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![. . . Where trust in society and its institutions is battered, and where
interests fail to gain the recognition they feel entitled to, there is an
explosive mixture ready to be set off. Individuals cannot stand too
much uncertainty in their lives, and the direct measures of uncertainty
are the rapid and fluctuating loss in value of money people use for
exchange (the aggravating discrepancies between income and what one
has to buy, the erosion of wealth one has painfully accumulated) and
fluctuating unemployment. It is these circumstances that the tradi‑
tional institutions and democratic procedures of a society crack, and
the irrational, emotional angers and desire for a political savior come
to flood tide . . .
—Daniel Bell
And so the question becomes whether the ideals [of democracy] them‑
selves must be given up or drastically revised, or whether there are ways
of rearticulating them that retain their moral force.
—C. Wright Mills
If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to
worry about the answers.
—Thomas Pynchon](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/17400610-250530152210-58ca1de6/75/Public-Affairs-And-Democratic-Ideals-Critical-Perspectives-In-An-Era-Of-Political-And-Economic-Uncertainty-Curtis-Ventriss-11-2048.jpg)
![xiii
Foreword
in the search for vaccines, if developed in time, will temper the severity of
any future pandemic. Yet, as the Wall Street Journal so succinctly put it, we
should prepare ourselves for sweeping societal changes that will probably
be long lasting: “As the [health] crisis deepens, it will transform the way
we think about family and business, health care and high tech, politics and
the arts [and how this pandemic] challenges and [offers] opportunities of
our uncertain future” (Wall Street Journal, Review Section, March 28–29,
2020, p. C1).
How we respond to these transformative opportunities and challenges
will undoubtedly shape many of the salient policy deliberations that lie
ahead. But, equally important, it also offers the opportunity to ask new
questions, to discuss new initiatives, and to ponder new ideas in these
deeply challenging and uncertain times. Perhaps even to use this time of
reflection to formulate a renewed sense of publicness, and, in the process,
enrich democratic governance in the citizens’ everyday lives.
In this book, besides the literature of public management/administration
and public policy, my analysis draws from the fields of political and social
theory, economic and urban geography, political science, sociology, economic
history, and social ethics. These varied scholarly fields have helped me coalesce
my thinking on a central theme with a deeper sense of conviction: that
a renewed focus on publicness along with critical democratic thought can
play a crucial role in expanding our intellectual and professional purpose
against those corrosive forces that can undermine the democratic ethos in
public affairs. This expanded role for both fields will require more than
armchair theorizing or more studies to be conducted (as vital as both these
endeavors are to our understanding of the administrative and policy process):
it will instead require concrete action and a reordering of intellectual and
professional priorities in these daunting times.
There are many friends and colleagues I would like to thank who
directly or indirectly have influenced my thinking, even though I assume
some of them would disagree with certain aspects of my major arguments:
Guy Adams, Dan Balfour, Tina Nabatchi, Michelle Dennis, Terry Cooper,
Jeff Chapman, Lou Weschler, Sandra Newman, Robert Bartlett, George
Candler, Jim Perry, Jos Raadschelders, Lester Salamon, Michael Harmon,
late Ralph Hummel, Camilla Stivers, Hugh Miller, Richard Box, Hen‑
drick Wagenaar, Susan Gooden, and Mark Francis (my oldest and dearest
friend). My sincere appreciation also goes to the anonymous reviewers who
provided me with crucial feedback that helped me sharpen my arguments](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/17400610-250530152210-58ca1de6/75/Public-Affairs-And-Democratic-Ideals-Critical-Perspectives-In-An-Era-Of-Political-And-Economic-Uncertainty-Curtis-Ventriss-18-2048.jpg)
![2 Public Affairs and Democratic Ideals
is an image of social striving, tension, conflict; an image of a
problem‑creating and problem‑solving society.
Howe’s 1984 statement identifies a worrying trend—the discouragement
of meaningful critique of political powers and mores by our overarching
structures of governance—prescient on both ends of the political spectrum.
Recently, for example, some have argued that American conservatism itself
has lost its way by focusing on only one overriding concern: “[s]eeking
advantage over our opponents, [which has] poisoned the civic foundation
from which we all drink, with predictable results” (Flake, 2017, p. 94).
At the same time, American liberalism is increasingly criticized for its
unwillingness to tolerate ideological tension within the institutions where
it reigns supreme, particularly university campuses (Stephens, 2017). This
trend is worth pondering in that it is fair to assume that we teach and
conduct research in public affairs (and in the broader social sciences) with
the main purpose to nurture the ideals of a democratic ethos in an effort
to better understand and resolve the major societal issues of the day. This
rationale is predicated on another assumption that often goes unspoken:
that social conflict represents, to large degree, a fundamental failure in
policy design, implementation, and management, rather than the broader
political contradictions and economic tensions condensed in the existing
societal arrangements of political power. Not surprisingly, there has been an
ongoing debate on how best to achieve the goals of managerial effectiveness
and policy efficacy given that it relates directly to the raison d’être of public
policy and public management/administration. However, I argue that too
many scholars of both fields writing since the 1980s, have been content to
take primarily a managerial and analytical perspective, which has undoubt‑
edly advanced our knowledge and practice of public affairs. Likewise, many
others have emphasized the varying normative aspects of public affairs in
teasing out the philosophical implications (and ideals) of policy objectives.
Regardless of the different approaches pursued and their respective validity
in providing crucial insights, the current culture of both fields prompts us
to contend that scholars and practitioners have, for the most part, become
increasingly cautious in choosing the questions we believe are important to
explore. That is, the questions posed have become ever more narrow and
pedestrian, leaving untouched the “domain assumptions,” as Alvin Gouldner
(1970) called them, that underlie the theoretical and pragmatic foundations
of both public policy and public management/administration. This penchant](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/17400610-250530152210-58ca1de6/75/Public-Affairs-And-Democratic-Ideals-Critical-Perspectives-In-An-Era-Of-Political-And-Economic-Uncertainty-Curtis-Ventriss-23-2048.jpg)
![6 Public Affairs and Democratic Ideals
this may sound not only pretentious to our modern pragmatic ears, but
as an invitation to a Sisyphean exercise in intellectual futility. No doubt,
this intellectual endeavor will not be easy. Nevertheless, this new theoretical
and pragmatic trajectory could be crucial in facilitating a “problem‑solving”
approach emphasized earlier by Irving Howe. This book is written to move
us closer to reinvigorating publicness in this era of political and economic
uncerainty with all the inevitable theoretical twists and turns that are bound
to happen in this intellectual journey.
Some might argue that neglect of the theoretical underpinnings of
publicness is hardly surprising given that public policy, and in particular
public management/administration, have little theoretical coherency to speak
of. As Iain Gow puts it, “The field has a hard time getting respect from
academic colleagues in the social sciences” (2010, p. 31). This has especially
been the case relative to political science, which has often criticized the
field for being atheoretical; focused on applied empirical research meant to
improve governance, rather than theory testing about governance. Gow has
dismissed these discussions, accepted that “[l]a science administrative est une
science empirique par excellence” (1993, p. 87), and has termed this “prag‑
matic institutionalism.” The term nicely combines the emphasis on structure
(institutionalism) and technique (pragmatism) in a single paradigm, and
identifies this, for example, as “the default position in public affairs [and
public policy] in Canada” (p. 10). He describes this paradigm as focused
on being “comprehensive and accurate, to ‘get it right’ ” (p. 5).
However, for many scholars in public affairs, this pragmatic, intellectual
mosaic of different disciplines, while commendable in this age of special‑
ization, has especially taken its scholarly toll on the reputation of public
administration/management. But truth be told, both intellectual enterprises
(with a few exceptions who argue for a more critical perspective) suffer from
a conceptual parochialism and intellectual ambivalence that has left theoret‑
ically untouched the Hobbesian/Lockean mentality in modern politics and
the consequential residue of possessive individualism which continues to run
rampant through our political veins (Macpherson, 1973). Public policy and
public management/ administration are, of course, historically and contextu‑
ally specific to the country in which they are practiced and theorized. Even
given this reality, a serious debate needs to emerge—a point I emphasize
in many of these chapters—about the ideological, political, and economic
forces that coalesce into a managerial consensual governing system that
essentially undermines the consideration of different ways of incorporating](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/17400610-250530152210-58ca1de6/75/Public-Affairs-And-Democratic-Ideals-Critical-Perspectives-In-An-Era-Of-Political-And-Economic-Uncertainty-Curtis-Ventriss-27-2048.jpg)
![12 Public Affairs and Democratic Ideals
as “elenchic citizenship” (Ventriss, 2007). It is a citizenship of publicness,
Dana Villa (2001, p. 20) explains, that is Socratic in nature in that
it consists in the endless and seemingly circular questioning of
the basic terms of our moral culture, those whose meaning seems
self‑evident and unarguable. Questioning is an end itself . . . [but
it is also a questioning to] maintain a critical distance on all
accepted definitions . . . and ridding the various false beliefs
that promote injustice.
That said, I contend that no amount of empirical studies, nor normative
theorizing, nor new managerial or participatory strategies will ever suffice
in cultivating a democratic ethos if we do not fully comprehend the nor‑
mative implications of an “unexamined citizenship” and how this lack of
understanding might lead us down a path toward intellectual hubris and
theoretical complacency. Montaigne’s (1976) erudite insight is worth ponder‑
ing here: “No wind helps him who does not know to what port he sails.”
This task will be neither easy nor, I suspect, very popular among some of
my colleagues. But the recognition of this crucial task, and the need for it,
is the real challenge that lies before us. This book, hopefully, will explain
this imperative, and so nudge us into taking this intellectual plunge.
Theoretical Grounding
Like any other work of this sort, the themes discussed in this book have been
strongly influenced by certain contemporary seminal thinkers. These thinkers
include (besides Guerreiro Ramos) the following: Albert Camus, Donald A.
Schon, Deborah Stone, Harold Lasswell, Nancy Fraser, Karl Polanyi, Han‑
nah Arendt, Jeffrey Isaac, Dana Villa, Albert Hirschman, Sheldon Wolin,
Michael Walzer, Robert Nisbet, Dwight Waldo, John K. Galbraith, Bonnie
Honig, Fred Hirsch, Daniel Bell, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and Alvin
Gouldner. Each of these thinkers, in varying degrees, has argued that it is
problematic whether democracy can come into full development if we do
not first carefully analyze the concrete behavior, motives, desires, and ideals
that make up moral life. Moreover, these thinkers, putting aside their differ‑
ent conceptual venues in addressing these issues, are united in their refusal
to view public life solely in instrumental and utilitarian terms. A common
purpose cannot exist in the interstices of a liberal culture, they indicate,](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/17400610-250530152210-58ca1de6/75/Public-Affairs-And-Democratic-Ideals-Critical-Perspectives-In-An-Era-Of-Political-And-Economic-Uncertainty-Curtis-Ventriss-33-2048.jpg)
![13
Introduction
if the existing moral instincts of society become increasingly antipublic, or
contribute to “the retreat of the political.” The intellectual thread that ties all
these thinkers together is their emphasis on the quality of political relation‑
ships and public commitments, which can never be reduced to mere private
acquisitive behavior; that any viable public purpose finds its meaning in a
reflective citizenship, not in the thoughtless conformity of Arendt’s (1973)
“behaving citizens” or the related disenfranchisement of Margaret Somers’s
(2008) market‑driven postcitizenship. In the end, the luminaries in this
field identify that the civic ethos can be easily atrophied or overridden by
the exultation of a market mentality and by what has been referred to as
the “economization of politics” (Brown, 2015) that lacks a coherent public
discourse adequate to the complexities of social and political life, trends we
see playing out today.
These thinkers have also provided us in public affairs a rich theoretical
tapestry of ideas that is both cautious and, surprisingly enough, optimistic in
what can be accomplished in our modern polity. This optimism is founded
on the premise that we who study and serve in public affairs can reverse our
myopic underpinnings with a more concerted focus on civitas—a civitas that
stresses publicness as a bulwark against the unrestrained pursuit of private
interest and as a way to legitimize public spaces for displaying conflict and
public struggle in the pursuit of public purposes. It is an optimism borne
of the reality, as William Sullivan (1986, p. 158) avers, that “the citizen
comes to know who he [or she] is by understanding the social relationships
surrounding him [or her] . . . [an] awareness of the interdependency of
citizens . . . [and that it is] basic to the civic vision because it enlightens
and challenges . . . disparate parties about their mutual relations.” This will
require the formulation of a renewed emphasize on “public language,” the
ability to become a “public social science,” and finally a renewed sense of
publicness that puts human dignity, critical inquiry, public responsibility,
public accessibility, and public learning at the center of what we aspire to
be in societal affairs (Ventriss, 1987; Sullivan, 1986; Ku, 2000).
Yet, ironically, a degree of caution is called for in this endeavor. This
caution is due primarily to the reality of a growing public disdain for
politics, a fragmented public with a tenuous sense of social cohesion, a
growing distrust for government in general (Will, 1983; Nye, Zelikow, &
King, 1997; Thompson, 2010) and more recently, the full emergence of a
heretofore underlying phenomenon that has contributed to these other real‑
ities: anti‑intellectualism. No doubt, it is difficult to be persuasive in such a
polarizing political environment when stereotypes of “faceless” administrators](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/17400610-250530152210-58ca1de6/75/Public-Affairs-And-Democratic-Ideals-Critical-Perspectives-In-An-Era-Of-Political-And-Economic-Uncertainty-Curtis-Ventriss-34-2048.jpg)
![21
Conditioning Factors
context of a “post‑politics” of neoliberalism that has largely eviscerated the
publicness of social conflict, public contestation and civic dialogue. That is,
social conflict, contestation, and dialogue are now comfortably ensconced
in collaborative, polycentric networks and horizontal associations of private,
public, and state actors. Such governing arrangements, he emphasizes, give the
impression that they represent a major step forward in wedding progressive
state power with policy innovations for the common good. Swyngedouw
maintains that this proclivity for rechanneling and displacing conflict rep‑
resents, in effect, the partitioning of publicness from its political nature in
that any sense of publicness is legitimized only when it is predicated on
reaching a cooperative arrangement among interested parties congruent to
the political logic of neoliberal managerialism (Dahl & Soss, 2014; Wolin,
2008). I argue that this diagnosis is mainly accurate, and I will investigate its
implications in the following sections: the rise of neo‑managerialism norms
and their impact on public affairs, and the role of the modern state within
which both fields are practiced and intellectually engaged.
Neo‑managerialism and the
Economization of Political Inquiry
“From the late 19th century on,” David Hart and William Scott (1982,
p. 240) have observed, “public administration [specifically] has been challenged
to emulate the presumed efficiencies of business administration.” Hart and
Scott go on to argue that “public administration responded to that challenge
so enthusiastically that it lost its unique identity in the process. By now
it has become nothing more than an undistinguished cousin of business
administration [and economics].” Subsequently, public affairs, they lament,
has become increasingly captive of a belief, albeit understandable in a market
society, in the singular focus on efficiency and productivity as exemplified
in the contemporary managerial, market approach to public affairs (Pollitt,
1993; Clarke, 2005; Dryzek, 2008). More broadly, this tendency represents
the peril of stripping any resemblance of a democratic ethos from its political
dimension grounded on the basis of public dissensus. Hart and Scott echo
a similar concern that the theoretical residue of this perspective has resulted
in an intellectual default whereby neo‑managerialism becomes an ideological
and empirical filter significantly biasing the direction of decision making
congruent to instrumental rather than substantive ends (Adams & Balfour,
2012; Scott & Hart, 1979).1](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/17400610-250530152210-58ca1de6/75/Public-Affairs-And-Democratic-Ideals-Critical-Perspectives-In-An-Era-Of-Political-And-Economic-Uncertainty-Curtis-Ventriss-42-2048.jpg)
![23
Conditioning Factors
administration and public policy becomes on balance nothing more than
the application of different managerial and technical approaches that can
sustain both fields’ pragmatic and nonpartisan appeal. According to Adams
and Balfour (2012, p. 326), while there is nothing wrong per se with this
view, this kind of reasoning leads “to a narrow concept of [the] public that
limits public practices . . . [and] severely restricts what activities are available
with regard to public values and ethics.” A similar assumption made with
this line of thinking also merits serious attention: that better government,
for the most part, is synonymous with more efficient public organization.
Within limits, this rationale is both understandable and commendable (Waldo,
1971; Lynn, 2006). However, the danger comes, John Schaar (1970, p.
306) cautions, when we believe “that finding the right solution is [always]
a matter of finding the right technique.” This is not to negate the crucial
importance of obtaining and applying analytical and appropriate manage‑
rial strategies in order to increase efficiency in government. That point few
would ever dispute. Alternatively, however, neo‑managerialism may be no
accident at all—it is part and parcel of the public organization’s inclination
to control how public problems are framed and defined, thus enhancing its
own survival, growth, and power (Brown & Erie, 1979; Adams & Balfour,
2014; Hummel, 2007; Ramos, 1981; Perrow, 1986). Following on that same
theme, Brown and Erie (1979) contend that a critical analysis of the original
source of public problems could—and potentially would—call into question
the very viability and direction of public organizations. Not surprisingly,
some scholars have vehemently objected to the validity of such broad and
sweeping generalizations (Goodsell, 2014; Neiman, 2000; Terry, 2003; Meier
& O’Toole, 2006). Then again, as disparaging as this may sound, Richard
Goodwin (1975, p. 330), who coined the term “The Great Society” while
a policy aide to President Lyndon Johnson, interestingly made a compelling
argument that government and its public agencies “cannot act effectively if
the source of discontent is fundamental, residing in the design of society.”
Notwithstanding the troubling theoretical and practical implications of this
argument, this contention has been rarely acknowledged, or even seriously
debated, in the literature of public administration (Forester, 1993; Dunn
& Miller, 2007; Denhardt, 1981; Hummel, 2007).
