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University of North Florida Department of Political Science PAD 4003 Public Administration Fall 2016
Paradigms of public administration
Photo source Adam Smith Advocate of market-mediated network governance
I. Henry’s Paradigms
Henry structures his second chapter around the concept of ‘paradigms’ of public administration, both the practice (what gets done in government agencies), and the theory (what gets talked about in universities, thinktanks, and other policy shops, as a result of observation of what gets done in government agencies). By ‘paradigm’ is just meant an over-arching perspective that drives the field. Henry presents his paradigms historically, so his chapter two looks at how the dominant perspective in public administration in the United States has changed over time. Two key provisos:
- By ‘dominant paradigm’ we mean as much ‘flavor of the month’. All of the paradigmatic perspectives that Henry discusses waxing and waning though history have always been present. So his historical 'shifts' can be just the growth of a perspective, rather than that perspective being the only way we managed government agencies during that period.
- There has been a lot of reinvention: old wine into new bottles.
As seen, Henry comes up with the following:
The beginning. I’ll take a different approach to this and point out that our nation’s founding = the founding of our government. Ipso facto: rather than somehow un-American, government defines our country. Until we created our government, we were not Americans, but just a gaggle of colonials. Examples of this “USA = its government” formulation:
Declaration of Independence (1776) -- “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.-- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men ...”
The Constitution (1789) – “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and provide the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution of the United States of America.” This is then repeated in Article I, Section 8. Yes, the US Constitution famously restricts the power of government, but not before both creating it, and giving it considerable scope.
It is also important to think in historical (and, for that matter, comparative) perspective about this. As we saw in Table 1 of lecture 1, when you compare the US to other, actually existing societies, we are both relatively well governed, and lightly governed. Historically, the bureaucracy to which Wilson (and Goodsell) refers was a revolution , given what came before it: ineffective, unaccountable government. Another approach to it, this from Portugal (my translation): Relative to the organization form of public administration, and despite the justifiable criticisms of the model and the functioning of bureaucracy, it is necessary to point out that at least in the Portuguese case, one of the reasons for its limited public responsibility and for the limitations in its efficiency and efficacy lie precisely in insufficient bureaucracy. The bureaucratic model of organization, in the sense postulated by the classics of the theory of organization – Weber, Fayol, Taylor and more recently, Mintzberg and Friedberg --, justly underline that, to limit the dysfunctionalities of an administration that is unprofessional and arbitrary, administration should conduct itself through [POSDCORB friendly reforms]… One of the reasons for the evident dysfunctionalities results from the non-observance of the so-called bureaucratic model of organization. (Mozzicafreddo 2001, p. 14)
The context is that Portugal, after its 1974 revolution, was entering the modern era after missing most of 500 years of European history. Waking up, Rip Van Winkle-like and looking at a world with people complaining about bureaucracy, this country that missed the bureaucratic revolution could see that it needed more effective, and more accountable government. Or, as Henry puts it in the preface of our course text: in its original definition, bureaucracy in government was about good government, that is “uncorrupted, democratic, and competent” (p. 4).
The politics/administration dichotomy (1900-26). This is fundamental to the field of public administration, especially in terms of distinguishing it from political science. In short: Political science is about the election of political representatives (Congress, legislatures and councils) and government executives (President, Governor, Mayor), and the enactment of legislation by those legislators, while... Public administration is about execution, and the career civil servants who implement policy. As we will see, public administrators are also often heavily involved in policy formulation. As well, due to the rampant corruption of the era, Wilson argued for a separation of administrators from citizens, to reduce the likelihood of private citizens capturing public policy.
Principles of public administration (1927-37). In the US, this has its roots at least in Woodrow Wilson’s advocacy of “a science of administration which shall seek to straighten the paths of
II. An attempted rationalization of Henry’s paradigms
All confusing enough, I’m sure. Note, again, all the reinvention in Henry’s paradigms: administrative science has had at least three phases of paradigmatic hegemony. Below I’ll offer an attempt at an integrated taxonomy, showing especially how Henry’s various paradigms overlap. This is illustrated in the table below. GC is me, NH is Nick Henry:
Table 1 Paradigms of public administration, me (GC) v. Nicholas Henry (NH)
GC Pre-modern Bureaucracy Normative
Networked Civic Market- responsibility mediated
Dialogue- mediated
NH
‘the beginning’
principles, administrative science, management
political emphases, public management
governance, new public management,
governance, new public service, politics
[ignored]
Pre-Modern Public Administration -- characterized by cronyism, patronage and lack of popular control. Unfortunately, what Americans criticize in public bureaucracy has typically been treated as a caricature and held up for abuse. This has especially been so from conservative politicians. Margaret Thatcher, on the eve of the Conservative Party’s 1979 general election victory, warned of “the slither and slide to the socialist state” (Thatcher 1979), while former US President Ronald Reagan argued in his 1981 inaugural address: “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem”^1 (Reagan 1981). It is also worth noting that this broader anti-government perspective is not restricted to the political right. Long-time leftist political activist Ralph Nader echoed Reagan’s anti-government dirge in a 2004 interview shortly after announcing his candidacy for President of the United States: "Washington is now a corporate-occupied territory. There's a "For Sale" sign on almost every door of agencies and departments where these corporations dominate and they put their appointments in high office." (Nader 2004) Yet despite these criticisms, 'bureaucracy' was (and remains!) a reformist, even radical reformist movement. The common failure to recognize this may be because many American citizens, and even contemporary American scholars of government, have little experience of administration in the absence of modern bureaucracy. Rather than over large and ineffective, the US is one of the best governed societies in the history of our species. I’ll repeat that for emphasis:
Rather than over large and ineffective, the US is one of the best governed societies in the history of our species.
