What types of assumptions are made, and are they reasonable?

Analysis #5 Assignment:

Submit a 3-4 page, double-spaced critical analysis of the assigned reading, which is provided as an attachment. The analysis should include a brief summary of the material that is no more than one page (ideally just one paragraph) at the beginning of the paper. For the remainder of the critical analysis, thoroughly critique the author’s content and how all reading assignments are relatable to one another by answering the following questions:

– What types of assumptions are made, and are they reasonable?

– Are there claims made that are logically inconsistent?

– How persuasive is the development of the case? Is it defensible, given the evidence? Is the argument plausible?

– Can you synthesize this material with other research to advance a theory or explanation for a current public affairs issue?

– What is the pragmatic meaning of the work? (For instance, if we believed what the author is saying, what difference would it make to our existing stock of ideas, working hypotheses, and the practice of public administration?)

***DO NOT PLAGIARIZE! Plagiarism software will be used to verify originality of the assignment. To avoid disputed charges for this assignment, DO NOT PLAGIARIZE!

Requirements:

Toward Better Public Administration Author(s): Paul H. Appleby Source: Public Administration Review, Spring, 1947, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Spring, 1947), pp. 93-99 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Society for Public Administration Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/972751JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/termsWiley and American Society for Public Administration are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Public Administration ReviewThis content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 22:28:17 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Toward Better Public Administration By PAUL H. APPLEBY Dean, Maxwell Graduate School of Citizenship and Public Affairs I ECOGNIZING the fundamental significance of elections in the conduct of a demo- cratic society, career officials generally have a profound conviction of their obliga- tion to shift ground in keeping with the shifts of public sentiment as expressed in elections. I have witnessed the effect of that profound conviction. I have seen career officials honestly and ably transfer their loyalties to changing officials, to changing political climates, chang- ing legislative and administrative situations. I have seen this, and I have, of course, ad- mired it. It is very much as it should be. Knowing that it is this way, citizens generally can have greater confidence in the vitality of the political processes that are necessary to a democratic society. Knowing that it is this way, politicians, political officials, and career administrators alike can have greater confi- dence in their respective functions. Ability to make such a shift involves devotion to a very high principle of morality. It has very much to do with superior public administration. Such shifts are not made without inner strain, of course. Honest and responsible per- sons like to be consistent, like not to be or to appear too ready to shift loyalties. They do suffer inner stress and social stress. They do suffer from some uncertainty and difficulty al- ways associated with adjustments to changed conditions and with the changing of familiar patterns. Career officials generally have a tendency to turn away from, to have nothing to do with, anything that is denominated “political.” NoTE: This paper was delivered as a luncheon address at the annual meeting of the American Society for Public Administration at Washington, D. C., March 15, 1947. They all feel themselves to be technicians in greater or less degree-even generalist admin- istrators. They feel themselves politically un- qualified, and often say, in leaving a politi- cal judgment to a political officer, “I don’t know anything about politics.” This, too, is basically as it should be. Career officials are constantly afraid that they will be required or led to do something that has a partisan char- acter. They strongly resist this, and they should resist it. Career officials are constantly afraid, too, that they will be required or led to do something “political” that involves the doing of something that “good administra- tion” would not permit-giving special treat- ment or favor to some citizen or organization because of “pull” rather than treating all on their merits as citizens under the law. This, too, is wholly as it should be. These two things-actions having partisan character and actions involving special privi- lege-occur exceedingly infrequently among career officials. The rigidity that in other con- nections is sometimes charged as a fault of civil servants in these connections surely is a great virtue. No partisan activity of any scope can be organized among these career persons. It is impossible, in any case, to have a politi- cal conspiracy among a million persons, or any large group of persons. The integrity and self-interest of career officials are real bul- warks. These facts are great protections, too, for any political officers who are weak or in- experienced and inexpert. There are, however, two aspects of proper public administration that are political-not partisan at all, but political-in nature. The first already has been suggested. It is in the necessity of subordinating administration to political policy, of orienting administration 93 I IThis content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 22:28:17 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW toward the general political, the general pol- icy, situation of the time. This means, among other things, subordinating the technical to the general and to the political. It means giv- ing due regard to political efficiency as well as to operating efficiency. A somewhat narrow, very specific example of this might be the case of an operating head of a great line agency who has much personal prestige, courage, and strength to resist very strong selfish interests, but who may not be doing, according to our professional stand- ards, an equally good job of internal admin- istration. His virtue as a public leader must be properly credited to his account as a pub- lic administrator. In a broader way, the subordination of ad- ministration, its orientation toward the politi- cal, means leaving willingly to the President and his responsible officers those political things that fall properly within the realm of high administrative discretion and executive policy, and to the Congress those political things that are legislative in nature; it means following and adjusting to those leads. These adjustments are an obligation of public ad- ministration, and making these adjustments has to do with superior public administration. The second aspect in which public admin- istration is political in nature lies wholly within its own field, in the first instance. It has to do with the process of adjusting admin- istration to popular criticism, attitudes, and needs, a process that goes on, and should go on, every minute of every day at every level, within the limits of law and fair dealing. It has to do with the manner, techniques, and spirit of administration, making public ad- ministration support and contribute to the reality of a democratic society; it involves broad philosophical perspective to give mean- ing and significance to action; it involves so- cial understanding, sympathy, and regard for the individuality of every citizen. Public criti- cism and importunity must be seen by all con- cerned not so much as a reflection of adminis- trative inadequacy as a necessary element in the constant perfection of public administra- tion. One way to describe this aspect of public administration might be to emphasize the fact that the scene on which public administration takes place is a field on which mighty forces play. Here are great pulls and propulsions: forces of self-interest; forces of idealism and aspiration; forces of habit, convention, and prejudice; forces of personalities at their vari- ous vantage points; organizational forces; forces of unorganized sentiment seepage; forces that seem to be expressions of imper- sonal conditions, time, and place; intragov- ernmental and extragovernmental forces. Many of these forces tend to be embodied in the governmental organizations that become representative of them. Where these forces contend is a great battleground. It is a politi- cal battleground, and one part of it is occu- pied not by partisan politicians but by admin- istrators. Another way to describe it might be to pic- ture the area within which public administra- tion takes place as a web of law. Congress leg- islates on the matters involved in the admin- istration of a program not once but many times. Administrators must take account of all these laws and more-for laws governing other programs modify what can be done and the manner of the doing with respect to any sin- gle program. And all these laws together yet require and leave areas of discretion. Many of these areas are new and necessarily large. They have not been sufficiently studied. Ade- quate administrative principles governing conduct in them are lacking. Still another way of describing this aspect of public administration is to depict it as a special and important field characterized by the difficulties of working together. These are internal and external-the difficulties of two persons working jointly on a project, of groups and organizations jointly concerned in various ways and degrees, and the difficulties between the “organizations” and the public on which the impact of the joint project falls. Public administration has much to do with cooperation, coordination, integration, syn- thesis, and with imagination, consideration, and sympathy. How much do we analyze and ponder pub- lic administration in terms of adjustment to popular criticism, attitudes, and needs? How much in terms of the meeting, resolution, re- 94This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 22:28:17 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

