Posted: October 20th, 2022

Chapter One Big Democracy Big Bureacracy

Order Description

See both attachments that include the instructions and the readings. Please write in APA format and be sure at minimum you write about chapter one in 1000 words and the rest of the paper can be comments. Its actually a two part assignment.

CHAPTER
1
Big Democracy, Big Bureaucracy

The public bureaucracy is the arm of the states civil power. In the United States, that arm appears, at least, to be atrophied when compared with its counterparts in most other developed democracies. This apparent bureaucratic flaccidity is a consequence of an entrenched national culture and careful political design.
AN UNPROMISING PRECIS

The roots of Americans profound suspicion of executive authority are deeply sunk, and are apparent in the nations earliest influences and origins.
The Indians and the English

One such influence was the Native Americans, who surrounded the early European settlers for centuries. Hence, the framers of the Constitution were pervaded by Indian images of liberty.1 The Iroquois Confederation, a vast alliance of tribes, was emblematic of executive constraint: Their whole civil policy was averse to the concentration of power in any single individual.2

Another influence was the English, who governed their colonists with a firm hand, but resisted royal rule on their own sceptral isle. No less an authority than Woodrow Wilson, the acknowledged founder of American public administration, observed that, The English race long and successfully studied the art of curbing executive power to the constant neglect of the art of perfecting executive methods.3

The Indians and the English set a governing tone that, in the eighteenth century, expressed itself in three formats that outlined Americans enduring social contract, or that unwritten agreement between the governed and their governments, often more understood than expressed, that defines and limits the responsibilities of each.
Administration by Ambassadors: The Articles of Confederation

One such format was the woefully misnamed Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, which, from 1781 to 1789, provided the first framework for the new nation, and exemplified Americans contempt for princely prerogatives.

There was no chief executive. In fact, the first draft of the Articles, written in 1776, was rejected by the Second Continental Congress on the specific grounds that it had proposed an executive, and this bias against executive authority extended to every national officeholder; under the Articles, every continental official had a one-year term, and each one was subject to term limits.4

The states reigned supreme under the Articles. Congress was less a legislature and more a convention of powerless state ambassadors, chosen by state assemblies, which could recall them at will. The Articles did set up a rudimentary civil service, but it reported directly to committees of the Continental Congress, which retained all authority over it.

To be fair, the nations early political thinkers were wrestling with how to organize something truly new: big democracy. When Daniel Shays ignited his ill-conceived rebellion in 1786 (the countrys first tax revolt), the nations political leaders discovered that no arm of American government, such as it was, could be authorized to put down the disturbance.
Administration by Legislators: The First State Constitutions

At about the same time that the Articles of Confederation were being written, the states were busily drafting their own constitutions. Between 1776 and 1780, eleven of the thirteen states (Connecticut and Rhode Island kept their royal charters until well into the next century) adopted constitutions.

These eleven states were notably aggressive in restraining the powers of the chief executive. Ten limited gubernatorial terms to only a single year, and, with the exceptions of New York and arguably Massachusetts, their appointment and veto powers were severely restricted or nonexistent. In the remaining nine states, all executive and most judicial powers were placed squarely within the legislatures.

Civil services were present, but only rarely so in governments executive branches, which were themselves, typically, withered appendages. Public administrators usually were appointed by legislatures or by privy councils composed of elected officials, and reported to these councils, or to legislatures, or to the courts, or to some combination thereof. State administrators often reported not only to state political bodies, but to local ones, too!5

Did this anti-executive mishmash amount to true, natural, Rousseauist democracy Hardly. Passing few people, about 5 percent of the population, were allowed to vote on anything or anyone.6 Only three states permitted their governors to be elected even by those few people who were qualified to vote; in the remaining ten states, governors were appointed by legislators or judges. Big democracy was not only new, it was distrusted, and the public executive bore the brunt of that distrust.

At least one petulant English observer foresaw the impossibility of his former colonies to ever found a government worthy of the name, and he attributed this failure to Americans fixation on a weak executive: As to the future grandeur of America, and its being a rising empire under one head, whether Republican or Monarchial, it is one of the idlest and most visionary notions that was ever conceived even by writers of romance.7
Administration by Enfeebled Executives: Jefferson Prevails

Layering and striating all of this early American activity in drafting confederations and constitutions was our third expression of the emerging social contract: the massive brilliance of Americas founders, but particularly that of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson.

Hamiltonian Energy Hamilton was not only, like Jefferson, one of Americas first public administrators (he was its first treasury secretary), but likely its first scholar of public administration, too. Hamilton displayed a strong interest in understanding the administrative apparatus of the state, and was contemplating a full investigation of the history and science of civil government and practical results of various modifications of it upon the freedom and happiness of mankind.8 In other words, Hamilton was about to write the worlds first textbook in public administration.

Hamilton extolled a strong chief executive, equating a strong executive with the energy needed to make a government function: A feeble executive [by contrast] implies a feeble execution of government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed must be, in practice, a bad government.9 Things, in sum, had to get done.

Even more than a strong chief executive, Hamilton advocated a very strong bureaucracy. He urged that department heads be paid exceptionally well, that they possess substantial powers, and that their tenure in office should extend beyond that of the chief executive who appointed them. Congress balked at Hamiltons recommendations, and still does.

Jeffersonian Constraint In stark contrast to Hamilton, Jefferson held a profound distrust of bureaucracy, and was no friend to professionalism in public administration.10

As we explain in Chapters 7 and 9, the founders were concerned about governmental honesty and efficiency, two values that gave birth to American public administration. Nevertheless, the word, administration, is nowhere to be found in the Constitution that Madison largely framed, an absence reflective of Jeffersons victory over Hamilton in the nations earliest culture war: the formulation of the American social contract itself.

Ironically, the more experience that Jefferson gained as a public official, the more he forsook this position, ultimately reversing his views and advocating far greater powers for public executives. After he retired from government service, Jefferson even argued that the laws of necessity are of higher obligation than a scrupulous adherence to written law,11 a statement that is almost as disquieting as Richard Nixons, uttered more than 150 years later: If the president does it, that means its not illegal.12 Jeffersons conversion arrived too late, however, and his damage to a legitimately powerful public administration in America still stands.
A CULTURE OF CONSTRAINT

These eighteenth-century expressions of governments role reflected an already-formed American political culture that continues unabated today.
Americans and Their Governments

Americans perspective on the proper place of government differs radically from that of Europeans. Almost six out of ten Americans believe that it is more important for government to provide freedom to pursue [individual] goals, compared with about four out of ten French and Germans, and approximately three out of ten Britons and Italians. Some six out of ten citizens in each of these countries, compared to fewer than three out of ten Americans, say that it is more important for government to guarantee no one is in need.13 Large majorities of Americans of all races believe that poor people have become too dependent on government Helpance programs.14 Not for nothing has Europe been called Americas biggest blue state.

More broadly, the greatest governmental gap between Americanswho, as we elaborate in Chapter 5, are measurably more independent and confident than virtually any other peopleand the rest of the world is their relationship with the state.

Allow us some gross generalizations of continental dimensions that we offer solely for purposes of contrast. The African social contract has been described as a familial half enlarged household, half enlarged state.15 In Asia, the citizens relationship with their governments often is based on Confucian principles, with governments headed by father figures who are, presumably, compassionate and wise, but certainly authoritative. In Europe, the relationship is a covenant, subject to adjustment, in which the rulers and the ruled are equals. And in Latin America, the relationship between state and citizen appears to be an authoritarian, paternal compact.

Not so in the United States, where the social contract, forged in revolution, leashes government with a taut tether. Those who govern are, in every sense, the citizenrys servants, and, consequently, the American social contract may be reduced to a word. That word is constraint.

Such phrases as the hollow government,16 government by gridlock,17 and demosclerosis18 all suggest a governance jammed by malfunctioning political mechanisms. In reality, however, turbid governance is a consequence of an American culture that places a high premium on constraining what governments do. So ingrained is this culture of constraint that serious scholars of American public administration have been known to argue against administrative reforms precisely because they could displace prudential judgment by discreet mandarins.19

An American culture of administrative constraint is unique to the public sector, and is quite the opposite from that of the private sector, with its rapacious, robber-baron roots. Consider the assessment by Ted Turner, the spectacularly innovative and candid entrepreneur who founded CNN and other cable networks: You play to win. And you know youve won when the government stops you.20
Governing in a Distrusting Culture

Constrained governance is inextricably enmeshed in Americans distrust of politics and government. As Figure 1-1 shows, only 26 percent of Americans trust political leaders and the governments that they run. This is the lowest percentage ever recorded in the fifty-year history of the poll.
image

FIGURE 1-1
Trust in Government Index 19582008

Source: The National Election Studies, University of Michigan. The NES Guide to Public Opinion and Behavior (Ann Arbor, MI: Author. 2010).

Note: Index constructed using data from the following questions:

How much of the time do you think you can trust the government in Washington to do what is rightjust about always, most of the time or only some of the time

Would you say the government is pretty much run by a few big interests looking out for themsleves or that it is run for the benefit of all the people

Do you think that people in the government waste a lot of money we pay in taxes, waste some of it, or dont waste very much of it

Do you think that quite a few of the people running the government are (19581972: a little) crooked, not very many are, or do you think hardly any of them are crooked (19581972: at all)

Distrust of Elected Leaders More than nine out of ten Americans think that their elected officeholders are influenced by special interest money, care only about their own careers, and are out of touch with regular people. Well over four-fifths of those voicing these opinions consider each one of these issues to be a major problem.21

Public administrators themselves reflect these currents. The confidence levels of government employees in those heading the federal executive branch and Congress, almost perfectly reflect those of the general citizenry, although top bureaucrats differ more substantially from the general public, usually in the direction of greater cynicism, but their rankings of the people running institutions are quite similar to the general publics.22

Distrust of Government Americans trust their governments no more than the officials they elect to run them. Their distrust focuses on governments size, direction, performance, and power.23 They reserve their deepest distrust for those parts of government that house elected officials and display their highest trust for agencies with public safety or military missions, findings that are consistent to a large extent with findings in other Western countries.24

Those Americans who trust government to do what is right only some of the time or never tend to be white, Republican, thirty or older, and did not graduate from college.25 Over thirteen years, the number of Americans who thought that the federal, state, and local governments have a negative impact on their day-to-day lives grew, on average, by more than three-fifths, a startling increase, and those who felt that governments impact was positive plummeted by a fourth.26 Not even half, a declining proportion, of Americans think that the government is really run for the benefit of all the people.27 Fifty-three percent of the public, an increase of more than two-fifths over thirteen years, is convinced that the federal government requires very major reform.28

Again, public administrators opinions track those of the general public. Top federal, state, and local executives believe that there is a deeply systemic problem with our governance system, which is not performing the way it should.29

Why Trust Matters Popular trust in and esteem for government are important, perhaps vitally so.

Some Diverse and Unexpected Correlations High levels of trust in government correlate, positively and internationally, with less political corruption;30 better government performance on the economy;31 greater economic growth and opportunity;32 superior perceived outcomes by networks of governments;33 less negative popular Assessments of the performance of the entire political system;34 and even with lower rates of street crime.35 Public esteem, a corollary of trust, for government also associates with lower corruption.36

In the United States, high levels of trust in, and esteem for, government not only associate with lower levels of corruption37 and street crime,38 but also with more energetic and widespread public policy innovation.39 In the view of local officials, there is a very robust connection between high trust and deeper engagement by citizens in local policymaking.40

High Trust Equals High Performance Of greatest importance, public trust and esteem are positively related with high performance by public agencies and greater citizen satisfaction with public services, a strong correlation that is not unusual and is acknowledged in the literature.41 This strong correlation appears to be universal in democracies,42 and it exists because trust helps determine how much power citizens grant to their governments, which, in turn, is what allows citizens to grant the flexibility required for bureaucrats to effectively govern.43 Indeed, trust trumps public participation in agency decision making, accessibility of services, and even equality of treatment as a correlate with higher public performance.44

Certainly, these patterns are found in the United States. There is a clear correlation, for example, between plentiful social capital (an index composed of generalized trust and strong civic norms) and high-performing state governments.45 A study of the thirty-five largest American cities found that a 5 percent increase in popular trust in their government resulted in a 1 percent hike in that governments performance.46
THE CONSEQUENCES OF CONSTRAINT

Constraint. What are its consequences in the context of American government
Hobbled Elected Chief Executives

A notable consequence is the hobbling of elected chief executives at every level of government.

