Demonstrating Neutrality: The Rockefeller Philanthropies and the Evolution of Public Administration, 1927-1936

Abstract

Few ideas in the field of public are as poorly regarded as the concept of the politics-administration dichotomy. Proponents of the dichotomy argued that a clear line could be drawn between making, or politics, and the execution of policy, or administration and also that the job of public servants was to be responsible for the execution of and not at all for the formulation of policy (Maass and Radway, 1949). However, the most contemporary academics consider the distinction between politics and to be untenable. Nicholas Henry calls it naive, at best (1987, p. 41); Hal Rainey says there is overwhelming evidence that the distinction is unfounded (1990, p. 173); James Fesler and Donald Kettl take the falsity of the dichotomy as an obvious fact (1991, p. 14). Yet if all this is true, we must ask two questions. Why would earlier academics, who were as familiar with the details of everyday governance as we are, subscribe to such a hollow doctrine? And why is it that this ancient administrative proverb continues to have such amazing powers of survival (Peters, 1978, p. 137)? This article provides a partial explanation of why an apparently worthless concept became so entrenched in the field of public administration. It examines the evolution of thought and practice in public between 1927 and 1936 - The decade in which public became established as a field of study, and in which professions of faith in the politics-administration dichotomy reached a zenith (Waldo, 1987, P. 92). These two phenomena were closely related. The expansion of the public community depended on funding from three Rockefeller philanthropies that were sensitive to public criticism of their involvement in political work, and has resisted supporting research on the grounds that it would be perceived by the public as meddling in in The politics-administration dichotomy - an already well-known idea that suggested a certain sphere of governmental work could be considered nonpolitical - was a rhetorical device that allowed the philanthropies to defend their support of research. Scholars and practitioners in public re-asserted their faith in the dichotomy, and tailored their work routines to bolster such assertions, in order to away the philanthropies' concern about public criticism of the financial support that they provided to the new field. In other words, the dichotomy was an important part of a rheoretical strategy that was integral to the institutional development of the public community in its early years. It may be that the dichotomy continues to serve this function today. The Importance of the Rockefeller Philanthropies Much of the institutional foundation of the public community was laid down in the decade between 1927 and 1936. We may say, with hindsight, that important work was done earlier that paved the way for the establishment of public as a field of study, it is also true that there were some important events, such as the establishment of the American Society for Public Administration and the Public Administration Review, which happened soon after. Nevertheless this decade was an important one. A person could not have: spoken about the field of public in 1925 and had confidence that the audience knew what was meant. In 1937, the situation was quite different. Professional associations for government employees had grown with unexampled rapidity (White, 1933) and now consciously identified themselves as constituents of the public community. Fifteen of these associations were based in an old red-brick house at 850 East 58th in Chicago, on the campus of the University of Chicago; they called themselves the 850 Group. Begun in 1930, the group was held together by a central organization, the Public Administration Clearing House, run by Louis Brownlow. …