TOWARD BETTER PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION conciliation, and sublimation of forces? How much in terms of a web of law? How much in terms of techniques and spirit applied to the great and complex difficulties of working to- gether? In these matters public administration properly has a political character from which we must not turn away. Public administration participates in the creation of opportunity for the fructification of moral ends. These ends are identified by the popular political proc- esses, fashioned by legislative processes, and delivered to administrators for distribution of their values. In administration no less than in the other processes it is demonstrated that vir- tue must be rewarded in the ways of the sov- ereign-complicated ways where the sovereign is many. The finest appeal people of good will can find in socialism or communism is in the ap- parent concern of those systems for equity. But surely we should know better than any other group that no economic conception or order itself can provide equity. We know that equity under any system is complex and deli- cate and evolving, and that it depends finally upon the spirit and technique of administra- tion. We know that any adequate conception of equity includes regard for the creative fac- ulties of men which make life not only an es- cape from brutality, but a movement toward the God that man continually discovers or creates in the image he would hope to be- come. Public administration must be much concerned with this. On it depends much of the reality of equity. Let us not get so con- cerned with charts, work measurements, and classification problems that we cannot lift our eyes and see the place where we work, its real nature, its opportunity, and its responsibility. I am suggesting in these remarks that the term “public administration” has very much more content than is commonly ascribed to it. It is not merely “management” as ordinarily treated in technical terms, or “administra- tion” as ordinarily treated with only a slightly broader meaning. It is public leadership of public affairs directly responsible for execu- tive action. In a democracy, it has to do with such leadership and executive action in terms that respect and contribute to the dignity, the worth, and the potentialities of the citizen. I have begun this discussion by referring to the political aspects of public administration because those aspects most easily and vividly suggest the incompleteness of the procedural and technical aspects which are dealt with more often. Public administration must be re- lated to and pointed toward the political. It must draw from the social sciences. It ties these values together and relates them in con- crete forms and actions so as to give reality to public interest and private rights. II BY DIVISION of labor and specialization over areas greatly enlarged by science, tech- nology, and learning, differentiation between individuals has been greatly increased, just as interdependence has been greatly increased and the social relationships and processes have been made more numerous and more compli- cated. Public administration is enormously af- fected by these things. A complex civilization is inevitably reflected in complex needs and functions in the field of public administra- tion. All public administration must be ori- ented toward the complex and evolving pat- terns of interrelationships of men and affairs. I am suggesting that in this sense the scope of public administration must inevitably ap- proach the political, deliberately and with an understanding of democratic values, setting up its part of the bridge from the “strictly ad- ministrative” to the “strictly political” in or- der better to serve the political processes by which democracy lives. It must do this, I think, through more responsive and under- standing generalists at various levels, and most importantly at top levels. It means put- ting more and more emphasis on bringing more complete understanding and resources into focus at successive levels. It means utiliz- ing the values of high specialization and over- coming the limitations of high specialization. What are the limitations of high specializa- tion? A personnel officer or a section head may call upon and use an administrative analysis, a fiscal analysis, a psychological anal- ysis, an economic analysis, a geographical analysis, an historical analysis, or any other of many possible technical analyses. But the sec- tion head or personnel officer can never, I 95This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 22:28:17 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW think, have treated by a process of systematic analysis all of the elements entering into each administrative problem or situation. The ap- propriate methods of analysis will never have been developed for all possible approaches. There never will be time and facilities for all of the analyses that would be theoretically possible and relevant. Not all of the analytical possibilities will occur to those dealing re- sponsibly with the subject. If all of the theo- retically possible analyses were made, there would remain two inadequacies in that proc- ess alone. One of these would be in focusing and evaluating all of the analyses represent- ing together what might be called the total social-science product. The other would be that the total area of the problem had not even then been covered. The social sum is, and always will be, greater and more compli- cated than the sum of all the relevant social science parts. And public administration must be oriented toward the social sum. If this is true at the level of a personnel offi- cer or a section head, it is a truth of even greater significance at the level of a bureau chief. It has even more significance at the de- partmental level and still more at the presi- dential. The greatest needs of public adminis- tration are at and near top levels and in im- proving processes making for more adequacy at top levels. For it is at and near the top that the necessities of interrelationships are great- est. The values of high specialization can be most effectively used when there is variety in specialization, when the various specialists can be better oriented toward each other and together oriented toward the functions of gen- eralists. A good deal of the responsibility for both kinds of orientation rests with the ad- ministrators, but not all of it. The experts need to project their thought and materials toward each other and upward toward the needs of the generalists if there is to be any adequate joining of their contributions. There is much too much provincialism and smugness on the part of most technically trained per- sons. There are too many persons in generalist posts, too, who don’t know enough about us- ing experts. The greatest need of the public service is for more and better generalists. In this connection I was interested in a prize-winning story in the current issue of an escape magazine devoted to mystery stories, “The President of the United States, Detec- tive.” It is an imaginative flight dated fifty years hence, but in it the author does reveal a good deal of understanding of the nature of the presidential office. The editor of the maga- zine in an introductory note missed the whole point by referring to this mythical president as an expert. He was not an expert. He did know how to use experts. It is highly desirable to emphasize this fac- ulty, but it is equally desirable to emphasize the other faculty, that of understanding and being able to deal with society. There is valid- ity in the log-cabin tradition, just as there is fallacy in it. A good generalist administrator derives in some subtle way from society at large; he is sensitive to people in particular and in general; he knows how ordinary people think and feel, when and within what limits they may be moved. He has a faculty of gen- eral judgment that can hardly be described as anything but “political sense.” That kind of political sense in public administrators is a priceless support to the functioning of politi- cians and the political processes, even though there are sharp differentiations between pub- lic administrators and politicians. Perhaps a chief distinction is that the generalists pos- sessed of the political sense I am talking about, except for political appointees, should not have and would not have personal politi- cal ambitions or careers. The specifications are difficult to draw up, and difficult to fill. Highly educated persons tend, on the average, not to have enough of the common touch of political sense. They have necessarily advanced by means of a series of concentrations of effort different from the efforts of those not equally schooled. Techni- cally trained persons tend, on the average, to have still less of political sense. Yet techni- cally trained persons have to be used impor- tantly in public administration, and general- ist public administrators must be so educated as to be able to use experts effectively. This is the fallacy of the log-cabin tradition. 96This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 22:28:17 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

TOWARD BETTER PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION We must bring to bear on social problems more fruits from the social sciences, more fruits of technical processes, more of the knowledge of experts. And we must see the in- completeness of all this; we must develop per- sons and processes that relate all this to the general scene. If politics is the art of the best- that-is-possible, public administration par- takes more and more of that art as it pro- gresses up the hierarchical ladder. It is an especially hard progression for the technically trained. I should like to repeat then: The greatest need for improvement of public administra- tion is at and near the top where the necessi. ties of interrelationships are greatest, most intricate, and most far flung. How many men and women in a short span of years become as well qualified for these high places as they could be? The universities and colleges must be con- cerned about this need. A few, certainly, should give it particular attention in an effort to produce a greater percentage of young men and women better qualified for rapid move- ment upward. Yet educational institutions clearly cannot turn out young graduates ready to serve or acceptable in top positions. They can hope to turn out larger numbers of young people qualified in the course of years to go higher and to serve better at higher levels. They can hope also to contribute constantly to the widening of horizons, the raising of standards, the elevation of aim. But operating responsibility in this matter of developing top personnel surely rests with government itself. And up to now government has done practically nothing about it. Individ- uals within the government have tried a bit. Occasionally, single bureaus or departments have paid a little attention to such a program. But the efforts have been intermittent, and they have not been consciously undertaken in any large or adequate way. Most recruiting still is done lower down and, there, in terms of getting persons qualified to do reasonably well the jobs being immediately filled. No general or widespread effort has been made to recruit or to develop personnel in terms of future top needs. Top jobs are filled on the basis of a very sketchy inquiry and largely in the absence of any clear notion of what abili- ties are sought. Much too often they are filled on the nomination of “a fellow I met at lunch a few weeks ago.” There is no roster, and no good basis for developing one, of names of persons qualified for top posts. There is need, both on the campuses and in lower than top levels of government, for more recognition of and understanding of the con- ditions within which public administration takes place. A great deal of employee frustra- tion, and something very like that among aca- demic folk as they consider the world of af- fairs, grows out of failure to understand the processes by which things are related. There is a corresponding need at top levels for bet- ter understanding of and better utilization of the riches of expert knowledge. These two needs must be reconciled. Top-level judgment should not rest on mere expediency. Expert judgment should not, as such, attempt top- level roles. A prominent geographer recently suggested that the most important function of pure social science may be to help clarify is- sues. An early sociologist referred similarly to the role of sociology as that of a midwife. III RELATED to what has been said is another need-for universities and government to produce more people with political sense and political ability. This is a big subject in itself. General understanding of political institu- tions and political machinery is pathetic-even on the part of commentators and political leaders. The ability to work effectively in political affairs is rare, and particularly so among persons privileged in education and position. As I have said, civil servants are inclined to an attitude of panic at the very suggestion that a problem has political character. Citi- zens are inclined strongly to distrust anything labeled political. Academicians and intellec- tuals generally tend to be between distrust of and contempt for the nonexplicit processes of judgment. Yet the processes of politics are the processes by which democracy lives. We are given, usefully at times, to talking about public administration “outside of the political area.” What we mean much of the 97This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 22:28:17 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW time is “outside of the partisan area.” Valid public administration takes account of spe- cialized and localized sentiments and needs, seeks with flexibility to achieve greater equity, but beyond that it amalgamates or synthesizes these sentiments and needs into a “public” need. It participates, in terms of its limited executive discretion, in the composite devel- opment and execution of policy. Breadth and intimacy of contact and depth of insight give greater competence to the undertaking. Suffi- cient fullness of understanding gives aware- ness of the meaning of public interest. As here outlined the administrator does through a more subtle process, within the scope of his capability and function, the same overall type of adjustment performed by the more obvious and conspicuous partisan processes. How many public administrators are adequately distinguished by breadth and intimacy of con- tact, depth of insight, and fullness of social understanding? How often do we discuss and explore their roles in terms of these qualities? There is need for special understanding of the partisan area, too. It is remarkable how naive about parties are many who feel them- selves especially qualified to speak about gov- ernment. They assume that the lines between parties should always be clearer and more defi- nite than they can be except, on occasion, about general directions. They fail to see the real virtue of a two-party system as the means by which a great and farflung people are brought close to decision, with the area of their choice clarified and narrowed. They fail to understand parties as great complexes of sentiment, habit, interest, and location that provide serviceable but not too logical com- mon denominators of a nature higher than “higher mathematics” or the strictly logical. Major parties importantly and immediately useful in enabling a democracy to arrive at agreement on a course of action are fortu- nately not themselves too far apart and are not simple and logical, but are great, complex conglomerates, subject to policy slanting. All of this suggests, among other things, another need for more attention to the devel- opment of superior line administrators. More has been done by the colleges and universities and by government toward professionalizing staff officers; those in the line have been brothers of Topsy. Technicians-agronomists, biologists, economists, physicians, lawyers- have been used as (I do not say they have be- come) administrators. Staff officials have moved into the line. And some political offi- cers have developed into more-or-less career administrators. By giving thought to it we should be able to add a few cubits to the stat- ure of line administrators. Of a different ordei is the need to vitalize thinking in the social science fields. Some of the dynamism must be engendered on the campus; some should come to the campus from public and private administrators. The Hawthorne Plant experiments and studies, for example, while extremely limited, have opened fields rich in suggestion to psycholo- gists. Indeed, much new work in both social and individual psychology is one of the great needs associated with all that I have been try- ing to say. In economics, both government and the campus are still much too limited by Smith, the Mills, and Marx. Common notions about economic efficiency, like notions about other efficiencies, need to be challenged by re- lating them to realities and to more penetrat- ing conceptions of social efficiency. Govern- mental economic thinking is too much a sim- ple application to societies of concepts of in- dividual economics. International economic thinking is rudimentary; it must be developed rapidly to support needed development of in- ternational political thinking. Much research would be fructified by relating it to adminis- trative problems. In this connection I can report one highly encouraging phenomenon. We have heard a good deal about the mature zeal of G.I. stu- dents enrolled in the colleges. We have not heard enough about G.I. faculties. Experts exposed thoroughly to fast-moving affairs in government and the military services are to- day yeasty factors of great importance to our society. IV OME of these needs might well be restated. There is need in the government and on the campus for a special orientation of all the social sciences toward each other, toward citi- 98This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 22:28:17 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

