The Science of Public Administration three problems

Media

Part of The Local Government Review

Title
The Science of Public Administration three problems
Creator
Dahl, Robert A.
Language
English
Source
I (10&11) October-November 1949
Year
1949
Subject
Public administration
Rights
In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
Abstract
Generalizations derived from the operation of public administration in the environment of one nation-state cannot be universalized and applied to public administration in a different environment. A principle may be applicable in a different framework. But its applicability can be determined only after a study of that particular framework. There can be no truly universal generalizations about public administration without a profound study of varying national and social characteristics imposing on public administration, to determine what aspects of public administration, if any, are truly independent of the national and social setting. Are there discoverable principles of universal validity, or are all principles valid only in terms of a special environment? It follows that the study of public administration inevitably must become a much more broadly based discipline, resting not on a narrowly defined knowledge of techniques and processes, but rather extending to the varying historical, sociological, economic, and other conditioning factors that give public administration its peculiar stamp in each country.
Fulltext
The Science of Public Administration:: Three Problems By ROBERT A. DAHL Department of Political Science Yale University The effort to create a science of public administration has often led to the formulation of universal laws or, more commonly, to the assertion that such universal laws could be formulated for public administration! In an attempt to make the science of public ad· minstration analogous to the natural sciences, the laws or putative laws are stripped of normative values, of th2 distortions caused by the incorrigible · individual pysche, and of tlie presumably irrelevant effects of the cultural enviroment. It is often implied that "princfples of public administration" have a universal validity independent not only of moral and political ends, but of the frequently nonconformist per~onality of the individual, and the rn· cial and cultural setting as well. Perhaps the best knov{n expression of this kind is that of \V. F.\, rnoughby. Although he refused to commit himself as to the propriety of designating administration as a science, Willoughby nevertheless asserted that "in administration, there are certain fundamental principles of general application analogous to those characterizing any science . . . . "2A more recent statement, and evidently an equally influential one, is L. Urwick's contention that "there are certain principles which ll'Overn the association of human beings for any purpo.qe, just as there are certain enginEering principles which govern the buildings of bridge:•:; Others argue merely that it is possible to discover general principles of wide, although not necessarily of universal validity.' Surely this more modest assessment of the role of public administration as a study is not, as an abstract .statement, open to controversy. Yet even the discovery of these more limited principles is handicapped by the three basic problems· of values, the individual personality, and the social framework. Public Administrntion cwd Normal Values The first difficulty of construct.ing a science of public administration stems from frequent impossibility of excluding normative considerations from the oroblems of public administration. Science as such is not concerned with the discovery or elucidation of normative values; indeed, the doctrine is generally, if not quite univenallv, accepted that science cannot demonstrate moral values, that science cannot construct a bridgP across the great Q"ap from "is to "ought." So lonQ" as the naturalistic fallacy is a stumbling block tn philosophers, it must likewise impede the progress of rncial scientists. Much could be gainPd if the clandestirn~ smul!"gling of mnral values into the social sciences could be con,·erted into opPn and honest commerce. Writers on public administratfon often assume that 1. See, for example, F. Merson, "Public Administration: A Science," 1 Public Administration 220 (1923); B. W. Walker Watson, "The Elements of Public Administration, A dogmatic Introduction," 10 Public Administration 397 (1932); L. Gulick, "Science, Values and Public Administration," Papers on the Science of Ad1ninistratfon, ed, by Gulick & Urwick, (Institute of Public Administration, 1937); Cyril Renwick, "Public Administration: Towards a Science," The Australian Quarterly (March 1944), 73. 2. Principles of Public Administration (The Brookings Institution, 1927), Preface, p. ix. 3. See fn. 12, infra, for the full quotation and citation. 4. This I take to be Professor D. White's position. See his "The Meaning of Principles in Public administration," in The F1·ontiers of Public Admimstration (University of Chicago Press, 1936), pp. 13-25. Page 572 THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT REVIEW ownership and the amount of real estate and its cash value. He may, if they are snugly insulated from the storms of clashing values; usually, however, they are most concerned with ends at the very moment that they profess to be least concerned with them. The doctrine of efficiency is a case in point; it runs like a half-visible thread through the fabric of public administration literature as a dominant goal of administra tion. Harvev Walker has stated that "the objective of administration is to ~e· cure the maximum beneficial result contemplated b~· the law with the minimum exnenditure of the social resources" which5,is sufficiently ambiguous to allow for almost any interpretation, but it suggests that the general concept involved is one of maximizing "output" and minimizing- "cost." Likewise, many of the promised benefits of administrative reorgar:faation in state governments are presumed to follow from proposed improvements in "efficiency in operation." And yet, as Charles Hyneman has so trenchantly observed, there are in a democratic sooiety other criteria than simple efficiency in operation.6 Luther Gulick concedes that the goal of