James H. Svara North Carolina State Universify The Myth of the Dichotomy: Complementarity of Politics and Administration in the Past and Future of Public Administration At the heart of the practice of public administration is the relationship between administrators, on one hand, and po- litical leaders and the public on the other hand. The nature of that relationship and the proper role of administrators in the political process have been the subject of considerable debate. Anxiety about administrative legitimacy has been particularly intense in the United States, where the rise of the administrative state was out of synch with a democratic society (Stillman 1997), but similar issues have arisen in other countries as well (Rutgers 1997). As the field emerged, it was important to differentiate a practice based on profes- sional knowledge and values from political particularism, but the extent and scope of the differentiation were unclear. It was also necessary to reconcile the tensions among com- plying with the directions of elected officials, maintaining professional integrity, and serving the public. Observers dif- fer as to whether American thinking about the relationship of public administration to society has experienced major shifts over time or has gradually evolved. Along the lines developed by Lynn, the case can be made that there has generally been continuity in the develop- ment of public administration in the United States rather than an abandonment of the traditions of the field. Whereas Lynn organizes his reexamination around the bureaucratic paradigm, my emphasis is the core relationship between politicians and administrators.' Not only did traditional thought, as Lynn observes, seek to maintain "balance be- tween administrative capacity and popular control on be- half of public purposes defined by electoral and judicial institutions," it also sought to justify the contributions of public administrators to shaping the definition of public purposes. Put simply, early contributors to the develop- ment of public administration acknowledged a policy role for administrators that has often been ignored. Even the politics-administration dichotomy that is a part of the tra- ditional paradigm usually incorporates the ideas of account- ability and responsibility—although the paradigm can be expressed in ways that seem to preclude these qualities by 176 Public Administration Review • March/April 2001, VoL 6 1 , No. 2 portraying administration as mechanically instrumental— but the emphasis on a strict dichotomy of politics and ad- ministration will not accommodate the policy role of ad- ministrators that has come to be widely recognized. In the past—and, I would argue, in the present as well— there was simultaneous emphasis on separation and insu- lation of administrators from political interference, on one hand, and interaction and incorporation of administrative contributions in the design and the implementation of pub- lic policy,.

1. James H. Svara
North Carolina State Universify
The Myth of the Dichotomy: Complementarity
of Politics and Administration in the Past and
Future of Public Administration
At the heart of the practice of public administration is the
relationship between administrators, on one hand, and po-
litical leaders and the public on the other hand. The nature
of that relationship and the proper role of administrators in
the political process have been the subject of considerable
debate. Anxiety about administrative legitimacy has been
particularly intense in the United States, where the rise of
the administrative state was out of synch with a democratic
society (Stillman 1997), but similar issues have arisen in
other countries as well (Rutgers 1997). As the field emerged,
it was important to differentiate a practice based on profes-
sional knowledge and values from political particularism,
but the extent and scope of the differentiation were unclear.
It was also necessary to reconcile the tensions among com-
plying with the directions of elected officials, maintaining
professional integrity, and serving the public. Observers dif-
fer as to whether American thinking about the relationship
of public administration to society has experienced major
shifts over time or has gradually evolved.
Along the lines developed by Lynn, the case can be made
that there has generally been continuity in the develop-
ment of public administration in the United States rather
than an abandonment of the traditions of the field. Whereas
Lynn organizes his reexamination around the bureaucratic

2. paradigm, my emphasis is the core relationship between
politicians and administrators.' Not only did traditional
thought, as Lynn observes, seek to maintain "balance be-
tween administrative capacity and popular control on be-
half of public purposes defined by electoral and judicial
institutions," it also sought to justify the contributions of
public administrators to shaping the definition of public
purposes. Put simply, early contributors to the develop-
ment of public administration acknowledged a policy role
for administrators that has often been ignored. Even the
politics-administration dichotomy that is a part of the tra-
ditional paradigm usually incorporates the ideas of account-
ability and responsibility—although the paradigm can be
expressed in ways that seem to preclude these qualities by
176 Public Administration Review • March/April 2001, VoL 6 1
, No. 2
portraying administration as mechanically instrumental—
but the emphasis on a strict dichotomy of politics and ad-
ministration will not accommodate the policy role of ad-
ministrators that has come to be widely recognized.
In the past—and, I would argue, in the present as well—
there was simultaneous emphasis on separation and insu-
lation of administrators from political interference, on one
hand, and interaction and incorporation of administrative
contributions in the design and the implementation of pub-
lic policy, on the other hand. Wilson and Goodnow favored
such contributions, as did Leonard White, who acknowl-
edged but dismissed concems about the growth of admin-
istration "controlling in the first instance the application
of law to the individual case, cooperating also in the for-
mulation of policy" (1926, 33). Although legislative con-
trol of administration is critical, he argued, "it is neverthe-
less important to remember that the administration

