Public Admimistration

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The argument about the dichotomy between politics and administration has been around for so many years. Although many scholars have made efforts to state their reasons why or why not politics and administration should be distinct from each other, there has not been a universal consensus on the topic. Looking at both arguments, those who support the distinction claim that it will ensure efficient and neutral bureaucracy, however the extent of such distinction has not been clearly stated. The other group who argues the two should not be separate rest their claim on the interconnection between politics and administration. To them they are complementary and work better together.

There are two early public Administration scholars that are credited with the dichotomy: Woodrow Wilson and Frank Goodnow. Wilson’s theory evolved during a time when politics was associated with corrupt behaviour. Many citizens wanted a more professionally based bureaucracy that would hold to higher levels of accountability versus being controlled by politics. These ideas were clearly communicated in Madison’s Federalist No 10 (1787). Madison describes the relationship between politics and administration by explaining that a factious spirit had tainted American’s Public Administration. Wilson reinforced the ideas of the founding fathers in his essay “The Study of Administration”. Wilson (1886) expanded on Madison’s ideas explaining that bureaucracy needed to be more businesslike with civil servants providing services that were nonpartisan. In “The Study of Administration”, Wilson states that, “Administration questions are not political questions. Although politics sets the tasks for administration, it should not be suffered to manipulate its offices” (210). Wilson believed Public Administration should be considered a science irrelevant from any type of political coercion when it comes to things like decision making, policy and public service. Bureaucracies all share a common goal and this is to provide services that benefit the overall public good.

In his book, “Politics and Administration”, Frank Goodnow was very much concerned about the negative effects of the spoil system on government administration. He recognized that the spoil system impaired administration efficiency and was a threat to democratic government. Goodnow rejected party control over administration as the best way to harmonize the expression of the popular will, According to Goodnow, certain areas of administration should be isolated from politics. These include the administration of justice, technical, scientific information gathering as well as purely administrative management issues. These functions should be performed by politically neutral, tenured and competent individuals who act in a semi-scientific, quasi-businesslike fashion. (Goodnow, 1967).

The central argument of Wilson and Goodnow was that politics and patronage threaten the efficiency of administration and that, in general, administrative and political questions were and should be distinct. The former should be addressed by technically competent civil servants insulated from politics.

If truth be told, the difference between politics and administration is really hard to tell as the formal heavily influences the latter, or vice versa. Nevertheless the discussion has gone a long way. While some scholars believe that Wilson called for a complete separation of politics and administration, Wilson himself admitted that the dichotomy of the two is fictional. So if it is impossible in the first place, why call for a dichotomy? Wilson stated four reasons why there should be a science of administration 1. Straighten the paths of government 2. Make it business businesslike 3. Strengthen its organization and finally crown it dutifulness. Wilson knew it was not possible to achieve absolute separation of politics from administration as what he really wanted was to keep public administration out of the ills of politics and institutionalize the practice of effective administration. As governments today serve several masters (the people), their functions become more complex which made Wilson underscore the need for great mastery in running the government. For this task, the role of administration is to produce competent administrators who will not just serve as passive instruments of power but vanguards of public interest, and promote a type of governance responsive to the needs and reflective of the people’s will.

Throughout our study we have examined cases that dealt with the need for a clear and distinctive separation of politics and administration, while this is not always achieved, we see the devastating effect of the continue interference and administrators incapable making decisions that serve public interest.

The case of CIA director George Tenet is a good case to examine and see the effect of political interference with administration and why Wilsons call for administration to produce administrators who will respond to the need of the public. The presumption is that George Tenet became too close with the president and therefore was unable to objective in carrying out his duties, he was put in office by the president of the United States George Bush and he felt a sense of loyalty to him. It was believed that because of his careless act, America went to war with Iraq and lost about 3,000 soldiers. Another case that was consider was the Columbia accident and the fear of NSA that it will be shut down if it failed to go on a mission soon, we also saw the interference by Congress when their budget was reduced As public administrators were does one draw the line on interference either by politics or other external forces? Waldo proposed a map to guide through making difficult decisions but ultimately the onus lies on the administrator to make the right decision, a decision that will serve not only the public interest but also his Country and the Constitution.