Bureaucratic Governance Perspectives and Democratic Public Service: Institutional Ideals and Threats

Vogelsang-Coombs, Vera

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-49400-9_9

Vera Vogelsang-Coombs²

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Abstract

This chapter reviews the ideals, ethics standards, and accountability relationships of office holding within the political institutions of democratic public service as an integral part of career public servants’ and their political superiors’ governing together in bureaucratic governance. Next, it analyzes the clashes of governing perspectives and administrative politics that create estrangement between career public servants, their political superiors, and the public. The chapter also analyzes the institutional challenges to democratic public service and the political-ethical dilemmas peculiar to bureaucratic governance. This analysis highlights the partisan-driven reforms designed to dismantle democratic public service in the name of modernizing American government. These reforms, if disconnected from constitutional processes, may morph into institutional pathologies that threaten the democratic freedoms of citizens in their routine encounters with government.

The [public] administration of government, in its largest sense, comprehends all the operations of the body politic, whether executive, legislative, or judiciary; but in its most usual and perhaps its most precise signification, it is limited to executive details, and falls peculiarly within the province of the executive department.

Publius (Alexander Hamilton), Federalist Paper #72

Miles’ Law: Where you stand depends on where you sit.

Rufus E. Miles, Jr.

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Notes

1.
Clinton Rossiter, ed., The Federalist Papers: Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (New York, NY: Mentor Books, 1961), 435.
2.
Charles T. Goodsell, The New Case for Bureaucracy (Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press/Sage, 2015), 140.
Goodsell’s argument is the crux of the document, known as the Blacksburg Manifesto that was formulated by the public administration faculty of Virginia Tech in 1982. The Blacksburg Manifesto has stimulated scholarship centered on the refounding of democratic public administration as a constitutional profession, despite the anti-government rhetoric prevalent in the late twentieth century. A noteworthy example is the article by Richard Green et al. (1993) about reconstituting a profession in American public administration.
3.
Norton E. Long, “Bureaucracy and Constitutionalism,” in The Polity, ed. Charles Press (Chicago, IL: Rand McNally, 1952), 71–2.
4.
Anthony Downs and Rand Corporation, Inside Bureaucracy (Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co., 1967), 80.
5.
James D. Thompson, Organizations in Action: Social Science Bases of Administrative Theory (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003).
6.
Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, trans. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1958), 95.
7.
Vera Vogelsang-Coombs and Marvin J. Cummins, “Reorganizations and Reforms: Promises, Promises,” Review of Public Personnel Administration 2, no. 2 (Spring 1982).
8.
Hugh T. Heclo, A Government of Strangers: Executive Politics in Washington (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1977).
9.
John A. Rohr, Ethics for Bureaucrats: An Essay on Law and Values, 2nd ed. (New York, NY: Marcel Dekker, 1989).
10.
Michael W. Spicer, In Defense of Politics in Public Administration: A Value Pluralist Perspective (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2010).
11.
David H. Rosenbloom and Joshua Chanin, “What Every Public Personnel Manager Should Know about the Constitution,” in Public Personnel Management, ed. Richard C. Kearney and Jerrell Coggburn, 6th ed. (Los Angeles, CA: Sage/CQ Press, 2016).
12.
Rohr, Ethics for Bureaucrats: An Essay.
13.
Richard P. Nathan, The Administrative Presidency (New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 1983).
14.
David H. Rosenbloom, “Reflections on Public Administration Theory and the Separation of Powers,” American Review of Public Administration 43, no. 4 (May/June 2013): 386.
As Rosenbloom notes, overlapping governmental functions also exist in the judiciary when the justices formulate remedial law or set standards for institutional reform, and then oversee their execution; similarly legislatures have adjudicatory functions in their impeachment power and managerial functions in their personnel systems and internal budgeting.
15.
Herman C. Pritchett, Constitutional Civil Liberties (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984), 12.
16.
