This slide is used as a reference on the course PA302 - comparative administrative thoughts. The slide talks about the relationship between the Administrative states of the United States and its society

1. ADMINISTRATIVE STATE AND
SOCIETY: A CASE STUDY OF
THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA
Larry S. Luton
Reported by:
Abubakar S. Mama

2. INTRODUCTION
In the United States the relationship between public administration and society has
been an uneasy one. Through their history American have tried to pretend that the
country could operate without public administrators. The United States constitution
describes a limited government – one that has only those powers specifically assigned
to it.

3. INTRODUCTION
Stillman sees the root of the uneasy
relationship in the founders’ distaste for a
strong executive, enthusiasm for republicanism
and belief that the machinery of the
government could run on its own without the
assistance of the administrative state. He
described the early history of the United States
as a ‘Stateless’ condition.
RICHARD STILLMAN II
In international law, statelessness is the lack of
citizenship. A stateless person is someone who is "not
considered as a national by any state under the operation
of its law". Some stateless persons are also refugees.

4. Skowronek’s characterization of the
same period is, perhaps, more generous;
in his view there was a ‘sense of
statelessness’ that affected the ‘peculiar
way state power was organized’.
Stephen Skowronek

5. Milward’s examination of the way in which
late twentieth century America was creating
more and more complex approaches to
governance in which ‘involvement by the
state is indirect and extremely limited’, led
him to coin the phrase “Hollow State”.
Brinton H. Milward
Hollow State is used to describe a set of governmental
practices in which states contract with third parties (private
companies) in order to distribute government services. ...
Contracts are managed by countless agencies and even
more providers, there is no means of central record
keeping or data management.

6. GENTLEMANTLY GOVERNANCE: THE
FEDERALISTS AND JEFFERSONIANS

7. an agreement
among the 13
original states of the
United States of
America that served
as its first
constitution. ...
The Articles of
Confederation cam
e into force on
March 1, 1781, after
being ratified by all
13 states.
The government founded on the 1789
constitution was designed in response to
the failures of the Articles of Confederation
and represented recognition of the need to
strengthen the federal government to better
address the needs of the nation.
Among their major positions was a belief
that governance is best left to society’s elite,
the Gentlemen.
Might be Noble people,
political family, riches?

8. ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION

9. Trusting the gentlemen to do their duty
toward society, they favored delegation of
authority and administrative discretion, but
they also thought that officials were to be
held responsible for doing their jobs
conscientiously
– under skilled administrators.
Gentlemen

10. GOVERNANCE BY THE COMMON MAN

11. Republican Party disappeared as its factions split
into the Whigs and the Jackson Democrats. Jackson
won the election of 1828.
- He removed the gentlemen stranglehold and
open opportunities to participate in governance
to other white males.
- It extends the views of men, trains them to the
performance of justice, and makes them act for
others as well as for themselves.
- The Jacksonians fully supported ‘state
governments as the principal public agency of the
American people but the trend still moved toward
enhancement of the federal government’s
importance in people’s lives.
Andrew Jackson
7th US President

12. INTRODUCING THE PROFESSIONAL
GOVERNMENT

13. The war between the States punctuated the
trend, definitively settling any question about
whether the United States was one nation.
According to White there were two major
developments during the republic era (1869-
1901):
(1) the rise in power of the President in
comparison to the Congress,
(2) (2) and the beginning of professional public
administration marked by the achievement
of civil service reform in 1883.
The Civil War 1861-1865

14. Civil service reform in this era represented a rejection
of some Jacksonian principles, but to be successful as
a challenge to patronage and rotation in office, civil
service reform had to be presented as democratic – as
a way for a common man to participate in governance.
- Qualifications based on merit rather that elite
management in public business
- Merit’s new values was derived from business –
economy, efficiency and the ability to deal with the
increasingly complex affairs of an industrial and
urban society
- The promotion of a ‘businesslike’ government may
have been the most lasting impact of the Republican
era on public administration.

15. ESTABLISHING MODERN PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION

16. The modern administrative state sought to
separate the functions of expressing the will of
the state and executing it. Instead of relying on
partisan political connections to determine
administrative questions, this administrative
state was designed to utilize science and
rationally to pursue economy and efficiency,
and top-down hierarchy to ensure rationality,
economy, and efficiency.

17. Richard Stillman has identified seven key features of the modern American
Administrative States:
1. Unelected experts who
2. Work within formal hierarchical organization, using
3. Impersonal rules and procedures, to implement
4. Important governmental functions, often using
5. Networks of non-profit or for-profit, in ways that are dependent upon
6. Soft technologies such as managerial competence and rational analysis and
7. Hard technologies such as typewriters, computers, and paper
documentation.
- Obviously, a key element of that administrative state was the civil service
system. With it came political neutrality, tenure in office, and merit-based
selection, promotion, and remuneration.
Impact:
• Diminished the localized power of
political parties
• Nationwide federal service
appointment system
• Increased the potential of the
president to established a national
political constituency
• Administrative state become vital for
stability in governmental operations
• Vital for the health of the economy

18. NOT ORTHODOXY BUT
MULTIPLICITY

19. The era was driven by two impulses
1. Toward order and rationality
2. Social justice – both genders played a role in
constructive the administrative state and the field
of public administration
National Academy of Public Administration
Camilla M. Stivers

20. Rosenbloom (2001) has also identified of the modern
American Administrative State that has been overlooked.
He calls it “legislative-centered public administration.”
congress rejected the model of executive-leadership and
that is why it is necessary to established the Executive
office of the President through EO No. 8248. passing
four important statutes in 1946 (including the
Administrative procedures Act), congress established it
model of modern American administrative state a model
in which administrative agencies are expected to honor
democratic-constitutional values not found in the
businessification approach- values like
representativeness, participation, openness, responsive,
procedural safeguards, and public accountability.
H. David Rosenbloom

21. Another model of the modern administrative state is
offered by Charles Lindblom. He describes his as a model
of the relationship between the state and the market
system, but here the market system is the major
administrative instrument of the state.
• Managing money and credit
• Subsidizing market activities
• Research and development
• And regulating international trade
It is also a direct participant in the market, as buyer and
seller. In some instances the state is a price setter, setting
minimum and/or maximum prices for some goods and
services and affecting prices through tariff.
Charles E. Lindblom

22. AND SO…
Over the past 200 years, the tension between self-governance and public
administration in the United States has constantly been in evidence. Whether the
United States is truly stateless or merely something of a hollow state, it certainly has
uniquely evolving administrative state. Only time will tell whether Stillman was correct
when he concluded that the US version of the administrative state may be the most
enduring and powerful variety.