TOWARD BETTER PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION zenship, and toward public service broadly viewed. There is need for a special orienta- tion of all university training-the natural sci- ences, law, medicine, engineering, business administration, fine arts, architecture, educa- tion-toward the cooperative business of liv- ing and working together. There is need both for more general and more intensive study and understanding of organization and the psychological and structural relationships be- tween individuals and their organized under- takings. There is need for special orientation toward world collaboration, world function- ing. There is need for new understanding by experts and administrators of the ways in which expert knowledge can be used to make for better administration. My plea today is for a broader, more hu- manitarian, and more deeply democratic ap- proach to public administration, the recogni- tion of its whole content, its finally general nature, its conduct dependent in high degree on generalists. To think thus broadly about public administration, we have constantly to come back to the kind of society with which we are concerned. The political aspect of pub- lic administration does not call simply for realistic recognition of forces operating on the field within which public administration takes place. Good government is not simply a pool ball taking the direction determined by impacts of all the other balls on the table. Superior public administration is not a mat- ter of being able in advance to approximate that direction. Good government must be real- istic, but it must be idealistic, too. It must re- spect and nurture and serve the people whose instrument it is. In particular, it must serve their aspirations, their upreachings. The cynic sees only the self-interest of pressure groups. One who believes that the universe has signifi- cance and that life has meaning sees man’s un- deniable and growing capacity for compassion and altruism. There is danger here of sentimentality, of course. I am inclined to think sometimes that many of the efforts “to secure citizen participa- tion” partake of that. Sometimes they are mere press-agentry presented in terms of pseudo- profundity. Administrative devices dressed up with citizen participation may confer special privilege on some citizens, may really be syn- dicalism, may confer responsibility on persons not really responsible, may rely on representa- tives not broadly enough representative. Tri- partite boards and committees are a frequent example of the oversimplification of represen- tation which assumes that citizens are only farmers or workers or businessmen, or only some few other things. We must remember that there is nothing so fully democratic as the to- tality of the political processes in a free society. These processes are going on every day, every- where in this land. Certainly, we cannot find an adequate, truly democratic, general guide in conscious and specific “citizen participation.” The number of citizens involved is too great, the number of our concerns is too great, time presses us too hard for decision. Officials as especially respon- sible citizens who always can be but do not al- ways have to be, controlled, must, with intri- cate coordination representative of divergent interests, on a field where all interests play un- der super-klieg lights, go ahead in an effort to make public administration ever better. The guide that does seem to me a generally applicable one is this: that government shall be so devoted and so considerate that citizens generally need never fear it. This aspect of the freedom from fear I would hold before you as a superior guide to superior public administra- tion. 99This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 22:28:17 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Public Policy and Administration: The Goals of Rationality and Responsibility Author(s): Norton E. Long Source: Public Administration Review, Winter, 1954, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Winter, 1954), pp. 22-31 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Society for Public Administration Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/972965JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/termsWiley and American Society for Public Administration are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Public Administration ReviewThis content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 20:41:35 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Public Policy and Administration: The Goals of Rationality and Responsibility By NORTON E. LONG Professor of Political Science Western Reserve University I O PROBLEM is more momentous for the modern democratic state than its capac- ity to develop rational, responsible, goal- oriented policy. In many fields, including the most crucial ones, foreign policy and defense, the staff work on which well conceived public policy must depend can scarcely be supplied elsewhere than in the great government depart- ments. To only a somewhat lesser degree this is true of agriculture, finance, commerce, and labor. Accordingly, a major task of administra- tion is the formulation of policy proposals for consideration by the political executive and the legislature. The capacity of our administra- tive organizations to perform rationally and responsibly the task of formulating the policy alternatives for politically responsible superi- ors is the major criterion of organization effi- ciency. The beginning of wisdom in adminis- trative analysis consists in a realistic assessment of the capacity of the organization to think. The conception, now formally abjured, of the separation of policy and administration has obscured the vital “thinking” role of or- ganized bureaucracy in government. The doc- trine of the political supremacy of the elected over the nonelected branch of the government has inspired the delusion that to be politically supreme the legislature must not only make final decisions on policy but must also have primacy in the whole process of policy formu- lation-that the bureaucracy should be an in- strument rather than a brain. The necessities of the case have forced the abandonment of this view save as folklore and political metaphysics. In practice it must be recognized that the bu- reaucracy is a part, and a highly important part, of the collective brain that somehow thinks or emotes a government policy. The attempt of some writers, influenced by logical positivism, to construct a value-free science of administration may well have the unintended and logically unwarranted result of reviving the policy-administration dichot- omy in new verbiage. Policy would become a matter of determining values, a legislative-po- litical matter; administration would consist in the application of the values set by the politi- cal branch to sets of facts ascertained by the ad- ministrative. In this reasoning, administra- tion could arrive at determinate answers with- out being sicklied o’er by the pale cast of policy thought. However attractive an administration re- ceiving its values from political policy-makers may be, it has one fatal flaw. It does not accord with the facts of administrative life. Nor is it likely to. In fact, it is highly dubious even as an ideal. Though the quest for science, mathe- matical precision, and certainty has an unde- niable psychological appeal, it runs the risk of becoming a fastidious piece of ivory-tower escapism. It is this psychological thrust of logical posi- tivism as vulgarized in the social sciences that constitutes its greatest danger to responsible inquiry. Ever since Hume’s successful attack on natural law, the problem of how to relate values to some satisfactory process of verifica- tion or validation has haunted political theory. As Sabine has justly pointed out, the unin- tended result of Hume’s analysis, and one which doubtless would have surprised him, has been a luxuriant growth of irrationalism or 22This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 20:41:35 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION superrationalism leading in turn to romanti- cism and authoritarianism. The current popularized version of logical positivism in the form that it has taken in po- litical science, and more particularly in the field of administration, concurs in this end re- sult. It does so by accepting the doctrine that only propositions of logic and factual proposi- tions have meaning-at least for science. The consequence of this position is an acceptance of the realm of values as an area largely beyond the scope of rational inquiry. Such a view of the nature of values comes perilously close to saying, “Of the important we can say nothing of importance.” Yet in any fair view of the facts of administrative life the establishment of policy consensus and the search for politically acceptable values is a highest priority en- deavor. To abandon this process as something essentially arbitrary and capricious, beyond, above, or below reason, is as fatal to significant inquiry in politics as in ethics. Only an empty manipulation of logical concepts can result from this evisceration of the subject. A mean- ingful study of administration cannot shy away from values. They are at the heart of the politi- cal process. While Hume and the logical positivists cast the realm of values into a nonrational if not irrational or superrational limbo, others, whom they have justly criticized, have confounded values and, in consequence, politics with sci- ence. It was a major contribution of Hume and the logical positivists to point out the distinc- tion between propositions of value and scien- tific propositions. Plato and latter-day Platon- ists have assumed that politics was or could be a science. While Plato’s conception of science as a body of eternal dogmatic truths led straight to the autocracy of a ghostly hierarchy fore- shadowing the philosopher kings of the Polit- bureau, even a modern conception of science as tentative and hypothetical would do similar, if less baneful, violence to the subject of poli- tics. Values are the essence of politics. Ergo, politics is not a science. But, and here is the important point, to say that politics is not a science is not to cast it out of the field of knowl- edge into some arbitrary intellectual no man’s land of whim and caprice. In the occasions of life, we deal with values and in our dealing with them give them much thought. This experience is not a realm de- void of reason and evidence, but a realm in which reasoned argument has an efficacious place. Investigation of this experience will show that though it may not be scientific, we nevertheless do have knowledge in the value- laden field of politics; and exploration of our procedures may lead to evidentially tested pro- posals for their improvement. The view of administration as sheerly in- strumental, or even largely instrumental, must be rejected as empirically untenable and ethi- cally unwarranted. This rejection will entail abandonment, on the one hand, of Herbert Simon’s quest for a value-free administration and, on the other, of the over-simplified dogma of an overloaded legislative supremacy of his logical comrade in arms, Charles Hyneman. These two views fit like hand in glove. Legis- lative supremacy provides Simon with value premises, which can then permit a value-free science of administration the esthetic delight of unique and verifiably determinate problem solutions through the application of the value premises to the fact premises laboriously gath- ered by the administrative tribe. But, alas, we know this institutional divorce, however requisite for a value-free science of administration, does not exist. And, with defer- ence, it seems rather doubtful that much would be gained by altering the facts to fit the theory -if, indeed, there were any remote chance that the public and publicly responsible officialdom would consider it. Instead, we may be wiser to seek so to structure our administrative opera- tions as to reflect the values and the facts that, given the nature of our society and its prob- lems, should enter into the formulation of the policy alternatives to be considered and adopted by the legislature and the political executive. If one of the most important tasks of admin- istration is conceived to be the formulation of policy proposals to solve problems, interesting consequences for organization follow. In this view, the rational organization of government would reflect the major problem areas whose boundaries have evolved from and been de- fined by socially felt needs and the state of rele- vant technology for meeting them. Organiza- tion would be structured to ask the questions and provide the facts necessary for solutions. 23This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 20:41:35 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW Thus, analysis of the administrative adequacy of State Department organization would con- cern itself in part with the capacity of that or- ganization to develop and test the theories im- plicit in its foreign policy proposals and to ex- tract meaning from the experience with those proposals when they were put into practice. Adequate organization would require that every major question have an institutional pro- tagonist, the securing of every important piece of factual information be an assigned responsi- bility, and every important point of view have a spokesman built into the proposal-formulat- ing process. The nature of the policy to be formulated implies the theoretical, factual, and value premises necessary for its rational and responsi- ble development. The institutional structure can then be considered in terms of personnel possessed of values, drives, and skills so struc- tured as organizationally to simulate a rea- soned inquiry. The test of organizational ra- tionality is the capacity of the organization to make explicit and controlling the theory on which its actions depend, to spell out and test the crucial hypotheses involved in the theory, and to amass and focus the facts needed to test the hypotheses. Such an organization can have experience that approximates the self-correct- ing discipline of a science. From the point of view of goal-oriented behavior and prob- lem-solving capacity, it is an ideal. In the political context, and because it is politics we are dealing with, the model of sci- entific procedure-the formulation and testing of hypotheses-is only partially relevant. Poli- tics is not a science, but to be consequent it must employ science and logic in the pursuit of its purposes. The structuring of organiza- tion must be concerned with the reflection of values and their implementation. Much of the implementation and a great deal of the criti- cal work in the shaping and reshaping of values will depend on scientific determination of rele- vant factual propositions. But values cannot be verified as can propositions of fact, and there- fore an enterprise so importantly concerned with the process of valuation as is administra- tion requires an organization differently struc- tured from the sciences and yet disciplined to the utilization of their results. II VALUE in politics and administration is most often expressed as a kind of will-be it that of political superiors, the legislature, the sover- eign, or the people. The pyramidal form of most ideal organization charts, the preoccupa- tion with the location of authority, and the structuring of a tight paper-chain of command evidence basic concern with administration as “will” organization. The concern with legi- timate hierarchy is similar in nature to the legalist’s devotion to sovereignty. It amounts to a search for an absolute, a first principle, from which all else may flow with the appeal- ing logic of a deductive system. The Hoover Commission provides a useful contemporary administrative summa theologica on this point and a forceful tract in favor of administrative monotheism. Its evangelists have preached up and down the land the gospel, “Give the Presi- dent the power to act.” One might almost echo, “In his will is our peace.” Charles Hyneman in his iconoclastic days laid irreverent and effective hands on this dogma in his able attack on the theology of “Administrative Reorganization” in the Jour- nal of Politics (February, 1939). However, in his recent work Bureaucracy in a Democracy he would substitute the supremacy of the legis- lature as a first principle for the supremacy of the administrative commander in chief. Here he suffers some uneasiness over the separation of powers dogma and the President’s Jack- sonian claim to represent the people. In the main, however, he is willing to sacrifice the gospel of the unity of the executive to the neces- sities of congressional supremacy. The proponents of executive unity and the concentration of administrative authority do so in the name of the same ultimate to which Hyneman appeals-the will of the people or, more precisely, in Hyneman’s terms, “giving the people what they want.” This position en- visages sound organization as being structured to carry out a legitimate will. The legitimacy of the will, like the concept of sovereignty, pro- vides the basis for a logical deductive system moving from the first principle-be it the will of the people via Congress, or the will of the people via Congress through President, or the will of the people via President. In any event, 24This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 20:41:35 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION the prime problem of administration is to give effect to this will. Like sovereignty, however, the will of the people is an abstraction. It serves many pur- poses, such as conferring political legitimacy on the acts and commands of differentiated groups. In many instances it performs the func- tion that Herbert Simon ascribes to authority. The symbol plays an exceedingly important role in our political culture but it clearly can- not be taken at face value. The will of the people is always expressed by some of the peo- ple. It is process rather than substance. Making it a mundane voice of God is explicable as a political folk way, a part of the culture, but not as an absolute. In any case, the symbol works in various ways its wonders to perform; and it is not limited to any single channel. What should concern the administrative analyst is the use to which the symbol is put. As an absolute, it encourages the development of a ghostly hierarchy to monopolize its con- sultation and to give forth ex cathera pro- nouncements in its name. Considered as pro- cedure, however, it can be tested by its fruits and evaluated as can any other problem-solv- ing device. So viewed, it will be found to do socially useful work-to solve problems. For any value system, however, much of what can readily come to pass under its aegis will be ab- horrent. The crucial question will be not the metaphysical essence wrapped up in the phrase “will of the people” but, in Bridgman’s terms, the operations subsumed under the concept. It makes a world of difference whether the “general will” is arrived at from counting the votes, from the intuitive genius of the Fuehrer, or from the dialectical analysis of the Politbu- reau. Procedures rather than substance are the major concern. By and large we must rest con- tent with accepting the evidence that over time certain procedures produce beneficent results and others do not. John Dewey in his address at the Harvard tercentenary, discussing the social necessity of authority and the menace of authoritarianism, pointed to the method of science as the solu- tion. In science authority emerges from pro- cedures whose results all can respect. Without a structured legitimate will, the enterprise of the sciences escapes anarchy and secures the discipline of an authority that all can accept without loss of human dignity or intellectual self-respect. A cooperating organization can operate successfully without a commanding hierarchy. Is this a special case of human be- havior, or does it have implications for public administration? Science at least provides us with an example of organized human activity that solves problems without a formal direct- ing hierarchy. In Earl Latham’s sense, there is neither hierarchy nor hieratics in physics, but there is a very real organization product.’ The organization of a science is interesting for the student of administration because it suggests a basis of cooperation in which the problem and the subject matter, rather than the caprice of individual or collective will, con- trol the behavior of those embarked in the en- terprise. Thus physics and chemistry are disci- plines, but they are not organized to carry out the will of legitimate superiors. They are going concerns with problems and procedures that have taken form through generations of effort and have emerged into highly conscious goal- oriented activities. One may ask to what ex- tent these scientific undertakings offer lessons for the conduct, let us say, of the Departments of State and Defense. Do the organizational as- pects of the sciences as cooperative problem- solving activities have meaning for public ad- ministration, or are we confined to utilizing their substantive conclusions and an occasional technique? This question bears on the larger one of the conditions under which islands of rational goal-oriented behavior-technologies -emerge in our culture. Government is but one of the possible, though perhaps one of the more difficult and certainly one of the most im- portant, areas for such development. Emphasis on the will aspect of organization to the exclusion of other considerations ob- scures the necessary conditions for the success- ful solution of problems. To the discipline of the “will of the people” and of legitimate su- periors there needs to be added the discipline of facts and tested procedures. Thus a con- sensus on procedures might be developed that would compel, at least to a degree, a meaning- ful formulation of proposals in terms of their necessary implications. A military proposal, for example, might then have to be spelled out 1″Hierarchy and Hieratics” 2 Employment Forum (April, 1947). 