Administration Dichotomy Research Articles

Who Runs Public Administration? A Longitudinal Study of Technocratic Ministerial Appointments in Post-Communist Romania (1991–2021)

Starting from the traditional public administration dichotomy ‘power versus knowledge’, concerned with the cleavage between politicians and bureaucrats, this paper’s main purpose is to reframe a classic theoretical model, by placing the spotlight on a new, under-conceptualized public sector actor: the technocrat. Second, the paper performs empirical research starting from an own-build comprehensive database that includes all the ministers appointed in the Romanian Government during a 30-year timeframe (October 1991-November 2021). In spite of being a rather young democracy with a communist public sector legacy, research findings indicate that in Romania we can clearly identify patterns similar to other European countries (primarily Italy), consisting of appointing technocrats to the cabinet. Such nominations are discussed in correlation with the advancements of new theories of democracy and public administration, imprinted with Neoliberalism, New Public Management, and Good Governance paradigms.

Teaching American government in public affairs education: Creating a foundation for success

Public administration has a long tradition of close connections to the field of political science. As the field of public administration evolved from a basic politics administration dichotomy, it became evident that the distinction between politics and administration was nebulous at best. As such, public affairs students need exposure to, and knowledge of, the founding documents and basic principles that underpin American government. This article explores the reasons for including American government instruction in introductory public affairs courses, student knowledge and preparation in American government, and strategies for enhancing the coverage of the principles of American government in public affairs programs.

Theory after Practice

Theory after Practice

Evaluating Institutional Dichotomy between Urban and Rural Land Administration in Amhara Region, Ethiopia

Institutional setup in the land administration system plays a crucial role in the successful functioning of modern land administration. The institutional setup, whether separated for urban and rural land administration or unified, is responsible for implementing the legal and policy framework. In most regions of Ethiopia, including the Amhara National Regional State, the institutional setup is separated, which results in increasing difficulties to administer land efficiently. The purpose of this study was to assess the challenges and opportunities of the institutional dichotomy between urban and rural land administration in the Amhara region. Primary and secondary data were used in the study. Questionnaires, focus group discussions (FGDs) and interviews with key informants were applied to collect the data. As the findings of the study revealed, about 55% of the respondents agreed that the integration between urban and rural land administration institutions is weak. In addition, 38% of the respondents also confirmed that the integration between the two independent institutions is very weak. The institutional separation between urban and rural land has opened the door for land invasion and informal settlement in peri-urban areas. The study also identifies overlapping job titles, wastage of human and material resources, and promulgation of contradicting urban and rural land laws as the challenges in the region due to the dichotomy of land administration between urban and rural. Although administering urban and rural land in separate institutions helps for minimizing the workload, the findings tend to administer land in a unified institution and within an independent ministry.

Creating Space for Public Administration in International Organization Studies

The emergent global administrative order includes more than 800 international and regional organizations. Just as the rise of the modern state placed greater importance on the study of public administration, the growth of multistate organizations, their agendas, and personnel require research that draws upon contemporary and classical public administrative thought. This article employs multiple lenses to explore the utility of public administrative theory and empirically based knowledge in analyzing the behavior of international and regional organizations. Specifically, while remaining cognizant of differences between international organizations and sovereign states, we consider the utility of the politics–administration dichotomy, representative bureaucracy, individual and employee due process and other rights, and broader questions of accountability in understanding the administrative life and influence of international organizations in global governance.

Navigating the dichotomy: The top public servant's craft.

How in their day‐to‐day practices do top public servants straddle the politics–administration dichotomy (PAD), which tells them to serve and yet influence their ministers at the same time? To examine this, we discuss how three informal ‘rules of the game’ govern day‐to‐day political–administrative interactions in the Dutch core executive: mutual respect, discretionary space, and reciprocal loyalty. Drawing from 31 hours of elite‐interviews with one particular (authoritative) top public servant, who served multiple prime ministers, and supplementary interviews with his (former) ministers and co‐workers, we illustrate the top public servants’ craft of responsively and yet astutely straddling the ambiguous boundaries between ‘politics’ and ‘administration’. We argue that if PAD‐driven scholarship on elite administrative work is to remain relevant, it has to come to terms with the boundary‐blurring impacts of temporal interactions, the emergence of ‘hybrid’ ministerial advisers, and the ‘thickening’ of accountability regimes that affects both politicians and public servants.

