Fall 2016, TESC MPA

Getting your feet wet!

James Madison was the 4th President of the U.S.

One of the Framers of the U.S. Constitution. Pro-Federalism. Favored a centralized government.

There is no such thing as one definition of PA. It is contextual. An understanding of PA must be based in time, space and purpose.

Practice means "practicing"; Discipline means "studying".

Praxis= imbrication of study and practice.

Many argue that the discipline of PA started in 1887 when Woodrow Wilson (28th President of U.S.) called for the study of public administration.

He argued that Public Administration should be about value free, neutral professionals who are experts that maintain bureaucracy. Army of experts. Made a clear distinction between politics (legislation that follows the public will and values) and administration (the execution of law by value free experts). Goal of administration in government is to keep chaos out.

Seminar Group's Definitions of Public Administrator

Seminar Group's definitions of the people.

"Public Administration is doing collectively that which cannot be so well done individually."

Be of service: “Go tell the Spartans, thou who passest by, that here obedient to their laws we lie.” Sacrifice according to the ethic of your craft.

Shafritz, Russell, Borick (2012). Introducing Public Administration. 8th Edition. Chapter 1.

Basically, this approach from Bob Denhardt is in opposition to the business philosophy of “new public management” and revitalizes the focus of the field on “service”. Year published: 2000.

Theory was PRE- September 11th & PRE- economic recession. This theory grew from the wave of the “good times” in Bill Clinton’s reinventing government.

Our challenge in 2016 is, can we apply the 7 principles of the new public service in the context of our world today?
For me the question isn’t “should we”, it’s “can we”? As a people and as a profession, can we do this in 2016?

7 principles:
1. Serve, rather than steer. An increasingly important
role of the public servant is to help citizens articulate
and meet their shared interests, rather than to attempt to control or steer society in new directions.

2. The public interest is the aim, not the by-product. Public administrators must contribute to building a collective, shared notion of the public interest. The goal is not to find quick solutions driven by individual choices.
Rather, it is the creation of shared interests and shared
responsibility.

3. Think strategically, act democratically. Policies and
programs meeting public needs can be most effectively
and responsibly achieved through collective efforts and
collaborative processes.

4. Serve citizens, not customers. The public interest results from a dialogue about shared values, rather than the aggregation of individual self-interests. Therefore,
public servants do not merely respond to the demands
of "customers," but focus on building relationships of
trust and collaboration with and among citizens.

5. Accountability isn't simple. Public servants should be
attentive to more than the market; they should also attend to statutory and constitutional law, community
values, political norms, professional standards, and citizen interests.

6. Value people, not just productivity. Public organizations and the networks in which they participate are more likely to succeed in the long run if they are operated operated through processes of collaboration and shared
leadership based on respect for all people.

7. Value citizenship and public service above entrepreneurship. The public interest is better advanced by public servants and citizens committed to making meaningful contributions to society rather than by
entrepreneurial managers acting as if public money
were their own.

Public administrators have accepted the responsibility to serve citizens by acting as stewards of public resources, conservators of public organizations, facilitators of citizen-ship and democratic dialogue, catalysts for community engagement, and street-level leaders.

Denhardt, R. & Denhardt, J. (2000). The New Public Service: Serving Rather Than Steering. Public Administration Review, Vol. 60, No. 6, (Nov.-Dec.), pp. 549-559.

Kirlin, J. (2001). Big Questions for a Significant Public Administration. Public Administration Review, Vol. 61, No. 2, (Mar. - Apr.), pp. 140-143.

5 Paradigms of PA

1. Politics/Administration Dichotomy. 1900-1926

2. The Principles of Administration. 1927-1937. The Challenge. 1938-1950

3. PA as Political Science. 1950-1970

4. PA as Administrative Science. 1956-1970

5. PA as PA. 1970-?


Henry, N. (1975). Paradigms of Public Administration. Public Administration Review, Vol. 35, No.4, pp. 378-385.

Government & Governing:

Government= structure/form.

Governing= doing/function.

Through the systems of government and day-to-day work of governing, public administrators inform & make decisions.

But what is valued?
What are government decisions based on? What should governing decisions be based on?

What should governments base decisions on?

Major Debates in Public Administration.

Divide between the classical approach and the challenge approach.

Henry walks you through most of these in his discussion of the 5 paradigms of PA.

Classics are the "old model" of PA as Denhardt noted.

I disagree with both Henry and Denhardt. The classical approach is not "over". These practices in government are not in the past.

Classics: Efficiency, Facts, Objectivity, Administration (Experts), formal authority, sameness (rational model), Scientific/Quantitative Evidence ….. vs….

Challenge: Effectiveness, Values, Subjectivity and Politics, informal authority (the faces of power), otherness (difference), Qualitative Experiences

Defining the Classics: Public organizations should operate with power located at the top to maximize efficiency. Public administration should be about value free, neutral professionals who are experts that maintain bureaucracy. Army of experts. Made a clear distinction between politics (legislation that follows the public will and values) and administration (the execution of law by value free experts).

Defining the Challenge: The aim of the challenge is to show what is wrong with the world and as it is and to help improve it. They question whether an effect is morally or politically desirable. Recognize that social constructions exist= we cannot know “facts” separate from interests. Emphasize the imbrication of theory and practice. The goal of the challenge is to bring about social and political change.

Both the classical approach to PA & the challenge approach are simply management approaches to getting things done in public service….. make decisions based on what?

Which areas will you have to make your own choices about in the workplace the most? Which do you favor in decision making? What will you base your choices on? What will you let in or keep out?

What events brought about the challenge? Government of the classics had three major external forces acting on it: 1) WWI, 2) the depression/New Deal, and 3) WWII.

