Politics and Administration Three Schools, Three Approaches, and Three Suggestions
Politics and Administration Three Schools, Three Approaches, and Three Suggestions
Politics and Administration Three Schools, Three Approaches, and Three Suggestions
ABSTRACT
The question of how public administration fits into the governance process of a democratic society has been of great concern
to scholars and practitioners since the emergence of public
administration as an academic field of study in the late 1880s.
The politicsadministration relationship is considered of pivotal
importance, as the issue bears important implications for both the
disciplinary identity (and autonomy) and the institutional development of public administration. Despite a voluminous literature on
the subject, the question remains unanswered. Scholarly inquiry
to this date identifies two major positions, one separation and the
other its opposite, political. Unlike prior conceptualizations, this
article distills the literature into three major schools of thought as
separation, political, and interaction. The article then examines
the state of the research that has followed three strands as historical, conceptual, and empirical. The author makes an overall
evaluation of the past research and lays out a different approach
in studying this important question.
The question of how public administration fits into the governance process
of a democratic society has been a persistent issue since the emergence of
public administration as a field of study in the late 1880s. In his famous article,
Wilson (1887) outlined the basic tenets of what later happened to be called
the politicsadministration dichotomy, a term coined to emphasize a host of
features that distinguish public administration from politics. Wilson stated
that public administration lies outside the proper sphere of politics (1887,
p. 210). Government, in dichotomy terms, has been considered to have two
Administrative Theory & Praxis / December 2009, Vol. 31, No. 4, pp. 503532.
2009 Public Administration Theory Network.
1084-1806 / 2009 $9.50 + 0.00.
DOI 10.2753/ATP1084-1806310403
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particular thought, but I also analyze the writings of various scholars whose descriptions of the politicsadministration relationship might assist significantly
in identifying a particular train of thought on the question. It should be noted
that each school of thought examined in this paper covers a wide spectrum of
scholars who may, on certain points, differ from each other even if they agree
on general principles or share common assumptions and values.
The Separation School: A Dichotomy of Politics and Administration
I use the term separation to represent this school of thought to suggest intellectual thinking that promotes an agenda for separating politics from administration to the extent possible for a variety of normative and practical reasons.1
The separation school tends to view the governmental realm as divided into
two zonespolitics and administration. A functional approach is used to
conceptualize the relationship between the two. The function of politics is to
provide guidance, or what Wilson said, setting the task for administration
(1887, p. 210). The function of public administration, on the other hand, is
to provide neutral competence to the governance process. Elected officials
provide political guidance as they rely primarily on policy leadership and
legislative oversight. Policy leadership links elected officials to citizens, and
legislative oversight links them to public administrators. On the other side of
the policy process stands public administration, whose primary responsibility
has been defined as enabling formulated policies into concrete implementation
in conformity with legislative intention (Demir & Nyhan, 2008).
The idea that public administration should be separated from the political
process is traced back to the writings of the progenitors of public administration. For example, Wilson, in his often-cited article, strongly implied a
politicsadministration dichotomy by stating: Administration lies outside the
proper sphere of politics. Administrative questions are not political questions.
Although politics sets the task for administration, it should not be suffered to
manipulate its offices (1887, p. 210).
The remarks above have often been interpreted to suggest a sharp distinction between politics and administration.2 Wilson considered politics and
administration polar extremes and mutually exclusive functional realms,
separated by values, structures, and objectives yet connected to each other
under a hierarchical arrangement. That one function comes before the other
and overpowers it is explicit in the third statement of the above quotation. Wilsons rudimentary distinctions were supported by other early writers of public
administration. Frank Goodnow, for example, in Politics and Administration
(1900), promoted a similar understanding by emphasizing the distinctions
between two primary functions as legislation and administration.
