Wilson and Political Control

In the traditional model of public administration, the rules linking the political leadership with the bureaucracy are clear, at least in theory. Woodrow Wilson – a Professor at Princeton for many years before becoming United States President – argued that there should be a strict separation of politics from the administration; of policy from the strictly administrative task of carrying it out. As he argued in 1886:

 

Administration lies outside the proper sphere of politics. Administrative questions are not political questions. …Public administration is detailed and systematic execution of public law. Every particular application of general law is an act of administration. The assessment and raising of taxes, for instance, the hanging of a criminal, the transportation and delivery of the mails, the equipment and recruiting of the army and navy, etc., are all obviously acts of administration, but the general laws which direct these things to be done are obviously outside of and above administration. The broad plans of governmental action are not administrative; the detailed execution of such plans is administrative.

Wilson believed that the evils of the spoils system resulted from the linking of administrative questions with political ones. If administrators act in an overtly political manner, whether due to the process by which they were appointed, or their continuing role within the party organization, corruption is likely to result and arbitrary decisions almost certain. Separation of the political sphere, where policy derives, from the administrative sphere, where policies are administered, could address many evils of the spoils system.

Traditional public administration elevated the distinction between administrative and political matters to its guiding principle – that of politics/administration dichotomy. The dichotomy between politics and administration allowed room for a new criterion for public action, based on the insertion of professionalization, expertise, and merit values into the active direction of government affairs.

The traditional system of administration in parliamentary countries similarly aimed for a separation of policy from administration. There are three main facets to political control in the traditional model of administration, most notably in Westminster systems¹. First, there is a clear relationship between accountability and responsibility. A department or agency has two basic roles: to advise the political leadership on the development, review and implementation of policy, and to manage its own resources so that policy may be implemented. Each public servant is technically accountable, through the hierarchical structure of the department, to the Cabinet, and eventually to the people. Second, there should be a strict separation between matters of policy, which are formally the province of politicians, and matters of administration, which are left to the public service. Third, the administration is presumed to be anonymous and neutral, that is, not personally associated with any decisions or policies that are carried out only in the name of the minister; and non-partisan in the party-political sense and able to serve equally to any political leader. Westminster systems added the formal system of ministerial responsibility. If ministers accept personal responsibility for all the activities of their departments, public servants should remain anonymous and not publicly identified with the advice they give to ministers. In return for serving ministers from whatever party to the best of their ability, that is, for acting impersonally and objectively, public servants receive certain benefits in their conditions of service, such as security of employment, despite changes of government, and a decent pension.

In the traditional model of administration, the worlds of the politician and the public official were to be separate. Although the theory of separation – of dichotomy – between politics and administration was a major part of the traditional model of administration, it was, for many years, widely regarded as a myth, especially useful for the evasion of responsibility. In reality, the two are effectively ‘fused with politicians performing administrative duties and administrators assuming political responsibilities’ (Caiden, 1982). It was a fantasy to assume that politicians and administrators could be separate, but bureaucratic structures were constructed as though the myth was reality.

Taylor and Management

The traditional model of administration was fully formed by the 1920s and continued with remarkably little change for at least fifty years. The bureaucracy was supposed to be permanent and neutral; it was not engaged in policy or politics, but was an instrument of great power to be wielded by the politicians. Although the theoretical foundations of bureaucracy and political control were firmly established and essentially unchanged, there were public sector adaptations of management theory. All that was needed for a complete theory was a way of working, of organizing, to be added to the bureaucratic model of Weber, the political control of Wilson and the merit appointments and political neutrality of Northcote-Trevelyan. This was found in the scientific management principles put forward for the private sector by Frederic Winslow Taylor (1911). There were two main points to Tailor’s theory: standardizing work, which meant finding the ‘one best way of working’ and ‘controlling so extensively and intensively as to provide for the maintenance of all these standards’.

Scientific management became an evangelical force in the early years of the century. What Taylor sought was a fundamental change as efficiency and science replaced ad hoc decision-making, even a societal change as, through scientific management, the interests of employees and employers could be shown to be the same.

Scientific management fits very well with the theory of bureaucracy: the skills of the administrator, the compilation of manuals to cover every contingency, the advance of rationality, and impersonality are aspects of both. Standardization of tasks and fitting workers to them was perfect for the traditional model of administration. Even the measurement of performance by stop-watch was common in the organization and methods branch of large public bureaucracies.

Taylor remains important for public administration, as his theory of scientific management became a key influence on what followed in the management of public and private sectors. Although particular points could be disputed – the crude theory of personal motivation, time-and-motion studies – the idea that management could be systematic remained important in the public sector: ‘a strong, effective administrative system could flourish if politics was restricted to its proper sphere, if scientific methods were applied, and if economy and efficiency were societal goals’ (Stillman², 1991).

Human Relations Theory

Another theory, ‘human relations’, is often contrasted with scientific management. The focus of human relations is more on the social context at work rather than regarding the worker as an automaton responsive only to financial incentives. The human relations school had its roots in social psychology, and although quite different in some respects, became as much of a continuing tradition in public administration as did scientific management.

Although the human relations idea has many theorists, the real founder was Elton Mayo³. In a series of experiment s during the 1930s, Mayo found that the social context of the work group was the most important factor in management. Conflict was pathological and to be avoided, and there was no necessary antagonism between management and workers. In what became known as the ‘Hawthorne experiments’, referring to the Hawthorne plant of Western Electric, Mayo found that productivity increased most by taking an interest in the workers, and other factors, including financial incentives, were much less important.

Mayo and his followers had substantial impact on the management of the public sector, even if more recent work has cast doubt on the value of interpretations of the original data, showing most particularly that financial incentives were important after all. Consideration of the psychological context of the organization was responsible for a major school of thought in theories of organizational behavior. The idea that individuals responded to other than financial motives led to an improvement in working conditions.

Mayo influenced those who thought management should be kinder to their workers and provide some kind of social interaction, including in government. Public organizations had fewer competitive constraints than the private sector and, arguably, went further in introducing human relations, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s. One of the widely-held outside criticisms of the public bureaucracy has been that workers are treated too well and had to do so little compared to the private sector.

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