These polemic perspectives are hardly new. For, as Gary Wills (1969)
explains, the managerial approach to social and political issues may be
more serious than originally thought: we displace political problems into
managerial and technical issues because we are an integral part of a “mod‑
ern rationalist liberalism, an ideology of structures [that] has nothing to](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/17400610-250530152210-58ca1de6/75/Public-Affairs-And-Democratic-Ideals-Critical-Perspectives-In-An-Era-Of-Political-And-Economic-Uncertainty-Curtis-Ventriss-44-2048.jpg)
![25
Conditioning Factors
of that power), who is attempting to control the policy agenda, and for
what political or economic purposes? While the reaction is to be somewhat
defensive (and dismissive) about even posing such inquiries, should we not
ponder why “power represents a derivative rather than a primary category
of analysis, defined by the value orientations reflected in the notions of
organization and of science” rather than substantive meaning of “political”
(Erie, 1978, p. 1; Wolin, 1960; Perrow, 1986)? This orientation, as Peter
Nettl (1969, p. 2) warned, results in “the hard edges of power dissolving
in a cloud of problems of choice, strategies, information channels, inter‑
ests, and organizations—toothless neutral concepts all.” The intellectual
baggage that both these perspectives carry with them—particularly in the
rough‑and‑ready world of the political marketplace—should make us wonder
whether we need such an exclusive focus as we originally thought (Dryzek,
2012; Fischer, 2003; Wagenaar, 2011).
A related and significant aspect of this tendency also emerges in how
best we prepare students for the challenges they will ultimately face in
public affairs. Needless to say, the trend for MPAs and MPPs has always
been to focus on how to make these degrees more marketable and profes‑
sionally relevant. Presently, this implies underscoring skills such as policy
analysis, systems analysis, computer science, operations research, accounting,
management science, and budgeting, to name the most obvious examples.
Undoubtedly, there are many pedagogical merits to this viewpoint inasmuch
as students unquestionably need to master certain skills and the requisite
technical knowledge to effectively address complex problems. Yet, this edu‑
cational focus raises a critical issue that cannot be so easily brushed under
the theoretical rug:
Are we promoting an academic and professional field structured
to put out socially acquiescent public managers [and policy
analysts]? This question implies a tension which has always
been present: is the purpose of public affairs to train students
to be managerially competent professionals or to educate them
as citizens able to recognize the multiplicity of social problems
and their underlying causes? Most educators would argue that
one approach should not negate the other. There is presently,
however, a definite propensity toward amanagerial and economic
approach to social affairs. Citizenship, once the key word in most
public [affairs] schools, is being relegated to a secondary role.
(Ventriss, 1982, p. 139; Piereson & Riley, 2013)](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/17400610-250530152210-58ca1de6/75/Public-Affairs-And-Democratic-Ideals-Critical-Perspectives-In-An-Era-Of-Political-And-Economic-Uncertainty-Curtis-Ventriss-46-2048.jpg)
![26 Public Affairs and Democratic Ideals
This educational focus is probably unavoidable as Max Weber (1946,
240) presciently warned: with the rise of bureaucracy, it is the “expert not
the cultivated [individual] who is the educational ideal of the bureaucratic
age.” While this educational development is hardly unique to just public
administration and public policy, it does pose a somber dilemma: again, as
reiterated by Hart and Scott (1982) and others, if this trend is left unabated
it could circumvent the broader normative purposes of a public affairs educa‑
tion, thus mirroring the instrumental goals of the “organizational imperative”
(Ramos, 1981; Hummel, 2007). This organizational imperative, Hart and
Scott (1982, p. 152) aver, serves as an ideological veil because “the most
effective way to guarantee appropriate behavioral responses to organizational
[and instrumental] needs is to build a [managerial] educational system that
indoctrinates people in [these] requisite beliefs.”
Recent research has suggested that while the public is without question
concerned with increasing efficiency in government, the citizenry is equally
interested in increasing public accountability in governmental, nonprofit,
and private sectors (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2015; King & Stivers, 1998;
Frederickson & Hart, 1985; Gawthrope, 1998; Harmon, 1995).Whereas,
it is true, these issues are often discussed and debated at a variety of
academic and professional venues, Perrow (1986, p. 6) offered an insight
that, surprisingly, has not received the attention it quite rightfully deserves:
“Organizations mobilize social resources for ends that are often essential
and even desirable. But organizations also concentrate those resources in
the hands of a few who are prone to use them for ends we do not approve
of, for ends we may not even be aware of, and, more frightening still, for
ends we are led to accept because we are not in a position to conceive
alternative ones.” Whether one can be taught to be responsible or ethical
by merely taking certain classes is certainly debatable. On the other hand,
even more questionable is whether more empirically oriented managerial
and policy courses will appropriately prepare students to understand the
responsibilities associated with the public purpose, irrespective of the recent
emphasis by NASPAA (Network of School of Public Policy, Affairs, and
Administration) (2009, p. 4) on “[demonstrating] that its students learn
the tools and competencies to apply and take these [public service] values
into consideration in their professional activities.”
Another way of looking at this is to consider how we usually treat
such policy issues as political and economic inequality. Assuming the
literature on this subject is indicative of how it is taught, economic and](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/17400610-250530152210-58ca1de6/75/Public-Affairs-And-Democratic-Ideals-Critical-Perspectives-In-An-Era-Of-Political-And-Economic-Uncertainty-Curtis-Ventriss-47-2048.jpg)
![29
Conditioning Factors
he is important in drawing our attention to such issues as what he called
authoritarian statism and the recent emergence of authoritarian populism.
Concomitantly, the French Regulation School is also worth discussing in that
it shows us how the modern state must be understood within the context of
a post‑Fordist economy. Although these theoretical vantage points are hardly
representative of the varied theories of the state, jointly they do provide a
better understanding of the issues Wolin describes, and offer a perspective
rarely discussed in the policy and administrative literature.
The changing role of the state in the modern era, especially with
respect to globalization, is best characterized in terms of its relationship with
two forces: the public/private nexus and the primacy of the market (Fraser,
2014; Block & Somers, 2014). Given these realities, I will briefly discuss
first some of the ideas articulated by Poulantzas followed by the French
Regulation School. Poulantzas (1975, 1978), in his provocative discussions
dealing with the role of the state, posits that the modern state is not some
monolithic bloc or group that serves as an instrument for the domination
of society, nor is it the relationship of a particular class and its influence
over powerful institutions. Rather, the state is best understood as an arena
for political and social conflict (what he has called the “condensation of
a balance of forces”)2
and as a social relation between citizens mediated
through their relation to state apparatuses and capacities. Poulantzas further
contends that bureaucratic power is the exercise of the state’s function and is
“relatively autonomous” from the different interests and factions in society.
This relative autonomy, insists Poulantzas, is how the state can protect (and
enhance) the market economy, “even if it means severe conflict with some
segments of society” (Held, 1989, p. 69). Yet, the state also plays an active
role in “creating, transforming, and making reality” (Poulantzas, 1978, p. 30).
Part of the effectiveness of the state is in how knowledge and information
is used within the governmental apparatus.3
In other words, “[T]he state
helps define expertise by financing and employing intellectuals, then uses
this expertise in particular ways . . . legitimizing its role as the center of
power and decision‑making” (Carnoy, 1984, pp. 113–114).
For Poulantzas, the salient aspects of this situation are obvious. The
pivotal problem confronting democratic public affairs in the modern state
is how citizens can engage the state without being co‑opted and how to
deepen the political institutions of democracy “in the name of current
liberties and those yet to be won” (Isaac, 1992, p. 247). He also alerted us
to how a market society might exist with relative stability and gain needed
public consent by appealing to nationalism, making it difficult for various](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/17400610-250530152210-58ca1de6/75/Public-Affairs-And-Democratic-Ideals-Critical-Perspectives-In-An-Era-Of-Political-And-Economic-Uncertainty-Curtis-Ventriss-50-2048.jpg)
![31
Conditioning Factors
accumulation. In particular, the Regulation School spells out these modes in
terms of social relations that are reproduced through different historical periods
irrespective of their contradictory and conflicting character (Swyngedouw,
1996). Moreover, according to Jessop (2014) this school of thought provides
us a deeper conceptual understanding of the economic linkages between the
international and local levels, whereby the nation‑state’s discretionary powers
become somewhat eroded. What is actually occurring is what Swyngedouw
(1996, p. 1503) called the re‑scaling of the state:
The re-scaling of the state, therefore, does not suggest a dimin‑
ishing role of the state apparatus. In fact, these new global/local
institutions, in close cooperation with private capital, launch
the development largely on the basis of public capital and state
capital. In short, the production of post‑Fordist [economic]
spaces is paralleled by disturbing political transformations and
a redefined citizenship.
All that said, what the regulation theory has us explore is the position
of the nation‑state in a global economy and how localities within those
nation‑states must attempt to produce globally competitive spaces in compe‑
tition with other localities. This new post‑Fordist reality, in turn, intensifies
the struggle for capital, thus reinforcing political and economic fragmentation
in civil society (Cox & Mair, 1991; Jessop, 1993, 1994, 2002, 2007). The
deleterious trajectory of this trend is that the concept of citizenship itself
is transformed into a redefined “citizen entrepreneur” who now advocates
only for the creation of competitive market regions to maximize jobs and
economic growth (Swyngedouw, 1996; Ventriss, 2000; Terry, 1998). In sum,
citizenship is stripped (both theoretically and pragmatically) of its normative
character to conform to the cognitive patterns inherent in a market‑centered
society (Polanyi, 1944; Somers, 2008; Block and Somers, 2014). To a large
degree, this is the present context in which the neo‑managerialization of
public affairs has occurred in this neoliberal milieu. I contend that it is
crucial to challenge this situation with reinvigorated theory and practice of
publicness. A better understanding of the nature of the modern state will
be foundational to this task.
As Max Weber indicated, the modern state could not exist without
an elaborate administrative system. Because public management/administra‑
tion is usually regarded primarily as a state function and because the state
does possess “a legal monopoly of coercive power,” (Weber, 1948),5
we are](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/17400610-250530152210-58ca1de6/75/Public-Affairs-And-Democratic-Ideals-Critical-Perspectives-In-An-Era-Of-Political-And-Economic-Uncertainty-Curtis-Ventriss-52-2048.jpg)
![33
Conditioning Factors
The state has tried to create, Nisbet concludes, what is essentially a “pseudo
community” that is unable to meet the psychological and social needs of the
community. Emile Durkheim (1964, p. 28), who deeply influenced Nisbet’s
thinking on this issue, wrote that
the state is too remote from the individuals; its relations with
them too external and intermittent to penetrate deeply into
individual consciences and socialize them within where the state
is the only environment in which we can live communal lives,
they inevitably lose contact, become detached.
Nisbet (1953, p. 7), extending Durkheim’s idea, reiterated that the
decline of “community has made ours an age of frustration, anxiety, dis‑
integration, instability, breakdown, and collapse.” Even if this postulation
is dismissed as merely hyperbole, Nisbet raises a point seldom discussed in
public management/administration and public policy. As conceptually and
pragmatically aligned with the modern state as both fields tend to be, when
stripped of their normative and pragmatic clothing, do they ultimately find
themselves embedded in a politically awkward position inasmuch as they
must always act more or less in concert with the powers of an authoritative
political structure? In other words, does this state of affairs come at the cost
of managing a potentially unsatisfying social harmony in a market society
of contradictory social interests, varied public needs/expectations, and vast
differences in the exercise of political power? Asking this particular question,
I suspect, will prompt an immediate negative reaction by most in the fields
of public policy and public management/administration. Still, it is a ques‑
tion that will not go so easily away and will eventually require a response
(Rosenbloom, 1986, 2005; Box, 2014, Hummel, 2007; Poulantzas, 1978;
Carnoy, 1984; Harvey, 2007). Carole Pateman (2012) was correct when she
pointed out that our various ideas in attempting to achieve a democratic
ethos in public affairs will have little effect if we do not first question the
“conventional institutional structures” (her term) and their relationship in
promoting democratic public purposes.
Assuming the validity of both Gulick’s and Nisbet’s theoretical views,
their usage of the term state demands some clarification. However, according
to David Easton (1953, p. 108), “the word [state] should be abandoned
entirely.” The reason for Easton’s uneasiness is that the concept of the state
is difficult to separate empirically from such notions as society, political
organizations, and government. We tend to trip over political definitions](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/17400610-250530152210-58ca1de6/75/Public-Affairs-And-Democratic-Ideals-Critical-Perspectives-In-An-Era-Of-Political-And-Economic-Uncertainty-Curtis-Ventriss-54-2048.jpg)
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- 6. Public Affairs andDemocratic Ideals
- 8. Public Affairs andDemocratic Ideals Critical Perspectives in an Era of Political and Economic Uncertainty CURTIS VENTRISS
- 9. Published by StateUniversity of New York Press, Albany © 2021 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Name: Ventriss, Curtis, author. Title: Public affairs and democratic ideals : critical perspectives in an era of political and economic uncertainty / Curtis Ventriss. Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020024649 | ISBN 9781438481258 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438481265 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Public administration—Evaluation. | Public administration—Moral and ethical aspects. | Public administration—Citizen participation. | Government accountability. | Democracy. Classification: LCC JF1351 .V46 2021 | DDC 352.7/48—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020024649 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
- 10. Dedicated to LisaVentriss and Alex Ventriss 1
- 11. . . .Where trust in society and its institutions is battered, and where interests fail to gain the recognition they feel entitled to, there is an explosive mixture ready to be set off. Individuals cannot stand too much uncertainty in their lives, and the direct measures of uncertainty are the rapid and fluctuating loss in value of money people use for exchange (the aggravating discrepancies between income and what one has to buy, the erosion of wealth one has painfully accumulated) and fluctuating unemployment. It is these circumstances that the tradi‑ tional institutions and democratic procedures of a society crack, and the irrational, emotional angers and desire for a political savior come to flood tide . . . —Daniel Bell And so the question becomes whether the ideals [of democracy] them‑ selves must be given up or drastically revised, or whether there are ways of rearticulating them that retain their moral force. —C. Wright Mills If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers. —Thomas Pynchon
- 12. Contents Foreword ix Chapter 1Introduction 1 Section 1 The Importance of Publicness and Critical Democratic Thought Chapter 2 Conditioning Factors: Neo‑Managerialism and the Modern State 19 Chapter 3 A Conceptual Foundation: Reinvigorated Publicness 39 Chapter 4 A Substantive Approach: Critical Democratic Thought 53 Chapter 5 Rationality, the Public Sphere, and the State 71 Section 2 Contemporary Challenges Chapter 6 The Enduring Implications of the Economic Crisis of 2008 99 Chapter 7 Public Affairs in an Epoch of Space: Challenges to the Public Sphere 133 Chapter 8 A Critical Analysis of the Role of Citizen Involvement in Public Affairs: A Reexamination 155
- 13. viii Contents Chapter 9Conclusion: Reflections of a Sympathetic Critic 175 Notes 197 References 207 Index 251
- 14. Foreword For me, thisbook has had a long history. Some of the issues I have examined in this book, in fact, go back to my undergraduate days. Other issues raised mirror the era in which I grew up, as I explain in more detail in chapter 9. But it was my two mentors in graduate school, more than anything else, who had the greatest impact on my thinking, particularly in exploring, as Theodor Adorno (1967, p. 10) so candidly put it, “the societal play of forces that operates beneath the surface of political forms.” These two mentors respectively were John Dyckman (1922–1987) and Alberto Guerreiro Ramos (1915–1982). John Dyckman, an economist, was one of the leading scholars in planning and international development who served for many years as the chair of the Department of City and Regional Planning at the Univer‑ sity of California, Berkeley. He later became the first James Irvine Chair of Planning at the University of Southern California. His last appointment was as a professor of geography, Johns Hopkins University. By contrast, Guerreiro Ramos was a prominent sociologist and administrative theorist who wrote seminal works in Brazil before coming to the United States. After being forced to leave Brazil after the military coup in the 1960s, he resided briefly at Yale University, but spent the rest of his career at the University of Southern California. He is best known for his book, The New Science of Organizations: A Reconceptualization of the Wealth of Nations. With that said, this book is in response to many of the questions they posed to me when I studied with them. They believed it was crucial to ask “foundational questions” that explore the underlying assumptions of economic, political, social, and cultural norms of the modern polity, espe‑ cially as it related to both public administration/management and public policy. Moreover, they both strongly encouraged me to examine issues that went beyond a procedural/managerial perspective—as valuable as this ix
- 15. x Foreword approach maybe in addressing some important societal issues. That is, they encouraged me to not just limit my inquiry of public affairs to strategies of collaborative policy networks, participative deliberation, economic efficiency in service delivery, professionalism, and the like (as important as they are to the study and practice of public affairs), but to undertake a substantive exploration of those political and economic presuppositions that have shaped civic and political life. Needless to say, I am not claiming in this book to be exhaustive or contending that my analysis is in anyway definitive concerning the chal‑ lenges that we face in both fields. Rather, I argue here that the issues I have raised—and their respective theoretical and practical nuances—are largely neglected in the mainstream literature of public administration/management and public policy. To cite only one brief example, there has been little, if any, discussion of how the modern state might confine what constitutes, or should constitute, legitimate questions and policy approaches in addressing major social issues of the day. In short, I hope this book ignites an ongoing debate about certain fundamental issues, assumptions, and approaches that are often taken as a historical given, or that are regarded as so obvious and self‑evident that they are seldom scrutinized for their validity and continued relevance. In this regard, I have raised concerns about the role and pur‑ pose of civic participation, the economic crisis of 2008 and its impact on governance, the role of the state, the fixation on procedural and utilitarian rationality to public affairs, and the important centrality of publicness. I argue that these issues are especially important in this era of political and economic uncertainty.1 For example, this uncertainty is partially reflected in the views of many citizens who are frustrated by what they perceive as an increasingly dysfunctional governing system unable to respond to major societal problems, an acerbic political discourse that has contributed to a troubling political polarization and tribalism, and a lack of any serious collaboration among key policy actors in finding meaningful political con‑ sensus on an array of policy issues. For example, in the United States, this political unease is presently juxtaposed with a heightened sense of economic uncertainty of increasing income and wealthy inequality, stagnant wages for middle‑income families since the 1970s, the impact of globalization on local and regional communities, uneven economic growth between urban and rural areas, and limited social mobility. This political and economic uncertainty has contributed, to some degree, to a distrust of public insti‑ tutions by many Americans and in other countries (Mounk, 2018). What is key here is the following: as the political environment has become more
- 16. xi Foreword and more consumedby a growing uncertainty of whether we can effectively resolve these daunting challenges, it has taken its toll on the body politic both in the United States and elsewhere. Among other things, it has—at least to some extent—contributed to the emergence of a pseudo‑democratic populism that channels such economic and political uncertainty into fears, anxieties, and a numbing cynicism among certain segments of the citizenry in the United States (and in other countries). Coupled with voters who feel neglected by political and economic elites, these citizens will likely become a permanent and disruptive political fixture on the landscape (Eatwell & Goodwin, 2018). Given these stark realities, I think that for those in public management/administration and public policy the time has come to directly confront the validity of certain basic assumptions and to start asking different kinds of questions—questions that could in both fields make many rather uncomfortable and, I suspect, at times defensive. As I write this, some of the more deleterious implications of widespread political and economic uncertainty have been vividly displayed during the COVID‑19 pandemic and the consequential societal and economic distress that has instilled fear, frustration, and anxiety among the general public. This widespread uncertainty is especially acute in a time of economic and political discord—a situation, as previously noted, that can metastasize into an attitude of declining confidence and trust in public governance. As public fear and anxiety continued to spread during the Covid-19 pandemic, again, the most vulnerable in society became the most adversely impacted. According to Derek Thompson (2020), the COVID‑19 will, unquestionably, “supercharge” (his term) the prevailing forces of inequality in society. That said, what I contend in this book is that in addressing political and economic uncertainty, particularly in this time of societal discord, public distrust, and political polarization requires, among other things, a critical examination of not only the embeddedness of market values in political and economic decision making, but also how this ubiquitous embeddedness has impacted the broader moral, societal, and institutional fabric of society. The risk of ignoring or dismissing this kind of examination is to fall prey to what Karl Polanyi asserted is a misguided view of reality that ultimately results in “an inability to solve the problems of our civilization” (1944, p. 126). As I argue in more detail in chapter 6, this distortive view of social reality can lead to what I refer to as economic and political involution that impedes our ability to critically scrutinize those underlying societal plays of forces that have contributed to our most vexing economic and social problems. We become enamored, in other words, with a steadfast conviction