3. cooperates indispensably with the legislature, and that with-
out its assistance, the task of legislation would become
much less informed and much less effective." These found-
ing fathers of the field never advocated the dichotomy at-
tributed to them—a conclusion demonstrated repeatedly
(Golembiewski 1977; Rabin and Bowman 1984, 4; Rohr
1986, 31; Van Riper 1984, 209-10).^ Still, the myth that
public administration began as a narrow, confined, and
insulated activity is regularly repeated partly because, as
Lynn implies, it is self-satisfying to view ourselves as en-
lightened and to view earlier, particularly prewar scholars
and practitioners, as benighted.
There are a number of reasons why the dichotomy idea
has persisted. It is convenient to explain the division of
James H. Svara is a prokssor and head of the Department of
Political Sci-
ence and Public Administration at North Carolina State
University. His cur-
rent research is a comparative study of f/)e relationship of
elected officials
and the highest appointed administrative official in city
qovernments in 12
European countries, Australia, and the United States.
Leadership at the Apex:
Politicians and Administrators in Western Local Governments,
coauthored
with Poul Erik Mouritzen of Denmark, will be published later
this year by the
University of Pittsburgh Press. Email: [email protected]
roles in terms of total separation because it is easier to
explain than a model based on sharing roles, particularly

4. since the separation model does not limit the actual policy
contributions of administrators in practice. At the same
time, the dichotomy idea shields administrators from scru-
tiny and serves the interests of elected officials who can
pass responsibility for unpopular decisions to adminis-
trators (Peters 1995, 177-8). Miller (2000, 314-5) sees
dichotomy as a "useful myth" because it obscures the in-
fluence of administrators to constrain efforts by politi-
cians in power to slant the implementation of policies
and channel benefits toward themselves. "Partial" ver-
sions of the dichotomy persist. KettI (2000, 8-9), who
recognizes the positive contributions of Wilson's and
Goodnow's work, views the effort to separate politics
from administration as creating a dichotomy and labels
the emphasis on hierarchy, authority, structure, and top-
down accountability the "Wilsonian" tradition in public
administration (16-17).^ Montjoy and Watson (1995,231)
propose a "reinterpreted dichotomy" that permits a policy-
making role for the manager but still helps managers re-
sist the forces of particularism. This approach is consis-
tent with the way that dichotomy was defined before the
late 1950s.''Acknowledging that administrators discretely
shape policy behind the scenes reconciled policy influ-
ence and hierarchy.
Furthermore, it should be recognized that the idea of
the strict dichotomy does have a historical basis in the
United States, even though it was not the normative model
proposed during the founding period of American public
administration. A final reason for the persistence of the
dichotomy is the absence of an altemative model. In the
next section, I will consider the development of the di-
chotomy idea in the past. In the final section, I will present
the idea of complementarity—a conceptual framework that
includes differentiation along with interaction as an alter-
native to the dichotomy.

5. The Real and Contrived Dichotomy
The separation theme was dominant during the late
1920s and 1930s in the United States, although the recog-
nition of the need for interaction was never lost among
scholars in public administration. I will leave it to others
to sort out the features of organization theory during this
period. I admit to accepting the image of the "high noon of
orthodoxy," without the critical examination that Lynn
encourages. Schachter (1989) deserves credit for debunk-
ing the standard characterizations of Taylor and the mu-
nicipal research bureaus as dominated by concems about
efficiency and oblivious to democracy and responsiveness.
It is time to question more critically conclusions like
Martin's (1952, 667): His assertion that in the 1930s "ad-
ministration was separated severely from the legislative
body" rests on the assumption that administration was
dominated by a "mechanistic concept" grounded in scien-
tific management.
Still, there is evidence from this period of support for
putting distance between policy making and administra-
tion. Dimock (1936, 3) noted that the distinction between
policy formulation and execution has been important, but
"the danger today is in going too far in the formal separa-
tion between politics and administration." In local gov-
ernment, there was a division that was worthy of the la-
bel "dichotomy," although the term was rarely used at
the time. Strict confinement of the city manager to ad-
ministration was the established view in the International
City Management Association (ICMA) and embodied in
the 1938 code of ethics (Stillman 1974,43-53). Clarence
Ridley and Orin Nolting—director and assistant director
of ICMA—in The City Management Profession (1934,

