The Study of Public Administration by DWIGHT WALDO PDF
The Study of Public Administration by DWIGHT WALDO PDF
The Study of Public Administration by DWIGHT WALDO PDF
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the study of
Public Administration
Mlts^i^.
DWIGHT WALDO
l/niversity CAhfomla
of
dt Berkeley
T^Hited NdiiojLS
320. ^
D7t7
no. II
The Sfudy of
Public Administration
By Dwight Waldo
Professor of Political Science
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1955
COPYRIGHT, 1955, BY DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC. ®
This book is fully prelected by copyright, and no
port of it, with the exception of short quotations
for review, may be reproduced without the written
consent of the publisher
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The Study
of Public Administration is the first of the scope and methods
"series within a series" to be pubhshed in the Doubleday Short Studies in
Pohtical Science. One of the primaty purposes of such studies is to pro-
vide authoritative, provocative, comprehensive, and reasonably sophis-
ticated introductions to the major subdivisions of pohtical science. In
some respects, political science as a sum total of intellectual activities
resembles a rather confusing three-ring circus. Each act is of course in-
teresting and important in its own right, but we hope through a number
of similar studies to make possible a systematic global survey of political
science as a whole.
We are indeed fortunate that Professor Dwight Waldo is so well
qualified to prepare this particular study and that he was willing to put his
mature judgment to work. Because he is a recognized leader in the field
of public administration and because he is a generalist in this field as well
as a specialist. Professor Waldo speaks with quiet conviction. lie is willing
to be firm without being dogmatic and his eclectic comprehension admits
the reader to a guided tour without forcing on him a single view of this
important branch of political analysis. Not only does the author have
imposing intellectual equipment for this kind of enterprise, but for many
months he has been doing some rethinking about his specialty.
It is well known yet nonetheless curious that most of the basic, in-
fluential general works in political science do not contain a beginning
chapter which invites the reader to assume an effccti\e posture toward
the subject being discussed. Rarely are the purposes, assumptions, targets,
landmarks, and problems of a specific area of study made explicit for the
student. One result is that often the student takes away from a course
a set of topics and factual information but not a grasp of a coherent pat-
tern of investigation. In psycholog}', for example, the first chapter is likely
to be entitled What Is Psychology? That there is something of a vacuum
in this respect in political science gencrallv and in public administration
in particular exemplified by the long-standing influence of Woodrow
is
which follow. has grown up a feeling that perhaps not all the
First, there
significant questions concerning political phenomena have been asked; and
second, the advances made in applied social science during and after
World War II have opened up new horizons for both administrative
thc()r\- and practice. Furthermore, serious controversies ha\e dcxcloped
over the most important intellectual and social purposes which should
motivate teachers, researchers, and practitioners in the field of administra-
ti\e behavior. These and other contemporary discontents are reflected
throughout the studv.
In the first chapter the author tackles the difficult but essential matter
of the definition of public administration. It will be readilv admitted that
definition for its own sake can be a futile exercise. Lav readers and students
are inclined to be impatient with definition, with efforts to draw bound-
aries around a gi\en subject and to characterize it so that profitable in-
quir\' may proceed. At bottom, the function of definition (as employed
here) of any field is to lay the basis for determining the range of phe-
nomena which are to be described and explained and for suggesting
appropriate methods of analvsis. Tliis is no mere semantic operation.
Actuallv, how a subject area is defined will affect how interesting it is
generally, what kinds of professional interests will develop, how broad its
focus is, and what kinds of problems and questions will arise.
Unfortunately, the study of public administration is still regarded by
many as dull. Occasionally one hears it referred to as a "plumbing course."
This unflattering appellation points to what appears to be heavy emphasis
on budget procedures, flow charts, personnel selection, and so on. The
way the study of public administration is defined mav inadvertcntlv blight
its attractiveness. One signal contribution of Professor Waldo's presenta-
tion is that it sets public administration in a very broad framework. A
careful reader will probablv accept the author's insistence that the studv
of administrative behavior in government is not onlv a requirement of good
citizenship but also spotlights what is a fascinating segment of human
behavior in its own right. Chapters Two and Four show clearly that recent
developments in the field ha\e thoroughly broken earlier confines. The
range of phenomena has increased and the factors deemed to be rele\ant
to an understanding of administration are as much sociological and
psychological as legal. The last chapter demonstrates that future trends
may be quite exciting.
Professor W^ildo's depth of learning not only enables him to locate
the study of public administration in larger perspective. In his important
fifth chapter he relates it to other subdivisions of political science and to
other disciplines interested in administrative organizations. Many scholars
in the other social sciences share common concerns with public admin-
istration experts and may have substantial theoretical and practical con-
tributions to make to the work of the latter. The increase in the number
of social scientists (including of course political scientists) interested in
organizational behavior, which includes public administrative organiza-
tions, ought to stimulate \oungcr scholars.
In addition to characterizing the major categories involved in public
Editor's Foieword v
administration, this essay devotes a full chapter to the difficult value
problem— a problem which plagues all of political science. Should the
student of administrative behavior restrict hhnself to the accumulation
and interpretation of verifiable data or should he be concerned with what
ought to happen, with reform of the administrative process? Can the
values which should influence public administration be scientifically de-
termined? If not, how should such values be determined? How do the
values held by the obseners of administration affect their intellectual
operations? How can the distortions stemming from cultural bias be min-
imized? Can values be kept out of the execution of policies, i.e., can
policies be administered neutrallj-, without changing original intentions?
In other words, can the administration of programs, policies, regulations,
and so on be kept value-free? The author clarifies these issues with par-
ticular reference to public administration.
To conclude, the author has succeeded in taking temporary' hold of a
complex, dynamic subdivision of political science— long enough to give
the reader an ordered set of answers about its purposes, methods, and
problems. Somehow he has managed to say something worthwhile both
to inexperienced students and to his professional colleagues.
Richard C. Snyder
Consulting Editor
Doubleday Publications in
Political Science
Prefa ce
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VI
Contents
Preface vi
Bibliographical Note 71
chapter one
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When announcement of the first atomic explosions was made there was
a deep sense of awe at the power unleashed. Imagination and reason
strained to comprehend what had happened and how it had been brought
to pass. The sense of awe was extended to the ph}sical science and engi-
neering which had made this stupendous phenomenon possible.
Along with an account of the general principles of physics in\-ohcd and
how they had been conceived and brought to successful test by the \-arious
physicists, the government of the United States gave also an account of the
human science and engineering that lay behind the achievement. In brief,
a special administrative system named the Manhattan Engineer District
had been set up as a subdivision of the go\-ernment of the United States.
The Manhattan Engineer District spent two billion dollars, under condi-
tions of such great secrecy that comparatively few Americans knew it existed
and many of its ow^n employees did not know its purpose. It brought to-
gether thousands of \ariouslv and highly trained men, and manv and rare
materials and objects, from all o\cr the earth. It built extensi\e facilities and
created specialized subadministrative systems across the continent, tying
them together ways with the administrative s^'stems we know
in intricate
as business enterprises and universities. Tlie success of the Manhattan
Engineer District lies before all: its purpose was the achie\'ement of mili-
tarily usable explosions based on nuclear fission.