- 17. xii Foreword that itis with market‑centered correctives, when all is said and done, that offers the most efficacious way to ameliorate society’s most pressing issues. Simply stated, this involution has a propensity to further exacerbate a myopic fixation on the centrality and merits of such technocratic market/ managerial perspectives. That is, regardless of how well‑intentioned these managerial perspectives seem to be, we have a penchant (consciously and unconsciously) to see contentious societal issues as just another adminis‑ trative problem to be resolved. As a corollary, this fixation runs the risk of leaving untouched any serious inquiry of those hegemonic assumptions that legitimize those powerful governing political and economic actors who strongly influence, if not dictate, the dominant market narrative of key policy initiatives (Bartels, 2016). Although the United States has employed both needed public health measures and aggressive fiscal and monetary policies to abate the deleterious economic and health fallout of the COVID‑19 pandemic, certain significant (and controversial) questions merit posing. First, how can we in a market economy such as the United States, driven largely by finance capital, the voluminous expansion in the market supply, debt creation, and buttressed by strong consumer demand, successfully implement a policy that on one hand would mandate stringent health restrictions for its containment (even for a short time) without concomitantly causing a precipitous reduction in consumer demand followed by a steep rise in unemployment—a quagmire that could potentially trigger even further societal resentment and cynicism in an era of increasing income and wealth inequality? Second, and on a related note, how can this COVID‑19 pandemic be sufficiently addressed in a market‑based health care system that has left the public so ill‑prepared to deal with the severity of this contagion crisis, especially when the impact exhibits all the characteristics of sharpening the societal divide between those who can afford to quarantine and those who cannot (Harvey, 2020)? Assuming the validity of my central point here, one of the more troubling realities we may have to face, albeit under conditions of a pro‑ longed pandemic, is the following conundrum: Can government and its institutions in today’s market society competently govern during any major public health pandemic that most likely would lead to ubiquitous societal and market disruptions (and uncertainties) eroding not only the under‑ pinnings of consumerism and economic growth, but perhaps calling into question the very efficacy and fairness of market‑based correctives in this era of growing public distrust of government? Of course, medical advances
- 18. xiii Foreword in the searchfor vaccines, if developed in time, will temper the severity of any future pandemic. Yet, as the Wall Street Journal so succinctly put it, we should prepare ourselves for sweeping societal changes that will probably be long lasting: “As the [health] crisis deepens, it will transform the way we think about family and business, health care and high tech, politics and the arts [and how this pandemic] challenges and [offers] opportunities of our uncertain future” (Wall Street Journal, Review Section, March 28–29, 2020, p. C1). How we respond to these transformative opportunities and challenges will undoubtedly shape many of the salient policy deliberations that lie ahead. But, equally important, it also offers the opportunity to ask new questions, to discuss new initiatives, and to ponder new ideas in these deeply challenging and uncertain times. Perhaps even to use this time of reflection to formulate a renewed sense of publicness, and, in the process, enrich democratic governance in the citizens’ everyday lives. In this book, besides the literature of public management/administration and public policy, my analysis draws from the fields of political and social theory, economic and urban geography, political science, sociology, economic history, and social ethics. These varied scholarly fields have helped me coalesce my thinking on a central theme with a deeper sense of conviction: that a renewed focus on publicness along with critical democratic thought can play a crucial role in expanding our intellectual and professional purpose against those corrosive forces that can undermine the democratic ethos in public affairs. This expanded role for both fields will require more than armchair theorizing or more studies to be conducted (as vital as both these endeavors are to our understanding of the administrative and policy process): it will instead require concrete action and a reordering of intellectual and professional priorities in these daunting times. There are many friends and colleagues I would like to thank who directly or indirectly have influenced my thinking, even though I assume some of them would disagree with certain aspects of my major arguments: Guy Adams, Dan Balfour, Tina Nabatchi, Michelle Dennis, Terry Cooper, Jeff Chapman, Lou Weschler, Sandra Newman, Robert Bartlett, George Candler, Jim Perry, Jos Raadschelders, Lester Salamon, Michael Harmon, late Ralph Hummel, Camilla Stivers, Hugh Miller, Richard Box, Hen‑ drick Wagenaar, Susan Gooden, and Mark Francis (my oldest and dearest friend). My sincere appreciation also goes to the anonymous reviewers who provided me with crucial feedback that helped me sharpen my arguments
- 19. xiv Foreword throughout thiswork. I have been influenced enormously on many subjects raised in this book with my graduate students and colleagues at the Insti‑ tute of Policy Studies, Johns Hopkins University, University of Southern California, and the University of Oxford. I particularly extend my deepest thanks to my colleagues in Brazil who have tried to keep Guerreiro Ramos’s thinking alive and relevant: Ariston Azevedo, Jose Francisco Salm, Sergio Luis Boeira, Genauto Caravalho de Franca Filho, and those scholars at the Federal University of Santa Catarina and the Fundacao Getulio Vargas (FGV) who have expanded on his theoretical insights. I also would like to thank Nancy Matthews, dean of The Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Vermont, for partial financial support in completing this book. My appreciation also goes to four research assistants from the depart‑ ment of political science at the University of Vermont who checked and rechecked my references: Natalie Lewis‑Vass, Alexander Verret, Caleb Bogin, Lindsay Freed, and especially to Timothy Nyhus who went beyond the call of duty. Finally, many of the ideas I developed in this book came from my participation and discussions at the Minnowbrook Conferences, Syracuse University. It was at the 1988 Minnowbrook Conference that I first met Dwight Waldo, who has profoundly influenced so much of my thinking on certain key policy issues, which is not to say that he would concur with all of my conclusions here. It goes without saying that my family provided much support and patience as I struggled at times to finish this work. My love and thanks to Donna Ventriss, Richard Ventriss, and Beverly Ventriss as well as my two stepsons Finn and Ian Davis. I hope one day my grandson, Grayson Davis, (who is two years old) will read this book and find something of value as he carves out his own path in trying to make this world a better place to live. And my special thanks to Michael Rinella, senior acquisitions editor at the State University of New York Press, who nurtured and supported the value of this book from its very beginnings. I also would like to thank Eileen Nizer, senior production editor, and Anne Valentine, executive promotions manager, for all their help in moving this project forward. And finally, I was lucky to find a research associate for this project: Joshua Morse. Josh, a doctoral candidate in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, went line by line with me always questioning how I framed my arguments, how some of my evidence needed more clarity in support of my contentions, and how I needed to revise certain parts of this book. Simply put, he made this book possible and, I believe, a much better book.
- 20. xv Foreword Finally, I amgrateful to the following for giving me permission to borrow certain themes and ideas from previous published materials that have been thoroughly revised and rethought for the purposes of this book: 1. “Two critical issues of American public administration” (1987), Administration& Society, 9(I), 25–47. doi.org/10.117710095 31978701900102. 2. (with W. Kuentzel) “Critical theory and the role of citizen involvement in environmental decision making: A re‑ examination” (2005), International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior, 8(4), 520–540.doi.org/10.1108/IJ0TB- 08-04-2005 B004. 3. “Public administration and the changing nature of space” (1994), American Review of Public Administration, 24(1), 1–23. doi 10.1177/027507409402400101. 4. “Radical democratic thought and contemporary public administration: A substantive perspective” (1998), American Review of Public Administration, 28(3), 227–245. doi.org11 0.11771027507409802800301. 5. (with E. Geczi) “Rationality, the public sphere, and the state: The relevance of Alberto Guerreiro Ramos that has largely forgotten him,” (2006), Administrative Theory & Praxis, 28(4), 562–583; “The economic crisis of 2008 and its substantive implications for public affairs,” (2013), Amer- ican Review of Public Administration, 43(6), 627–655. doi. org/10.117710275074013499817.
- 22. 1 Introduction Our participatory modelof politics, and the ethic of “publicness” that undergirds it, is at a crossroads. In Strong Democracy, Benjamin Barber calls for a revised understanding of citizenship in response to this crisis. His concept “rests on the idea of a self‑governing community of citizens who are united less by homogeneous interests than by civic education and who are made capable of common purpose and mutual action by virtue of their civic attitudes and participatory institutions rather than their altruism or their good nature” (1984, p. 117). Three decades later, Barber’s call retains its urgent relevance. It is particularly interesting that Barber framed this bold assertion without the slightest hint of self‑doubt concerning its intrinsic political validity. Barber’s celebratory tone clashes with the tenor of much writing in contemporary public policy; yet, I find it both welcome and warranted. As Alexis de Tocqueville observed, there is an uneasy tension in America between the exaltation of the market ethos (or more broadly, the ideal of individualism, the more rugged the better), while, at the same time, a gen‑ uine yearning for a sense of community sustained by strong civic‑minded instincts. In the context of twenty‑first‑century globalization, this tension has flourished and spread. Following on de Tocqueville’s observations, I suspect that many, if not most social science scholars and practitioners would find Barber’s assertion unrealistic in its political objectives, and utopian in its societal expectations, especially in the rough and ready world of global (and domestic) politics. These are legitimate reservations, but they ignore what Irving Howe (1984, p. 138) so eloquently articulated, in a manner both somber and optimistic, that still resonates with me: Today, in an age of curdled realism, it is necessary to assert the utopian image. But this can be done meaningfully only if it 1
- 23. 2 Public Affairsand Democratic Ideals is an image of social striving, tension, conflict; an image of a problem‑creating and problem‑solving society. Howe’s 1984 statement identifies a worrying trend—the discouragement of meaningful critique of political powers and mores by our overarching structures of governance—prescient on both ends of the political spectrum. Recently, for example, some have argued that American conservatism itself has lost its way by focusing on only one overriding concern: “[s]eeking advantage over our opponents, [which has] poisoned the civic foundation from which we all drink, with predictable results” (Flake, 2017, p. 94). At the same time, American liberalism is increasingly criticized for its unwillingness to tolerate ideological tension within the institutions where it reigns supreme, particularly university campuses (Stephens, 2017). This trend is worth pondering in that it is fair to assume that we teach and conduct research in public affairs (and in the broader social sciences) with the main purpose to nurture the ideals of a democratic ethos in an effort to better understand and resolve the major societal issues of the day. This rationale is predicated on another assumption that often goes unspoken: that social conflict represents, to large degree, a fundamental failure in policy design, implementation, and management, rather than the broader political contradictions and economic tensions condensed in the existing societal arrangements of political power. Not surprisingly, there has been an ongoing debate on how best to achieve the goals of managerial effectiveness and policy efficacy given that it relates directly to the raison d’être of public policy and public management/administration. However, I argue that too many scholars of both fields writing since the 1980s, have been content to take primarily a managerial and analytical perspective, which has undoubt‑ edly advanced our knowledge and practice of public affairs. Likewise, many others have emphasized the varying normative aspects of public affairs in teasing out the philosophical implications (and ideals) of policy objectives. Regardless of the different approaches pursued and their respective validity in providing crucial insights, the current culture of both fields prompts us to contend that scholars and practitioners have, for the most part, become increasingly cautious in choosing the questions we believe are important to explore. That is, the questions posed have become ever more narrow and pedestrian, leaving untouched the “domain assumptions,” as Alvin Gouldner (1970) called them, that underlie the theoretical and pragmatic foundations of both public policy and public management/administration. This penchant
- 24. 3 Introduction can be seenin the paucity of recent scholarship exploring the relationship of public management and public policy with the modern state, and the inherent tensions of such a relationship. This tension, in part, is due to the theoretical uneasiness of the politics and administration dictotomy that continues to haunt both fields. After all, many in both fields would con‑ tend that we are at our best only when addressing primarily administrative questions central to the efficient functioning of the modern state. This book responds to these emergent norms by asking this crucial question: Are we as scholars of public management/administration and public policy willing to question the arrangements of modern power and governance under which we operate? By deemphasizing this question and its implications, we run the risk of both fields becoming nothing more than a legalistic, managerial, economic mode of inquiry with a procedural emphasis. To be sure, some might insist that this is precisely the role both fields should play in societal affairs. Generally speaking, I do not entirely disagree with this view. My contention is that we need to be something more in this time of political estrangement, polarization, and unequal democracy (Bartels, 2016). To put this question in more provocative terms, does the relationship between public policy and public management/administration and the mod‑ ern state inhibit the exploration of certain theoretical issues as politically infeasible and too controversial to pursue? To continue this same point but in a somewhat different direction, does the focus on professionalism—as critical as it is in an era of heightened politicized partisanship—carry with it potentially deleterious consequences that may erode democratic values considered pivotal in educating future policy analysts and public managers? Finally, and perhaps the most controversial point of all, have we in public policy and public management/administration—regardless of our empirical sophistication in analyzing complex social problems (and our confidence in doing this consistently in a rigorous manner)—become an intricate part of “a disguised normative dimension of the established power configuration” (Ramos, 1981, p. 4) and, knowingly or unknowingly, a managerial instrument of what some have referred to as a “good” techno‑governance system (Mouffe, 2005; Dean, 2009; Swyngedouw, 2011; Purcell, 2008)? All of these questions are a reminder of Robert Lynd’s polemic observation, in the classic work Knowledge for What (1939, pp. 125–126), that the social scientists should never be afraid “to be troublesome, to disconcert the habitual arrangements by which to live along, and to demonstrate the possibilities of change in more adequate directions.”As cynical as these concerns may seem, and as
- 25. 4 Public Affairsand Democratic Ideals understandably disconcerting, they nonetheless represent a cogent reminder of a point once made by John Dos Passos (1936), the novelist, who asserted that “the greatest enemy of intelligence is theoretical complacency.” These assertions (and questions) alone should give us pause to recon‑ sider some fundamental issues that go to the heart of public policy and public management/administration. However, recent events throughout a good portion of the developed world have added another level of com‑ plexity to these questions. Some academic critics of modern public affairs have questioned both whether the focus on policy analysis has caused us to deemphasize normative questions and whether the incessant emphasize on empiricist/positivist approaches can lead to naive inductivism (Andreski, 1972). And, as this debate is taking place in academic circles, many societies face a populist backlash (Moffitt, 2016) with critics from primarily outside academia questioning whether the detached, professional public analyst/ administrator works for the broader public interest. These recent complications of the relationship between the social sciences and the public especially highlight that we call ourselves “public” policy and “public” management/administration. In fact, until recently the concept of publicness (and its changing meaning over time) did not attract much intellectual attention in our theoretical and professional discussions (Stivers, 2010; Natabachi, 2010; Ventriss, 1987). After all, as argued in the chapters that follow, those of us who study and practice public affairs put the word public first not merely for semantic reasons, but rather because it conveys, or should convey, some salient ethical and societal implications for what we seek to achieve in the broader social context. When I first raised this point (Ventriss, 1987), my focus was on the development of a theory of the public—a reconceptualization of the meaning of publicness. Yet the notion of the public was—and remains—a concept fraught with inherent theoretical ambiguity (Ventriss, 1987; Pesch, 2008). I anchored the idea of publicness predominantly in John Dewey’s terms; that is, as an integral aspect of the citizenry’s capacity and maturity in understanding the interactive societal consequences of public actions on others. Since that time there has been an emerging debate on what might constitute the meaning of “publicness” and what it implies for both public policy, public management/administration, and public affairs in general (Pesch, 2005, 2008; Bozeman & Bretschneider, 1994; Haque, 2001; Frederickson, 1997; Barnes, Newman, Knops, & Sullivan, 2003; Low & Smith, 2005; Moulton, 2009; Williams & Shearer, 2011; Nabatchi, 2011). Irrespective of the varying theoretical perspectives taken on this concept, I maintain
- 26. 5 Introduction (as I willmake clear in this book) that publicness denotes something more than a concept coterminous with the role of the modern state, or a term so amorphous that it lacks any viable guide to how we should proceed on important policy matters. Instead, publicness is fundamentally an adherence to democratic ideals and democratic aspirations epitomizing the following general characteristics: (1) publicness is inherently a process of civic responsibility, consistent with Richard Flathman’s (1989) conception of high citizenship, that is, an inclusive critical learning process involving a network of different publics sharing crucial information in initiating and debating public action and, more important, critically examining the substantive impact of policy actions on others; (2) publicness also directly implies a responsibility for those in public policy and public management/administration in sorting out and exposing the misinformation and distortion of crucial data that can obscure the normative impact of certain policies on the citizenry (Stone, 2012); (3) publicness acknowledges the central validity of citizen dissent, or other venues of constructive public contestation, in publicly expressing concerns about unequal influence and societal impacts in the policy process, especially in this era of political and economic uncertainty; (4) publicness refers to the notion that, given there are so many “publics” in society, it is crucial to experiment with policies that are nonaggregate, that is, publicness requires the importance of including the unique and particularized knowledge of different publics into the policy process congruent to public service values; and finally, (5) in the face of the rise of pseudo‑democratic populism often indifferent to factual information, a revigorated view of publicness is called for in confronting, among other things, the perils of interest‑group liberalism and the growing distrust of governmental institutions.This later point will be discussed at length in subsequent chapters of this book. This is hardly an exhaustive list of what could be considered as publicness and its relevance to those who practice and study public policy and public management/administration. However, I contend this approach to publicness can loosen, or at least weaken, the strong grip of an instrumental rationality and a market mentality that hovers over the theoretical landscape of public affairs. It is not claimed here that publicness would, or should, replace the value of other conceptual perspectives on public matters. Rather, a focus on publicness would demonstrate, and hopefully clarify, the limitations of these other perspectives. In short, it would have us refocus our role more attentively to the broader substantive obligations of those powerful resid‑ ual political and economic conditions contributing to what David Harvey (1996) described as “parochialist politics” and “political passivity.” To many,
- 27. 6 Public Affairsand Democratic Ideals this may sound not only pretentious to our modern pragmatic ears, but as an invitation to a Sisyphean exercise in intellectual futility. No doubt, this intellectual endeavor will not be easy. Nevertheless, this new theoretical and pragmatic trajectory could be crucial in facilitating a “problem‑solving” approach emphasized earlier by Irving Howe. This book is written to move us closer to reinvigorating publicness in this era of political and economic uncerainty with all the inevitable theoretical twists and turns that are bound to happen in this intellectual journey. Some might argue that neglect of the theoretical underpinnings of publicness is hardly surprising given that public policy, and in particular public management/administration, have little theoretical coherency to speak of. As Iain Gow puts it, “The field has a hard time getting respect from academic colleagues in the social sciences” (2010, p. 31). This has especially been the case relative to political science, which has often criticized the field for being atheoretical; focused on applied empirical research meant to improve governance, rather than theory testing about governance. Gow has dismissed these discussions, accepted that “[l]a science administrative est une science empirique par excellence” (1993, p. 87), and has termed this “prag‑ matic institutionalism.” The term nicely combines the emphasis on structure (institutionalism) and technique (pragmatism) in a single paradigm, and identifies this, for example, as “the default position in public affairs [and public policy] in Canada” (p. 10). He describes this paradigm as focused on being “comprehensive and accurate, to ‘get it right’ ” (p. 5). However, for many scholars in public affairs, this pragmatic, intellectual mosaic of different disciplines, while commendable in this age of special‑ ization, has especially taken its scholarly toll on the reputation of public administration/management. But truth be told, both intellectual enterprises (with a few exceptions who argue for a more critical perspective) suffer from a conceptual parochialism and intellectual ambivalence that has left theoret‑ ically untouched the Hobbesian/Lockean mentality in modern politics and the consequential residue of possessive individualism which continues to run rampant through our political veins (Macpherson, 1973). Public policy and public management/ administration are, of course, historically and contextu‑ ally specific to the country in which they are practiced and theorized. Even given this reality, a serious debate needs to emerge—a point I emphasize in many of these chapters—about the ideological, political, and economic forces that coalesce into a managerial consensual governing system that essentially undermines the consideration of different ways of incorporating