정치행정이원론과 발전행정에 관한 고찰

윌슨(1887)의 원칙적인 견해는 정치행정이원론으로 정치와 행정의 분리를 구분하였고, 행정을 경영과 유사한 것으로 보는 기술적 행정학의 입장이다. 정치행정이원론에서 행정인은 “효율적 목표달성추구, 능률성, 효율성”을 모색하지만, 정치인은 국가목표설정과 민주성확보를 추구하는 과정으로 행정과 정치를 구분하고자 한다. 정치행정일원론은 기능적 행정학 이라고도 하며 행정부의 정책결정에 적극적 역할이 강조되면서 정치와 행정은 분리될 수 없음을 강조한다. 궁극적으로 비교행정론에서 정치와 행정의 구분은 권력의 분권화를 통한 민주주의 정책 달성에 기여할 수 있다는 견해이지만, 싱가포르와 중국의 사례와 같이 발전행정론에서 정치와 행정의 통합을 통한 경제성장과 발전의 가능성을 강조하고 있다. 이와 같이, 정치와 행정은 관리행정의 차원에서 이론적·논리적으로 분리가 가능하나 정치와 행정의 이분법적인 논의보다는 상황주의에 근거한 보완적인 관계의 필요성을 강조하였다.

Is Neutrality a Feature or a Bug? Delegation, Discretion, and the Democratic Implications of Administrative Law in a Polarized Institutional Environment

The Weber–Wilson tenets of administration, primarily the neutrality principle and the politics–administration dichotomy, have come under heavy criticism in recent years. This article assesses the administrative state in terms of democratic fundamental principles. Due to important developments in the evolution of executive bureaucratic discretion, such as the civil service reforms, the end of the legislative veto, Chevron deference, and political polarization, administrative law has been decoupled from popular input, and administrative agencies have become increasingly isolated from the elective institutions of government. At the same time, the foundational principles of administration that justify the insulation of agencies from democratic consent have been undermined. The article contends that the raison d’être for administrative law is intimately tied to the foundational tenets, and that without them administrative law faces a legitimacy crisis, given it is discordant with both the principles of popular sovereignty and the rule of law. Administrative discretion must be bounded by the neutrality norm and a strong check by popular institutions. Using illustrative examples from administrative law, the article shows that political polarization has created an administrative law environment ripe for the abuse of discretion in administrative law for political ends and calls for renewed commitment to neutrality and the politics–administration dichotomy.

Independent Budget Offices and the Politics–Administration Dichotomy

ABSTRACTThe discipline of public administration has long grappled with the issue of how much involvement by public managers is warranted in the political sphere. Legislative Budget Offices (LBOs) provide an intriguing case study in this regard. This article examines the contributions of three works that successfully encapsulate the difficulties, as well as the merits, of an institution constituted of public managers (economists) wresting political control from politicians (executives and legislators) to create value for the public. The review article thus shows why the experiences of Legislative Budget Offices can serve as informative accounts for scholars of public administration.

Translating Theory into Practice: Exploring UN Arabian Version of the Politics- Administration Dichotomy

Translating Theory into Practice: Exploring UN Arabian Version of the Politics- Administration Dichotomy

Dichotomy of Politics and Administration：Goodnow’s Comprehension and Enlightenment

Dichotomy of Politics and Administration：Goodnow’s Comprehension and Enlightenment

Questioning the Constitutional Order: A Comparison of the French and the U.S. Politics–Administration Dichotomy Controversies After World War II

By comparing the French and the U.S. controversies on the appropriate position of public administration within the constitutional order of the state after World War II, this article aims to contribute to the historical clarification of the politics–administration dichotomy as one of the key ideas of administrative research and theory. The article underscores that the same phenomenon—the rejection of the dichotomy—has led to different conclusions among administrative scholars on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States, the dichotomy was rejected in favor of a reinforcement of the legislature and the judiciary as well as a more representative administration to preserve the plurality of interests of American society. In contrast, the French rejection was aimed toward strengthening the executive and the administrative elite as guardians of the general interest. The article illustrates how ideas and values about public administration change according to different spatiotemporal contexts. If these contexts are disregarded, understanding remains fragmentary at best, if not misleading.