6. 30) stated that the manager should not "let himself be
driven or led into taking the leadership or responsibility
in matters of policy." In general, the manager should stay
"out of the limelight as much as possible." Thus, there is
a historical basis for the conceptual and normative model
of strict separation, but it was an "aberration" (Svara
1998) that departed from earlier and later thinking—con-
veyed most importantly in the commentary accompany-
ing the second Model City Charter that endorsed the coun-
cil-manager form, and in the 1924 and 1952 ICMA ethics
codes, which acknowledge (at least implicitly) a policy
role for the city manager.
Even during the 1930s, however, there were diverse
views, as Lynn observes. There was recognition of the cen-
trality of discretion to administration (Blachly and Oakman
1934, 36-8; Gulick 1933), the policy role played by ad-
ministrators (Gaus, White, and Dimock 1936; Haines and
Dimock 1935; Hyneman 1939; Pfiffner 1935), and the link-
ages between administrators and interest groups (Gaus,
White, and Dimock 1936; Herring 1936). There was sup-
port for giving the lead role in planning to the executive
and administrators, with legislators acting as reviewers of
plans (Gulick 1933). There was considerable empirical
evidence of the intermixture of politics and administration
(for example. Stone, Price, and Stone 1940,247). Remark-
ably—in view of our current preconceptions—Price (1941,
578) captured the essence of the administrative role in gov-
emment at a point just past high noon: Public administra-
tors make "the greatest contribution to policy and admin-
istration without even momentary immunity from political
responsibility." The shortcomings of public-administration
thinking in this period should not be ignored. Through the
1930s, the formal instrumental relationship of administra-
tors to elected officials was emphasized, only a narrow
range of the ways that administrators affect policy were

7. Complementarity of Politics and Administration in the Past and
Future of Public Administration 177
recognized,' and the need for strict insulation from parti-
san politics continued to be stressed. These limitations and
others appropriately sparked dissent and the calls for new
approaches in the late 1940s, but they did not warrant the
later rejection of all pre-war contributions to the develop-
ment of public administration. From 1940 onward, the
debate about public administrators' contributions to demo-
cratic govemance got even more lively (Appleby 1949;
Fesler 1957; Friedrich 1940; Gaus 1950; Levitan 1943;
Long 1954; Morstein Marx 1946; Waldo 1948), but the
early contributors were not ignored or renounced.^
What Lynn suggests that Simon (1946) and Dahl (1947)
did to stigmatize earlier organization theorists, Wallace Sayre
(1958) did to undermine respect for the political-adminis-
trative formulations of the founders of public administra-
tion in the United States. Ironically, given his interest in
expanding acceptance of values in the study of administra-
tion (Sayre 1951), his essay had the effect of derailing the
evolving discussion of the interaction of politics and admin-
istration by asserting instead that this was a new, previously
unrecognized concem. To an extent not found previously,^
Sayre reinterpreted the early literature on political-admin-
istrative relations. For the first time in the public adminis-
tration literature, the dichotomy model, with its emphasis
on complete separation of spheres, was enunciated;^ from
this point forward, use of the term (with this narrow defini-
tion) increased greatly (Svara 1999a).̂ Sayre asserted that
public administration, as defined by the dichotomy, was a
"self-contained world ofits own, with its own separate val-