- 28. 7 Introduction democratic processes intocommunity life (Ranciere, 1999). Peter Bachrach (1967, p. 99)correctly emphasized that what we face in modern politics is an uncomfortable Hobson’s choice: “a theory which is normatively sound but unrealistic, or a theory which is realistic but heavily skewed toward elitism.” While this theoretical dichotomy is admittedly overstated, this book echoes an approach that Foucault (in Simon, 1971, p. 201) emphasized: What I am trying to do is grasp the implicit systems of thought which determine our most familiar behavior without our knowing it. I am trying to find their origins, to show their formation, the constraint they impose upon us . . . Inspirations and Areas of Inquiry This book builds on the ideas of many preeminent scholars, and in this respect particular attention is owed to Alberto Guerreiro Ramos. At least three of his works, The New Science of Organizations: A Reconceptualization of the Wealth of Nations (1981), A Reducao Sociologica (1958), and the essay Patologia Social do Branco Brasiseiro (1955), serve as a springboard for my argument. Guerreiro Ramos was one of the earliest scholars to point to the risks of a social science that took homo economicus as its referent. A solu‑ tion that he offered was to recognize the importance of nonmarket settings in which people could pursue other, nonmaterialist interests. As a result, Guerreiro Ramos criticized both mainstream public policy and public man‑ agement/administration (and social science) as reluctant, or more accurately, intellectually unwilling to comprehend the irreconcilable conflict between instrumental rationality and substantive rationality, and the consequential implications of this tension on the body politic. In light of the increasingly narrow scope of both fields that I have mentioned earlier in this introduction, it should come as no surprise that many have responded coldly to Guerreiro Ramos’s thinking, with theoret‑ ical dismay or even “polite” neglect of his scholarship. This reception is primarily because, in Guerreiro Ramos’s typical sharply edged polemic tone, he criticized the conventional scholarship in public affairs as indulging in a theoretical self‑deception camouflaged by a ubiquitous market ideology which has shaped the manner in which we formulate, define, and design policy approaches, points also echoed by Crouch (2004, 2011). That these
- 29. 8 Public Affairsand Democratic Ideals trends persist despite nearly a half‑century of critique, and do not necessarily command the respect of public affair scholars and practitioners, illustrates the intellectual malaise that this book aims to address. It is, to reemphasize, not my purpose in this book to elucidate all the various nuances of Guerreiro Ramos’s thinking on political and administra‑ tive matters. Rather, it is to point out that Guerreiro Ramos tried, in his own way, to awaken us from our intellectual complacency and theoretical timidity—and, judging from where we are today, he has largely failed. This raises the question: What additional perspectives can we in public affairs bring to theory and practice to reinvigorate contemporary governance and participatory politics? Much like John Stuart Mill, Guerreiro Ramos reiter‑ ated the necessity of continuously scrutinizing the presuppositions of policy issues, thinking this intellectual posture could foster both a moral alertness and a more vibrant notion of “publicness.” As an Afro‑Brasileiro scholar and public official growing up in highly segregated Brazil, he was keenly aware of those forces of political domination, both subtle and explicit, that can emerge in society and, just as important, what can occur when such forces are ignored and/or unchallenged. While I disagree strongly with many aspects of Ramos’s major arguments and his theoretical contentions (which will be explored later in the book), he did posit the need for theoretically unpacking, so to speak, the hegemony of deeply embedded belief systems that are often glossed over in our theoretical and pragmatic considerations of policy ends. The intellectual malaise, Ramos tells us, facing specifically public policy and public management/administration is not the result, as Udo Pesch (2008) has enumerated, of trying to reconcile various meanings of publicness or the inevitability of seeing publicness as an intrinsically ambiguous concept. The real issue, he emphasized, is how the notion of publicness itself has been eclipsed and distorted by “cognitive politics” (Guerreiro Ramos’s term), which “consists in a conscious or unconsciousness use of distorted language, the intent of which is to induce people to interpret reality in terms that reward it direct and/or indirect agents of such distortion” (1981, p. 76). In many respects, Ramos’s conception of publicness is foundational to my own argument. Putting aside this awkward phrasing, Guerreiro Ramos illuminates a poignant issue missing in most of the literature in public affairs: that cognitive politics, in a chameleon‑like fashion, has undercut the intellectual integrity of public policy and public management/administra‑ tion—and much of the social sciences. This has resulted, in large part, in the legitimization of “the expansion of economizing organizations beyond their specific contextual boundaries by practicing a misplaced and mistaken
- 30. 9 Introduction humanism” (1981, p.84). These fields, in other words, have become a mode of social inquiry peculiarly vulnerable to a utilitarian mind‑set displacing social conflict and public dissent into new governance systems such as col‑ laborative policy networks, participatory strategies, benchmarking for per‑ formance, or in new and revised managerial and policy strategies. Although these approaches are initiated for laudable reasons and are praised for their contributions to public affairs, little attention has gone into what this dis‑ placement means for our theoretical development and intellectual agenda. This neglect, Guerreiro Ramos would argue, has come, unfortunately, with a hefty intellectual and ethical price tag. With that in mind, the first section of this book assesses the asymme‑ try of information and power among policy analysts, administrators, public officials, and the general public. This, again, is not new: writing in 1984, Eugene McGregor argued that “an extraordinary knowledge disparity exists between public service careerists . . . and a civitas that wants problems solved. The gap is not only large, it appears to be growing and the effects can only be worrisome. The knowledge gap may well contribute to mistrust of institutions by citizens to know when things are not working but not able to say what the possibilities for successful intervention are” (p. 127). Up until perhaps the last couple of years this claim would have been accepted by many: some citizens have lost faith with self‑serving professionals and policy elites (an overwhelmingly elite class). McGregor continued, though: “The gap may explain some of the measured contempt public analysts have displayed toward an unknowing and disrespectful public” (ibid.). However, there is another question worth posing of professionalism: while policy experts can overlook the grounded information about policy provided by ordinary citizens, it is crucial to be cognizant of the current upsurge of anti‑intel‑ lectualism, especially in the United States, that undercuts the specialized knowledge that professionals can bring to bear on important policy issues. Both this imbalance of power and information, and the impact of anti‑intellectualism, cannot be mitigated by merely appealing to the scientific method in exploring policy and administrative issues. While it is true this approach represents a significant aspect of what is usually done to achieve the goals of efficiency, expediency, and calculation of policy ends, one of the questions asked in this book is the following: Can this salient approach alone, for all its empirical acumen, expose the role of certain key powerful actors in the policy process without taking into consideration the broader historical and normative context of this issue, and how such power can marginalize political challenges to their continued influence on certain policy matters
- 31. 10 Public Affairsand Democratic Ideals (Lustig, 1982; Crouch, 2004; Mayer, 2016; Dean, 2009; Jessop, 2005; Swyn‑ gedouw, 2011)? The most common reaction to such claims is that in public policy and public management/administration we do not make policy; rather, we only analyze the viability of policies and appropriately implement (and manage) them congruent to the rules and regulations dictated by legitimate political institutions. This viewpoint, particularly by practitioners, is strongly held because of the danger of undermining the nonpartisan role of public management/administration and public policy. The reasoning here is explicit and direct: we do not need, nor should it ever be desired, to do anything that smacks, or is even suspected by others, of having any other purpose than what is specifically prescribed by the state. Furthermore, any other outlook, it is claimed, would expand the meaning of both fields perilously beyond their traditional role and appropriate societal purpose. Although the rationale behind these concerns is certainly understand‑ able, I emphasize the implications of publicness as a major challenge to both fields. This implies, I contend, a reexamination of neo-managerialism and the relationship of the state to both fields. I also focus in this section on critical democratic thought and the reinvigoration of publicness as a way of introducing the kind of questions we should be asking ourselves and the theoretical perspectives needed in these challenging times. I end this section with a critical analysis of some of the theoretical shortcomings of Guerreiro Ramos and others in assessing the substantive aspects of publicness. I argue that it is crucial in this era of political and economic uncertainty to take Guerreiro Ramos’s project forward, albeit in a revised manner, when dis‑ cussing the interrelationships of citizenship, the state, and the public sphere. The second section focuses on those debates that have not received the appropriate attention in public management/administration, and to a lesser extent, public policy. For instance, the first chapter in this section examines the economic crisis of 2008 in reference to not only economic inequality and limited economic mobility, but to political inequality and unequal democracy and their enduring, corrosive influence on the policy and administrative process. On a related theme, the spatial aspects of the market economy will be discussed and why this warrants critical scrutiny in this era of capital mobility, economic interdependencies, and a ubiquitous social media, which have contributed to a growing breeding ground for economic and political uncertainty (and insecurity) among certain segments of soci‑ ety. And finally, I argue that for all the celebratory arguments in praise of public participation and deliberative democracy (which I largely applaud), I wonder whether such discussions are only tiptoeing around other key issues
- 32. 11 Introduction concerning the transformativegoals these noble intentions hope to achieve. This is not to imply for a moment that these participatory goals are unre‑ alistic, but rather that we have succumbed too readily to the rationale that by continuously tinkering with an endless variety of managerial approaches and theoretical perspectives, new and old, this somehow will better prepare us for implementing more effectively the incremental policies that so often emerge from the legislative process (Layzer, 2015). It is no wonder, given this view, that there has been minimal debate concerning the underlying conditions that caused the problem in the first place. This section is guided by one of Thomas Pynchon’s central characters in Gravity’s Rainbow, who evocatively declared the following: “If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.” As the chapters in this section try to make clear, the time has come to put at the forefront of the intellectual agenda the glaring economic tensions and social conflicts emerging both domestically and internationally, and whether contemporary political discord can be successfully mediated by a managerial and empirical outlook without seriously questioning the prevail‑ ing societal and economic arrangements. Concomitantly, I also address the question of civic responsibility. The “inclusive learning process involving a network of different publics . . . critically examining the substantive impact of policy actions on others” that I identify as the first of the five general characteristics, is not something that can be implemented in a top‑down fashion. McGregor emphasizes the need for public analysts/administrators to nurture “a potentially argumentative public . . . a dominant ethic of public service must be that careerists keep citizens fully informed about the possibilities for public service. . . . The democratic point is that the public need is for intelligently organized information presented so that informed decisions can be made” (1984, p. 128). Yet the provision of this intelligently organized information will only help if “citizens” can better understand those political and economic forces that call for more social division and simplistic solutions. The final chapter of this book focuses on how those of us devoted to both fields might proceed in meeting these challenges. I do not claim that this is an exhaustive compilation of challenges before us or that any of my suggestions are a panacea to these respective issues. Undoubtedly, some will view this part of the book as a jeremiad that paints those of us who study or practice public affairs in an unfavorable light, or, as some of our colleagues might argue, in an overly pessimistic manner. My intention here is quite the opposite: it is a call for a renewed sense of what is referred to
- 33. 12 Public Affairsand Democratic Ideals as “elenchic citizenship” (Ventriss, 2007). It is a citizenship of publicness, Dana Villa (2001, p. 20) explains, that is Socratic in nature in that it consists in the endless and seemingly circular questioning of the basic terms of our moral culture, those whose meaning seems self‑evident and unarguable. Questioning is an end itself . . . [but it is also a questioning to] maintain a critical distance on all accepted definitions . . . and ridding the various false beliefs that promote injustice. That said, I contend that no amount of empirical studies, nor normative theorizing, nor new managerial or participatory strategies will ever suffice in cultivating a democratic ethos if we do not fully comprehend the nor‑ mative implications of an “unexamined citizenship” and how this lack of understanding might lead us down a path toward intellectual hubris and theoretical complacency. Montaigne’s (1976) erudite insight is worth ponder‑ ing here: “No wind helps him who does not know to what port he sails.” This task will be neither easy nor, I suspect, very popular among some of my colleagues. But the recognition of this crucial task, and the need for it, is the real challenge that lies before us. This book, hopefully, will explain this imperative, and so nudge us into taking this intellectual plunge. Theoretical Grounding Like any other work of this sort, the themes discussed in this book have been strongly influenced by certain contemporary seminal thinkers. These thinkers include (besides Guerreiro Ramos) the following: Albert Camus, Donald A. Schon, Deborah Stone, Harold Lasswell, Nancy Fraser, Karl Polanyi, Han‑ nah Arendt, Jeffrey Isaac, Dana Villa, Albert Hirschman, Sheldon Wolin, Michael Walzer, Robert Nisbet, Dwight Waldo, John K. Galbraith, Bonnie Honig, Fred Hirsch, Daniel Bell, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and Alvin Gouldner. Each of these thinkers, in varying degrees, has argued that it is problematic whether democracy can come into full development if we do not first carefully analyze the concrete behavior, motives, desires, and ideals that make up moral life. Moreover, these thinkers, putting aside their differ‑ ent conceptual venues in addressing these issues, are united in their refusal to view public life solely in instrumental and utilitarian terms. A common purpose cannot exist in the interstices of a liberal culture, they indicate,
- 34. 13 Introduction if the existingmoral instincts of society become increasingly antipublic, or contribute to “the retreat of the political.” The intellectual thread that ties all these thinkers together is their emphasis on the quality of political relation‑ ships and public commitments, which can never be reduced to mere private acquisitive behavior; that any viable public purpose finds its meaning in a reflective citizenship, not in the thoughtless conformity of Arendt’s (1973) “behaving citizens” or the related disenfranchisement of Margaret Somers’s (2008) market‑driven postcitizenship. In the end, the luminaries in this field identify that the civic ethos can be easily atrophied or overridden by the exultation of a market mentality and by what has been referred to as the “economization of politics” (Brown, 2015) that lacks a coherent public discourse adequate to the complexities of social and political life, trends we see playing out today. These thinkers have also provided us in public affairs a rich theoretical tapestry of ideas that is both cautious and, surprisingly enough, optimistic in what can be accomplished in our modern polity. This optimism is founded on the premise that we who study and serve in public affairs can reverse our myopic underpinnings with a more concerted focus on civitas—a civitas that stresses publicness as a bulwark against the unrestrained pursuit of private interest and as a way to legitimize public spaces for displaying conflict and public struggle in the pursuit of public purposes. It is an optimism borne of the reality, as William Sullivan (1986, p. 158) avers, that “the citizen comes to know who he [or she] is by understanding the social relationships surrounding him [or her] . . . [an] awareness of the interdependency of citizens . . . [and that it is] basic to the civic vision because it enlightens and challenges . . . disparate parties about their mutual relations.” This will require the formulation of a renewed emphasize on “public language,” the ability to become a “public social science,” and finally a renewed sense of publicness that puts human dignity, critical inquiry, public responsibility, public accessibility, and public learning at the center of what we aspire to be in societal affairs (Ventriss, 1987; Sullivan, 1986; Ku, 2000). Yet, ironically, a degree of caution is called for in this endeavor. This caution is due primarily to the reality of a growing public disdain for politics, a fragmented public with a tenuous sense of social cohesion, a growing distrust for government in general (Will, 1983; Nye, Zelikow, & King, 1997; Thompson, 2010) and more recently, the full emergence of a heretofore underlying phenomenon that has contributed to these other real‑ ities: anti‑intellectualism. No doubt, it is difficult to be persuasive in such a polarizing political environment when stereotypes of “faceless” administrators
- 35. 14 Public Affairsand Democratic Ideals and policy analysts are continuously misrepresented in the minds of the citizenry (Goodsell, 2014). Indeed, Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totali- tarianism (1973) warns explicitly that the emergence of anti‑intellectualism is one factor among others that can stifle productive dialogue and political critique. Thus, there is a need to walk cautiously, so to speak, knowing that we have intrinsic limitations of what can be actually achieved given the vicissitudes of public opinion, public attitudes, and public expectations about government itself. This caution, moreover, also comes with a theoretical awkwardness and intellectual solicitude. It leaves us, who teach or practice in public affairs, essentially on an intellectual (and pragmatic) tightrope. This balancing act requires maintaining the intellectual conviction to present the world as it is, and then of asking critical (and probing) questions of political and institutional life. Furthermore, this balancing act further requires coming up with ideas to effectively manage and better understand the labyrinthine policies of the state, as well as certain political movements and powerful institutional actors that seek to present a self‑serving perspective of the world, not least to obviate the need for the sort of critical (and probing) questions mentioned above. We operate, in effect, in a continuous state of in‑betweenness among those competing forces of political and intellectual gravity that constantly tug at us and which subsequently makes our bal‑ ancing act especially arduous, frustrating, exhausting, and, exasperating. It is important to note that these dynamic and powerful political movements are not just unique to the United States; they have been documented in such countries as Australia, Brazil, and to a lesser extent Canada, to name a few (Candler, 2014). In sum, the questions I ask and the suggestions I offer in this book have been deeply influenced by these seminal thinkers, whose foundations give us much needed perspective on the depth and scope of the issues facing us in public affairs today. These thinkers are crucial because they understand just how unsettling it can be as we try to maintain our delicate balance between dedication to democratic progress and deference to convention, especially given the absence of any theoretical banisters to hold us steady. This terminal condition, one could argue, may be the new and stark reality of modern democratic policymaking. But, on the other hand, this state of affairs can be regarded as a long overdue opportunity to step back and “to retrace our cultural steps, and rethink what we think” (Will, 1983, p. 163). The need for such rethinking comes at a time when, beginning in the 1970s, trust in key governmental institutions, public officials, professionals, and the media has plummeted, leading to a heightened political and eco‑
- 36. 15 Introduction nomic uncertainty ofhow we can resolve in the future—with any sense of confidence—such key societal issues and daunting public challenges as income and wealth inequality, economic insecurity, climate change, wage stagnation, political polarization, and immigration. This book is in response to these formidable trends and the perception of many citizens in the United States and elsewhere that believe government can no longer effectively ameliorate or resolve the uncertainities by conventional administrative and policy approaches. The overall theme of this book is straightforward: those of us who do research in public management/administration and public policy (and who work in the public and nonprofit sector) need to reassess some fundamental assump‑ tions of whether the questions we have been asking—and the intellectual and professional heritage we have taken as a given—are expanding or restricting the centrality of publicness. Such “rethinking what we think” and how we confront the exigency of the challenges before us has a lot to say about the direction of our intellectual future and the substantive purpose we aspire to in this time of policy complexity, social discord, and uncertainty. Conclusion In this introduction, I have focused on the two fundamental tensions in the study and practice of public affairs that this book undertakes to address. First, I outlined the conflict between normative and utilitarian influences on public management/administration and public policy. And second, I underscored the pressing need for a revitalized view of publicness to equip those dedicated to public affairs to engage with the political and economic uncertainties that will pose significant challenges in politics, economy, and public life in the twenty‑first century. In painting a picture of the conflict between normative and utilitarian forces in contemporary public affairs, I drew on thinkers including Guer‑ reiro Ramos, Barber, and Gouldner, to highlight the crossroads at which we now find ourselves. These authors, in particular, identified the increasingly market‑centered and quantitative nature of scholarship in both fields. More importantly, they collectively suggest that, unfortunately, scholarly inquiry in both fields has become increasingly narrow and pedestrian in nature. Given their theoretical insights, I argue that in both fields we seem reluc‑ tant to recognize and interrogate the domain assumptions (those underlying assumptions that are rarely questioned or examined) under which we operate. Following on this argument, I suggested that a different conceptu‑ alization of publicness will be required if we want to realize both fields’
- 37. 16 Public Affairsand Democratic Ideals potential—and mandate—that bridges civic life, professional practice, and academic scholarship. I outlined five crucial elements of such an approach, which are: (1) an emphasis on reflective civic responsibility and critical public learning; (2) a mandate for scholars and professionals alike to identify and clarify misinformation and distortion of data to enhance civic engagement; (3) improved capacity for debate and constructive citizen dissent; (4) rec‑ ognition of the existence of plural publics, and the designing of policies congruent to their respective and distinct public needs; and (5) a clarified and strengthened relationship between the public and professionals. I grounded this theoretical sketch in the works of diverse seminal thinkers, especially Ramos, all of whom have in some way called for an expanded role for a fundamental rethinking of what we do in both public management/ administration and public policy. In the coming sections of this book, I develop two related lines of inquiry. In the following four chapters (2–5, Section 1), I investigate the factors conditioning current tensions and theoretical needs in public affairs. Readers with a predominantly theoretical interest in the challenges facing public affairs today should focus their attention here. In the final three chapters (6–8, Section 2), I examine how these factors and theoretical needs play out in important contemporary issues/cases. Readers primarily interested in the more pragmatic aspects of contemporary public affairs may want to spend the bulk of their time with these chapters. Finally, in my closing chapter (9), I offer my personal reflections on steps to be taken at the individual and institutional levels to strengthen the normative dimensions of theory and practice in public affairs, based on insights developed over the course of my career. I hope that these insights will be especially relevant to graduate students and other professionals, who may be able to take advantage of them over their course of the study and practice of public affairs.