According to Leonard White (1937), who is recognized as the author of
the first public administration textbook, administration is a term widely and
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Primary values that guide public administration from politics are somewhat
different and include neutrality, hierarchy, and expertise, which altogether
form a defining feature of public administration: neutral competence. The
overarching goal of public administrators is to provide neutral and competent service to elected officials. In Kaufmans words, neutral competence is
the ability to do the work of government expertly and to do it according to
explicit, objective standards rather than to personal or party or other obligations and loyalties (1956, p. 1060). Three constitutive components of neutral
competenceneutrality, expertise, and hierarchyhelp public administrators maintain distance from politics while ensuring their contributions to the
policy-making process.
In the separation school, administrative neutrality has been broadly interpreted. The term has been used to suggest both political and policy neutrality.
More specifically, neutrality means that public employees and activities are
nonpartisan, apolitical, and void of any particular policy agenda; professional administrators administer the affairs of the government with integrity
and efficiency and loyalty to the elected leadership without participating in
or allowing their work to be affected by contending programs or partisans;
and administrators maintain a neutral stand on policy issues that divide the
community (Loveridge, 1971; White, 1927, in Lockard, 1962, p. 226; Wolf,
1999, pp. 146147). The basis of decision making in a neutral administration
is considered factual. This is why bureaucratic expertise has been given significant weight in the separation school. In its best application, expert public
administration ensures competent and nonpartisan contribution to the policy
process. For example, one of the early contributors to the separation school
states that expertise is as important as neutrality:
For the proper exercise of the functions of the director, it is essential
that he be disinterested; that is, be free from any conflicting interest.
But it is also essential that he have knowledge. Facts, facts, facts are
the only basis on which he can properly exercise his judgment. (Cooke,
1915, p. 490)
The separation school envisions or assumes a consensus model. The proponents of the separation school rested their arguments on the premise that
public administrators are in possession of special knowledge and skills, and
elected officials are eager to incorporate administrative knowledge and skills
into the policy-making process. The consensus model assumes that a wise
and public-regarding elected body with expert advice reaches decisions in the
best interest of the public (e.g., Loveridge, 1971).
The proponents of the separation school express support for a clear structural division of authority between elected and administrative officials to
eliminate or minimize undue political influences on public administration as
well as potential conflicts. By subordinating public administrators to elected
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Svara, for example, emphasized the strength of a structural division (perhaps best exemplified in council-manager form in local governments), in
council-manager cities, friction is reduced when responsibilities are divided
in a way that limits interference by one set of officials in the activities of
others (1987, p. 213). The hierarchical nature of the administrative organization helps minimize undue political influences over public administrators,
and the policy-making prerogative of elected officials proves to be highly
effective in resolving conflicts on disputable policy issues (e.g., Abney &
Lauth, 1982; Koehler, 1973; Miller, 2000; Svara, 1990). Political influences
on public administrators are always approached, by the separation school
proponents, with skepticism, considering their potential to slip into political
corruption. The basic assumption that inspires the proponents of this school is
that politics and administration work best as independent variables, capable
of being improved in isolation without endangering or interfering with the
other side (Martin, 1988, p. 632). The separation school draws attention
toward the potential negative consequences of free interaction between
politics and administration (e.g., Klay, 1983). Svara, for example, noted that
there are cases of cities controlled by an appointed manager who cannot
be challenged because of longevity or community support (1990, p. 37).
In Svaras words, the manager has become the master to whom the board
defers out of respect and dependency (p. 37). The separation school also
advances a pragmatic argument as a rationale to remove public administrators from political engagements. The argument states that rational structure
of bureaucracy makes public administrators less effective in fulfilling the
political function, which involves conflict resolution in matters of public
importance (Sparrow, 1984, p. 3). Both normative arguments (eliminating
political corruption and administrative tyranny) and pragmatic arguments
(fulfilling the political function effectively) are enough to persuade the
supporters of the separation thought to promote a functional and structural
division between politics and administration.