The Domesticated Presidency Congress imposes an immense number of legal limitations on executive action. Here is what a cabinet secretary said about it: The Congress has, for whatever reason, decided that they want to put literally thousands of earmarks on the legislationthat you cant do this, that you cant do that. Well, your flexibility is justits like Gulliver with a whole bunch of Lilliputian threads over them: No one thread keeps Gulliver down, but in the aggregate he cant get up.47

Largely as a consequence of these Lilliputian leashes, there is a historic presidential tendency to be reactive in domestic politics, where power must be shared with Congress and often is reigned in by the courts, but to be proactive. powerful, costly energetic, and interventionist in foreign affairs.48

Certainly this assessment applies to the president who was so critical in creating a culture of governmental constraint, Thomas Jefferson. In domestic matters, Jefferson is one of only seven presidents, and the sole two-term president, who never vetoed an act of Congress. Yet, in foreign affairs, he acted with stunning boldness.

A case-in-point is the Louisiana Purchase. With no consultation whatsoever with Congress, Jefferson assigned two of his public administrators to merely inquire about buying from France The Floridaswhich were Spains, but who knewand New Orleans. When France unexpectedly offered the entire Louisiana Territory, Jeffersons administrators snapped it upwithout, in turn, consulting Jefferson. This unilateral act doubled the size of the nationhardly a dilettantish dabbling in diplomacy. So controversial was this extraordinary example of administrative discretion that a band of respected political leaders tried to organize a secession of Northern states!49

A more recent example of this strange duality is the surreal spectacle that unfolded in 1998, when the House of Representatives voted to impeach the president (for only the second time in history) on charges pertaining entirely to domestic affairs, while the president simultaneously launched a major and sustained air war on Iraq because it refused to cooperate with weapons inspectors from the United Nations.

In the administration of the nation, Jeffersonian constraint prevailsbut only in domestic affairs. In foreign ones, Katy bar the door; Hamiltonian energy is rampant. This queer combination is schizoid: an enfeebled executive for the country, but an energetic one for the planet.

Constraining Governors Governors gradually have gained executive power over the last three centuriessince 1960, state constitutional revisions have lengthened their terms of office and strengthened their powers of appointment, budgeting, and the veto50but they still remain tightly constrained. For example, state agency heads accord their governors and legislators essentially identical levels of influence in agency rulemaking, which is a pseudonym for agency policymaking, and this has been consistently the case for more than a quarter century; legislators exert major influence on agency rules.51

An Insipid Appointment Power Out of six institutional powers available to the governors, the power to appoint ranks as the weakest.52 More than half of key state administrators are not appointed by the governor. Of the almost 2,000 major administrative officers in the fifty states, 750 are appointed by someone or some body other than the governor, and nearly 300 are elected directly by the people.53 When we add in those state administrators who are less than major, the total number who are elected separately surpasses 500, or more than ten per state, on average, a number that has changed little since 1955. The number of agencies that are headed by elected administrators, however, has declined by a fourth over nearly four decades, and now averages a bit more than five such agencies per state. But, as with separately elected officials, there appears to be a bottoming out of the ability to reduce this number across the states.54

When agency heads are outside the orbit of control by the governor via appointment, not-so-good things happen. Compared with those appointed by the governor, these state executives not only are somewhat more attuned to legislators than to their governors, they also attribute a significantly higher level of influence to special interests when making policy, and lobbyists access to their agencies is definitely greater.55

Lieutenant Governors, Term Limits, and Recalls There are additional constraints on executive power in the states.

One is the fact that, in nineteen of the forty-five states with lieutenant governors, the governor and lieutenant governor are elected independently,56 and, presumably, have political agendas that differ. (In 1804, Americans relieved the federal government of this potentially destabilizing conflict, as it applied to the president and vice president, by ratifying the Twelfth Amendment.)

Another is term limitsor the lack of them. Most elected state administratorsfrom more than half to all, depending on the office57and legislators in thirty-five states,58 may be reelected without limit, a potentially huge political advantage. By contrast, governors in only eleven states have unlimited terms.59

Eighteen states also permit the recall of the governor and other state officials; a recall is a specially called election, initiated by voters signing petitions, that determines whether or not an elected officeholder may complete his or her term. Michigan and Oregon introduced the state recall in 1908, but it has turned out only two governors since its inception.60 Nevertheless, the recall remains as yet one more potential executive constraint in those states that have it.

Constraining Local Elected Chief Executives Local elected chief executives typically have powers barely worthy of the noun.

Puny Political Powers Almost three-quarters of county commission chairs,61 roughly half of the mayors of towns and townships,62 and nearly a fourth of municipal mayors63 are not elected to office by popular vote. Instead, they are selected by their fellow council members or even by mindless rotation, thereby denying them their own electoral power bases. By contrast, legions of more specialized local executives, such as treasurers, tax collectors, coroners, and clerks, are voted into office. Virtually none of these officials have term limits, but close to a tenth of local elected chief executives do.64

That term limits are imposed on relatively few mayors and commission chairs reflects their unusually brief terms: only a minority has terms as long as four years. Well over four-fifths of county and municipal elected chief executives are part-timers, and few have the normal powers of the president and the governors, notably the veto, preparation of the budget, and appointment powers.65

The Rising Recall Thirty-eight states permit voters in at least some of their local jurisdictions to recall their elected chief executives and other elected officials.66 Voters in six out of every ten cities and towns,67 in nearly as many counties,68 and in many school districts and special districts may initiate the recall.

The local recall was invented in 1903 by Los Angeles.69 Until very recently, local recall campaigns almost never exceeded two or three per year nationally, and in most years there were none. Then, in 2009, something happened. There were 100 of them. In 2010, there were 180. More than a third were successful, and the remainder were either defeated or failed to make the ballot.70

Recall attempts against mayors more than doubled during the same period, and about a fourth resulted in mayors resigning or being voted out of office. Most recall campaigns are not based on allegations of criminal acts, but stem instead from public concerns over service cuts or tax hikes. The bases of some recall attempts, however, seem trivial, if not strange, such as voters opposition to a mayors proposal to switch from diagonal parking spaces to parallel ones (Johnstown, Colorado), or a mayors firing of two lifeguards (Ogden, Kansas).71
Hobbled Governments

The constraints that Americans have imposed on their elected chief executives extend to the institution of government itself.

Constraining the Federal Government The American founders created a Constitution that divides power between the national and state governments, and checks and balances federal power among its executive, legislative, and adjudicative branches. More contemporaneously, as we elaborate in Chapter 11, the federal government has ceded significant power to private and nonprofit organizations, whose costs account for 40 percent of federal discretionary spending, and on which core federal policies have grown dependent.

Constraining State Governments States constrain themselves. As we detail in Chapter 8, thirty legislatures have inflicted taxation or expenditure limitations upon their governments (including three states that limit both), and sixteen require legislative supermajorities, three of which also demand voter approval, to raise some or all taxes.

The people have imposed on their state governments the constraining devices of direct democracy. One such device is the referendum, or a legislatively authorized popular vote to approve or disapprove a proposed policy. Invented by South Dakota in 1898, it has since spread to all the states,72 and voters typically approve from three-quarters to four-fifths of them.73 South Dakota, also in 1898, gave us the initiative, or initiative petition, which places an issue on the ballot by gathering a stipulated percentage of registered voters signatures on a petition. Two dozen states now have it.74 The states use of the initiative has nearly quadrupled since the decade of the 1960s, when fewer than a hundred were on state ballots, to a record 377 in the 1990s and 374 in the 2000s, a number second only to the 1990s.75 Slightly more than two-fifths of all 2,360 state initiatives, beginning with the first one in 1904, have been approved by voters.76

Constraining Local Governments Local governments are the most institutionally limited of all governmental levels. In metropolitan areas, where 80 percent of Americans dwell, public power still is shared, divided, and parsed among many gov ernments operating at multiple levels, much as it was in the eighteenth century. During the twentieth-first century, however, swarms of nongovernmental entities, such as private companies and nonprofit organizations, and sprawling special purpose governments, such as public authorities and special districts, are infusing this inchoate administrative stew.

As we elaborate in Chapter 8, almost all state legislatures, whose thirst to curb taxing and spending remains apparently unquenched by the limitations that they have imposed on their own governments, have extended these constraints to their local governments as well, and voters in one out of every eight cities have mandated even stricter limitations on their own municipal governments.

Local governments use most of the devices of direct democracy even more liberally than do states. More than three-quarters of municipalities and towns permit the referendum, and all allow the initiative or variations of it.77 More than seven out of ten counties allow the referendum and the initiative.78

The Unclear Outcomes of Imposed Constraints. Although, as we detail in Chapter 8, the tax and expenditure limitations that state and local governments have imposed correlate with reduced spending (marginally, or even negatively, for the states, more so for localities), the devices of direct democracy evidence quite mixed patterns.

In those states with initiatives (which typically permit local as well as state initiatives), state spending is 12 percent lower, but local spending is 10 percent higher, suggesting that voters support services that are closer to themselves, and resist those that are delivered from afar to others (as well as to themselves).79 In local governments with initiatives, their mere presence is an insufficient factor in influencing the decision making of local legislative bodies.80

Although there is a positive and robust crosscountry correlation between direct democracy at the local level and lower total public spending and taxation,81 it is unclear, at best, that the referendum and initiative associate with wise governance. The thirty-four countries that require their citizens to vote on national referenda spend less than nations without them. Those eighteen countries with national initiatives spend more overall, but also are more corrupt. Neither the referendum nor the initiative appears to be related to sound, or unsound, budgeting, effective and productive governing, and public happiness.82

INFERNAL VERNON

A case of Unconstrained Public administration

We have been suggesting that local governments are constrained especially tightly. But there are exceptions. Here is one.

The City of Vernon, in Los Angeles County, California, has an official population of ninety-one, mostly very economically secure, souls. Sixty of these residents have been registered voters for many years, and almost all them are city employees or are related to a city official. Most live in heavily-subsidized housing provided by the city, which owns almost all the residences in Vernon, with some houses renting for less than $150 per month.

The city, which bills itself as Exclusively Industrial, supplies electricity and gas to firmsand to their 46,000 employeesdoing business in Vernon with remarkably lucrative results. Vernon has more than $100 million in cash and investments, an amount more than double its general operating budget. Its city administrator commands a salary of $875,000, more than twice that of the president of the United States, and at least one of Vernons retired officials is paid more than $1 million a year in consulting fees. From the 1970s to the present, the city clerk typically has been the highest-paid municipal employee in California.

In 1978, Vernons city clerk disqualified enough challenger ballots to assure that the grandson of the citys founder was elected mayor. In 1980, he did it again. For the next quarter-century, the city simply canceled all elections. The next election was scheduled, ostensibly, for April 2006.

Then, in January 2006, eight newcomers moved into an empty building in town, and promptly registered to vote. Three of them filed petitions to run for city council. Their apparent leaders were a disbarred lawyer who had been convicted on charges of embezzlement and forgery, and a disgraced and deposed city treasurer of nearby South Gate, who was facing a federal prison sentence after being convicted a year earlier for corruption that had almost bankrupted that city.

More newbies followed, and, in a matter of weeks, Vernons electorate burgeoned by more than two-fifths to eighty-six registered voters. Vernons five city council members, each of whom had served in office from thirty to fifty years, were not pleased. The council rescinded the voting registrations of the eight new residents, and, for good measure, cut off their power, condemned their building, and evicted them. Private investigators, cruising in cars with tinted windows and no license plates, followed and videotaped suspected ringer residents, and not only in Vernon, but in other communities as well. In one incident, a pistol was drawn.

