administrative decentralization and political power

8/11/2019 Administrative Decentralization and Political Power

1/14

Wiley and American Society for Public Administration are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend accessto Public Administration Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Administrative Decentralization and Political PowerAuthor(s): Herbert KaufmanSource: Public Administration Review, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Jan. - Feb., 1969), pp. 3-15Published by: on behalf of theWiley American Society for Public AdministrationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/973980Accessed: 19-08-2014 12:45 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of contentin a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

This content downloaded from 112.207.95.190 on Tue, 19 Aug 2014 12:45:13 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=blackhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aspahttp://www.jstor.org/stable/973980http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/973980http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aspahttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=blackhttp://www.jstor.org/


2/14

ALIENATION,

DECENTRALIZATION,

AND PARTICIPATION

3

and effects of thecreeds of

management, nd

his

development

f

proposals

for the

better effectuationof democracy n

organizationswere obviously

highly

relevant-though his focus had been

primarilyupon businessmanage-

ment-and he consented o

make

a

specialpresentation

or

our

purposes.

The finalessay, Hierarchy,HumanNature,and theParticipative anacea,

by HerbertWilcox is a

shortenedand more narrowly ocused version of

an

essay

which had come to our attention ast

summer.Readers will recallhis

earlier:

The Culture

Trait of

Hierachy

in

Middle-ClassChildren

(May/

June 1968).

In

this essay Wilcox

continues and expands his treatment

of

hierarchy

in human organization. By intention

of the editors, this

is a

devil's advocate

piece. While none of the

precedingwriters is

an

advocate

of unrestrained

ecentralization r

participation,

Wilcox is

sayingto

all

who

would move in

that direction:

Caution-consider these matters.

Dwight

Waldo

ADMINISTRATIVE

DECENTRALIZATION

AND

POLITICAL

POWER

HERBERT

KAUFMAN,

Yale University

CURIOUS AS IT MAY

SEEM

TODAY, bureau-

crats in

the

'30's were

regarded

by

many

as

heroes n

the

struggles or a

better

social

order.

As

late

as

1945,

Paul

Appleby,

a

prominent

New

Deal

official,

felt

impelled to

dedicate a

book

to

Bill

Bureaucrat, and much of

the

literatureof

professional

and

academicpublic

administration

ad a

confident,

approving,

on-

sensual

tone.

By

mid-'50's

it

was

possible

to

discern

emerging conflicts of

doctrine

and

practice

among those who previouslyapplaudedand

defended

bureaucrats.A

majorshift

of

outlook

and

values

in

governmental

design

seemed to

be

takingplace.

It

was

not the

first

such

shift to

occur

in our

history.On

the

contrary,

he

administrative is-

tory

of

our

governmental

machinery can

be

construed

as a

successionof

shifts of

this

kind,

each

brought

about by a

change in

emphasis

among

three

values:

representativeness, oli-

This

is a

slightly

shortened

version of

the

paper

deliv-

ered at the annual

meeting of

the

American

Political

Science

Association

in

September

1968.

With

only one

exception,

all

the data

presented

were

gathered

prior

to

August 1,

1968.

JANUARY

/

FEBRUARY

1969

tically

neutral

competence,

and executive

ead-

ership.2None of

these

values

was

ever

totally

neglected in

any of our

past

modifications f

governmental

esign,

but each

enjoyed

greater

emphasisthan

the

others in

different

periods.

Thus,

for

example,

our earliest

political

in-

stitutions

at

all levels

can be

interpretedas

reactions

against

executive

dominance

n

the

colonial era.

Later

on,

extreme

reliance

was

placed on

representative

mechanisms, which

made

the

post-Revolutionary

ears an

interval

of great powerfor legislaturesand elective of-

ficials

and of

comparativeweakness or

execu-

tives

in

most

jurisdictions.By the

middle

of the

19th

century,

however,

legislative suprem-

acy, the

long

ballot, and the

spoils system re-

sulted in

widespread

disillusionment

with our

political

nstitutions,which

in turn

gave

impetus

to

effortsto

take

administration

ut of

politics

by

lodging it in

independent

boards and

com-

missions

and by

introducing

he merit

system

to break the hold of parties on the bureau-

cracies.

But the

fragmentation f

government

reduced

both

efficiencyand

representativeness,

and the

searchfor

unificationed

to the popu-

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/14

4

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

REVIEW

larlyelected

chief executives;

he 20th century

was marked

by a rapidgrowth

n theirpowers.

This

is

not

to

say

the values are

pursued

abstractly,as

ends in themselves,

or that there

is universal agreementon which should be

emphasized

t any given

time.

On the contrary,

different

segmentsof

the population

feel dif-

ferentiallydisadvantaged

y the governmental

machinery n

operationat any

given moment,

and

agitate for structural

hanges to

improve

their position-i.e.,

to increase their influence

-in the system.

Discontent

on the part

of

variousgroups

is thus the dynamic

orce that

motivates

he quest

for new forms.Some

groups

feel resentfulbecause

they consider hemselves

inadequately epresented; ome feel frustrated

because,

though they

are influential

n forming

policy,

the policy

decisions seem

to be dissi-

patedby

the politicalbiases

or the technical

n-

competence

of

the

public

bureaucracies;

ome

feel thwarted

by

lack of

leadership o

weld

the

numerousparts of government

nto a coherent,

unifiedteam

that can get things

done. At

dif-

ferent

points

n

time,enough

people (not

neces-

sarily

a numerical

majority)

will be

persuaded

by

one or another

of

these

discontents

o sup-

portremedialaction-increased representative-

ness,

better and politically

neutral

bureau-

cracies,or stronger

hief executivesas

the

case

may

be.

But

emphasis

on

one remedy

over a

prolongedperiod

merely accumulates

he

other

discontents

ntil new remedies

ain

enoughsup-

port

to be

put

into

effect,

and

no

totally

stable

solution

has

yet

been

devised.

So the constant

shift

in

emphasis

goes

on.

No matter

how vigorous

the

pursuit

of

any

one value at any giventime, the othertwo are

never

obliterated.

And no

matter

how deter-

mined

the

quest

for

any

one

value,

it

is

never

realized as

fully as

its most extreme

advocates

would like.

Even

after

a

century

of efforts

to

strengthen

neutral competence

and executive

leadership,partisan

nfluencestill retains

great

vitality

and

executive

institutionsat

all

levels

of

government

re still

remarkablyragmented.

And after

a

century

of

denigration

f

politics,

politicans,

and

special

interests,

representa-

tivenessis still a powerfulforce in American

government.

But

in

that

century

of

building

professional

ureaucracies

nd executive

capac-

ities

for

leadership, he

need for

new

modes

of representation

esignedto keep

pace with

new economic,

social, and

political develop-

mentsdid not arouse

equalconcern.

Partlyfor

this

reason,and partlybecause

the burgeoning

of large-scale rganizationsn every area of life

contributes o

the sensationof individual

help-

lessness,

recent years have

witnessed an

up-

surge

of a sense

of

alienation

on the

part

of

many

people, to

a feeling that they

as indivi-

duals cannot effectivelyregister

heirown pref-

erences on the

decisions emanating

rom the

organs

of government.

