Huntingdon College | Political Science | Courses | SPS | What's New?
PSC 306: Public Organizations

• 1: Wilson, "Study of Administration."  NEW 2007
• 1: Stillman, "Study of Administration in US."  NEW 2007
• 2: Max Weber "Bureaucracy"
• 3: Stillman's introduction: Environment, Ecology of Public Admin. NEW 2007
• 3: John M. Gaus, "The Ecology of Public Administration" NEW 2007
• 4: Norton E. Long, "Power And Administration"
• 5: Lawrence O"Toole, "American Intergovernmental Relations: An Overview."
• 6: Elton Mayo, "Hawthorne and the Western Electric Company"
• 7: Stillman, "Inside Public Administration: The Concept of Competing Bureaucratic Subsystems"
• 8: Lindblom, "Science of Muddling Through." [SPS notes]
• 9: James Garnett "Administrative Communication: It's Centrality"
• 10:  Stillman's introduction | Hal Rainey & Paula Steibauer, "Galloping Elephants: Developing Elements of a Theory of Effective Government Organizations."NEW 2007
• 11: Lois Recascino Wise, "The Public Service Culture" [Wise's page at IU] [Wise's note]
• 12: Irene Rubin, "Politics of Public Budgets"
• 13: Matland, "Ambiguity-Conflict Model: Synthesizing the Implementation Literature." | Matland Model NEW 2007
• 14: Hugh Heclo, "Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment"
• 15: James Q. Wilson, "Bureaucracy and the Public Interest." NEW 2007
• 16: Waldo, Public Admin. and Ethics." NEW 2007

Woodrow Wilson, The Study of Administration
The big question for Wilson was how Americans could incorporate Public Administration into the Constitution which did not mention it. Also in developing Public Administration, Wilson’s basic difficulty was how to reconcile the differences in notions of democracy (popular rule) and the systematic rules. To do this he says there are two spheres: “Politics” and “Administration” Politics = choices of government are made by the elected and Administration = carries out the choices by the (popular consent) free of political meddling> “politics-administration dichotomy”

Before entering into the science of administration Wilson felt it was needed that first there should be some account of the history of what others have done in the field, secondly there should be an ascertainment of its subject-matter, and thirdly the it should be determined the best methods to develop it and the most clarifying political conceptions to carry into it. Without knowing these first, he feels that there should be no compass or chart to go by.

The question was always: Who shall make the law, and what shall the law be? The other question, how law should be administered with enlightenment, with equity, with speed, and without friction, was put aside as practical detail to be determined by clerks after the “doctors” determined the detail.

The reason administration has come into context only now is because now there appears to be trouble in it, the big constitutional questions on the right of government have been answered for now.
The Science of Public Administration= seeking to straighten the pathos of government to make its business less un-business like; to strengthen and purify its organization, and to crown its duties with dutifulness—all in order to all the government to see more clearly how it ought to do the things it sees it should do.

This science originated overseas in foreign lands such as France and Germany but from it must be adapted to not a simple and compact state but a complex and multiform state to fit highly decentralized forms of government, it must of course learn to be “Americanized”

England and America has been making government just and moderate rather than well-ordered and effective. We need to be free in spirit and proficient in practice according to Wilson.

Organizing rule is difficult for popular sovereignty unlike the ease of a monarch who could declare with one mind/opinion a simple plan.

It takes years and scarcely 3 generations to get public opinion to curve

Though Wilson says that Administration is for the most part separate from Politics, he also says the administrator to the politician relationship is not exactly a Will to Deed relationship because the administrator has a will of his own—how he will accomplish his work. The administrator is not a mere passive instrument.

Administrative study is based constitutionally in one respect, according to Wilson, concerning the distribution of powers. If administrative study can determine which powers should go to which administrators without hampering the authority (splitting it into shares), the responsibility, and also not obscuring the power (who gets praise or blame for actions) then the study of administration has done an invaluable service.

Public opinion should play the part of and authoritative critic in the conduct of administration

Self-government does not need a hand in everything like a cook does not cook entirely with her hands, but with stoves, pots, utensils. We should not raise everything up to a vote, but rather give large discretions to public officials, according to Wilson. It must at all points sensitive to public opinion however.

The duty of administrative study should teach the people what sort of administration to desire and demand, how to get it and it should also drill candidates for the public service.

In conclusion Wilson states that our governmental study should be comparative, we can borrow a murderers idea to sharpen his knife without his motive to kill.

“Statism” – doctrines and ideas that advocate strengthening the role and sovereignty of the state institutions in society
“Antistatism” – ideas and doctrines expressly hostile to these central governing institutions in society, which argue for reducing, limiting, even elimination their roles and activities.

The Constitution was created with a “night watchman” style government—provided for the people courts, defense, foreign affairs, trade relations, money—and little else.

America at the time of the Constitution had a belief in Antistatism due to many of them having come from oppressive regimes

Paraphrased, America in the early stages was not so much a country with a post office but a post office with a country. 85% of the growth of the government was within this department until the Civil War.

This antistatism led to a late development of public administration study within the United States, why did we need it without administration? Training and research did not truly gain significance until the 30s and 40s. The development of civil services (professional), military and diplomatic corps became our needed administrative enterprise due to migrations, technology, clashes between labor and management, economic rises/falls, drive for international markets, etc.

The intense antistatism caused the American process to occur in reverse—the Constitution, next the state, then the study.

American PA bubbled up through grassroots reforms quietly—by adding a civil service system, executive budget, etc here and there.

The 20th Century saw progression away from machine politics, to social services and the like extending the fingers of government

The four eras of public administration: 1926-46, 47-67, 68-88, 89-present.
POSDCORB Orthodoxy, 1926-46:

First American textbook appeared in 26—the year for the intellectual birth of PA in America
Leonard White’s Introduction to the Study of Public Administration—earliest volume to label the subject PA (In America)
 Succeeded in pulling together different aspects of administrative innovations
 POSDCORB—acronym for logical sequence of steps for practicing “good” administration, in the order they should be accomplished—planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordination, reporting, and budgeting. –allowed the field to grow and flourish with some national prominence. The POSDCORB was full of contradictions, unscientific, value-laden, time-bound, and rigid—but yet it had good points that were needed during the Great Depression and WWII that helped with organization.