25This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 20:41:35 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW in terms of costs, manpower, casualty estimates, necessary civilian controls, and the like in a way that would increase the play of such ob- jective considerations in the decisional process. An organization in its routines and its person- nel-their training and values, professional and political-can be so structured as to maxi- mize the likelihood that decisions will be made as a result of full consideration of the relevant facts, hypotheses, and values involved. One might well strive for the acceptance of a “mini- mum administrative due process” that would be a highly differentiated analogue of judicial due process, and for similar reasons. This view would seek to modify the notion that the way to get responsibility is to make certain officials responsible in a neat hierarchy of command. While such a conception is not without merit, it is not a sufficient guide to or- ganization structure. If decision is accepted as the key function of administration, then the decisional process is our central concern. This process is the locus of responsibility and we may speak of responsible and irresponsible pro- cedures. The assurance of responsibility lies only partly in the ability to fix on some de- terminate individual the praise or blame for a decision; it must also rest in confidence that goal-oriented tested procedures have been fol- lowed in arriving at the decision in question. Among these procedures, of course, is free and effective criticism. Also, the real possibility of changes of personnel held personally responsi- ble is an indispensable part of popular influ- ence on the process of decision. But this proc- ess needs refinement if it is not to be exploited as a device for sacrificing scapegoats rather than for solving the public’s problems. The same kind of confidence that can be placed in the decision by appropriate mem- bers of the medical profession on the thera- peutic value of penicillin could in principle be placed in decisions in public administra- tion-for example, the estimate of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of Soviet military capabilities at a given time and of the deterrents required to insure our national security. In the two cases confidence is warranted not merely because the judgment comes from authorities clothed with professional prestige but far more because of the procedures presumed to have led to the decisions. Factors which would vitiate the de- cision, such as bias, corruption, or ignorance, would apply equally in either case. The in- tegrity of the process is more structured in the one case than in the other and the public ex- pectation, both elite and mass, that it should be so structured is far greater. This is but to say that our social technology for the objec- tive and professional control of medical esti- mates is greater than that which now obtains for military estimates. The obvious superiority of the expert to the layman has been raised from Plato on as an argument against lay control of government and in behalf of variant forms of aristocracy, oligarchy, or dictatorship. The dilemma of lay control versus expert knowledge may be par- tially resolved by lay determination of broad objectives and procedural control over the ex- pert. In a sense this is the eternal problem of what value and role to assign public opinion in politics. Here, Aristotle’s estimate seems sounder than Plato’s. Because the logical posi- tivism vulgarized in political science would place values in some nonrational limbo, we are psychologically if not logically in danger of returning to the Platonic dilemma of “The Laws” or of bowing down before an irrational “public will.” An expert blindly taking orders from an irrational popular mandate may be a caricature of the problem, but it comes too close to home for comfort. We are all in some sense at the mercy of the generals, but equally we are all in some sense at the mercy of the physicians. We should like to have the one group win our wars and the other cure our ills. In either case our likes are a necessary but insufficient cause for their own fulfillment. There is an objective environment whose possibilities are more or less competently and objectively mediated by the experts to the public. Quackery in the case either of the mili- tary or of medicine is more likely to be con- trolled by procedures internal to the discipline than by public will. However, an informed public opinion is a necessary support for the maintenance of the discipline. Some states of public opinion will permit any form of quackery. Even medicine could be debauched by a public insistent on magic remedies. In this sense, Barnard is right that the customer is an important component of the organization. What the public demands, 26This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 20:41:35 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION expects, and can be made to believe possible is a major determinant of the alternatives of policy. A disciplined public opinion that has been trained to insist on the observance of tested procedures and the production of evi- dence and reasoned alternatives by those who would lead it is an important factor in sustain- ing rational administration. A public opinion that believes in political gold bricks will find plenty of politicians to purvey them. In an at- mosphere of such make-believe, realists may well suffer the fate of Cassandra or, losing their scruples, join in outbidding one another in miraculous remedies. A sign of maturity in in- dividuals and groups is recognition of their proneness to folly and adoption of procedures to guard against it. We think it is no shameful derogation of sovereignty to bridle its exercise with consti- tutional procedures that have been found salu- tary. However laden with archaisms and ir- relevancies, the procedures of the courts are in large part rationally related to the solution of the peculiar problems that fall under their jurisdiction. Even the procedures of a legis- lature are limitations on its simple exercise of power that have been found wise. The arbi- trary right to hire and fire, once the most prized prerogative of business management, has in progressive concerns been proceduralized in the hands of personnel departments. In area after area recognition increases that group will, if it is to be effective, must be disciplined to the real possibilities of the situation, and that this implies the co-sovereignty of the problem and its objective components in the determina- tion of policy. What the people want is im- portant. What the facts will allow is also an essential determinant of the alternatives that should enter into and determine the public’s choice. This element-providing the facts- has been generally recognized as a major con- tribution of the bureaucrat to the formation of public policy. Some have even seen it as giving a baleful policy initiative, if not control, to the expert. III NCE the fact is faced that the bureaucracy is not, and cannot be, a neutral instru- ment solely devoted to the unmotivated pres- entation of facts to, and the docile execution of orders from, political superiors, a more realistic picture of its problems and potential can be had. Constitutionalism itself demands that the political will be limited by procedure. An im- portant addition to the constitutional arsenal lies in the potentialities of administration. The concept usually applied to political superiors vis-t-vis administration has something in it of the metaphysics of free will: only unchecked supremacy is compatible with sound doctrine. Power must be commensurate with responsi- bility. Simon has assailed this concept, but it persists. Actually, unfettered freedom is incom- patible with the growth of technology. Knowl- edge expands power, but in doing so, imposes limitations. In one sense, a well-conceived per- sonnel policy is a limitation on managerial freedom, but its adoption removes other limi- tations and so enhances freedom of action in desired directions. For good or ill, we know the fund of knowl- edge in the bureaucracy will be a source of power. Damning or denying this power accom- plishes little toward the major task of increas- ing the probability that public policy will be informed and responsible. The whole purpose of the Weather Bureau would be subverted if superiors dreamed they could give any orders they pleased. The Bureau of Labor Statistics was badly mauled because of suspicion of the in- tegrity of its cost of living index. The Council of Economic Advisers became so openly an in- strument of presidential propaganda as to min- imize its value as a means of securing con- sensus on basic economic data and the approxi- mate dimensions of our economic problems. The recent assault on the Bureau of Standards in the name of the policy supremacy of the Secretary of Commerce has critically impaired the agency’s capacity to present a common ground of scientific fact within the government and for the broad public. Ability to stipulate with confidence the kind of basic facts these agencies were intended to provide is essential to even the beginning of rational policy dis- cussion. As Walter Lippmann has wisely said: . .. when full allowance has been made for de- liberate fraud, political science has still to account for such facts as two nations attacking one another, each convinced that it is acting in self-defense, or two classes at war each certain that it speaks for the common interest. They live, we are likely to say, in 27This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 20:41:35 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW different worlds. More accurately, they live in the same world, but they think and feel in different ones.2 A common and rationally warranted con- ception of the world-the relevant facts-is basic to communication and rational discus- sion in government as elsewhere. Without some accepted means of stabilizing the concep- tion of the environment with which policy is intended to deal, we are lost in the world with- out coordinates of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty- four. To be sure, this is a free-wheeling world of rhetoric and emotion that many find congen- ial and that most politicians are adept at ex- ploiting-a world in which solid facts evap- orate and special devils and angels exercise occult or heavenly powers. The elimination of this world of the comic books, with its moralistic technology of “the good guys and the bad guys,” from its predominant role in the rhetoric of public policy formation is a major requisite for the rational and responsible de- velopment of policy. Administration has a great contribution to make in providing an alternative view of reality to the tempting, popular, and pres- ently politically rewarding comic-book inter- pretation of history. The gradual restriction of mythical thinking in the field of politics seems no more insuperable a problem in principle than that which has been met with considera- ble if imperfect success in medicine. It is pos- sible to build administrative structures whose accounts of the facts will provide a salutary limitation to the range of policy proposals that politicians will find it politic to espouse. To the extent that the procedures used in de- veloping the facts attain public acceptance, as may for instance the statistical work of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, public support of these procedures and the accounts they pro- vide will in turn compel debate on agreed facts and so limit alternatives by some meaningful test of feasibility. The enormous power that substantial con- trol of the accepted version of the facts gives to any group must be faced. Even with the best intentions, facts are rarely presented in a fashion that is neutral to all the parties at in- terest. Indeed, if they are to do any useful ‘Public Opinion (First American Pelican Books ed., 1946), p. 14. office in clarifying the real alternatives of pub- lic policy, they must foreclose some alterna- tives, and in doing so give umbrage to their proponents. The danger that the fact-gathering process will be corrupted is always present. Such remedy as we have is a consensus that there is integrity in procedures and that these procedures exert a control over the practices and values of personnel engaged in the enter- prise. That such consensus is possible, to a degree at any rate, is exemplified by the bar and the bench. Reliance on hierarchical con- trol by interested political superiors, except within housekeeping limits and in case of prov- able breach of professional behavior, would taint with misplaced partisanship a function whose success depends on a general consensus of lack of such bias. Fact-finding agencies may be established that can achieve some broad acceptance and confi- dence. The process is slow. But at least in principle we may recognize the necessity of structuring into administration the means to provide a neutral summary of the facts that can serve as the common ground for rational discussion. While this is of exceeding im- portance for collaboration between the execu- tive and the Congress and for the general real- ism of public debate, it is also of great concern for coordination of activity within the execu- tive itself. Each agency is prone to develop its own research and intelligence section, not merely to be informed, but even more, to avoid being controlled by a source of facts that is suspect and to provide a rationalization for its own policy preferences. A great forward step in coordination would result from the devel- opment within the executive of institutions capable of providing a minimum factual con- sensus in terms of which policy differences would have to be argued. One leader, one President, is no substitute for one view of the world with which adminis- tration must deal. Structuring a hierarchy is no substitute for structuring a reasoned con- sensus in the facts. While it is an understand- able feature of interagency rivalry that each agency should fabricate its own figures and at times throw dust in the air, it would seem, though difficult, the part of wisdom to reduce these competing versions of reality to as near a consensus or a clear statement of differences as e8This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 20:41:35 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION accepted technology will permit. It is doubtful that this can or should be accomplished by hierarchical command alone, but there are fruitful possibilities that what cannot be ac- complished by fiat may be accomplished by a professional consensus that will permeate all the agencies and in time extend to press and public. It may be accepted that the integrity of the expert’s role as the source of fact should be protected, though how and to what extent re- mains a problem. But when the reality is faced that the facts produced may not be politically neutral, and that in consequence political su- periors may well wish to control their produc- tion, a grave problem is presented: in what de- gree should political superiors be compelled by custom and/or institution to run the gauntlet of facts produced by personnel who are pro- fessionally and procedurally, but not politi- cally, responsible? The question is twofold. First, should they be compelled? And second, if they should be, how is it politically feasible to do so? There seem strong reasons for believ- ing that, if properly structured, an enforced confrontation of policy proposals with a profes- sional estimate of relevant reality would be salutary. If public acceptance developed it would be feasible. It is already practiced in varying degrees in particular areas of govern- ment operation. Taking a point from adminis- trative law, though one in which there has been more form than substance, one might strive for acceptance of the view that policy should be grounded on substantial evidence and that evidence should be the product of professional procedures. While any rigid dichotomy between fact production and policy proposal is bound to prove tenuous, there is a reasonably clear dis- tinction between such agencies as the Weather Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Bureau of Standards, on the one hand, and the State Department, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Agriculture, on the other. The former labor under very little pres- sure to produce major policy proposals; the latter are expected to produce answers to the most significant problems of our times. Inter- pretation of a most significant sort is required of the second group, as well as production of crucial facts. The policy proposals which the departments present to the President and the Congress are, except for end runs, initially policy proposals made within the departments to political su- periors. The structuring of this process to in- sure, to the extent feasible, conscious and rea- soned choice among carefully worked out alternatives should be a major objective of ad- ministrative technology. Today, the domi- nance of political superiors and a tight chain of command are the normal emphases of po- litical theory. If, however, political superiors and their subordinates can be looked upon as a problem-solving team engaged in working out the terms of a continuing adjustment of group values to a dynamic environment, a new view of the most helpful role of subordinates may be achieved. The roles of subordinates in the policy-formulating process are determined by the ability of our technologies to grasp the environment and the nature of the problems that determine the tasks of the administrative organization. The technologies and the ob- jective problems provide, within limits, some element of determinativeness to what kind of organization would be most likely to cope ef- fectively with a given set of objectives. IV THE progress of administration as an applied science depends on its capacity to influence the climate of relevant opinion in the direction of political superiors disciplining themselves to restraints on their area of choice. In recent years the fear has been expressed that the men of the Kremlin would be deceived into dan- gerous adventures by agents falsely reporting to them what the agents believed agreeable to their masters’ views. The disciplining of the desires and inclinations of the superiors to the unpleasant realities is a job for administrative structure, staffing, and procedure. It requires the building into the organization of a system of values and procedures that will enforce the presentation at the highest level of all the rele- vant facts-and their most significant possible interpretations. Actually, an organization capable of present- ing to political superiors an objectively con- trolled picture of the facts and a fair range of possible problem solutions, whose feasibility 29This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 20:41:35 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW 3o had been tested so far as practicable, would greatly increase the superiors’ real range of choice-although it should be noted that psy- chologically the awareness of alternatives ex- ercises constraint as well. This constraint in our value system, however, should be salutary. The slow but hopefully constant pressure of Project Lincoln, the Marvin Kelly Report, and Project East River indicates both the possibili- ties and the limitations of the presentation of unpleasant realities to political superiors. The organizing, strengthening, and regularizing of this process is a major task that consists in large part of creation of public expectation and elite public pressure. If the problems and the existing state of technologies are important determinants of the desirable structure of organization, the values of the community that enter into public opinion are equally significant facts to be con- sidered. Indeed, to get a fair representation of the alternatives an advocatus diaboli, and one acting more than pro forma, will be necessary for a reasoned decision among all the alterna- tives. Even the most convinced anticommunist Secretary of State might wish sources of in- formation on China beyond those provided by the orthodox supporters of Chiang Kai-shek. While final decisions must and should rest with political superiors, by custom and practice they should come only after the painful and salu- tary routine of examining alternatives and ob- jections. To get these, organization must be structured for variety of points of view so that significant values in the community are neces- sarily considered in the formulation of policy proposals. In his richly perceptive article on “Legisla- tive-Executive Relationships in Budgeting as Viewed by the Executive,” in the Summer, 1953, issue of this Review, Frederick J. Lawton describes interest and value representation in the budgetary process. As described, this proc- ess is a good example of at least an embryonic structuring of organization rationality. Hier- archy is accorded a major function of intro- ducing perspectives and priorities appropriate to the various levels of administration into the budgetary process. The process is described in terms of a dynamic interaction between levels, organizations, programs, and interests. Ideally the resulting work program and allocation of the nation’s resources would represent pro- posals that have been arrived at after a full hearing of competing claims, views, and the relevant facts. Few, however, who have strug- gled with the process of budget formulation in Washington would believe that there exists a well-structured, self-conscious, going concern for the clear formulation, on the one hand, of the “program of the President” and, on the other, for the formulation and testing of esti- mates from below in terms of diversified com- munity needs, political demands, and objec- tive facts. Interaction is the fact and the budget is largely as Herring describes it.3 We need a theory to describe and improve on the existing facts of interaction. It is a gain that Paul Ap- pleby, Herbert Simon, and others have shown that interaction between the levels of adminis- tration is not something to be deplored and corrected but a necessary and vital fact of ad- ministrative life. What are the consequences of this constitutionalizing of hierarchy? What implications does it have for the theory of the mandate that a new administration should have administrative power commensurate with its programmatic responsibility? The answers to such questions may be highly conservative, smacking of Burke, the Federal- ists, and John Stuart Mill. The phrases that leap to mind are “a permanent settled will over a transient inclination,” “constitutional set- tlement,” “due process,” “balance of inter- ests.” These constitutional arrangements we think of as ordinarily being embodied in the separation of powers, judicial review, and fed- eralism. However, if we recognize the bureauc- racy as becoming increasingly the policy-ma- turing, policy-proposing branch, both in the initiation of legislation and budget estimates and in the discretionary administration of leg- islation, the advisability of building consti- tutionalizing elements into the bureaucracy will seem of prime importance. The deficien- cies of the legislature as both a thought and a will organization in Graham Wallas’ sense lead to the growing power of the executive. The inevitability of this development leads straight to the consideration of the adequacy *Pendleton Herring, “The Politics of Fiscal Policy” 47 Yale Law Journal (March, 1938).This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 20:41:35 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION of the executive branch for performing the political, policy function of proposing an agenda to Congress. We would all recognize the deficiency of a one-party legislature, yet many of us would applaud, and are applauding, a one-party top- level bureaucracy. It may seem a forcing of the analogy to suggest that a loyal opposition in the upper levels of the bureaucracy could serve a function well nigh as socially useful as that performed by the loyal opposition in Par- liament. We have only begun to think of how best to staff and organize administration if a major part of its job is to propose policy al- ternatives-alternatives that have run the gauntlet of facts, analysis, and competing social values built into the administrative process. If it is sound to present political superiors in the departments with alternative problem solutions and to structure organization so to do, it might be well to consider the implica- tions of this arrangement for executive-legis- lative relations. Much congressional frustra- tion seems due to the lack of ability to make a choice in deciding programs. Congress can wreck a program, it can whittle one down, but it cannot have a well-worked-out program un- less it accepts the one program presented to it by the executive. The same reasons that dic- tate that political superiors in the departments should be compelled to make a choice between reasoned alternatives may well apply to depart- mental presentations to Congress. If Congress is to make reasoned choices it would seem that it should have before it the reasoned alterna- tives. However, political necessities may pre- clude the executive from presenting anything but one program to the Congress. If this is the case, and it well may be, a vital part of ra- tional decision and community representation must be structured into administration if they are to occur at all. Administrative Reform Apart from these bodies set up within the Administration, successive Belgian Governments since the liberation have appointed commissions of inquiry to report on the defects of organisation in the public service and on the measures to be taken to remedy them. They, however, mainly be- cause of their purely advisory character, are bound to remain largely in- effective. The shortcomings of our public services are well known, and given a little technical knowledge they can quickly be analysed. The real difficulty is not only to decide on the remedies but also to apply them. Indeed, as has already been said, these, if the causes of the trouble and not only the effects are to be reached, require a modification of the present administrative structures and of the legal basis on which they are founded. … The necessary impetus, even in the matter of administrative reform, must come from an authority situated at the highest level. It therefore appears essential that for as long as required a Minister without port- folio, close to the Prime Minister and with sufficient authority and execu- tive power, should be appointed to take charge of administrative reform. In order to secure the necessary powers Parliament would have to pass a law giving the Government general authority to modify existing legisla- tion by decree, in so far as this was necessary to carry out measures of sound administrative reform. -Andr6 Molitor, “Administrative Reform and Retrenchment,” 8 0 & M Bulletin 7 (October, 1953). 31This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 20:41:35 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