efficiency is limited by other values. In the science of administration, whether public or private, the basic "good" is efficiency. The fundamental objective of the science of administration is the accomplishment of the wo:iik in hand with the Jeast exper:diture of man-power and materials. Efficiency is thus axiom number one in the v~ lne scale of admindstration. This brings administration into apparent conflict with certain elements of the value scale of politks, whether we use that term in its scientific or in its popular sense. But both public administration and politics are branches of political science, so that we are in the end compelled to mitigate the pure concept of efficiency in the light of the value scale of politics and the social order. He concludes nevertheless, "that these interferences with efficiency (do not) in any way eliminate efficiency as the fundamental value upon which the >cience of administration may be erected. They serve to condition and to complicate, but not to change the single ultimate test of value in administration."K It is far from clear what Gulick means to imply in saying that "interferences with efficiency" caused by ultimate political values may "condition"-' and "complicate" but do not "change" Uie "single ultimate test" of efficiency 'as the goal of administration. Is efficiency the supreme goal not only of private ·administration , but also of public administration, as Gulick contends? If so, how can one say, as Gulick does, that "there are .... highly inefficient arrangements like citizen b-0ards and small local governments which may be necessary in a democracy as educational devices"? \Vhy speak of efficiency as the "single ultimate test of value in administration" if it is not ultimate at all -if, that is to my, in a conflict between eff'iciency and "the democratic dogma" (to use Gulick's expression) the latter must prevail? Must this dogma prev~jl only because it has greater po, litical and social force behind it than the dogma of efficiency; or ought it to prevail because it has, in some sense, greater value? How can administrations and studen.ts of public administration discriminate between those parts of the democratic dogma that are so strategic they ought .to prevail in any conflict with efficiency and those that are essentially subordinate, irrelevant, or en'n S. Public Administration (Farrar & Rinehart, 1937) ,p. 8. 6. "Administrative Reorganization," 1 The Journal of Politics G2-G5 (1939). 7. Op. cit., pp. 192-93. 8. Op. cit., p. 193. OCTOBER-NOVEMBER, 1949 Page 573 fal~e intrusions into the democratic hypothesis? '\\'hat is efficiency? Beisen and Dachau were "efficient" by one scale of rnlues. Acorrding to what and whose scale of values is efficiency placed on the highest pedestal'! ls not the worship of efficiency itself a particular expression of a special value judgment? Does it not stem from a mode of thin],. ing and a special moral hypothesis resting on a sharp distinction between means and ends? The basic problems of public administration as a discipline and as a potential science ai·e much wider than the problems of mere administration. The necessarily wider preoccupation of a study of public administration, as con· trasted with private administration inevitably enmeshes the problems of public administration in the toils of ethical considerations. Thus the tangled ques· tion of the right of public employees to strike can scarcely be answered without a tacit normative assumption o:fj some kind. A pragmatic answer is satisfactory only so Jong as no one raises the question of the "rights" involved. And to resolve the question of rights merely by reciting legal norms is to beg the whole issue; it is to cofess that an answer to this vital problem of public personnel must be sought elsewhere than \\·ith students of public administration. )fore over, if one were content to rest one's case on legal rights, it would be impossible to reconcile in a single "science of administration" the diverse legal and institutional aspects of the right to strike in France, Great Britain, and the United States. The great question of responsibility, certainly a central one to the study of public administration once it is raised above the level of academic disquisitions on office management, hinges ultimately on some definition of ends, purposes, and values in society. The sharp conflict of views on responsibility expressed several years ago by Carl Fried· rich and Herman Finer resulted from basically different interpretations of Page 574 the nature and purposes of democratic government. Friedrich tacitly assumed certain values in his discussion of the importance of the bureaucrafs "inner check." as an instrument of control. Finer brought Friedrick's unexpressed values into sharp focus and in a warm criticism challenged their compatibility with the democratic faith." It is difficult, moreover, to escape the conclusion that much of the debate over delegated legislation and administrative adjudication, both in this country and in England, actually arises from a concealed conflict in objectives. Those to whom economic regulation and control are anathema have with considerable consistency opposed the growth of delegated legislation and the expansion of the powers of administrative tribunals-no doubt from a conviction that previously existing economic rights and privileges are safer in the courts than in administrative tribunals; whereas those who support this expausion of administrative power and techniques generally also favor a larg·er measure o~ economic regulation and control. Much of the debate that has been ;phrased in terms of meai;s ought more properly to be evaluated as a conflict over general social goals. One might justifiably conten'1 that it is the function of a science of pn b!ic administration, not to determine er,cls, bu~ to devise the best means to t1ie ends established by those agencies entrusted with the setting of social poFcy. The science of public administrP.lion, it might be argued, would b~ totally nonnormative, and its doctrines would apply with equal validity to any regime, democratic or totalitarian, once the ends wrere made clear. "Tell me what you wish to achive," the public administration scientist might say, "and I will tell you what administrative means are best designed for