THIS MATERIAL oe MAY BE PROTECTED BY GORYRIGHT LAW (TITLE 12 U.S, CODE) The Science of Public Administration: Three Problems ~By ROBERT A: DABL - Department of Political Science Yale University tux elfort to create a science of public I ‘administration has often led to the for- mulation of universal laws or, more com- monly, to the assertion that such universal Taws could be formulated for public adminis. tration? In an attempt to make the science of public administration analogous to the natu- Tal sciences, the laws or putative laws are stripped of normative values, of the distor- tions caused by the incorrigible individual psyche, and of the presumably irrelevant ef fects of the cultural environment. It is often implied that “ principles of public administra- ion” have a universal validity, independent not only of moral -al ends, but of the frequently nonconformist personality of the individual, and the social and cultural set- ting as well. Perhaps the best known expression of this tial one, is L. Urwick’s contention that “there are certain principles which govern the association of human beings for any purpose, just as there are certain engineering principles which govern the building of a bridge.”® ‘Others argue merely that it is possible to dis- cover general principles of wide, although not necessarily of universal validity. Surely this more modest assessment of the role of public administration as a study is not, as an abstract statement, open to controversy. Yet even the discovery of these more limited principles is handicapped by the three basic problems of values, the individual personality, and the so- cial framework. Public Administration and Normative Values 1 first difficulty of constructing a science of public administration stems from the kind is that of W. F. Willoughby. Although ey silt @ a refused to commit himself as to the propriety react impossibility of excluding normative of designating administration as a science, Wil- loughby istration, nevertheless asserted that “in admin- there are certain fundamental prin- ig any science, cent statement, and evidently an equally influ- "See, for example, F. Merson, “Public Admfoistra- ton: A Science:" 1 Public Administration 20. (3988); 1B. 'W. Walker Watson, "The Elements of Public Ad~ ministration, A Dogmatic Introduction,” 10 Public 4d- tnindstration 597 (1983); Le Gulic, “Sclnce, Values and Public Administration,” Papers on the Science of Ad- ministration, ed, by Gulick & Urwick, (Institute of Pub- Ie Administration, 1937); Oyrit Renwick, “Public Ad- rministaon: ‘Towards. a Sclence," The Australion Quarterly (March 1944), P. 78. ‘Principles of Public Administration (The Brook: {ngs Institution, 197), Preface, p. Ix. ynsiderations from the problems of public administration. Science as such is not con- cerned with the discovery or elucidation of normative values; indeed, the doctrine is gen- erally, if not quite universally, accepted that science cannot demonstrate moral values, that science cannot construct a bridge across the ‘great gap from “is” to “ought.” So long as the naturalistic fallacy is a stumbling block to philosophers, it must likewise impede the ss of social scientists, ‘Much could be gained if the clandestine sce th, 12, infra, forthe full quotation and citation. {This I tae to be Professor Leonard D. White's pos!- tion, Sec hit “The Meaning of Principles in Public Ad~ ministration,” in The Frontiers of Public Administra- tion (University of Chicago Press, 1990), PP- 18-5:2 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW smuggling of moral values into the social sci- ences could be converced into open and honest commerce. Writers on public admini tration often assume that they are snugly insu- ated from the storms of clashing values; u ally, however, they are most concerned with ends at the very moment that they profess to be least concerned with them, The doctrine of efficiency is a case in point; it runs like a half- visible thread through the fabric of public ad- ministration literature as a dominant goal-of administration. Harvey Walker has stated that "the objective of administration is to secure. the maximum beneficial result contemplated by the law with the minimum expenditure of the social resources." The term “social re- sources” is sufficiently ambiguous to allow for almost any interpretation, Dut it suggests that the general concept involved is one of maxi- mizing “output” and minimizing “cost.” Like- wise, many of the promised benefits of admi istrative reorganization in state governments are presumed to follow from proposed im: provements in “efficiency in operation.” And yet, as Charles Hyneman has so tenchantly ‘Observed, there are in a democratic society other criteria than simple efficiency in opera- “thot 7 7 ‘Luther Gulick concedes that the goal of eff- ciency is limited by other values. In the science of administration, whether public or private, the base "good” is eficiency. The fundamental Dajetive of the science of administration is the ac caplisimaent of the work fo band with the last ex: ppenditure of man-power and materials. Esciency is Bus axiom number one in the value scale of admin {amadon, This brings aémintsraton into apparent con- fics with certain elements of the value sale of politics, ‘ehether we ave that term in Its scientific or in cs pop- UF rene But both public sdrinistacion and politics Bie pnches of poltdcal science, 20 Uhat we are in the Bia compelled to mitigate the pure concept of ficiency fn the light of the value scale Of politics and the social order! He concludes, nevertheless, “that these inter ferences with eficiency [do not] in any way eliminate efficiency as the fundamental value tupon which the science of administration may ‘Public Administration (Farrar & Rinchart, 1937), if P Sepdministeative Reorganization,” + The Journal of Polis 62.55 (190 Tope ebeppe ioe bbe erected. They serve to condition and (0 ‘complicate, but not to change the single ulti- sate test of value in administration."