In a nutshell, the separation school defines clear roles and responsibilities for elected officials and public administrators. Public administrators are
linked to elected officials in a subordinate position. That is, public administrators look up to elected officials for policy direction, while making expert
contributions by engaging extensively in how to do questions. In the ideal
world of the politicaladministrative relationship, as conceived and promoted by the separation school, elected officials and public administrators
perform their roles as normatively assigned, and the resultant outcome is a
politicaladministrative system where public administrators are competent
and professionally autonomous yet remain accountable and responsive to
their elected officials. So, competent, professionally autonomous, accountable, and responsive public administration constitutes the vision of the
separation school.
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broad policy-making role for public administrators, each with a good reason
in mind. For Rohr (1986), public administrators should work to maintain
the balance between the three branches of government, implying that public
administrators have freedom to choose which masters to serve. They make
their choices with the primary goal of safeguarding the fundamental values
of the regime such as liberty and equality (e.g., Rohr, 1986).
In response to the criticism that political public administration would raise
the question of legitimacy, which has long been a lingering issue in public
administration discourse, the political school states that what determines the
legitimacy of public administration is the extent to which policy goals that it
pursues are socially and politically desirable. Although there might be a certain
level of disagreement among scholars on what sort of goals to promote at a
certain point of time, establishing and maintaining a democratic society serves
a common ground that would unite a good number of scholars supporting the
idea of political public administration. In order to accomplish a democratic
society, some political school scholars identify barriers in the system and then
propose a set of strategies to overcome these barriers (e.g., Forester, 1989).
Technical skills remain important in the sense that POSDCORB helps public
administrators make the hopes and ideals reachable; yet public administrators are also political in the sense that they proactively engage in various
activities that lead communities, build coalitions, convince, cajole, and inspire
political players whose support is important for successful policy adoption,
resolve conflicts after or before they arise, and put forth efforts to create a
deliberative policy-making process where the interested and knowledgeable
people cooperate (without the distortion of the powerful interests) to identify,
understand, and solve problems that affect the political community. Having
acknowledged and even promoted a political role for public administrators,
the political school becomes more concerned with the art of political decision
making. The action question is how to best prepare public administrators for
political tasks so that they can get things done. Numerous political skills are
proposed as important, and practicing public administrators are recommended
to equip themselves with these skills (e.g., Moore, 1995).
In the ideal world of the political public administration, as represented
by the political school, public administrators work with other members of
the political community to search for effective and ethical solutions to the
policy problems in pursuit of the ultimate goal of creating and maintaining
a democratic society.
The Interaction School: Advancing the Notion of Partnership
The political school has promoted an image of public administration as a central player in the governance process, yet it invited a host of critical questions.
The question of the type and extent of administrative involvement in politics is
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proach provides, there are certain noteworthy limitations. First, many scholars
who utilize the historical approach placed an exclusive emphasis on prominent
individuals and their original intentions but neglected the power of thoughts in
their own right, regardless of what was intended by the founders. For example,
even if the progenitors did not mean a strict separation of policy from administration, as might be revealed by a careful reading of their most-neglected
writings, it is still quite possible to support a strict policyadministration dichotomy for a variety of reasons. Second, it is clear that the history entertains
no fixed meaning; its meaning is open to different interpretations. That is why
some believe that the dichotomy was never meant by the progenitors (e.g.,
Lynn, 2001; Svara, 1998) and yet, some others argue that the founders denied
a significant policy-making role to public administrators (e.g., Lowery, 1993;
Sayre, 1958). Sayre (1958), for example, argued that the founders assumed
the politicsadministration dichotomy both as a self-evident truth and as a
desirable goal; administration was perceived as a self-contained world of its
own, with its own separate values, rules, and methods. Despite its significant
limitations, the historical approach is widely used, particularly to grant some
degree of legitimacy to emerging models. Svara, for example, in his efforts
to advance a complementarity view of the politicsadministration relationship, frequently referred to the founding period of public administration for
inspiration and legitimacy:
The manager was viewed as a participant in the deliberations about
policy decisions who would offer a distinct perspective, although he
would not supplant the councils policy-making prerogatives. . . . This
view provided for a clearer differentiation of roles, but the intermixture
of responsibilities was complex. (1998, p. 54)
The Conceptual Approach: A Search for Theories
According to Svara, the heart of the problem in understanding the relationship
between politics and administration has been our inability to conceptualize it
(1985, p. 4). Conceptualizations offer unique ways of understanding the phenomena under study and provide foundations upon which further research can
be conducted. Conceptualization efforts have flowed in three strands: public
administrator as the unit of analysis, the politicsadministration distinctions,
and the whole political system as the unit of analysis.