Now it is a reasonable conclusion, based upon evidence, that most people
regarded the atomic bomb as an achievement of physical science alone,
and that the account of the Manhattan Engineer District did not make
—
much of an impression and has been generally forgotten. But might ire
not seriously entertain another point of yiew. that the atomic bomb
was as much an achievement on the human side as on the side of physical
science?
Not that the atomic bomb was a triumph of human moralit\-. Perhaps
the reverse was true, though judgment upon the atomic bomb cannot be
dissociated from judgment upon war itself and all its modern machinery.
What should be noticed is that in the perspective of history the human
technology in achieving the bomb was a remarkable thing— perhaps as far
removed from the social experience and imagination of any primitive people
as the bomb itself from their physical experience and imagination.
To be sure, the all-but-universal judgment of the day is that our phjsical
2 The Study of Public AdministTation
evoke sharp concepts and vivid images in the reader's mind. But if they
do not, it is better to proceed, rather than puzzle over each word, in the
hope that the following explanations, descriptions, and comments will bring
understanding in their train.
achievements of the natural and phvsical sciences, have been insistent that
public administration can and should become a science in the same sense.
Other students and administrators, impressed with a fluid, creative quality
in actual administration, with such intangibles as judgment and leader-
ship, have been equallv insistent that public administration cannot become
a science, that it is an art.
Much nonsense has resulted from the debates of the science-art contro-
versv, but also considerable clarification of concepts and agreement on
usage. It fashionable nowadays to refer to the "art and science" of public
is
usages. They are used to designate and delineate both 1 ) an area of intel-
(
obvious, in retrospect, that a great deal (but not all) of the controversy
over whether public administration is a science or an art stemmed from
failure to agree on which public administration was being discussed, the
discipline or the activity. It quickly apparent that it is easier to make the
is
case for science on the systematic study, and the case for art on the practice,
of public administration.
A student of public administration must cultivate a sharp eye for the
4 The Study of Public Admhustration
two usages of term. Sometimes the meaning will be elear from defini-
tlic
tion or context, but often there is simply ambiguity and confusion. Some-
times this is true because a writer begins with a definition of public admin-
istration as a process or activity, and then proceeds, abrujjtly or gradually,
to use the term also to refer to the systematic study of pulilic administration.
Sometimes too the attempt is made to embrace both meanings within tlic
same definition, which opens great opportunity for confusion. ('I'um back
now and scrutinize the two definitions gi\cn on an earlier page. In terms
of the distinction made, is their intent clear?)
Let us confess that in attempting to clarify a distinction which is impor-
tant we have made it sharper than it is in fact. To explain, recall the analog)-
drawn above between biologv as the studv of organisms and the organisms
themselves. In this case the distinction is sharp, because while biolog)- in-
cludes the study of man as an organism, this is but a small part of the
whole; and on the other hand, no organism except man makes much of a
studv of other organisms. In the case of public administration, however,
the central concern of the study is man himself, in certain aspects and sets
of relationships; and on the other hand, much stud\ing of public adminis-
tration is carried on by men while engaged in the activities and process of
public administration. The file clerk meditating on a better filing svstem
for his needs, the super\isor deciding upon a new distribution of work
among his staff, the group of publicly employed social scientists making an
elaborate studv of how cmplovee morale can be maintained, are all study-
ing public administration in some sense or aspect.
threat of bodily harm from the other: Is this cooperation? It is, in the mean-
ing here assigned. Cooperation as ordinarily used suggests willingness, even
perhaps enthusiasm; so we are straining the customar\^ meaning. But the
English language seems to have no word better adapted to the meaning
here desired. The expression antagonistic cooperation, incidentally, is some-
times used in the social sciences to distinguish unwilling from willing co-
operation.
6 The Study oi Public AcJm in /sf ration
far do the facts depart from it. Moreover, all or nearly all so-called subordi-
nates, those we think of as docilely taking orders, have means or techniques
for changing the behavior of their superiors— for example, the workers'
slowdown, or the secretar^-'s smile or frown. A pure one-way power relation-
ship in human affairs is very rare, if indeed it exists. In short, the word
authoritative in the above definition is ambiguous, since the test of authority
may be either the official theory or habitual response. was The definition
framed in the knowledge of this ambiguity, which is important but cannot
be explored further here. In any ease— this is our present point— there are
more or less firm structures of personal interrelationships in an administra-
tive system, and these we designate organization.
defined. Our attention focuses, then, upon the phrase action intended to
achieve.
Action is to be construed very broadly: any change intended to achieve
rational cooperation. It includes self-change or activity, all effects of man
upon man, and all effects of man upon nonhuman things. In the postal
system, for example, action includes the deliberations of the Postmaster
General on such a matter as the desirability of a system of regional postal
centers, the instructions of a city postmaster in supervising his staff, and
the activities of a deliverer in sorting his daily batch of mail. There is an
authoritative quality involved in many of these actions: some men habitu-
ally give more instructions (which are followed) than others. Hence some
writers define management in terms of direction or control. But this defini-
tion is likely to lead to an undesirable narrowing of attention.
The word intended in the definition has this significance: there may be a
distinction between actions intended to achieve rational cooperation and
actions which in fact do so. The reason for this is that in terms of given
goals, actions intended to be rational may fail because not all the relevant
facts and conditions are known or properly included in judgments and
—
decisions something which occurs in private life as well as in group activity.
On the other hand, actions which are not part of any conscious rational cal-
culation may nevertheless contribute to rational cooperation. Such actions
may be sheerly accidental, or they may be actions we associate with emo-
3 The Study of Puhhc Administration
tions, pcrsonalit)', and so forth— areas beyond full scientific statement and
calculation, for the present at least. Mauagcrncnt is customarily used of
actions intended to achieve rationality (and carries the presumption that
the intention is usuallv realized), but of course an astute practitioner or
student will be aware of the difference between intention and actuality and
will never forget the large area still unmanageable. Incidentally, a great deal
of political thcor\-, espcciallv in modern centuries, has concerned itself with
the question of the general scope and the particular areas of human manage-
ability. Students of administration can profit from the literature of this
debate. And their findings and experience arc in turn an important con-
tribution to it.
Or we might take the common-sense approach and ask simply. Does the
government earn' on the function or activih? For many common-sense pur-
poses this approach is quite adequate. It will satisfy most of the purposes of
the citizen, and many of those of the student and practitioner of adminis-
tration. But for many purposes of studv, analvsis, and informed action it is
quite inadequate. Even at the level of common sense it is not completely
adequate. For example, there arc unstable political situations in which it
is difficult to idcntif\' "the go\ernmcnt" and ^^•hat is "legal." And there are
borderline activities of which one is hard put to it to sav whether the gov-
ernment carries them on or not, such are the subtleties of law and circum-
stances. For example, the dc\clopment of atomic encrg\- is public in the
sense that the government of the United States is in charge. Indeed, there
What Is Public Administration? o
ha\'e been developed most fully in such disciplines as sociolog)- and an-
thropolog}'. The ones suggested as being particularly useful are associated
with the expressions structural-functional analysis and culture. The concepts
im'olved in these terms are by no means completely clear and precise. About
them Jiighlv technical and intense professional debates are carried on.