True to tradition, the city disqualified the three new candidates voter registrations and cancelled its election for 2006. Charges were duly filed, and the Los Angeles Superior Court ruled that Vernon reinstate the voters registrations and actually hold an election. These it did. At the close of voting, however, the city clerk (who, coincidentally, was the son of the recently retired city administrator) confiscated the ballots and locked them away in City Hall, an unprecedented act that, at the very least, was questionable under state law.

The clerks justification was that the ballots should not be tallied until Vernons swelling court docket was decided. And Vernon did indeed have a large lump of lawsuits. The three challengers had brought suit to disenfranchise more than eight out of ten of Vernons voters on the grounds of conflict of interest. Moreover, a dozen voters, including the mayor, claimed residence in Vernon, but allegedly lived elsewhere, thereby disqualifying them as voters. The District Attorney for Los Angeles County was investigating corruption charges that centered on the city clerk. Vernon, in turn, was embroiled in its own suit to seal its records from review by prosecutors.

Six months following the election, the Superior Court ruled that the election could not be nullified by the City, and described Vernon as being run like a fiefdom. Vernon promptly appealed.

An administrator in the countys registrars office mused, You know, Vernon kind of keeps falling into this category you just dont find legal citations for. Its very, very strange Theyre one the most unusual little jurisdictions Ive ever encountered.

Or, as another seasoned observer put it, Vernon acts more like a for-profit company than a city (White).

Sources: The following articles were published in 2006 by the Los Angeles Times and written by Hector Becerra: Vernon Shoo-Ins Shoo Outsiders (February 12); In Tiny Vernon, a Surge in Voters (April 7); Judge Is to Have Key Role As Vernon Casts Votes (April 11); Vernons Inaction on Vote Stumps Experts (April 13); S. Pasadena Is Tired of Vernon Politics (April 15); Vernon Fights to Keep Records Private (April 26); and Attempt to Nullify Vernon Election Defeated (August 4); Infernal Vernon (editorial), Los Angeles Times (April 14, 2006); Kim Christensen and Sam Allen, Hefty Paychecks for Vernon Officials Rival Those in Bell, Los Angeles Times (August 20, 2010); Otis Whites Urban Notebook, Governing (April 2006), p. 19.
Hobbled Governmental Growth

Most crucially, a culture of constraint restrains governmental growth.

American governments do grow. By the close of the 1800s, federal, state, and local government workers accounted for not even 2 percent of the population, and government revenues at all levels amounted to about 8 percent of the economy.83 The proportion of all government workers since has more than tripled, accounting for more than 7 percent of the resident population, and total public revenues have nearly quadrupled their share of the economy and amount to more than a third of the gross domestic product (GDP).84

The heart of our matter, however, is this: Do American governments grow as fast and as big as governments elsewhere

No, they do not. Constrained governmental growth has been particularly evident since 1978, when Californias notorious initiative, Proposition 13, was voted in by a two-to-one popular margin. Proposition 13 slashed, and effectively capped, all local property taxes and made California the only state that requires a two-thirds vote in the legislature both to adopt a budget and to raise any tax. The initiative became the enduring and iconic symbol of the revolt against governmental growth.

Between 1946 (the year following the end of World War II) and 1978 (the year of Proposition 13, which most observers peg as the year of the tax revolts first shot heard around the nation), the revenue collected by the federal government as a percentage of personal income grew by about one-half of 1 percent per year (17 percent over thirty-two years), and the revenues of state and local governments as a percentage of personal income grew by 4 percent per year, nearly doubling over the same period. But after 1978, federal revenue as a percentage of personal income essentially held flat, and after 2001, as a consequence of unprecedented federal tax cuts, it actually declined.85 Similarly, after 1978, the growth of state and local revenues as a percentage of personal income was slashed by three-fourths to a growth rate of about 1 percent per year.86 Today, all taxes imposed by all governments are at their lowest levels as a percentage of personal income since the 1950s, before the advent of the most expensive transfer programs, such as Medicare.87

Because Americans resist governmental growth, American governments are substantially smaller than are governments in other developed democracies. Whereas the revenue collected by all American governments amounts to 30 percent of GDP, those collected by the governments of eighteen Western and Central European democracies, Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea amount to 46 percent of their respective GDPs, on averagea third higher take than in the United States.88 Not only does the United States have a lower overall tax rate than comparable countries, but, remarkably, each type of American taxincome, sales, property, and payroll taxis lower than its counterpart tax in these nations.89

Perhaps more than any other measures, the relatively slow rate of Americas long-term governmental growth and the comparatively small size of American governments stand as testaments to Americas culture of governmental constraint. Whether this is good or bad for Americans is an open question. A massive global analysis found that, while there is a significant positive association between higher personal income and greater personal happiness, there is no relationship between higher government spending and happiness: increased government spending does not lower [or raise] happiness in broad cross-country contexts.90
THE BUREAUCRAT: BRAINED, BLAMED, AND BOUNCING BACK

Americas culture of constrained governance has unique effects on its public administrators.
Bashing Bureaucrats

Perhaps the most obvious cultural manifestation of Americans suspicion of executive authority is bureaucrat bashing. Wide swaths of American institutions single out the bureaucrat as the craven cause of governmental failure.

Politicians Pandering Politicians routinely run against the bureaucracy in their ceaseless grubbing for votes. The campaign mantra of bureaucratic waste, fraud, and abuse has been a self-serving rhetorical standard of office seekers for more than a generation.91 Once elected to office, politicians are measurably and radically more contemptuous of public administrators than are the voters whose support they sought. The proportions of elected officials who characterize public administrators as dull or who make red tape are twice those of the general public, and the percentage of politicians who describe them as bureaucratic is three times that of the citizenry.92 When speaking on the floor of the U.S. House, representatives call public administrators bureaucrats 70 percent of the time, and 84 percent of these references are clearly pejorative.93

Academias Undercutting Intellectuals foster an image of bureaucracy that ranges from its being merely unresponsive to dangerously undemocratic. This antipublic administration propaganda begins at an early age. American childrens literature portrays public servants as measurably less benevolent and competent than does British childrens literature.94

Over three-fourths of introductory college textbooks on American government portray public administrators as government employees who stay on forever, and two-thirds demonize governmental bureaucracy as all powerful and out of control.95 The most deeply rooted and persistent misconception of these texts is that public administrators are not accountable.96

Medias Mordancy Judging by what evidence we have, the news medias coverage of the public bureaucracy is not good. Over the course of two decades, 80 percent of the televised news stories about the federal government, and 70 percent of the printed ones, focused on the executive branch, and only a third or, more commonly, depending on the medium, less, of those that focused on the executive branchs job performance were positive in tone.97

Medias mordancy is not confined to the news. Although nearly two-thirds of twenty movies released since 1990 present public administrators in a mostly favorable light,98 federal administrators often are portrayed as the baddest villains in Hollywood films.99

Thirty percent of televisions prime-time entertainment episodes present civil servants in a positive light and 22 percent in a negative one, figures that have remained fairly constant since the mid-twentieth century.100 Most programs display a neutral tone toward civil servants, and, compared with other governmental officials and professionalspoliticians, law enforcers, and teachersbureaucrats are cast in unmemorable roles.101 They are frequently shown as robotic paper shufflers or abrasive malcontents who were too lazy, apathetic or self-absorbed to serve the public.102

Perhaps we should not be surprised that young adults favorite TV public servant is the casually corrupt, and definitively dumb, animated Mayor Joe Quimby of The Simpsons.103
Are Bureaucrats to Blame

Do Americans really believe that their public administrators are against them

The Public Likes Public Administrators Evidently not. Overall, the American public does not appear as disdainful of bureaucrats as the projected media image would indicate.104 About seven out of every ten Americans, a rising proportion, have a favorable opinion of government workers.105 Only 6 percent of Americans blame government employees for what is wrong with government, compared with four times that number, 24 percent, who say elected office holders are responsible for governments failures.106

Why the disconnect Why do Americans like public administrators in spite of their deepening distrust of elected leaders and government, and the unremitting bombardment blasting bureaucrats fired by politicians, professors, reporters, and entertainers

Encountering Bureaucrats Because bureaucrats deliver. Polls prove it.107

American bureaucrats are helpful, efficient, fair, and courteous in dealing with people. About two-thirds of Americans who have asked federal, state, or local bureaucrats to do something unusual for themthat is, their request was not a routine matterfound their civil servants to be helpful,108 a striking proportion that belies the stereotype of inflexible, impersonal bureaucrats. Nearly three-quarters of Americans report that the people at the [government] office are very efficient (43 percent) or fairly efficient (31 percent) in handling their problems, and more than three-fourths feel that they are treated fairly; indeed, only 12 percent think that they are treated unfairly.109

American bureaucrats give good service, too. In annual surveys that have been conducted for more than a decade, from 65 to 72 percent of Americans say that they are satisfied with the services that they receive from federal agencies, and have a favorable view of them.110 From three-fifths to over four-fifths of the public report that they are satisfied or highly satisfied with state governmental services,111 and local services garner generally favorable assessments from more than 200,000 citizens in forty states.112
The Bureaucrat: Governments Savior

Ironically, those battered and bruised bureaucrats may be leading the way in restoring Americans trust in government.

Seventy percent of Americans have low expectations about obtaining good governmental services, but more Americans, 77 percent, who actually experience public services feel that they receive services of high quality.113 This holds true even for two of the most widely belittled government agencies, the U.S. Postal Service114 and local public schools.115

The consequences of these positive experiences for governments are varied. Overall, Americans who have had good experiences with an agency (32 percent, versus 18 percent who have not) are three times more likely to give a positive performance rating to government in general (41 percent versus 14 percent).116 Those citizens who have had positive personal dealings with an agency, but who hold a deeply negative view about government in general, express highly positive opinions about that particular agency but their negative view of the institution of government persists.117

The high regard that Americans have for bureaucrats with whom they have dealt is significant because the impact of a negative experience with a public agency is much more pronounced than the effect of a positive one. Decreasing the number of disappointed clients will have a stronger effect on increasing trust in government than increasing the number of already well-pleased clients.118 Because relatively few citizens have a bad bureaucratic experience, bureaucrats may be leading a restoration of trust in government.
A PARADOXICAL POWER: THE GRAY EMINENCE OF THE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATOR

So what does all this mean for the American public administrator It means that the United States has produced a paradoxical public administration characterized by cultural, institutional, and legal limits on executive action, and by a nonetheless powerful public administrative class. The fragmented managerial climate of government actually grants public administrators more opportunities for acquiring power than are available to their corporate counterparts.119
Staying Power

Of considerable, but often underappreciated, importance is the staying power of bureaucracies and the bureaucrats in them, a power that permits them to wait out and outlast elected officeholders and the policies that they push.

Of 175 federal agencies, only 15 percent disappeared over a half century, a death rate that was far below that of business failures during the same period, leading to the conclusion that, by and large, government organizations are immortal.120 Examples include the Commission for the Standardization of Screw Threads, formed in 1918 with a sixty-day life span, the commission that will not die;121 the Rural Electrification Administration, chartered in 1935 to electrify backwoods America, had accomplished its mission by the 1950s; and the Federal Helium Reserve, created by Congress in 1925 to assure the Army Air Corps a continuing supply of fuel for its cutting-edge (at the time) aeronautical technologyblimps.122 All, if differently titled, are with us today.

