Book Reviews : Revenue-Sharing: Crutch or Catalyst for State and Local Government? By HENRY S. REUSS. (New York: Praeger, 1970. Pp. 170. $6.50.) Making Federalism Work: A Study of Program Coordination at the Community Level. By JAMES L. SUNDQUIST with the collaboration of DAVID W. DAVIS. (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1969. Pp. 293. $6.95.)
Author | Deil S. Wright |
DOI | 10.1177/106591297002300415 |
Published date | 01 December 1970 |
Date | 01 December 1970 |
873
It
is
my
profound
hope
that
editors
of
future
collections
of
readings
in
public
administration
who
are
inclined
to
pair
Friedrich
and
Finer
will
include
excerpts
from
the
Davis
book,
for
in
the
vocabulary
of
public
administration,
Discretionary
Justice
is
an
essay
on
administrative
responsibility
that
shares
Finer’s
emphasis
on
rules
without
rejecting
Friedrich’s
concern
with
personal
obligation.
As
Davis
observes,
&dquo;Every
government
has
always
been
a
government
of
laws
and
of
men.&dquo;
Moreover,
since
Davis
proceeds
from
a
more
accurate
model
of
the
American
political
system,
he
transcends
many
of
the
afflictions
which
beset
Finer,
looking
to
administrative
rule-making
rather
than
legislative
control
for
purposes
of
both
improving
the
quality
of
democratic
supervision
of
administration,
and
reducing
the
burden
of
discretion
on
individual
administrators.
For
students
of
public
policy,
Discretionary
Justice
is
in
many
ways
comple-
mentary
to
Theodore
Lowi’s
recent
critique
of
the
macro-political
consequences
of
interest-group
liberalism
in
The
End
of
Liberalism.
Both
are
concerned
with
improving
the
quality
of
Justice
in
America,
and
both
argue
that
attainment
of
this
objective
will
be
significantly
advanced
by
reducing
dependence
upon
discre-
tionary
decisions.
Where
Lowi
focuses
on
social
justice
and
seeks
to
arrest
the
disposition
of
government
to
delegate
its
policy-making
powers,
Davis
focuses
on
individual
justice,
and
seeks
to
minimize
opportunities
for
the
arbitrary
exercise
of
those
discretionary
powers
which
have
been
responsibly
delegated.
In
sum,
Discretionary
Justice
is
asking
us
to
come
of
age
-
to
recognize
the
dominant
impact
of
administrative
decisions
on
justice
for
individual
parties,
and
to
respond
by
improving
and
more
widely
employing
existing
techniques,
rather
than
by
forgiving
injustice
on
grounds
that
it
is
inevitable,
because
uncontrolled
discretion
is
unavoidable.
University
of
California,
Santa
Barbara
JOHN
E.
MOORE
Revenue-Sharing:
Crutch
or
Catalyst
for
State
and
Local
Government?
By
HENRY
S. REUSS.
(New
York:
Praeger, 1970.
Pp. 170.
$6.50.)
Making
Federalism
Work:
A
Study
of
Program
Coordination
at
the
Community
Level.
By
JAMES
L.
SUNDQUIST
with
the
collaboration
of
DAVID
W.
DAVIS.
(Washington,
D.C.:
The
Brookings
Institution,
1969.
Pp.
293.
$6.95.)
Many
political
scientists
interested in
public
policy
issues
will
consider
their
time
well
spent
reading
either
or
both
of
these
volumes.
For
several
reasons
the
Sundquist
book
will
be
the
most
appealing
to
a
large
extent
because
of
its
tighter
structure
and
more
analytic
character.
The
Reuss
volume
comes
from
a
congressman
concerned
about
the
failures
and
inadequacies
of
state
and
local
government.
It
specifies
the
problems
of
the
federal
system,
identifies
the
causes,
and
argues
for
a
root-and-branch
attack
on
those
causes
through
a
bill
Reuss
introduced
in
the
House
of
Representatives.
The
Sundquist
volume
is
the
product
of
extensive
and
in-depth,
community-oriented
investigations
around
the
nation
over
a
two-year
(t967-69)
period.
It
is
more
detached
in
its
analysis
and
more
cautious
in
prescriptions
and
expectations.
It
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