Nevertheless they are very useful to the student of administration even if
used crudely. They provide needed insight, if not firm scientific generaliza-
tions.
further implies or asserts that the various beliefs and ways of doing things
in a particular culture are a system in the sense that the)' are dependent one
upon the other, in such a way that a change in one sets oflF a complicated
(and given the present state of our knowledge, at least, often unanticipated
and uncontrollable) train of results in others. For example, the introduc-
tion of firearms or of the horse into the culture of a primitive people is
likely ultimately to affect such matters as artistic expression and marriage
customs.
Now the concept of culture tends somewhat to turn attention in the op-
posite direction from structural-functional analysis. It emphasizes the \ariety
of human experience in society rather than the recurrent patterns. Indeed,
the concept has been used in arguing the almost complete plasticity of
human beings and of society— and this is the source of one of the profes-
sional controversies referred to above. Tlie professional controversies as to
the limits of the truth or usefulness of concepts should not mislead us, how-
ever. The two concepts or sets of concepts we are dealing with here are not
necessarily antithetical, but rather are customarily supplementary over a
large area of social analysis.
As structural-functional analysis provides tools for dealing with recurrent
phenomena, the concept of culture provides tools for dealing with rariety.
The administration wherever it is
feeling or intuition that administration is
Now wc mav propcrh- hold that the concept of rational action is placed
at the center of administrative study and action. Hiis is what it is about,
—
so to speak. But the emphasis needs to be qualified mellowed— bv knowl-
edge and appreciation of the nonrationai. It is now generally agreed that
earlier students of administration had a rationalist bias that led them to
overestimate the potentialities of man (at least in the foreseeable future) for
rational action.
Most modern psvcholog\- emphasize — indeed perhaps
of the streams of
overemphasize— the irrational component in human psycholog\-: the role of
the conditioned response, the emotive, the subconscious. Much of anthro-
polog]^- and complementary- themes: the large amount of
sociolog}' stresses
adaptive social behavior that is below the level of individual and even —
—
group conscious choice of goals and means to realize the goals. (The fact
that goals arc not chosen consciouslv does not mean that there are no goals
in this behavior, nor that the goals are necessarily unimportant, nor even
—
that thc}- are any less true or meaningful than those consciously chosen. A
baby responding to food stimuli, for example, not choosing the goal of
is
goal; that a world in which all is orderly and predictable, with no room for
spontaneity, surprise, and emotional play, is an undesirable world.
the fact that given actions may produce desired results for the wrong reasons.
Tluis actions enjoined by superstition are found sometimes to be correct (i.e.
Administration has been studied since the dawn of histou', but seldom
with much self-consciousness, and never before with the scope and intensity
of today.
15
^6 The Study of PiihUc Admiimtration
through cooperative action— goals good and bad. Much of this increase has
already occurred, much more is in prospect.
not easy in short space to describe and characterize what has hap-
It is
pened. For that matter, it would not be easy to describe and characterize
what has happened at great length, for the story is very complicated, is
still but dimly understood, and is yet to be studied as history. Searching for
problem, in general and in the abstract.^ For the first time he was able to
view the process and the problem of its improvement completely from the
outside, and had the time, interest, and inclination for sustained attention
to it.
gradually become larger and more complex in modern historv, and while
size and complexity are not necessarily true measures of cooperative effec-
tiveness and rationality in particular cases, nevertheless they are crude
indexes of the growth of knowledge of how to achieve human goals— at least
the goals that modern Western man has sought. The proof is in the results,
the massive changes in the physical aspects of life on earth (unless one
wishes to make the implausible assertion that these changes have taken
place despite the increase in size and complexity of administrative S}'stems)
but the original fervor has faded, the original methods have been
still exists,
Another development which lies behind and is reflected in the first text-
books is the growth of higher education. The universit)- system, borrowing
much from the German university, which was then at the pinnacle of its
prestige, came to assume its present outlines. The serious attention to
science and the pro\ision for high specialization which characterize the
American university have American roots, to be sure, but were forwarded
by large numbers of educators who had studied at a continental unixersity.
The drive toward scientific and professional achievement thus implanted in
the system of b.ighcr education has affected public administration. In point
'
may be cited the case of William E. Moshcr, one of the Founding Fathers
who received his education in German\ Mosher was largely responsible for
.
opinion in which they worked and their ardent desire to make administra-
tion a science. One can even say, with the wisdom of hindsight, that it could
hardly have been othenvise. Pragmatism, popularized by William James and
—
especially John Dewey a philosophy which stresses experience and action
and makes usefulness the test of truth— has been influential (to judge from
the evidence of words) with some students. Logical positivism, which
stresses experience and verifiability but also stresses logic and semantic
.
the author seeks the "nature, causes, and effects" of the great increase in the
number, size, and complexity of organizations during the past century in
Western society.
5. There is a voluminous and easily accessible literature dealing with Taylor and
the Scientific Management mo\ement. Taylor's book, The Principles of
Management, first published in 1911 but available in later editions,
Scientific
should probably come first. It is a document interesting on its human as well
as its scientific side.
CONTINTS*
Part I
Part II
4. Executive Leadership
y Administrati\c Planning
24
Contemporary Teaching and Training 25
6. Communication
7. Building Public Support
Part m
Administrative Organization
Part IV
Personnel Management
15. What Is Personnel Administration?
16. Personnel Dynamics
17. The Federal Personnel System
18. Recruiting and Examining
19. Jobs and Pay
20. Employee Relations
21. Developing Administrative Leadership
Part V
Financial Management
22. What Is Financial Administration?
23. Federal Financial Organization
24. The Budget Process
25. Who Gets What?
26. Budgetary Control
27. General Services
Part VI
Administrative Law and Regulation
Part VII
Administrative Responsibility
CONTENTS*
Preface
Part I
Part II
V. Organization
Principles of Organization
Bases and Forms of Organization
Bases of Organization
Part III
J
Contemporary Teaching and Training 29
XIV. Incentives and Sanctions
Human Nature Not a Constant
Incentives and IVIoralc
Incentives in Public Administration
Scientific Research in Incenti\es and Morale
What the Findings Indicate
New Insights into Morale-Building
Influence of Freedom, Self-Development and Lovalty
Sanctions
XV. Public Relations
Public Relations and Administrati\c Calculations
The Growth of Public Relations in Government
Public Relations through Employee Morale
Morale and Public Relations in Government
Public Relations through Publics
Public Relations through Conventional Media
Public Reporting
Restricting Access to Information
XVI. Administrati\'e Control
A Neglected Field
The Techniques of Control
The General Strategy
Units of Measurement
Units of Measurement in Government
Practical Next Steps toward Control in Public Administration
Issues Arising out of Control Procedures
Standardization
Location of the Control Function
Time and Motion Studies in Government
Statistics and Accounting
XVII. Administrative Procedures and the Law
The Administrator as Lawmaker and Judge
The Spread of Administrative Legislation and Adjudication
Administrative Legislation
Delegation of Legislative Power
The Uses of Administrative Legislation
Administrative Standards
Administrative Adjudication
Common Aspects of Rule Making and Decision Making
Administrative Discretion
Procedural Due Process
Hearing Officers
Administrative Procedure Legislation
Administrative Finality
The Effect of Administrative Procedure Legislation
Independent Regulatory Commissions
JO The Study of Public Administiation
Part IV
Democratic Control
Second, this textbook goes further than any other in bringing in concepts
and data from the disciplines of psychology, sociolog}', and some of the
other fields of inquiry concerned with human behavior in nonadministrative
contexts or in general. Its authors tr\' both to supplement and to correct, to
substitute "fact for fancy in the theor\^ of administration."