8. ues, rules, and methods" (1958, 102) and "was concemed
exclusively with the execution of assignments handed down
from the realm of politics" (103). He did not cite any sources
prior to 1946 objecting to the premise that administration
has no involvement in policy, even though the literature is
replete with references to pohcy contributions. Sayre asserted
that a strict dichotomy as he characterized it was the found-
ing theory of public administration. Not only did he present
the "high noon" image, whose damaging effects Lynn notes,
he also claimed there had been darkness at the dawning of
public administration.
Remarkably, this new version of history was accepted
without challenge, even among public administration schol-
ars, and was eagerly supported by political scientists. The
"revisionist interpretation," as Lynn puts it, was substituted
for the original ideas in public administration. The idea
quickly took hold that Wilson, Goodnow, and White had
advocated a dichotomy model based on strict separation
of spheres. Since this version of the model is patently un-
tenable,'" it followed that public administration lacked a
defensible conceptual foundation. Mosher (1968, 6) as-
serted that, with the demise of the dichotomy, "the finding
of a viable substitute may well be the number one problem
of public administration today." Since the late 1960s, ef-
forts have been made to establish the bases of legitimacy
for public administration; however, these efforts have been
weakened because they start with the faulty premise that
public administration could not approximate what its
founders in the United States had advocated. A new public
administration was being built without a foundation.
There has been a disconcerting tendency in public ad-
ministration to caricature ideas that are criticized rather than
identifying shortcomings and building on strengths. Along

9. with the strict dichotomy as a strawman model—and the
bureaucratic paradigm—have come the neutering of neu-
tral competence and the assertion that "technical-rational-
ity" is the dominant and all-encompassing mindset of tradi-
tional public administration (Adams and Balfour 1998).
Since the field began in the United States, there has been
support for applying professional knowledge—broadly de-
fined to include substantive, public-service, and technical
values—in an impartial, nonpartisan way to address public
problems. This robust form of neutral competence is con-
sistent with definitions by Dunn (1997), Heclo (1975),
Rourke (1992), and Wolf (1999). This defining characteris-
tic of public administration—its professional indepen-
dence—was transformed by its linkage to the strict-di-
chotomy model into either passivity or valueless, even
amoral, disinterest in the ends of govemment, that is, neu-
trality had been divorced from statesmanship (Green 1998).''
To be sure, there are public administrators who are more
concemed with means than ends and who assert that ad-
ministrators should be given free rein by politicians to use
a narrowly defined expertise. There have been city man-
agers who used strict separation as a screen to conceal their
own power (Newiand 1989).'^There have been cases on a
large and small scale of administrators who were incapable
of finding the moral fiber to resist harmful policies. Still,
commitment to public serving values, substantive ends as
well as technical means, and procedural faimess have al-
ways been part of the theory and practice of public admin-
istration, along with an interest in technique and rational-
ity. It is important to understand the rich tradition of the
field if we are to build a stronger future for it. This under-
standing will force us to abandon simplistic foils—di-
chotomy, bureaucratic paradigm, neutral competence too
narrowly defined, and technical rationality too broadly
applied—to make altemative formulations look stronger.

10. When the continuity in the field of public administration
is recognized, we must acknowledge that our accomplish-
ments in the past 40 years have been rather modest.'^
Complementarity of Politics and
Administration
To avoid slipping back into the view that public ad-
ministration began in dichotomy but moved into broader
178 Public Administration Review • March/April 2001, Vol. 6 1
, No. 2
roles, it is helpful to have an alternative interpretation.
There has been an implicit defining model for political-
administrative relationships from the beginning, and this
model is important for understanding the current and fu-
ture role of public administration. The complementarity
of politics and administration is based on the premise that
elected officials and administrators join together in the
common pursuit of sound govemance. Complementarity
entails separate parts, but parts that come together in a
mutually supportive way. One fills out the other to create
a whole. Complementarity stresses interdependence along
with distinct roles; compliance along with independence;
respect for political control along with a commitment to
shape and implement policy in ways that promote the
public interest; deference to elected incumbents along
with adherence to the law and support for fair electoral
competition; and appreciation of politics along with sup-
port for professional standards. The issue is not whether
public administrators are "instrumental or usurpative"
(Heady 1984, 408)—the standard dichotomy versus
nondichotomy options—but how they are both instru-

11. ments and contributors to the political process, that is,
instrumental and constitutive (Cook 1996).
Our understanding of administrative roles has changed
over time. Still, the elements of complementarity were
present in Wilson (1887), they were central to the develop-
ment (Woodruff 1919) and early history of the council-man-
ager form of govemment at the local level (White 1927),'"*
and they were clearly articulated in the 1940s and 1950s
before the dichotomy-as-founding-theory view took hold.
They are also present in a wide range of new models pre-
sented since 1970.'̂ Complementarity recognizes the inter-
dependence and reciprocal influence between elected offi-
cials and administrators. Elected officials and administrators
maintain distinct roles based on their unique perspectives
and values and the differences in their formal positions, but
the functions they perform necessarily overlap.
Complementarity reconciles what have seemed to be
contradictory—even paradoxical (Harmon 1995)—aspects
of public administration. How can politicians maintain
control and, at the same time, allow administrators to main-
tain their independence to adhere to professional values
and standards and to be responsible to the public? The rec-
onciliation comes from recognizing the reciprocating val-
ues that underlie complementarity. Elected officials could,
in theory, dominate administrative practice, but they are
constrained by a respect for administrative competence and
commitment. Administrators could use their considerable
resources to become self-directed, but they are restrained
by a commitment to accountability in the complementary
relationship.'^ Overhead democracy by citizens and politi-
cians can work, but only if it is accompanied by under-
girding responsibility from administrators."
The relationship between elected officials and admin-