your purposes." Yet even this view has difficulties, for in most societies, and particularly in democratic ones, ends are often in disTHE LOCAL GOVERN~fENT REVIEW pute; rarely are they clearly and unequivocally determined. Nor can ends and means ever be sharply distinguished since ends determine means and often means ultimately determine ends. The student of public adminitsration cannot avoid a concern with ends. What he ought to avoid is the failure to make explicit the ends or values that form the groundwork of his doctrine. If purposes and normative considerations were consisitently made plain, a net gain. to the science of public adminis· tration would result. But to refuse to recognize that the study of public administration must be founded on some clarification of ends is to perpetuate the g-obbledygook of) science Jn the area of moral purposes. A science of public admin'istration might proceed, then, along these lines: 1. Establishing a basic hypothesis. A nonnormative science of public administration might rest on a basic hypothesis that removed ethical problems from the area covered ·by the science. The .~cience of public administration would begin where the ba.sic hypothesis leaves off. One could quarrel with the moral or metaphysical assumption in the basic hypothesis; but all normative argument would have to be carried on at that level, and not at the level of the science. The science, as such, would have no ethical content. 'Can such a basic hypothesis 1be created? To this writer the problem appears loaded with enormous and perhaps insuperable difficulties; yet it is unlikely that a science of public administration will ever be possible until this initial step is taken. 2. Statin.a ends honestly. Some problems of the public services, like that of responsibility;. evidently cannot be divorced from.ce~tain ends implied in the sodety served by the .public services. if this is true, there can· never be a universal science of public administration so long as societies and states vary in their objectives. In all cases where problems of public administration are inherently related to specific social ends and purpo:ses, the most that can be done is to force all normative assumptions into the open, and not let them lie half concealed in the .i ung-le of fact and inference to slaughter the unwary. Public Administrn.tion and Human Behavior A second major problem stems from the inescapable fact that a science of public administration must be a study of certain aspects of human behavior. To be sure, there are parts of public administration in: which man's· behavior can safely be ignored; perhaps it is possible to discuss the question of governmental accounting and auditing without much consideration of the behavior patterns of governmental accountants and auditors. But most problems of public administration revolve around human beings; and the study of public administration is therefore essentially a study of human beings as they have behaved, and as they may be expected or predict~ eel to behave, under certain special circumstances. What marks off the field of public administration from psychology or sociology or political institutions is its concern with human behavior in the areci of services performed by governmentcil agencies. 11 This concern with human behavior greatly limits the immediate potentialities of a science of public administra9. C. J. Friedrich. "Public Policy and the Nature of Administrative Responsibility," in Public Policy (Harvard Press, 1940); Herman Finer, "Administrative ResponsihiHty in Democratic Government," 1 Public Adrninistratfou Review 335 (1940-41). See also Friedrich's earlier formulation, which touched off the dispute, "Responsible Government Service under the American Constitution." in Problenis of the American Public Se1'vice (McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1935); and Finer's answer to. Friedrich in 5 1 Political Science Quartel'ly 582 (1936). 10. See Aldous Huxley's discussion in Ends and Means (Harper & Bros., 1927), and Arthur Koestler, The Yogi and the Commissar (Macmillan Co., 1945). · OCTOBER-NOVEMBER, 1949 Page 575. tion. ·First, it diminishes the possibility of using experimental procedures; and experiment, though perhaps not ii:idispensable to the scientific method, 1s of enormous aid. Second, concern with human behavior seriously limits the uniformity of data, since the datum is the discrete and highly variable man or womon. Third, because the data concerning human behavior constitute an incredibly yast ·and complex mass, the part played by the preference of the observer is exaggerated, and possibilities of independent verification are diminished. Fourth, concern with human action weakens the reliability of all "laws of public administration," since too little is known of the mainsprings of human action to ir.sure certitude, or eYen high probability, in predictions about man's conduct. All these weaknesses have been poi.nted out so often in discussing the problems of the social sciences that it should be unnecessary to re.peat them here. l>. r.d yet many of the supposed laws of public administration and much of the claim to a science of public administration derive from assumptions about the nature of man that are scarcely tenable at this late date. The field of organizational theory serves as an extreme example, for it is there particularly that the nature of man is often lost sight of in the interminable discussions oYer idealized and abstract organizational forms. In this development, writers on public administration have been heavily influenced by the rational character that capitalism has imposed on the organization of production, and have ignored the irrational qualities of man himself. Capitalism, especially in its industrial form, was essentially an attempt to organize prcduction along rational lines. In the organization of the productive process, the capitalistic entrepreneur sought to destroy the old restrictiYe practices and standards of feudalism and mercantilism; to rid the productive process of the inherited cluster of methods and technics that characterized the guilds and medieval craftmen; in short, to organize production according to rational rather than tradition111 concepts. The rational approach to production transformed not only the whole economic