(^1) For the record, especially regarding the claims of Thatcher and Reagan: Fraser/Cato economic freedom ratings
show a relatively large British state in 1980 (the year after Thatcher’s assumption of office as Prime Minister), but little evidence of the dictatorial economic coercion implied in the statement above: the UK was the 12th^ least regulated economy in the world (out of 153 analysed), ranked fifth in freedom of international trade, ranked a respectable 19th^ in the integrity of its legal structure and security of property rights, and ranked 17th^ in terms of economic freedom overall. The impeccably conservative Cato/Fraser index similarly ranked the US as the third most free economy on the eve of the Reagan administration.
Bureaucracy (the 'how' of administration) -- Also referred to as administrative science , this has been around at least since Wilson’s call for “a science of administration which shall seek to straighten the paths of government, to make its business less unbusinesslike” (1887, p. 201). Chevallier similarly points to earlier roots of administrative science (1986, p. 12-19), specifically with reference to the long historical battle against the undemocratic cronyism and patronage of ‘pre-modern’ administration.
Henry describes this science of administration as having received a substantial boost in the 1920s and 1930s, with Willoughby’s Principles of Administration , followed a decade later by Gulick and Urwick’s POSDCORB (Henry 2007, p. 28-30). The influence of the more recent ‘public management’ movement (Henry 2007, p. 34-5) on the discipline of public administration has seen an understanding of the science and technique of public administration strengthened. Even much of the ‘new’ public management movement, with its emphasis on improved management techniques (Hood 1991, p. 4-5; Bresser Pereira 1998, p. 18-20, 52-58), is consistent with the traditions of this venerable, and still prominent (Candler
- administrative science paradigm.
By way of some context on governance in the US, see Table 2, at right. As you can see, the US does relatively well, scoring fairly high in terms of the honesty and effectiveness of its
(^2) Sources: Transparency International’s 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index. Higher scores indicate less perception
of corruption. Freedom House’s 2011 Freedom in the World Report. Freedom House rates countries in terms of civil and political freedom, on a 1 (free) to 7 (unfree) scale. The number presented here is the average of these two scores. The Government Effectiveness indicator comes from The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index 2000. Finally, the Fraser Institute and Cato Institute’s 2010 Economic Freedom of the World Report includes a Legal System and Property Rights variable. The data are for 2008.
Table 2 Some pragmatic, good government indicators^2 Corruption perceptions
Civil freedom
Government effectiveness
Legal system G7+ US 7.1 1 7.86 7. Australia 8.7 1 8.93 8. Canada 8.9 1 9.29 8. France 6.8 1 7.14 7. Germany 7.9 1 7.86 8. Italy 3.9 1.5 6.79 5. Japan 7.8 1.5 8.21 7. 49 Sweden 9.2 1 9.64 8. UK 7.6 1 7.86 8.
BRICs Brazil 3.7 2 7.50 5. China 3.5 6.5 5.00 6. India 3.3 2.5 8.57 5. Russia 2.1 5.5 3.21 5.
Laggards Pakistan 2.3 4.5 5.71 4. Nigeria 2.4 4.0 3.21 4. Vietnam 2.7 6.0 4.29 6. Venezuela 2.0 5.0 3.93 2.
principles of democratic citizenship, new public administration concerns with citizen participation, questions about ' publicness ', and with a dollop of post-modernism thrown in.
While Table 3 gives an indication of the relative role of market-mediated networks in human governance, dialogue-mediated networks are harder to count. Though hard, it’s not impossible to measure dialogue-mediated networks. Table 4 (below) takes a whack at this.
Civic responsibility – Civic responsibility emphasizes obligations that citizens have to their society, and their government. The central point of the Network Paradigm is to get the public manager to acknowledge a world outside of the public agency box, not least a world to which the agency manager needs to account and to work with. This is all fine and good, but I doubt that government is possible if it is all about what government can do for the people, and so the role of citizens becomes that of the infant, screaming and banging her/his rattle, and demanding more. Instead, public administration needs a responsible citizenry, perhaps best stated by John Fitzgerald Kennedy: "...ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country" (Inaugural speech, January 20, 1961).