Third, there is less attention to some of the legal and factual aspects of
American administration than is customary."^ This characteristic is perhaps
a necessary corollary of the second, given a book of a certain length. In
terms of an example, this textbook has a very penetrating discussion of staff
theory and psychology, but less material than is customary on the history,
organization, and operation of the staff facilities of the President.
The other textbook is Management in the Public Ser\'ice: The Quest for
Effective Performance (New York, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.,
1954) by John D. Millett. The focus of this textbook is narrower than that
of the conventional type. This is true largely because the author has planned
the book as one of two companion volumes, the other not yet written. Tire
companion volume is to deal with the "politics of administration," that is
to say, with the setting of administration in terms of legal norms, political
processes, and perhaps policy development.
The focus in this volume is on management, with some emphasis upon
the problems of the chief manager, but with an attempt to find the com-
mon denominators of management problems. "The word 'management' in
the title here implies that our interest is in the operation of administrative
M The Study of Public Admiimtration
agencies as such. The apex of our attention for the present is tlie dcpart-
nicnt head or the chief oflicer of anv other separate administrative agency
of government. Moreover, as already suggested, tliis volume deals with
the common problems of management, with the interests and concerns
of management which spread from one agency to another regardless of
its substantive field of activity.""' 'I he three parts of the book are labeled
lately expanded in concept and coverage to deal with the general problem of
communication in the administrative context, are sometimes given. Latelv,
growing out of our broadened world-\iew, an interest in comparative and
international administration has found expression in some curricula.
Usual]}' public administration is taught as a part of the broader curricu-
lum, political science, an arrangement which reflects both the historical
lineage of public administration and its public orientation. In some institu-
tions the public-administration curriculum has assumed separate status as
a program or school. In either case the teaching relationship with political
science is almost certainly regarded as important, and the student is ex-
pected or required to round out his preparation for study or practice by
addressing himself to the study of various aspects of general political theory,
American governmental institutions, international relations and agencies,
comparative government and politics, public law and jurisprudence, and
parties, politics, and pressure groups.
Political science in turn is not taught in isolation, and be}ond the com-
plex of facts, interests, and courses customarily regarded as political science
are the other social sciences— for that matter, the range of liberal arts and
physical science which constitute present higher education in America.
(Some study of languages, literature, mathematics, and phvsical science is
a degree requirement prior to or contemporaneous with special studv of
public administration.) The student of public administration is encouraged
or required within the limits of his time and energy to supplement his
courses in public administration by study not only of political science but
also in disciplines such as history, sociology, economics, social ps\cholog}-,
business administration, and anthropology. Some tool subjects regarded as
of especial value in achieving rational cooperative action are often required;
most frequent are statistics and accounting. While few, whether students or
practitioners, need become skilled producers, many or all need to be in-
telligent consumers of the common techniques of quantification. Indeed,
quantification is one of the surest m^eans — some would say the only ade-
quate test — of rational action (as defined above).
Most of the instruction of the School centers upon programs for the
master's degree. At the master's level, two professional degrees are conferred,
Master of Business Administration and jNIaster of Public Administration.
The course of studv for cither degree is two ^•cars. Tlic program for the first
year (except for one course not shown) is the same for both degrees, the
so-called core courses, as follows: Introduction to Administration, Adminis-
trative Accounting, Managerial Economics, Finance, and Statistics.
In the second year candidates for both degrees are required to take Busi-
ness Policv and Economic Instabilitv, and either Competitive Behavior and
Public Policv or National Administration and Public Policy.
In the second year students must also, however, "complete the require-
ments of a concer^tration plus approved elective hours sufficient to fill out
the minimum of 60 semester hours required for graduation."
The wording of the catalog concerning the Master of Public Administra-
tion program illustrates several points and lists the fields of concentration:
In-Service Training
In this brief sketch of teaching and training for public administration
there remains onh- to take note of in-ser\ice training. This expression as
here used embraces all instruction or training that seeks to bridge the gap
between regular, formal instruction and learning bv actual administrati\e
experience (though the term is usually restricted in meaning to some one
tvpe of such training)
One general tvpe of such training is pre-entry training, similar to the
apprenticeship or medical internship. It seeks in var\ing wavs to give an
experience of on-the-job conditions to one who is still engaged in, or just
finished with, a program of formal instruction. A
program may, for example,
invoKe rapid rotation of students, singly or in groups, through several levels
or agencies of a governmental jurisdiction (with its consent and cooper-
ation, of course) During this rotation program the students perform simple
.
of their program and feel that the results, as measured in the accomplish-
ments of their students, abundantly prove its practicalit\-.
The other general type of in-ser\-ice training is on-the-job training. As a
t}'pe it the re\erse of pre-entr)- training: it consists of more or less formal
is
variety in the types of program possible. At what may be called one end of
the scale, promising junior executives may be sent off for a sabbatical year
of special study; or some special training course for all executives of a given
age or with a given function may be given. At the other end of the scale
are programs by which foremen instruct their workmen how to use tools or
machinery or to cooperate effectively on a particular type of operation. Inci-
dentally, such trainingprograms have proved very efficacious, and the fore-
man's function is now conceived more as that of a teacher and less as that
of a boss.
tion, like all knowledge, is amoral. It becomes 'good' or 'bad' only in terms
of the value assumptions added to it by the person who uses it in terms of —
his attitudes towards goals and methods." Simon et al., Op. cit., 22.
4. "In using such examples from life, our purpose is to illustrate, not to de-
scribe. .While we have tried to expose the reader to a wealth of illustra-
. .
tive material, the basic framework is analytic rather than descriptive." Op.
cit., ix.
New York, Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc., 1952. Incidentally, this is
not the first or only use of the case approach in administrati\e study. In the
late thirties and early forties the Social Science Research Council sponsored
a published series of Case Reports in Public Administration. These cases,
however, were essentially different from the cases under discussion, being
short reports of (generally) small problems, including a solution. Individual
teachers of public administration, for example. Professor E. O. Stene of the
University of Kansas, have prepared cases for their own teaching use. On the
case method in public administration, see William Anderson and John M.
Gaus, Research in Public Administration (Chicago, Public Administration
Service, 1945), Chapter 3. See also Stein's introduction, which is an excellent
essay on the recent development of administrative study; and his "Human
%g The Study of Public Administrafion
iiniiiiNiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiMiiiiiiiMiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiMiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiMiiiinii^
considerable clarity and acceptance by the year 1914. The task and accom-
plishment of the first textbook-writers was to collect, defend, and system-
atize these doctrines, and then to build upon them the basic factual cate-
gories and data of the day relating to public administration. Having gained
the authoritative status of textbook presentation and been given an aura of
science, the doctrines, and even the factual categories, tended to be accepted
as firm and lasting truths. synthesis—more, a crystallization— had oc- A
curred.