 The Cold War had profound influence on American society and Administration
 Massive military buildup, the space program, educational assistance, scientific research and the National Defense Highway Act all became part of our PA (just to beat the Russians)
 POSDCORB seemed inadequate to fulfill the problems that now faced the nation
Robert Dahl challenged normal assumptions on the dichotomy between PA and politics also to expand conception of human behavior to understand how the man really acts within organizations and to embrace broader historical, economic, and social conditions—it stressed therefore: realism, behavioralism, and scientific rigor
 All in all during this time American PA became more respectable, broader, and more theoretical with new ideas and data/facts. Realism, science, and behavioralism became important in the study of PA.

 During this time America saw its harshest and greatest outcry against statism. It was considered by Herbert Kaufman a “fear of bureaucracy”
Minnowbrook and Ostrom best symbolized the temper of the times, seven distinct marks are left by literature of the time:
• Clashing moral absolutes
• new values were important—ethics, law, and economics compared prior economy, efficiency, and effectiveness
• A cry for relevancy—old texts seemed outdated
• Fragmentation/decline of generalist PA—more specialization of study came about
• The proliferation of subfields and techniques—new fields emerged
• Field in Intellectual Crisis—what defined PA became more problematic as it grew, just what defined it?
• Widening gap between theory and practice

The study still has many unanswered questions but there are seven identifiable clusters of thought with shared perspectives:
• The Reinventors: (Osborne and Gaebler) more of advisors which focus on pragmatic administrative reforms to enhance “efficient entrepreneurial” government operations for “customers”
• The communitarians: wrestle with rebuilding citizenship and community
• VPI refounders: Virginia Polytechnic Institution—senior scholars that seek a fundamental philosophical, institutional, and theoretical refounding of the entire field.
• The Interpretivists: oriented toward phenomenology or “subjective-intersubjective relations”, they explore values, assumptions, and ideas that concern the very nature of being
• The Tool-makers—offer new ways of analyzing PA
• New bureaucratic analysts—influence the field in the broadest and most profound political issues of the field—ethics and how good policy made
• From management to governance—emphasizes the importance of managerial effectiveness for delivering “public goods” – based upon extensive empirical evidence, diverse contemporary literature and date, and with far less rigid models compared to those such as POSDCORB

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Characteristics of Bureaucracy

         I. Activities required within structure are distributed as official duties

         II.                Authority and delegation power is given to officials to properly complete
               duties

         III.             Provisions are in place to have continuous fulfillment of duties and persons in
               charge of duties are qualified

               a.       In public, these 3 characteristics make up the “bureaucratic authority”

               b.      In private, bureaucratic “management”

               c.       Bureaucracy can only be developed in modern states or most advanced
                  institutions of capitalism.

         IV.             In bureaucracy, there is a system of hierarchy where authority is distributed
               in a manner which the lower offices are supervised by higher offices.

               a.       In full development, hierarchy is monocratically organized

               b.      Once established an office tends to continue even after fulfilling task and
                  be held by another incumbent

         V.                The management of the modern office is based upon written documents,
               which are preserved in their original form.

               a.       Bureaucracy separates public and private life, business from home, in
                  all aspects.

         VI.             Most specialized office management has expert training before employment

         VII.          Bureaucratic offices when fully developed are a full time job

         VIII.       Authority within modern public administration gives the power to regulate
               not for each case of a matter, but to regulate that matter abstractly

The Position of the Official

   I.                   Office holding is a vocation which requires training, an ability to work for long
         periods of time, and requires examination before employment

         a.       Entrance into an office, including one in the private economy, is considered an
            acceptance of a specific obligation of faithful management in return for a secure
            existence.

         b.      A political official isn’t the personal servant of a ruler.

   II.                Public or private, officials strive to obtain distinct social esteem as compared to
         those governed

         a.       Educational certificates are linked to not only qualification for office, but serve
            to enhance the “status element” in the social position of the official.

         b.      The pure type of bureaucratic official is appointed by a superior
            authority.

         c.       The official who is not elected but appointed by a chief normally functions more
            exactly, from a technical point of view, because, all other circumstances being
            equal, it is more likely that purely functional points of consideration and qualities
            will determine his selection and career.

         i.      Judges appointed in US as opposed to quality of elected

                     1.      Appointed are generally more qualified

                     2.      The monocratic rule within bureaucracy contradicts the formally
                        “democratic” principle of a universally elected officialdom.

        d.      As a factual rule, tenure for life is presupposed, even where the giving of notice
            or periodic reappointment occurs

           i.      Where legal guarantees against arbitrary dismissal or transfer are
                  developed, they merely serve to guarantee a strictly objective discharge
                  of specific office duties free from all personal considerations.

          ii.      Those officials with more dependence on the master are more likely to
                  conform with status conventions

        e.       Officials usually receive a fixed salary with old age security provided by pension

               i.      This security of income and rewards of social esteem make the office a
                  sought after position

         f.       Officials become involved in their office as a career within the hierarchal order
            of public service.

               i.      General personal and intellectual qualifications are taken into
                  consideration over education with regards to the highest political offices.

 Technical Advantages of Bureaucratic Organization
   I.                   Precision, speed, unambiguity, knowledge of the files, continuity, discretion, unity,
         strict subordination, reduction of friction and of material and personal costs----these
         are raised to the optimum point in the strictly bureaucratic administration, and
         especially in its monocratic form.

               a.       Bureaucratic work is more precise and cheaper than honorific service
                  on complicated tasks

               b.      Work organized by collegiate bodies is inefficient because of delays and
                  compromises which lead to less precise, more independent, slower
                  work

               c.       Very large, modern capitalist businesses are unequalled models of strict
                  bureaucratic structures.

               d.      Individual performances are allocated to specialists who have specific
                  training and constant practice

               e.       Bureaucracy produces calculable results which are needed by modern
                  culture

               f.       Bureaucracy is dehumanized, eliminating personal feelings, the special
                  nature of the organizational theory

                i.      It demands the personally detached and strictly “objective”
                        expert

The Permanent Character of the Bureaucratic Machine
   I.                   Bureaucracy has been and is a power instrument of the first order for the one who
         controls the bureaucratic apparatus.

         a.       Officials are entrusted with specialized tasks, so the general mechanism cannot
            be disrupted except by the very top of the hierarchy

         b.      Bureaucracy rests upon expert training, a functional specialization of work, and
            an attitude set for habitual and virtuoso-like mastery of single yet methodically
            integrated functions.

         c.       The fact that the bureaucratic structure is impersonal allows for anyone who
            knows how to gain control over it to use it by simply replacing a few top
            officials.