Scholars create typologies that reflect a variety of roles for public administrators; each role suggests different levels of administrative involvement
in the governance process. In one of the earliest efforts, Bosworth (1958)
conceptualized three different roles, as the administrator manager, the policy
researcher and manager, and the community leader and manager. Loveridge
(1968) developed nine roles for city managers, including policy innovator,
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policy advocate, budget consultant, policy administrator, policy neutral, political advocate, political leader, political recruiter, and political campaigner.
Loveridge found that almost all city managers believed they should participate
in the initiation, formulation, and presentation of policy proposals. Lewis
(1982) examined the role behavior of city managers and proposed seven
roles extending from what he called traditional textbook administrator to
near-boss type. Coopers (1991) citizen-administrator is also an important
conceptualization. Moore (1995) proposed two roles for public administrators, as technician and strategist, and endorsed the latter as an ideal type
of public administrator role that would enable public administrators to create
public value. Selden, Brewer, and Brudneys (1999) principal and agent
conceptualization is another one. The typology developed by Terry (2002)
included climbers, conservers, advocates, zealots, and statesmen. Svara (2006)
developed a typology in which public administrators fall into one of four categories: isolated, manipulated, autonomous, or politicized. Svaras typology
uses two factors: level of control of public administrators by elected officials
and degree of distance and differentiation between elected and administrative
officials. In many cases, the authors of these conceptualizations expressly or
implicitly favor one type over the other, and follow with prescriptions over
how public administrators should relate to the governance process. Although
valuable in their own right as descriptors of reality, most conceptualizations
offer little normative guidance, as there is not much empirical knowledge to
tell which roles work best, and under what circumstances they work.
Some public administration scholars, on the other hand, have looked into
the differences and similarities between politics, policy, management, and
administration, and developed a host of conceptualizations as a result. This sort
of conceptualization effort began with Woodrow Wilson (1887) and continued
with Goodnow (1900) and White (1937), in that they all rested their propositions on what they viewed as fundamental distinctions between politics and
administration. Some contemporary public administration scholars carry on
this tradition. Nalbandian (1994), among others, noted a number of important distinctions between politics and administration. Overeem and Rutgers
(2003) identified 16 characteristics with which they attempted to crystallize
the distinctions between politics and administration. Based on the number and
degree of perceived differences and similarities, scholars develop normative
models that reflect their judgment as to the proper role of public administration
in the governance process. The politicsadministration dichotomy stands as
one of the oldest among this type of models. The demise of the dichotomy
was followed by the emergence of alternative conceptualizations. One of these
models, gaining popularity in recent years, is Svaras (1990) dichotomy-duality
model as explained earlier.
Some scholars develop more comprehensive models without special focus
on the distinctions between politics and administration. For many of these
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and insights that subsequently were used to provide support to various positions taken by the proponents of the three schools. However, the focus of much
empirical research remains rather narrow; rarely did public administration
scholars specify and test comprehensive models. Because a large part of the
research has not been guided by an explicit or articulate theoretical framework,
most of the findings turned out to be mixed and inconclusive, open to being
interpreted in conflicting ways that may support one school or the other. For
example, it is quite possible to interpret a low yet positive correlation between
professionalism and political acuity (e.g., Daniel & Rose, 1991) as support
for the political school or the separation school, depending on the researchers
perspective and expectations.