The historical importance of this event was emphasized above, and it
cannot in honesty be denied. But while the synthesis was a great achieve-
ment, the hardening of doctrines into dogmas, the crystallization, was un-
fortunate. For a period of more than a decade, from the mid-twenties till
the late thirties, students of administration were largely content with the
structure that had been erected; so content were they in fact that often they
offended colleagues in other fields and disciplines with their manifestations
of self-assurance.
In the late thirties and early forties, however, important changes in ideas
and shifts in attitudes occurred. The crystallization was broken up, the
synthesis dissolved. did this take place? Why
can never be certain We
why ideas behave as they do, nor of the relation between them and ob-
servable events. However, some likely reasons suggest themselves. One is
that the thirties was a period of great change and ferment in the field of
government. The traumatic experience of the Great Depression brought
accepted ideas of all kinds into question. And with the New Deal came
39
^o The Study of Public Admimstiation
ments of various kinds, which were food for thought for all students of
political science. The Depression and the New Deal were still with us when
the Second World War swept o\er us, and the momentous e\ents of the
past fifteen years have provided a constant stimulus to thinkiui:;— and re-
thinking. It might be added that man\- academic people participated in the
ojjcrations of I'cderal administration in depression, war, and eold war, and
had the enlightening experience of mingling study with practice and close
obscrxation.*
For whatever reasons, in the late thirties and early forties the study of
and forties it was demonstrated that many of the "principles" were simply
not empirically true and that various of them, of seemingly equal validity
and acceptance, were contradictor}'. More importantly, it was demonstrated
that manv of the principles rested upon or contained what is usualh- known
as the naturalistic fallacy, which is the logical fallacy of jumping from the
observation of what is true to the assertion of what ought to be true. The
present situation comes to this: students of administration generally feel
that their study is important and useful, critically so; that the problems of
definition can wait, and problems of methodology cannot be decided a
priori but must be tested in use.
The fate of the doctrine of economy and efficiency has been similar to
that of principles. Even before the thirties there appeared an occasional
argument that economy is too narrow a goal for administrative stud}'; that
cheapness is not the proper measure of good government and that efficiency
of operation is a better criterion. During the thirties economy was all but
discarded, and efficiency in turn was subjected to close scrutiny. Efficiency
too then came to be criticized as too narrow, negative, mechanical; writers
began to speak of the desirability of "broad social efficiency" and even to
argue that other criteria are more important than efficiency, however quali-
fied. Nevertheless, economy and efficiency are still with us. Partly this is
for a strategic reason; for those (such as legislators) who are called upon
to support administrative study, economy and efficiency remain words with
power of conviction. Basically, however, economy and efficiency are retained
in the present vocabulary of administration because of a suspicion or intui-
them was too hasty, that they signify useful concepts
tion that rejection of
which, properly shaped and restrained, sen'e desirable purposes.
cases, radically insome. And there are a number of changes in the labels
themselves. A few of the changes may be indicated, to give some measure
of the size and a sense of the direction of recent movements.
One of the two or three most important works on administration to
appear in the thirties was titled Papers on the Science of Administration,
edited by Luther Gulick and Lyndall Urwick. In a noted essa\' in this
volume. Professor Gulick put forward the made-up word POSDCORB as
a mnemonic device for recall of the functions of the executive in adminis-
tration :
P = Planning
O r= Organizing
S ^ Staffing
D = Directing
CO ^ Coordinating
R= Reporting
B := Budgeting
46 The Study o( Piil)]ic Administiation
Oiir purpose will be served if \vc obscnc wliat lias happened under and
to some of these labels and categories.
'i'hat phinniuv^ stands probably an «ccidcnt of phonetics, but it
first is
Political Science^
Public administration may be, and in some sense certainly is, a part
of political science. But within political science are various clusters of
interest that relate to public administration in various wa}-s. One of the
clusters of interest may be designated Parties, Politics, and Public Opin-
ion. In the past decade or so, paralleling the dropping away of the old
division betv^'cen politics and administration, there has been increasing
liaison with this area. John M. Gaus states the current attitude of what is
certainly a large majority of public-administration students when he states,
49
50 The Study of Pubhc Administration
too."- Kxcliange witli this area, particularly with the public-opinion area,
is it too has been affected by some of the currents-
fostered bv the fact that
label them roughly hchaxiord rcxt'c/rc/i— that have aflected public adminis-
History
In its early period administrative studv was highly unhistorical. The study
of histow was associated with a bookish approach to life, whereas the early
Administrative Study and the Social Sciences ri
This emphasis was not misplaced, given the situation in which it oc-
curred. Certainly the study of administration could not have advanced to
its present level without breaking the chains of the past. During the past
ten or fifteen years, however, there has arisen a new interest in history.
Why has this taken place? One reason has to do with inherent difficulties
of applving the established methods of the physical sciences, such as the
controlled experiment, in the social field. Lacking exact testing of hvpothe-
ses under controlled conditions the social scientist rather naturally turns
to the. record of the past for comparisons. He knows, if he is wise, that
history never repeats and that such comparisons are never exact, but he
still believes that the careful use of history adds to his understanding of
present data.
Another reason has to do with changing fashions in the writing of histor)'.
Histor}' can of course be written from a multitude of points of view. The
dominant emphasis in the writing of history when administrative study
was born was on political, military, and legal data: the stor\' of kings and
presidents, battles and wars, constitutions and laws, did not seem very rele-
vant to administration. During the past fifty or seventy-five years the study
of history has been enriched by many new hypotheses and perspectives.
Economic and technological history, and
history, social history, scientific
intellectual history have been widely explored and greatly expanded. More-
over, a number of professional historians have turned their attention to the
history of administration itself— in church, state, business, the militar)^^ and
wherever elsehas developed.
it
Cultural Anthropology
Cultural anthropolog\' as a field of study has
been primarily concerned
with primitive or simpler societies in
which administration as rational
far advanced. It may seem peculiar, there-
social cooperation is not ven-
discussion of the contribution of
fore, that it is mentioned at all in this
other areas to administrative study.
student of administration are
Actuallv the uses of anthropolog\- to the
provides, for the study
complcmentarv to those of historv.For as history
rational cooperative endeavor, the
perspective of civilized societies chron-
of
anthropologv provides the perspective of primitne societies
geo-
oloc'icalh-,
gnphicallv Much knowledge and insight on the range, combinations, and
permutations of human cooperation are gained by surveying the wide cul-
tural spectrum embraced bv anthropolog)'.
The central concept of culture is actually broader than
its traditional
and conclusions from simple to complex societies lest error and folly creep
is broadening its interests and refining
its
in the discipline of anthropolog^'
fact many studies of administra-
techniques to accomplish this objective. In
problems in complex societies are now being made bv anthropologists,
tive
field quicklv rcxcals."' The broadening of the
as a perusal of journals in this
ranee of interest of administrative studv
bv the technical assistance pro-
grams that have followed the Second \\^orld War
is relevant here; anthro-
Sociology
it is in a sense a combi-
\Vhile sociology is a discipline in its own right,
nation of histon- and anthropolog^•. It
embraces in its interests all societies
contemporar>-; it uses the data of both
simple and complex, historical and
and it might be
histor^'and anthropolog^• for its own conceptual s^•stcms;
and anthropology- for readier appli-
said that processes the data of history-
it
Sociolog^ concerns itself with the most general problems of cause and
and the student of administration is often able
effect in human societies,
revealing m-
to get from the literature of sociolog^• a useful h^-potheslS or
concerning the relationship between the rationality of
sicht-for example,
for rational
the medium of exchange in a societ\- and its general capacity
concerns itself with such categories
social action. More narrowlv, sociolog^•
Administrative Study and the Social Sciences r-.
as status, class, power, occupation, family, caste, prestige, and so forth; and
the relevance of such categories for a well-de\'eloped administrative study
is becoming increasingly clear. We are becoming more and more a\^•are that
human cooperative S}stems are shaped and controlled by their en\ironmcnt,
their ecology. Sociologists— some of whom arc dccplv interested in adminis-
tration— ha\'e had much to do with this developing emphasis.
