American Political and Bureaucratic ValuesBureaucratic Politics

Introduction

• Objectives:• To see how administrative and political values conform and

conflict with one another.• To identify how political values impact administration in its

ability to achieve goals, make policy, and serve the public.• Political values – basic beliefs and assumptions about

politics and the political system as well as the appropriate government relationships to private activity.

American Political Values

• Limited government – government that is subject to strict limits on its lawful use of power.

• Checks and balances • Purpose:

• Accountability

• Separation of Powers – government power is divided among separate branches and levels of government.• Legislative (Congress) make law• Executive (President) enforce law• Judiciary (courts) interpret law

• Federalism• Purpose: Decentralization,

Inefficiency

American Political Values

• Representative Democracy – system of government in which people participate in the decision making process of government, not directly, but indirectly through the election of officials to represent their interests.• Values:• Participatory• Accountability

• Two parts to the term – representative and democracy• Democracy

• Popular sovereignty

• Representative – the notion that the public elects officials who act on their behalf as opposed to the public making direct decisions about governance.• What form should the representation take?• Trustee discretion (after all they are the experts in their respective fields)• Delegate (pluralism)

American Political Values

• Capitalism – an economic system in which the means of production are owned by private citizens.• United States built on the notions of a capitalist

economy.• Promotes laissez-faire economics in its pure form.

American Political Values

• Pluralism – a social and political concept stressing the appropriateness of group organization, and diversity of groups and their activities, as a means of protecting broad group interest in society.• The idea that society’s interests are represented

through interest groups.

American Political Values

• Responsiveness – government should be responsive to the demands of the public.

Administrative Values

• Administrative efficiency – a normative model of administrative activity characterized by concentration of power, centralization of government policy making, exercise of power by experts and professional bureaucrats, separation of political and administration, and emphasis on technical or scientific rationality.• Traditional public administration emphasizes efficiency

(scientific management) not only in government operation but as a measure of the success of government operation.

• Effectiveness

Administrative Values

• Representativeness – groups should be represented in government positions in proportion to their numbers in the population.• What is representativeness?• Demographically representative• Ideologically representative

• Rationality and Professionalism• Politics and administration are separate and distinct (Wilson).• Partisan politics should not affect the management of programs.• Administrative expertise and rationality, not politics or

emotion, should be the cornerstones of administrative decision making.

Administrative Values

• Discretion• Public administration is not merely machinery for

implementing decisions by other government institutions.• Administrative discretion – the ability of individual administrators

to make significant choices affecting management and operation of programs for which they are responsible.

• The presence of discretion helps to promote the use of rationality and technical knowledge.

Political and Administrative Values

Political Values• Accountability• Responsiveness• Representation• Participation• Democracy• Pluralism

Administrative Values• Efficiency• Effectiveness• Representativeness• Rationality• Professionalism• Discretion

Conflict Between Political and Administrative Values

• Accountability and Efficiency• Accountability, Rationality, and Professionalism• Rationality, Discretion, and Accountability• Representative Democracy, Rationality, and Professionalism• Capitalism and Administrative Values• Representation and Neutrality• Rationality and Responsiveness• Pluralism and Rationality• Pluralism and Efficiency