12. istrators could be seen as simply the interaction between
political control and professional independence. Control
involves the capacity to set direction and maintain over-
sight, while independence involves asserting professional
perspectives in policy formation and adhering to profes-
sional standards in implementation. If one explains rela-
tionships only in terms of what March and Olson (1995,
7) have called "exchange perspectives," the interplay of
these two forces of control and independence could lead
one to dominate or to a balance of the two (Krause 1999).
A normative institutionalist perspective (Peters 1999),
however, would add that officials seek to act in terms of
norms of appropriate behavior that will make institutions
work (March and Olson 1995, 25-8). These include the
reciprocating values of respect for administrators by
elected officials and commitment to accountability by
administrators that add balance to the relationship. The
interplay between control and independence, with the
restraining effect of reciprocating values, produces an
array of models for describing the political-administra-
tive relationship (see figure 1).
Figure 1 Understanding the Interaction between
Politicians and Administrators
Elected officials:
degree of control
Low
Administrators:
level of
independence

13. High
High
Political
dominance
Complementarity
Potiticians respect Administrators are
administrative committed to
competence and accountability and
commitment' responsiveness'
Low
Stalemate or
laissez-faire
Bureaucratic
autonomy
'Reciprocating values that reinforce the position of other set of
officials.
Any of these combinations are possible if the defining
conditions are present. The political dominance that re-
sults from high political control and low administrative
independence is the condition that has been attacked by
reformers from the Progressive Era to the present because
of their concem for loss of administrative competence and
the potential for political corruption. Bureaucratic au-
tonomy is feared by critics of the administrative state, who
argue that administrators are self-controlling and advance
agency interests rather than the public interest. In both situ-

14. ations, either the level of control or independence is ex-
treme, and the key reciprocating value is not present: Poli-
ticians do not respect administrators, or administrators are
not committed to accountability. One conceptual possibil-
ity is the combination of low control and low indepen-
Complementarity of Politics and Administration in the Past and
Future of Public Administrotion 179
dence, producing a "live and let live" attitude among offi-
cials. Ironically, Sayre's dichotomy, which is based on to-
tally separate spheres, would logically fit in this category
because the distance between the two sets of officials does
not contribute to real control or real independence, but to
coexistence. In some circumstances, the limited ability to
influence other officials could result in stalemate.
The largest space in figure 1 is the zone of comple-
mentarity. I would argue that most interactions among of-
ficials reflect complementarity, and evidence from local
governments in 14 countries supports this generalization
(Mouritzen and Svara 2001). Although in earlier times there
was greater emphasis on subordination of administrators
linked to greater reliance on hierarchy as an organizational
principle, interdependence and reciprocal influence are
common and longstanding.'^ A condition that presumably
was common earlier in the century, high accountability and
moderate independence, would fit in the upper-left comer
of the complementarity quadrant, whereas recent experi-
ence with moderate control and extensive administrative
initiative would be in the lower-right comer.''One can ar-
gue that complementarity is rooted in past thought and
practice and has important implications for the future. It is
not a new model replacing an old one, but a deeply rooted