Seeing the Forest for the Trees: An Atlas of the Politics–Administration Dichotomy

Recent years have seen attempts to make sense of the politics–administration dichotomy. Triangulating among historical research, empirical observations, new models of interaction between politicians and administrators, and the division of the literature into “schools,” novel ways of understanding and examining the dichotomy have developed. These have been largely thematic and have revealed the extent of a literature spanning more than 120 years. Because of its size, a complementary structural analysis of the literature now not only is conceivably useful but also can offer means for approaching it. This article offers an atlas—that is, a series of visual maps, accompanied by associated statistics and interpretations—that can assist researchers in their travels through the territory of the dichotomy. Ten ways of tackling the literature are presented, culminating in an initial reading list that covers the breadth of dichotomy research, thus providing an epistemological foundation for those who wish to enter the territory.

The Obstacles to Effective Policy Implementation by the Public Bureaucracy in Developing Nations : The Case of Nigeria

The need for enhancing the development process in the developing nations is ever becoming more critical and urgent. The pace at which this can be realized is hinged essentially on the ability of the government to formulate appropriate policies and, very importantly, on the capability of the public bureaucracy to effectively implement the formulated policies. Over the years in Nigeria, numerous brilliant policies have been formulated and implemented. Yet there is no apparent and significant development to show for that as evidenced by the fact that Nigeria has continued to remain in the category of the Least Developed Countries of the world. This suggests that mere formulation of policies should become not the major issue in Nigeria but rather their effective implementation as it is only effectively implemented policies that can bring about national development. Against this background, the study explored the importance of public policy in governance and public administration-generally, deeply discussed public bureaucracy and its role in policy implementation, critically examined and analyzed the key obstacles inhibiting the public bureaucracy in Nigeria from effectively implementing policies. In carrying out the study, the secondary sources of information or data gathering were mostly relied on and consequently, content analysis technique was adopted in the analysis. The basic finding is that there exists, indeed, some factors and circumstances that constitute serious obstacles to effective policy implementation by the public bureaucracy in Nigeria. These factors, among others, include the ineffective and corrupt political leadership under which the public bureaucracy in Nigeria thrives, the pervasive and deep rooted corruption within the public bureaucracy and the pressure and influence of primordial demands and values on the bureaucracy which negatively effect implementation activities and processes. Recommendations offered to overcome the obstacles and challenges and to reposition the Nigeria public bureaucracy for effective implementation of policies include, basically, that government should work towards ensuring the evolvement of both purposeful and responsible political and bureaucratic leaderships as well as work towards further realization of politics and administration dichotomy in Nigeria in order to create room for the bureaucracy to operate and implement policies essentially on the basis of laid down ideal bureaucratic rules and principles. The bureaucrats need too to strongly de-emphasize primordial considerations and to resist primordial pressures and demands for special favours in policy implementation activities and processes while government also need to constantly develop appropriate programs for improving the working conditions, and other incentives for the public bureaucrats in order to build their morale and commitment to public service. This, too, could reasonably diminish the propensity among the bureaucrats to misappropriate funds allocated for implementing development policies.

Understanding Shared Roles in Policy and Administration: An Empirical Study of Council‐Manager Relations

Recent literature in public administration emphasizes enhanced collaboration between elected and administrative officials. The complementarity view is presented as an alternative to the traditional politics–administration dichotomy. At the center of this new perspective lies the concept of shared roles between elected officials and public administrators with respect to policy making and administration. This article expands the emerging literature on role sharing by proposing and testing new variables to understand what enhances the policy‐making role of city managers and the administrative role of elected officials. Employing data collected from a nationwide survey of city managers and utilizing structural equation modeling methodology, this research finds that the council’s expectations and the city manager’s role conception significantly influence the city manager’s involvement in policy making, while the context of policy making, the city manager’s support, and the council’s access to resources affect elected officials’ involvement in administration. This article aims to make a cumulative contribution to the literature on role sharing.