Economic and Social Consequences of Bureaucracy
   I.                   The legal leveling and destruction of firmly established local structures ruled by
         notables which takes place with bureaucratization has usually made for a wider
         range of capitalist activity.

   II.                The mere fact of bureaucratic organization does not unambiguously tell us about the
         concrete direction of it economic effects, which are always in some manner present.

   III.             Bureaucracy strives merely to level those powers that stand in its way and in those
         areas that, in the individual case, it seeks to occupy.

   IV.             Democracy is opposed to rule of bureaucracy
The Power Position of Bureaucracy
   I.                   The drawing in of economic interest groups or other non-official experts, or the
         drawing in of non-expert lay representatives, the establishment of local, inter-local,
         or central parliamentary or other representative bodies, or of occupational
         associations---these seem to run directly against the bureaucratic tendency.

         a.       Under normal conditions, the power position of a fully developed bureaucracy
            is always overtowering.
 
 

Max Weber was a German lawyer who was influenced by the teachings of Karl Marx.  He was also a historian and economist.  Weber was the first to really examine the bureaucratic organization and its officials.

Characteristics of Bureaucracy

     Bueraucratic Authority is in the public sector.
     Bureaucratic Management is displayed in the private (economic) sector.

      1.  Bureaucratic authority has guidelines that make the activities, authority, duties taken out in a fixed manner.  To have the  existence of authority within the agency the duties must be established.
      2.  The heirarchy office type is found in all bureaucratic structures--public and private.  Weber claims that the character of  the bureaucracy remains unchanged if its authority is public or private.  The authorities at the lower levels are able to examine others actions.
      3.  Documents and files that have been all kept on record are the means for management of the organization.  The rules are
           written for specific reasons and should not be changed.  Rules guarantee guidance in the organization.
      4.  Thorough and expert training are essential for good, specialized office management.  An office manager is expected
           to be familiar with all rules and regulations.
      5.  The full working capacity of the official is a must for official activity.  The official is responsible for fulfilling his or her job
           once the duties have been established and the office has totally developed.
      6.  The office management follows general rules that do not change and can be learned.

The Position of the Official

     A true bureaucratic official is appointed by an authority that is superior.  An elected official is not a true bureaucratic official.
     The official must be effective and efficient to survive in office.
     Appointed officials (especially judges) are chosen for superior qualifications and integrity.
     Civil Service agencies tend to protect employees and put pressure and constraints on officials.
     Most officials want a law for the Civil Service that protects them from being removed.

Techincal Advantages of Bureaucratic Organization

     A developed bureaucracy is like a machine.
     The bureaucratic administration can provide the best precision, speed, clarity of issues, knowledge of issues and information, continuity, discretion, unity, and so on.
     Bureaucratization allows for specializing administartive functions.
     Bureaucracies are made up of "calculable rules" which provides stability and efficiency.

"The great virtue of bureacracy-indeed, perhaps its defining characteristic-was that it was an institutional method for applying general rules to specific cases, thereby making the actions of government fair and predictable."

Chap. 3: Environment, Ecology of Public Admin.
by Charles U Walters, Spring ‘07

• An ecological approach to public administration builds from the ground up (demographics of an area, social habits, technology etc).

• Changes in distribution of people over different places has effects on policy (people moving to cities or to farms)
• Physical technology has impacted policy for an increase in paved roads
• social technology – the invention of the corporation
• wishes and ideas – being influenced by information or values/thoughts that lead you to a particular action
• catastrophe – the effects of a catastrophe are relatively short lived in many cases because after the first response often the older forces flood back and cancel out most of the first reaction (catastrophe i.e.- night club burned killing service men, legislation was passed for fire inspection)
• personality – it is left to our own interpretation I would assume

Ecology deals with all interrelationships of living organisms and their environment.

There is a lineage between physical area, population, transport, and government.

7 Axioms
1. Continuous, efficient discharge of government is necessary to a great society

2. As complexity grows, so do functions of the government and the relationship between those
functions and the people.

3. Government is strong in proportion to its capacity to deliver functions for the people

4. Legislation respecting functions is easy, but enforcement of that legislation is not

5. Effective and wise administration is the central prerequisite for survival of government and society

6. Administration should be drawn from different classes, talents, prepared with education, and
subjected to constructive internal and external criticism or a bureaucracy dangerous to society may develop

7. Administrative system must operate to keep alive local and individual responsibilities, not just
central government.

Eco approach elements: from ground up- soils, climate, location

Factors of ebb and flow of government: People, Place, Physical Technology, Social Technology,
Wishes and Ideas, Catastrophe, Personality

People and Place
            Movement from Farms to Cities from 18th Century to 20th Century led to no jobs for the
old. This created a pension society.

City to Suburbs
            Values of lands and buildings changed, and transport and utility had to be adjusted to meet
growing demand in country.

Physical
            Where there is an exhaustion of resources, there must be renewal and restoration and it
takes a long time to restore sources of production. Ex. Forest replanting for timber

Changes in place, or the use of the resources and products of a place are coercive in their effect
upon public administration.

Changes in physical technology, however slowly their institutional influences may spread, are more
obvious even to the point of being dramatic, to the citizen.

Pooling and application of the savings of many through the invention of the corporation has set new
forces to ripple through the social order, disarranging human relationships and creating new
possibilities of large scale enterprise financially capable of utilizing extensive equipment and
personnel and creating new relationships between buyer and seller, employer and employee-from
which coercions for a new balance of forces, through consumer, labor, and investor standards have resulted.

The originators of ideas and of social as well as physical invention are persons.

