astern <* 'conomy dition
Administration
AND
EIGHTH EDITION
Nicholas Henry
Public Administration
and Public AffairsJ
EIGHTH EDITION
Public Administration
and Public Affairs
Nicholas Henry
Georgia Southern University
Prentice-Hall of India
New Delhi-110 001 2004This Indian Reprint—Rs. 250.00
(Original U.S. Edition—Rs. 3276.00)
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, 8th Ed.
by Nicholas Henry
© 2001 by Prentice-Hall, Inc., (now known as Pearson Education, Inc.), Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458, U.S.A. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission in writing from the publisher. ISBN-8I-203-2255-X
Published by Asoke K. Ghosh, Prentice-Hall of India Private Limited, M-97, Connaught Circus, New Delhi-110001 and Printed by V.K. Batra at Pearl Offset Press Private Limited, New Delhi-110015.
To Muriel
Contents
Preface xiii
Part One: Paradigms of Public Administration 1
Chapter 1 Big Democracy, Big Bureaucracy 3 '
Constraint: The Context and Tradition of Public Administration in the United States 3
Attenuations: The Legacy of Limited Public Administration 6
Government, Public Leaders, and Public Trust 10
Bureaucrats: Image and Reality 12
Revolt and Resistance: Americans and Governmental Growth 13
Why Bureaucracy? 14
Power: The Gray Eminence of the Public Administrator 15
Knowledge Management: The Base of Bureaucratic Power 22
Chapter 2 Public Administration's Century in a Quandary 27
The Beginning 27
Paradigm 1: The Politics/Administration Dichotomy, 1900-1926 28
Paradigm 2: The Principles of Administration, 1927-1937 30
The Challenge, 1938-1947 32
Reaction to the Challenge, 1947-1950 34
Paradigm 3: Public Administration as Political Science, 1950-1970 55
The Impact of Political Science: Bureaucracy in the Service of Democracy 39
Paradigm 4: Public Administration as Management, 1956-1970 39
The Impact of Management: Understanding the "Public" in Public Administration 41
The Forces of Separatism, 1965-1970 44
Paradigm 5: Public Administration as Public Administration: 1970- ? 45
viiContents
Part Two: Public Organizations 53
54
Chapter 3 The Threads of Organizations: Theories
Models, Definitions, and Organizations 54
The Closed Model of Organizations 55
The Open Model of Organizations 59
Closed and Open Models: The Essential Differences 65
The Literature of Model Synthesis 70
Are Public Organizations Different? 71
Chapter 4 The Fabric of Organizations: Forces 75
Society and the Assessment of Organizations 76 Information and Intelligence in Organizations 78 Decision Making in Organizations 84 Administration in Organizations 87 Control, Power, and Authority in Organizations 91 Society and Change in Organizations 96
Chapter 5 The Fibers of Organizations: People 113
What Can Organizations Do to You? 113
Administrative Humanity: Classicism, Social Psychology, and Public Administration
Models of Adult Development 118
Models of Cultural Behavior 120
Models of Political Behavior 123
Darwinism and the Organizational Personality 128
Leadership in Organizations 129
The Evolution of Leadership Theory: Denning Leadership for the Times 132
Leading the Public Organization 138
114
Part Three: Public Management 145
148
149
Chapter 6 Public Information Resource Management
The Information Resource: Social Perspectives 148
The Information Resource: Implications for People and Organizations
The Public Information Resource 155
Best Practices for Public Information Resource Management 157
From Data to Decisions to Direct Access 158
Policy Versus Privacy: The Unique Dilemma of the Public Computer 160
Chapter 7 Performance Measurement, Public Program Evaluation, and Productivity
Definitions: Calling Things What They Are 767 Efficiency for Good Government, 1900-1940 168
167Contents
IX
Budgeting to Control Costs, 1940-1970 170
Managing for Efficiency and Effectiveness, 1970-1980 171
Privatizing for Less Government, 1981-1992 172
Waste, Fraud, and Abuse: The New Meaning of Corruption, 1975-Present 174
Reinventing Government, 1992-Present 175
The Emergence of Performance Measurement and Public Program Evaluation 181
Measuring Performance: The Pillar of Public Program Evaluation 185
The Process of Public Program Evaluation 189