® It is fav from clear what Gulick means (o imply in saying that “interferences with eff- "caused by ultimate political values - may “condition” and “complicate” but do not “change” the “single ultimate test” of ef ciency as the goal of administration. Is eff- ciency the supreme goal not only of private administration, but also of public administra- tion, as Gulick contends? If so, how can one say,. a Gulick, does, that “there are . . « highly inefficient arrangements like citizen boards and small local governments which may be necessary in a democracy as educational de- vices"? Why speak of efficiency as the “single ullimate test of value in administration” if it is not ultimate at all—if, that is to say, in a ‘conflict between efficiency and “the demo- ‘cratic dogma” (to use Gulick’s expression) the latter must prevail? Must this dogma prevail only because it has greater political and social force behind it than the dogma of efficiency; or ought it to prevail because it has, in some sense, greater value? How can administrators and students of public administration dis- criminate between those ‘parts of the demo- ‘eratic dogma that are so strategic they ought to prevail in any conflict with efficiency and those that are essentially subordinate, irrele- vant, or even false intrusions into the demo- cratic hypothesis? What is efficiency? Belsen and Dachau were “efficient” by one scale of values. And in any case, why is efficiency the ultimate test? According to what and whose scale of values is efficiency placed on the high- ‘est pedestal? Is not the worship of efficiency it- self a particular expression of a special value judgment? Does it not stem from a mode of thinking and a special moral hypothesis rest ing on a sharp distinction between means and ends? ‘The basic problems of public administra- tion as a discipline and as a potential science are much wider than the problems of mere administration. The necessarily wider preoc- cupation of a study of public administration, as contrasted with private administration, in- evitably enmeshes the problems of public "Op. city p- 198.a SCIENCE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 3 administration in the toils of ethical considera- tions. Thus the tangled question of the right of public employees to strike can scarcely be answered without a tacit normative assump- tion of some kind, A pragmatic answer is satis- factory only so long as no one raises the ques tion of the “rights” involved. And to resolve the question of rights merely by reciting legal norms is to beg the whole issue; it is to confess that an answer to this vital problem of public petsonnel must be sought elsewhere than with students of public administration. Moreover; if one were content to rest one’s case on legal rights, it would be impossible to reconcile in a Je “science of public administration” the diverse legal and institutional aspects of the right to strike in France, Great Britain, and the United States. The great question of responsibility, cer- tainly a central one to the study of public ad- ministration once it is raised above the level of academic disquisitions on office management, hinges ultimately on some definition of ends, purposes, and values in society. The sharp conflict of views on responsibility expressed several years ago by Carl Friedrich and Her- man Finer resulted from basically different interpretations of the nature and purposes of & Bove i Frigarich “tacitly ai sumed certain values in his discussion of the importance of the bureaucrat's “inner check” as an instrument of control. Finer brought Friedtich’s unexpressed values into sharp focus and in a warm criticism challenged their com- patibility with the democratic faith? It is difficult, moreover, to escape the con- uusion that much of the debate over delegated legislation and administrative adjudication, both in this country and in England, actually arises from a concealed conflict in objectives. ‘Those to whom economic regulation and con- trol are anathema have with considerable con- 7G, J. Friedrich, “Public Policy and the Nature of Administrative Responsibility,” in Public Policy (Har- vard University Press,g40): Herman Finer, “Adminis- trative Responsibility in Democratic Government.” 1 Public Administration Review 333. (1940-41). See alto Friedrich's earlier formulation, which touched off the dispute, "Responsible Government Service under the ‘American Constitution,” in Problems of the American Public Service (McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1995)s_ and Finer’s answer to Friedrich in 52 Political Science Quar- terly 562 (1936). sistency opposed the growth of delegated legis. lation and the expansion of the powers of administrative tribunals—no doubt from a con- viction that previously existing economic rights and privileges are safer in the courts than in administrative tribunals; whereas those who support this expansion of adminis. trative power and techniques generally also favor a larger measure of economic regulation and control, Much of the debate that has been phrased in terms of means ought more prop- ‘erly to be evaluated as a conflict over general social goals. ‘One might justifiably contend that it is the function of a science of public administration, not to determine ends, but to devise the best ‘means to the ends established by those agen- cies entrusted with the setting of social policy. The science of public administration, it might be argued, would be totally nonnormative, and its doctrines would apply with equal va- lidity to any regime, democratic or totalitar- ian, once the ends were made clear. “Tell me what you wish to achieve,” the public admin- istration scientist might say, “and I will tell you what administrative means are best de- ‘signed for your purposes.” Yet even this view has difficulties, for in most societies, and par- ticularly in democratic ones, ends are often in dispute; rarely are they clearly and unequivo- ‘ally determined. Nor can ends and means ever be sharply distinguished, since ends determine means and often means ultimately determine ends2° ‘The student of public administration can- not avoid a concern with ends. What he ought to avoid is the failure to make explicit the ‘ends or values that form the groundwork of his doctrine. If purposes and normative consid- erations were consistently made plain, a net gain to the science of public administration would result, But to refuse to recognize that the study of public administration must be founded on some clarification of ends is to perpetuate the gobbledygook of science in the area of moral purposes. ‘A science of public administration might proceed, then, along these lines: 1. Bvablishing a basic hypothesis. A nonnormative ‘F5ee Aldous Huxley's discussion in Ends and Means (Harper f Bros, 1997), and Arthur Koeitler, The Yogi and the Commiszer (Macmillan Co, 1948)-