process but society itself. The rapid growth of mechanization, routine, and specialization of labor further increased the technically rational quality of capitalist production. It was perhaps inevitable that concepts ~hould arise which subordinated individuai vagaries and differences to the ordered requirements of the productive process: for it was this very subordination that the replacement of feudal and mercantilist institutions by capitalism had accomplished. The organization (though not the control) of production become the concern of the engineer; and because the restrictive practices authorized by tradition, the protective standards of the guilds, the benevolent regulations of a mercantilist monarchy, and even the nonacquisitive ideals of the individual had all been swept away, it was actually feasible to organize production without much regard for the varying individual personalities ofl those in the productive process. The productive process, which to the medieval craftsman was both a means and an end in itself, became wholly a means. 11. See Ernest Barker's excellent and useful distinctions between state, government, and administration, in The Development of Public Services in lVesfern Europe, 1660-1930 (Oxford University Press, 1944), p. 3. Administration "is the sum of persons and bodies who are engaged, under the direction of government, in discharg·lng the ordinary public servicts which must be rendered daily if the svstern cf law and duties and rights is to he duly 'served'. Every right and duty implies a corresponding- 'se1·vice'; and the more the State multiplies rights and duties, the rno!·e it multiplies the nece::.::.ary services of its ministering: officials." See also Leon Dugmt, Law in the l\Iodern State (B. W. Huebsch, 1919), Ch. II. Paeg 576 THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT REVIEW Ultimately, of course, men like Taylor provided an imposing theoretical basis for regarding functipn, based o~ a logical distribution and, specialization of labor,as the true basis of organization, Men like Urwick modified and carried forward Taylor's work, and in the procern have tremendously influenced writers on public administration. Urwick, so it must have appeared, provided a basis for a genuine science of administration. "There are principles," he wrote, "1chich should govern arrangements for human association of any kind. The•e principles can be studied as a technical question, irrespectil'e of the JJ111'JJOSe of the enterprise, the personnel composi1;g it, or any constitutional, JJO/itical, 01" social theory wnderlying its creation ,"12 .~ nd again "'\Ylhatever the moti,·e underlying persistence in bad structure it is always more hurtful to the greatest number than good structure."13 Sweeping generalizations such as these gave promise of a set of "universal principles": L e. , a science. American students of public administration could not fail to be impressed. Aside from the fact that Urwick ignored the whole question of ends, it is clear that he also presupposed ( though he nowhere stated what sort of human perrnnality he did presuppose) an essentially rational, amenable individual; he presupposed, that is to say, individuals who would accept logical organization and would not (for irrelevant and irrational reasons) rebel against it or silently supersede it with an informal organization better suited to their pers9pality nee,ds. Urwick must have supposed this. For if there is a large measure of irrati6tlality in human behavior, then an organizational structure formed on "logical" lines may in practice frustrate, anger, and embitter it:s personnel. IEiy contrast, an organization not based on the logic of organizational principles may better utilize the neculiar and varying personalities of its memebers. Is there any evidence to suggest that in such a case the "logical" organization will achieve ifa purposes in some sense "better" or more efficiently than the organization that adapts personality need to the purposes of the organization. ?14 On what kind of evidence are we compelled to assume that the rationality of organi · zational structure will prevail over the irrationality of man? Patentlv the contention that one '>Ystem of ~rganization is more rational than another, and therefo1·e better, is yalid only (a) if. individuals are dominated by reason or (b) if they are so thoroughly dominated by technical process (as on the assembly line, perhaps) that their individual .preferences may ~afely be ignored, However mnd1 the latter assumption might apply to industry (a matter of con<iaeraLle doubt). clearly it has little application to public administration, where technical processes are, on the whole of ouite subordinate importance. As for the fir~t assumption, it ha.< been cliscredited by all the findings d modern psychology. The science of organization had learned too much from industry and not enough from Freud. 12. L. Unvick, "Organization as a Technical Problem," Pupci's on the Science of Administration, p. 49 (Italics added.) See .also his "Exe~utive Decentralisation with Functional Co-ordination," 1:1 Public Admi11isfl'(tfiou 344 (1935), in which he sets forth "some axioms of organization," among others that "there are certain principles which govern the association of human beings fo1· a11y -purposl', iust as there are certain engineering principles which govern the building· of a bri(lge. Such principles should take priority of all traditional, penwnnl or political co11sidC1·atio11s. If they are not observed, co-operation between those concerned wilJ be less effective th:tn it should be in realizing the purpose for which they have decided to co-operate.. There will be waste of effort." (Italics added.) See also his criticisms of the "practical man fallacy," p. 34G. 13. Ibid., p. 85. OCTOBER-NOVEMBER, 1949 Page 577 The more that writers on public administration have moved from the class· room to the' administrator's office, the more Urwick's universal principles have receded. As early as 1930, in a pioneering work, Harold Lasswell described the irrational and unconscious elements in the successful and nusuccessful admi· nistrator.15 Meanwhile, experimenets in the Hawthorne· plant of Western Electric Company were indicating be· yond doubt that individual personalities and rncial relationships had