Administration as a Profession

White, Léonard D.

doi:10.1177/000271623718900114

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…The policymaker developed as a specifically modern political identity for the administrative state, connected as it was to developments in law and policy that are aimed at positive improvements to social goals that, it is thought, only government can achieve with any reasonable level of scale and efficiency. As White (1937) explained, “by 1930, government had grown far beyond the capacities of either the ordinary citizen or of any one group or any small number of groups of specialists” (p. 84). This growth, which is an expression of social demand, made possible, even necessary, the development of the modern political identity of the policy maker.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…White, however, never spoke about policy makers or policy determining officials. He focused upon a Fayolian view of administration as an activity of planning, organization, command, coordination, and control upholding a division between legislative decisions and the “relatively routine tasks of day-by-day execution of established policy” (White, 1937, p. 86), an allusion to what Waldo (2007) would call the politics–administration formula of separation. Even when this idea was critiqued by Waldo in his study of the administrative state, there was no mention of a policy maker.…”

Section: Executive Requirementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Becoming of the Policy Maker

Heidelberg

2019

Administration & Society

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This essay explores the development of the term “policymaker” by reviewing major periodicals from 1870 until 1940, with particular focus upon the period of 1920 to 1940. Events of this period provide insight into the conditions under which “the policymaker” emerges as a concept. Although “policymaker” is today a commonplace, this was not always so, as a simple overview of the term’s usage indicates. In fact, the term itself was virtually unused until about 1940 in both periodicals and academic journals. This essay contends that the idea and identity of the policymaker take shape alongside the development of the administrative state, a contention explored through a consideration of how the policymaker develops in the context of debates about education policy and about executive requirements in the period of 1920 through 1940. The essay concludes with a consideration of the policymaker as a modern political identity.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Executive Requirementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Becoming of the Policy Maker

Heidelberg

2019

Administration & Society

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“…Conversely, since the 19th century, a far richer literature has considered how the administration fits into processes of governance in democratic and mostly developed countries. Here, analysis of the bureaucrat-politician relationship is identified as oscillating between strict separation and the overlapping of objectives and roles (Demir, 2009;Georgiou, 2014;Svara, 2006;White, 1937;Wilson, 1887).…”

Section: A Reignited Debate: the Characteristics Of A Developmental Bmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Contradictions of an Aspiring Developmental State: Energy Boom and Bureaucratic Independence in Rwanda

Dye

Chemouni

2020

SSRN Journal

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Scholars have typically explained the developmental performance of late-late developers through the analytical lens applied to East Asian developmental states, a lens that focuses on bureaucratic capacity and the bureaucracy's relationship with businesses and with society more broadly. In contrast, relatively limited attention is devoted to the relationship between bureaucrats and politicians. This is surprising, as a rich literature exists on this topic in developed countries and recent work has underlined the importance of the bureaucraticpolitical interface in poorer countries' reform processes. This article contributes to addressing this gap. It demonstrates the significance of internal regime dynamics between politicians and bureaucrats as a factor explaining states' ability to create functioning economic development. Using the case of the electricity sector in the aspiring developmental state, Rwanda, it shows the importance of what we term bureaucratic independencethe ability of the civil service to formulate technical advice and to deploy it in policymaking. We demonstrate how the absence of such independence produces economically-wasteful, even developmentally-detrimental, outcomes. This is notable, given the capability of Rwanda's bureaucracy, the resources available for projects and the strong commitment of ruling elites to long-term development ambitions. By limiting the space for administrators to assert their professional perspective on policymaking and implementation, the executive branch of government and the wider ruling party have created an electricity production system poorly attuned to Rwanda's energy demand profile, and one that is prohibitively costly, particularly in the African context. Thus, we argue that understanding a state's development potential involves analysis of the power relations between rulers and the wider state apparatus.

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“…This sort of conceptualization effort began with Woodrow Wilson (1887) and continued with Goodnow (1900) and White (1937), in that they all rested their propositions on what they viewed as fundamental distinctions between politics and administration. Some contemporary public administration scholars carry on this tradition.…”

Section: The Conceptual Approach: a Search For Theoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Politics and Administration

Demir

2009

Administrative Theory & Praxis

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The question of how public administration fits into the governance process of a democratic society has been of great concern to scholars and practitioners since the emergence of public administration as an academic field of study in the late 1880s. The politics-administration relationship is considered of pivotal importance, as the issue bears important implications for both the disciplinary identity (and autonomy) and the institutional development of public administration. Despite a voluminous literature on the subject, the question remains unanswered. Scholarly inquiry to this date identifies two major positions, one separation and the other its opposite, political. Unlike prior conceptualizations, this article distills the literature into three major schools of thought as separation, political, and interaction. The article then examines the state of the research that has followed three strands as historical, conceptual, and empirical. The author makes an overall evaluation of the past research and lays out a different approach in studying this important question.

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Administration as a Profession

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

The Becoming of the Policy Maker

The Becoming of the Policy Maker

The Contradictions of an Aspiring Developmental State: Energy Boom and Bureaucratic Independence in Rwanda

Politics and Administration

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