Policy Feedback and the Politics of Administration

• Date: 01 May 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12200
• Author: Donald P. Moynihan,Joe Soss
• Published date: 01 May 2014

Public

Administration

and the

Disciplines

Donald P. Moynihan is professor in

the La Follette School of Public Affairs,

University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is

fellow of the National Academy of Public

Administration, author of The Dynamics

of Performance Management:

Constructing Information and Reform

(Georgetown University Press, 2008), and

winner of the ASPA/NASPAA Distinguished

Research Award.

E-mail: dmoynihan@lafollette.wisc.edu

Joe Soss is the inaugural Cowles Chair for

the Study of Public Service at the University

of Minnesota, where he holds faculty

positions in the Hubert H. Humphrey School

of Public Affairs and the Departments of

Political Science and Sociology. His research

and teaching explore the interplay of

democratic politics, societal inequali-

ties, and public policy. His most recent

coauthored book is Disciplining the

Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the

Persistent Power of Race (with Richard

C. Fording and Sanford F. Schram; University

of Chicago Press, 2011).

E-mail: jbsoss@umn.edu

320 Public Administration Review • May | June 2014

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 74, Iss. 3, pp. 320–332. © 2014 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12200.

Rosemary O’Leary, Editor

Donald P. Moynihan

University of Wisconsin–Madison

Joe Soss

University of Minnesota

 is article surveys the policy feedback framework

developed in political science and clarif‌i es its implications

for public administration. A feedback perspective encour-

ages us to ask how policy implementation transforms the

webs of political relations that constitute governance.

Administrators play a key role in shaping the political

conditions of bureaucratic performance and the organi-

zation of power in the broader polity. At the same time,

this perspective underscores that policies are more than

just objects of administrative action. Policies are political

forces in their own right that can alter key components of

administration, including phenomena such as organiza-

tional capacity, structures, rou-

tines, authorities, motivations and

cultures.  ese sorts of admin-

istrative themes have received

little attention in policy feedback

research, just as the political ef‌f ects

of policies have been overlooked

in public administration studies.

Bridging these perspectives of‌f ers a basis for exciting new

agendas and advances in public administration research.

What is the relationship between admin-

istration and politics? Few questions in

the study of bureaucracy are as vexed and

enduring. Many scholars sidestep it, opting to remain

silent on politics and, thus, drain it from their accounts

of administration. Yet it is rare today to f‌i nd explicit

Wilsonian claims that the two exist in separate spheres.

Indeed, the dialogue between administrative and polit-

ical analysis has grown decidedly richer in recent years.

Scholars increasingly recognize that bureaucracies must

serve many political masters at once (Derthick 1990).

Political interests design bureaucratic structures to

advance political goals (Moe 1989). Administrators

are politically situated in governing networks (Lynn,

Heinrich, and Hill 2001) and are often called on to

bring stakeholders together in participatory processes

(Feldman and Khademian 2007).

In this article, we aim to deepen this dialogue by

introducing students of administration to the concept

of policy feedback and elaborating its implications

for the f‌i eld. Policy is typically studied as an outcome

of politics. Feedback research complements this view

with its opposite, asking how “new policies create

new politics” (Schattschneider 1935). Conceiving the

relationship between policy and politics as an ongoing

interplay, researchers analyze how each shapes the

other over time (Soss, Hacker, and Mettler 2007).

As with any ef‌f ort to impor t a concept, ours requires

some bridging assumptions.  e administrative

signif‌i cance of the claim that “policies shape politics”

depends on how one con-

ceives policies and politics,

respectively.

First, we assume that a policy

is more than the letter of the

law: it also includes administra-

tive practices of translation and

implementation. If one accepts this assumption, then

the claim “policy shapes politics” implies the subclaim

“administration shapes politics.”  is assertion directs

scholars to study not just how political forces impinge

on administration but also how administrative organi-

zations act on and transform political relations.  e

political ef‌f ects of policy implementation, in this view,

can matter for a society at least as much as the social

and economic impacts that scholars typically study. At

the same time, because political forces af‌f ect admin-

istration, a feedback perspective suggests an evolving

transaction of the two: bureaucracies are not only

creatures but also creators of the political forces that

impinge on them.

Second, we assume that administrative organizations

are, in their own right, sites of politics.  ey are other

things as well, of course. But they are political insofar

as they entail phenomena such as power relations,

authority structures, ideological commitments, rights

and obligations, and decisions regarding “who gets

what, when, how” (Lasswell 1936). If one accepts

this idea, then the claim that “policy shapes politics”

Policy Feedback and the Politics of Administration

 e administrative signif‌i cance

of the claim that “policies shape

politics” depends on how one

conceives policies and politics.