great effects eYen on routinized works in industry. Increased output was the result of "the organization of human relations, rather than the organization of technics''16 Urwick had said (with little or no supporting eddence) : "The idea that organizatior.s sould be built up round and adjusted to individual idiosyncracies, rather than that individuals should be adapted to the requirements of sound principles of organization, is . . . foo· li>h .... " The Hawthorne experiment demonstrated, on the "contrary, that" ... no study of human situations which fails to take account of the non-logical social routines can hope for practical success. " 17 In 1939, Leonard White seriously qualified the principle of subordinating individuals to structure by adding the saving phrase of the neo-classical economists: "in the long run." "To what extent," he said, "it is desirable to rearrange structure in preference to replacing personnel is a practical matter to be determined in the light of special cases. In the long run, the demands of sound organization require the fitting of personnel to it, rather than sacrificing normal organization relationships to the needs or whims of individuals."18 In the same year, Macmahon and Millet went far beyond the customary deductive principles of public administration theory by making an actual biographical study of a number of federal admir:idrators.10 In the most recent text on public administration, the importance of personality is frankly admitted. ". . . administrative reseacrh," say the authors, "does not seek its goal in the formulation of mechanical rules or equations, into which human behavior must be molded. Rather, it looks toward the systematic ordering of functions and human relatirmships so that organizational decisions can and will be based upon the certainty that each step taken will actually serve the purpose of the organization as a whole."20 And one whole (Continued on page 587) 14. See John M. Gaus's excellent definitions: "Organization is the arrangement of personnel for facilitating the accomplishment of some agreed purpose through the allocation of functions and responsibilities. It is the relating of efforts and capacities of individuals and groups engaged upon a common task in such a way as to secure the desired objective with the least friction and the most satisfaction to those for whom the task is done and those engaged in the enterprise . . . Since organization consists of people brought into a certain relationship because of a humanly evolved purpose, it is clear that it should be flexible rather than rigid. There will be constant readjustments necessary because of personalities and other natural forces and because of the unpredicted and unpredictable situations confronted in its operations." "A Theory of. Organization in PubEc Administration," in The Fl'ontiers of Public Administration, pp. 66-67. 15. Psychopathology aud Politics (University of Chicago Press, 19:10), Ch. 8 "Political Administrators". 16. L. J. Henderson, T. N. Whitehead, and Elton Mayo, "The Effects of Social Environment/' in Papci·s 011 the Science of Ad11n'nist1·atio11, op. cit., p .149. It is worth noting that this essay properly enterpreted contradicts the implicit assumption of virtually every other essay in that volume; and it is, incidentally, the only wholly emprirical study in the entire volume. 17. Unvick, op. cit., p. 85, and Henderson, et al., p. 155. Urwick has set up a false dilemma that makes his choice more persuasive. Actually, the choice is not bet\Y£2n (a) wholly subordinating organizational structure to individual personalities, which obviously might lead to chaos or (b) forcing- all personalities into an abstractly correct organizational structure which might (and often does) lead to \Vaste and friction. There is a third choice, (c) employing organizational structure and personalities to the achievement of a purpose. By excluding· purpose, Lrwick has, in effect, set up organization as an end in itself. An army may be organized more efficiently (according- to abstract crganizational principles) than the political structure of a dePage 578 THE LOCAL GOVER:\'J!EN'T REVIEW THE SCIENCE OF . .. (Continued from page 578) chapter of this text is devoted to informal organizations-the shadow relationships that frequently dominate the formal structure of the organization. Thus by a lenghty and circumspect rouse, man has been led through the back door and readmitted to respectability. It is convenient to exile man from the science of public administration; it is simpler to forget man and \Hite with "scientific" precision than to remember him and be cursed \Yith his maddening· unpredictability. Yet his exclusioP_ is certain to make the study of public administration sterile, unrewarding, and essentially unreal. If there is ever to be a science of public administration it must derive from an understandin15 of man's behavior in the area marked off bv the boundaries of public administration. This area, to be sure, can never be clearly seDarated from man's behavior in other fields; all the social sciences are interderendent and all are. limited by the basic lack of understanding of man's motiYations and responses. Yet the broad region of services administered by the government; until the manifold moti,·ations and actions in this broad region have been explored and rendered predictable, there can be no science of public administration. It is easier to define this area in space than in depth. One can arbitraril,- restrict the prospective science of public administration to a certain region of human activity ; but one can not say with certainty how deeply one must mine this region in order to unco\'er its secrets. Does concern with human behavior mean that the researcher in public administration must be a psychiatrist and a sociologist? Or does it mean rather that in plumbing human behavior the researcher must be capable of using the investigations of the psychiatrist and sociologist? The need for specialization - a need, incidentally, which science itself seems to impose on human inquir~·-suggests that the latter alternative must be the pragmatic answer. Development of a science of public administration implies the development of a science of man in the area of services ad111inistered by the public. No such development