15. model that continues to evolve.
Complementarity entails ongoing interaction, recipro-
cal influence, and mutual deference between elected offi-
cials and administrators. Administrators help to shape
policy, and they give it specific content and meaning in
the process of implementation. Elected officials oversee
implementation, probe specific complaints about poor per-
formance, and attempt to correct problems with perfor-
mance through fine-tuning. Changes in the govemmental
process that substantially expand political control and
weaken administrative independence (for instance, tilting
the relationship by increased reliance on politically ap-
pointed consultants and "hollowing out" of administration
[Moe 1994] or weakening generaiist administrative lead-
ership in local govemment) weaken the dialogue between
elected officials and administrators. Privatization through
contracting out breaks the dialogue and replaces it with
contract specification and compliance reports. Ironically,
contracting out closely approximates the terms of the di-
chotomy model, as do performance contracts as KettI
(2000, 29) observes, and highlights a central limitation in
this kind of approach. Unless it is reserved for services
that can be appropriately defined without ongoing broad-
based administrative input and appropriately delivered
without continuous political oversight, the strict separa-
tion of policy makers and service deliverers can lower the
quality of govemance and service.
In contrast, with extensive interaction, the knowledge
and values of those who do the ongoing work of govem-
ment complement the knowledge and values of those who
ultimately set the course for govemment and ensure that it
stays on course. The complementarity of politics and ad-
ministration holds that elected officials and administra-

16. tors—both in regular communication with citizens—need
and help each other in a partnership for govemance. Di-
viding the partners or skewing the relationship in one di-
rection or the other means that an important contribution
is missing. If we continue to accept the simple notion that
public administration began as a separate instrumental en-
tity confined to a narrow sphere of activity, we do a disser-
vice to the past, and we run the risk of legitimizing a true
dichotomy of policy formation and contracted service de-
livery. It is important to appreciate the role of public ad-
ministration in the "old" govemance as a basis for under-
standing the relationship between public administrators and
a wider array of actors in the new govemance.
Notes
1. This article draws on arguments developed at length in Svara
(1999a).
2. This claim has more validity with respect to Willoughby
(1927). In his view, elected officials and administrators have
distinct roles that do not overlap. The "prime function" of
the legislator is "to determine policies and give the neces-
sary orders for putting these policies into effect" (2). The
function of administration is "the putting into effect of poli-
cies and carrying out of orders as determined or given by
other organs" (11).
3. KettI (2000) carries the specification of traditional public
administration too far, however, by claiming that it relied
on a clear delineation of roles, with elected officials fram-
ing policy and delegating the details to administrators. As
we have seen, early contributors did not insist on such a
complete delineation and allowed for the upward flow of
policy ideas and influence. Even Finer (1941) conceded that

17. "no one in their right mind would deny the importance of
suggestions persuasively presented by the expert" (342).
4. Vieg (1946) and Lepawsky (1949) defended the dichotomy
as convenient because it focused public attention on elected
officials but did not view it as a barrier to policy involve-
ment behind the scenes. Kaufman (1956) presented a broad
and complex examination of neutral competence and the
politics-administration dichotomy, but it was not central to
the coming reformulation of the nature and origins of the
dichotomy. He stressed the elimination of partisan politics
from govemmental decision making through practices in-
180 Public Administration Review • March/April 2001, Vol. 61,
No. 2
eluding creation of independent boards and commissions
as well as civil service. Obviously, policy responsibility was
assigned to the boards that were insulated from partisan in-
trusion and, by implication, to the administrators as well.
Indeed, the discretionary power accumulated by some civil
servants contributed to the fragmentation of govemment.
Although he observed that the politics-administration di-
chotomy was gradually replaced by the "doctrine of the
continuity of the policy-formulating process" (1067), this
change began after 1910 and accompanied the increasingly
closer linkages between administrators and executives. Later,
neutral competence was opposed, not because administra-
tors in federal agencies were divorced from policy, but be-
cause it "encouraged the development of 'self-directing'
groups within the bureaucracy" (1070).
5. Exceptions were Herring (1936), who felt the "balance of
power is shifting" to administration, and Price (1941), who

18. asserted it is not possible for city managers to be anony-
mous in their policy leadership.
6. An important exception is Friedrich (1940) who launched
an unreasonable attack on Goodnow and misrepresented his
views. He claimed that Goodnow made the distinction be-
tween politics and administration "an almost absolute dis-
tinction" and "an absolute antithesis" (6). Such a complete
division of functions would indeed constitute a dichotomy,
but Friedrich did not use the term.
7. Waldo's position is of interest in view of Lynn's observa-
tions about his rejection of what he viewed as established
values in administration. Waldo (1948, 109) did not inter-
pret Goodnow as advocating a simplistic separation of poli-
tics and administration, and he notes that "some more re-
cent students have taken the name of Goodnow in vain." He
did, however, advance the practice of lumping together most
of the preceding literature and linking it to strict separation.
In his summary, Waldo criticizes the "straitjacket" that public
administration had made for itself—"the instrumentalist
philosophy of the politics-administration formula" (208)—
and suggests that the main tenets of public administration
emerged before 1914 (211).
8. Sayre did not use the term "politics-administration di-
chotomy" in the 1951 article, although he linked Simon's
"fact-value dichotomy" to the "earlier formulation of the
separation of politics from administration" (Sayre 1951,5),
as did Appleby (1949). In discussing the general-manager
plan for large mayor-council cities (1954, 258), he referred
to the "politics-administration dilemma" that "plagues"
council-manager governments. He foreshadowed the for-
mulation and subsequent rejection of the strict dichotomy
with the assertion that "council manager doctrine empha-
sizes council monopoly over policy," although in practice,