These people have

begunto

demandredressof the balance

among

the three values,

with special attention

o the

deficiencies n representativeness.

Current

Dissatisfaction

America s not wanting

n arrangementsor

representation.

More than

half a millionpublic

offices are still elective.3

Legislaturesand

in-

dividual egislators etain

mmense

powers,and

do not hesitate to wield them

liberally.Parties

are still

strong

and

attentive to

the

claims of

many

constituencies.Interest

groups are nu-

merous

and

press

heir

demands hroughmyriad

channels.The mass media serve as watchdogs

of

governmental

operations. Administrative

agenciesincorporate

manifold

procedures

or

representation

nto their decision-making

ro-

cesses,

includingquasi-judicial

nd

quasi-legis-

lative hearings,

representative

or bipartisan

administrativeboards,

and

advisory

bodies.4

Opportunities

or participation

n political

de-

cisions are plentiful.

Why, then, is

there

dis-

satisfaction

with

these

arrangements?

Fundamentally, ecausesubstantial though

minority)segments

of

the

populationapparent-

ly

believe the political,

economic, and social

systems

have

not delivered

o

them fair-even

minimally fair-shares

of

the system's

bene-

fits

and rewards,

and because they

thinkthey

cannot

win their

appropriate

hares

in those

benefits

and rewards

hrough

he

political

nsti-

tutions

of

the

country

as

these

are now

con-

stituted.These

people

are

not

mollified

by

as-

surances

that

the characteristics

f the

sytem

thwarting.hem alsothwart elfishandextremist

interests;

t

appears

o

them

hat

only

the

power-

ful

get

attention,

and that

the

alreadypowerful

are

helped by

the

system

to

deny

influence

o

JANUARY / FEBRUARY

1969



4/14

ALIENATION, DECENTRALIZATION,

AND PARTICIPATION

5

all

who now

lack it.

Thus,

the

system

tself,

and

not

just evil

men who

abuse

it,

is

discredited.

At least three

characteristics

f

the

system

contribute

heavily

to

this

impression

on

the

part of the

deprived:

first,

existing

representa-

tive organs are capable of giving only quite

general

mandates to

administrative

gencies,

yet it is

in the

day-to-daydecisionsand

actions

of

officials

and

employees

in

the lower levels

that individual

citizens

perceive

the

policies.

There

are often

gross

discrepancies

etween

he

promiseof

the

programs as construed

by

the

populace to

be

served)

and

performance-

sometimes because the

expectations

of

the

populace are

unrealistically

optimistic,

some-

times

because

programs

are

impeded

by

dif-

ficultiesthat could not be foreseen,and some-

times because

bureaucracies re

too

bound

by

habit or

timidity to

alter their

customary

be-

havior n

any but

the most modest

ways.5

Second,

the

pluralisticnatureof

the

political

system

provides abundant

opportunities

for

vetoes

by

opponentsof

change.

Each

proposed

innovation

must run

a

gamutof

obstacles,

and

ends as

a product

of

bargains

and

compromises.

So

change

usually

comes

slowly,

by

small

ad-

vances, in bits and pieces. Those who regard

particular

problems as

requiring

urgent,

im-

mediate

action

areprone

to

condemn

a

system

that

behaves

so

sluggishly.

Third,

the scale

of

organizationn

our

society

has

grownso

large

that

only

through

arge-scale

organizationdoes

it

seem

possible

to

have a

significant

impact. This

impression

alone is

enough

to make

individual

people

feel

help-

lessly

overwhelmedby

huge,

impersonal

ma-

chines

indifferent o

their

uniqueness

and

their

humanity. n addition,however,some interests

-notably those

of

Negroes

and

of

youth-have

recently

begun

to

develop

the

organizational

skills to

mobilize

their

political

resources

only

to

find

that

it

takes

time to

build

channels of

access to

political

structures.

Rather

than

wait

for

admission

to

these

structures-where, in-

cidentally,

hey

are

likely to

encounter

arger,

more

experienced,

well-entrenched

organiza-

tions

opposed

to

them-these

groups,

while

continuing o

strive

for

recognitionn

the

older

institutions, ave adopteda strategyof deriding

those

institutions nd

seeking

o

buildnew

ones

in

which

they can

have

greater,

perhaps

domi-

nant,

influence.

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

1969

Thus,

the

plenitude

of traditional

modes

of

representation o

longer

suffices;

the

existing

methods

do

not

adequately

ccommodate

many

of

the demands

upon

them. Just as the

adapta-

tion

of

governmental

design

during

the

past

century has gravitated toward furnishing

expertise

and

leadership,

so

it is now

under

pressure

from several

quarters

to accord

a

greater

role

to

representativeness.

Increasing

Representativeness

Through

Administrative

Change

The

quest

for

representativeness

n

this

gen-

eration

centers

primarily

on

administrative

agencies.

Since

administrative

agencies

have

grown

dramatically

n

size,

function,

and

au-

thority

n

the

middlethird of

this

century,

his

is

hardly

surprising.

Chief

executives,

egisla-

tures,

and

courtsmake

more

decisions

of

sweep-

ing

effect,

but

the

agencies make

a

far

greater

number of

decisions

affecting individual citi-

zens

in

intimate

ways. In

them

lies the source

of

much

present

unrest;

n

them,

therefore,

he

remedies

are

sought.

One

type of

proposal

or

makingadministra-

tive agenciesmorerepresentatives traditional

in

character;

ituating

spokesmen

for

the in-

terests

affected n

strategic

positionswithin

the

organizations.

Often,

this

means

nothing

more

than

filling

vacancies

on

existing boards

and

commissionswith

appointees

njoying he con-

fidence

of,

or

perhaps

even

chosen

by,

those

interests.6

n the

case of

the

controversial

olice

review

boards,

t

involves

njecting

nto

admin-

istrative

structures

new

bodies,

dominated

by

ethnic

minority

groups or

their

friends,to

sur-

vey andconstrainbureaucraticehavior.Archi-

tecturally,

such

plans do

not

require

drastic

modifications

f

existing

organizations, nd

their

objectives

could

probably

be met

by

changes

n

personnel

at

high

organizational

evels.

More

unorthodox,

but

swiftly

gaining

ac-

ceptance, s

the

concept

of a

centralized

overn-

mental

complaint

bureau,

clothed

with

legal

powers

of

investigation, o

look

into

citizen

complaints

against

administrative

gencies

and

to correct

nequities

and

abuses-the

officeof

ombudsman. Once, it was chiefly

through

his

representativen

the

appropriate

egislative

body,

or

through

he

local

unit

of his

political

party, hat

a

citizen

of

modest

status

and

means



5/14

6

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW

petitioned or a remedyof

a grievance.But pro-

fessionalizationof administration nd the in-

sulationof bureaucratsrom

partypoliticshave

reduced he ability of the partiesto be of real

help, and the constituencies f legislatorshave

grown so large that they rarely intervene in

more than a pro

forma

fashion on behalf of

most

individual

constituents.