The civic participation of the Networked Paradigm will be difficult if administrators are tasked with creating consensus among the public, but the public isn't equally tasked with responsible citizenship. Responsible citizenship has been grossly under-emphasized, both in terms of asserting the importance of this to citizens, and in training the public manager what to do in the face of an irresponsible citizenry. This will be a recurring theme of this course.
The central dichotomy among these approaches in contemporary American political debate is, though, between government and markets, or my ‘market-mediated networks’ and bureaucracy. It might be thought of as indicated in Figure 5, below:
Figure 5 Models of governance in terms of government v. markets
N. Korea Sweden U.S.A. Somalia
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All No government government
Table 4 Voluntary action compared Social spending^1 Civic Public Private engagement^2 United States 19.4 10.2 60 Australia 18.7 2.8 59 Canada 18.2 5.1 54 France 32.1 2. 8 31 Germany 26.3 2.0 43 Italy 28.1 0.7 26 Japan 22.4 3.3 26 Sweden 28.2 2.8 39 United Kingdom 23.9 5.3 57 Notes: 1 – From the OECD’s Statistics Portal, under Social Spending, year 2012 for Public, 2009 for Private. 2 -- Gallup’s Civic Engagement Index. This is a 0-100 scale.
III. An example: health care
In 2012 the Supreme Court ruled that it is Constitutional to promote the general welfare through requiring everyone to hold private sector health insurance, and a program known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (all 955 pages of it) is consistent with their interpretation of the Constitution. Table 6 presents a range of indicators that illustrate the imperative of reform in US health care. The key contrast is the world beating costs (twice as much per person than any other country in this sample) of the US health care system, yet our mediocre results.
Folks who study health administration identify four basic models of national health systems, with the US system (as we’ll see) a hybrid of two of these. The four models^3 : The Beveridge model – or ‘socialized medicine’. In this system health care is provided by government owned hospitals and clinics, and financed through taxation. Exemplars are the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Cuba. This is what critics of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act incorrectly refer to as “complete government takeover of health care”. The Bizmark model – a non-profit insurance system is financed jointly by employers and employees, with the provision of health services through private doctors and hospitals. Tight
(^3) In this discussion I’m relying heavily on a final exam presentation by Amanda Hill, a student in the UNF-MPA
program. See also a PBS special.
Table 6 Comparative health indicators US UK Australia Canada France Japan Italy Brazil Life expectancy (years)
Infant mortality (per 1000 births)
Physicians (per 100k pop.)
Health spending ($ per capita)
Health spending (% of GDP)
Health spending (% from government)
Alcohol consumption (liters p.c., 15+ years)
Smoking %
Obesity %
Economic freedom 7.60 7.71 7.98 7.81 7.16 7.44 6.81 6.
Civil/political freedom 1 1 1 1 1 1.5 1.5 2 Sources: Human Development Report 2008 ; World Health Organization, Data and Statistics; Freedom in the World Report 2011 ; Economic Freedom of the World Report 2011.
Civic responsibility. Civic responsibility focuses on the relationship of citizens to their government and society; and especially the obligations of citizens to their society. Stop smoking!
References:
Bresser Pereira, Luiz Carlos (1998). Reforma do Estado para a Cidadania. Brasília: ENAP. Candler, G.G. (2008). “Epistemic community or Tower of Babel? Theoretical diffusion in public administration.” Australian Journal of Public Administration 67(3). Chevallier, Jacques (1986). Science Administrative. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Chevallier, Jacques (2003). “La gouvernance, un nouveau paradigme etatique?” Revue française d’administration publique 105-6, p. 203-17. Denhardt, Robert and Janet Denhardt (2006). Public Administration: An Action Orientation. Belmont, CA: Thomson. Frederickson, H. George (1980). The New Public Administration. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press. Mozzicafreddo, Juan (2001). “Modernização da Administração Pública e Poder Político.” In Juan Mozzicafreddo and João Salis Gomes (eds.) A Administração e Politica: Perspectivas de Reforma da Administração Pública na Europa e nos Estados Unidos , Oeiras: Celta Editora, pp. 1-33. Nader, Ralph (2004). Interview, NBC News' Meet the Press , 22 February. Osborne, David and Ted Gaebler (1992). Reinventing Government: How the entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. Reagan, Ronald (1981). Inaugural address, Washington, D.C., 20 January. Thatcher, Margaret (1979). Speech. Cardiff, Wales, 16 April. Available online at http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid= Ventriss, Curtis (1989). “Toward a Public Philosophy of Public Administration: A Civic Perspective of the Public.” Public Administration Review , 49(2), p. 173-9. Waldo, Dwight (1948). The Administrative State. New York: The Ronald Press Company.