Just as bureaucracies stay on, so do bureaucrats. The median job tenure of all government employees is four-fifths longer than that of private-sector employees, and, depending on the level of government, top public careerists average from seventeen to twenty-six years on public payrolls.123 Forty-three percent of federal civilian workers, 38 percent of state government employees, and 37 percent of the local workforce are fifty years old or older; for the private sector, this figure is just 29 percent of all employees.124

Bureaucracies and bureaucrats endure.
Discretionary Power

Discretionary power refers to a public administrators authority to decide how to implement public policies. In the American states, for example, greater managerial discretion, in tandem with deregulation, drove reforms in the critical areas of budgeting, procurement, and personnel, and, in all three areas, these reforms left a deep and long legacy.125

Legislatures frequently enable bureaucratic discretion. For instance, Congress in 1988 effectively granted the Federal Emergency Management Agency total authority to determine not only how much Helpance is needed in a disaster, but even how much aid is desirable.126

Often, however, administrators exercise discretion sans specific legislative instructions. Federal administrators fill out 71 percent of new laws by appending proscriptions and procedures that have the force of law.127 The U.S. Department of Education has enacted rules that prohibit schools from expelling special education students who have discipline problems (including those who bring guns and drugs to school), despite the absence of any legislation requiring such policies. The Army Corps of Engineers has elected to interpret navigable waters to mean wetlands in a law that does not mention wetlands, which, of course, are neither navi gable nor waters.128

In 1983, the Supreme Court tucked the bureaucracys discretionary powers into a warm, protective blanket by ruling as unconstitutional the legislative veto, or the repeal by the legislature of an executive action taken in the course of administering a law.129 The legislative veto emerged in 1932, and, by 1980, Congress had inserted legislative vetoes into 555 provisions in 355 legislative acts, most of which were enacted during the 1970s.130 That intrusive congressional practice disrupts agencies discretion no longer.
Policymaking Power

Aside from the actual decision to select a public policy (a decision that, as we detail in Chapter 10, is uniquely idiosyncratic for each policy process), policymaking is composed of three main steps: Setting the policy agenda, or discovering and expressing social problems that need addressing; developing options about how to resolve those problems; and implementing the policy.131

Policymaking by Federal Administrators Although no one set of actors dominates the process of federal agenda setting, elected politicians and their appointees come closer than any other.132 Top presidential appointees rank higher than the president and members of Congress in setting the agenda, and are closely followed by staffers in the White House and Congress.

Career civil servants in the executive branch are less involved in agenda setting, but they are extremely significantmore so than political appointeesin structuring alternative policies. Careerists have yet more impact on the final policy process, that of implementing policy, as implementation is a major preoccupation of theirs.133

There are about 30,000 unelected employees in the institutional center of national policymaking, Congress,134 a number that includes some 21,000 personal and committee staffers (up from fewer than 2,500 in 1948),135 and the employees of the Government Accountability Office, Library of Congress, and Congressional Budget Office. These professionals, but particularly staffers, wield significant power in the policymaking process.136

Policymaking by State Administrators Public administrators play comparable policymaking roles in the states.137 A five-decade-long study of state agency heads finds that these executives consistently allocate half their time to policy development and building political support; the other half is spent on internal management.138 In state executive offices, administrative professionalism itself ranks as an important influence in state policy formation, equaling other more commonly studied state characteristics, including the most powerful political forces, such as special interests and ideologies.139

The nations more than 7,300 state legislators140 employ 28,000 full-time legislative staffers and another 5,000 when the legislatures are in session.141 Just three legislatures fail to provide their standing committees with professional staffs;142 none did so in 1960.143

As with Congress, the role of these staffs is a powerful one. As a former state legislative staffer put it, The most remarkable discovery that I made during my tenure as a staff member was the amount of power I had over bills on which I worked.144

Policymaking by Local Administrators There is a small raft of research substantiating that top local administrators are their governments de facto policymakers. As we detail in Chapters 9 and 11, nearly nine out of ten cities and towns, more than half of counties, and essentially all independent special purpose governments have chief administrative officers whose growing budgetary and appointive powers render them, in general, the single most powerful actors in local governments.

Most of the research on policymaking power in local governments focuses on city and town managers. The policy role of these appointed chief administrators consumes approximately one-third of their time,145 a share that has held steady since the mid-1980s.146 Virtually all of them always or nearly always participate in the formulation of policy and set the council agenda,147 with a stunning 96 percent initiating policy proposals.148 The rise of the local manager as a policymaker is not without its tensions: As the managers external policymaking leadership deepens, their internal administrative authority lessens.149

Lethargic Local Legislators Most city council members are are ambivalent about making policy decisions, are uninvolved in policymaking and mission development, and approve of their managers taking over these responsibilities that, legally, are theirs.150 The longer that a city council member has served on the council, the greater the deference that he or she has for city administrators.151

Other local councils demonstrate a comparable lack of interest in policymaking. Virtually all researchers who have addressed this issue in county governments also find that county commissioners also are relatively uninvolved in policy formation, a vacuum that is typically filled by county administrators.152 Special purpose governments may cede even greater policymaking powers to their bureaucrats. In school districts, for example, the school superintendent is the major formulator of educational policy, and school boards adopt the policies recommended by their superintendents an astonishing 99 percent of the time. The superintendentfar more than the boardis identified publicly as the governor of education.153

Is this accretion by bureaucrats of local policymaking power a good thing It likely is. An extensive investigation found that democratic accountability is greatly enhanced by city managers who actively involve themselves in local policymaking, and this is particularly true in light of the diminishing role of elected officials in providing political guidance.154

The Demise of Democracy Local managers are not merely making public policy. They are replacing local legislators as the effective political representatives of the people. This finding represents a significant departure from previous research, and marks a new nadir for local democracy.155

A remarkable 70 percent of city managers spend more than half their time on self-selected tasks [rather] than on tasks imposed by others, such as by council members, leaving them free to work on tasks that they find most appealing. What these managers find most appealing is taking a more active political role in their communities; exhibiting a strong preference to communicate directly with citizens (another analysis found that city managers have not taken advantage of the Internet to bring citizens closer to their governments because these officials strongly prefer traditional citizen participation156); and considering citizen input in their decision making. City managers more directly and visibly influence the development of public policy by working more closely with citizens and assuming the mantle of community leadership.157

Is there any remaining rationale to elect local legislators to office
Stopping Power

Bureaucrats, in brief, have the power to do things. They also possess the power to not do things.

Consider the case of John R. Bolton as arms-control chief in the State Department. During President George W. Bushs first term, Bolton allegedly stymied for two years the disposal of sixty-eight tons of Russian plutonium capable of fueling 8,000 nuclear bombs (a task that he was charged with facilitating, not undermining); withheld American support from Europe for a joint approach regarding Irans nuclear plans; and blocked a new initiative concerning the sharing of civilian nuclear technology with India.

In 2005, the president appointed a new secretary of state and Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations, moves that effectively cut Bolton out from these policymaking loops. Almost immediately, the logjams on these and other issues broke. As a former official at Foggy Bottom put it, throughout his career he was always playing the stopper role Even when there was an obvious interest by the president to move things forward, Bolton often found ways of stopping things by tying the interagency process in knots.158 Or, as a federal administrator phrased it when addressing another incident of bureaucratic stopping power, policy is not what the president says in speeches. Policy is what emerges from interagency meetings.159
The Contest for Control

In light of the impressive quantum of power that bureaucrats have accrued in both the executive and legislative branches of governments, how do elected chief executives control their bureaucracies In local governments, as we have seen, the battle for bureaucratic control is largely over, and has been wonwith the blessings of their elected officialsby the bureaucrats themselves. In the national and state governments, however, the contest continues. In Washington, that fight is waged between the president and the bureaucracy itself. In the states, the battle is fought between governors and legislators.
Presidents versus Bureaucrats: Mobilizing the Bureaucracy

Nowhere is this challenge more daunting than in that biggest bureaucracy of all, the federal service.

Presidential Frustration Consider the following comments made by presidents about their bureaucracy.

Harry Truman: I thought I was the president, but when it comes to these bureaucrats, I cant do a damn thing.160

John F. Kennedy told a caller, I agree with you, but I dont know if the government will.161

Richard Nixon: We have no discipline in this bureaucracy! We never fire anybody! We never reprimand anybody! We never demote anybody!162

Jimmy Carter, in the final year of his presidency: Before I became president, I realized and was warned that dealing with the federal bureaucracy would be one of worst problems I would have to face. It has been worse than I had anticipated.163

Why do presidents feel this way We offer a couple of small but revealing examples:

Some years ago, President John F. Kennedy was pestered by his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, over the fact that, during his daily commute, he could see a large sign directing drivers to the Central Intelligence Agencys headquarters, which, in his view, should not be advertised. President Kennedy ordered an aide to have the sign removed; the aide, in turn, directed the Interior Department to remove it. Nothing happened. A few days later, the president repeated his order. Again, nothing happened. Aggravated by both the bureaucracy and his brothers badgering, the president personally called the official in charge of signs: This is Jack Kennedy. Its eleven oclock in the morning. I want that sign down by the time the attorney general goes home tonight, and Im holding you personally responsible. The sign was removed and the president had learned a lesson: I now understand that for a president to get something done in this country, hes got to say it three times.164

Such an understanding of supposed bureaucratic inertia is held by most presidents. But quite the opposite can occur. President Carters daughter, Amy, was having difficulty one Friday afternoon on a homework problem about the industrial revolution. Amy asked her mother for help, who asked an aide if she knew the answer. The aide called the Labor Department for Helpance. Labor was pleased to oblige. On Sunday, a truck pulled up to the White House with Amys answer: a massive computer printout, costing an estimated $300,000 and requiring a special team of analysts to work overtime. The Department thought it was responding to an order from the president. Amy received a C for her homework assignment.165

Bringing Bureaucracy to Heel As these incidents reveal, gaining presidential control over a colossal bureaucracy involves clarity and communication, skill and will. Some presidents have no clear vision of what they want to do (George H. W. Bush,166 Bill Clinton167). Others do not comprehend the criticality of the bureaucracy in securing their place in history (Richard Nixon, at least in his first term,168 and Clinton,169 who imprudently kept his nave and rash campaign promise to cut the White House staff by a fourth, filled the resultant vacuum with unpaid interns, one of whom he had an affair with, leading to his disbarment and impeachment170). Hence, not much gets done. Other presidents, however, do have goals, and appreciate the civil services importance in attaining them, but lack the skills needed to master the bureaucracy.171 Lyndon Baines Johnson,172 Nixon in his second term,173 and Jimmy Carter174 are exemplary.

We offer two opposing and extreme examples of presidents attitudes and actions in bringing their bureaucracies to heel.

Executive Expertise The president who was most skilled in mobilizing his bureaucracy behind his vision was Ronald Reagan. So devoted were Reagans appointees that they served 52 percent longer in their offices than did those appointed by Bill Clinton, and there is no statistically significant difference in duration of appointee service for the two Bush administrations relative to the Clinton administration.175

Few if any presidential administrations come to Washington with as clear a game plan as the Reagan administration had, and this clarity was critical to its relative bureaucratic success.176 Reagan centralized personnel selection in the White House; appointed loyal fellow ideologues not only as Cabinet secretaries, but, of even greater importance, to operational positions deep in the bureaucracy (often, long before he appointed the secretaries to whom they reported); and then decentralized power to them.177

Crucially, Reagan did not eschew competence in his appointments. Ronald Reagan pursued managers, but he shrewdly coupled loyalty to the Reagan agenda with federal management experience.178

Presidential Indifference President George W. Bush seems to have had neither a program, other than cutting taxes and responding to 9/11, nor an ability to manage the bureaucracyor even an interest in doing so. Former insiders portray him not as the self-declared decider, but rather as a dissociated ditherer on most important issues, allowing them to fester among his executives. When a policy eventually was chosen, he typically failed to marshal his bureaucracy behind it.179

Here is how Bushs National Security Adviser, in an extraordinary remark, put it: Bush will talk with great authority and assertiveness. This is what we are going to do. And he wont mean it. Because he will not have gone through the considered process where he finally is prepared to say, Ive decided. Historians will conclude from the written record that, Well, he decided on this day to do such and such. Its not true. Its not history. Its a fact, but its a misleading fact.180

We offer a small, but revealing, example. An obsolete relic of the Cold War (and one that remains supremely annoying to Russia) is the JacksonVanik amendment to the Trade Act of 1974, which links trade with free emigration, an issue that expired with the Soviet Union. In 2002, officials determined that the president needed to make just four phone calls to congressional leaders to end Jackson-Vanik, but they found that getting the president to schedule the calls was impossible, no matter how hard they tried.181

Control and Autonomy There can be little doubt that the immensity, complexity, and publicness of the federal service are unique presidential challenges, but an irony in presidents exertions to bring their bureaucracy to heel is that the problem often resides not with the bureaucrats, but with them. Many presidents do not have a concrete mission in mind, and, without one, coherent policy directives, other than a demand for loyalty, are often absent.