- 38. Section 1 The Importanceof Publicness and Critical Democratic Thought
- 40. 2 Conditioning Factors Neo‑Managerialism andthe Modern State Modern society is faced by myriad major economic and political issues, and mired in contentious debates concerning how best to resolve them (Arendt, 1958, 1961; Benn & Gaus, 1983; Warner, 2002; Calhoun, 2002, 2011; Sheller & Urry, 2003; Castoriadis, 1997). Given this state of affairs, why should there be any serious interest among social scientists—or the general public, for that matter—to address such subjects as the societal role of those who study and practice public affairs and the inherently ambiguous meaning of publicness in the contemporary human enterprise? Indeed, what purpose would this examination serve and who would really care beyond those directly engaged, or somewhat interested, in public affairs? The simple answer to this question is this: the study of public affairs is of importance because, perhaps more than any other mode of social inquiry, it is dedi‑ cated to analyzing and managing approaches that directly contribute to the resolution of the economic and political challenges facing society. However, the ability of public policy and public management/administration to fulfill this essential function is increasingly challenged by the conditioning factors under which they both operate. Any field—professional or academic—exists in the context of an increasingly complex and changing society. Hence, in order to remain rele‑ vant in this context there is a penchant to develop a core identity that can inform and guide its direction and influence. In particular, scholars of public affairs face particular challenges in this respect not only because the work it undertakes is more intimately intertwined with the dynamic worlds of governance and public life, but especially because of its continued aspiration for theoretical and societal relevance. 19
- 41. 20 Public Affairsand Democratic Ideals The study of both public management/administration and public pol‑ icy has often been described as mere amalgamations of the many different areas of inquiry that it represents. For example, Dwight Waldo (1968, p. 2) once somberly described public administration as “a subject in search of a discipline.” Waldo reminds us that in public affairs there will always be a certain amount of conceptual uneasiness and confusion when any interdisciplinary field is conceptually scattered so widely over the theoreti‑ cal and intellectual landscape. For this reason, it probably makes sense to acknowledge that such intellectual and professional enterprises are inherently, for better or worse, intellectually muddled; that as scholars of public affairs we are inexorably caught in the vexing pull between the different demands of the world of theory and the realities of practice; and, finally, that such modes of inquiry can become too often nothing more than a collection of contrapuntal theoretical voices that rarely combine into anything harmonic in conceptual terms. As one scholar so aptly put it, most of the professional and theoretical literature in the study of public management/administration and public policy resembles nothing more than a “hodgepodge of theoretical ramblings” (Ramos, 1981, p. 61). This has led to a long and tortuous discussion in both fields about how this lack of theoretical consistency has conditioned the interaction of public affairs with the broader academic and professional environments in which it functions. For example, some would argue that in the absence of any organizing theory, public policy has wrapped itself comfortably in the conceptual garb of microeconomics, game theory, operations research, and an array of quantitative methods, while public management/administration has veered toward demonstrating its steadfast adherence to the merits of economy and efficiency in managing public affairs. Elaborating on this theme, Gerald Caiden pulled no punches in contending that the crisis of legitimacy, specifically confronting public administration, is inexorably related to its inability to formulate a viable and cogent theoretical base from which to defend itself. In the next breath, he concluded that public administra‑ tion has consequently been unable to mount any effective reply against its critics who accuse it of being “parasitic, unproductive, inefficient, wasteful, incompetent, corrupt, and above all unnecessary” (1983, p. 1). To understand how a field such as public management/administra‑ tion concerned with public well‑being has found itself vulnerable to such critique, this chapter investigates the context within which both fields of inquiry presently search for their respective theoretical foundations. In part, Swyngedouw (2010) writes, this situation is best understood within the
- 42. 21 Conditioning Factors context ofa “post‑politics” of neoliberalism that has largely eviscerated the publicness of social conflict, public contestation and civic dialogue. That is, social conflict, contestation, and dialogue are now comfortably ensconced in collaborative, polycentric networks and horizontal associations of private, public, and state actors. Such governing arrangements, he emphasizes, give the impression that they represent a major step forward in wedding progressive state power with policy innovations for the common good. Swyngedouw maintains that this proclivity for rechanneling and displacing conflict rep‑ resents, in effect, the partitioning of publicness from its political nature in that any sense of publicness is legitimized only when it is predicated on reaching a cooperative arrangement among interested parties congruent to the political logic of neoliberal managerialism (Dahl & Soss, 2014; Wolin, 2008). I argue that this diagnosis is mainly accurate, and I will investigate its implications in the following sections: the rise of neo‑managerialism norms and their impact on public affairs, and the role of the modern state within which both fields are practiced and intellectually engaged. Neo‑managerialism and the Economization of Political Inquiry “From the late 19th century on,” David Hart and William Scott (1982, p. 240) have observed, “public administration [specifically] has been challenged to emulate the presumed efficiencies of business administration.” Hart and Scott go on to argue that “public administration responded to that challenge so enthusiastically that it lost its unique identity in the process. By now it has become nothing more than an undistinguished cousin of business administration [and economics].” Subsequently, public affairs, they lament, has become increasingly captive of a belief, albeit understandable in a market society, in the singular focus on efficiency and productivity as exemplified in the contemporary managerial, market approach to public affairs (Pollitt, 1993; Clarke, 2005; Dryzek, 2008). More broadly, this tendency represents the peril of stripping any resemblance of a democratic ethos from its political dimension grounded on the basis of public dissensus. Hart and Scott echo a similar concern that the theoretical residue of this perspective has resulted in an intellectual default whereby neo‑managerialism becomes an ideological and empirical filter significantly biasing the direction of decision making congruent to instrumental rather than substantive ends (Adams & Balfour, 2012; Scott & Hart, 1979).1
- 43. 22 Public Affairsand Democratic Ideals This emphasis on neo-managerialism (Terry, 1998; Denhardt & Denhardt, 2015), as it is referred to in the literature, amounts to an epistemological and philosophical belief system. It specifies that because public management/admin‑ istration and public policy are primarily utilitarian and pragmatic fields, their greatest contribution is in the application of managerial and empirically based strategies to solve public problems, thus underscoring what Ranciere (1995, 2010) referred to as a “managerial consensual governing.” It is, moreover, a governing process that inevitably depoliticizes social conflict and dissent (Muller & Ventriss, 1985; Box, 2008, 2014; Mouffe, 2005; Wolin, 2008; Pateman, 2012; Peck & Tickell, 2002). Admittedly, this perspective is closely reminiscent of premises associated with the New Public Management movement and its focus on a technical and economic (read: market) rationality to public affairs (Barzelay, 2001; Lynn, 2006). Of course, it can be argued that this managerial and economic pre‑ disposition is due to the growth of government in dealing with growing public expectations and public needs. For example, many public programs are run like businesses (for example, railroads, pension funds, power plants, and the like) that are almost indistinguishable from their entrepreneurial, private sector counterparts. The central premises of neo‑managerialism, broadly speaking, incorporate these basic elements: (1) “a less than direct and conscious promotion of ethical values (Lynch, 2014); (2) inclusion of all even remotely relevant disciplines into the field due to an inability to define normative positions; (3) consideration of the needed social technology to achieve managerial and market efficiency; (4) a focus on an empirically minded policy orientation; and (5) the need for planning and managerial control absent a strong presumptive normative foundation” (Wald, 1973, 376; Latour, 2005; Fox, 1996; Clarke & Newman, 1997; Terry, 1998; Denhardt & Denhardt, 2015). Assuming the validity of these characteristics, it is no wonder that many in public affairs have argued that those being educated for the pub‑ lic and nonprofit sectors need to master the requisite business, economic, and analytical skills because we are, after all, dealing more and more with classical problems of business and economic management (McCurdy, 1978; Osborne & Gaebler, 1992; Osborne & Plastrik, 1997). Understandably, many may find this characterization overdrawn and misleading, but there is no denying that for many scholars of public affairs this empirically grounded managerial and economic approach was generally greeted with enthusiasm as a long overdue and welcome development (Dubnick, 2000). However, if one follows this logic, the theoretical purpose of public management/
- 44. 23 Conditioning Factors administration andpublic policy becomes on balance nothing more than the application of different managerial and technical approaches that can sustain both fields’ pragmatic and nonpartisan appeal. According to Adams and Balfour (2012, p. 326), while there is nothing wrong per se with this view, this kind of reasoning leads “to a narrow concept of [the] public that limits public practices . . . [and] severely restricts what activities are available with regard to public values and ethics.” A similar assumption made with this line of thinking also merits serious attention: that better government, for the most part, is synonymous with more efficient public organization. Within limits, this rationale is both understandable and commendable (Waldo, 1971; Lynn, 2006). However, the danger comes, John Schaar (1970, p. 306) cautions, when we believe “that finding the right solution is [always] a matter of finding the right technique.” This is not to negate the crucial importance of obtaining and applying analytical and appropriate manage‑ rial strategies in order to increase efficiency in government. That point few would ever dispute. Alternatively, however, neo‑managerialism may be no accident at all—it is part and parcel of the public organization’s inclination to control how public problems are framed and defined, thus enhancing its own survival, growth, and power (Brown & Erie, 1979; Adams & Balfour, 2014; Hummel, 2007; Ramos, 1981; Perrow, 1986). Following on that same theme, Brown and Erie (1979) contend that a critical analysis of the original source of public problems could—and potentially would—call into question the very viability and direction of public organizations. Not surprisingly, some scholars have vehemently objected to the validity of such broad and sweeping generalizations (Goodsell, 2014; Neiman, 2000; Terry, 2003; Meier & O’Toole, 2006). Then again, as disparaging as this may sound, Richard Goodwin (1975, p. 330), who coined the term “The Great Society” while a policy aide to President Lyndon Johnson, interestingly made a compelling argument that government and its public agencies “cannot act effectively if the source of discontent is fundamental, residing in the design of society.” Notwithstanding the troubling theoretical and practical implications of this argument, this contention has been rarely acknowledged, or even seriously debated, in the literature of public administration (Forester, 1993; Dunn & Miller, 2007; Denhardt, 1981; Hummel, 2007). These polemic perspectives are hardly new. For, as Gary Wills (1969) explains, the managerial approach to social and political issues may be more serious than originally thought: we displace political problems into managerial and technical issues because we are an integral part of a “mod‑ ern rationalist liberalism, an ideology of structures [that] has nothing to
- 45. 24 Public Affairsand Democratic Ideals offer if structural or procedural reforms do not avail” (Ghelardi, 1976, p. 257; Mannheim, 1956; Polanyi, 1944). That is, we cling tenaciously to the strategy of revising administrative procedures, of arranging (and rearrang‑ ing) various parts of the administrative state, of applying newer and more efficacious managerial and policy approaches, and of putting increasingly more of our faith in what economic reasoning (and markets) can offer. We do this without considering that political and economic inequalities, political discontent, and social conflicts within the modern polity might require a critical examination of the underlying assumptions of what we believe constitutes democratic accountability and substantive inclusion of citizens in the policy process. Bevir (2011, p. 17) argues that, in the long run, this will ultimately mean exploring new opportunities for a role that includes “more plural and participatory concepts of democracy” (Ventriss, 1985; Nabatchi & Leighninger, 2015; Pateman, 2012; Natatchi & Amsler, 2014; Dryzek, 2000; Fung & Wright,2003). Whether this actually happens, of course, remains to be seen. But the intellectual influence of neo‑managerialism is not just an issue of the economization of political inquiry; it also depicts a pragmatic outlook concerning the ubiquitous influence of the market mentality on modern society itself (Sandel, 2014; Polanyi, 1944). This marketplace men‑ tality is an outlook that inevitably facilitates a ritualistic democracy on the shaky foundation of incessant political bargaining and competition (Sandel, 2014; Wolin, 1960, 2008; Kariel, 1977; Macpherson, 1962, 1973; Barber, 1984). Given that the political gamesmanship of constant bargaining and competition is here to stay as an integral part of how policy is made, it is not surprising that administrators and policy analysts find themselves too often acting, so to speak, like technocratic Hamlets trying to provide some managerial order to this messy, unruly process. We are to be forgiven, however. We are—like everyone else—just following the rules of the game. But following the rules of the game carries a certain intellectual price tag (Arendt, 1978). It is a cost reflected in a lack of diligence in addressing certain important and controversial subjects, namely: Does this propensity toward neo‑managerialism of political inquiry not only result in taking a myopic perspective on social issues, but, equally important, in privatizing social conflict? For example, have neo‑managerialism and the economization of political inquiry ignored the interdependency of political problems as inextricably interwoven within the economic and political fabric of society itself? And, in fact, do these approaches divert our intellectual scrutiny away from the issues concerning the structure of power (and the distribution
- 46. 25 Conditioning Factors of thatpower), who is attempting to control the policy agenda, and for what political or economic purposes? While the reaction is to be somewhat defensive (and dismissive) about even posing such inquiries, should we not ponder why “power represents a derivative rather than a primary category of analysis, defined by the value orientations reflected in the notions of organization and of science” rather than substantive meaning of “political” (Erie, 1978, p. 1; Wolin, 1960; Perrow, 1986)? This orientation, as Peter Nettl (1969, p. 2) warned, results in “the hard edges of power dissolving in a cloud of problems of choice, strategies, information channels, inter‑ ests, and organizations—toothless neutral concepts all.” The intellectual baggage that both these perspectives carry with them—particularly in the rough‑and‑ready world of the political marketplace—should make us wonder whether we need such an exclusive focus as we originally thought (Dryzek, 2012; Fischer, 2003; Wagenaar, 2011). A related and significant aspect of this tendency also emerges in how best we prepare students for the challenges they will ultimately face in public affairs. Needless to say, the trend for MPAs and MPPs has always been to focus on how to make these degrees more marketable and profes‑ sionally relevant. Presently, this implies underscoring skills such as policy analysis, systems analysis, computer science, operations research, accounting, management science, and budgeting, to name the most obvious examples. Undoubtedly, there are many pedagogical merits to this viewpoint inasmuch as students unquestionably need to master certain skills and the requisite technical knowledge to effectively address complex problems. Yet, this edu‑ cational focus raises a critical issue that cannot be so easily brushed under the theoretical rug: Are we promoting an academic and professional field structured to put out socially acquiescent public managers [and policy analysts]? This question implies a tension which has always been present: is the purpose of public affairs to train students to be managerially competent professionals or to educate them as citizens able to recognize the multiplicity of social problems and their underlying causes? Most educators would argue that one approach should not negate the other. There is presently, however, a definite propensity toward amanagerial and economic approach to social affairs. Citizenship, once the key word in most public [affairs] schools, is being relegated to a secondary role. (Ventriss, 1982, p. 139; Piereson & Riley, 2013)
- 47. 26 Public Affairsand Democratic Ideals This educational focus is probably unavoidable as Max Weber (1946, 240) presciently warned: with the rise of bureaucracy, it is the “expert not the cultivated [individual] who is the educational ideal of the bureaucratic age.” While this educational development is hardly unique to just public administration and public policy, it does pose a somber dilemma: again, as reiterated by Hart and Scott (1982) and others, if this trend is left unabated it could circumvent the broader normative purposes of a public affairs educa‑ tion, thus mirroring the instrumental goals of the “organizational imperative” (Ramos, 1981; Hummel, 2007). This organizational imperative, Hart and Scott (1982, p. 152) aver, serves as an ideological veil because “the most effective way to guarantee appropriate behavioral responses to organizational [and instrumental] needs is to build a [managerial] educational system that indoctrinates people in [these] requisite beliefs.” Recent research has suggested that while the public is without question concerned with increasing efficiency in government, the citizenry is equally interested in increasing public accountability in governmental, nonprofit, and private sectors (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2015; King & Stivers, 1998; Frederickson & Hart, 1985; Gawthrope, 1998; Harmon, 1995).Whereas, it is true, these issues are often discussed and debated at a variety of academic and professional venues, Perrow (1986, p. 6) offered an insight that, surprisingly, has not received the attention it quite rightfully deserves: “Organizations mobilize social resources for ends that are often essential and even desirable. But organizations also concentrate those resources in the hands of a few who are prone to use them for ends we do not approve of, for ends we may not even be aware of, and, more frightening still, for ends we are led to accept because we are not in a position to conceive alternative ones.” Whether one can be taught to be responsible or ethical by merely taking certain classes is certainly debatable. On the other hand, even more questionable is whether more empirically oriented managerial and policy courses will appropriately prepare students to understand the responsibilities associated with the public purpose, irrespective of the recent emphasis by NASPAA (Network of School of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration) (2009, p. 4) on “[demonstrating] that its students learn the tools and competencies to apply and take these [public service] values into consideration in their professional activities.” Another way of looking at this is to consider how we usually treat such policy issues as political and economic inequality. Assuming the literature on this subject is indicative of how it is taught, economic and
