Is Leviathan Manageable?

• Date: 01 January 2000
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/0033-3352.00064
• Published date: 01 January 2000
• Author: Lynton K. Caldwell,Larry Luton

72 Public Administration Review • January/February 2000, Vol. 60, No. 1

Is Leviathan Manageable?

Book Reviews | Larry Luton, Editor

Lynton K. Caldwell, Indiana University

Peri E. Arnold, Making the Managerial Presidency: Comprehensive Reorgan-

ization Planning, 1905–1996. 2nd ed. revised. Lawrence: University Press of

Kansas, 1998, xiv–448.

Serious students of American gov-

ernment who missed seeing the first

edition of Making the Managerial

Presidency should not fail to examine

this second edition. At the least they

should read its first and last chapters.

The substance of the book and the sig-

nificance of its implication, exceed the

apparent limits of its title.

This new edition is not only a his-

tory of the political and constitutional

struggles over the governance of the

executive branch during the twentieth

century, but also a case in point at the

close of the century of a larger inter-

national movement: away from mana-

gerial government, responsible under

public law toward the divestiture, de-

centralization, and especially the

privatization of public services. To

detached observers, comparable to the

disinterested spirits of Thomas

Hardy’s Dynasts, observing human af-

fairs from the empyrean of space, it

might appear that modern society was

“giving up” on political governance in

preference to the allegedly impartial

and efficient mechanisms of the mar-

ket. The reality is more complex.

In its larger context, Making the

Managerial Presidency is a descrip-

tive analysis of adaptive efforts to at-

tain appropriate control and gover-

nance over the Leviathan state that,

without forethought or intent, emerged

during the twentieth century. These

efforts have inevitably focused on Ar-

ticle II of the Constitution: “the execu-

tive power shall be vested in a Presi-

dent of the United States of America.”

The scope and substance of this power

is largely inferential, Article II detail-

ing functions and procedures but say-

ing little on the scope of executive

power or relations with the Congress.

Arnold writes that “The emergent

context of the late 20th century is frag-

mented and characterized by weak par-

ties, mercurial interest groupings,

weakened public institutions, and a

technology allowing intense and per-

vasive public focus on presidents.”

Clinton’s National Performance Re-

view (NPR) consummates “the muta-

tion of presidential use of administra-

tive reform in response to a changing

emergent structure, from institution-

alized pluralism to increasingly plebi-

scitary politics” (i.e., appeals to pub-

lic opinion). Allowing for the self-ex-

citement of the news media over im-

proprieties in the White House, the

presidency has been relatively immune

to a cultivated public hostility toward

government, directed more specifi-

cally toward the bureaucracy. The term

civil servant is not often heard today,

nor also is citizen. Under the NPR, citi-

zens have been transformed into con-

sumers, and in Republican rhetoric

they are “hard-working taxpayers”

whose pockets are being picked by

intrusive bureaucratic tax-and-spend

agencies in Washington.

The ability of the president to lead

the legislation process is severely com-

promised by a fractionated and intran-

sigent Congress of 535 members, be-

holden on election day to local con-

stituents, but thereafter also beholden

to the interests that provided the vis-

ibility to get them elected. During an

era of exceptional prosperity, public

discontents seldom elicit compelling

presidential initiatives. Relatively con-

tained wars such as those localized in

Panama, Grenada, and Kuwait are

more patriotically popular than politi-

cally controversial. Presidential initia-

tives (often symbolic) focus on foreign

and military affairs in which presidents

enjoy preeminence. Bill Clinton’s for-

eign travels (attributable to the require-

ments of world leadership) rival those

of the peripatetic Pope John Paul II,

the most traveled Pope in history.

The apparent inability of the presi-

dent or the Congress to formulate and

execute a coherent, sustainable public

Lynton K. Caldwell is the Arthur F. Bentley professor emeritus of political science and professor of public and environmental affairs

emeritus at Indiana University. He holds graduate degrees from Harvard University and the University of Chicago. He is the author or

co-author of 20 books and monographs and 250 articles in refereed journals, and he has served on numerous scientific and interna-

tional commissions. An early member of ASPA, Dr. Caldwell is a member of NAPA and has been a frequent contributor to

PAR

, having

received the Mosher (1964), Burchfield (1972), and Dimock (1981) awards. He has served on numerous national and international

advisory and policy boards and commissions, and on the staff of the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, helping to draft

the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, where he introduced the concept of an environmental impact assessment.