Today, some ob-

servers contend that only a specialized, full-

time official, wise in the ways of bureaucracy,

having a vested nterest n

correcting ts errors,

and supportedby adequate taff and authority,

can

perform his function

effectively; pparent-

ly, it takes a bureaucrato controla bureaucrat.

Advocatesof this proposed

new agencydefend

it on the grounds that it would constitute a

channel of representationor people who now

have

no satisfactory lternative.

The most sweepingexpressionof

the

unrest

over lack of representativeness

s

the growing

demand or extremeadministrative ecentraliza-

tion, frequently oupled

with

insistenceon local

clienteledomination f the

decentralized rgani-

zations. Dramaticmanifestations f

this

move-

ment

occurred

n

the

antipoverty rogramand

in

education.

In the antipoverty rogramheoriginal egis-

lation included

a

provision

hat communityac-

tion

be

developed,

conducted,

and adminis-

tered

with maximum easible participationof

residents

of

the areas

and members of the

groups served. Initially

by interpretationof

the Office

of Economic

Opportunity,

nd

later

by statute,

he

provision

was

construed

o mean

that community

action

boards

should

try

to

allot some of

their chairs to the

poor,

so that

the poor would have a voice in the highest

policy

councils of

the

community programs.

Whatever he original

ntent of

the

drafters

of

the

phrase (about

which there s some

disagree-

ment),

it has come

to mean the

program

s

to

be

run

in substantial

degree by

the

poor,

not

merelyfor

the

poor.8

In

public

education

the new trend

is ex-

emplifiedby

recent

events

in New York

City.

During 1967,

demands

or

decentralization

f

the

municipal

school

system gathered

force

swiftly: Leadersin the state legislatureurged

it. Three separatepublic

reports

recommended

it

in the

strongestpossible

terms. The

mayor

endorsed

the

principle unequivocally.

When

concrete

proposals

were introduced

into the

legislature

he following

year, however,

vehe-

ment

opposition

from

the teachers'

union, the

schooladministrators'

ssociation,

and

the

City

Boardof Educationresulted n modification f

manyof

the provisions

he objectors

ound

un-

acceptable.

The

measure

ultimately

enacted

emerged

weaker

than

the plans

favored

by

the

advocates

of decentralization,

ut it was

a

major

step

in their direction;

he thrust toward

de-

centralization

and

neighborhood

control

of

schools

was

slowed

but not

stopped,

and re-

sistance,

however

determined

and forceful,

seemed

destined

o give

way

over a broad

ront.

The outcry

has not

been

limited

to the

war

on povertyand to education. t was takenup in

public

housing

when the

Secretary

of

Housing

and Urban

Development

unveiled

a program

to modernize

ow-rent

projects

hat

included

an

augmented

ole for tenants

n

their operation.9

At

a meeting

of

the American

Institute

of

Planners,

a dissenting

roup,

calling

tself Plan-

ners

for Equal

Opportunity,

emanded

a

larger

place for

the poor

in city

planning,

and

ex-

horted

its

members

to

engage

in advocate

planning,

which is

to say

expert

counsel

for

neighborhood ssociations nhappywithofficial

plans

for

renewal

in their

areas.

New

York

City

recentlybegan

experimenting

with

a

pro-

cess of affiliating

ts public

hospitals

with

voluntary

hospitals

that

would

be responsible

for

their

administration, plan

that would

pre-

sumably

include

lay

boards representing

he

community

served by

each

institution,

and

its

Police

Department

s

cooperating

with

experi-

mental

community

security

patrols

of locally

recruitedyoungpeople. Similarly,a neighbor-

hood

council

in

Washington,

D.C.,

asked

for

more

citizen

control

over police,

either

in

the

form

of

local

police

aides

or resurrection

of

the auxiliarypolice

force

used

here in

World

War

II.

The

American

Assembly,

assessing

the

role

of

law in

a

changing

society,

called

for

development

of

rapid

procedures

at the

neighborhood

level

. .

.

to adjudicate

disputes

over

simple

transactions.

0

In

response

to

the Poor People's

Campaign

n

Washington,

Five agencies-Health, Educationand Wel-

fare,

Agriculture,

Labor,

Housing

and

Urban

Development

and

the

Office

of Economic

Op-

portunity-said

they

would

review

their

plans

JANUARY

/ FEBRUARY

1969



6/14

ALIENATION,

DECENTRALIZATION,

AND

PARTICIPATION

7

to involve

poor people

themselves

in

local

decisions

affectingwelfare, food, employment,

housing and other

antipovertyprograms.

1

The movement is not confined to

public

agencies; t reaches into collegesand universi-

ties,

where

students,

often

by

direct

action,

have been

asserting a

claim to

participation

in

the policies

of

these institutions-one

activist

reportedly oing

so

far

as to

predict hat

Ameri-

can universities will soon resemble

Latin

American institutions, n which students

hire

and fire professorsand determine he curricula.

A

sociologist recently suggestedestablishment

of closed-circuit elevision tations n which the

neighborhood

istenersmight controlprogram-

ming.12

In the Roman CatholicArchdioceseof

New York, a committeeof priests

presenteda

petition

o the

archbishop-designateequesting,

among other things, a voice in the

selection

of

auxiliary

bishops

and other

high officials,

and

establishment f a Pastoral

Council of priests,

nuns, and laymen to be consulted in

advance

on

projected

programs

and

budgets,

a

request

to which he

partiallyacceded on

taking

office.

Later, priests formed a national

organization,

the

National

Federation

of

PriestsCouncils,to

seek a stronger voice in church affairs. In

Washington,

D.C., classes at a high school were

suspended

n

the

face of a

boycott by

students

demanding a

real say on what goes on inside

the school.

But

it is in

the government phere

that the

tendencyhas been winningwidest

endorsement.

Indeed, some of

our general forms of govern-

ment,

as

well as specific agencies,

have come

under attack.

The

presidentof the American

Political Science Association, for example, in

his

1967 presidential

ddress,'3

aisedquestions

about

the

compatibility

f

largeunits

of

govern-

ment-national, state, and urban-with

the

principles

of

democracy. Searching or a

unit

large enough

to avoid triviality yet small

enough

so

that citizens

can

participateexten-

sively,

he

suggested

50,000 to 200,000 as

the

optimum

ize

range

for

democratic

ity

govern-

ments.

Moreover,

he

concluded that even in

polities

of this

size, participation

s

reduced

for most people to nothing more than voting

in

elections,

and he therefore commended

experimentation

to

decentralize

power and

authority

till

further

n

order o discover

viable

JANUARY /

FEBRUARY 1969

smallerunits within which citizens

can

from

time to time

formulate

nd

express

heir

desires,

consult with officials,and

in some

cases

par-

ticipate even

more fully

in decisions.