19. policy leadership from the manager is needed.
9. The term was rarely used before this time; when it was
used, it connoted a limited sense of insulating administra-
tors from partisan interference, along with recognizing that
administrators influence policy in nonpublic ways (see
footnote 4).
10. Long (1954) dismissed the possibility of a governmental
process that operates in terms of characteristics that are con-
tained in a strict-dichotomy model. Administration would
have been "a neutral instrument solely devoted to the un-
motivated presentation of facts to, and the docile execution
of orders from, political superiors" (27). In "Power and
Administration," Long (1949, 259) observed that "the bu-
reaucracy under the American political system has a large
share of responsibility for the public promotion of policy
and even more in organizing the political basis for its sur-
vival and growth."
11. A more balanced and widely held view in the United States
and abroad is expressed by Asmeron and Reis (1996, 8-9):
"[N]eutrality does not mean that top-level civil servants
cannot or should not be involved in the articulation of pub-
lic policy. Indeed, senior officials are professionally and
morally obliged to provide their political leaders with the
best policy alternatives based on sound arguments, relevant
precedents, and suitability to the changing environment. The
expectation that they will render these services from a non-
partisan position is the crux of the matter."
12. In a crossnational study of the highest appointed adminis-
trator in city government in 14 countries, the most aloof
and the most influential city managers are found in Ireland,
which legally mandates separation of policy and adminis-
tration (Asquith and O'Halpin 1998). American city man-

20. agers, often supporters of the dichotomy concept, gave them-
selves the highest influence rating in budgeting and the
third-highest rating in economic development among the
14 countries (Svara 1999b).
13. Elsewhere (Svara 1999a), I have summarized the value po-
sitions that can be derived from the "old" public adminis-
tration through the 1950s.
14. Terry(1995,13), one of a relatively small number of schol-
ars who recognize the broader view that Woodrow Wilson
had of administration, sees that early contributors recog-
nized a "complementary" relationship between democracy
and bureaucracy.
15. These approaches include the New Public Administration
(Marini 1971), and the work of Wamsley et al. (1990), Terry
(1995), and Frederickson (1997).
16. Friedrich (1940, 19) observed that responsible administra-
tive conduct "is not so much enforced as it is elicited." Ad-
ministrators choose to comply.
17. Redford (1969,71 -2) characterized the concept of overhead
democracy—presented as the "traditional model of demo-
cratic administration" with "some measure of validity"—as
simplistic because it ignored the complex "web of interre-
lationships" that mark political-administrative interaction.
Meier, Polinard, and Wrinkle (1999) conclude that change
in farm credit policy and administration over time is consis-
tent with overhead democracy.
18. For example. Price (1941, 573) observed that, in local gov-
emment, "the relationship between council and manager is
so intimate that it is generally impossible to prove whether
the manager is using his own judgment in taking an admin-

21. Complementarity of Politics and Administration in the Past and
Future of Public Administration 181
istrative action or is acting under coercion or threat by the
council ... or whether the council in adopting a policy is
following the ideas originated by its members or the advice
of the city manager."
19. These themes are developed further and variations in
comple-
mentary relationships are developed in Mouritzen and Svara
(2001, ch. 10).
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Complementarity of Politics and Administration in the Past and
Future of Public Administration 183
Reading Assignment
Chapter 4:
Administration Responsibility: The Key to Administrative
Ethics
Unit Lesson
Philosophical Theories: Related to Ethical Decision-Making
Many theorists have concluded that several decision-making
models exist that focus on consistent norms and have derived
from society and individual impressions. The textbook cites
several sources that are prominent in this field, and lists some
of the well-known founders of these theories. Participants that
develop topics of
public policy, such as social equity, education, conflict
resolution, or human rights, may base their decisionmaking on