- 48. 27 Conditioning Factors social inequalityis customary regarded as just another managerial problem of implementing certain tax reforms, of initiating better approaches to increase governmental efficiency, or of contending with what Martin Lipset and William Schneider (1983) once called the “confidence gap” (Ventriss, 2015; Oldfield, Candler, Johnson, 2006). These policy remedies are, of course, worth pursuing, but wealth and income inequality also involve the far more serious and contentious deliberation of the present distribution of wealth (goods and services) and how that distribution is legitimized to the public, particularly in containing any potential societal discord (Ventriss, 2015). Put simply, should it not puzzle us that we in the administrative and policy literature have remained, for the most part, relatively silent on the deleterious implications of the distribution of wealth and income in a society of unequal classes (Oldfield, 2001, 2003; Ventriss, 1991, 2015)? It is difficult to respond to this issue, and other related matters, when, in the literature of public management/administration in particular, such issues, if addressed at all, are regarded chiefly as administrative questions or best left to other disciplines Unfortunately, relatively few who teach or conduct research, particularly in public management/administration, have spoken clearly about the meaning of social justice in an era of growing political and economic inequality and uncertainty (Box, Marshall, Reed, & Reed, 2001; Oldfield & Conant, 2001; Gooden, 2014; Ventriss. 2015). We obviously have the ability to do so, and a moral obligation as well, with respect not only to the social justice issues at stake but also to the intellectual relevance of both fields. The intellectual limitations of our present theoretical trajectory in public affairs have been conditioned by neo‑managerialism and the economization of public affairs; how we mitigate this trend rests on the ability of scholars and teachers to make explicit the consequences of this trajectory and the institutional and professional impact that it will have on the next generation of public affairs scholars and practitioners. Nurturing critical discourse that enables students to question the limits of neo‑managerialism and the market mentality as their goal will be challenging. Even including those who see us moving more in the direction of a “new public service” (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2015), old habits may be hard to break (Piereson & Riley, 2013). Indeed, finding new ways to expand the conception of the role of the policy analyst/public manager, rather than affirming the boundaries imposed upon such roles by the increas‑ ingly market‑driven, positivist nature of academia and government will be
- 49. 28 Public Affairsand Democratic Ideals undoubtedly a vexing undertaking. Cynically, one might even argue that the majority of public affairs scholars do not see this issue as a problem at all or dismiss as mostly irrelevant. If there is a path forward to a bolder perspective, I suggest that it exists through a fuller integration of our respective fields in public affairs confronting directly such topics as economic inequality, racial inequality, gender inequality, and unequal democracy (and other related macrosocial issues), which can only be addressed by researchers and practitioners who are unafraid of questioning domain assumption. Part of that unfettered critical inquiry will have to entail the questioning of the relationship of the state and the role and purpose concerning those who reside in and theorize about the governance process. The Modern State and Public Affairs The neo-managerialism so prevalent in public affairs has not occurred in isolation. The conditioning factors shaping the norms of academic inquiry and professional practice emerge from the evolution of that foremost insti‑ tution of public life: the state. Many authors have described the emergence of a modern state characterized by supplanting tcommitment to public service with the union of bureaucratic means and corporate—which is to say, private—ends. Sheldon Wolin (2008, 135) captures this troubling condition this way: Politics and elections as well as the operation of governmental departments and agencies now are routinely considered a man‑ agerial rather than a political skill. Management is not a neutral notion, however. Its roots are in the business culture, its values shaped by the pressures of a competitive economy that persistently pushes the limits of legal and ethical norms . . . The consequences are registered in the decline of a public ethic. To highlight Wolin’s provocative observation, I will focus on Poulantzas’s analysis of the modern state, because he shows us, albeit within a polemic perspective drawn from Marx, Gramsci, and Althusser, how a hegemony of beliefs can be disseminated throughout society and how powerful forces come together to forge what he referred to as a power bloc. And while I disagree with the Marxist overtones of his analysis on many key points,
- 50. 29 Conditioning Factors he isimportant in drawing our attention to such issues as what he called authoritarian statism and the recent emergence of authoritarian populism. Concomitantly, the French Regulation School is also worth discussing in that it shows us how the modern state must be understood within the context of a post‑Fordist economy. Although these theoretical vantage points are hardly representative of the varied theories of the state, jointly they do provide a better understanding of the issues Wolin describes, and offer a perspective rarely discussed in the policy and administrative literature. The changing role of the state in the modern era, especially with respect to globalization, is best characterized in terms of its relationship with two forces: the public/private nexus and the primacy of the market (Fraser, 2014; Block & Somers, 2014). Given these realities, I will briefly discuss first some of the ideas articulated by Poulantzas followed by the French Regulation School. Poulantzas (1975, 1978), in his provocative discussions dealing with the role of the state, posits that the modern state is not some monolithic bloc or group that serves as an instrument for the domination of society, nor is it the relationship of a particular class and its influence over powerful institutions. Rather, the state is best understood as an arena for political and social conflict (what he has called the “condensation of a balance of forces”)2 and as a social relation between citizens mediated through their relation to state apparatuses and capacities. Poulantzas further contends that bureaucratic power is the exercise of the state’s function and is “relatively autonomous” from the different interests and factions in society. This relative autonomy, insists Poulantzas, is how the state can protect (and enhance) the market economy, “even if it means severe conflict with some segments of society” (Held, 1989, p. 69). Yet, the state also plays an active role in “creating, transforming, and making reality” (Poulantzas, 1978, p. 30). Part of the effectiveness of the state is in how knowledge and information is used within the governmental apparatus.3 In other words, “[T]he state helps define expertise by financing and employing intellectuals, then uses this expertise in particular ways . . . legitimizing its role as the center of power and decision‑making” (Carnoy, 1984, pp. 113–114). For Poulantzas, the salient aspects of this situation are obvious. The pivotal problem confronting democratic public affairs in the modern state is how citizens can engage the state without being co‑opted and how to deepen the political institutions of democracy “in the name of current liberties and those yet to be won” (Isaac, 1992, p. 247). He also alerted us to how a market society might exist with relative stability and gain needed public consent by appealing to nationalism, making it difficult for various
- 51. 30 Public Affairsand Democratic Ideals publics to organize themselves. And, perhaps more critically, he contended that the state provides the institutional space for different powerful factions in society to form alliances in what he called a power‑bloc, while at the same time, seeing the state more as a social relation in a contested struggle between different interests in society (1978). According to Poulantzas, the state therefore is always more or less in flux and contestation. Granted this is only a brief and selective overview of Poulantzas’s thinking on the nature of the state, he does chronicle certain tendencies that are difficult to ignore on many contentious themes involving the modern market economy, civil society, and the distribution of power—themes developed in dialogue with the works of Louis Althusser and Antonio Gramsci. To be sure, this concep‑ tualization differs in fundamental (and radical) ways from the conventional view of liberals and conservatives alike who see problems of the state as due to inadequate procedures of democratic accountability, mismanagement, and/ or unrealistic citizen expectations (Jessop, 1985; 1990). While Poulantzas has been correctly criticized, among other reasons, for ignoring such issues as the separation of “public” and “private” and problems associated with representative democracy, he does focus needed attention—putting aside his critical view of the state—that a market society based on possessive individualism and skewed political influence will be inherently riddled with uncertainties, contradictions, and dilemmas. The French Regulation School, despite criticisms with respect to its conception of the state (Boyer, 1990; Lipietz, 1985; Swyngedouw, 1996; Jessop, 1994, 2014),4 calls attention to the development of the modern state in tandem with the emergence of a post‑Fordist economy. The French Regulation school, while controversial in its implications, adheres to the perspective that a new form of production largely replaced the Fordist sys‑ tem (a system characterized by Tayloristic management practices and state intervention to maintain a balance between consumption and production to secure economic growth), which started to break down in the 1970s. A new era emerged, post‑Fordism, that emphasized flexible production, specialization, and accumulation. This post‑Fordist strategy is characterized by a fragmented mode of production that has led to a spatial reconcentra‑ tion of production in the form of clusters of small firms in new industrial districts. That is, under the weight of vertical disintegration a new flexible specialization occurred that created agglomeration tendencies at the regional level. Equally important, this school of thought has provided insights into the integration of what is referred to as the mode of regulation (state action, political practices, and behavioral norms) to what is termed a regime of
- 52. 31 Conditioning Factors accumulation. Inparticular, the Regulation School spells out these modes in terms of social relations that are reproduced through different historical periods irrespective of their contradictory and conflicting character (Swyngedouw, 1996). Moreover, according to Jessop (2014) this school of thought provides us a deeper conceptual understanding of the economic linkages between the international and local levels, whereby the nation‑state’s discretionary powers become somewhat eroded. What is actually occurring is what Swyngedouw (1996, p. 1503) called the re‑scaling of the state: The re-scaling of the state, therefore, does not suggest a dimin‑ ishing role of the state apparatus. In fact, these new global/local institutions, in close cooperation with private capital, launch the development largely on the basis of public capital and state capital. In short, the production of post‑Fordist [economic] spaces is paralleled by disturbing political transformations and a redefined citizenship. All that said, what the regulation theory has us explore is the position of the nation‑state in a global economy and how localities within those nation‑states must attempt to produce globally competitive spaces in compe‑ tition with other localities. This new post‑Fordist reality, in turn, intensifies the struggle for capital, thus reinforcing political and economic fragmentation in civil society (Cox & Mair, 1991; Jessop, 1993, 1994, 2002, 2007). The deleterious trajectory of this trend is that the concept of citizenship itself is transformed into a redefined “citizen entrepreneur” who now advocates only for the creation of competitive market regions to maximize jobs and economic growth (Swyngedouw, 1996; Ventriss, 2000; Terry, 1998). In sum, citizenship is stripped (both theoretically and pragmatically) of its normative character to conform to the cognitive patterns inherent in a market‑centered society (Polanyi, 1944; Somers, 2008; Block and Somers, 2014). To a large degree, this is the present context in which the neo‑managerialization of public affairs has occurred in this neoliberal milieu. I contend that it is crucial to challenge this situation with reinvigorated theory and practice of publicness. A better understanding of the nature of the modern state will be foundational to this task. As Max Weber indicated, the modern state could not exist without an elaborate administrative system. Because public management/administra‑ tion is usually regarded primarily as a state function and because the state does possess “a legal monopoly of coercive power,” (Weber, 1948),5 we are
- 53. 32 Public Affairsand Democratic Ideals confronted with some interesting questions that strike at the very core of this relationship. Interestingly, the issues addressed by these questions have generated only a modicum of, if any, significant reflection by either prac‑ titioners or public affairs scholars. And what are some of these questions? First, are the respective fields of public management/administration and public policy particularly vulnerable to being intellectually hobbled by what the state defines as legitimate policy considerations and alternatives, thereby undermining any attempt to develop an independent and critical intellectual foundation upon which to raise certain controversial issues (Offe, 1972; Mills, 1951; Harvey, 2007; Carnoy, 1984)? Second, does the analytical and managerial acumen we employ, even though it may take place within a constitutional/democratic framework, inevitably sanction “the legitimation of the state through the application of its technical expertise” (Beauregard, 1978, p. 236; Block, 1980; Carnoy, 1984)? Or, to put it in slightly different terms, do both disciplines inadvertently displace issues from the political and economic fabric of society, thus elevating an administrative process over substantive purpose? Finally, are there other societal roles for public affairs beyond the parameters of what the state delegates or expects both disciplines to do, especially public management/administration? Are the customary public roles and purposes for both fields too restrictive (in relationship to the state) or do we have broader responsibilities for leadership in the community? These questions at first glance seem rather disconcerting in their implications (Ventriss, 2015). Many will claim, and rightly so, that the role of those in public management/administration and public policy—at least involving democratically elected governments—is fundamentally both managerial and normative: to serve the public interest in the most efficient and equitable manner, and perhaps, most important of all, in a nonpartisan manner (Goodsell, 2014). Yet, as Luther Gulick (1983) has pointed out, the instinctive drive for group action under the “banner of the state” (as he called it) is one of the greatest shortfalls concerning our approach to public affairs—a poignant observation that has largely fallen on deaf ears. At heart, the questions posed above raise not only the perennial issue of the politics/ administration dichotomy, but the more troubling issue of the relationship of our intellectual role and purpose to modern power and how we define both fields primarily in governmental or quasi‑governmental terms. From a different theoretical angle, Robert Nisbet (1953) has claimed that the modern state has tried to fill a social vacuum created by the decline of local associative groups; that is, kinship, religious, and other locality groups.
- 54. 33 Conditioning Factors The statehas tried to create, Nisbet concludes, what is essentially a “pseudo community” that is unable to meet the psychological and social needs of the community. Emile Durkheim (1964, p. 28), who deeply influenced Nisbet’s thinking on this issue, wrote that the state is too remote from the individuals; its relations with them too external and intermittent to penetrate deeply into individual consciences and socialize them within where the state is the only environment in which we can live communal lives, they inevitably lose contact, become detached. Nisbet (1953, p. 7), extending Durkheim’s idea, reiterated that the decline of “community has made ours an age of frustration, anxiety, dis‑ integration, instability, breakdown, and collapse.” Even if this postulation is dismissed as merely hyperbole, Nisbet raises a point seldom discussed in public management/administration and public policy. As conceptually and pragmatically aligned with the modern state as both fields tend to be, when stripped of their normative and pragmatic clothing, do they ultimately find themselves embedded in a politically awkward position inasmuch as they must always act more or less in concert with the powers of an authoritative political structure? In other words, does this state of affairs come at the cost of managing a potentially unsatisfying social harmony in a market society of contradictory social interests, varied public needs/expectations, and vast differences in the exercise of political power? Asking this particular question, I suspect, will prompt an immediate negative reaction by most in the fields of public policy and public management/administration. Still, it is a ques‑ tion that will not go so easily away and will eventually require a response (Rosenbloom, 1986, 2005; Box, 2014, Hummel, 2007; Poulantzas, 1978; Carnoy, 1984; Harvey, 2007). Carole Pateman (2012) was correct when she pointed out that our various ideas in attempting to achieve a democratic ethos in public affairs will have little effect if we do not first question the “conventional institutional structures” (her term) and their relationship in promoting democratic public purposes. Assuming the validity of both Gulick’s and Nisbet’s theoretical views, their usage of the term state demands some clarification. However, according to David Easton (1953, p. 108), “the word [state] should be abandoned entirely.” The reason for Easton’s uneasiness is that the concept of the state is difficult to separate empirically from such notions as society, political organizations, and government. We tend to trip over political definitions
- 55. Discovering Diverse ContentThrough Random Scribd Documents
- 56. the Brown anddisaster—none ever knew how he had managed to get back to the five yards—and for a heart-beat it seemed that the runner was doomed. But Brodhead’s tackle only spun the red-legged runner about and sent him across the final white line like a top in its last gyrations. A well-kicked goal added another point to the six, and the teams went back to the centre of the field once more. To Myron it seemed then that Parkinson realised defeat, for there was that in the attitudes and movements of the players that had not been there before. It was not dejection, but it might have been called the ghost of it. And yet for the remainder of the period Parkinson took and held the upper hand and the half ended with the ball in her possession on her forty-eight yards. Myron wanted to talk over the game very badly, but the youth with spectacles was doing what appeared to be an intricate problem in algebra on the back of his score-card, while as for the stout boy on his other side, he had heard enough of his conversation already. Just now he was knowingly informing his companion that the trouble with Parkinson was that she needed a decent coach. His brief glimpse of Millard—if it really was Millard—distracted him for a moment or two, and after that he listened to the joyful sounds from the Musket Hill side and felt rather disappointed and lonesome.