Catastrophes
            Preparation and training are essential for coming through a catastrophe and evolving from it.
Similar to a forest fire where the soil is enriched and produces better growth than before, a
Catastrophe can shake up popular opinion and awaken administration to the reality of things or
improve previous ideas. In many ways, catastrophes are an adapting time of the ecology of public
administration. When the terrorists struck the World Trade Center Towers on 9/11, the government
had to change its way of thinking and adapt with new policies. This is part of the ecology talked
about with public administration.

It is through growth and formulation of public policy from environmental change that the
administration is linked to the environment.

       "ecology" as defined by Webster's dictionary "is the mutual relations, collectively between organisms and their environments"
     Charles A. Beard created 7 axioms in which environmental changes are linked with public administration (found on pg 83)
     the ecological approach builds from the ground up, it studys the roots of government functions, civic attitudes, and operating problems

7 Factors effecting the Ebb and Flow of ecological public administration

1. People
2. Places
3. physical technology
4. social technology
5. wishes and ideas
6. catastrophe
7. personality

-Administration is power
-the sources of power is derived and limited
-the top of hierarchy of  the administration structure of power is irrelevant
- the power of a hierarchy flows down the chain of command
-Congress or the President can impart power as a form depends on the line-up of forces in particular case
    -focus on general political energies of the communities
-power is not concentrated by the structure of government or politics in the hands of a leadership with a capacity to budget it among a diverse a set of administration activities
-to deny that power is derived from superiors in a hierarchy is asserted that subordinates stand in a feudal relation to a degree they fend for themselves and acquire support particularly their owns.
 -this structure is important to determine the scope of possible action.

 - a source of power and authority is a competitor of a  formal hierarchy
 - power flow in from the up the organization to the center
 - the American system of politics does not generate enough power at any focal point of leadership to provide the conditions for an even successful divorce of politics from  administration
 -the theory of administration has neglected the problem of the sources and adequacy of power
 - the bureaucracy under the American system has a large share of responsibility for the public promotion of policy and more in organizing political basis for its survival and growth
 -a major time consuming aspect of administration consists of a wide range of activities designed to secure enough acceptance to  survive
  - the balance between executives and legislative is constant subjected to a shift of public support
  - the unanswered question of American Government " who is boss?" constantly plagues administration

IGR is how our varied and numerous governments in America deal with each other and what their relative roles, responsibilities, and levels are and should be.
The Federal-State relationship is interdependent upon each other and must deal with each other
There are several levels of government: National, State, and local; local consists of: counties, municipalities, townships, school districts, and special districts (special districts are those which manage specific functions such as the formation of bridges, supplying water and sewage, etc.)
The Founding and the Framework: founders wanted to minimize instability, injustice, and confusion—but they created a system built on two levels of government which insured state autonomy (needed for ratification) and also created a relatively strong federal state to provide unity (its duties where limited however)—dual federalism
Conflict and cooperation in Earlier Times: labor, social welfare, and economic regulation were only some of the matters that national and state government quarreled over. IGR loopholes—joint stock companies, land grants to the states
Developments in the Early Twentieth Century: society and economy could not tolerate a completely unregulated free market (limited natural resources, powerful corporations, some states refused social welfare legislation)
Federal Financial Aid—income tax in 1913 created a large steady income for the government where they could supply aid to states (grant-in-aid given for specific purposes)
Validation of Grants in Aid—federal grants=coercive inducements and violated the notion of separate spheres for the two levels of government. The Supreme Court ruled that they were voluntary agreements and acceptable
Basic types of Assistance: block grants, revenue sharing, categorical grants, formula grants, project grants, etc.
There is the Legacy of the New Deal
Creative Federalism and Its Implications: Johnson proposed “creative federalism” in order to assist states, localities, individuals to solve domestic issues, as a result many cities became relying more and more on the federal government for aid than their states.
Intergovernmental Activism—the grant system required up-to-date procedures and professional personnel, created an interest group explosion in order to influence Congress, state and local officials found it crucial to know more about Washington and the decision making process
Tensions and frustrations emerged from changes, duplicated grants, patterns become complex.
Interdependence, Complexity, and Intergovernmental bargaining: actions need mutual consent between levels of government, no part can work alone.
Nixon’s New Federalism: shifted power from Washington to field offices trimming red tape, believed in revenue sharing, block grants, and administrative initiatives
Reagan: proposed additional block grants, simplified intergovernmental aid dramatically, devolution of responsibilities for many policies from the national level to the states, created more simplified administration
Struggles for Reform, Pressures toward Globalization: UMRA (Unfunded Mandates Reform Act) sought to impose tight budgets and cut many programs drastically, TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needed Families) put an end to long-term welfare assistance, designed to encourage welfare recipients to move permanently into the workforce, NPR (National Performance Review) called for a rationalizing of the nation’s approach to IGR and trumpeted an need to end unfunded mandates to the state/local governments

-Types of Governments
            -Local
      -Counties: General-purpose governments originally created throughout most of the
      country to administer state services at the local level.
      -Municipalities: local governments established to serve people within an area of
      concentrated population.
                  -Municipalities have sometimes have bad relationships with parent state
                  because they lack independent status similar to the states within the US
                  Framework
                  -Municipalities have often develop defensive and somewhat conflictual
                  relations with both state and national authorities---as they have also
                  sought to develop additional revenue sources and less one-sided
                  dependence on the other levels.
      -Townships
      -School Districts
      -Special Districts
            -Special districts are currently responsible for managing public housing; building
            and maintaining bridges, tunnels, and roads; supplying water and sewage
            services to residents; assessing and regulating air quality; and caring for the
            district’s mass transit needs.

The Founding and the Framework
-The framers of the US Constitution sought a way to combine the several states into a structure
that would minimize “instability, injustice, and confusion,” in the words of James Madison
-American states had agreed on a formal arrangement that is now called a confederation (states
loosely joined for certain purposes).
-Federalists
      -Suggested that states themselves remain independent governments with
      correspondingly independent jurisdictions.

-Constitution
      -Divides responsibilities between the two levels of government according to subject.
      -10th Amendment: “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
      nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the
      people.”
      -National Congress given authority to “provide for the…general Welfare” and to “make
      all Laws which shall be necessary and proper.”
      -Founders established overlapping two level structure where states and central
      government are not independent of each other.

The Idea of Dual Federalism
-Dual Federalism involves each of the two levels of government operating independently within
its separate jurisdiction without relying on the other for assistance or authorization.

