Introduction: Politicians and Administrators in the Political Process—A Review of Themes and Issues in the Literature

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Notes

* Portions of this manuscript previously appeared in Mouritzen, Poul Erik; Svara, James H. Leadership at the Apex: Politicians and Administrators in Western Local Governments; University of Pittsburgh Press: Pittsburgh, PA, 2002; Chapter 2.

8. In Sayre's view of dichotomy (in Sayre, W. Premises of Public Administration: Past and Emerging. Public Administration Review 1958, 18, 103), “politics and policy were separate from administration, which was concerned exclusively with the execution of assignments handed down from the realm of politics,” and his definition was very influential in shaping the definition of the dichotomy in the United States and its association with the early scholars in public administration according to Svara (Svara, J. H. Complementarity of Politics and Administration as a Legitimate Alternative to the Dichotomy Model. Administration & Society 1999, 30, 676–705). As the concept was described prior to Sayre's article, it was permissible for administrators to propose policy but the dichotomy idea was deemed useful as it helped to focus public attention on elected officials and to shield administrators from interference.

13. This is one of four images in Aberbach et al., Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies. Image 1 is essentially the dichotomy model, i.e., a divided world in which the “politicians make decisions; bureaucrats merely implement them.”

15. Hood, 2002.

17. In this model and others, the definition of “neutral competence” is an active one. “Neutral” means neither value-free (and certainly not value-less) nor passive. Asmeron et al. (Asmeron, H. K.; Reis, E. P., Eds. Democratization and Political Neutrality; MacMillan Press: London, 1996; 8–9) come to the same conclusion in their review of studies in a number of countries: “Neutrality does not mean that top-level civil servants cannot or should not be involved in the articulation of public policy. Indeed, senior officials are professionally and morally obliged to provide their political leaders with the best policy alternatives based on sound arguments, relevant precedents, and suitability to the changing environment. The expectation that they will render this service from a non-partisan position is the crux of the matter.” Viewed in this way, neutral competence can be compatible with any of the approaches with the possible exception of the “responsive administrator” model.

18. Golden, 2000; 5–8.

19. Golden, 2000.

21. Thompson (Thompson, D. The Possibility of Administrative Ethics. Public Administration Review 1985, 45, 556) argues that when neutrality is defined most narrowly, it would presume that administrators exercise no independent judgment about the rightness or appropriateness of the actions of government.

28. Gruber, 1987; 109–110.

31. Golden, 2000; 17.

35. Peters, 1989; 210. Peters views the military as being outside the bureaucracy.

36. Golden, 2000.

43. Golden, 2000.

44. Aberbach and Rockman, 1993.

45. As Christensen indicates in this issue, dependence on a coalition may constrain the government from securing a higher level of responsiveness from administrators.

46. Riggs, 1997.

47. Another interpretation (summarized in Sincere deceivers, The Economist 2004, July 17–23, 372, 11) that seems consistent with British and American official inquiries is that the top officials in both countries were “honest about what they believed” but “not honest about how solid their knowledge really was” based on the reports developed by intelligence agencies without political interference. This interaction presumably reflects a breakdown in the separate roles model with insufficient scrutiny by politicians when they received the information that was consistent with their preferred policy.

49. Self, 1972; 149.

50. Self, 1972.

52. Woodruff, 1919.

53. Woodruff, 1919.

55. Putnam, 1975; 90.

56. Aberbach and Putnam, 1981.

63. Norton, 1991.

64. Mouritzen and Svara, 2002.

68. Jones, 1995; 72–95.

69. Wood and Waterman 1994; 141.

70. Krause, 1999.

72. Farazmand, 1997.

75. Stein, 1991; 61–62.

77. Mouritzen and Svara, 2002.

78. Four types of CEOs—political agent, professional agent, interdependent, or independent—were classified based on comparison of the influence ratings of top politicians and administrators by Mouritzen and Svara, Leadership at the Apex, Chapter 9. The types are discussed more fully in my article included in this issue.

80. Wood and Waterman, 1994; 141–142.

81. Svara, James H.; Brunet, James R. Finding and Refining Complementarity in Recent Conceptual Models of Politics and Administration. In Retracing Public Administration, Research in Public Administration, Vol. 7; Rutgers, Mark R., Ed.; Elsevier Science: Amsterdam, 2003; 185–208. Nalbandian's “model relationship between council and staff,” in this issue (Table 2), shares many characteristics with complementarity.

82. Aberbach and Rockman, 2000.

83. Mouritzen and Svara, 2002.

87. Kettl, Pollitt, and Svara, 2004; 52.