On Building an Administrative Science Author(s): James D. Thompson Source: Administrative Science Quarterly, Jun., 1956, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Jun., 1956), pp. 102-111 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. on behalf of the Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2390842JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/termsSage Publications, Inc. and Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Administrative Science QuarterlyThis content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 22:27:48 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

James D. Thompson On Building an Administrative Science The unique contribution of science lies in its combination of deduc- tive and inductive methods for the development of reliable knowledge. The methodological problems of the basic sciences are shared by the applied fields. Administrative science will demand a focus on relation- ships, the use of abstract concepts, and the development of operational definitions. Applied sciences have the further need for criteria of meas- urement and evaluation. Present abstract concepts of administrative processes must be operationalized and new ones developed or borrowed from the basic social sciences. Available knowledge in scattered sources needs to be assembled and analyzed. Research must go beyond descrip- tion and must be reflected against theory. It must study the obvious as well as the unknown. The pressure for immediately applicable results must be reduced. The author is a member of the faculty of the Graduate School of Business and Public Administration, Cornell University.’ THE issue of science versus art for administration seems to be vanishing with the realization that one approach does not rule out the other. The art of the surgeon, to take a parallel case, is supported by the medical sciences; the art of the engineer by the physical sciences. It is widely recognized that there is an element :The author is indebted to William J. McEwen of the same faculty for helpful comments.This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 22:27:48 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