Similarly, he AdvisoryCommissionon In-

tergovernmentalRelations

in

Washington,

at

almost the

same

time,

was

recommending

hat

Neighborhood nitiative and self-respect

be

fostered

by authorizing

ounties

and

large

cities

to

establish, and at their discretion

o

abolish,

neighborhoodsubunits endowed

with limited

powers

of

taxation

and

local self-government. ''4

At Ithaca, N.Y., the

Office of

Regional

Re-

sourcesand Development oncluded hatlarger

metropolitancenters should

be decentralized

becausethey have reacheda point at which it

is almost

mpossible o deal with

human

prob-

lems on a humanscale, and called

for

investi-

gation of

strategies

or

more

effective

use of

cities with

50,000 to 500,000 residents-pro-

posals that won the editorialplaudits of

The

Washington Post.15

A

meeting of Americans for Democratic

Action

was warned

by

Daniel P.

Moynihan,

an

outspoken

liberal, that Liberals

must divest

themselvesof the notion that the nation, espe-

cially the cities of the nation,can be run from

agencies in

Washington.'6 Senator Robert F.

Kennedy,

campaigning

for

the Democratic

presidential

omination n Los Angeles, prom-

ised audiences a revolution n the distribution

of

political

power that would, among other

things,

reduce the authority of the federal

bureaucracy

n

Washington.

I

want, he said,

the control

over your destiniesto be decided

by

the

people

in

Watts,

not

by those of us who

are in Washington.

7

RichardM. Nixon sim-

ilarly urged the federal government o relin-

quish

some of

its powers to state and local

governments, oluntaryassociations,and indi-

viduals,

saying, One reason people are shout-

ing so loudly today is that it's far from where

they

are

to where

he power s, and that power

should be

brought closer to them rather than

exercised

from

remote

centers. In

important

respects, the Heller-Pechman lan rests partly

on the

premise

hat

federal

surpluses houldbe

sharedwith states and cities in time of peace

because

they can be more effectivelyspent by

the smaller

units

of

government han by Wash-

ington

directly. 8



7/14

8

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW

In short, decentralization

f

administration

is

in the

air everywhere.19

While

it is

some-

times

defended

on

grounds

of

efficiency,

t

is

more

frequently

ustified

n

terms,

of effective

popular

participation

n government.

Reform-

ers

of earlier

generations

ucceeded

n

raising

the level

of

expertise

and

professionalism

n the

bureaucracies,

nd

to

a lesser

extent,

n

improv-

ing capacity

of chief

executives

to

control

the

administrative

rms

of government.

Now,

peo-

ple

are

once again

turning

their

attention

to

representativeness,

nd are

trying

to

elevate

it

to

a

more prominent

place

in the

governmental

scheme

of

things.

The ContinuingSearchfor Leadership

Public

bureaucracies

re

under

fire

not only

from critics

outside

the

machinery

of govern-

ment,

but also

from inside.

Chief

executives

who once

championed

measures

o insulate

he

bureaucracies

rom

partisan

politics

as steps

toward

enlarging

their own

control

over

ad-

ministrative gencies

discovered

hat

these

mea-

sures

did not

make the

agencies

morerespon-

sive

to executive

direction;

rather,

they

in-

creased agency independence.This indepen-

dence,

in

turn,

makes it difficult

or the execu-

tives

to secure

enthusiastic

adoption

of

new

approaches

o

socialproblems;

money pumped

into

new

programs

administered

y

established

agencies

tends

to be used

more for

intensifica-

tion

of

traditionalways

of

operating

han

for

inventive

departures

from

familiar

patterns.

Furthermore,

t

results

n

massive

problems

of

coordination

of

effort,

and

even

in

dissipation

of energies in interbureaurivalries. Conse-

quently,

ust

as

segments

of the

public

are

upset

by

the alleged

unresponsiveness

f

administra-

tion

to their

demands,

so

chief executives

have

been

increasingly

concerned

about

the

unre-

sponsiveness

f

agencies

o

their

leadership.

We

may

therefore

ook

forward

o new

waves

of

administrativeeorganization

roposals.

One

principal

thrust

of

the

movement

will,

as

in

the past,

be towardrationalizing,

nlarging,

nd

strengthening

he

executive-office

taffs

of

the

heads of governmentalunits at all levels, and

toward

building

up

the

staffs

of the

administra-

tors

who

report

directly

to the heads.

More

and

more,

chief

executives

will reach

out

for

new devices

to

coordinate

policy

decisions,

to

work

up fresh

programs

o deal

with emergent

problems,

and to

maintain

the

momentum

of

innovations

adopted.20

Executive

offices

will

be redesigned;

he U.S.

Bureau

of the

Budget,

for example,

has only

recently

undergone

a

majorreorganization.21

New vigor

will be

ap-

pliedto

the

exploration

f superdepartments,

with

the Department

f

Defense

as a prototype;

Mayor Lindsay,

for instance,

has expended

much

political

capital

on introducing

his

con-

cept into

the

government

of

New York

City.

Programming-planning-budgeting

ystems,

in

many

variants,

will

continue

o spread.22

here

will be

a new

burst

of literature

calling

atten-

tion to the relativepowerlessness f our highest

public

executives.23

Another

stream

of recommendations

will

urge

strengthening

xecutive

eadership

hrough

what its

advocates

will

call

decentralization,

but which,

in fact,

is better

characterized

as

organization

y area

as opposed

to

the present

almost

exclusive

organization

y

functional

de-

partments

and bureaus.24

The justification

or

it

will be couched

in terms

of

efficiency-the

need

to speed

decisions

in

the

field

without

referralo headquartersndwithout oss of co-

ordination

among

field personnel

in different

bureaus.

The consequences

will extend

further,

however,

because

areal

officers

in

the

field

would

give

top executives

ines

of communica-

tion

and

control

alternative

o existing

func-

tional

channels,

thus actually

strengthening

centralauthority.

At

the federal

evel,

this

will

mean renewed

attempts

o

set

up

much

stronger

regional

representatives

f the

heads of

cabinet

departments

han any

we

have

had

in

the

past.

It

will also

mean

intensified

fforts

o establish

regional

presidential

representatives

in

the

field.25Similarly,

we

may

anticipategovernors

and

their

department

heads

will

follow

the

same strategies

with

respect

to

regions

within

the states.

At the

local

level,

Mayor

Lindsay

has already

sought-with

very

limited

success

-to

win

approval

or

little

city

halls

hrough-

out

New

York.

Distinctively

American

versions

of the

European

prefect

may yet

make

an

appearance.

In

short,

dissatisfaction

with

public

bureau-

cracies

will furnish

ammunition

for the

de-

fenders

of

executive

leadership

as well

as

for

JANUARY

/

FEBRUARY

1969



8/14

ALIENATION,

DECENTRALIZATION,

AND PARTICIPATION

9

the proponentsof increased

representation

f

the consumers

of

public

services.

The

bureau-

cracies will

be pressed

from both

above

and

below.

Conflict and

Coalition

Sources

of

Conflict

It has

long been recognized hat

muchpublic

policy is

shaped argelyby

clustersof

bureaus,

their

organized

clienteles,

and

legislative

com-

mittees

and

legislators pecializing

n

each

pub-

lic function

6

-health,

education,welfare,etc.