30. the beliefs related to certain philosophies.
Utilitarianism: Approach Based on Consequences
Based on consequences, an action may be right or wrong.
Jeremy Bentham and John Steward Mills derived this theory
that was completely based on reason. The authors did not want
their theory based on religion or particular societal level of
norms. More so, Utilitarianism wanted everyone to have access
to a thinking mind and is based off an idea of utility or
usefulness. An abbreviated summary of Bentham and Mills
theory can be summarized as “the greatest good, for the greatest
number or population.” We can assume that “good” means
happiness or pleasure for most people. Another concept closely
related to this outcome is efficacy, which implies the “least
desired input for greatest desired output.” Business and
government usually take this strategy for different reasons –
mainly associated with resources. If one thinks about successful
business and government practices, the decision-making effort
outcomes generally result in products and services that work
best, cost least, and last the longest. The consumer mindset also
uses this simple and natural buying process for decision-
making. The successful business leader uses this variable for
short and long-term investment decisions, and the public
manager focuses on successful public services, which utilizes
public funding in a prudent and wise fashion. Another public
example is the government buying process where services and
products are purchased though a competitive vetting process
where needs, values, and timely delivery are critical
components of the purchasing decision model. Efficacy also
applies to students who compare colleges that provide the best
benefits for the best dollar value, student teacher ratio, or
finding where friends attend. Utilitarianism is the ideal ethical
theory for democracy because the majority decides what is best.
Subjecting topics to a vote means that the strongest side will
win.

31. Deontology: Decisions Based on Principles
Principled public administrators use the deontology theory. The
principles or rules referenced could derive from the
organization itself. These types of rules (or laws) could also be
interpreted as obligatory, thus public managers have to know
how to apply these sets of principles to actual scenarios.
Immanuel Kant, an 18th century German Philosopher, provided
a foundation for deontology that states, “one should act only as
if one were legislating a universal law for everyone to follow in
a preferred world.” Two overriding principles that Kant focuses
on are that mankind should not lie, and as a means to an end -
individuals should not be influenced unequally. Another well-
known philosopher, John Rawls (1985) wrote, “Justice is
Fairness.” In his writings, he stated that there are two
overriding principles that should provide justification for
rational calculations. Rawls summarized the following:
· First Principle: Each person is to have an equal right to the
most extensive total system of equal basic liberty compatible
with a similar system of liberty for all.
· Second Principle: Social and economic inequalities are to be
arranged so that they are to the greatest benefit of the least
advantaged. (p. 223)
Ontology: The Study of Being
The term, being, pertains to the public administrator’s decision-
making properties or references of physical objects, classes of
human beings, properties or relations to objects, space and or
time, or events. The study of ontology pertains to groups and
their relations with similar entities. What concepts should
public managers use when making ethical decisions based on
ontology? The answer references and includes the state of
affairs or relationships with the properties previously stated.

32. Epistemology: The Study of Knowledge
The method or process that is used for research is defined from
two distinct parameters. The first parameter is positivism,
meaning the purpose of research is performed for scientific
explanation. The technique utilizes deductive logic (from
previously known facts) and empirical observations; thus,
predicting human patterns. The second parameter is
interpretivism, where qualitative research is primarily used. The
primary research tools are observed by a participant’s
experiences and interactions with social systems and usually not
generalized to a population. Together, both research and
decision-making processes that encompass epistemology are not
curtailed by drawn boundaries. It is important to understand that
public administrators may or may not use boundaries to
interpret and make decisions based on constructed limitations.
In the real
world, these limitations can be called reason or common
experience. Examples may include political or religious beliefs.
Should the public administrator view these attitudes as
restraints?
Approaches to decision-making focus on several variables that
are committed to successful utility. These include:
· obligations/duty (public servant fiduciary trust),
· virtue (honesty and integrity),
· principles (rights of individuals), and
· benefits to society (best for community).
The conclusions and examinations of decision-making theories
are not reviewed to confuse or muddy the waters of
administrating, but should broaden the perspectives and self-
awareness of ethical theories. One theory over another is
certainly never the ultimate answer when making public
decisions. The hope is that the administrator can gleam different
ways of providing possible resolutions after reviewing the pros

33. and cons.
Thus, benefiting all stakeholders by promoting the very best
alternatives.