Permutations of Public Program Evaluation 792
Using Public Program Evaluations 194
Productivity: Three Innovations 796
Chapter 8 The Public Budget: Purposes and Processes 209
Line-Item Budgeting, 1921-1939 277
Performance Budgeting, 1940-1964 272
Planning-Programming-Budgeting, 1965-1971 213
Management by Objectives, 1972-1977 276
Zero-Base Budgeting, 1977-1980 277
Sunset, Sunrise: Sunset Legislation in the States, 1976-1981 279
The Emergence of the Uncontrollables, 1980-Present 279
Top-Down Budgeting, 1980-1992 220
Budgeting for Results, 1993-Present 229
Building Budgets: Strategies and Tactics 232
The Process: Congress and Budget Making 233
Chapter 9 Managing Human Resources in the Public Sector 244
The Evolution of American Public Human Resources Management 244
The Civil Service System: The Meaning of Merit 248
The Collective System: Blue-Collar Bureaucrats 257
The Political Executive System: Politics in Administration 262
The Professional Career System: The Person over the Position 266
The Professional Public Administration System: Embracing the Professions of Politics
and Management 267
Race, Sex, and Jobs: The Challenge of Affirmative Action 269 Does Public Human Resources Management Have a Future? 283
Part Four: Implementation 295
Chapter 10 Approaches to Public Policy and Its Implementation 297
The Incrementalist Paradigm of Public Policymaking and Implementation 298 The Rationalist Paradigm of Public Policymaking and Implementation 303 The Deficiencies of Rationalism and Incrementalism 310
The Strategic Planning Paradigm of Public Policymaking and Implementation 312 Strategic Planning: The Public Experience 313Contents
Chapter 11 Privatization: Government Contracting and the Public Authority 320
An American Orthodoxy: Business Is Better 320
The Politics of Privatization 321
The Privatization of Federal Policy 322
To Privatize or Not to Privatize? Questions of Waste, Fraud, and Abuse 327
To Privatize or Not to Privatize? Questions of Public Policymaking in a Democracy 330
Privatizing in the States 331
Privatizing by Local Governments 332
The Public Authority 337
Odds and Innovations: Minor Methods of Privatization 348
Chapter 12 Intergovernmental Administration 358
Thousands and Thousands of Governments 358
The Constitution and the Courts: Setting the Rules 359
The Evolution of Intergovernmental Administration 360
Fiscal Federalism 363
Money and Mandates: Federal Instruments of Implementation 366
Sorting Out Federalism: Fruitful or Futile? 370
Federalism among Equals: The States 371
Intergovernmental Administration: The State and Local Perspective 372
Regionalism in the States: The Odd American Experience with Intergovernmental Planning 375
Community Federalism: Interlocal Cooperation and Neighborhood Governance 383
Place, People, and Power: The Puzzle of Metropolitan Governance 386
Chapter 13 Toward a Bureaucratic Ethic 403
Public Administration and the Recognition of the Public Interest: Two Intellectual Attempts
An Example of Applied Ethical Choice in Public Administration 406
Justice as Fairness: A View of the Public Interest 406
Intuitionism, Perfectionism, and Utilitarianism 407
Applying the Justice-as-Fairness Theory 408
Practicing Ethical Public Administration 410
The Passion of Public Administration 418
Appendix A: Publications and Organizations in Public Administration by Specialization 423
Appendix B: Annotated Information Sources in Public Administration and Related Fields 427
Appendix C: Selected Annotated Journals Relevant to Public Administration 429
Appendix D: Selected Academic, Professional, and Public Interest Organizations, with Addresses, Websites, and Descriptions 433
Appendix E: Correct Forms of Address for Public Officials 436
404Contents xi
Appendix F: Becoming a Public Administrator 438
Appendix G: American Society for Public Administration Code of Ethics 444
Name Index 446
Subject Index 448
Preface
Welcome to the millennium edition—and the silver anniversary edition—of Public Administration and Public Affairs.
It is fitting, on this—both millennial and sterling—occasion, that this edition is more altered than any other. Much has been excised, much has been added, much has been rewritten, and much has been reorganized.