Woodrow Wilson’s Administrative Thought and German Political Theory

To what extent were Woodrow Wilson’s ideas about public administration informed by German organic political theory? Drawing on the writings of Wilson, Lorenz von Stein, and Johann K. Bluntschli on public administration, and comparing American and German primary sources, the author offers insights into Wilson’s general concept of public administration, as well as his understanding of the politics–administration dichotomy. With regard to current administrative research, this study underscores how the transfer of ideas profoundly contributes to advancing comparative public administration and helps clarify terminological difficulties and conflicting perspectives among diverse administrative science traditions.

Weber, Wilson, and Hegel: Theories of Modern Bureaucracy

Convergence between Woodrow Wilson's and Max Weber's thought, as well as their differences with regard to the politics–administration dichotomy, can be ascribed to the Hegelian tradition of public administrative theory. On the one hand, Wilson was strongly influenced by Georg W. F. Hegel. On the other hand, there is an empirical connection between Hegel and Weber. Both shared a consciousness of the German bureaucratic tradition based on Hegel's Philosophy of Right. These insights have important methodological and theoretical implications for the contemporary comparative study of public administration.

The Complementarity View: Exploring a Continuum in Political—Administrative Relations

The politics–administration dichotomy has drawn criticism from contemporary public administration scholars largely because of its lack of descriptive accuracy and particular normative inclinations. In their search for an alternative model to the dichotomy, some scholars developed what is widely known today as complementarity. Although this emerging view received an enthusiastic welcome from many scholars and practitioners, more research has yet to be done to address its conceptual and empirical shortcomings. Using survey data collected from a nationwide sample of city managers, this study explores empirical foundations of the complementarity view of the politics–administration relationship. Specifically, the author first identifies a politics–management continuum based on a review of public administration literature on the complementarity view and then analyzes survey data to see whether the relationship between elected officials and public administrators is characterized by complementarity. The results of the analysis generally support the complementarity view, in that the responses of city managers mostly parallel the idea of a continuum in elected official–public administrator relationships, a continuum that moves from politics on one end to management on the other end, with various policy and administration activities in the middle. This paper aims to make a conceptual and empirical contribution to an important question in public administration.

Presidential Environmental Appointees in Comparative Perspective

The pathologies of the presidential appointment process are well documented and include appointees’ frequent lack of federal government work experience and their short appointment tenures. Less well understood are whether and to what extent these problems affect different subsets of high‐level appointees, such as administrators in the environmental bureaucracy. Top‐tier environmental appointees tend to stay longer in their appointed positions than do presidential appointees generally, and more than 40 percent have prior federal government management experience. These and other data suggest that key problems ascribed to the presidential appointment process are less salient in the case of high‐level environmental appointees. Appointees in Republican and Democratic administrations have comparable levels of academic training and federal government experience. These similarities notwithstanding, White House expectations for appointees’ political loyalty varies more from administration to administration. The Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush (first term) administrations maintained the highest demands for political loyalty, with consequences for the policy–administration dichotomy in environmental agencies.

The Politics–Administration Dichotomy: An Empirical Search for Correspondence between Theory and Practice

The politics–administration dichotomy has been one of the most disputed theories of public administration. Despite serious critiques, neither the theoretical utility nor the normative power of the dichotomy has totally disappeared over the past decades. The dichotomy has been advocated on the grounds that the dichotomous division of labor and authority between elected and administrative officials increases the democratic accountability and planning ability of public administrators. This article first builds a theoretical model of the politics–administration dichotomy and then evaluates the model using empirical data collected from a nationwide sample of city managers serving in council‐manager local governments. Results of structural equation modeling illustrate that the politics–administration dichotomy fails to obtain its predicted tendencies in actuality. The authors interpret the findings in light of the contemporary public administration literature. The article aims to make a theoretical‐empirical contribution to one of the most challenging questions in public administration.