A brief examination of the concept of bureaucracy will illustrate the use-
fulness of the sociological perspective, and how sociologists process the data
and anthropolog)'. The best-known conceptualization of bureauc-
of histor)'
racy in sociology is that of Max Weber, a German scholar of a generation
ago. Weber's scholarship ranged across cultures and up and down the cen-
turies; One of his significant conclusions was that under certain conditions
of human culture bureaucracy tends to emerge. Bureaucracy in this sense
is an institution, or complex of institutions, having certain definable, dc-
seribable characteristics. Specifically and very brieflv, in its fully developed
or ideal state, it is characterized by:
1. Fixed and official jurisdictions which are ordered by rules (laws or
regulations).
2. The principle of hierarchy (super- and subordination).
3. The keeping of extensive, careful, and usually secret records.
4. Professional, or at least thorough, training for participation.
5. Separation of office or work place from domicile; and full-time atten-
tion toone institution or position.
6. Operation according to rules more or less stable and exhaustive.
Now this is obviously a sketch of what we are familiar with as administra-
tion in business, government, or elsewhere; and there may be wonder that
it is thought to be a useful contribution. But the point is that Weber cast
much light upon the historical and cultural conditions under which ^^•hat
we may think of as normal administrative arrangements emerge, and hence
on how by testing and exploration we can learn to achieve — or perhaps
—
change such arrangements if we wish. It is impossible to read \V^eber's
writings on bureaucracy without a feeling that one now stands outside his
culture and can observe in this perspective previously hidden but signifi-
cant relationships between administration and, for example, educational
systems, economic systems, and family systems.
As another example of the usefulness of a sociological perspective we may
take the concept of cooptation. This concept was developed and applied
in a study of the TVA by Philip Selznick,*^ in what has proved to be one
of the most interesting and valuable studies of recent years.
The general problem posed by the study was the relationship of a formal
organization to its setting and the adaptive responses made by an organiza-
tion in order to survive and grow: "the security of the organization as a
whole in relation to social forces in its environment." Cooptation was con-
ceived as one type of adaptive response and was defined as "the process of
absorbing new elements into the leadership or policy-determining structure
of an organization as a means of averting threats to its stability or exist-
ence."^ A further distinction was made between formal and informal types
of cooptation.
54 T^^^ Study of Public Administration
integrity and good name of an agency that has been highly regarded by
liberals. Such an interpretation misses the point and purpose. In Sclznick's
view, the TVA had no option whether it would engage in cooptation; co-
optation was necessary for sur\ival and to accomplish any objectives. The
goals that TVA leaders chose to put first were public-power goals. These
goals TVA largel\- achicxcd, but the price of success was the relinquishment
of many other goals that perhaps were good and might have been achie\ed.
The point is— if the study was correct in its facts and conclusions and is
sustained bv other studies of the same phenomena— that this is tJie way
formal organizations work, and the study of administration is enriched by
the knowledge.^
Social Psychology
Administration has been defined as cooperation and thus bv definition
as a social activity. The study of psychology as it relates to the social is
therefore relevant to administrative study. Students of administration
arc interested in many of the data and findings of social ps\cholog\-, and
social psychologists find administrative phenomena an important area of
study.
Tliere an easy flow of data and concepts, and considerable intermin-
is
isseeking for the constants in face-to-face group behavior, and presents for
reflection and testing a series of hypotheses, such as the following:
An
increasing specialization of activities will bring about a decrease in the
range of interaction of a person concerned with any one of these activities and
will limit the field inwhich he can originate interaction.
As the range of a man's interaction declines, as he interacts less often with
the leaders of his group, and as the field in which he exercises authority becomes
more limited, his social rank will decline.^
Economics
Thestudy of economics and the study of administration touch and even
join together at a number of places. Public finance, budgeting, and fiscal
administration are subjects of proper interest to both disciplines, and in
each of them the disciplines can each learn from the other. Taxes, for
example, vary not only in their economic aspects, but in their administra-
tive feasibility; a budget is both a major instrument of administrative con-
trol in the economy it covers.
and a major factor
The —
interchange present and potential—between economics and public
administration runs, however, far beyond the areas, such as public finance,
that they share in a formal sense. There is a tendency for some parts of
political science and economics to converge. This tendency results in large
part from the current in politicoeconomic life toward the increased role of
government in economic life during the past generation or two. The mixed
economy of our day, though still comparatively free, is very far from that
of the nineteenth century— and still further from nineteenth-centur}' clas-
sical economic theory. The convergence in study or concepts is most strik-
ing perhaps in Robert A. Dahl and Charles E. Lindblom's Politics, Eco-
nomics and Welfare. In this work the authors argue for a return to political
economy as a working area or discipline, and use the current concepts of
their respective fields of political science and economics to demonstrate how
this might be done.^°
One of the developments in economic study that brings it closer to politi-
cal science in general and public administration in particular is the study
of economic institutions, such as the modern corporation, and the develop-
r6 The Study of Public Adniin/sfration
Business Administration
lousiness administration and public administration grew up as allied disci-
plines,and their mutual borrowings, especially those of public administra-
tion from business administration, have been large. The inspiring drive of
manv of the Founding Fathers of public administration was the drive to
apply business methods to government. If one thinks of the Scientific Man-
agement movement as business administration, then the debt of public
administration to business administration is large indeed.
and iq^o's developments occurred at the Mar\'ard Business
In the ig2o's
School which should be noted c\cn in this brief survcv. These dc\clopmcnts
center in the work and writings of Elton Mavo" and some experiments
carried on at the Hawthorne plant of the Western Electric Companv.
These experiments were conducted to test factors go\erning worker pro-
ductivitv. The results showed— contrar\' to expectations— that the social
condition of the workers was more important than the physical conditions
(within reasonable limits). The working group was discovered to have an
importance hitherto unsuspected.
The implications of the studies spread in ever-widening circles, trans-
forming the studv of industrial management and reaching into other fields.
(In a sense the development could be described as a refutation of Scientific
Management; but in another sense it was but an enlargement of it. applv-
ing objective studv to still more phenomena.) Several of the social sciences
were stimulated and enriched, public administration included. The studv
of face-to-face groups, discussed above, owes much to the Hawthorne ex-
periments.
While interaction between public administration and business adminis-
tration continues, the relationship between the two is so well established
that it lacks some of the excitement of more recent discoveries. Two ex-
tion. As it has happened— for various reasons which cannot be here explored
—the reverse is nearer to the actual situation. Several writers identified pri-
marilv with business administration have been concerned with the de\"clop-
ment of democratic techniques and the realization of democratic values
Mitliin administration, and their writings have been influential in some
degree in the study of public administration.