ON BUILDING A SCIENCE 103 of art in administration; the possibility of a science of administra- tion is only now coming to be taken seriously. Nevertheless, the sole assumption required for the application of scientific methods to the subject of administration is now generally accepted. That assumption-that regularities can be identified in the phenomena under consideration-is the basis of every attempt to train people for administrative roles. If every administrative action, and every outcome of such action, is entirely unique, then there can be no transferable knowledge or understanding of administration. If, on the other hand, knowl- edge of at least some aspects of administrative processes is trans- ferable, then those methods which have proved most useful in gaining reliable knowledge in other areas would also seem to be appropriate for adding to our knowledge of administration. It is no longer a ridiculous idea that regularities can be found in human behavior. Previous impressions to that effect stemmed more from inability to perceive regularities than from their ab- sence. Those who assert that human behavior cannot be studied scientifically often speak of such regularities as staff-and-line con- flict. There is now every reason to believe that an administrative science can be built, although the building will not be easy. An administrative science will be an applied science, standing approximately in relation to the basic social sciences as engineering stands with respect to the physical sciences, or as medicine to the biological.2 There is an element of art in the practice of medicine and engineering, but in both instances the development of sup- porting sciences has reduced the element of luck or chance by pro- viding tested bases for judgment. The less gifted practitioners of medicine and engineering are more effective than their counter- parts a generation ago precisely because there is a greater store of scientific knowledge for them to draw upon. For the same reason the more creative physicians and engineers are able to accomplish things which their creative forerunners would consider miracles. The dividing line between “art” and “science” is not a fixed one but is constantly changing. The art of the engineer, the physician 2This is, of course, an oversimplification. Medical practitioners, for example, have incorporated knowledge from the physical as well as from the biological sciences, and more recently, they have paid increasing attention to the social sciences.This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 22:27:48 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