Evaluation and three Suggestions
The separation, political, and interaction schools each contributed immensely
to our understanding of what roles public administrators do or should play
in the governance process of a democratic society. Historical, empirical, and
conceptual approaches adopted by public administration scholars proved to
be very prolific. A voluminous literature notwithstanding, it is clear that the
controversy remains largely unsettled. Challenged and critiqued by numerous
scholars, the separation school is still capable of responding to its critics. For
example, the political school proponents support a morally conscious public
administration; however, this precept rests on the assumption that moral implications of policies are clear, which is an assumption that is hard to hold up.
The interaction school also has a number of limitations. First, the interaction
school underestimates the power imbalances between elected officials and
public administrators. In the process of interaction, the powerful side may
override the less powerful side. In other words, the interaction might result in
loss of either administrative competence or legislative supremacy. The role of
reciprocating values as a safety check remains untested. Second, by accepting
the dichotomy between politics and management, yet tolerating overlapping
roles and reciprocal influence, the interaction school neglects the risk of role
ambiguity and its probable consequences: The greater the role ambiguity is,
the more often administrators can engage in political activity with little chance
that it will be visible to the other party or to the public in general. This poses
great risk for democratic accountability.
It is clear that each school is supported by scholars to varying degrees
with historical, conceptual, and empirical approaches. It is also clear that
available research does not declare victory for one particular school of
thought. Depending on the context of the research, the perspective of the
researchers, foci of studies, and a host of influencing factors, the same
results may speak favorably for more than one school of thought. So,
what should be done? If the question of where public administration does
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Conclusion
This article provided a broad examination of the literature on the role of public
administration in the governance process. In particular, I identified three major
schools of thought and three research approaches. As the literature review
clearly illustrated, the controversy over the proper role of public administration
in governance process is far from being concluded. Despite public administration scholars best efforts to garner support in favor of a particular school of
thought, the evidence they have used and the arguments they have presented so
far are mixed and inconclusive. This comprehensive review of the literature is
intended to provide an accessible resource to understand the state of research
on the question of where public administration stands in the governance process
of a democratic society. In the end, public administration, as an intellectual
enterprise, seems to lack an agreed-upon foundation. Instead, scholarly efforts
did and continue to flow in different directions that are inspired and supported
by different viewpoints and normative ideals. Some pragmatic steps can be
taken, as suggested in this paper, to improve communication between the three
schools of thought and to help answer some questions. The way this paper
distilled the public administration literature is unique, yet not foolproof. Different categorizations are possible, yet in the end, I suggest our goal should be to
enhance interschool communication and take some pragmatic steps to improve
our understanding of the role of public administration in the political process.
Notes
1. The advocates of the three schools draw upon both normative and empirical
arguments. It is important to note that normative and empirical dimensions of
arguments are closely knit. For example, that public administration scholars
develop normative propositions (should) is closely related to the way in which
they understand the causeeffect relationship of empirical facts (is). For
example, if some public administration scholars argue that poor planning ability
is a consequence of insufficient political guidance from elected officials, they
tend to prescribe that elected officials provide more political guidance, in the
belief that it will help increase the planning ability of public administrators (see
Demir & Nyhan, 2008).
2. The separation school, and its major dichotomy model, many notable
scholars argue, does not have a strong historical reality, as it has never existed
or been proposed by the progenitors of public administration, including Wilson
and Goodnow. However, some contemporary works doubt this and explain in
detail why the concept of separation is still relevant on theoretical and empirical
grounds. Among others, see Demir and Nyhan (2008), Overeem (2008), and
Schuh and Miller (2006). Whether the idea of separation was intended by the
founders of the field is also a matter of dispute among contemporary public
administration scholars. Under the historical approach, I explain this issue more
to show the diversity of the interpretations.
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Tansu Demir is an assistant professor of public administration in the Department of Public Administration at the University of TexasSan Antonio. He
received his Ph.D. in public administration from Florida Atlantic University.
He previously taught classes at the University of IllinoisSpringfield and the
University of Central Florida. His research interests include public administration theory, bureaucratic politics, and public policy process. His research has
been published in such journals as Public Administration Review, Administration & Society, and International Journal of Public Administration. His most
recent research on the complementarity view of the politicsadministration
relationship was published in Public Administration Review.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.