Neutral and Responsive Competence

• Author: Patrick J. Wolf
• Date: 01 March 1999
• Published date: 01 March 1999
• DOI: 10.1177/009539999400935529
• Subject Matter: Articles

Wolf / NEUTRAL AND RESPONSIVE COMPETENCEADMINISTRATION & SOCIETY / March 1999

TerryM. Moeargues that theinterests of modernpresidents lead themto eschew the“neutral

competence” of professionalstaff agencies for the “responsive competence” more typical of

presidentialloyalists and the White House staff. This article examines the critical case of the

Bureau of the Budget, 1939-1948, an agency that Moe claims faced a Faustianchoice be-

tween sacrificing neutral competence or failing to respondto presidential needs. The schol-

arly and historical record indicates that, contrary to Moe’sclaims, the agency maintained

high levels of both neutral competence and responsivenessto Presidents Franklin Roosevelt

and Harry Truman during this period. Moreover, the behavior of both the agency and its

presidential clients was “rational” given the agency’s structure and mission and given

presidential needs.

NEUTRAL AND RESPONSIVE

COMPETENCE

The Bureau of the Budget,

1939-1948, Revisited

PATRICK J. WOLF

Georgetown Public Policy Institute

Political scientists, public administration scholars, and presidents

themselves have expendeda great deal of energy considering the question

of what sort of institutional and personnel arrangements enhance the abil-

ity of presidents to govern effectively. Recently, political scientist Terry

M. Moe’s (1985) theory of “responsive competence” has gained ascen-

dancy in the field. According to Moe, the political expectations of the

modern presidency have forced presidents to eschew the “neutral compe-

tence” of established executive branch institutions and instead seek “re-

sponsive competence” through centralizing the activities of policy devel-

142

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article profited immensely from comments by Paul E. Peterson,

Robert Durant, and two anonymous reviewerson previous drafts as well as research assis-

tance from GeoffreyGerhardt and the incisive editorial eye of Kathleen Wolf.

ADMINISTRATION& SOCIETY, Vol.31 No. 1, March 1999 142-167

© 1999 Sage Publications, Inc.

opmentandexecutivebranch coordination within theWhiteHouseandby

appointingpresidentialloyaliststo positions deep within the bowels ofex-

ecutive agencies. Although the strategy has not been particularly success-

ful, and has clear disadvantages, Moe claims that efforts to establish such

a politicized presidency represent rational and inevitable responses to the

demands of a modern president’s political environment.

Tosupport his argument, Moe draws heavily on the history of the U.S.

Bureau of the Budget (BoB), renamed the Office of Management and

Budget (OMB). From its founding in 1921 to its renaming in 1970, the

BoB is reputed to have been a bastion of operational expertise, nonparti-

sanship, and professionalism that is denoted by the term neutral compe-

tence. Moe argues that modern presidents, beginning with Franklin

Delano Roosevelt, found the BoB to be largely unresponsive to their

political needs for timely information and action consistent with their

activist policy goals. The central mission of the BoB has been to achieve

economy and efficiencyin government, a mission that is inconsistent with

the desires of most modern presidents to implement new and expensive

programs. Presidents Roosevelt and Truman were generally forced to

acceptthelimitsof this institutional legacy.However, PresidentsKennedy

andJohnsonoftenturned away from the BoBandtowardpolitical and par-

tisan organizations and advisors to pursue their policy goals. Presidents

Nixon and Reagan pursued an even more aggressivestrategy of capturing

the organizational capacity of the OMB, thereby directing its activities

moredecisivelytoward their policy goalsbyappointingpoliticalpartisans

totoppositionsat the agency.As such, they willingly sacrificedtheneutral

competence of the OMB to their more urgent needs for responsiveness.

This article takes a fresh look at the BoB during a critical period in its

history and in the development of the modern presidency—the years

1939-1948. This period, which includes the last 5 of FDR’s 13 years in

office and Truman’s first term, is critical to Moe’s argument because Moe

describes it as a time when presidents were frustrated by the lack of

responsivenessat the BoB but hadlittlechoicebut to continue to relyonits

expertise. Contrary to Moe’sclaims, the BoB was surprisingly responsive

to the administrative and policy needs of Roosevelt and Truman. Both

presidents actively expanded the organizational capacity and operational

authority of the BoB and regularly sought the advice of its professionals

regarding both administrative and policy matters. These presidents relied

on the BoB not out of necessity but as a matter of choice because the

agency was highly responsive to their needs. This responsivenessdid not

appear to diminish the neutral competence of the BoB. Thus, this critical

Wolf / NEUTRAL AND RESPONSIVE COMPETENCE 143