- 57. CHAPTER XVIII MYRON GETSHIS CHANCE I should like to tell how Parkinson found herself in the last half of the game and won the contest. But nothing of that sort happened. Coach Driscoll started the third period with all his regulars in the line, and, in consequence, Musket Hill found slower going. Gains in the line were far less frequent, and only outside of tackles was the Maroon likely to win territory. But the home team clearly out-punted the visitors, although, in the final period, Garrison was pulled back from the line to swing his toe for Parkinson. Musket Hill made but one long advance in the last twenty minutes, and, as before, a forward pass was the method chosen. Keene, who had taken Stearns’ place at left end, was caught napping badly, and Meldrum, the left half, who should have seen the signs and been on guard, found himself tied up with the enemy. The result was a fine thirty- seven yard gain that placed the pigskin on Parkinson’s nine yards. From a Parkinson point of view, the most encouraging feature of the day developed then when the Brown line, forced back to its six yards and then to its four, and finally retired to its two for being off- side, stood firm and took the ball away a foot from her goal-line. It was then that the west stand shouted and cheered and that Myron, silent a moment for want of breath, heard his spectacled neighbour give vent to the enthusiastic remark already recorded. But no team can win who can’t score, and Parkinson couldn’t score. On attack she was decidedly weak. The ability was there, but the team had not yet learned to make use of it. Individually, nearly every fellow in the Brown line played really excellent football, but teamwork was missing. For a brief four or five minutes at the beginning of the last quarter there came a semblance of it, and Parkinson, securing the
- 58. ball on apunt near her thirty yards, managed to work it down to the enemy’s thirty. Guy Brown was the bright particular star, and, aided by Meldrum, tore off gain after gain through a weakened left side of the enemy’s ranks. But when Musket Hill brought in two substitutes to bolster the point of attack the advance petered out, and when Brown had twice failed to gain and Kearns had lost a yard on a wide end run, Parkinson was forced to punt. That punt marked the end of Parkinson’s defiance. From then on she plugged away doggedly to avert a worse defeat and, aided by the over-zealousness of Musket Hill’s several substitutes and by the sharp-eyed officials, succeeded. When the final whistle blew Parkinson was down on her twelve yards, her back again to the wall, and only that whistle saved her. Musket Hill appeared more than satisfied with her score of 7 to 0. It was only her second victory over Parkinson in many years of contest, although there had been ties and close scores, and Myron, standing in his place with the other Parkinsonians and cheering bravely, witnessed a hilarious celebration as Musket Hill overflowed the field and began a sinuous snake-dance from side to side and from goal to goal. Then came a hurried scramble for the four-forty- eight train and a tedious and, for his part, dejected journey back to Warne. He hoped that Millard would show up, although that engaging youth hadn’t spoken of returning by that train. He didn’t, however, and Myron had a dull time of it. The next afternoon, being Sunday, he and Joe visited Andrew Merriman, and later they rescued Zephaniah from his box-stall and, accompanied by that joyous companion, took a long walk into the country. The afternoon was ideal, although too warm for brisk walking. Andrew spied some butternut trees up a lane and they prospected. But the nuts were still green, for no hard frosts had visited them yet. The boys found a sunny spot nearby and stretched themselves out on a bank of ferns and Zephaniah had a monstrous adventure with a cricket and got tangled in a blackberry vine and fell off a stone wall and, in short, spent the most glorious hour of his young life.
- 59. Andrew and Joedid most of the talking that afternoon. Myron was in a rather gloomy frame of mind, although he couldn’t have found any explanation for the fact. Andrew rallied him once on the score of his silence, and Myron said he was tired. After that he really thought he was. Joe was in high spirits. He had been pitted against a worthy adversary yesterday and, during the time he had faced him, had had a glorious time. Every one said that he had outplayed his opponent, and Joe knew it. He regretted that Mr. Driscoll had seen fit to put Garrison in his place in the last half, however, earnestly assuring Andrew and Myron that if he had stayed in he would have had “that guy Fraser eating out of my hand in the last quarter!” But a good tussle always cheered Joe up wonderfully, and the effects of that strenuous twenty minutes lasted him for several days: just as a fine big vari-coloured lump under his left eye did! When Myron returned to Sohmer at dusk he found a scrawled note from Chas Cummins. “No one home!” he read. “Looked for you on the train coming back, but couldn’t find you. What do you know about us? Looks like Fortune favours the brave and all that sort of thing, doesn’t it? Watch for developments tomorrow! Yours, C.C.” Myron found the note somewhat cryptic. For a minute he thought of going around to see Chas in the evening, but then he decided that if Chas had wanted to see him he would have said so. As a result, he stayed at home and did some much-needed studying. Monday afternoon found a number of the regulars absent from practice. The game on Saturday had been a strenuous one and several of the players had earned a rest. Chas was on hand, however, although not in togs, and the same was true of Jud Mellen. Cantrell and Garrison and Cater were absent, and one or two others, and the first squad had a sort of shot-to-pieces look. Dummy practice started the proceedings, and, since much poor tackling had been shown in the Musket Hill contest, the drill was a long one. It seemed to Myron that every one had nerves today, from Coach Driscoll down to the last and least important substitute. Manager Farnsworth, pulling the rope that shot the canvas dummy across the
- 60. trolley, was shortof speech and jerky of manner, Jud Mellen, watching grimly from beside the freshly-spaded pit, frowned and twisted his hands about in his uprolled sweater and made biting comments, and even Billy Goode, normally sweet-tempered as a cherub, looked and spoke as if some one had been casting aspersions on Ireland! Only Chas, grinning like a catfish, appeared unaffected by the general epidemic. Chas joked and jollied and got himself thoroughly hated by all. Back on the gridiron, Coach Driscoll called Myron from the bench and fixed him with a calculating eye. Myron had visions of clearing out his locker and retiring from football affairs. But what the coach said was: “Cummins tells me he had you at full-back the other day. Ever played there?” “No, sir, not until Friday.” “You’re a half, aren’t you? Well, we’ve got plenty of those, such as they are. Think you could learn full-back? Ever done any punting?” “Some, yes, sir.” “Get a ball and show me.” Over on the second gridiron, with a substitute back to catch or chase, Myron swung his foot and dropped the ball and saw it go off at a tangent, and heard the coach say: “Take your time, Foster; you’ve got all day.” When the back had relayed the pigskin from the first team gridiron and Myron had it again in his hands he decided to try to forget that the coach was watching. The result was much better, for the ball went straight toward the other goal and into the waiting arms of the back. The punt wasn’t long, but it had been true, and Mr. Driscoll nodded hopefully. “Try it again,” he ordered, “and hold your leg straighter. Lock your knee and keep it so.” After the next attempt he called down the field. “Where did you catch that, Morton?” he asked. The back turned and counted the lines.
- 61. “About the forty,sir,” he shouted. “Not bad,” commented the coach. “We’re on the twenty-five here. Try a low one now. And follow through with your foot. Don’t stop when you strike the ball: keep your foot going right on up: there’s plenty of room for it!” Four more punts, varying in distance from a wretched twenty yards to a glorious forty-five, followed, Myron seeking to profit by the coach’s instructions. Then: “I guess that’s enough, Foster,” said Mr. Driscoll. “You’ll stand a lot of practice, but you’ve got a good swing and I wouldn’t be surprised if you could make a pretty fair punter. I’ll give you a chance to show what you can do at full-back. If you buckle down and try hard you’ll stand a chance of a place, for we need another man there. Wish you had about ten more pounds on you, though. Go around with Warren’s squad over there for a while and watch how Houghton does it. I’ll see you again.” Blanket-wrapped, for Billy Goode had sharp eyes for his charges and the weather had turned colder overnight, Myron followed the first team substitutes in their signal practice for a good twenty minutes. Now and then he caught Chas Cummins’ eye as the squad trotted by, but that youth’s expression was blank and innocent. Finally the benches filled again, coach and captain and manager compared notes like three gentleman burglars meditating a midnight sortie, the trainer busied himself with blankets and the sparse audience on the stand kicked their feet against the boards to put warmth into them. Then Mr. Driscoll faced the benches. “First and second squads,” he called. “First will kick off. Second, take this goal. Who’s playing right half for the second? You, Robbins? Well, we want you on the first. Morton, you go to the second. All right now? What’s that, Grove? Left tackle? Oh, all right. Simkins! Go in on the first: left tackle. All right, Hersey! Start it up!” Myron wondered if the coach had forgotten his promise, for Williams was playing full-back on the first squad and Houghton on the second and he, Myron, was adorning the bench with some
- 62. twenty-odd other subs.Perhaps Mr. Driscoll had changed his mind, thought Myron. At that moment Chas called to him and led him down the side-line a ways. “Drop your blanket, old chap,” he said. “Coach says I’m to pass you a few, though I’m blessed if I know how he expects me to work in a pair of trousers that are two inches too small for me! Get over there by the end of the stand. If you miss them you won’t have to chase them so far. Now then, perhaps you know that in the modern game of football, the full-back is called on to take the snap-back straight from the centre on numerous occasions. Well, I’m the gentlemanly centre for the nonce. That’s a bully word, ‘nonce.’ Now we will suppose”—Chas’ voice diminished to a murmur as he turned his back and placed the ball he had brought on the sod before him. Myron spread his hands as he had seen Houghton do, Chas cast a backward glance at him and swept the ball toward him. By leaping two feet off the earth Myron was just able to tip it with his fingers. Chas laughed delightedly. “Gee, that’s just like Cantrell does it!” he exulted. “In fact, I believe I got it two or three inches higher than he ever did. Guess I’ll get Driscoll to let me play centre!” Myron recovered the ball and tossed it back. “Maybe I’d better get a soap-box or something to stand on,” he suggested. “None of your lip, my lad! Watch your step, now!” This time the ball came straight and shoulder high, and Myron caught it, shifted it to the crook of his left arm and dived forward. “Splendidly done, old chap!” applauded Chas. “Quite professional. Any one can play full-back if he has a good centre like me to pass to him, though. Now, then, here we go again!” Chas kept it up until he was red in the face from stooping and Myron was tired of it, and only stopped, as he said, because he had heard a suspicious ripping sound in the neighbourhood of his waist. “It’s all right,” he explained a trifle breathlessly, “to die for your school, but no one wants to bust his trousers for it!”
- 63. On the wayback to the bench Myron said: “What did you mean in your note about Fortune, Cummins? I didn’t get that. Sorry I was out, by the way.” “I meant that things were coming our way, old chap. Didn’t you observe what a mess of things Steve Kearns made Saturday?” “Not especially. I guess I wasn’t watching Kearns much.” “And you grooming for his place! What do you know about you? Well, poor old Steve balled up everything he tried. Every time he got the ball he lost a yard. If they’d turned him around he’d have won the game for us! Between you and me and the bucket there, Foster, you’ve got the chance of a life-time to land on all four feet right square behind the first team. All you’ve got to do is show horse- sense, old chap, and be willing to learn. By the way, you got off a couple of nice punts over there.” “I don’t see, though, why I couldn’t have had a show at half,” said Myron dubiously. “I don’t know enough about playing full-back, Cummins. I may make an awful mess of it.” “If you do,” was the grim reply, “I’ll knock the feathers off you. But you won’t. You mustn’t. Doggone it, son, this is your big chance! You’ve just got to make good! Remember there’s another year coming!” “I’ll try, of course, Cummins, but——” “But me no buts! You keep in mind—There’s Driscoll calling you. Go to it, old chap!” “Go in on the second there at full-back, Foster. You know the signals, don’t you? All right. Now show something. Warren, give your full-back some work. Come on, first! Get into it! Let’s see some playing!” The whistle piped before Myron had settled into position, however, and he went back to the bench with the rest and listened to criticism and instruction and moistened his throat with water and half wished that Chas Cummins had let him alone. But, back on the field
- 64. presently, with theball arching away overhead, he forgot his stage- fright and gripped his nose-guard with his teeth and piled into the play. Warren, acting on instructions, gave him plenty of work, and he didn’t do it so badly, all things considered. At least, he made three good gains and he got away two punts, one of which surprised him. On defence he showed up decidedly well, and Warren, an earnest little shock-headed youth, gave him praise more than once. He had some bad moments, as when, ball in hand for a toss to O’Curry across the line, he found himself besieged by two rampant first team forwards who had somehow broken through, and, unable to heave, let himself be forced back many yards. Afterwards, he told himself aggrievedly that Warren had no right to call on him for a forward- pass, that he had never had much of it to do and couldn’t be expected to be proficient. Besides, if your line let the whole opposing team through on top of you, what could you do, anyway? How Coach Driscoll had been impressed, Myron had no means of knowing. The coach made no comments. Myron concluded that he had failed to make good, and he dressed himself and went back to Sohmer in a rather depressed state of mind. But after supper Chas breezed in and relieved him. “Rotten? Nothing of the sort!” declared Chas. “You were positively good, old chap! I’ll bet Driscoll is scratching Houghton this minute and writing ‘Foster’ in his little red book. If you don’t find yourself playing full-back again tomorrow I’ll —I’ll eat my hat. And I need it, too, having none other. You didn’t see our young friend, did you, Dobbins?” “No,” answered Joe. “I wasn’t out.” “Well, he’s the coming marvel. There’s no doubt about it. All he’s got to do is learn the position.” Joe and Myron laughed, the former the more merrily. “That sounds sort of like a real job,” he commented. “It isn’t, really,” answered Chas earnestly. “You see, Foster knows all the moves but he doesn’t know where to fit them in. After all, playing football is playing football, whether you’re in the line or back
- 65. of it, Dobbins.I’ll bet that, if I had to, I could step into any position on the team tomorrow and get by with it. I don’t say I’d be a wonder, but I’d do the trick fairly well. That may sound like conceited guff, but it’s a fact, fellows. Foster’s played half, and a full- back’s only a half with another name and a few different things to do. He’ll learn in a week. I’ve got all my money on him to win. I’m tickled, too. When Foster came to me and asked if I thought he could play full-back——” “When I what?” gasped Myron. Chas winked and frowned. “When he sprung that on me, Dobbins, I had my doubts. But I said the right thing. I said, ‘Go to it, my boy, and good luck to you!’ I’m glad I did. We surely need more full-backs than we’ve got, and I believe Foster’s going to be a good one. Well, I’m off. By the way, Dobbins, you played a pretty game Saturday. I’ll have to watch my step or you’ll have me on the bench. Good night!”
- 66. CHAPTER XIX DOCTOR LANEINTERVENES Chas Cummins proved a good prophet. On the following day Myron slipped into a niche in the first team, one of many hopeful, hard-working youths known as “first team subs.” For a few days, indeed, until after the Phillipsburg game, he was dazed by the sudden leap from obscurity to conspicuity, from what he termed neglect to what was extremely like solicitude. Not that his arrival at the field for practice was the occasion for shouts of acclaim and a fanfare of trumpets, for those at the helm did not show their interest in promising candidates in any such manner, but at last he was quite certain that coach and captain, managers and trainer, were aware of his existence. There were times when he heartily wished that they knew less of it. Some one was forever at his elbow, criticising, explaining, exhorting. Coach Driscoll and Ned Garrison oversaw his punting practice, Snow lugged him to remote corners of the playfield to make him catch passes, Katie drilled him in signals, every one, it seemed to Myron, was having a finger in his pie. And when he was not being privately coached, as it were, he was legging it around the gridiron with the substitutes or tumbling about the dummy pit with a bundle of stuffed and dirty canvas clasped to his bosom. Those were busy, confusing days. And yet no one outside the football “inner ring” appeared to be aware of the fact that a new light had arisen in the Parkinson firmament. Not unnaturally, perhaps, Myron looked for signs of interest, even of awe, from his acquaintances, but he found none. At table in dining hall Eldredge still glowered at him, Rogers cringed and the pestiferous Tinkham poked sly fun. Only Joe and Andrew and Chas, among his friends, showed him honour; and Joe as a strewer of blossoms in his path was not an overwhelming success. Joe seemed to think that his chum’s leap to incipient fame
- 67. was pleasing butnot remarkable, while Myron was absolutely certain that it was stupendous and unparalleled in the annals of preparatory school football. When you are watched and guided as Myron was by those in command you are likely to think that. He wondered whether Joe was not just a little bit envious. Of course, Joe’s position was quite as assured as his own, but Joe had not engaged the time and attention and solicitude of the entire coaching force. He hoped Joe wasn’t going to be disagreeable about it. Phillipsburg came and went, defeated easily enough, 12 points to 3, and Warne High School followed a week later. High School always put up a good fight against Parkinson, and she made no exception this year. Coach Driscoll used many substitutes that afternoon and so High School found her work easier. Myron had his baptism by fire in the second period and lasted until the end of the third. He was taken out then because High School had tied the score and it was necessary to add another touchdown or field-goal to the home team’s side of the ledger. So Kearns, who was still the most dependable full-back in sight, took Myron’s place. Kearns gained and lost in his usual way, and had no great part in the securing of the third Parkinson score. Katie was mainly responsible for that, for he sneaked away from the opponent’s thirty-two yards and landed the ball on her eight, from whence it was carried over on the fourth down by Brounker. That made the figures 20 to 14, and there they remained for the rest of the contest. Myron was huffy about being removed and every one who spoke to him discovered the fact. Of course, he was huffy in a perfectly gentlemanly way. He didn’t scold and he didn’t sneer, but he indulged in irony and intimated that if football affairs continued to be managed as they had been that afternoon he would refuse to be held responsible if the season ended in defeat. Oddly enough, no one appeared panic-stricken at the veiled threat. Joe grinned, until Myron looked haughty and insulted, and then became grave and spoke his mind. He had an annoying way of doing that, to Myron’s way of thinking.