Dwight Waldo, The Administrative State: A Study of the Political Theory of American Public Administration, 2nd ed. (New York, NY: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1984).
17.
Rohr, Ethics for Bureaucrats: An Essay.
Michael W. Spicer, “Public Administration, the History of Ideas, and the Reinventing Government Movement,” Public Administration Review 64, no. 3 (May/June 2004).
18.
James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, Rediscovering Institutions (New York, NY: Free Press, 1989), 160-2.
19.
Johan P. Olsen, “Maybe It Is Time to Rediscover Bureaucracy,” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 16, no. 1 (March 2006).
20.
Max Weber, “Bureaucracy,” in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, trans. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1958).
21.
Long, “Bureaucracy and Constitutionalism,” in The Polity, 817.
22.
Frederick C. Mosher, Democracy and the Public Service, 2nd ed. (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1982), 23.
23.
Thompson, Organizations in Action.
24.
Weber, “Bureaucracy,” in From Max Weber: Essays, 198–204.
25.
Ibid., 221–4.
26.
Ibid., 233.
27.
Olsen, “Maybe It Is Time.”
28.
Thompson, Organizations in Action.
29.
Weber, “Bureaucracy,” in From Max Weber: Essays, 228–30.
30.
Ibid., 202.
Thompson, Organizations in Action.
31.
Weber, “Bureaucracy,” in From Max Weber: Essays, 198.
32.
Magali Sarffati Larson, The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1977), xi–xiii.
33.
Ibid.
34.
Mosher, Democracy and the Public, 134.
35.
Dennis L. Dresang, Personnel Management in Government Agencies and Nonprofit Organizations, 5th ed. (New York, NY: Pearson Education, 2009).
36.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), “Occupational and Wage News Release,” U.S. Department of Labor, last modified April 1, 2014, accessed December 7, 2014, http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.htm.
37.
Judith E. Gruber, Controlling Bureaucracies: Dilemmas in Democratic Governance (Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1986), 101–2.
38.
Mosher, Democracy and the Public.
The following merit principles are the foundation of the civil service system. First, each civil service position is classified according to its occupational group based on the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to perform the job tasks, the level of difficulty, the level of discretion, and the responsibilities, including supervisory duties. Second, after positions are classified, the hiring of civil service employees is conducted on the basis of open and competitive examinations; the certification of fitness based on examinations avoids patronage and favoritism in hiring decisions (Dresang 2009). Third, the compensation principle means that civil servants engaged in comparable jobs receive equal pay (Berman et al. 2013).
39.
Donald F. Kettl, The Politics of the Administrative Process, 6th ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage-CQ Press, 2015).
40.
Rohr, Ethics for Bureaucrats: An Essay.
41.
Mosher, Democracy and the Public.
42.
John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (Athens, OH: Swallow Press, 1954).
43.
Janet Vizant Denhardt and Robert B. Denhardt, The New Public Service: Serving, Not Steering (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2007), xii.
44.
Dewey, The Public and Its Problems.
Terry L. Cooper, An Ethic of Citizenship for Public Service (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1991).
45.
Carol W. Lewis and Stuart C. Gilman, The Ethics Challenge in Public Service: A Problem-Solving Guide, 2nd ed. (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2005), 79.
46.
Ibid., 92.
47.
Weber, “Bureaucracy,” in From Max Weber: Essays, 220.
48.
Herman Finer, “Administrative Responsibility in Democratic Government,” Public Administration Review 1, no. 4 (Summer 1941): 336.
49.
Mosher, Democracy and the Public, 9.
50.
Goodsell, The New Case for Bureaucracy, 140.
51.
Larson, The Rise of Professionalism.
Rohr, Ethics for Bureaucrats: An Essay.
52.
Weber, “Bureaucracy,” in From Max Weber: Essays, 228.
53.
Mosher, Democracy and the Public, 9.
54.
Johan P. Olsen, “Maybe It Is Time to Rediscover Bureaucracy,” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 16, no. 1 (March 2006).
55.
Larson, The Rise of Professionalism, xvii.
56.
Ibid., xii.
57.
Larson, The Rise of Professionalism.
Mosher, Democracy and the Public.
58.
Steven Maynard-Moody and Michael C. Musheno, Cops, Teachers, Counselors: Stories from the Front Lines of Public Service (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2003).
59.
Ibid., 137.
60.
Ibid., 140.
61.
Ibid., 141.
62.
Ibid., 218–20.
63.
Ibid., 220.
64.