Conflict and Cooperation in Earlier Times
-The Civil War is the prime example of disagreement over the limits of authority between
National and State Government.

-Intergovernmental loopholes
            -Joint Stock Companies
            -Part public and part private entities created to surmount the restrictions on
            direct participation by the national government.
            -Land Grant
            -The Federal government would offer some of its land to the states for specified
            purposes.
            -Land grants were intended to help achieve goals in the fields of education,
            economic development, and social welfare.
-It was not until the 20th century that the dual federal perspective declined in significance and
American intergovernmental relations developed into a system with sustained high levels of
interdependence and consequent complexity.

Developments in the Early 20th Century
-Power concentrated in large corporations, regulation needed
-Natural resources limited, must be conserved
-Newly developing and professionalizing state bureaucracies, which saw in federal involvement
opportunities for upgrading and expanded funding
-With the income tax, the federal government created a source of money that they could
repeatedly use, such cases were called grant-in-aid.
-These grant-in-aids are a transfer of money from one government to another for a certain
reason.  There very fine details of each transaction that stipulate how the money will be
managed.
-Federal aid is large, new, and has the capacity to produce large-scale alterations.  Because of
this, they are considered an extremely significant part of America’s fiscal federalism.

Validation of Grants-in-aid
-A pair of landmark decisions in 1923 by the Supreme Court greatly expanded the grant
system.  The court asserted that grants were voluntary arrangements and the federal government
was not violating the constitution.

Basic Types of Assistance
-Grants come in many shapes and sizes, and the donor can structure the purpose to whatever it
feels like.  These are called categorical grants
-The donor may also design an intergovernmental program for many purposes in a particular
field, and this is called a block grant.
-1970s, a new form of aid called revenue sharing was created to make sure that one
government could offer financial aid with virtually no restrictions.
-Some grants specify a precise formula, these are called formula grants.  The formula largely
depends on the purpose of the grant.
-Project grants allocate funding on a competitive basis, and potential recipients have no
advanced knowledge about the size of the grant.

Why do we distinguish between different types of grants?
The answer is that the different grants are designed to produce different relationships between
the governments that are involved.

The Legacy of the New Deal
-During the time of the New Deal, the grant-in-aid was repeatedly used.
This time period also saw an increase in the importance if intergovernmental relationships. This
continued to grow under President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
-Efforts to reduce the interdependence and complexities of the intergovernmental system have
been unsuccessful..
-Mandates, however, have been a major issue in our most recent decade.

Creative Federalism and Its Implications
-Johnson proposed creative federalism which was designed to signify multiple national
committees to assist states and such.  The efforts of this administration were directed primarily
at the problem of racial discrimination.  Most new programs were categorical grants.

Intergovernmental Activism
-Increased governmental help was welcomed by state and local governments.  Johnson’s
administration greatly increased the role of government grants, but with this came many
controversies.

Emergent Frustrations and Tensions
-Interagency competition for clients led to loosening of federal requirements

-Grants for same basic things have different requirements and approval processes

-Instead of spending on local needs, cities work to get matching funds for national priority
programs
-Greater number of specialists within governmental levels in administrative duties
-When responsibility becomes diffused, the mechanisms of democratic government cannot
readily ensure that policy reflects the will of the people or their representatives
-Creative Federalism while bringing energy and inventiveness, also bring escalating costs and
frustrations

Interdependence, Complexity, and Intergovernmental Bargaining
-Interdependence means that power is shared among branches of government
-Complexity means that the intergovernmental network is large and differentiated
-These two things led to a system of bargaining under conditions of partial conflict among
participants
-Unfunded mandates used in recent years as mechanism of coordination across governments.
-Shift over last two decades+ have led to alteration in the types of bargaining and issues subject
to negotiation.
-No matter how much the intergovernmental relationships change, value and conflicts with exist

Nixon’s New Federalism
-Revenue Sharing: Federal to state and local governments. All state and local governments
eligible for aid on basis of complex formulas
-Block grants: proposed by Nixon with set of enactments in six policy fields along with the
elimination of a series of closely related categorical grants.
-Administrative initiatives- Reforms to simplify and expedite the grant application and review
process, still subject o criticism from all directions

The Carter Period
-Worked on developing links among PIGS with state and local governments, advancing
administrative reforms, and getting attention to economic problems of cities
-Carter did not propose or recommend and major changes
-Federal spending increased slowly and reversed direction in 1978, limited at a time when many
units of government depended on the funding
-Congress held tightly onto other units of government during this period

Reagan’s Attempted Revolution
-Believed in strong state power, limited national government power
-Priorities of tax reductions and defense renewed vulnerability of intergovernmental aid to sizable cuts
-Proposals
            -Additional block grants
            -Dramatic Simplification of the system of intergovernmental aid
            -A devolution of responsibilities for many policies from the national level to the
            states, new programs suggested
            -Administrative simplification-trim red tape and lighten burden of federal
            mandates.
Crosscurrents at Century’s End: Struggles for Reform, Pressures toward Globalization

-Complexity and interdependence, will continue to shape the details of intergovernmental
bargaining and frustrate the efforts of reformers to impose or craft a clear and coherent design
-Temporary Assistance to Needy Families TANF
            -TANF put an end to long-term welfare assistance, a frequent occurrence under the
older program, and was designed to encourage welfare recipients to move permanently into the
work force.
-Both political parties find reasons to support mandating, even if the mandates and policy
sectors vary.  Using legislation is a way of trying to prevent intergovernmental regulation and
bargaining doesn’t address the more fundamental sources of these ties.
-Under Clinton, the growth in federal aid was concentrated in a few sectors and devoted
primarily to big increases in spending for transfer payments.
-Increasing economic pressures toward globalization have now added another set of actors and
considerations to the constraints and opportunities in the intergovernmental system.
-The overall system is, furthermore, even less transparent to citizens---with potential
implications for responsiveness and the quality of democratic life.
-The most fundamental aspects of American intergovernmental relations, including the strengths,
weaknesses, frustrations, and dilemmas of the pattern, have remained prominent
-The choices made centuries ago created opportunities for dramatic shifts toward new forms of
interdependence and complexity in the intergovernmental network

Stillman Chap. 6: Internal Dynamics & informal Group.

