and
forms of their activities are often as significant as the ends 36. James Q. Wilson observed that "[t]he near absence of any
themselves" (1940, 299). reference to democratic accountability is perhaps the most
striking feature of the Gore report" (Wilson 1994). Indeed,
29. Said Merriam (1940): "The pathology of administration for
in downgrading citizenship in favor of customership, the
a long time was marked by the presence of corruption, ig-
Gore report is actively hostile to republican principles of
norance, indolence, incompetence, favoritism, oppression."
accountability.
But there are new difficulties: "arrogance and indifference
to the public, lack of sympathy approaching harshness and 37. A conspicuous exception is Rosenbloom (personal commu-
cruelty, devotion to inflexibility and routine, grumbling at nication; see also 2000), who argues that "there is a distinc-
theory and change, procrastination, quibbling and delay; or tive, coherent 'legislative-centered' approach to adminis-
the opposite of too much great and rash speed without ad- tration that treats agencies as extensions of Congress for
equate preparation of the public for change" (305-6). legislative functions, forces democratic-Constitutional val-
ues into administrative practice, fully rejects the traditional
30. I am indebted to David H. Rosenbloom for his insights on
politics-administration dichotomy, and considers Congres-
the Walter-Logan Bill.
sional intercession in federal administration on behalf of
31. In reviewing the Walter-Logan episode, Don K. Price had
constituent and district interests to be fully legitimate."
the significant insight that the debate was on "the margins
38. "[B]y moving away from the path of the Traditionalists, the
of the problem [of administration]" (1959, 483). That is,
field of public administration became dislocated from its
the debate focused on agencies that issue rules and adjudi-
place in the governance process" (G.S. Marshall, quotes in
cate private rights through formal administrative procedure,
Wamsley and Wolf 1996, 19).
whereas the role of government was becoming "more dy-
namic and more diversified," requiring "dispatch and flex- 39. The perverse identification of Wilson and Weber as public-
ibility" in administration. For regulatory agencies, the propo- administration progenitors and the publication of the
sition that behavior is safeguarded by their imitating the Brownlow Report as a watershed may well reflect these ten-
courts was at least arguable. For the New Deal agencies, dencies.
Price insisted, administrative behavior is better safeguarded

by the authority of the legislature to punish departures from
legislative intent than by enforced conformity to judicial
procedure.

202.43.93.30 on Wed, 09 Aug 2023 08:25:32 +00:00
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The Myth of the Bureaucratic Paradigm: What

144 Public Administration Review * March/April 2001, Vol. 61, No. 2

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The Myth of the Bureaucratic Paradigm 145

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tralization" (126-7). paradigm is surprisingly shaky. Wilson's 1887 article

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ernment" (1940,234). Gaus and Wolcott (1940) asked: "At

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Price insisted, administrative behavior is better safeguarded

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