Nonmission–Based Values in Results–Oriented Public Management: The Case of Freedom of Information

• Published date: 13 February 2003
• Date: 13 February 2003
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1540-6210.00247

The Case of Freedom of Information 643

Suzanne J. Piotrowski

David H. Rosenbloom

American University

Nonmission-Based Values in Results-Oriented

Public Management: The Case of Freedom of

Information

Since the 1940s, Congress and the federal courts have sought to make U.S. federal administration

more responsive to democratic-constitutional values, including representation, participation, trans-

parency, and individual rights. As manifested in the National Performance Review, the New Public

Management emphasis on results may reduce attention to these values, which for most agencies

are not intrinsically mission-based. Freedom of information illustrates the problem of protecting

nonmission-based, democratic-constitutional values in results-oriented public management. Agen-

cies’ annual performance plans under the Government Performance and Results Act overwhelm-

ingly ignore freedom of information, even though it is a legal requirement and performance mea-

sures for it are readily available. This study concludes that focusing on results may weaken com-

mitment to democratic-constitutional values by default. It suggests that using a balanced scorecard

approach in performance plans could enhance attention to freedom of information and other

democratic-constitutional values.

Introduction

The New Public Management (NPM) focuses on achiev-

ing results cost-effectively.1 It rejects conventional public

administration’s emphasis on inputs and processes in fa-

vor of outputs and outcomes. According to the NPM, pub-

lic administration should be substantially deregulated and

held strictly accountable for results. However, much of what

encumbers conventional administration is the requirement

that it comport with democratic-constitutional values such

as transparency and due process, which in the NPM’s sense

are neither mission based nor part of a results-oriented cal-

culus. Much NPM advocacy and prescription fails to con-

front the problem of preserving these values, which may

not even be “on the radar screen” (Terry 1998, 198). The

purposes of this article are (1) to recall that such values are

fundamental to administration in the United States, and

that protecting them has been the purpose of a concerted,

constitutional-level debate; (2) to show that the rhetoric of

the National Performance Review (NPR), the nation’s

major variant of the NPM and preeminent “reinvention

machine,”2 has subordinated core aspects of democratic

constitutionalism to achieving results; and (3) to analyze

the treatment of freedom of information in federal agen-

cies’ annual performance plans to illustrate how demo-

cratic-constitutional values are at risk in contemporary,

results-oriented public management.

Public Administration Unencumbered by

Democratic-Constitutional Values

By way of fully understanding the centrality of non-

mission-based, democratic-constitutional values in contem-

Suzanne J. Piotrowski is a doctoral candidate in the School of Public Affairs

at American University (Washington, DC). She holds a master of public ad-

ministration degree from the University of Delaware. Her research focuses

on non-mission-based values in public administration, including representa-

tive bureaucracy and freedom of information. Email: suepiotrowski@

hotmail.com.

David H. Rosenbloom is the Distinguished Professor of Public Administration

in the School of Public Affairs at American University (Washington, DC). He

is the 2001 recipient of the American Political Science Association’s John

Gaus Award for Exemplary Scholarship in the Joint Tradition of Political

Science and Public Administration. Email: rbloom@american.edu.