Elton Mayo, "Hawthorne and the Western Electric Company"
Vance McBrayer

·Mayo begins by describing an experiment involving the changing of
illumination and how it affected work production.
·Results were not expected.  Work production increased when illumination
was decreased, increased, and even when it remained the same.
·There must have been other factors affecting the experiment
·In modern large scale industry the three persistent problems of management are
        1.The application of science and technical skill to some material good or product.
        2.The systematic ordering of operations.
        3.The organization of teamwork - that is, of sustained cooperation.
·If these are out of balance, the organization will be unsuccessful.
·The first two make the industry effective.  The third makes it efficient.
·Experimenting was conducted to show that in the same conditions, a
group that has sustained cooperation, or teamwork, will work more
efficiently than a group of individuals, and they will also feel less
tired, stressed, less under pressure, etc.
·The Interview Program was seen to be ineffective when done is a question-answer style.  Workers wished to talk freely.
·Rules for an interviewer
        1.  Give your whole attention to the person interviewed, and make it
evident that you are doing so.
        2.  Listen - don't talk.
        3.  Never argue; never give advice.
        4.  Listen to a) What he wants to say, b) What he does not want to say,
and c) What he cannot say without help.
        5.  As you listen, plot out tentatively and for subsequent correction the pattern that is being set before you.  To test this, from time to time summarize what has been said and present for comment. Always do this with the greatest caution, that is, clarify but do not add or twist.
        6.  Remember that everything said must be considered a personal confidence and not divulged to anyone.
·It is impossible to relate oneself to a working group one by one; it is easy, however, if that group are already a fully constituted team. Communication will flow from the supervisor to one person who will then relate it to the rest of the team.
·Experiments stressed the need for people to have an "emotional release," to be able to vent or pour out emotion in confidence.  This ability to be free and open will better open the lines of communication between management and the crew.
·Failure of free communication between management and workers leads to
the exercise of caution by the working group until such time as it knows
clearly the range and meaning of changes imposed from above.
·The interviewer must be able to distinguish between personal matters
and group matters when talking to individuals.
·Through experiments, the third part of a management's problems,
teamwork, is the most important.
·5 summarized points
        1.  The early discovery that the interview aids the individual to get
rid of useless emotional complications and to state his problem clearly.
        2.  The interview has demonstrated its capacity to aid the individual
to associate        more easily, more satisfactorily, with other persons.
        3.  The interview not only helps the individual to collaborate better with his group of workers, it also develops his desire and capacity to work better with management.
        4.  The interviewing possesses immense importance for the training of
administrators      in the difficult future that faces this continent and the world.
        5.  The interview has proved to be the source of information of great objective value to management.

"Our public bureaucracy is composed of identifiable clusters of individuals who work and act in influential ways inside bureaucracy.  Each of these subsystems shapes the broad outcomes of bureaucracy."  -Richard J. Stillman II

The Subsystems are:

    1. Political Appointees
    2. Professional Careerists
    3. General Civil Service
    4. Unionized Workers
    5. Contractual Employees

-Subsystems have certain important similarities and differences in their roles, values, missions, power, status, functions, activities, and influence within public organizations.

The Political Appointee Subsystem: The Birds of Passage

     Most political appointees fill the top level policy making posts within federal, state, and local
     bureaucracies.
     Most political appointees have limited background in government.  Very few serve repeated spells in government; few work for more than one administration.
     The roles of a political appointees in a bureaucracy can be conceived as rings that circle the office of the elected chief executive--a president, governor, or mayor. The first ring is the inner cabinet. Second is outer cabinet.  Third is the sub-cabinet.  Fourth are advisors to the secretaries and directors of agencies.  And finally there are the individuals occupying limbo land between quasipolitical and non-political territory.

Seven Influences of the Political Appointee Subsystem:
            1. Appointees occupy the highest, most prominent posts within public organizations.
            2. Influences depends upon the policy positions they hold, the length of their government service, their connections with top elected officials, their own personalities, their support from outside groups, the immediate tasks at hand, and whether these lend themselves to imminent solutions.
            3. As one moves down the hierarchy of political officials, one finds greater degree of specialization.
            4. Battles occur between different levels of political appointees due to differences in perspectives.
            5. Close ties or friendships develop between  top officials and the chief executive.
            6. Degree of loyalty results from job instability.
            7. Despite operating in an ambiguous world, ultimately they are central to the governing processes at all levels of government.

The Professional Careerist Subsystem: Permanent Clusters of Powerful Experts

-Professional Elites comprise the core group of experts.  These are the senior and most prestigious and respected members of the profession.

     Elites proved the leadership as well as set the work standard, the qualifications for entrance and advancement, and the overall values for the profession.
     Line Professionals, who fall just below the level of the senior elites, actually carry out the day-to-day functions of the public agency.
     Staff Professionals include a wide assortment of specialists and technical assistants who have unique and specialized expertise that may not be directly connected with the central tasks of the agency.
     Administrative Professionals are critical to the activities of the agency because they essentially serve as "the directing brain" of the organization.
     Paraprofessionals are paid substantially less but still play a vital role in achieving the assigned tasks on the organization.

Six Influences of Professional Careerist Subsystem:
    1. They are essential to the performance of the central mission of public agencies.
    2. Careerists have a large longevity within agencies compared to appointees.
    3. They are part of well established pecking order, from elites to "paras".
    4. Continuing political strength and popular support of professionals ultimately rest upon their recognized expertise and competence as well as on their ability to exercise these skills in a regular, uniform manner in the public interest.
    5. Professionals influence policies by moving upward and outward beyond the contours of their roles within agencies.
    6. Conflicts are hidden from public because they arise from disputes between clusters of key professionals.

The General Civil Service Subsystem: Ladders of Bureaucratic Specialists, Generalists, and
Workers

     Civil Service Members are the bulk of government personnel.
     Civil Service is based on the merit system, where rank is inherent in the job, not the person.
     It was built on a negative moral reaction to what was perceived as "evil" rather than on a positive and deliberate design.
     The federal civil service work force has stayed fairly constant in size over the past 40 years, but the local and state work force has nearly tripled.
     Members of the general civil service subsystem generally lack the cohesiveness and unity found among professionals.  This is due to the lack of mobility within the civil service.
     In comparison with appointees, civil servants are more realistic and conservative due to worth of incrementalism.