When the presidents program is clear, top federal careerists are extraordinarily responsive, even by White House standards. For more than forty years, from almost four-fifths to more than nine-tenths, depending on the administration, of all presidential appointees have fulsomely praised the competence and responsiveness of career public administrators.182 The evidence is overwhelming that experienced political appointees, regardless of administration, party, or ideology, believe that career executives are both competent and responsive.183

The central question is less one of presidential dominance of their bureaucracies versus the bureaucrats drive for autonomy, and more of a recognition that democratic control and bureaucratic autonomy are not incompatible. When elected executives and administrators respect each other and work together, the governed benefit.184

A Bureaucracy Newly Girded Bureaucratic sabotage of presidential policies, while not utterly absent,185 is so rare as to be almost nonexistent. Federal administrators, however, do resist the politicization of their agencies, and they are getting better at it. Over time, the capacity of the bureaucracy to fight back presidential attempts to undermine its professionalism has improved substantiallybecause of shifting cultural attitudes about the legitimacy of bureaucratic dissent, better legal protections for whistle-blowers technological changes that have made it easier to broadcast leaks. [and] a lucrative market for insider accounts of the administrations decision making. These add up to a significant new check on presidential authority.186
Governors versus Legislators: The Battle for the Bureaucracy

The struggle to control state bureaucracy is one of the long-standing conflicts of state politics,187 and it pits governors against legislators.

In 1964, only 32 percent of state agency heads reported that their governors had greater control over their agencies than the legislature, and 44 percent said that the legislature had more control. Today, these figures have reversed: 45 percent of agency chiefs say that the governor exercises more control than the legislature, and those who report that the legislature has greater control has slipped to 32 percent; a fourth say that they are each the same, a proportion that has held remarkably constant over forty-four years.188 However, only about a third of state budget chiefs think that their governors are their states principal budget shapers, a decline of almost two-fifths over twelve years.189

Empirical research finds that governors and legislatures are essentially dead even in their control of executive agencies. The governors influence over their agencies in four vital areas dealing with policy development is statistically the same as that of the legislatures influence over the agencies.190

Over time, governors have gained some power over their bureaucracies, but it is indisputable that their authority remains severely constrained. A half-century-long study of some 1,000 state agencies concludes that the degree of executive control in the American states is modest at best.191
KNOWLEDGE: THE BASE OF BUREAUCRATIC POWER

How has the bureaucracy grown so in political importance and independence
Knowledge Is Power

The old saw knowledge is power has never been more salient than it is today. Administration is knowledge. Knowledge is power. Administration is power. This simplistic syllogism192 has been reduced to the phrase, noetic authority, or the power that derives from knowledge.193

Public administrators work in bureaucracies, and bureaucracies are more likely to be found in big, complicated systems and societies, where knowledge is critical to success and often to survival. The more economically and socially complex states, for instance, also have the more advanced, informed, and well-developed legislative bureau-cracies.194 The larger the city, the likelier the city manager will be intensely involved in municipal policymaking.195 School superintendents have far more power relative to their school boards in big cities, substantially less power in the suburbs, and even less power in small towns.196

Max Weber, the famous theorist on bureaucracy, noted a century ago: In facing a parliament, a bureaucracy, out of a sure power instinct, fights every attempt of the parliament to gain knowledge by means of its own experts or from interest groups. bureaucracy naturally welcomes a poorly informed and hence a powerless parliamentat least insofar as ignorance somehow agrees with the bureaucracys interests.197

Public administrators, who fully comprehend the connection between knowledge and power, are quick to defend their monopoly on knowledge. Because they might threaten their knowledge monopolies, most city managers oppose the provision of a full-time separate staff for the mayor, 60 percent strongly object to a full-time, paid city council (This item evoked the strongest expression of opinion in the entire series of questions), and 77 percent always or nearly always resist council involvement in management issues (which can be, in reality, policy issues).198

When forces external to the executive branch do gain knowledge, they also gain power at its expense; often, they institutionalize their new knowledge by creating their own counter-bureaucracies. Usually, state agency heads possess bureaucratic information asymmetrythat is, they have the most access to the most knowledge about their programsbut not always. When governors, legislators, or lobbyists have informational advantages over estimated program costs they significantly affect agency budget requests.199 The more highly professionalized the state legislature, and the larger its staff, the lower the influence of the executive agencies in their own policy areas.200

As a matter of course, bureaucracy and knowledge reside most frequently in the executive branch. Potentially, however, any branch of government, and any special interest, can create its own bureaucratic knowledge base, and when it does, power follows.
Knowledge, Power, and the Public Interest

As we all know, power can be misused, and, because knowledge is power, knowledge sometimes is deliberately distorted to serve the powerful. Consider some examples:

President Nixon ordered his Bureau of Labor Statistics to stop holding news conferences in which politically embarrassing monthly unemployment figures were released andinterpreted.201

Vice President Al Gore drove some environmental researchers out of government positions because their views on global warming and ozone depletion clashed with his own.202

In 2004, the chief actuary of the Medicare program calculated (accurately, as it turned out) that the proposed new benefit of adding prescription drugs would cost about $150 billion more than the White House said it would cost, and reported that his politically appointed boss, the head of Medicare, had threatened to fire him if he released his analysis, an act that has been illegal since 1912.203

Toward the close of President George W. Bushs second term, the Associated Press noted a pattern by the Bush administration not to seek input from its scientists concerning science-based policy, relying instead on lawyers and ideologues.204 Sixty percent of nearly 1,600 scientists in the Environmental Protection Agency205 and 58 percent of more than 1,600 climate scientists in seven federal agencies206 reported that they had experienced political interference with their work over the past five years.

A parallel pattern of ignoring or misrepresenting informed sources was evident regarding 9/11 and the subsequent decision to invade Iraq. The White House scotched the 9/11 Commissions conclusion that officials of the Federal Aviation Administration ignored numerous advanced warnings concerning possible airline hijackings and suicide missions by Al Qaeda terrorists.207 In an apparent effort to drum up support for the invasion of Iraq, the under secretary of defense for policy, according to the Defense Departments own inspector general, manufactured a case for an IraqAl Qaeda relationship that was never vetted by the intelligence community and not supported by intelligence. A Senior Intelligence Analyst countered, point-by-point, each instance of an alleged tie between Iraq and al-Qaida pushed by the under secretary.208

And, in a sad reprise of an earlier presidency, the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2005 was ordered to stop reporting mass layoffs.209

Fortunately, these incidents are the exception, not the rule. Politics as usual Not really. Hard as it may be to believe the executive branch has traditionally succeeded at hewing to the ideals of objectivity and nonpartisanship. Government agencies have produced reliable numbers, even when those numbers have made sitting Presidents look worse. The people who have made this possible are among the most heavily scorned figures in American lifeGeorge Wallaces pointy-headed bureaucrats. Yet, these bureaucrats are the only professionals in governmentthe only ones to say what they think instead of what they believe their bosses and voters want them to. Would we trust the unemployment numbers if, every time a new President came along, he replaced the entire Bureau of Labor Statistics with a new crop of cronies and campaign aides210

Therein lies the powerand the honorof the public administrator.
NOTES

1. Charles C. Mann, The Founding Sachems, New York Times (July 4, 2005).

2. Ethnographer Lewis Henry Morgan, as quoted in ibid.

3. Woodrow Wilson, The Study of Administration, Political Science Quarterly 2 (June/July 1887), pp. 197222, especially pp. 206219; the quotation is on p. 206.

4. Garry Wills, A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), p. 66.

5. John C. Beach, Elaine D. Carter, Martha J. Dede, et al., State Administration and the Founding Fathers During the Critical Period, Administration & Society 28 (February 1997), pp. 511530.

6. Steven Hill, as cited in Patrick Garvin, American Democracy: Can It Be Repaired American Examiner (August 3, 2006). In 1790, about 200,000 people in a population of 3,929,214 could vote. Voters had to be propertied white men, although free black men could vote in three states.

7. Josiah Tucker, as quoted in Page Smith, The Constitution: A Documentary and Narrative History (New York: Morrow Quill, 1980), p. 82.

8. William Kent, Memoirs and Letters of James Kent (Boston: Little, Brown, 1898), pp. 327328. Kent was a contemporary of Hamiltons.

9. Alexander Hamilton, No. 70, The Federalist Papers, Clinton Rossiter, ed. (New York: New American Library, 1961), p. 423.

10. Lynton K. Caldwell, The Administrative Republic: The Contrasting Legacies of Hamilton and Jefferson, Public Administration Quarterly 13 (Winter 1990), pp. 470494. The quotation is on p. 482.

11. Thomas Jefferson, writing in 1810, as quoted in Wills, A Necessary Evil, p. 53.

12. Richard Nixon, as quoted from his interview of April 6, 1977, with David Frost, in https://monkessays.com/write-my-essay/ historycommons.org.

13. Allensbach Opinion Research Institute, National Opinion Research Center, and Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, as cited in A Nation Apart, The Economist (November 6, 2003), http:// www.economist.com. Data are for 2003.

14. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, Independents Take Center Stage in Obama Era (May 21, 2009), Section 2, http:// people-press.org/report/517/political-values-and-core-attitudes. In 2009, 76 percent of whites, 63 percent of blacks, and 62 percent of Hispanics agreed with the statement, percentages that were much the same in 2007.

15. Aidan W. Southall, Alur Society: A Study in Processes and Types of Domination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), p. 195.

16. Mark L. Goldstein, Americas Hollow Government: How Washington Has Failed the People (Homewood, IL: Business One Irwin, 1992).

17. Sarah A. Binder, Going Nowhere: A Gridlocked Congress, Brookings Review 18 (Winter 2000), pp. 1619.

18. Jonathan Rauch, Demosclerosis: Americas Silent Killer (New York: Time Books, 1994).

19. John Kane and Haig Patapan, In Search of Prudence: The Hidden Problem of Managerial Reform, Public Administration Review 66 (September/October 2006), pp. 711724. The quotation is on p. 711.

20. Quoted in Ken Auletta, The Lost Tycoon, The New Yorker (April 23 and 30, 2001), pp. 138163. The quotation is on p. 154.

21. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, Distrust, Discontent, Anger and Partisan Rancor: The People and Their Government (Washington, DC: Author, 2010), Section 4, http://people-press.org/report/606/trust-in-gov-ernment. Data are for 2010, and apply only to elected federal officials.

22. Gregory B. Lewis, In Search of Machiavellian Milquetoasts: Comparing Attitudes of Bureaucrats and Ordinary People, Public Administration Review 50 (March/April 1990), pp. 220227. The quotation is on p. 223.

23. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, Deconstructing Distrust: How Americans View Government (Washington, DC: Author, 1998), p. 2.

24. Shlomo Mizrahi, Eran Vigoda-Gadot, and Gregg Van Ryzin, Public Sector Management, Trust, Performance, and Participation, Public Performance & Management Review 32 (December 2010), pp. 268312. The quotation is on p. 268.

25. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, Distrust, Discontent, Anger and Partisan Rancor, Sections 2 and 1.

26. As derived from data in ibid., Section 3. Figures are for 19972010. Growth figure is 61 percent.

27. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, Independents Take Center Stage in Obama Era, Section 2. Figure, 49 percent, is for 2010. In 1987, 57 percent thought this.

28. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, Distrust, Discontent, Anger and Partisan Rancor, Sections 2 and 1. Those who favored major reform increased from 37 to 53 percent, 19972010.

29. National Academy of Public Administration, Key Issues of Governance, Public Management, and Public Administration (Washington, DC: Author, 1999), p. 6. This is a survey of the Fellows of the National Academy of Public Administration, 19981999.

30. Richard Wike and Kathleen Holzwart, Where Trust Is High, Crime and Corruption Are Low (Washington, DC: Pew Global Attitudes Project, Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 2008). Data were collected in thirty-nine countries on five continents in 2007.

31. Akira Nakamura and Soonhee Kim, Public Trust in Government in Japan and South Korea: Does the Rise of Critical Citizens Matter Public Administration Review 70 (September/ October 2010), pp. 801810. The quotation is on p. 801.

32. Vadim Radaev, Coping with Distrust in Emerging Russian Markets, Distrust, Russell Hardin, ed. (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2004), pp. 233245.

33. Erik-Hans Klijn, Jurian Edelenbos, and Bram Steijn, Trust in Governance Networks: Its Impact on Outcomes, Administration & Society 42 (April 2010), pp. 193221. The quotation is on p. 193.

34. Christopher J. Anderson and Yuliya V. Tverdova, Corruption, Political Allegiances, and Attitudes Toward Government in Contemporary Democracies, American Journal of Politics 47 (January 2003), pp. 91109. Data are for 1996. This is an analysis of surveys conducted in sixteen mature and newly established democracies around the globe.

35. Wike and Holzwart, Where Trust Is High, Crime and Corruption Are Low.

36. Geoffrey Brennan and Philip Pettit, The Economy of Esteem (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).

37. Ibid.; and Daniel Carpenter, Reputation and Power: Organizational Image and Pharmaceutical Regulation at the FDA (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010).

38. Gary LaFree, Losing Legitimacy: Street Crime and the Decline of Social Institutions in America (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998).

39. Marc J. Heatherington, Why Trust Matters: Declining Political Trust and the Demise of Liberalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004).

40. William Barnes and Bonnie Mann, Making Local Democracy Work: Municipal Officials Views about Public Engagement (Washington, DC: National League of Cities, 2010), p. 18. Data are for 2009.

41. Shlomo Mizrahi, Eran Vigoda-Gadot, and Nissim Cohen, Trust, Participation, and Performance in Public Administration: An Empirical Examination of Health Services in Israel, Public Performance & Management Review 33 (September 2009), pp. 733. The quotations are on pp. 7, 27.

42. Stephen Knack and Philip Keefer, Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff A Cross-Country Investigation, Quarterly Journal of Economics 102 (November 1997), pp. 12511288. This is an analysis of twenty-nine market economies.

43. Christopher A. Cooper, H. Gibbs Knotts, and Kathleen M. Brennan, The Importance of Trust in Government for Public Administration: The Case of Zoning, Public Administration Review 68 (May/June 2008), pp. 459467. The quotations are on pp. 459, 464.

44. Mizrahi, Vigoda-Gadot, and Cohen, Trust, Participation, and Performance in Public Administration.

45. Stephen Knack, Social Capital and the Quality of Government: Evidence from the U.S. States, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 2504 (Washington, DC: World Bank Development Research Group, 2000).

46. Johnny Goldfinger and Margaret R. Ferguson, Social Capital and Governmental Performance in Large American Cities, State and Local Government Review 41 (Winter 2009), pp. 2536. The data are on p. 32.

47. Remarks made in 2002 by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, as quoted in Jonathan D. Breul, Three Bush Administration Management Reform Initiatives: The Presidents Management Agenda, Freedom to Manage Legislative Proposals, and the Program Assessment Rating Tool, Public Administration Review 67 (January/February 2007), pp. 2127. The quotation is on p. 23.

48. Caldwell, The Administrative Republic, pp. 483484.

49. Stephanie P. Newbold, Statesmanship and Ethics: The Case of Thomas Jeffersons Dirty Hands, Public Administration Review 65 (November/December 2005), pp. 669677. The quotations are on p. 671.

50. Thad Beyle, The Governors, Politics in the American States: A Comparative Analysis, 6th ed., Virginia Gray and Herbert Jacob, eds. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1996), pp. 207252.

51. Chreyl M. Miller and Deil S. Wright, Whos Minding Which Store Institutional and Other Actors Influence on Administrative Rulemaking in State Agencies, 19782004, Public Administration Quarterly 33 (Fall 2009), pp. 397428. The quotation is on p. 403. Six surveys of agency heads were conducted over the period.

52. Thad L. Beyle, Enhancing Executive Leadership in the States, State and Local Government Review 27 (Winter 1995), pp. 1835. The quotation and data are on p. 29.

53. National Commission on the State and Local Public Service, Hard Truths/Tough Choices: An Agenda for State and Local Government Reform, First Report (Albany, NY: Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, State University of New York, 1993), pp. 1617.

54. Beyle, Enhancing Executive Leadership in the States, pp. 2021. Figures are for 19551994.

55. Miller and Wright, Whos Minding Which Store p. 410.

56. As derived from data in Council of State Governments, Book of the States, 2010, (Lexington, KY: Author, 2010), Table 4.12. Figures are for 2010.

57. As derived from data in ibid. Table 4.10. Data are for 2010.

58. National Conference of State Legislatures, Legislative Term Limits: An Overview (Washington, DC: Author, 2010). Figure is for 2010.

59. As derived from data in Council of State Governments, Book of the States, 2010, Table 4.9. Figure is for 2010.

60. National Council of State Legislators, Recall of State Officials (Washington, DC: Author, 2006).

61. Tanis J. Salant, Trends in County Government Structures, Municipal Year Book, 2004 (Washington, DC: International City/County Management Association, 2004), p. 39. Figure is for 2002.

62. U.S. Bureau of Census, Census of Governments, 1992, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1995), pp. 919. Figure is for 1992, and includes council presidents.

63. Evelina R. Moulder, Municipal Form of Government: Trends in Structure, Responsibility, and Composition, Municipal Year Book, 2008 (Washington, DC: International City/County Management Association, 2008), p. 38. Figure is for 2006, and includes council presidents.

64. Ibid., p. 39, and Salant, Trends in County Government Structures, p. 40. In 2006, 9 percent of mayors had term limits, and in 2002, 4 percent of county commission chairs had them.

65. Ibid.; Salant, Trends in County Government Structures; and Susan A. MacManus and Charles S. Bullock, III, The Form, Structure, and Composition of Americas Municipalities in the New Millennium, Municipal Year Book, 2003 (Washington, DC: International City/County Management Association, 2003), pp. 318.

66. Ryan Holeywell, Recall Fever, Governing (April 2011), pp. 4448. Figure is for 2011.

67. Moulder, Municipal Form of Government, p. 5. Figure, 60 percent, is for 2006.

68. Edgar E. Ramirez de la Cruz, County Form of Government: Trends in Structure and Composition, Municipal Year Book, 2009 (Washington, DC: International City/County Management Association, 2009), pp. 2127. Figure, 55 percent (p. 26), is for 2007.

69. National Council of State Legislators, Recall of State Officials.

70. As derived from data in Political Recall Efforts, Ballotpedia, https://monkessays.com/write-my-essay/ballotpedia.org/wiki/ index.php/Political_recall_efforts. In 2008, there were eight recall efforts; in 2007, three; and in 2006, two. Figures for success, defeat, and failure to make the ballot are for 2009.

71. Holeywell, Recall Fever, pp. 45, 46. Mayoral recall attempts rose from twenty-three (of which five were successful) to fifty-seven (fifteen succeeded), 20092010.

72. National Conference of State Legislatures, Initiative, Referendum and Recall (Washington, DC: Author, 2010). Figure is for 2010.

73. Initiative and Referendum Institute, Ballotwatch (Los Angeles: Author, 2010), p. 1.

74. National Conference of State Legislatures, Initiative, Referendum and Recall. Figure is for 2010.

75. Initiative and Referendum Institute, Overview of Initiative Use, 19042009 (Los Angeles: Author, 2010), p. 1. Figures exclude initiatives seeking to repeal laws and refer only to those seeking to enact new laws or constitutional amendments.

76. As derived from data in ibid.; and Initiative and Referendum Institute, Ballotwatch, p. 1. Forty-one percent of state initiatives have been approved by voters, 19042010. Figure excludes initiatives seeking to repeal laws and refers only to those seeking to enact new laws or constitutional amendments.

77. Moulder, Municipal Form of Government, p. 5. Figures are for 2006.

78. Ramirez de la Cruz, County Form of Government, p. 26. Figures, 71 and 72 percent, respectively, are for 2007. Initiatives include popular referenda; both devices require citizens to collect signatures on petitions.

79. John G. Matsusaka, Fiscal Effects of the Voter Initiative: Evidence from the Past 30 Years, Journal of Political Economy 103 (June 1995), pp. 587623.

80. Carl J. Gabrini, Do Institutions Matter The Influence of Institutions of Direct Democracy on Local Government Spending, State and Local Government Review 42 (December 2010), pp. 210225. The quotation is on p. 222.

81. Silika Prohl and Friedrich Schneider, Does Decentralization Reduce Government Size A Quantitative Study of the Decentralization Hypothesis, Public Finance Review 37 (November 2009), pp. 639664.

82. Lorenz Blume, Jens Muller, and Stefan Voigt, The Economic Effects of Direct DemocracyA First Global Assessment, Public Choice 140 (September 2009), pp. 431461. Numbers of countries with mandatory national referenda and national initiatives were derived from data on p. 439.

83. U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, The Federal Role in the Federal System: The Dynamics of Growth, A Crisis of Confidence and Competence, A-77 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1980), pp. 131, 111.

84. As derived from data in U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2011, 130th ed. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2011), Tables 2, 459, 428, and 1358. The government employment-to-population ratio is for 2008. Government receipts as a percentage of GDP are for 2009.

85. As derived from data in American Council on Intergovernmental Relations, Significant Features of Fiscal Federalism, 1995, Vol. 2 (Washington, DC: Author, 1998), p. 54, for 19781994 growth rates, and David Osborne and Peter Hutchinson, The Price of Government: Getting the Results We Need in an Age of Permanent Fiscal Crisis (New York: Basic Books, 2004), pp. 4447, for subsequent growth rates.

86. As derived from data in American Council on Intergovernmental Relations, Significant Features of Fiscal Federalism, 1995, Vol. 2, p. 54. Current growth rates are for 19781994. State and local revenue growth refers to revenue derived from these governments own revenue sources and does not include intergovernmental revenue transferred to them by other governments.

87. John E. Petersen, Debtors Dilemma, Governing (May 2004), p. 78.

88. As derived from data in U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2011, Table 1359. Figures are for 2009. The United States ranks lowest out of all twenty-four countries.

89. Sven Steinmo, Why Is Government So Small in America Governance 8 (July 1995), pp. 303334.

90. Rati Ram, Government Spending and Happiness of the Population: Additional Evidence from Large Cross-Country Samples, Public Choice 138 (March 2009), pp. 483490. The quotations are on p. 483.

91. Annenberg Campaign Data Base, as cited in Paul C. Light, The True Size of Government (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1999), p. 88.

92. Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations, Committee on Government Operations, U.S. Senate, Confidence and Concern: Citizens View American Government, A Survey of Public Attitudes, Part 2, 93rd Congress, 1st Session (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973), p. 310. This reports a national Harris poll conducted in 1973. The precise percentages, in order of their citation, are: 14 versus 6 percent (dull); 25 versus 12 percent (red tape); and 58 versus 14 percent (bureaucratic).

93. Thad E. Hall, Live Bureaucrats and Dead Public Servants: How People in Government Are Discussed on the Floor of the House, Public Administration Review 62 (March 2002), pp. 242251. This is an analysis of House of Representatives in the 104th Congress.