Drawn from Calvinism, the Protestant Ethic made it a religious duty for individuals to work hard and to use their secular resources efficiently and frugally; worldly success signified the eternal salvation of individuals. Max Weber argued that the Protestant Ethic’s spirit of individualism and its ethos of self-help contributed to the economic success of Protestant groups and shaped the early stages of European capitalism.
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons (New York, NY: Scribner & Sons, 1958).
65.
Woodrow Wilson, “The Study of Administration,” Political Science Quarterly 2, no. 2 (1887).
Mosher, Democracy and the Public.
66.
Herbert Kaufman, “Emerging Conflicts in the Doctrines of Public Administration,” American Political Science Review 50, no. 4 (1956).
67.
Mosher, Democracy and the Public.
68.
Ibid., 67–70.
69.
Ibid., 210–11.
70.
Kettl, The Politics of the Administrative.
71.
Wilson, “The Study of Administration,” 213–14.
72.
Ibid., 201.
73.
Ibid., 210.
Kettl, The Politics of the Administrative, 61.
74.
Brian J. Cook, “Regime Leadership and New Public Governance,” in New Public Governance: A Regime Perspective, ed. Douglas F. Morgan and Brian J. Cook (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2014).
75.
Cook, “Regime Leadership and New Public,” in New Public Governance, 199.
76.
Mosher, Democracy and the Public, ch. 6.
77.
Partnership for Public Service and Booz Allen Hamilton, “Building the Enterprise: A New Civil Service Framework,” Partnership for Public Service, last modified April 1, 2014, accessed March 14, 2015, http://ourpublicservice.org/publications/viewcontentdetails.php?id=18.
78.
Mosher, Democracy and the Public, 194.
79.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), “Occupational and Wage News Release,” U.S. Department of Labor, last modified April 1, 2014, accessed December 7, 2014, http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.htm.
80.
Hugh T. Miller, “Everyday Politics in Public Administration,” American Review of Public Administration 23, no. 2 (June 1993).
Stephen K. Bailey, “Ethics and the Public Service,” Public Administration Review 24, no. 4 (1964).
81.
Harold Seidman, Politics, Position, and Power: The Dynamics of Federal Organization, 5th ed. (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998), 65–6.
82.
Norton E. Long, “Power and Administration,” Public Administration Review 9, no. 4 (July/August 1949): 257.
83.
Kettl, The Politics of the Administrative, 3.
84.
Bailey, “Ethics and the Public,” 238.
85.
Rosemary O’Leary, The Ethics of Dissent: Managing Guerrilla Government (Washington, DC: CQ Press., 2006), xi.
86.
David H. Rosenbloom, “Reflections on Public Administration Theory and the Separation of Powers,” American Review of Public Administration 43, no. 4 (May/June 2013): 387.
87.
Kettl, The Politics of the Administrative.
88.
Weber, “Bureaucracy,” in From Max Weber: Essays, 232.
89.
Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, trans. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1958), 117.
90.
Weber, “Bureaucracy,” in From Max Weber: Essays, 220.
91.
Ibid., 229.
92.
Mosher, Democracy and the Public.
93.
Ibid., 165.
In the 1970s, the federal government established the Professional and Administrative Career Examination (PACE) for entry-level hiring in 118 occupations. After a successful court challenge, the federal government replaced the centralized PACE with the decentralized Administrative Careers with America (ACWA) examination. Dissatisfaction with ACWA led the federal government to establish the Federal Career Intern Program (FCIP). The FCIP program permits the federal government to hire career civil servants for 2 years in positions at grades 5, 7, or 9, after which the incumbents may qualify for permanent appointments. In 2008, 50 % of the professional and administrative hires in the federal government were through the FCIP program (Ban 2012, 140).
94.
Mosher, Democracy and the Public, 124.
Partnership for Public Service and Booz Allen Hamilton (PPS & BAH), “Building the Enterprise: A New Civil,” Partnership for Public Service.
95.
Mosher, Democracy and the Public, 154.
96.
Ibid., 21.
97.
Ibid., 21, 212.
98.
Michael D. White, Current Issues and Controversies in Policing (Boston, MA: Prentice Hall, 2007), 137.
99.
Mosher, Democracy and the Public, 212.
100.
Rosenbloom and Chanin, “What Every Public Personnel,” in Public Personnel Management.
101.
Specifically, the Supreme Court recognized that public employees retained the following constitutional rights—the freedom of speech, procedural due process, the freedom of association, and equal protection of the law (Rosenbloom and Chanin 2016). At present, the Court applies a public service model; while balancing employer and employee interests, this model defers to government’s need to manage its workforce effectively and to provide public services efficiently (Hartman et al. 2010, 441–42).