can be brought about merely by the constantly reiterated assertion that public administration is already a science. We cannot achieve creating in a mechanized "administrative man" a modern descendant of the eighteenth century's rational man, whose only existence is in books on public administration and whose only activity is strict obedience to "universal laws of the science of administration." PUBLIC ADMIKISTRATION AND THE SOCIAL SETTING If we know precious little about "administrative man" as an individual, perhaps we know even less about him as a social animal. Yet we cannot afford to ignore the relationship between public administration and its social setting. No anthropologist would suggest that a social principle drawn from one distinct culture is likely to be transmitted unchanged to another culture; Ruth Benedict's descriptions of the Pueblo Indians of Zuni, the Melanesians of Dobu, and the Kwatiutl Indians of mocratic state, but no one except an authoritarian is likely to contend that it is a S1IJU:'rio1· organization-e.•:cept fo1· the 7mJ'}Joscs it is designed to achfrvc. Yet once one admits the element of purpose, easy generalizations about organizational principles become difficult if not impossible; and the admission presupposes, particularly in the case of peblic organizations, a clear statement of end and purposes. 18. Leonard Wh'.te, l11troductioH to the St11dy of Public Ad111i11istration (Macmillan Co., 1939), p. 38. 19. A. W. Macmahon and J. D. Millet, Federal Ad111i11istmto1·s (Columbia Univers:ty Press, 1939). 20. Fritz Morstein Marx, ed., Elc111c11ts o.f P11blic Ad111i11istratio11 (Prentice-Hall. 1946). p. 49, (Italics added.) :QCTOBER-:C·WVEMBER, 1949 Page 537 Vancouver Island leave little doubt that cultures can be integrated on such distinctly different lines as to be almost noncomparable.21 If the nation-states of western civilization by no means possess such wholly contrasting cultures as the natives of Zuni, Dobu, and Vancouver Island, nevertheless few political scientists would contend that a principle of political organization drawn from one nation· could be adopted with equal success by another; one would scarcely argue that federalism has everywhere the same utility or that the unitary state would be equally viable in Britain and the United States or that the American presidential system would operate unchanged in France or Germany. There should be no. reas9n for supposing, then, that a principle of public administration has equal validity in every nation-state, or that successful public administration practices in one country will necessarily prove successful in different social, economic, and political environment. A particular nation-state embodies the results of many historical episodes, traumas, failures, and successes. which have in turn created peculiar habits, mores, institutionalized pattern of behavior, Weltauschuungen, and even "national psychologies."22 One cannot assume that public administration can escape the effects of this conditioning; or that it is somehow independent of and isolated from the culture or social setting in which it develops. At the same time, as value can be gained by a comparative study of government based upon a due respect for differences in the political, social, and economic environment of nation-states, so too the comparative study of public administration ought to be rewarding. Yet the comparative aspects of public administration have largely been ignored; and as long as the study of public administration is not comparative, claims for "a science of public administration" sound rather hollow. Conceivably there might be a science of American public administration and a science of British public administration and a science of French public administration; but can there be "a science of public administration" in the sense of a body of generalized princi pies independent of their peculiar national setting? Today we stand in almost total ignorance of the relationship between "principles of public administration" and their general setting. Can it be safely affirmed, on the basis of existing knowledge of comparative public administration, that there are any principles independent of their special environment? The discussion over an administrative class in the civil service furnishes a useful example of the difficulties of any approach that does not rest on a thorough examination of developmental and environmental differences. The manifest benefits and merits of the British administrative class have sometimes led American students of public administration to suggest the development of an administrative class in the American civil services; but proposals of this kind have rarely depended on a thorough comparison of the historical factors that made the administrative class a successful achievement in Britain, and may or may not be duplicated here. Thus Wilmerding has virtually proposed the transfer to the United States of all the detailed elements in the British civil service; although he does not explicitly base his proposals (Continued on page 581) 23. Lucius Wilmerding, Jr., Government by Merit (McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1935). 24. "The British civil service, which the whole world now admires, went through nearly twenty years of transition before its foundations even were properly laid. lt went through another twenty years of gradual adjustment before the modern service as_ we know it today was fully in operation . . . In the light of British experience, and by taking advantage of modern knowledge about large-scale organization, we can easily save the twenty years in which the British were experimenting to find the proper basis for their splendid service. VVe shall, however, need ten years of steady growth, consciously guided and planned, to put a new administrative corps into operat10n, and probably another ten years before it is completely installed.ll Government Career Service (University of Chicago Press, 1935), p. 8. Page 588 THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT REVIEW THE SCIENCE OF ... (Continued from page 588) on British experience except in a few instances, they follow British practices with almost complete fidelity.23 White has likewise argued for the creation of an "administrative corps" along the lines of the