94. Marc Schwerdt, Stories of Service: Public Service in the Childrens Literature of United States and Great Britain, Politics and Policy 31 (June 2003), pp. 195214.

95. Beverly A. Cigler and Heidi L. Neiswender, Bureaucracy in the Introductory American Government Textbook, Public Administration Review 51 (September/October 1991), pp. 442450. The quotation is on p. 444.

96. David J. Lorenzo, Countering Popular Misconceptions of Federal Bureaucracies in American Govern ment Classes, Political Science and Politics 32 (December 1999), pp. 743747. The quotation is on p. 744.

97. Council for Excellence in Government and Center for Media and Public Affairs, Government: In and Out of the News (Washington, DC: Authors, 2003), pp. 6, 5, 36, 125, 75.

98. Beth A. Wielde and David Schultz, Public Administration and Pop Culture, PA Times (November 2007), pp. 3, 6. Figure is for 19902007.

99. Carrie Rickey, Hollywood Movies Cast Government as Bad Guy, Philadelphia Inquirer (July 7, 1996). The review covered 19901995.

100. S. Robert Lichter, Linda S. Lichter, and Dan Amundson, Changing Images of Government in TV Entertainment (Washington, DC: Center for Media and Public Affairs and Council for Excellence in Government, 2002), p. 8. Figures are for 19992001.

101. S. Robert Lichter, Linda S. Lichter, and Dan Amundson, Government Goes Down the Tube: Images of Government in TV Entertainment (Washington, DC: Center for Media and Public Affairs and Council for Excellence in Government, 1999), p. 19.

102. Lichter, Lichter, and Amundson, Changing Images of Government in TV Entertainment, p. 12.

103. Council for Excellence in Government, Gallup, and Accenture, The Appeal of Public Service: Who What and How (Washington, DC: Authors, 2008), p. 6. In 2008, about one out of three Americans aged eighteen to twenty-nine cited Mayor Quimby. Those thirty and older preferred Detective Olivia Benson of Law and Order, SVU.

104. Charles T. Goodsell, The Case for Bureaucracy: A Public Administration Polemic, 2nd ed. (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1985), p. 106. This is the conclusion drawn from a review of surveys on the topic.

105. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, Deconstructing Distrust, p. 2. In 1997, 69 percent of respondents had a favorable opinion of government workers, and in 1981, 55 percent did.

106. Council for Excellence in Government and Hart-Teeter Poll, America Unplugged: Citizens and Their Government (Washington, DC: Authors, 1999), p. 4. Figures are for 1999.

107. Steven A. Peterson, Sources of Citizens Bureaucratic Contacts: A Multivariate Analysis, Administration & Society 20 (August 1988), pp. 152165; and Charles T. Goodsell, The Case for Bureaucracy: A Public Administration Polemic, 4th ed. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2004), Chapter 2.

108. Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations, Committee on Government Operations, U.S. Senate, Confidence and Concern, Part 1, pp. 173175, and Part 2, pp. 301, 303, 305, 311, 313, 315, 319, 321. Data are for 1973.

109. Daniel Katz, Barbara A. Gutek, Robert L. Kahn, and Eugenia Barton, Bureaucratic Encounters (Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, 1975), pp. 64, 68, 69, and 221. Data are for 1973.

110. American Customer Satisfaction Index, Special Report on Government Services (Ann Arbor, MI: Author, 2011), p. 1. Figures are averages for all federal agencies, 19992010.

111. As derived from data in Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations, Committee on Government Operations, U.S. Senate, Confidence and Concern, Part 1, pp. 173175, and Part 2, pp. 301, 303, 305, 311, 313, 315, 319, and 321; Barbara J. Nelson, Clients and Bureaucracies: Applicant Assessments of Public Human Service and Benefit Programs, Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (Washington, DC, 1979), pp. 68; and Stuart M. Schmidt, Client-Oriented Assessment of Public Agency Effectiveness, Administration & Society 8 (February 1977), pp. 412, 421422.

112. Thomas I. Miller and Michelle A. Miller, Standards of Excellence: U.S. Residents Assessments of Local Government Services, Public Administration Review 51 (November/ December 1991), pp. 503514. The quotation is on p. 503. This is a meta-analysis of 261 citizen surveys.

113. Claes Fornell, ACSI Commentary: Government Scores (Ann Arbor, MI: American Customer Satisfaction Index, December 14, 2006), https://monkessays.com/write-my-essay/theacsi.org/index. Figures pertain to federal services, and are for 2006.

114. John T. Tierney, The U.S. Postal Service: Status and Prospects of a Public Enterprise (Dover, MA: Auburn House, 1988), pp. 56; and Associated Press, Postal Service Really Delivers, Most in Poll Say, Washington Post (January 23, 1999).

115. Susan M. Willis-Walton and Alan E. Bayer, Quality of Life in Virginia: 2003 (Blacksburg, VA: Center for Survey Research, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2003), pp. D9D10.

116. Partnership for Public Service and Gallup Consulting, In the Public We Trust: Renewing the Connection between the Federal Government and the Public (Washington, DC, and New York: Authors, 2008), p. 3. Figures are for 2008.

117. As derived from data in Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, Performance and Purpose: Constituents Rate Government Agencies (Washington, DC: Author, 2000). Data are for federal agencies in 2000.

118. Jarl K. Kampen, Steven Van de Walle, and Geert Bouckaert, Assessing the Relation Between Satisfaction with Public Service Delivery and Trust in Government: The Impact of the Predisposition of Citizens Toward Government on Assessment of Its Performance, Public Performance & Management Review 29 (June 2006), pp. 387404. The quotation is on pp. 399400.

119. Richard A. Loverd, Gaining the Power to Lead, Leadership for the Public Service: Power and Policy in Action, Richard A. Loverd, ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1997), p. 7.

120. Herbert Kaufman, Are Government Organizations Immortal (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1976). The years covered were 19231973. Subsequent research has questioned Kaufmans methodology, but not his conclusion, at least not definitively. See B. Guy Peters and Bryan W. Hogwood, The Death of Immortality: Births, Deaths, and Metamorphoses in the U.S. Federal Bureaucracy, 19331983, American Review of Public Administration 18 (June 1988), pp. 119133.

121. Jim Clark, The International Screw Thread Commission, Washington Monthly, as reprinted in Doing Public Administration: Exercises, Essays, and Cases, Nicholas Henry, ed. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1978), pp. 4142. The quotation is on p. 42.

122. Bureaucratic Vampires, Wall Street Journal (May 6, 1994).

123. Sources and details are in Chapter 9.

124. As derived from data in Partnership for Public Service and Booz Allen Hamilton, Unrealized Vision: Reimagining the Senior Executive Service (Washington, DC; Herndon, VA: Authors, 2009), p. 7. Data are for 2008.

125. Jeffrey L. Brudney, Brendan Burke, Chung-Lae Cho, and Deil S. Wright, No One Best Way to Manage Change: Developing and Describing Distinct Administrative Reform Dimensions Across the Fifty American States, Public Administration Quarterly 33 (Summer 2009), pp. 197222. The quotations are on p. 206.

126. Rutherford H. Platt, Disasters and Democracy: The Politics of Extreme Natural Events (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1999), pp. 1920. The legislation is the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Helpance Act of 1988.

127. Kenneth J. Meier and Laurence J. OToole, Jr., Bureaucracy in a Democratic State: A Governance Perspective (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), p. 60.

128. Robert Kasten, Its a Tough Competition for the Worst Regulation, Washington Times (July 23, 1996). The navigable waters legislation is the 1972 amendments to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1956.

129. The case is U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha.

130. As derived from data in Cornelius M. Kerwin and Scott R. Furlong, Rulemaking: How Government Agencies Write Law and Make Policy, 4th ed. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2011), p. 230.

131. John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984).

132. Ibid., p. 7. Emphasis added.

133. Ibid., pp. 46, 34.

134. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2011, Table 494. Figure is for 2009.

135. Mike Causey, Hill Staff, Then and Now, Washington Post (September 30, 1991); and Washington Pots and Kettles, Baltimore Sun (October 27, 1991).

136. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, p. 34.

137. For a good review of this research, as well as some original findings, see Virginia Gray and David Lowery, Where Do Policy Ideas Come From A Study of Minnesota Legislators and Staffers, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 10 (July 2000), pp. 573597.

138. Jeffrey L. Brudney, Cynthia J. Bowling, and Deil S. Wright, Continuity and Change in Public Administration Across the 50 States: Linking Practice, Theory, and Research through the American State Administrators Project, 1964 2008 (Auburn, AL: Center for Governmental Services, Auburn University, 2010), p. 6. Figures are for 19642008.

139. Jerrell D. Coggburn and Saundra K. Schneider, The Quality of Management and Government Performance: An Empirical Analysis of the American States, Public Administration Review 63 (March/April 2003), pp. 206213. The quotations are on p. 206.

140. As derived from data in Council of State Governments, Book of the States, 2010, Table 3.3. Figure, 7,333 state legislative positions, is for 2010.

141. Karl Kurtz and Brian Weberg, The State of Staff, State Legislatures (July/August 2009), pp. 4245. Figures are for 2009.

142. As derived from data in Council of State Governments, Book of the States, 2010, Table 3.22. Figure is for 2010. The three states are Connecticut, Idaho, and Wyoming.

143. Herbert L. Wiltsee, Legislative Service Agencies, Book of the States, 196162 (Lexington, KY: Council of State Governments, 1962), p. 67.

144. Michael J. BeVier, Politics Backstage: Inside the California Legislature (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1979), p. 229.

145. Jerri Killian and Enamul Choudhury, Continuity and Change in the Role of City Managers, Municipal Year Book, 2010 (Washington, DC: International City/County Management Association, 2010), pp. 1018. The quotation is on p. 16. Figure is for 2010.

146. Charldean Newell and David M. Ammons, Role Emphases of City Managers and Other Municipal Executives, Public Administration Review 47 (May/June 1987), pp. 246253. Datum (p. 249) is for 1985.

147. James H. Svara, Council and Administrator Perspectives on the City Managers Role: Conflict, Divergence, or Congruence Administration & Society 23 (August 1991), p. 231. This is a review of the literature.

148. Robert T. Golembiewski and Gerald Gabris, Todays City Managers: A Legacy of Success-Becoming-Failure, Public Administration Review 54 (November/December 1994), pp. 525530.

149. Yahong Zhang and Richard C. Feiock, City Managers Policy Leadership in Council-Manager Cities, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 20 (April 2010), pp. 461476. This is a study of Floridas cities.

150. James H. Svara, The Shifting Boundaries between Elected Officials in Large CouncilManager Cities, Public Administration Review 59 (January/February 1999), pp. 4453. The quotation is on p. 50.

151. John Nalbandian, Politics and Administration in Council-Manager Government: Differences between Newly Elected and Senior Council Members, Public Administration Review 64 (March/April 2004), pp. 200209. Only councilmanager cities were analyzed.

152. James H. Svara, Leadership and Professionalism in County Government, The American County: Frontiers of Knowledge, Donald C. Menzel, ed. (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1996), pp. 109127. The quotation is on p. 118.

153. Harvey J. Tucker and L. Harmon Ziegler, Professionals versus the Public: Attitudes, Communication, and Response in School Districts (New York: Longman, 1980), p. 143.

154. Tansu Demir and Ronald C. Nyhan, The Politics-Administration Dichotomy: An Empirical Search for Correspondence between Theory and Practice, Public Administration Review 68 (January/February 2008), pp. 8196. The quotation is on p. 92. This is a survey of 1,000 city managers in the United States conducted in 2005.

155. Killian and Choudhury, Continuity and Change in the Role of City Managers, pp. 1617.

156. Stephen Kwamena Aikens and Dale Krane, Are Public Officials Obstacles to Cintizen-Centered E-Government An Examination of Municipal Administrators Motivations and Actions, State and Local Government Review 42 (Spring 2010), pp. 87103. The quotation is on p. 87. This is a survey of city managers in five Midwestern states.