- 68. “Kiddo,” said Joe,on this occasion, “if I was you I’d let Driscoll and Mellen run things their own way. Maybe their way don’t always look good to you, but you aren’t in possession of all the—the facts, so to speak. When they put in Kearns today they had a reason, believe me, Brother. You attend to your knitting and let theirs alone. If they drop a stitch, it’s their funeral, not yours. You’ve got just about all you can do to beat Kearns and Williams for full-back’s position——” “I’m ahead of Williams right now,” said Myron with asperity. “All right, kiddo; you stay there. Don’t get highfaluting and swell- headed. Just as soon as you do you’ll quit playing your best and Williams’ll slip past you. Take an old man’s advice, Brother.” “I wish you’d stop that ‘Brother,’” said Myron pettishly. “I’m not your brother. And I’m not swell-headed, either. And I don’t try to tell Driscoll how to run the team. Only, when I know my own—my own capabilities I naturally think something’s sort of funny when things happen like what happened today!” “Lots of funny things happen that we can’t account for in this world,” remarked Joe philosophically as he bent over his book again. “Best thing to do is let ’em happen.” “Oh, rats!” muttered the other. It was about this time that Myron began to have fallings-out with Old Addie. Old Addie—he wasn’t phenomenally old, by any means, but he seemed old in a faculty composed of young or youngish men —was well-liked, and kindly and just to a fault. But he had views on the importance of Greek and Latin not held by all members of his classes. He believed that Herodotus was the greatest man who ever lived and Horace the greatest poet, and held that an acquaintance with the writings of these and other departed masters was an essential part of every person’s education. Many disagreed with him. Those who disagreed and kept the fact to themselves got on very nicely. Those who were so misguided as to disagree and say so earned his pitying contempt; although contempt is perhaps too strong a word. Myron in a rash moment confessed that Latin didn’t
- 69. interest him. Hehad to think up on the spur of the moment some plausible excuse for being illy prepared, and that excuse seemed handy. The result was unfortunate. There was a meeting in Mr. Addicks’ study in the evening, a meeting that lasted for an hour and a quarter and that included readings from the Latin poets, essayists and historians, sometimes in translation, more often in the original. Myron, bored to tears, at last capitulated. He owned that Latin was indeed a beautiful language, that Livy was a wonder, Cicero a peach and Horace a corker. He didn’t use just those terms, but that’s a detail. Mr. Addicks, suspicious of the sudden conversion, pledged him to a reformation in the matter of study and freed him. But the conversion was not real and Old Addie soon developed a most embarrassing habit of calling on Myron in class. Myron called it “picking on me.” Whatever it was called, it usually resulted disastrously to Myron’s pretences of having studied in the manner agreed on. Old Addie waxed sarcastic, Myron assumed a haughty, contemptuous air. They became antagonistic and trouble brewed. Myron didn’t have enough time to do justice to all his courses, he declared to Joe, and since Latin was the least liked and the most troublesome it was Latin that suffered. There is no doubt that two and a half hours—often more—of football leaves a chap more inclined for bed than study. Not infrequently Myron went to sleep with his head on a book and had to be forcibly wrested from slumber by Joe at ten o’clock or thereabouts. So matters stood at the end of Myron’s first fortnight of what might be called intensive football training. So, in fact, they continued to stand, with slight changes, to the morning of the day on which Parkinson played Day and Robins School. The team was to travel away from home for that contest and Myron was to go with it, not as a spectator, but as a useful member of the force. He did not go, however. At chapel his name was among a list of seven others recited by the Principal, and at eleven he was admitted to the inner sanctum, behind the room in which he had, a month and a half ago, held converse with Mr. Morgan. This time it was “Jud” himself who received him. The Principal’s real name was
- 70. Judson, but atsome earlier time in his incumbency of the office he had been dubbed Jud, and in spite of the possible likelihood of getting him confused with the captain of the football team, he was still so called. Doctor Lane taught English, but his courses were advanced and Myron had not reached them. In consequence he knew very little of Jud; much less than Jud knew of him; and he felt a certain amount of awe as he took the indicated chair at the left of the big mahogany desk. The Doctor didn’t beat about the bush any to speak of. He advanced at once to the matter in hand, which appeared to be: Why wasn’t Myron keeping up in Latin? Myron said he thought it must be because he didn’t have time enough to study it. He said it was his firm belief that he was taking too many courses. He thought that it would be better if he was allowed to drop one course, preferably Latin, until the next term. Doctor Lane smiled wanly and wanted to know if Myron was quite sure that he was making the most of what time he had. Myron said he thought he was. He didn’t say it very convincedly, however. Doctor Lane inquired how much time each day was devoted to Latin. Myron didn’t seem to have a very clear impression; perhaps, though, an hour. Jud delved into the boy’s daily life and elicited the fact that something like two and a half hours were devoted to learning to play full-back and something less than three to learning his lessons. Presented as Jud presented it, the fact didn’t look attractive even to Myron. He felt dimly that something was wrong. He attempted to better his statement by explaining that very often he studied between hours—a little. Doctor Lane was not impressed. He twiddled a card that appeared to hold a record of Myron’s scholastic career for a moment and then pronounced a verdict. “Foster, as I diagnose your case, you are too much interested in football and not sufficiently in your studies. Also, football is claiming too much of your time. Football is a splendid game and a beneficent form of exercise, but it is not the—what I may call the chief industry here, Foster. We try to do other things besides play football. Perhaps you have lost sight of that fact.”
- 71. Jud let thatsink in for a moment and returned the card to its place in an indexed cabinet, closing the drawer with a decisive bang that made Myron jump. “So,” continued the Principal drily, “I think it will be best if you detach yourself from football interests for—for awhile, Foster.” Silence ensued. Myron gulped. Then he asked in a small voice: “How long, sir?” “Oh, we won’t decide that now.” Jud’s voice and manner struck Myron as being far too bright and flippant. “We’ll see how it works out. I’ve known it to work very nicely in many cases. I shall expect to hear better—much better—accounts of you from Mr. Addicks, Foster. Good morning.” And that is why Myron didn’t go bowling off to the station with the rest of the team, and why Kearns and Houghton played the full-back position that afternoon, and why, after a miserable six hours spent in mooning about a deserted campus and a lonely room, Myron packed a suit-case with a few of his yellow-hued shirts and similar necessities and unobtrusively made his way to Maple Street in the early gloom of the October evening.
- 72. CHAPTER XX ANDY TAKESA JOURNEY At a few minutes past eight that evening Joe clattered hurriedly up the stairs of the house in Mill Street and thumped imperatively at Andrew’s door. Just why he thumped didn’t appear, since he threw the door open without waiting for permission. Andrew looked up inquiringly from his book in the yellow radius of light around the table. “Hello,” he greeted. “Slide under the bed and maybe they won’t find you.” “It’s that idiot, Myron,” announced Joe breathlessly, and sank into a chair. “What’s he done now?” asked Andrew interestedly. “Bolted!” “Bolted?” “Beat it—vamoosed—lit out—gone!” “Where? What for?” “I don’t know where, but he’s gone. I suppose he’s headed home. He’s in wrong at the Office over Latin, and this morning Doc Lane told him to quit football. He was to have gone along with us to play Day and Robins, you know, and was all keyed up about it. I didn’t get many of the details: only saw him for about three minutes just before we left: but he was talking then about firing himself and hiring out to Kenwood for the rest of the year.” Andrew frowned. “A sweet thought,” he murmured sarcastically.
- 73. “Oh, he wouldn’tdo it,” said Joe. “He likes to talk like that, but he’s all right behind his mouth.” “I hope so. Where—when did he go?” “Search me. I know he was gone when I got back at six, or a little before. I thought, of course, that he was around somewhere; probably at Alumni. But he wasn’t at dinner and he didn’t show up afterwards, and I remembered his line of talk this morning and got to snooping around and found his suit-case gone and some of his things; brushes and sponge and the like of those.” “Maybe he got leave to go home over Sunday.” “I thought of that and found out from Mr. Hoyt. Had to be careful so he wouldn’t get suspicious, but I got away with it, I guess. He hasn’t asked for leave; and wouldn’t have got it anyway, I guess. No, he’s just plain beat it.” Andrew whistled softly and expressively. “That fixes him,” he said regretfully. “On top of probation——” “That’s the point,” urged Joe. “He’s dished for fair if faculty gets wind of it. That’s why I came. I can’t go. I asked Driscoll and he said nothing doing. So it’s up to you, Andy.” “Up to me? Go? Where?” “Go after him and bring him back,” answered Joe. “I looked up trains. He probably waited until after dark, because he wouldn’t have risked being seen with a suit-case, and if he did he must have taken the six-eighteen for New York. There’s no train for Port Foster out of Philadelphia until seven-twelve tomorrow morning. He might stay in New York overnight or go on to Philadelphia, so the best way’ll be to go right through to Philadelphia and watch the Port Foster trains.” Andrew stared amazedly. “Look here, Joe,” he said, “are you suggesting that I go to Philadelphia after Myron?” “Sure,” answered Joe impatiently. “What did you suppose? And you’ll have to get a hustle on, too: it’s about eight-fifteen now and
- 74. your train goesat nine-five. I’d go in a minute, but I’m in training and the rule’s strict, and if I got caught—fare thee well!” To Joe’s surprise, Andrew began to laugh. “Well, you’re a wonder, Joe,” he gasped. “Why, man alive, I can’t go traipsing all over the United States like that! I’m beastly sorry for Myron, but——” “Why can’t you?” demanded Joe, scowling. “Some one’s got to, and that’s flat. If he’s caught away from school without permission they’ll chuck him as sure as shooting. Why do you say you can’t go, Andy?” “Why—why, for one reason, I can’t afford it, you idiot! How much do you think it’ll cost to go to Philadelphia and back? I’m no millionaire! Why——” “I thought of that.” Joe pulled a roll of bills from his trousers pocket and flung it on the table. “There’s twenty-five, all I have right now. It’s enough, I guess.” Andrew stared at the money in surprise. “Well—but—look here, I’ve got an engagement in the morning. And how do you know I can get leave?” “Take it! No one’ll know you’re away,” said Joe. “Gosh, we’ve got to risk something!” “We have? You mean I have, don’t you?” “Oh, what’s the difference? Myron’s a friend, ain’t he, and we can’t let him go and kill himself off like this without making a try, can we? Besides, the team needs him bad. If he’d hung on a bit longer he’d have been full-back and—and everything! I—I’d like to wring his silly neck!” Andrew smiled. Then he stared thoughtfully at the table. At last he seized the roll of money, thrust it in his pocket and pushed back his chair. “Guess you’re right, Joe,” he said. “What time did you say the train goes?”
- 75. “Nine-five.” Joe jerkedout his watch. “You’ve got forty minutes. Better pack a toothbrush and a night-shirt, kiddo.” “Pack nothing,” replied Andrew. “A toothbrush and a comb will see me through, and those go in my pocket. I want that brown book, though, and some sheets of paper. Better have my fountain pen, too. You’ll have to take a message to Wynant, 29 Williams, for me, Joe. Better do it tonight. Tell him I’m called away and can’t be around in the morning. I’ll see him when I get back. Now, what about the dogs? Mind coming around in the morning and letting them out and feeding them? Good! We’re off, then.” Andrew turned out the light and they fumbled their way to the door. Outside, Andrew gave the key to Joe. “Don’t forget the dogs, Joe,” he reminded. “Now, then, tell me again about these trains. It’s Philadelphia I’m going to, is it?” Joe explained carefully as they hurried through the illy-lighted streets toward the station. “Better get to Philadelphia by the first train you can make, Andy. You can sleep on the way, some. The first Sunday train for Port Foster leaves Philadelphia at twelve minutes past seven. There isn’t another until ten-something. He may wait for that. You’ll have to watch for him on the platform. For the love of mud, Andy, don’t miss him!” “I won’t!” answered the other grimly as they entered the station. “Wait here a minute. I’m going to call up the Office.” “The Office!” exclaimed Joe aghast. “What for?” “To get permission.” “But——” “I know. I won’t. Here, you buy the ticket. Get it to Philadelphia and return if you can. I’ll be right with you.” Andrew was as good as his word. Joe viewed him anxiously. “Did you get it?” he asked.
- 76. Andrew nodded. “Yes.I told Mr. Hoyt I had to be away overnight on important matters. He hemmed a bit at first, but finally came around. So that’s all right. I feel rather better for having faculty’s blessing, Joe.” Ten minutes later the long train rolled in and Andrew climbed aboard. He was going into a day coach, but Joe pulled him back and hurried him down the platform, past a hundred lighted windows and hustled him into a parlour-car. “Might as well be as comfortable as you can,” he explained. “You can get a pretty fair nap in one of those chairs if you don’t mind waking up with a broken neck! Good-bye and good luck, Andy!” “Good-bye. See you tomorrow afternoon or evening. Don’t forget Tess and the puppies!” Then the train pulled out and Joe heaved a sigh of relief and made his way back to the campus and Williams Hall and the indignant Mr. Wynant. About the same time Coach Driscoll and Captain Mellen were talking things over in the former’s lodgings. Parkinson had played smooth, hard football that afternoon, bringing encouragement to both, and their countenances still reflected satisfaction. “Looks as though we had struck our gait at last, Cap,” said Mr. Driscoll, puffing comfortably at his pipe. “It does look so,” agreed Jud. “It’s time, too, with only two more games before Kenwood.” “Well, I’d rather see a team come slowly and not reach the peak too early in the season. I’m more afraid of slumps than the smallpox, Mellen. Remember year before last’s experience?” Jud nodded. “If we can hold it where it is, Coach, we’ll be all right, I guess. Some of the fellows certainly played themselves proud today: Keith and Meldrum and Norris——” “And Mellen,” suggested Mr. Driscoll, smiling through the smoke. “I guess I didn’t do so badly,” Jud allowed. “But that Dobbins was the corker, when you come right down to brass tacks, don’t you
- 77. think so?” “Dobbins playedas remarkable a game as I’ve seen in a long, long time,” was the reply. “The way he opened holes in the D. and R. line was pretty. They weren’t holes, either, they were—were nice, broad boulevards! A stick of dynamite wouldn’t have made more of a mess of their centre!” “And he’s all there on defence, too,” said Jud. “Steady as a concrete wall. He and Keith work like twins.” “Pretty,” agreed Mr. Driscoll. “I guess there’s no question as to who’ll play right guard against Kenwood. I wish, though, I knew who was going to play full-back.” Mr. Driscoll frowned. “You’re sure Foster’s out of it?” “Fairly. I only know what you know. I haven’t seen him. I’m not surprised, though. He was beginning to show a good deal of side and you know yourself that when a fellow gets his head swelled he comes a cropper one way or another.” “I know. Still, we mustn’t be too hard on the boy, for we’ve paid him a good deal of attention and that’s likely to turn a chap’s head unless it’s screwed on pretty tightly. And we’ve worked him hard, too. Maybe he hasn’t had time to do enough studying.” “Well, he’s out of it, anyway. It’s hard luck, for I thought he was coming along finely. I guess it will have to be Kearns, after all.” The coach nodded. “I haven’t lost hope of Kearns yet, Cap. He’s got it in him to play good football. I was wondering, though, if we could spare Brounker for the position. He’s a good half, but we may not need him there, and perhaps with some coaching between now and three weeks from now he’d be better than Kearns.” “I suppose there’s a chance of Foster getting clear before the Kenwood game,” said Jud doubtfully, “but he wouldn’t be much use to us.” “Mighty little,” replied the coach. “Of course, if he was off only a week it would be different. In that case we could take him back and
- 78. have him handyin case Kearns went bad. But I don’t know——” “I guess I’d better see him in the morning and find out what the prospects are. If he will saw wood and get rid of his conditions, or whatever his trouble is, by a week from Monday——” “Yes, tell him that. Brow-beat him a bit. Get him on his mettle. I’ll see him, if you think it would be better.” “I’ll take a fall out of him first,” said Jud. “By the way, he and Dobbins room together. It might be a good scheme to get Dobbins after him. I guess they’re pretty close from what I hear, and maybe he’d listen to Dobbins when he wouldn’t to me. Well, anyway, I think we can lick Kenwood this year even without a full-back,” he ended. Mr. Driscoll smiled and shook his head. “Let’s not be too sure, Mellen,” he said. “Wait until the Sunday papers come. Six to six sounds pretty good for Phillipsburg, but we don’t know yet how many of her subs Kenwood used. That coach of hers is a foxy chap, and it may be that he was satisfied to get away with a tie and leave us guessing. Perhaps he thought we had scouts over there today, looking them over.” “I sort of wish we had had,” said Jud. “Oh, I know your idea on the subject, Coach, and I’m not saying you aren’t right, but, just the same, it’s a handicap. Kenwood sends fellows to watch our playing and gets lots of useful information, I’ll bet, and we have to depend on what the papers tell us. And most of that guff is written by fellows friendly to Kenwood. If the Kenwood coach wants the news to go out that the team is rotten, it goes out, and we have to swallow it. I’d give a hundred dollars to see her play Montrose next Saturday!” “That’s high pay for acting the spy,” replied the coach gravely. “See here, Jud Mellen, you’re a fair and square, decent sort, from all I’ve seen of you, and I’ve known you for three years. You wouldn’t pick a pocket or lie, and I’ve never yet seen you doing any dirty work in a game. Then just how would you explain it to your conscience if you went over to Kenwood next Saturday with the idea
- 79. of seeing howmuch information you could get hold of regarding Kenwood’s plays and signals and so on?” “But, gosh ding it, Mr. Driscoll, I wouldn’t wear a false moustache and all that! I wouldn’t sneak in, I’d go openly. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t see Kenwood play a game of football just because I happen to play with Parkinson!” “Not if just being entertained was what you were there for, Cap,” answered the other. “But it wouldn’t be. You’d be a spy, and you know it, old son. That’s what I object to. When the time comes that it is an understood and mutually agreed on thing that members of one football team are welcome to see another team play, why, then I won’t make a yip. But you know how we love to get word here from the gate that a Kenwood scout has gone in! We cut out new plays and try to look worse than we are.” “You mean we would if you’d let us,” laughed Jud. “You do it, anyhow,” said the coach, smiling. “I’ve watched you too often. The last time we had visitors I asked Cater why he didn’t use a certain play in front of the other fellow’s goal and get a score and he looked innocent and said he’d forgot it. No, we’ll get along without that sort of stuff, Mellen, while I’m here. I don’t like it a bit.” “Well, I said you were right,” Jud laughed. “I just had to have my little kick. Hello, nearly ten! I must leg it. I’ll see Foster in the morning; Dobbins, too; and let you know what I learn. Good night, Coach.”
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