The New Deal got us out of the depression and placed public administration in the daily lives of citizens through hands on improvement projects to re-build this country. The aftermath of the war forced public administrators to be human. They could not ignore the gravity of the human atrocities in WWII and realized that it was humans with subjective values that would have to prevent a WWIII. The objective, rational, controlled bureaucracy would have to change. Normally, change in government is very slow. But in these situations, government had immediate and major needs of its citizenry to respond to . So tons of agencies and commissions started cropping up to respond to the real human issues at hand: jobs, hunger, polio, race relations. Government had to help government to help the people. Government still wanted to be efficient, but mainly they wanted to be effective.

What happened? Well the efforts and events of the 1940's through 1970's made bureaucracy and bureaucrats definitely change forever, but they also became completely overwhelmed and inefficient and ineffective. Bureaucracy grew so big, it became the 4 th branch of government. There were so many rule making and regulatory agencies and commissions that the right hand did not know what the left was doing. Because government could no longer handle the work they had created for themselves, they looked outside of government for help. This is where privatization and non-profits came in to assist government in doing what was necessary to meet the needs of an ever growing citizenry.

Most decisions are based on either a universal truth or subjective contextual truths.

Big "T" truths are absolute universals that can be applied to all things.

Little "t" truths are those realities that can “depend” on the context and therefore the “truth” is not fixed or finite. It is subjective and as infinite as the people who may have the experienced the truth in question.

Big “T”ruth (singular): struggle between religion and science; both are beliefs about how the world really works and about the types of creatures we are… one set of "answers" must be accepted as the “T”ruth…the final word… the absolute reality…. objectively.

Little “t”ruths (plural): accept errors exist. One generation’s truths so often become the next generation’s falsehoods. Subjectivity. We have the ability to imagine new realities.

Who will inform your decisions?

Who offers you information that you accept as knowledge?

How many of you believe that life exists beyond our planet (belief in aliens)? But if I told you I just saw an alien in the hallway, would you believe me? Would you accept that sighting as evidence to inform your knowledge about extraterrestrials?

We study PA because it can help us sift through differing world views. Our own and those of others. World views can influence our motivations for decision making.

The ways we think effect the ways in which we act and react. Like a picture, thoughts are “framed” or informed by our world view and then we see the picture by reasoning our way through it to find meaning.

We frame our initial responses to issues based upon the world view we’ve formed over time (our epistemology). After that first reaction, we then reason through issues based upon where we deem "T"ruth or “t”ruths come from. Our frames of reference and our lines of reasoning inform each other in a continuous feedback loop.

“Knowing” comes from accepting or rejecting information filtered by your world view. Knowledge is the basis for ideas generating governing systems, policies, programs, services, and evaluations.

Think about all of the authors you've read so far. Their world views shaped the "knowledge" they conveyed.

Story of Christmas morning. Relied on personal experience so much that bike assembly instructions were ignored.

“Theory does not simply reflect life; it also projects life.”- Denhardt

(Jorgensen writes about bureaucracy in ch. 6)

Bureaucracy: Max Weber (1864-1920) was a sociologist who observed the division of labor in a pin factory and he developed his "ideal type" theory of work. In the post-industrial revolution world, he admired the manufacturing industry's top down hierarchy, formal authority, rational, efficiency, expertise/specialization, and accountability.
Result: he argued to impose the “one best way” procedure on the whole workforce, universally, in any organization or place. If there was one best way to accomplish a production task on an assembly line then there was one best way to accomplish the task of setting up organizations= bureaucracy.

Rational decision making ("Rational-Choice"): relies on concepts from economics and psychology. An individual makes a rational decision by assessing all of the alternatives known to them and selecting the one decision that will maximize his or her utility (value) and maximize the attainment of objectives. This assumes that perfect information is available to the decision maker, that all the alternatives available have one and only one clear meaning, and that all alternatives have a common denominator to be weighed against each other. Assumes an objective, market, model of society and a closed environment for decisions to keep chaos and politics out.---see classic PA theorists such as Herbert Simon, Frederick Taylor, Luther Gulick, Max Weber, Charles Goodnow.

Incremental decision making ("Incrementalism"): groups of decision makers formulate small goals and consider only a limited number of options. A decision is rarely, if ever, made from scratch. Start from current situation and small changes are more likely than dramatic or revolutionary changes. Favors status quo over radical change because small changes are always possible at the margin. Favors the power of communication through argumentation due to the intersubjective meanings and understandings of options available to decision makers. This practice entails "muddling through" issues in context. Consensus may only be reached through the better argument and clear understanding of meanings and consequences. ---see theorists such as Charles Lindbloom and Jurgen Habermas.

Direct democracy, sometimes called "pure democracy," is a form of democracy in which the people themselves, rather than elected representatives, determine the laws and policies by which they are governed.

Direct democracy is the opposite of the more common "representative democracy," under which the people elect representatives empowered to create laws and policies.

While the United States practices representative democracy, as embodied in the U.S. Congress and the state legislatures, three forms of limited direct democracy are practiced at the state and local level: ballot initiatives and referendums, and recall of elected officials.

Source: http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/thepoliticalsystem/a/Direct-Democracy.htm

We frame our initial responses to issues based upon the world view we’ve formed over time (our epistemology). After that first reaction, we then reason through issues based upon where we deem "T"ruth or “t”ruths come from. Our frames of reference and our lines of reasoning inform each other in a continuous feedback loop.

“Knowing” comes from accepting or rejecting information filtered by your world view. Knowledge is the basis for ideas generating governing systems, policies, programs, services, and evaluations.

Think about all of the authors you've read so far. Their world views shaped the "knowledge" they conveyed.

Thank you!