.
Other Disciplines
This discussion of relationships with other disciplines is merely sugges-
tive, not exhaustive. It can be closed by noting that the disciplines singled
out for attention, vi'hile perhaps those currently most important, are by no
means all of those with which there is some kind or degree of interchange.
Communications and the behavior sciences are, for example, two contem-
porary foci of interest with which there is intellectual commerce. Various
physical sciences and technologies supply grist for the mill of the adminis-
trative student. Indeed, no discipline is without its relevance for adminis-
tration—and administrative study has relevance for every discipline.
6. Philij) Scl/.nick: T\^A and the Grass Roots: A Study in the Sociology of
Formal Organization, Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California
Press, 1949.
7. Op.cit., 259.
10. See William Baumol: Welfare Economics and the Theory of the State,
J.
Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1952; and Gunnar Myrdal: The
Political Element in the Development of Economic Theory, London,
Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1953.
11. See Robert A. Brady: Business as a System of Power, New York, Columbia
University Press, 1943; and Robert A. Gordon: The Business Leadership
in the Large Corporations, Washington, Brookings Institution, 1945.
12. The idea of an organization or administrative system as an equilibrating
input-output system is one with various sources and manifestations, but
certainly some of the impulse and language comes from economics. Sec
The Organizational Revolution: A Study in the Ethics of Economic Organ-
ization by Kenneth E. Boulding. Cf. Chester L Barnard: The Functions
of the Executive (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1947).
13. Another type of interchange with economics is illustrated by Herbert A.
Simon's application of economic concepts to the decision-making process
in administration, in Administrative Behavior; A Study of Decision-Making
Processes in Administrative Organization.
14. See his series of little books: The Human Problems of an Industrial Civiliza-
tion, first published 1933; reprinted, Cambridge, Harvard University Press,
1946;The Social Problems of an Industrial Civilization (1945); The Politi-
calProblem of an Industrial Civilization (1947).
There is a voluminous literature on the Hawthorne experiments. See espe-
cially, F.
J.
Roethlisberger: Management and Morale, Cambridge, Har\ard
University Press, 1950; and F. J. Roethlisberger and W. J. Dickson: Manage-
ment and the Worker, Cambridge, Han'ard University Press, 1950.
The files of Fortune magazine should be perused by anyone studying the
development of business-administration thought.
chapter six
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shared with political science, and bevond that with the other social sciences.
Indeed, it reaches beyond the social sciences and into many roots and
branches of modern life.
62 The Study of Public Administration
Tlic social sciences of today developed from currents set flowing by the
cightcenth-centur\' Mnlightcunicnt. The dominant philosophies of the En-
lightenment were natural-rights and utilitarianism. While there were im-
portant differences betvvccn the school of natural rights and utilitarianism,
both philosophies shared some basic ideas and sentiments. 'Ihcy were alike
in presuming that answers to "ought" questions could be found b\' examin-
ing certain facts, however much the}' disagreed on what should be examined
and the method of examination. Tlicy were also alike in the dominant
notions associated with both as to what directions public policv should take.
These notions were, or evolved into, the complex of ideas associated today
with the expression liberal democratic.
In Western countries perhaps the most important philosophic movement
of the twentieth ccnturv has been toward the separation of the categories of
fact and value, the "is" and the "ought." This movement is prominently
associated with the school or outlook designated logical positivism or logical
empiricism. The general tenor and some of the basic postulates of this move-
ment were noted above in the discussion of current trends. As a movement
it claims close identification with science.
—
program of action with unfortunate results. Adequate presentation of the
argument here goes far beyond the available space. Summary presentation
of a few propositions must suffice.
—
(a) "A radical separation of fact and value too often identified with the
logical distinction between fact statements and preference statements en- —
—
courages the divorce of means and ends"^ which is what administration is
about. For the one-time institutional separation of policy and administra-
tion, logical positivism substitutes a logical separation of value and fact that
is equally misleading. The result is an "excessive or premature technological
(fa) While they are very knowledgeable about the value premises of
others, logical positivists may be
naive about their own. This situation may
occur because, in their eagerness to separate facts from value, the\' presume
they have removed their own research from any value contamination. Actu-
allv, however, careful empirical examination will disclose that values have
entered by the back door. What is being researched is valued, or it would
not be researched.
(c) Logical-positivist research lends itself to the bias or uses of elitism.
Logical positivism is value blind. Tliat is to say, while logical positivists in-
evitablv have \alue systems, these value systems arc accidental; and whatc\er
research into facts may be undertaken, this research also has only a fortui-
tous relationship with any set of values. Therefore, the logical positivist in
effect wears a "For Hire" sign. Those most able to hire him arc those with
most money and power, and their purpose is likely to be the natural one of
perpetuating their superior positions.
(3) The value neutrality of means asserted by logical positivism is false.
This argument perhaps cannot be made against all logical positivists. Some
acknowledge the necessity of positing ends and conceive of their research as
scientific inquir)' into the way these ends can be realized. Some, however,
assert that it is meaningful to inquire into the efficiency of means in the
abstract; that knowledge of the efficient reaching of ends can be used to
reach any ends efficiently. Against this point of view it is argued, first, that
the efficiency of any mean is relative to particular ends. It is argued, sec-
ondh', that logical positivism fosters an instrumentalist view of means which
is That is to say, means come to be valued in themsehes for the
false to life.
satisfactions they produce immediately; and when examined closelv and
realistically the distinction between ends and means becomes unreal.
(4) Despite its firm commitment to the ideal of Science, the effect of
logical positivism paradoxically may be to limit or retard actual scientific
advance. "The difficulty in this position is not that it lacks ultimate philo-
sophical justification. As so often happens, it is the polemical formulation
that has the most impact. Like other forms of positivism, this position in ad-
ministrative theory raises too bright a halo over linguistic puritv. Pressing a
complex world into casv dichotomies, it induces a premature abandonment
of wide areas of experience to the world of the aesthetic, the metaph^•sical,
the moral. Let us grant the premise that there is an ultimately irreducible
nonrational (responsive) element in valuation, inaccessible to scientific ap-
praisal. This cannot justify' the judgment in a particular case that the
anticipated irreducible element has actually been reached."^
(5) Logical positivism opens the door to action that is meaningless, ir-
rational. A paradox is involved here. Logical positivism is a present-dav ex-
tension of the rationalist tradition. Yet one writer has recently said of it:
The Value Problem in Administiative Study 65
"Rarely has a philosophy inspired by science afforded so much aid and
comfort to the mystic." How does this come about? In this fashion: Logi-
cal positivism sharply separates fact and value. Values are unverifiable and
hence not subject to scientific inquiry. The theory of value most closely
associated with logical positivism is the emotive theory: expressions of value,
of good and bad, right and wrong, are mere expressions of emotion, not
genuine propositions. And all emotions stand equal before the bar of
scientific enquirj'. Sometimes bow politely to the field of
logical positivists
ethics, saying that they recognize importance, though as scientists it is
its
In any event the critic points to what he regards as anomalous: the ra-
tional becomes the servant of the irrational. The whole paraphernalia of
reason and science are put into the service of purposes basically meaning-
less, beyond rational inquiry.
