Politics-Administration Dichotomy

The politics-administration dichotomy posits a clear distinction between practices of governance that belong to the realm of the political on the one hand, and those that belong to that of bureaucracy on the other hand. The contribution of this dichotomy to the field of public administration has been periodically debated in the literature throughout the twentieth century. In recent years, however, the original intentions of scholars like Woodrow Wilson and Frank Goodnow have been reexamined, and their views were found to be not as two-dimensional as history had alleged. Simply put, the dichotomy holds that progressive reformers at the turn of the twentieth century sought to separate the corrupt practices of political party bosses, especially those in large metropolitan areas, from the day-to-day administration of the public's affairs. By creating an impenetrable wall between the two spheres, reformers could transform government and make it operate more like a business—efficiently, effectively, and honestly. “Politics” then became the exclusive sphere of elected officials that debated the ends of government, concerned themselves with choices among competing values, and performed the thinking of government, while “administration” was conducted by appointed officials that made choices among the means by which government ends might be achieved and focused exclusively on accomplishing goals or the doings of government. Administrators were accountable to the people through elected officials that set policies, provided funding, and were themselves accountable to the people through elections. At the same time, this barrier served to protect administrators from partisan politics. The politicsadministration dichotomy thus came to symbolize these dualisms, while administration itself was reduced to mere instrumental rationality.

Opponents of the dichotomy argued that it was neither possible nor desirable to separate politics from administration so absolutely. Indeed, they contended that those who advocated such a bifurcation, often under the auspices of science, were not only misleading citizens but deceiving themselves as well. Values, and thus politics, were embedded in virtually all administrative actions and it was preferable to recognize this openly rather than to pretend that administration could, indeed, be neutral. The reexamination of early public administration writings in the 1980s and 1990s revealed that most of the founders had held more nuanced views of the relationship between politics and administration than they had been given credit for. While these findings lent support to critics of the dichotomy, the administrative ground on which the argument was based was also beginning to change.

Public agencies, especially those at the federal level, have always subcontracted portions of their work. Yet devolution in the 1980s and reinvention in the 1990s meant that many of the agencies historically responsible for providing services were no longer directly involved in doing so. Instead, they began contracting out their responsibilities to others—be they state or local agencies or private (both profit and nonprofit) organizations. Increasingly, then, the performance of traditionally governmental tasks, the doings of government, was not conducted by public employees. Instead, the agencies responsible for the work became parts of complex networks where they made every effort to ensure that the ends of government were achieved through oversight techniques, not unlike those employed by legislators. Some administrationists have countered that a distinction still remains between program and policy outcomes, with administrators being concerned with the former and politicians the latter. But increased organizational complexity and the dynamics of globalization have meant that public administrators are also taking on new roles, engaging citizens and other stakeholders in deliberation, negotiating service contracts, and otherwise involving themselves in mediating roles in the policy continuum. Maintaining accountability under such complex and fragmented conditions appears more likely to occupy public administrationists in the immediate future than the nowdated and overly simplistic politics-administration dichotomy.

...