157. Killian and Choudhury, Continuity and Change in the Role of City Managers, pp. 1518.

158. Peter Baker and Dafnia Linzer, Policy Shifts Felt after Boltons Departure from State Dept., Washington Post (June 20, 2005). Rose Gottemoeller, a Clinton administration official who worked on nonproliferation issues, is quoted.

159. Peter Baker, As Democracy Push Falters, Bush Feels Like a Dissident, Washington Post (August 20, 2007).

160. Quoted in Clinton Rossiter, The American Presidency (New York: New American Library, 1956), p. 42.

161. Quoted in Richard P. Nathan, The Administrative Presidency (New York: Macmillan, 1983), p. 1.

162. Quoted in Richard P. Nathan, The Plot That Failed: Nixon and the Administrative Presidency (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1975), p. 69.

163. Quoted in Haynes Johnson, Tests, Washington Post (April 30, 1978).

164. Quoted in Peter Goldman, et al., The Presidency: Can Anyone Do the Job Newsweek (January 26, 1981), p. 41.

165. United Press International, Amys Homework Aid Likely Costs Thousands, Arizona Republic (February 9, 1981).

166. David Mervin, George Bush and the Guardianship Presidency (New York: Macmillan, 1996).

167. Joel D. Aberbach and Bert A. Rockman, In the Web of Politics: Three Decades of the U.S. Federal Executive (Washington, DC: Brookings, 2000), pp. 3940.

168. Nathan, The Plot That Failed.

169. Aberbach and Rockman, In the Web of Politics, pp. 3940.

170. Norman Ornstein, Blunders That Backfired, Washington Post (June 20, 1996).

171. Nathan, The Administrative Presidency, p. 93.

172. Randall B. Woods, LBJ: Architect of American Ambition (New York: Free Press, 2006).

173. Nathan, The Plot That Failed.

174. Aberbach and Rockman, In the Web of Politics, pp, 3235; Dom Bonafede, Carter Sounds Retreat from Cabinet Government, National Journal (November 18, 1978), p. 1852; and James Fallows, The Passionless President, Atlantic Monthly (May 1979), pp. 3348.

175. B. Dan Wood and Miner P. Marchbanks, III, What Determines How Long Political Appointees Serve Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 18 (July 2008), pp. 375396. The figure and quotation are on p. 392.

176. Aberbach and Rockman, In the Web of Politics, p. 35.

177. Ibid., pp. 3537; and Shirley Anne Warshaw, White House Control of Domestic Policy Making: The Reagan Years, Public Administration Review 55 (May/June 1995), pp. 247253.

178. Warshaw, White House Control of Domestic Policy Making, p. 250.

179. Douglas J. Feith, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism (New York: HarperCollins, 2008); and Scott McClellan, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washingtons Culture of Deception (Washington, DC: PublicAffairs, 2008).

180. Bob Woodward, 10 Take Aways From the Bush Years, Washington Post (January 18, 2009). Woodward is quoting Stephen J. Hadleys extraordinary remark of March 8, 2008.

181. Daniel Benjamin, The Russians Moved Because They Know You Are Weak, Brookings (August 25, 2008), p. 2.

182. National Academy of Public Administration, Leadership in Jeopardy: The Fraying of the Presidential Appointments System (Washington, DC: Author, 1985), p. 67; and Paul C. Light and Virginia L. Thomas, The Merit and Reputation of an Administration: Presidential Appointees on the Appointments Process (Washington, DC: Brookings, 2000), pp. 9, 31, 32.

183. James P. Pfiffner, Political Appointees and Career Executives: The Bureaucracy-Democracy Nexus in the Third Century, Public Administration Review 47 (January/February 1987), pp. 5765. The quotation is on p. 61.

184. Doo-Rae Kim, Political Control and Bureaucratic Autonomy Revisited: A Multi-Institutional Analysis of OSHA Enforcement, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 18 (January 2008), pp. 3355. The quotation is on p. 33.

185. B. Dan Wood and Richard W. Waterman, Bureaucratic Dynamics: The Role of Bureaucracy in Democracy (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994); and Marissa Martino Golden, What Motivates Bureaucrats Politics and Administration during the Reagan Years (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000). The Environmental Protection Agency and the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department resisted Reagan administration efforts to pull back their initiatives.

186. Alasdair Roberts, as quoted in Donald Moynihan, A Crisis of Authority A Conversation with Alasdair Roberts about the Bush Years, Public Administration Review 68 (May/June 2008), pp. 516522. The quotation is on p. 517.

187. Thad Beyle and Margaret Ferguson, Governors and the Executive Branch, Politics in the American States: A Comparative Analysis, 9th ed. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2008), pp. 192228. The quotation is on p. 217.

188. Brudney, Bowling, and Wright, Continuity and Change in Public Administration Across the 50 States, p. 17. Current figures are for 2008.

189. Figures are for 19821994. Sources and details are in Chapter 8.

190. F. Ted Hebert, Governors as Chief Administrators and Managers, Handbook of State Government Administration, John J. Gargan, ed. (New York: Marcel Dekker, 2000), pp. 107126. In 1994, gubernatorial influence over the agencies garnered a score of 9.47 out of a possible twelve points, but legislative influence was accorded a score of 9.40, a statistically insignificant difference.

191. Yoo-Sung Choi, Chung-Lee Cho, and Deil S. Wright, Administrative Autonomy among American State Agencies: An Empirical Analysis of Fragmentation and Functionalism, International Journal of Public Administration 27 (January 2004), pp. 373398. The quotation is on p. 394.

192. James D. Carroll, Service, Knowledge, and Choice: The Future as Post-Industrial Administration, Public Administration Review 35 (November/December 1975), pp. 578581. The quotations are on p. 578.

193. James D. Carroll, Noetic Authority, Public Administration Review 29 (September/October 1969), pp. 492500.

194. Stephanie Owings and Rainald Borck, Legislative Professionalism and Government Spending: Do Citizen Legislators Really Spend Less Public Finance Review 20 (May 2000), pp. 210225.

195. Robert J. Huntley and Robert J. McDonald, Urban Managers: Managerial Style and Social Roles, Municipal Year Book, 1975 (Washington, DC: International City Management Association, 1975), pp. 149159. The datum is on p. 153.

196. Harmon Ziegler and M. Kent Jennings, with the Helpance of G. Wayne Peak, Governing American Schools: Political Interaction in Local School Districts (North Scituate, MA: Duxbury, 1974) , pp. 177178.

197. Max Weber, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), p. 233.

198. Huntley and McDonald, Urban Managers, p. 150.

199. Jay Eungha Ryu, Cynthia J. Bowling, Chung-Lae Cho, and Deil S. Wright, Effects of Administrators Aspirations, Political Principals Priorities, and Interest Groups Influence on State Agency Budget Requests, Public Budgeting & Finance 27 (Summer 2007), pp. 2249. The quotations are on pp. 41, 43. Figures are for 1998.

200. Matthew Potoski and Neal Woods, Designing State Clean Air Agencies: Administrative Procedures and Bureaucratic Autonomy, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 11 (April 2001), pp. 203221.

201. David E. Rosenbaum, Politics as Usual, and Then Some, New York Times (September 20, 2005).

202. Ibid.

203. Robert Pear, Agency Sees Withholding of Medicare Data from Congress as Illegal, New York Times (May 4, 2004). The head of Medicare said he was just kidding when he threatened to fire the actuary, Richard S. Foster.

204. Dina Cappiello, Associated Press, Bush Administration to Relax Protected-Species Rule, Savannah Morning News (August 12, 2008).

205. Union of Concerned Scientists, Interference at the EPA: Science and Politics at the Environmental Protection Agency (Cambridge, MA: USC Publications, 2008), p. 2. Figure is for 2007.

206. Union of Concerned Scientists, Atmosphere of Pressure: Political Interference in Federal Climate Science (Cambridge, MA: USC Publications, 2007), p. 2. Figure is for 2006.

207. Eric Lichtblau, 9/11 Report Cites Many Warnings about Hijackings, New York Times (February 10, 2005).

208. Deputy Inspector General for Intelligence, Review of the Pre-Iraqi War Activities of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Report No. 07-INTEL-04 (Washington, DC: Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Defense, February 9, 2007), p. 8.

209. James Surowiecki, Hail to the Geek, The New Yorker (April 19 and 26, 2004), p. 70.

210. Ibid.

MPA503 Public Administration: Institutions and Processes
Week 1
Public Service and the MPA
Readings:
tangov, N. (2010). Public and private relations — a new philosophy of management. Theoretical & Applied Economics, 17(3), 93-100.
Klijn, E. H. (2008). Complexity theory and public administration: What’s new Public Management Review, 10(3), 299-317.
Vigoda, E. (2002). From responsiveness to collaboration: Governance, citizens, and the next generation of public administration. Public Administration Review, 62(5), 527-540.
Whetsell, T. A., & Shields, P. M. (2011). Reconciling the varieties of pragmatism in public administration. Administration & Society, 43(4), 474-483.
Searches:
“public service” and (philosophy or evolution)
public administration and functions
Publications:
Public Administration Theory Primer (2nd Edition)

Hi folks:

As you know the participation requirement is an important assessment for this course. Next to each of your postings, look for a green “S.” That means I read your posting and have counted it towards being “substantive.”

What constitutes substantive participation, you might ask. Here are some tips courtesy of another colleague- Carol Lynch, UOPX Instructor.

Ideas “Tips” for Participation

Wondering what you should do for the “participation” portion of our class I have listed some ideas for the types of contributions you can make to the discussion:

1. Share a related experience
2. Comment on others’ experiences
3. Ask others questions about their ideas/experiences
4. Take an idea being discussed, and offer a different perspective on it.
5. Describe an interesting idea from the week’s reading and explain what insights you gained from it.
6. Ask the group a question about the week’s reading if there is something you would like more information on.
7. Disagree (respectfully, of course) with a point that someone else made.
8. Discuss a related work issue that you would like some feedback on.
9. Describe how you have applied the recent course concepts to your personal/professional life.
10. Share another resource you’ve used as you explored the course topics.
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Hello Class:

Welcome to MGT/503 Public Administration: Institutions and Processes!

Throughout this six-week course, we will function as a cohesive group, exploring topics and communicating throughout the week. I am looking forward to the time we will spend together!

Written Assignments
All papers submitted are required to be written and cited according to the Required Writing Manuals. These writing manuals have distinct features and will be valuable reference tools throughout your academic and professional career.

Deadlines will be defined as 11:59 p.m. Mountain Standard Time (MST.)

It is highly recommended that students utilize the Write Point and Turn it in tools available to them by UOPX prior to submitting your final product.

It is also highly recommended that students review the Essay Development guide at the Center for Writing Excellence, as well as the many tutorials and guides.

All papers may exceed the recommended word limit if needed, but within reason.

All papers should apply APA guidelines.

Learning Teams
Learning Team projects are outcome-based, therefore, all members of your Learning Team will generally earn the same grade. However, I reserve the right to report different grades for different group members if I see a substantial imbalance in the level of effort put forth. I will be monitoring the Learning Team forums, and I will ask that groups provide a brief summary of any communication held outside the forum–for example, if you hold conference calls, work in a real-time chat room, or in any other way get together outside the Online Learning System environment. Please do not resort to using any of these other communication tools unless everyone on your team agrees to the method and to the schedule.

Important: The Learning Team should designate one member of the team to be responsible for posting of final team assignments and the team’s certificate of originality.

All Learning Teams are required to develop and post a charter as a team assignment before the close of the second week of class. In Week Six you will be asked to complete a Peer Assessment to assess the contributions of each member of your Learning Team (including yourself). I will take these Peer Assessments into account when assessing individual contributions to the Learning Team projects.

Students will be assigned to Learning Teams early in Week One.

Getting Started
Review the syllabus, UOPX Academic Policies, and Instructor Policies announcement.

Read my Welcome announcement and update your own personal profile in Phoenix Connect.

If you have any questions, please post them to the Question thread in the class forum.
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