The

arguments

or

strengthening

hief

execu-

tives and

their

department

heads vis-a-vis

the

clusters are basedchieflyon the need to offset

the

resultingfragmentation

f

government

by

introducing ufficient

entral direction

o

unify

the

policies

and administration

f

these

separate

centers

of

power.The

arguments

or

new modes

of

participation y the

public

in these

centers

rest on the

convictionthat hitherto

excluded

and

unorganized nterests

have little

to

say

about

decisions

that affect them

profoundly.

But it is

most unlikely that

the arguments

of

either kind will be warmlyreceivedby those

already

n

key positions n

each decisioncenter.

They

will

resist not

simply

out of abstract

jealousy

of their own

power

or

stubborn

un-

willingness o share their influence with

each

other, thoughthese

motives

will

doubtlessnot

be

absent.They

will

oppose because,

in

addi-

tion, the proposed

reforms threaten those

values which present

arrangementsprotect.

Bureau

chiefs

and

the

organizedbureaucracies

perceive interventionby

political executivesas

the intrusion of partisan politics into fields

from

which

doctrine has for many

years held

that

politics

should

be

excluded; they see

jeopardy or

the competence

nurtured o care-

fully

and

painfully against

political distortion

or

extinction.Similarly,opening

the system to

lay members

of local communities

ooks like

a

negation

of the

expertisebuiltup

by the spe-

cialist.

Legislators

regard strong

regional of-

ficials

responsiveto

chief

executives and their

cabinetsas

executiveattempts o

invade egisla-

tive districtsandusurp the representativeunc-

tion

of

legislativebodies. In like

fashion, local

control of

administrative rogramscould con-

ceivably weaken

the representative

basis of

JANUARY

FEBRUARY1969

legislative nstitutions,a development hat men

of

goodwill may

fear

for quite public-spirited

reasons.

So

the champions

f executive

eadership

nd

the evangelistsof expandedrepresentativeness

have many obstacles to

overcome before

they

have their respectiveways.

For

example,

Con-

gress has been cautious

about

presidential

e-

commendations

f

added

funds and

personnel

for the heads of cabinet departments,

nd

has

always looked with suspicion

on so

relatively

innocuous an innovation as field

offices for

the

Bureau

of

the

Budget.27

The Office

of

EconomicOpportunityn the Executive

Office

of the

President

lwaysoperated hiefly hrough

establishedbureaus and engagedin indepen-

dent

administration

nly

in

limited

ways; gra-

dually, through

delegation,

t has

been relin-

quishing

its control

over programs

to

the

bureausand the

future

of

even

those

few

pro-

grams it managesdirectly s uncertain.More-

over,

its

community-actionprogram

aroused

resentmentamong

both congressmenand local

executives, to whom the action

agencies ap-

peared

as

springboards

or

political rivals;

consequently, legislation

in

1967

authorized

greatercontrolof the agenciesby local govern-

ments.

In

New York City, the mayor's little

city halls,

which he

presented

as

a device

for

bringing hepeople

andtheirgovernment loser

together,were

soundly

defeated

by a City Coun-

cil

(dominatedby theoppositeparty) denounc-

ing the plan as a strategy

or

establishing oliti-

cal

clubhouses hroughout he city at publicex-

pense.28And, when the

plan

for

school

decen-

tralization ppeared,

he largest eachers'union

and the Board of Education-which not long

before had

been at eachother's hroats n labor

disputes-each

took a

similar irmstandagainst

it.

In

Board-sponsored

xperimentswith com-

munity control of schools in Harlem and in

Brooklyn, he community eaders and the head

of

the

same teachers'union

engaged

n

acrimo-

nious

battles with each other. The reformers

are not

having

an

easy time of

it.

A

Coalition

of

Executives

To advance heircause, troubled hief execu-

tives at all levels, all

suffering imilarfrustra-

tions,

could

conceivablymake common cause

with

one another.

Thus, the Presidentmay well



9/14

10

PUBLIC

ADMINISTRATION

REVIEW

find t strategically

dvantageous

o build

closer

ties

with governors

and big-city

mayors

than

was ever

the case

before.

Congress

would

find

it

more uncomfortable

o resist

presidential

demands or creationof strong ieldrepresenta-

tives

with

jurisdiction

ver

bureau

ield person-

nel if

state

and local

officials

n their

own

home

areas

support

he demands

han

f the

President

alone

advances

hem.

And

thesestate

and

local

officials

may be

receptive

o such

an association

because

the fragmentation

f the system

is

as

vexingto

them

as it is

to the

President

him-

self.

Gubernatorial

and big-city

mayoral

vexa-

tions

spring

from three

sources.

First, proce-

dures n manyintergovernmentalrogramsare

irritatingly

low;

it often

takes

months-some-

times

more

than

a year, in

fact-to

get

deci-

sions

on

projects

and financing

from

federal

agencies,

partly

because so

much

business

is

referred

o

Washington

or

approval.29

o

be

sure, state

and

municipal

executives

have

no

wish

to speed

negative

decisions

on

their re-

quests,

but hanging

decisions

are even

worse;

they

can neither

plan

programs

nor

try

to get

the

decisions

reversed. They

can

only

wait

while dangerouspressuresbuild up in their

jurisdictions,

and

whole

networks

of inter-

related

programs

are slowed

or

brought

to a

halt.

Second, procedures

are

often

labyrinthine

and

uncoordinated,30

o

that

it

takes

specialists

to keep

track of

terminaldates,

filling

of

ap-

plications

for renewal

of

grants,

compliance

with

accountingrequirements,

meshing

of

sep-

arate

grants

n individual

projects,

and

explana-

tions of variations n allowances(such as dif-

ferences

n relocation

allowances

or businesses

and

individual

enants

moved

for

highway

con-

struction

on the

one

hand

and

urban renewal

on

the

other),

that bewilder

and

annoy

the

public.

These

intricacies

almost

paralyze

action

at the

grassroots,

and divert

needed

manpower

from

substantive program

operations

to

ad-

ministrative

outine.

Third,

federal

grants

for

very specific

pur-

poses

encourage

a

tendency

toward what

the

1955 Commissionon IntergovernmentalRe-

lations

referred

o

as

a more

or less

indepen-

dent

government

f their

own

on

the

part

of

functional

pecialists

at all levels

of

government

who

are only

nominally

under the control

of

their

respective

chief

executives.31

n

point

of

fact, the

chief

executives

are apparently

educed

in many

instances

o

virtually

ceremonial

rati-

ficationof the intergovernmentalrrangements

worked

out by

such

specialists,

andto the

most

superficial

oversight

of

the administration

f

the

arrangements.

So governors

and big-citymayors

have

rea-

son to

applaud

the

introduction

of

federal

regional

officers

with authority

o rationalize

he

actions

of

federal ield

personnel

n the

bureaus.