British administrative class. He has suggested that reform of the civil service in Britain and creation of an administrative class were accomplished in little more than two generations; profiting by 'British experience, he argues, we ought to be able to accomplish such a reform in even shorter time.24 Since the question of an administrative class is perhaps the outstanding case where American writers on public administration have employed the comparative method to the extent of borrowing from foreign experience, it is worthy of a brief analysis to uncover some of the problems of a comparative "science of public administration." For it shows into stark perspective the fundamental difficulties of drawing universal conclusions from the institutions of any one country, and at the same ti.me sharply outlines the correlative problem of comparing the institutions of several nations in order to derive general principles out of the greater range of experiences. The central difficulty of universal generalization may be indicated in this way: An administrative class based on merit rests upon four conditions. All of these prerequisites were present coincidentally in Britain in the midnineteenth century; and none of them is present in quite the same way here. First of all, an administrative class of the British type rests upon a general political acceptance of the hierarchical idea. This acceptance in Britain was not the product of forty years; it was the outcome of four centuries. It is not too much to say that it was the four centuries during which the public service was the particular prerogative of the upper classes that made a hierarchical civil service structure feasible in Britain. The Tudor monarchy had rested upon a combination of crown power admmistered under the King by representatives of the upper middle and professional classes in the town and newly created members of the gentry in the country; Tudor authority was in effect derived from an alliance of King and upper middle classes against the aristocracy. From the Revolution of 1688 until 1832 , public service was the special domain of an increasingly funct10nless aristocracy whose monopoly of public office was tacitly supported by the upper middle classes of the cities. Whatever the Reform Bill of 1832 accomplished in terms of placing the urban oligarchy overtly in office, no one in Britain had many illusions that a change in the hierarchical structure of politics and public service was entailed. The upper middle classes were no more keen than were the landed gentry of the eighteenth century to throw open the rloors of nublic service and politics to "the rabble." Out of this long historic background the idea of an administrative class emerged. The unspoken political premises of the dominant groups 2F>. Sig·1 ,;Jicantly. the most 1'€('f·nt study of ro'form of the American civil service states, "We do not recommend the formation qf a specially organized administrative corps for which a special type of seleC'tion and training is proposed." Report of Presicfrnt's Conunitft'<' on Ciuil Sel'vic(' hn1>nnH'W('llf (Government Printing Office,· 1941), p. 57. Instead, the Committee recommends that "all positions whose duties are administrative in nature, in grades CAF-11, P--4, and hig·her ... be ident!fiect as an occupational group within the existing classification structure." This is a noteworthv ~tep in an attempt to achieve tf_1e advantage8 of an administrative class within th~ framework of American mores and institutions. It is therefore a great advance over the eal°lit'l' proposal in the Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Public Servic(' Personnel, fletff>r (;mwnlJJ1('J1f Pcr.~onncl ( McGnnv-Hill Book Co., HJ35), which rerommende<l the outright t'l'cation of a distinct administrative class (p. :10). 2G. This was the essential noint, stated in more spec:ific terms of Lewis Meriam's critiei,·.m of the administrative c·o1·ps i<lea. Sec his excellent P11bJ/c OJI([ Special Tl'ai11i.ng (University of Chieago Prc::-:s, 19aG). '27. It is notcworthv that the lat.e:>t U. S. Civil Service Commission announcement for the jL;n;or profo~sional a:.;'-i~tant cxami1iation (>l"ovcmber, 194()) follows. (lCTOBER-!\OVEMBER. 1H40 Page 581 in the nation reflected an acceptance of hierarchy in the social, economic, and political structure of Britain; the contention, common in the American scene, that an administrative class is "undemocratic" played no real part in midnineteenth century Britain. One may well question whether it would be easy to create an administrative class in any society, like the American, where egalitarianism is so firmly rooted as a political dogma; however desirable such a class may be, and however little it may actually violate the democratic ideal, one is entitled tb doubt that the overt creation of an adminstrative elite is a practical possibnity in American politics.2.s In any case, the idea must be fitted into the peculiar mores and the special ethos of the United. States, and cannot be lightly transferred from Britain to this country.2G Second, the administrative class idea rests upon a scholastic system tha\: creates the educated nonspecialist, and a recruiting system that selects him. Too often, the proposal has been made to recruit persons of general rather than specialized training for an "administrative corps" without solving the prior problem of producing such "generalists" in the universities. The British public school system and the universities have long been dominated by the ideal of the educated gentlemen; and for centuries they have succeeded admirably in producing the "generalist" mind, even when that mind is nourished on apparently specialized subjects. It is a peculiarly British paraclox that persons of high general abilitv are recruited into the civil service by means of examinations that heavily weight such specialities as classical languages and mathematics. In so far as this country has an educational ideal (a question on which this writer speaks with considerable trepidation), it appears to be, or to have been, the ideal of the specialist. Much more is involved, too, than a question of education; at base the problem is one of social mores that give the specialist a prestige and a social utility that no person of general education is likely to attain. That