“Our Usable Past”: A Historical Contextual Approach to Administrative Values

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2009.02031.x
• Author: Donald P. Moynihan
• Date: 01 September 2009
• Published date: 01 September 2009

A Historical Contextual Approach to Administrative Values 813

Donald P. Moynihan

University of Wisconsin–Madison

“Our Usable Past”: A Historical Contextual Approach to

Administrative Values

A Senior–Junior

Academic

Exchange:

Bringing Public

Law Back

into Public

Administration

Donald P. Moynihan is an associate

professor and Romnes Fellow in the La

Follette School of Public Affairs at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison. His

research examines the application of

organization theory to public management

issues such as administrative reform,

performance management, and employee

behavior. His book

The Dynamic of Per-

formance Management,

was published in

2008 by Georgetown University Press.

E-mail: dmoynihan@lafollette.wisc.edu

What does it tell us when

two of the senior f‌i gures can

consider the source of the f‌i eld’s

legitimacy, and arrive at not

just dif‌f erent, but opposite,

conclusions? A simple response

is that one is right and the other

is wrong.

In responding to Professor Lynn’s criticism that the f‌i eld

of public administration has been insuf‌f‌i ciently attentive

to law, this article of‌f ers an alternative perspective on

the source of administrative legitimacy. Leonard White

understood that public administration is shaped by its

broader context. It does not assert its own values but,

in an ef‌f ort to maintain legitimacy, ref‌l ects the political

and cultural values of its environment. In White’s time,

the extraordinary challenges that the state faced, and its

subsequent transformation, demanded a management

capacity that previously had not existed. While the

role of law as a formal means of control is generally

accepted, it must take its place with management and

other administrative values in the exercise of legal

discretionary behavior. Asserting law, or any other single

administrative value, as dominant undercuts other values

that act as sources of legitimacy.

First, a conundrum. In the accompanying article,

Laurence E. Lynn worries that the f‌i eld of

public administration has lost its way, and is

in need of reframing. In another recent assessment,

Steven Kelman (2007) agrees. But their views of the

problem, why it occurred, and how to f‌i x it could not

be more dif‌f erent.

Lynn worries that public administration took a wrong

turn by following Leonard D. White, and focusing

on management, rather than the example of Frank J.

Goodnow, who argued for grounding the f‌i eld in law.

As a result, public administration became unmoored

from constitutional values,

swept hither and thither by

the management fashions of

the day.  us, the scholarship

and practice of public admin-

istration lost its fundamental

source of legitimacy.  e solu-

tion, Lynn says, is to set aside

self-proclaimed values such as

performance, and return to the

rule of law as the dominant

framework for the f‌i eld.

Kelman worries that the f‌i eld took a wrong turn by

abandoning the example of White, and becoming

obsessed with controlling administrative discretion

through constraints. As a result, public adminis-

tration moved from mainstream organizational

studies into an intellectual ghetto, while ignoring

the main concern of the public, which is improved

government performance.  is failure undermined

the legitimacy of the f‌i eld, promoting “a general

view that anything having to do with government

organizations—including research about them—is

second-rate” (Kelman 2007, 227).  e solution,

according to Kelman, is to set aside the overriding

concern with constraints and rules, and make the

study of performance the dominant framework for

understanding the f‌i eld.

What does it tell us when two of the senior f‌i gures

can consider the source of the f‌i eld’s legitimacy, and

arrive at not just dif‌f erent, but opposite, conclusions?

A simple response is that one is right and the other is

wrong. But it is the competition of values that is most

telling. A central feature of the intellectual develop-

ment of public administration is an ongoing debate

about values. Some scholars advocate for one value

to dominate over others, but they are usually rebut-

ted by others who, in turn, advocate values of their

own. Others take the more catholic view that multiple

values are relevant guides to scholarship and practice,

and part of the complexity of public administration is

f‌i nding an appropriate balance. Leonard White falls

into the latter category, eluci-

dating a wide range of values

as fundamental to American

public administration (White

1955, 23–25). Advocates of

public participation, expertise,

neutrality, f‌l exibility, decentrali-

zation, and a legislative-centered

administration can all draw

from White’s list of funda-

mental values to support their

perspective.1