For reasons

of

their

own, they

may well

find

the prefecturall

pattern

of

organization,

which, as

we have

seen,

will

suggest

tself

ever

more nsistentlyo the President, oincideswith

their

own

preferences.

This

congruence

of presidential,

guberna-

torial,

and mayoral

interests

is not

entirely

speculative;

ndications

of

it have

already

ap-

peared.

Late

in

1966,

for example,

President

Johnson

sent

to

a number

of his

top

officials

a

memorandum

2

directing

hat

federal

assistance

programs

be

worked

out

and

planned

in a

cooperative

spirit

with those

chief

officials

of

State,

county

and

local

governments

who

are

answerableo the citizens.To the fullest prac-

tical extent,

I want

you

to

take steps

to

afford

representatives

f the

Chief

Executives

of State

and

local governments

he

opportunity

o ad-

vise and

consult

n the

development

nd execu-

tion of

programs

which

directly

affect

the

con-

duct

of

State

and local

affairs.

A

few

months

later,

to implement

he

President's

memoran-

dum,

the

Bureau

of the Budget

issued

a cir-

cular

3

spelling

out procedures

or

consulta-

tion,and dentifying s one of itscentralpolicies

the requirement

hat

The

central

coordinating

role

of

heads

of State

and

local governments,

including

heir

role

of initiating

and

developing

State

and

local

programs,

will

be

supported

nd

strengthened.

Meanwhile,

ormer

FloridaGov-

ernor

Farris

Bryant,

director

of

the

Office

of

Emergency

Planning

in

the

Executive

Office

of

the

President,

was

leading

teams

of

federal

officials

o

40

state

capitals

or discussions

with

governors

nd other

state

administrators;34

ice

PresidentHumphreywas conducting program

of

visits

and discussions

with mayors,

county

officers,

and

other

local executives;

5

and

the

President

was

formulating

and

announcing

a

JANUARY

/

FEBRUARY

1969



10/14

ALIENATION, DECENTRALIZATION, AND

PARTICIPATION 11

plan

to assign

each

member of his

cabinet

responsibilityor

liaison with four

or five

states,

with

nstructions

o

maintainpersonalcontact

between

the

Governors

and

the

White

House. 6

And

in

early

1968,

the

Advisory

Commission on IntergovernmentalRelations

recommended

hat:

1. Coordination

of

Federal

grant

programs

being

administeredby a

variety of Federal

departments

and

agencies

be

strengthened

through the

Executive

Office

of

the

President;

2. The

authority to review

and

approve plans de-

veloped

as a

condition of

Federal

formula-type grants

to

State and

local

governments be

decentralized

to

Federal

regional

offices and

wide

variations in boun-

daries of

Federal

administrative

regions be

reduced.37

An alliance of public chief executives is

already

taking

shape.

The

Confluenceof

Representativeness

nd

Leadership

At the

same

time,

groups

clamoring

or local

control

of

administrative

rograms,

onfronted

with

the

suspicion and

resentmentof

bureau-

cracies and

their

legislativeand

interest-group

allies,

will

probablydiscover

hat they

get

their

most

sympathetic

hearings

from

chief

execu-

tives,

especially

rom

big-citymayors.

For

such

groups

can

provide

the

executive with

the

counterweightso the

bureaucracies:

hey

con-

stitute

an

alternative channel

of

information

about

administrative

performance,

reducing ex-

ecutive

dependence on

the

bureaucracies

on the

one

hand

and

on

the

mass

media

(with their

bias toward

he

sensational)

on

the

other. The

groups

are a

constituency hat can

be

mobilized

to

help

exert

leverageon

bureaucracies esistant

to executiveleadership.They furnish a direct

conduit

to

localities from the

executive man-

sions.

They can

serve as

the

nuclei of

discrete,

executive-oriented

campaign

organizations.

Chief

executives

probably

couldnot

create

the

groups

if

they set out

deliberately

o

do

so,

but it

would

be

surprising

if

they

did

not even-

tually perceive the

advantages of

collaborating

with them

now

that

a

variety

of

complaints

has

brought he

groups

spontaneously

nto being.

It

will be

an

uneasy,

mutually

wary

relation-

ship. To neighborhoodand communityasso-

ciations,

he

paradox

of

turning o

remote

chief

executives

in

a

quest for

local

control will

be

disturbing.

To

chief

executives, the

risk of

JANUARY

/

FEBRUARY

1969

opening a

Pandora'sbox and

releasing

uncon-

trollable

disintegrative

orces

will

give

pause.

Yet each can

gain

so much from

an

alliance

with

the other

that it is hard

to avoid

the

feeling

the

attractions

will

overcome

the

anxie-

ties. I do not mean to implythe alliancewill

be

formal or

structured.

I

mean

only

to

sug-

gest each

side will turn

to

the other as

appro-

priate

occasions

arise,

and that the

occasions

will

arise with

increasing

requency

n

the

years

ahead. In

this

way,

the new voices

of

repre-

sentatives

and

the more familiar

voices of

executive

eadership

will

be

joined

n

a

common

challenge

o those who

speak

for neutral

com-

petence and for

older institutions

of

repre-

sentation.

The

SubsequentPhase

of the

Cycle

So

it

seems

reasonable to

anticipate

that

decentralization f

two

types

will

indeed

occur:

concessionswill

be madeto the

demands

for

greater ocal

influence

on

public

programs,

and there will

be

some

headway

toward

estab-

lishing

territorial

officers

with at

least

limited

authority

over field

personnel

of

the

functional

bureaus.

It

will not

take

long for

the

price of

these

changes to make itself

felt.

Decentralization

will

soon be

followed

by

disparities

n

practice

among

he

numerous

mall

units,broughton

by

differences

n

human and

financial

resources,

that

will

engender

demands

or

central

nterven-

tion

to

restore

equality

and

balance and

con-

certed

action;the

factors

underlying he

move-

ment

toward

metropolitan

nits of

government

and

toward

conditional

federal

grants-in-aid

will, in otherwords,reassertthemselves. De-

centralizationwill

stand

in

the

way of

other

goals,

such as

school

integration

as did

states'

rights

doctrines n

other

times). It

will give

rise

to

competition

amongthe

units

that will

be

disastrous or

many of

them,

which will

find

it

more

difficult to

attract

talent

and

money

than

others

that start

from a

more

advanta-

geous

position.

In

some units,

strong

factions

may

well

succeed

in

reviving a

new

spoils

system, thus lowering he qualityof some vital

services.