Among the new, seriously revised, or significantly expanded discussions contained in the eighth edition are, in rough order of appearance, the following:
• The constraint of American government, focusing on the uniquely American social contract and its limitations of governmental action
• Direct democracy, including the people's use of referenda, initiatives, recalls, and legislative term limits
• The growing "trust deficit" among American citizens relative to their governments and elected leaders
• The bureaucratic image versus the bureaucratic reality
• Why public organizations "bureaucratize" more readily than do private organizations
• The unique motivations and job satisfaction of public administrators
• The limitations of leadership in public organizations
• A new chapter devoted exclusively to public information resource management
The use of computers by local governments New governmental procedures to resist computer hacking
An expanded and reorganized chapter on performance measurement, program evaluation, and productivity
The reinventing government movement The emergence of performance measurement and public program evaluation at the federal, state, and local levels
The limitations of performance measurement, and minimizing its pitfalls Long-term and short-term cutback management Budgeting for results The federal budget surplus Assessing the performance of public administrators Dealing with incompetent public employees The developing professionalism of state and local public administrators Comparable worth
The differing career experiences of minority and women public administrators The public backlash concerning affirmative action policies
A recast chapter on "Approaches to Public Policy and Its Implementation," which bisects public policy into incrementalist and rationalist approaches
Strategic planning in the public sector The revolving door of federal contracting Privatization in the statesxiv Preface
• Local government contracting, including long-term trends and the effectiveness of local privatization
• The use of volunteers, franchises, subsidies, and vouchers by the federal, state, and local governments
• The recent rise of the states in the federal system
• Intergovernmental planning
• Community federalism
• Metropolitan governance, governmental fragmentation, and public choice
• Codes of ethics in federal, state, and local governments
• Bureaucratic accountability
• Public administrators' perceptions and interpretations of ethical behavior in government
• The passion of public administration, focusing on the remarkable career of Robert Moses
Also revised in the eighth edition are the extensive appendices that have made Public Administration and Public Affairs a useful reference work for both students and practitioners.
A new addition is Appendix A, "Publications and Organizations in Public Administration by Specialization," a listing of information sources, journals, and organizations by subfield. Appendix A is designed to facilitate the reader's ability to identify resources that are available in his or her area of interest. It draws its lists from the three appendices that follow, B, C, and D, although these appendices contain the titles of many more publications or organizations than are listed in Appendix A—namely, publications or organizations that are nonspecialized and general in their scope.
Appendix B is a compendium of annotated information sources in public administration related fields. Appendix C is an expanded list of selected journals relevant to public administration. Like Appendix B, it features Library of Congress call numbers as well as brief explanations of the items listed. Appendix D lists selected academic, professional, and public interest organizations, with addresses and descriptions. World Wide Websites for those organizations that have them, and telephone numbers for those that do not, are included.
Three additional useful appendices follow: Appendix E provides the correct form of address for
public officials. Appendix F explains what kinds of jobs are available in the public sector (and the salaries that one might expect) and how to get them. It also reviews new federal policies for hiring employees and offers a sample resume that reflects the latest thinking about this format. Appendix G reprints the Code of Ethics of the American Society of Public Administration. Because the society is the only association comprised of public administrators from all levels of American government, its Code of Ethics has particular relevance.
The eighth and millennial edition of Public Administration and Public Affairs represents the field's continuing evolution and growing self-confidence. The developments it reports show a discipline that is maturing, growing more intellectually powerful, and making greater contributions to the society that supports it.
Acknowledgments
In the first edition of this book, I stated that I owed an intellectual debt to at least three of my teachers: Lynton Keith Caldwell, Jack T. Johnson, and York Y. Wilbern. I further noted that they taught me most of what I know about public administration. I still owe my teachers for that intellectual debt. Although it has been some time since I sat in their classrooms, their impact has waxed, not waned, over the years.
The earliest of these unique teachers, Jack Johnson, passed away some years ago. His impact on me was formative, and his advice and friendship are deeply missed. I have since added a fourth person to this small circle: Frank J. Sackton. Professor Sackton (also Lieutenant General Sackton, retired) introduced me to the classroom of the practical world during the dozen years that I spent at Arizona State University. It was a rare education indeed, and one that I shall always treasure. I am indebted to my editor at Prentice Hall, Beth Gillett Mejia, as well as Ginger Malphrus, and Cristina H. Hinkle, all of whom worked hard to bring the eighth edition out on time.
I also am indebted to my colleagues, students, and the Prentice Hall reviewers who have had suchPreface xv
a constructive impact on the continuing evolution of Public Administration and Public Affairs.
As always, my wife, Muriel, and my children, Adrienne and Miles, and their spouses, Kevin and Anna, provide the deepest level of support.