In 3 studies, the following were points were all stressed as areas needing attention in civil service:
    1. Poor Public Image
    2. Competence Crisis
    3. Removing Barriers to a High Performance Work Force

The Unionized Subsystem: Cadres of Workers Inside Bureaucracy

Today there are three prominent and powerful public service unions that speak for many, through certainly not all, public employees: the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of Teachers.

Five Significant Aspect of Union Involvement:
    1. Variety
    2. Growth
    3. Some unions have matured, but not become dominant
    4. Won Positive Reforms
    5. "Civil Service-like" practices and philosophy suffers

Contract Employment: The Newest, Fastest-Growing Bureaucratic Subsystem

-Only slightly more than one-eigth of Th. total federal budget is spent on directing activities that the government performs itself.
Therefore, almost 60 percent of Th. total obligation for goods and services is contracted out.

Contracting Out effects on political agencies and their outputs:
    1. The growth of the contractual subsystem makes it increasingly hard to tell where government bureaucracy begins and ends. (Contracting out enables politicians to gain services for their constituents and then claim that they have "kept the lid on government personnel costs.")
    2. Some sectors of +government are controlled by their contractors.
    3. There is less and less use for traditional bureaucratic techniques.

Stillman Chap. 8: Decisionmaking & Incremental Choice.
 

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Stillman Chap. 9: Communication.

Dr. James Garnett "Administrative Communication: It's Centrality"
Jamie Jordan

The first executive function is to develop and maintain a system of  communication.

Dr. Garnett's beliefs
Stresses the importance of communication within administration.
Cites several cases within this book that show the importance of communication.
Although communication is important in life and death situations, the larger
consequences of miscommunication occur in the countless daily interactions
among public servents, citizens, officals, etc.
Communication is not a universal remedy.

Central public Sector Communication Processes and Roles
Centering around news making process is a detriment of our understanding of
key communication processes.
Revolutionizing the news making process.

*   increasing demand for direct interaction with public officials rather  than media filtered.
*   the result is direct interaction through broadcasted live speeches from  the official
*   televised "town meetings"
*   need for combination of communication skills and ethics
Communication specialists of today are being demanded to play a more involved
managerial role than before.
The internal communication process is important because of the effect  the whole system.
"communication is too critical to managerial success to be left solely to
the professional communicators."
Internal communication can be thought of as downward, upward or lateral.

*   Downward is issuing task directives, giving task-related information
feedback on performance and conveying an overall sense of mission.}

*   Upward is feedback on whether downward messages are received, understood
, and acted upon; warnings about problems needing attention; intelligence
gleaned by subordinates about key stakeholders; soundings about
organizational morale and performance.}

*   Later communication is the communication among organizational peers in
the same or different unit.  Key functions include task coordination,
information sharing, multidisciplinary problem solving, and mutual emotional
support.  They tend to be more honest and accurate because they are shared
among equal status
Three factors contributing to the rise of the interorganizational dimension  in public management

*   economic interdependence--globally and locally

*   networks through which political policy decisions are made have tended to
become larger and more diverse

*   greater access to information communication technology and liberalizing
of many political economic and service institutions have enabled looser coupling in various ways.
Gaining and maintaining credibility is hard if not impossible in the American system.
Linking diverse audiences , using diverse media are important elements of communication.
Communication ethics involve accuracy, usefulness, openness, and fairness,
violations tend to damage credibility.

Understanding of modern organizations comes from different theoretical perspectives, such as the analogy of blind men touching an elephant—they are all touching one elephant but in different places thus producing a radical difference in opinion to the nature of the beast.

There is a tendency to identify good government management with good business management. (apply entrepreneurial talent to public enterprises)

The Brownlow Committee Report (1937) — considered high point of influence on public administration, mirrored business practices of the day (continues with performance budgets, cost-benefit analysis, management by objective, etc).

The Three E’s—efficiency, economy, and effectiveness (root of making government run like a business)

The authors compare bureaucracy to an elephant by saying it is large, cumbersome, though thick skinned—it can display sensitivity and responsiveness to needs, and they also can perform very well.

Motivation is vital whether it stems from: public service motivation, motivation by mission, specific task-related motivation, or work in the tasks themselves motivation, or is it for the pay/benefits?—all of these can contribute to performance, especially if they are seen as linked together.

An example of agency effectiveness is the Social Security Administration—their administrative costs dropped from $1.30 out of every 100 dollars to $ .80 out of every 100 dollars from the early eighties to the 1998. In the 80s they cut 17000 employees many of whom were replaced by computers.

Privatization—it seems the more carefully the study is performed on privatization the smaller reported savings. It depends heavily on sound management by government employees on the contracting and the level of competition between companies. Privatization can also decentralize the seemingly monolithic entity spreading its power among others.

Business blunders and fraud in the market place lead to the questioning of whether or not they actually out perform government agencies—one attribute that leads to effective PA is dedicated public servants not motivated by economic self-interest but by loyalty and identification.

Agencies are more effective when they are allowed a certain level of autonomy. It is best for an agency to have diverse stakeholders (people/groups/institutions with interest in organization’s outcome/activities) –they need to be attentive, interested, geographically dispersed, mobile, and multiple.—and favorable public support increases effectiveness

The higher the mission valence of an organization—the higher it will perform

Effective leadership is vital, along with an organizational culture that includes the ability to adapt, surveillance of the environment, and responsiveness.

Tasks need to be specific providing extrinsic and intrinsic rewards to employees and groups (extrinsic—pay, promotion, physical conditions; intrinsic—interest in work, sense of growth and development, and worthwhile accomplishment).