102.
Mosher, Democracy and the Public, 213.
103.
Ibid., 23.
104.
Ibid., 214.
105.
Ibid., 23.
As Kettl notes, collective bargaining at the federal level cannot cover matters of public law, government-wide rules or regulations, or an agency rule for which a “compelling need” exists.
106.
Mosher, Democracy and the Public, 207.
107.
Ibid., 213.
108.
Ibid., 215.
109.
Chester A. Newland, “Reclaiming Constitutional Government and Public Administration Space,” Public Administration Review 73, no. 4 (July/August 2014): 655.
110.
Dennis F. Thompson, Political Ethics and Public Office (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 4.
111.
Carl J. Friedrich, “Public Policy and the Nature of Administrative Responsibility,” Public Policy 1 (1940): 13, 17.
112.
Ibid., 17.
113.
Herbert Kaufman, “The Fear of Bureaucracy: A Raging Pandemic,” Public Administration Review 41, no. 1 (January/February 1981).
114.
Vogelsang-Coombs and Cummins, “Reorganizations and Reforms: Promises.”
115.
Bernard D. Meltzer and Cass R. Sunstein, “Public Employee Strikes, Executive Discretion, and the Air Traffic Controllers,” University of Chicago Law Review 50, no. 2 (Spring 1983).
116.
Kettl, The Politics of the Administrative, 223, 233.
In 1996, the Congress approved reforms that exempted the FAA from civil service laws regarding the hiring, compensation, and firing of employees, thereby bypassing the federal government’s central merit system.
117.
Ban, “Hiring in the Federal,” in Public Personnel Management: Current, 142.
118.
Kettl, The Politics of the Administrative, 185-5.
119.
Donald P. Moynihan and Alasdair S. Roberts, “The Triumph of Loyalty Over Competence: The Bush Administration and the Exhaustion of the Politicized Presidency,” Public Administration Review 70, no. 4 (July/August 2010).
120.
Quoted in Vogelsang-Coombs and Cummins, “Reorganizations and Reforms: Promises,” 24.
121.
Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) of 1978. 92 Stat. 1111 (1978).
122.
Mosher, Democracy and the Public.
123.
U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Guide to the Senior Executive Service (U.S. Office of Personnel Management, 2014), last modified April 2014, accessed June 12, 2015, http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/senior-executive-service/reference-materials/guidesesservices.pdf.
124.
Mosher, Democracy and the Public, 107.
125.
Apart from the establishment of the SES, CSRA listed in law for the first time both the merit principles of the career service system and the prohibited personnel practices; additionally CSRA strengthened the protections of civil servants from arbitrary dismissal, discriminatory actions, or reprisals against whistleblowers by their supervisors (Mosher 1982, 107).
126.
U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Guide to the Senior.
127.
Kettl, The Politics of the Administrative, 168.
128.
Ibid., 168.
129.
Ibid., 168.
130.
U.S. Census Bureau, “Government Employment & Payroll, Historical Data,” U. S. Census Bureau, last modified 2014, accessed June 10, 2015, http://www.census.gov//govs/apes/.
131.
Kettl, The Politics of the Administrative, 26.
132.
Kaufman, “The Fear of Bureaucracy.”
Vogelsang-Coombs and Cummins, “Reorganizations and Reforms: Promises.”
133.
Weber, “Bureaucracy,” in From Max Weber: Essays, 242.
134.
Olsen, “Maybe It Is Time.”
135.
Herbert Kaufman, “Administrative Decentralization and Political Power,” Public Administration Review 29, no. 1 (January/February 1969).
136.
Mosher, Democracy and the Public, 177–85.
137.
Ibid., 178.
138.
Ibid., 184.
139.
Ibid., 184.
140.
Ibid., 185.
141.
Johan P. Olsen, “The Institutional Basis of Democratic Accountability,” West European Politics 36, no. 3 (2013).
142.
Michael W. Spicer, “The History of Ideas and Normative Research in Public Administration: Some Personal Reflections,” Administrative Theory & Praxis 30, no. 1 (2008): 67.
143.
Miller, “Everyday Politics in Public,” 107.
144.
John A. Rohr, Civil Servants and Their Constitutions (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2002), xiii.
145.
Jerome H. Skolnick and James J. Fyfe, Above the Law: Police and the Excessive Use of Force (New York, NY: Free Press, 1993).

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Vogelsang-Coombs, V. (2016). Bureaucratic Governance Perspectives and Democratic Public Service: Institutional Ideals and Threats. In: The Political Ethics of Public Service. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-49400-9_9

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-49400-9_9
Published: 06 May 2016
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