Decentralizationf

public

administra-

tion

will

not

necessarily

be

accompanied

by

decentralization f

the

other

institutions

with



11/14

12


REVIEW

which public

units deal, such as unions of

public

employees, so that the local units may

find themselves at a serious

disadvantage in

negotiations and

unable to resist the pressures

of special interests. Economies of scale, which

are admittedly

overstated very frequently,

nevertheless do

exist, and the

multiplication

of

overhead costs

in

local units will

divert some

resources from

substantive programs to admin-

istrative

housekeeping. Initially,

all

these costs

will

be regardedby those concerned

with repre-

sentativeness as well worth

paying, but the

accumulation of such grievances over time

will

inspire a

clamor for unification

and

consoli-

dation.38

Similarly, area officials reporting directly to

chief executives will

soon develop

autonomous

bases of political power in the regions

to which

they are assigned. Rapid rotation from

area

to area will

help to reduce their independence,

but

the rate

of

rotation will decline

because

each new

assignment will necessitate a period

of

familiarization

with the new

territory during

which actions

and decisions are held in abey-

ance,

and

because local

interests,

having

estab-

lished

comparatively stable relationships with

their regional officers, will protest and resist

frequent transfers. As

the regional officers get

more and more

involved

in

regional complexes,

they

will

become more

and

more

ambassadors

from

the regions

to

the chief executives instead

of the executives' men

in the

regions.39

Regional

differences and

competition

will

become sources

of irritation

and

controversy. Moreover,

regional posts may

become

convenient and

effective

springboards

to

elective

office. At

first these dangers will seem remote and there-

fore less

important

than

the

immediate

gains,

but time is

likely

to reverse

the

balance.

So

the

wave of reform after the one now

in

progress

will

rally

under

a

banner

of earlier

days: Take administration

out

of politics and

politics out of

administration. Disappointed

partisans

of

the

current movement

on

behalf

of

representativeness, having

won some of their

points,

will

acquiesce

in

the efforts of

a

new

generation

of

idealists to

elevate the

quality,

the consistency, the impartiality, the morale,

and the

devotion

to

duty

of

bureaucrats

by

strengthening

and

broadening

central control

and

supervision. Chief

executives

anxious to

regain

command

of

the administrative

ield

forces in

each

of their

regions

will

rediscover

the

virtues

of strong

central

direction

of

those

forces by

functional

administrative

agencies

whosechiefsidentifywiththe executives,40

nd

whose

standards

an

be applied

even-handedly

everywhere.

From

above

and below,

to

escape

the

distortions

of purpose

nflicted

by the

vig-

orous factional

politics

of localities

and

regions

(as they

once

sought

to

free themselves

from

the toils

of

self-seeking

factions

in

state

and

congressional

district

politics),

the apostles

of

good

government

will

turn

back to

insulating

the bureaucracies

against

such

political

heat.

The

neutrality

and

independence

of

the

civil

servicewill againbe extolled.

It should

not

be inferred

hatthe process

is

fruitless

because

the

succession

of

values

is

repetitive.

Wheels

turning

on

their own

axes

do advance.

Each

time

the

balance

among

the

values

is

redressed,

only to

require

redress

again,

some

new accommodation

among

the

myriad

nterests

n the society

is reached.

Precisely

what

shape

the

subsequent

resur-

gence

of

neutral

competence

will take

in the

years

beyond,

t is

impossible

o prophesy

now.

But if the hypothesized ycle of valuesis at all

valid,

theIn

strange

as it

may

seem

to this

generation

of reformers,

nnovatorsof

tomor-

row will

defend

many

of

the very

institutions

(as transformed

n the course

of current

con-

troversies)

under

attack

today.

And many

a

forgotten

tome and

obscure

article

on public

administration,

ong gathering

dust

on unpa-

tronizedshelves

and

in

unopened

files,

will be

resurrected

nd praised

or its

prescience,

only

to subside again

into temporary

imbo when

another

urnof

the

wheel

ends its

brief

moment

of

revived

relevance.

Notes

1. Paul H.

Appleby, Big Democracy

(New

York:

Knopf, 1945).

Actually, the

dedication

was To

John Citizen

and

Bill Bureaucrat.

2. Herbert

Kaufman, Emerging

Conflicts

in the

Doctrines of Public

Administration,

American

Political Science

Review,

Vol.

50,

No. 4

(De-

cember 1956),

p. 1073.

3.

U.S. Bureau

of

the

Census, 1967 Census

of Gov-

ernments,

Volume 6, Popularly

Elected Officials

of State

and Local Governments,

pp.

1

ff.

JANUARY

/ FEBRUARY 1969



12/14

ALIENATION, DECENTRALIZATION,

AND

PARTICIPATION

13

4.

Avery Leiserson,

Administrative

Regulation:

A

Study in

Representation

of

Group

Interests

(Chi-

cago:

The

University

of

Chicago

Press,

1942).

5. See,

for

instance, the

criticism

of

professional

bureaucracy and

the demand

for

public partici-

pation in

resource

management

decisions

by

Yale Law School Professor Charles A. Reich in

his

Bureaucracy and

the Forests

(Santa

Barbara,

Calif.: Center for

the Study

of

Democratic Insti-

tutions,

1962).

6.

For

example,

The New York

Times

reported

on

November

29, 1967, that

A [New York

City]

citizen

group demanded

yesterday

that

a

Negro

and a

Puerto Rican

be named

to

the

city's

nine-

man Community

Mental Health

Board. And

a

high-ranking city

antipoverty administrator

(sus-

pended

for

failing

to

file

tax

returns)

went on a

hunger

strike

to

dramatize

his demand that

Puerto

Ricans

be

named to the

Board of

Education, the

State Board of

Regents,the

citywide

Model

Cities

Advisory

Committee, the

Civil Service

Commis-

sion,

and

the City

Housing

Authority (The

New

York

Times, June

29, 1968).

7.

Walter

Gellhorn,

When

Americans

Complain

(Cambridge: Harvard

University

Press, 1966),

and

Ombudsmen and Others

(Cambridge:

Har-

vard

University Press,

1966); Stanley

Anderson

(ed.),

Ombudsmen

for

American

Government

(Englewood Cliffs,

N.J.:

Prentice-Hall,

1968).

8.

See the

article by S. M.

Miller this

symposium.

9. The New

York

Times,

November 18, 1967.

John

W. Gardner, former Secretary of Health, Edu-

cation,

and

Welfare,

and

currently chairman

of

the Urban

Coalition, went

even

further and

urged

a

larger

role for

Negroes

in

helping solve

the urban

crisis

generally (The New York

Times,

May 6,

1968).

10. Report

of the

American

Assembly on Law

and

the

ChangingSociety

(Chicago: Center

for Con-

tinuing Education,

University of

Chicago,

March

14-17,

1968).

11.

The

New York

Times,

June 30, 1968.

12.

Seymour J.

Mandelbaum,

Spatial and

Temporal

Perspectives

in

the

U.S.

City,

mimeo., (Univer-

sity of Pennsylvania, 1968).

13.

Robert A.

Dahl, The

City in the

Future of

Democracy, American Political

Science

Re-

view, Vol.

61, No. 4

(December

1967), pp.

967,

969.

14.

Advisory

Commission

on

Intergovernmental

Re-

lations,

Ninth Annual

Report

(Washington,

D.C.:

the

Commission, 1968),

p.

21.

15. The

Washington

Post,

October

10,

1967.

16. The New York

Times,

September 24,

1967.

But

he

criticized school

decentralization a short time

later

(The

New York

Times,

June

5, 1968).

17. The

WashingtonPost, March

26,

1968.