The book is for them, my parents, and the newest addition to the brood, Callum, a grandson.
Nicholas Henry Statesboro, Georgia
PART ONE
Paradigms
of Public
Administration
Bureaucracy is in our bones. Prehistoric evidence unearthed at archeological digs suggests that the rudiments of a bureaucratic social order were in place 19,000 years ago.1 Bureaucracy predates, by many millennia, Homo sapiens' earliest experiments with democracy, the emergence of the globe's great religions, and the dawn of civilization itself. Bureaucracy may not be basic to the human condition, but. it is basic to human society.
Bureaucracy and democracy are antithetical systems. The former is hierarchical, elitist, specializing, and informed; the latter is communal, pluralist, generalizing, and ill informed if not ignorant. With the usual quantum of exceptions, these are the realities of the civic culture in advanced industrial democracies such as the United States.
Reconciling these realities is not a task for the timorous. Yet such a reconciliation is essential if societies are to continue to be advanced, industrial, and democratic. The nexus of where democratic mass and noetic elite meet—where this reconciliation occurs (or fails to occur) in the most central and deepest terms—is in the public bureaucracy.
Public administration is the device used to reconcile bureaucracy with democracy. Public administration is a broad-ranging and amorphous combination of theory and practice; its purpose is to promote a superior understanding of government and its relationship with the society it governs, as well as to encourage public policies more responsive to social needs and to institute managerial practices attuned to effectiveness, efficiency, and the deeper human requisites of the citizenry. Admittedly, the preceding sentence is itself rather broad ranging and amorphous (although one reviewer of this book described our definition as "a classic"2), but for our purposes it will suffice.
The place of the public bureaucracy in a democracy, and the role that public administrators play in a democracy, is what Part One is about. Bureaucracy's place and the bureaucrat's role are brushed in broad strokes, although we do become more detailed when we review the intellectual evolution of public administration as an area of study. This review is important because how public administrators see themselves and their proper field of action in a democracy is a perspective that is formed more in the halls of academe than in the corridors of power. Hence, we devote some pages to the history of ideas in public administration.
So welcome to Public Administration and Public Affairs, welcome to Part One, and welcome to one of the most exciting and rewarding career possibilities available todajtPart One / Paradigms of Public Administration
Notes
1. Scott Van Nystrom and Luella C. Nystrom, "Bureaucracy in Prehistory: Case Evidence from Mammoth Bone Dwellers on the Russian Steppes," International Journal of Public Administration 21 (Winter 1998), pp. 7-23. Archeological evidence found near Kiev, Ukraine, leads these scholars to conclude (p. 7) that "rudiments of bureaucracy, as an organizing principle, likely existed at least 12,000 to 19,000 years ago."
2. William H. Harader, "Whither Public Administration?" Public Administration Review 37 (January/February 1977), p. 98.CHAPTER ONE
Big Democracyf Big Bureaucracy
Culture counts. Milieu matters. Environment affects.
These realities pertain to all human activities, and public administration—faceless, impersonal, and even dehumanizing though it may seem—is no exception. More than most of society's activities, in fact, public administration is intensely human, and thus deeply embedded in its local culture.
In this book, we approach the practice and study of public administration from the perspective of the United States. We do consider some comparative findings from other societies, and, of course, many components comprising the management of the public's affairs are found in all nations—budgets and bureaucracy being just two examples that come to mind. Nevertheless, our focus is public administration in an American context.
Constraint: The Context and Tradition of Public Administration in the United States
The social context in which the tradition (in contrast to the profession) of public administration in the United States has been nurtured is a unique amalgam of forces, both cultural and intellectual. These forces have birthed a tradition (which Web-
ster's defines as the "belief, habit, practice, principle handed down verbally from one generation to another, or acquired to each successive generation from the example preceding it") of American public administration. That tradition may be reduced to a word: constraint.
(One clarification is in order: Whereas "constraint" may be the watchword in explaining the American tradition of public administration, it is not a term that comes readily to mind in describing the national tradition of business administration; "aggression" is perhaps the appropriate moniker of the American corporate administrative tradition. It is difficult, after all, to conceive of the shrewd, daring, and rapacious "robber barons"— the flamboyant tycoons of the nineteenth century who founded the American corporate state—as being associated with any administrative tradition of constraint. The tradition of administering the public sector differs dramatically from the tradition of administering the private sector in the United States.)