On the 75th Anniversary of ASPA
| DOI | 10.1177/0734371X13506622 |
| Date | 01 March 2014 |
| Author | Donald E. Klingner |
| Published date | 01 March 2014 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2013
Article
Review of Public Personnel Administration
2014, Vol. 34(1) 7 –22
On the 75th Anniversary
© 2013 SAGE Publications
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DOI: 10.1177/0734371X13506622
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Evolution of Civil Rights and
the American Society for
Public Administration
Donald E. Klingner1
Abstract
This article will (a) define public personnel management (HRM) as functions, job
allocation, values and systems; (b) review the 1964 CRA and the evolution of social
equity in the workplace; (c) recount the organizational history of ASPA since its
creation in 1939; and (d) discuss the future of public HRM, social equity, and ASPA
based on current changes and events.
Keywords
human resource management, personnel systems, civil rights, social equity, American
Society for Public Administration (ASPA)
Introduction
This symposium by Norma Riccucci and Frank Thompson commemorates the 75th
anniversary of American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) (1939) and the
50th Anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (CRA). This article will (a) define pub-
lic personnel management (HRM) as functions, job allocation, values and systems; (b)
review the 1964 CRA and the evolution of social equity in the workplace; (c) recount
the organizational history of ASPA since its creation in 1939; and (d) discuss the future
of public HRM, social equity, and ASPA based on current changes and events.
1University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, USA
Corresponding Author:
Donald E. Klingner, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, 1420 Austin Bluffs Parkway, Colorado
Springs, CO 80918-7150, USA.
Email: donald.klingner@gmail.com
8
Review of Public Personnel Administration 34(1)
Public Personnel Management as Functions, Job
Allocation, Values, and Systems
Public personnel management (also known as human resources management or HRM)
can be understood on multiple levels (Klingner, Nalbandian, & Llorens, 2010). First,
it comprises the four fundamental functions (planning, acquisition, development, and
sanction) needed to manage human resources in public, private, and nonprofit organi-
zations. Second, it is the process for allocating public jobs, including those in private-
or nonprofit-sector organizations funded through government contracts. Such jobs are
scarce because they are limited by tax revenues. Individuals and groups compete for
them because they signify economic and social status.
Third, public personnel management can be viewed as the continuous interaction
among fundamental values that often conflict because they reflect key differences over
who gets public jobs and how, and over job security. Traditionally, conflict in the U.S.
centered around four values, all sharing the presumption that public policy objectives
are best achieved through programs delivered by public agencies staffed by public
employees. Political responsiveness and representation means an appointment process
that considers personal loyalty and political support as indicators of merit. Efficiency
means making staffing decisions based on applicants’ and employees’ abilities and
performance. Employee rights means protecting employees from political interference
or arbitrary treatment that may threaten their job security or interfere with their job
performance. Social equity means adequately representing all groups in the work-
force, and managing this diverse workforce to maintain productivity and a positive
organizational culture.
However, at the end of the 1970s, the political culture began to shift fundamentally
toward three nongovernmental values: personal accountability, limited and decentral-
ized government, and community responsibility. Proponents of personal accountabil-
ity expect people to make individual choices consistent with their own goals and
accept responsibility for the consequences of these choices, rather than passing respon-
sibility for their actions on to society. Proponents of limited and decentralized govern-
ment believe that people should fear government for its power to arbitrarily or
capriciously deprive them of their rights. They also believe that public policy, service
delivery, and revenue generation can be controlled more efficiently in a smaller unit of
government. Some want to reduce the size and scope of government because they
prize individual freedom, and prefer to spend less of their personal income on taxes.
They also feel that the community is responsible for helping those in need through
individual volunteerism and a network of community-based nongovernmental
organizations.
Fourth, public HRM can be viewed as systems—the laws, rules, organizations, and
procedures used to fulfill the four personnel functions in ways that express abstract
values. There are four traditional systems—political patronage, civil service, collec-
tive bargaining, and affirmative action (AA)—and two nongovernmental systems
(privatization and partnerships). Political patronage means legislative or executive
approval of individual hiring decisions, particularly for policy-making positions,
Klingner
9
based on the applicant’s personal loyalty to the appointing official, or political support
among stakeholders the appointing official represents. The elected officials who nomi-
nate political appointees may also fire them at any time. While the patronage system
does not necessarily result in the selection of highly qualified employees or the provi-
sion of efficient government services, it does enable elected officials to achieve politi-
cal objectives by placing loyal supporters in key positions in administrative agencies.
Moreover, it increases political responsiveness. Elected officials get reelected by pro-
viding stakeholders with access to administrative agencies during the policy-making
process; political appointees provide that.
Civil service systems emerge as increased demands for more effective public ser-
vice delivery and increased dissatisfaction with nepotism and cronyism lead to a fun-
damental shift from patronage to merit systems. They reflect the belief that a competent,
committed workforce of career civil servants is essential to the professional conduct of
the public’s business. They are marked by merit-based recruitment, selection, perfor-
mance appraisal, and advancement; equitable pay based on performance and job
worth; expert and impartial job performance by professional public administrators;
and protection from political favoritism or reprisals.
Under collective bargaining, contracts negotiated between management and unions
set the terms and conditions of employment. This is in contrast to the patronage sys-
tem, where they are set and operationally influenced by elected officials, or the civil
service system, where they are set by law and regulations issued by management and
administered by management or an outside authority (such as a civil service board).
Public sector collective bargaining has many of the same procedures as its private sec-
tor counterpart, such as contract negotiations and grievance procedures. However, fun-
damental differences in law and power outweigh these similarities.
AA systems represent the value of social equity. While they originated after the
Civil War to provide preferential employment for veterans, they evolved to correct the
underrepresentation of minorities and women in the workplace through preferential
recruitment and selection. They reflect the beliefs that a representative bureaucracy is
essential for government to function as a democracy, and that other personnel systems
have perpetuated—often inadvertently—the dominance of White males in public
employment. Because most elected officials are White males, appointments of White
males to patronage jobs have been the rule. Because White males traditionally have
had greater access to higher education and job experience, merit systems have tended
to perpetuate the exclusion of women and minorities. The seniority systems favored by
collective bargaining tend to perpetuate these biases.
The nongovernmental public personnel systems that have developed since the
1980s use the presumed greater efficiency and flexibility of the private sector and
community-based organizations to enhance public service delivery. Where public ser-
vices were still delivered by public agencies, intense pressure to “do more with less”
has resulted in increased use of nonstandard work arrangements (NSWAs), including
temporary, part-time, and seasonal workers as part of the downsizing, reengineering,
and fundamental changes in organizational structure and accountability epitomized by
the terms reinventing government or New Public Management (Battaglio & Condrey,
10
Review of Public Personnel Administration 34(1)
2006; Nigro & Kellough, 2006). While governments have always bought goods and
services from private contractors, these pressures also led many governments to
deliver services by contract with third-party businesses and community-based organi-
zations (privatization). Along with privatization came greater federal and state empha-
sis on delivering public services through partnerships with nongovernmental
organizations funded by taxes, user fees, and charitable contributions. Third-party
social service provision became more complex with an ideologically driven emphasis
that directed contracting strategies...
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