104 ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY or surgeon, or the administrator, gradually improves, that is, it be- comes more effective in terms of his aim, as the sciences behind him find new relationships and explore their ramifications. If the term “science” is not merely a synonym for “knowledge,” the distinction lies in the methods by which scientific knowledge is amassed. The distinguishing contribution of the sciences seems to lie not in measurement, not in quantification or statistics, not even in laboratory experimentation, but in the combination of both deductive and inductive techniques for the development of logical, abstract, tested systems of thought. Achievements in the physical and biological sciences, and in their sister applied sciences, have demonstrated most convincingly the practical value of theory -theory which is repeatedly tested against experience and modi- fied accordingly. A science of administration will be distinguished from administrative lore by the methods used to build that knowledge of administration. The methodological problems found in the basic sciences are shared by the applied fields. Several schools of thought are em- braced by the discipline known as philosophy of science, and it would be presumptuous here to try to describe completely the methods of science. But several characteristics of the methods of science are well established and carry implications for the direc- tion of effort for students of administration. The major achievement of science-the successful blending of inductive and deductive, or theoretical and empirical approaches- is accomplished under the following minimum set of circumstances: First, a focus on relationships. While description and measure- ment are basic techniques in science, their importance lies in ob- taining greater precision in the statement of relationships among phenomena under stated conditions. The biologist views an or- ganism as a system or a set of related and interdependent parts, and the astronomer understands the solar system as a set of celes- tial bodies in relationship to one another. Scientific theories are simplified models of relationships, which appear to account for experience. A second important characteristic of the scientific approach is the use of abstract concepts. Science involves deliberate attempts to simplify understanding of relationships through use of abstractThis content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 22:27:48 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

ON BUILDING A SCIENCE 105 concepts which permit generalization. An important indication of success in science is the number and range of “concrete” events which one set of concepts can “explain.” Moving away from the concreteness of specific cases permits discovery of relationships which hold in numerous cases and is thus an important step in generalizing. This was a major advantage of Einstein’s famous formula, E =Mc2. The scientific method requires the discarding of concepts limited to particular geographical areas or particular times and their replacement by others. The development of operational definitions is another major characteristic of the scientific approach. If concepts are not to re- main sterile or forever debatable, they must be bridged to “raw ex- perience.” Science requires that concepts be defined by a series of operations which permit the sensory perception and identification of the phenomena referred to by those concepts. Operational defi- nitions make possible independent repetition of observations by scientists in many places and at many times. How does the field of administration measure up against these requirements? Much of our literature is lore, spelling out how a procedure or technique is carried out in current practice or proclaiming that “this is the way” to do it. This material contains rather bold and often implicit assumptions about the relationships between the procedure or technique under consideration and other things which take place within the organization. This type of literature frequently asserts that a certain device is proper, i.e., gets desired results, on the grounds that “General Motors has it” or that the one hundred “best-managed” companies use it. But a particular budgeting procedure, for example, may be appropriate for General Motors and not for Company X, and it may be appropriate for General Motors in 1956 but less appropriate in 1960. Any particu- lar item, that is, may show a high correlation with “success” when imbedded in one context but show a low correlation in a different context. A particular budgeting procedure thus may be effective when accompanied by a particular communication system, a par- ticular style of leadership, a particular structure of authority and responsibility, and so on. It is the configuration of these items-the relationships between them-which produces a desirable result.This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 22:27:48 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