See

also

the argumentsof a former foreign service officer

for

dismantling

the

present

overgrown

bureau-

cratic

apparatus

n

Washington,

Gordon

Tullock,

The

Politics

of

Bureaucracy

(Washington,

D.C.:

Public Affairs

Press, 1965),

chapter

25. That

liberals have thus

adopted a position

taken

by

conservatives in

New

Deal

days

is an

irony to

which attention has

been drawn by James Q.

Wilson, The

Bureaucracy Problem,

The Public

Interest,

Vol. 2, No. 6 (Winter

1967), pp. 3-4.

Note the similarities

between the

new

liberal

language and the position of former Governor

George

C. Wallace of Alabama:

I

would,

he

said,

bring all those briefcase-toting

bureaucrats

in

the Department of

Health, Education,

and

Welfare to Washington

and throw their briefcases

in the

Potomac

River....

The New York

Times,

February

9, 1968. His attack on

bureaucrats

is,

of

course, based on

their zeal

in defense of

civil

rights;

the liberals'

indictment

is

constructed

on a

diametrically opposite

appraisal.

The

im-

pulse toward

decentralization thus comes

from

both

the

political right

and the

political

left

for

entirely different

reasons-but with combined

force.

18.

Revenue

sharing expresses the traditional faith

most of

us have in pluralism and

decentralization.

.

. .

Walter

W. Heller

and

Joseph

A.

Pechman,

Questions

and Answers in Revenue

Sharing

(Washington, D.C.:

The Brookings Institution,

1967), p.

12.

19.

Like all slogans, it

means different things to

different

people, however.

It is a much

more

complex

and

ambiguous concept

than it

seems;

see

note

24, below.

20.

The Executive Office of

the President

was

created

in 1939, when the federal budget was under $9

billion. It

has grown since, but not

nearly

as

much as

the budget, now 15

times larger and

many hundreds of

times more complex. Some

reorderingseems almost

inevitable.

21.

U.S. Bureau of the

Budget, Work of the Steer-

ing

Group

on

Evaluation

of

the Bureau of the

Budget:

A Staff Study, July 1967.

The reorga-

nization took

effect shortly

afterwards.

22.

The

origins of PPBS are many

and varied; see

Allen Schick, The

Road to PPB, PUBLIC AD-

MINISTRATION

REVIEW, Vol. 26,

No.

4

(Decem-

ber 1966), pp. 243-258. But it was the system's

utility

to

the Secretary of

Defense from 1961 on

in

gaining control of

his own

department that

gave

widespread currency

to

the idea and

in-

duced the President to

make

it

governmentwide

in

1965; see U.S.

Senate,

90th

Congress,

1st

Session

(1967), Committee

on

Government Op-

erations,

Subcommittee on

National

Security

and

International

Operations, Program-Planning-

Budgeting:

Official

Documents,

pp.

1-6, and Pro-

gram-Planning-Budgeting:Hearings,

Part

I (Au-

gust 23,

1967). This new impetus

will doubtless

lead to

adaptive imitation in other

governments.

23. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days

(Boston: Houghton

Mifflin, 1965),

pp.

679-680,

reports,

he

[President

Kennedy]

had to

get

the

government

moving.

He came to the White

House

at a

time

when

the

ability

of

the

President to do

JANUARY

/ FEBRUARY 1969



13/14

14


REVIEW

this had suffered steady constriction. The cliches

about the 'most powerful office on earth' had con-

cealed the extent to which the mid-century Pres-

idents had much less freedom of action than,

say, Jackson or Lincoln or even Franklin Roose-

velt. No doubt the mid-century Presidents could

blow up the world, but at the same time they

were increasingly hemmed in by the growing

power of the bureaucracy and of Congress. The

President understood this. Similarly, President

Johnson's assistant for domestic programs,Joseph

A. Califano, Jr., recently complained publicly

of

the limitations of presidentialpower, observing

that the powers of the office have not kept pace

with its growing responsibilities;The Washington

Post, May 6, 1968.

24. James W. Fesler, Area and Administration (Uni-

versity, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1949),

especially pp. 8-18, and Approaches to the

Understanding of Decentralization, Journal of

Politics, Vol. 27, No. 3 (August 1965), pp.

557-561. See also the essay by John D. Millett,

Field Organization and Staff Supervision, in

New

Horizons in Public Administration:

A

Sym-

posium (University, Ala.: University of Alabama

Press, 1945), pp. 98-118.

25.

Fesler, op. cit., pp.

88-89.

Fesler's writing

on

this

subject anticipated long

in advance the

problems that were

to

engender

a

more general

awareness when programs of the New

Frontier

and the

Great Society

overwhelmed the adminis-

trative machinery.

26. See J. Leiper Freeman, The Political Process:

Executive Bureau-Legislative Committee Rela-

tions

(New York: Random House, revised edi-

tion, 1965),

and

the

works

therein

cited

in

chapter one.

27. Bureau of the Budget field

offices were set

up

in mid-1943 but were eliminated

in the

early

years

of the Eisenhower Administration.

Recent

efforts to revive

them,

even

on a

limited

basis,

ran

into stiff

opposition;

see U.S.

Senate,

90th

Congress,

1st

Session,

Subcommittee

of

the Com-

mittee on Appropriations, Hearings

on

H.R.

7501:

Treasury,

Post

Office

and Executive

Office

Appropriations for Fiscal Year

1968

(Washing-

ton,

D.C.:

U.S. Government

Printing Office,

1967), pp.

973-990.

Note

especially

the

com-

ments of Senator Monroney

at

p.

981:

The

rea-

son the

committee

cut

your request

for additional

personnel

last

year

was because it did

not

wish

to have

field

offices

established.

. .

.

My impres-

sion

was

that

we

were

afraid

they

would

grow

into a 50-state

bureaucracy

with state

and re-

gional

offices.

28. The mayor proposed

35

local

mayor's

offices

soon after his inauguration;encountering opposi-

tion in the

Board of

Estimate,

he tried

to set

up

five by

executive

order,

but the

City

Council

refused

to

support him,

and the

comptroller

refused

to

approve payment

of

their

bills. The

mayor tried again

in May 1967,

but was again

rebuffed by the

Council and

the Board of Esti-

mate. Eventually,

four local offices

were

opened,

but they

were much

weaker than was

originally

anticipated.

For

the time being,

at least, the

plan

seems emasculated.

29. Stephen

K. Bailey, Co-ordinating

he

Great So-

ciety,

The Reporter, Vol. 34,

No. 6

(March

24,

1966), p. 39.

30. Ibid.

31.

The Final Report of

the Commission

on Inter-

governmental

Relations

(Washingion,

D.C.:

U.S.

Government Printing

Office,

195

i),

p.

44.

See

also Coleman

B. Ransone,

Jr., The

Office

of

the

Governor of

the United States

(University,

Ala.:

The

University

of Alabama Press,

1956), p.

249.

32.

The President's

Memorandum

to

HI ads

of

Certain Federal

Agencies.

November 11

1966.

Subject: Advice and Consultation with State

and local offici