the recruiting process ha1S been forced to adapt itself to the educational Page 582 specialization characteristic of American universities (indeed, one might say of American life) is s~arcely astonishing. It would be more astonishing if the Civil Service Commission were able to recruit nonexistent "generalists" to perform unrecognized functions within a corps of practitioners where almost everyone regards himself as a subject-matter specialist.27 In the third place, the administrative class idea rests upon the acceptance of merit as the criterion of selection. In Britain this acceptance was no mere accident of an inexplicable twenty-year change in public standards of morality. If patronage disappeared in Britain, it was partly because patronage had ceased to have any real function, whereas efficiency had acquired a new social and political utility. Prior to the nineteenth century, patronage had two vital functions: it provided a place for the sons of the aristocracy who were excluded from inheritance by primogeniture; and it placed in the hands of the King and his ministers a device for guaranteeing, under the limited franchise of the eighteenth century, a favorable House of Commons. Both these factors disappeared during the first decades of the nineteenth century. With the expansion of the electorate after 1832, the monarchy was forced to withdraw from politics, or risk the chance of a serious loss of prestige in an electorate that was now too large to control. Meanwhile, the development of dissolution as a power available to the Prime Minister upon his request from the Crown gave the executive a means of party discipline and control far more effective than the promise of office. Finally, the accession to power of the manufacturing and trading classes by the reforms of 1832 placed a new emphasis on efficiency, both as a means of cutting down public expenses and insuring economies in government, and (especially after 1848) of warding off the revolutionary threat that might develop out of governmental incompetence.'" All these conditions make possible, and perhaps inevitable, the substitution of merit for patronage. To talk as if reform arose out of some (Continued on page 567) THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT REVIEW THE SCIENCE OF . .. (Continued from page 582) change in public morality, obscure and mysterious in origin but laudable in character, is to miss the whole significance of British reforms. In the present-day politics of the United States, it is not so clear that the utility of patronage has disappeared; under the American system of separation of powers, patronage remains almost as useful as it was under the British constitution of the eighteenth century. And in any case, it is self-evident that the problem here lies in a distinctly different political and social setting from that of Victorian England. Last, a successful administrative class rests upon the condition that such a group possesses th·e prestige of an elite; for unless the class has an elite status, it is in a poor position to compete against any other elite for the brains and abilities of the nation. It is one thing to offer a career in a merit service; it is quite another to insure that such a service has enough prestige to acquire the best of the nation's competence. The argumen~ that the mere creation of an administrative class would be sufficient to endow that group with prestige in the United States may or may not be valid ; it is certainly invalid to argue that this was the casual sequence in Britain. In assessing the ability of the British civil service to recruit the best products of the universities, one can scarcely overlook the profound significance of the fact that for centuries the public service was one of the few careers into which a member of the aristocracy could enter without loss of prestige. Like the church, the army, and politics, and unlike trade and commerce, public service was a profession in which the aristocracy could engage without violating the mores of the class. Even during the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth, when the burden of incompetence and patronage in the public service was at its heaviest, government was a field into which the social elite could enter without a diminution of prestige, and often enough without even a loss in leisure. Throughout the age of patronage, the British public OCTOBER-NOVEMBER. 1949 service suceeded in obtaining some of the best of Britain's abilities. The effect of the reforms after 1853 was to make more attractive a profession that already outranked business and industry in prestige values. In Britain, as in Germany, the psychic income accruing from a career in the civil service more than compensates for the smaller economic income. Contrast this with the United States, where since the Civil War prestige has largely accrued to acquisitive successes. It is small wonder that in the United States the problem of government competition with business for the abilities of the community should be much more acute. If these remarks about the British administrative class are well founded, then these conclusions suggest themselves: 1. Generalizations derived from the operation of public administration in the environment of one nation-state cannot be universalized and applied to public administration in a different environment. A principle may be applicable in a different framewrok. But its applicability can be determined on]~' after a study of that particular framework. 2. There can be no truly universal generalizations about public administration without a profound study of varying national and social characteristics impinging on public administration, to determine what aspects of public administration, if any, are truly independent of the national and social setting. Are there discoverable principles of univei·scil validity, or are all principles valid only in terms of a special enYironment? 3. It follows that the study of public administration inevitably must become a' much more broadly based discipline, resting not on a narrowly defined knowledge of techniques and processes, but rather extending to the varying historical, sociological, economic, and other conditioning factors that give public administration its peculiar stamp in each country. - end - Pa<'e 567