To would respond that he did not create
this point the logical positivist
the universe but must live with it as it is— as he finds it. (Logical positivism
is usually associated with agnosticism. But some religious people also find
it congenial; they fit their faith comfortably into the area of nonverifiable
values.) If values cannot be verified, that is hardly his fault. What he offers
is reason in the realization of human purposes, and this is as high an office
as reason can attain.*
impro\c our capacity to acliicvc collective ends we all believe are important.
Modem bureaucratic administration may not be— indeed is not— the most
efficient means to achieve any cooperative goal. This is a static and culture-
bound point of view. But it is an cflFectivc means of rational cooperation in
achieving goals that we
modern Western society wish at the present time.
in
In short, it is good for what it is good for. The question remains open
whether there arc still better ways of achieving present goals and still higher
goals.
2. Sclznick, op. cit. At this point the attack is upon the logical-positivist posi-
tion, but the philosophy has not yet been named and attacked directly, as it
is below.
IMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIMIIMIMMIIIIIIIIINIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINIIIIIIIMIMIIMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIINIIIIIIIIIIIIIlin
The
study of administration began with the beginning of civihzation and
was closely involved therein. Civilization— the word is from the same root as
—
"city" implies increased density of population and increased complexity of
life.Increased density of population requires a rise in the level of rational
cooperation in order to sustain itself. Increased complexity of life implies an
increase in rational cooperation and necessitates an increase in rational co-
operation to make the goods of civilization commensurate with its inherent
disadvantages. In other words, good administration can help make complex-
ity yield returns in terms of diverse goods of life widely distributed.
In the course of history administration has sometimes reached high levels
of performance, and administrative study has sometimes been seriously pur-
sued. As we have seen, however, the past century witnessed a vast increase
in the size, number, and complexity of administrative systems; and in the
same period the study of administration entered a new phase. It became self-
conscious, aware of administration as a general phenomenon, and eager to
apply the methodology of science to the problem of making human coopera-
tion more effective.
Let us return to an old perspective: The social sciences are not neces-
sarily backward compared with the physical, as is customarily assumed. It is
in large part certainly the vast increase in rational cooperation that has
produced the wonders of physical science and technology. By common
agreement, civilization, and perhaps even all life on this planet, stands in
danger of destruction through another world war. If half the human race
can be mustered and hurled in battle against the other half— to the destruc-
tion of both— this can be described as the utter negation of all morality; but
morality apart, could it not be considered a great triumph of social science?
Is not the modern nation-in-arms a marvel of rational cooperation?
This is written seriously, but yet in cynical jest. True, the accomplish-
ments of social science are grossly underrated, and the social scientists are
unfairly held responsible for the moral failures of society as a whole. But
there are surely serious implications and limitations in the view that the
social scientist is and should be scientist or technologist purely, with no
concern for the ends of his endeavor; and there are limitations to rational
cooperation when it lacks moral purposes beyond cooperation itself.
Public administration has been pictured in the preceding pages as a field
of study that is growing rapidly, in ferment with new ideas, and challenged
67
68 The Study of Public Administration
tration. One challenge here is so to develop the techniques that the cases
can perform an educational need now unfulfilled that of conveying a sense
:
Bibliographical Note
The following bibliographical items are selected as best designed to open
up the field of public administration and to enable anyone, but especially
the newcomer, to see the field— its development, its main concepts, its major
concerns and divisions, its present trends and present periphery. Items in-
cluded are not necessarily good in any abstract sense, but may be good for
the purpose.
There are first of all the general textbooks. Introduction to the Study of
Public Administration (3rd ed., New York, The Macmillan Co., 1948) by
L. D. White has been standard for a generation. Two recently published
general texts are: Public Administration (New York, Rinehart & Company,
Inc., 1953) by M. Dimock and Gladys O. Dimock, and Public Adminis-
E.
tration (New The Ronald Press Company, 1953) by John M.
York,
Pfiflfner and R. Vance Presthus. The contents of these two books is reviewed
in Chapter Three. The most recent textbook is Management in the Public
Service (New York, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1954) by John D.
Millett. It somewhat narrower
is in focus than the customary textbook, con-
centrating on management.
Other general textbooks in print are: Public Administration in a Demo-
cratic Society(Boston, D. C. Heath & Company, 1950) by W. Brooke
Graves; Governmental Administration (New York, Harper & Brothers,
1951) by James C. Charlesworth; and Elements of Public Administration
(New York, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1946) edited by Fritz Morstein Marx.
In the field of personnel administration, Public Personnel Administration
(3rd ed.. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1950) by William E. Mosher, J. D.
Kingsley, and O. Glenn Stahl has long been standard.
There are three books of readings which cover the general field of public
administration: Administration: The Art and Science of Organization and
Management (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1949) by Albert Lepawsky;
Public Administration: Readings and Documents (New York, Rinehart &
Company, Inc., 1951) by Felix A. Nigro; and Ideas and Issues in Public
Administration (New York, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1953) by
Dwight Waldo. The emphasis of each is suggested in the titles.
There are a number of essays of the nature of general surveys of develop-
ments or trends which should prove helpful. Four of these essays constitute
a single series as follows: "Trends in the Theory of Public Administration,"
Public Administration Review 10:i6i-i68 (Summer, 1950) by John M.
Gaus; "Trends of a Decade in Administrative Practices," Public Adminis-
tration Review 10:229-235 (Autumn, 1950) by Charles S, Ascher; "Trends
of a Decade in Administrative Values," Public Administration Review
11:1-9 (Winter, 1951) by Wallace S. Sayre; and "Trends in Teaching
Public Administration," Public Administration Revie\v 12:69-77 (Spring,
1950) by George A. Graham.
Among recent trends essays are also: "The Scope of Public Administra-
tion," Western Political Quarterly 5:124-137 (1952) by Marver H. Bern-
Date Due
j2 BiDiiographical Note
stein; "Tlic Stndv of Pii])]ic Administration in the United States," Public
Administnttion 29:131-143 (195O by W. J. M. Mackenzie (this is a
British puhhcation); American AdnunistTative Theory (l^wrencc, Kansas,
1950) by E. O. Stene; and "Pohtical Science and Public Administration:
A Note on the State of the Union," American Political Science Review
46:660-676 (19s-) by Roscoe C. Martin.
Tvvq^pubhcations of the author also come under this heading: The Ad-
ministrative State: A Study of the Political Theory of American Public Ad-
ministration (New York, 'I'hc Ronald Press Company, 194^); and "Ad-
ministrative Thcor)- in the United States: A Sur\ey and Prospect," Political
Studies 2:-j(^S6 (1954).
On education and training, see Education for Public Administratioji
(Chicago, Social Science Research Council, Committee on Public Adminis-
tration, 1941) bv George A. Graham. This is now somewhat outdated, but
an excellent work. See also Public Service and University Education ( Prince-
ton, Princeton University Press, 1949) edited bv Joseph McLean.
Among books significant in demonstrating some recent trends sec Ad-
ministrative Bchcn'ior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Ad-
ministrative Organization (New York, Tlic Macmillan Co., 1947) bv Her-
bert A. Simon; Public Administration and Policy Development (Ne\v York,
Ilarcourt, Brace & Company, 1952) edited bv Harold Stein; Reflections on
Public Administration Universitv, Universitv of Alabama Press, 1947) by
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