Organizations need to use professionalism and continue to utilize technology and develop their human resources
 
 

·Government organizations are like elephants:  they seem large, cumbersome, and lumbering, yet actually they are very fast animals; they thick-skinned, yet they are very sensitive.
·       More and more authors are beginning to defend public bureaucracies and
debunk stereotypes and negative allegations about them

Examples of Agency Effectiveness
·Social Security Administration (SSA) - administrative costs are only 0.8 percent of benefits; in the 80's, only $1.30 of every $100 in the SSA program goes to administrative expense; stores files in large industrial storage facilities built into old caves, saving on building costs in cities; computers are now doing many of the functions that employees once performed; SSA ranked #1 in a survey of customer satisfaction; downsized workforce to be more efficient
·U.S. Department of Defense - extremely efficient in Gulf War; achieved goals with minimum casualties
·Centers for Disease Control, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Customs Service, U.S. Passport Office are also others

Mixed Results of Privatization
·An indication of effective performance by public agencies comes form the limited success of privatization initiatives
·Public organizations can and often do perform as well as private firms

Power Sharing and the Hollow State
·The increasingly networked or hollow state character of many public programs strain the depiction of the public bureaucracy as a centralized, retentive, monolithic entity

Business Blunders and Generic Theories of Management
·The prospects for effective public organizations is attributed to the presence of dedicated public servants who are motivated not by narrow economic self-interest buy by organizational loyalty and identification

Models of Excellence in Government Orgainzations
·See page 304 for a list of Propositions About Effective Public Agencies

The meaning of Effectiveness
·Effectiveness - The agency performs well in discharging the administrative and operational functions pursuant to the mission.  It achieves the mission as conceived by the organization and its stakeholders, or pursues achievement of it in an evidently successful way

Relations with Stakeholders
·Stakeholders - persons, groups, and institutions that have an interest in the activities and outcomes of the organization sufficient to draw their participation and attention to the agency
·Effective agencies will have oversight authorities that are supportive, delegative, and attentive to agency mission and accomplishment
·An agency is better able to obtain resources and autonomy of operations when it has interest groups that, in addition to being attentive and interested, are geographically dispersed, diverse along various dimensions, movilizable, and multiple

Autonomy
·Government agencies will be more effective when they have higher levels
off autonomy in relation to external stakeholders, but not extremely high levels of autonomy
·Autonomy to manage its mission and tasks tends to enhance an agency's
performance of the mission and tasks
·Autonomy does not mean leaving out stakeholders

Mission Valence
·The higher the mission valence of the agency, the more effectively the agency will perform
·The more engaging, attractive, and worthwhile the mission is to people, the more the agency will be able to attract support from those people, to attract some of them to join the agency, and to motivate them to perform well in the agency

Organizational Culture
·Effective government agencies have a strong organizational culture, effectively linked to mission accomplishment

Leadership
·The more effective the leadership of the agency, the more effective the agency.  More effective leadership is characterized by more stability, multiplicity, commitment to mission, effective goal setting, and effective administrative and political coping
·Leadership has long been treated as an important determinant of an agency's power and influence

Task Design
·The more the task design in the agency provide extrinsic and intrinsic rewards to individuals and groups, the more effective the agency

Motivation
·Effective government agencies have high levels of motivation among their members, including high levels of public service motivation, mission motivation, and task motivation
·Public Service Motivation - a general altruistic motivation to serve the interests of a community of people, a state, a nation, or humankind
·Mission Motivation - developing a sense of mission for the agency and incorporating it into the culture of the agency through goal setting, symbolic actions, and other techniques
·Task Motivation - See section on Task Design above

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Stillman Chap. 11: Personnel Motivation & Culture.

-1961, President Kennedy said to the country “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.”
-During the 1960s and 1970s interest in public service was very high; because people felt that they not only could make a difference but that it was their duty to.
-Since then times have changed, people began moving to jobs in the private sector for higher pay.

 -What are public service motives?
 -What are the operating conditions of public service motivation?
 -Is public service motivation more prevalent in the public sector?
 -Seeks to explore the significance of public service motives.

 -Public service motive is a type of human need.
 -People have many types of needs and the desire to fulfill these needs influence behavior.  These different needs are in constant competition with each other and are sometimes conflicting.
 -People with public service motive can typically be found in public work because governmental jobs usually focus on public services.
 -Public service motivation relates to the process that causes an individual to perform acts that contribute to the public good to satisfy their own personal needs.
 -Public service motives can be organized into three categories:

  Affective- are based in an individual’s emotions, a deep belief in the importance of certain programs for the benefit of society.
  Normative- Involves sense of duty to the community, loyalty to government, and a desire to serve the public interest.
  Rational- involve a desire to represent a special interest and personal identification with a program or policy goal, along with desires for personal gain and personal fulfillment.  Rational motives are not truly public service motives because they don’t prioritize the public good over individual interests.

 -Human behavior is based on a mix of motives.  These motives can change as certain needs are fulfilled or if new needs arise.  Motives can also change due to an individual’s environment (workplace, country, geographic region, etc.).

 -For example, when a government organization has to downsize or make pay cuts, job security and monetary rewards overpower the public service motives.

 -The strength of the public service motives may give individuals the strength to resist organizational norms or peer pressure that may conflict with their interpretation of the public good.
  -These tensions that occur daily in their work may develop into habitual behavior which will lean more toward the individual interest than the public good.

 -Public service motives cannot be found exclusively in the public sector for two main reasons:
 -There is nothing to test individuals and then place them into specific sectors based on their motives.
 -Second reason is that the boundaries between different sectors are vague.

Ex.  Healthcare industry in the U.S. can be found in public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

 -They anchor bureaucratic behavior and action, and provide a value basis for governance.
 -Educating the citizenry contributes to the responsibility for involving the public in the democratic and administrative process.  Educating public causes tensions with efficiency and professionalism.
-Shared values can provide a solid foundation for organizations; they give individuals a common goal, causing them to be more motivated to reach their individual goals, which in turn cause the organizational goals to be reached.  Individual public service motives can also save an organization falling into “group think” when faced with a problem.  This thought directly conflicts with the norm of neutrality, which means that administrators in a bureaucracy should remain neutral.
-Engagement means public service officials should “…think about what ought to be done instead of merely doing what must be done”.

-Ex. Public servants should never take a passive role in policy implementation.

 -Public service motives have potential for advancement within the democratic state, but they are at the heart of a fundamental tension with some of the key parts of administrative behavior.
 -These motives do, however, set the culture of the public service sector apart from other sectors by making them operate for the common good in reference to values, engagement of work, educating of citizens, and selflessness.