1 o6 ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY With respect to concepts, the literature of administration ranges from the very abstract to the extremely concrete, but seldom are the two related. Despite the many discussions, for example, of the works of Chester Barnard, Henri Fayol, Mary Parker Follet, Her- bert Simon, Lyndall Urwick, and others, their concepts and propo- sitions have been little tested in research. On the other hand, much research into administrative problems has been organized around ad hoc hypotheses with little attention being given the place, if any, of these concepts in more general theory. Many of our con- cepts are appropriate to one cultural setting but not to others, to one type of administrative enterprise but not to others, to one hierarchical level but not to others. Scientific talents, like administrative talents, are scarce; there are great economies to be gained through the use of concepts which can be applied to administration wherever administration occurs. The development of an administrative science will be hobbled until we find concepts applicable to a variety of admin- istrative levels so that, for example, scientific knowledge of phe- nomena at supervisory levels can feed into understanding of events at higher levels, and vice versa, or until we develop concepts which will permit confirmation in, say, the hospital setting, of relation- ships observed in a business or military organization. Concepts appropriate for these purposes must be rather abstract, although they may well be accompanied by less abstract concepts which serve as a bridge to concrete “reality” in specific settings. For example, a focus on profit as a major objective of the admin- istrator immediately separates profit-making organizations from other types, unless at the same time we move upward in abstraction -perhaps to think of the administrator as employing resources in pursuit of objectives, with profit as a specific manifestation of objec- tives in one type of organization, and with healed patients as a specific type of objective in another type of organization. The more abstract scheme permits the simultaneous gathering, in many kinds of organizations, of data about the use of resources in the pursuit of objectives. It therefore encompasses a much larger number of people who may make valuable contributions. Because administrative research has been relatively divorced from administrative theory, few of our abstract concepts have beenThis content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 22:27:48 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

ON BUILDING A SCIENCE 107 operationalized, while those concepts which have been used in research seldom permit generalization. Empirical observations are thus difficult to reflect against theoretical systems, and we are not able to design research projects out of those systems. Adminis- trative science cannot progress very far until we have convertibility of “symbolic currency.” The above are some of the problems which face any science, basic or applied. But in the applied fields one problem stands out as particularly important and universally bothersome. This is the question of criteria or indexes for objective measurement and for selection of alternatives.3 How are we to determine the effects of a particular relationship among a set of variables? Moreover, how are we to determine that one relationship yields a more “desirable” net effect than another relationship? In their purest forms, the basic sciences can be as well served by a negative finding as by a positive one. Their models or theories approach neutrality, and all findings are welcomed. But the models of the applied sciences, implicitly or by design, are focused on achievement, utility, or service values. The medical sciences, for example, focus on preserving the human organism and maintain- ing its “proper” functioning. The engineering sciences have other pragmatic values for application. Because the values employed in those fields are also so widely held by others in our society, we tend to forget that they are value criteria. But the issue is pointed up in medicine occasionally by, for example, the question of “mercy deaths”; the engineer runs into a similar issue when he attempts to apply his science in areas where religious or other values are held in higher esteem than are the pragmatic values of engineering. The basic scientist may open a new direction for research and theory if he finds that a certain relationship between A and B leads to C. The same discovery may also open up a new area for the applied scientist-but not necessarily the same area. For applica- tion it is not enough to know that A and B, in a specific relation- ship, lead to C. We must determine, in addition, two things: Distinctions between basic and applied sciences are distinctions of degree rather than kind, and this discussion necessarily is oversimplified. The problems found in one area of science appear also in other areas of science, but the emphases may be different.This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 22:27:48 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

io8 ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY (1) What else does this relationship between A and B bring about? It is not enough to know that penicillin fights bacteria in the human organism, for in some organisms the introduction of penicillin may also have harmful aftereffects. The same sales or profit targets may be achieved under either a “divisional” or “func- tional” type of organization, but one may have higher “costs” in the long run through, for example, higher labor turnover. An executive incentive system may bring about increased effort, but this may also glue executives’ attention to the short run at the expense of next year’s operations. (2) What else leads to C? The AB relationship brings about C at some “costs,” and there may be other ways of arriving at C with less expense. Until the array of alternative means and their “costs” is known, selection from among possibilities is difficult. The criterion problem is a tough one for any applied science, for the relationships involved in “real life” usually are quite com- plex and are not subject to the same high degree of control which can be maintained in the laboratory. The laboratory scientist, and the abstract theory builder, can work with “other things being equal.” But when a vaccine, for example, is taken out of the lab- oratory and used on human beings who have had virus as well as those who have not, on children who have runny noses and those who have not, on some who are anemic or have already been exposed to a disease, and so on-here the applied scientist is not as certain as he was in the laboratory. He no longer has “other things equal.” Because of this complexity in our phenomena, adequate meas- urement is difficult. How, for example, can we learn to measure the effects-or even the major effects-of the introduction of a new organization chart, or a particular committee arrangement? The development of criteria will be difficult, requiring consid- erable research time and money, but it does not appear impossible. Important contributions have been made during the last decade, particularly in research supported by the military establishment, and more will undoubtedly be forthcoming from other sources. But because of the difficulty of establishing criteria and the con- sequent research required, it is extremely important that theories be developed which predict the consequences of various admin-This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 22:27:48 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

ON BUILDING A SCIENCE 109 istrative actions. Generally speaking, the more advanced the theory, the less the research effort required to determine the major rela- tionships. This is one sense in which theory is a most practical matter. If these observations have validity, what directions do they point to for the development of an administrative science? Of immediate importance is the area of concepts. The abstract concepts already at hand must be operationalized where possible, or revised and then made operational. New concepts will have to be developed or they may need to be incorporated from related sciences. The basic social sciences have been wrestling with con- cepts for some time and have been operationally defining them. While they offer jargon they also offer concepts which promise to be highly useful in the study of administration. To the extent that useful ideas have been developed in these related fields, it would be folly to ignore them. At the same time, however, administrative science will have to develop some of its own concepts and refine those it borrows. This will not be accom- plished quickly, and it will require the presence of abstract think- ers or conceptualizers, as well as research-oriented scientists. We have perhaps been more successful in developing people who use abstract notions (i.e., “competition brings better service, lower prices”) than we have in developing people who think at highly abstract levels. Moreover, systems of logic for relating these abstract concepts are as urgently needed as the concepts themselves. In the physical sciences the service of mathematics for this purpose is obvious. Mathematics has not yet demonstrated equal power in the social science area, although new forms of mathematics may be developed for this purpose in the future. In any event, one or more systems of logic must be developed before administrative science can mature. How much confidence can we have in it? How far can we generalize from it? Current knowledge of administration is not sufficiently organized. This is due in part to the need to develop more comprehensive theory. 4The high incidence of jargon in these fields, incidentally, probably springs large- ly from the fact that social scientists have been wrestling with conceptual problems for some time. It would seem that this is a stage any science must go through. The biological and physical sciences have this behind them for the most part.This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 22:27:48 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

110 ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY At the same time, we need to explore the empirical findings in the social sciences which may be pertinent and, when necessary, to translate these into administrative situations, at least hypothet- ically. Basic discoveries in the biological and physical sciences are incorporated at applied levels with impressive speed. Effective channels have been built for funneling new knowledge into medi- cine and engineering. By contrast, administration is relatively iso- lated from the basic social sciences. A third major need is redirection and renewed emphasis on re- search. Too much of our research effort has gone into the com- pilation of incidents or examples which support particular points of view, and far too little effort has been directed toward testing such points of view. It is vital that we seek out those incidents or cases which do not fit, for this is the only sure way of finding those points at which theory needs revision. A trend toward empirical research is encouraging, but we must not rest with pure description. Description is necessary but it is only one step in building a science. Nor is the testing of “free- floating” hypotheses an economical way to approach our prob- lems. Testable hypotheses which will link abstract notions with empirical data are urgently needed. The pressure for immediately applicable research results must be removed from a large part of our research. It is this pressure which, in part, leads to the formulation of common-sense hypoth- eses framed at low levels of abstraction, without regard for general theory. The focus of attention on results with immediate utility limits thought and perception and thereby reduces the ultimate contributions of the research to administrative science. Moreover, the search for the immediately useful often leads to the application of ideas whose unintended and unrecognized costs may be greater than their positive contributions. Research not carried out under pressure for immediate results is more likely to seek out all major consequences of an idea or practice. Research for an administrative science must be directed at the “obvious” as well as at the “unknown.” Attention tends to be caught by those items of our experience which are not usual, ex- pected, or obvious. Those activities or procedures within admin- istrative practices which “work perfectly well” are seldom noticed.This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 22:27:48 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

ON BUILDING A SCIENCE 111 Yet if they are analyzed and described in abstract, theoretical terms, they may well form the backbone of a comprehensive theory which will help immensely in discovering other, currently unknown, relationships. It was through understanding of the known elements that the construction of the periodic table was possible, and this in turn permitted chemists to predict the existence of unknown elements, some of which are only now being found. An adminis- trative science must explain the obvious as well as the rare or difficult relationships. Surveys showing “how things are done” have their place in an administrative science, but much more needs to be done along the lines of “what happens if.” All possible combinations and permuta- tions need to be explored, and the current “best practice” must be examined critically. This kind of research is not easily or quickly done. An administrative science must attract talented people and provide them with resources. Sponsors with patience as well as funds must be found. The quality of patience is also of much advantage to those actively engaged in the building of an admin- istrative science. Answers to questions of administration are more likely to come by increment than by the master stroke of one re- search project, and this requires a research sequence with each piece building on the knowledge gained before.This content downloaded from 128.82.18.4 on Thu, 24 Aug 2023 22:27:48 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

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