Renovating the Refounding

• Author: Lynita K. Newswander,Chad B. Newswander,Daniel Boden
• DOI: 10.1177/0095399718766841
• Date: 01 May 2018
• Published date: 01 May 2018
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399718766841

Administration & Society

2018, Vol. 50(5) 633 –652

© The Author(s) 2018

DOI: 10.1177/0095399718766841

journals.sagepub.com/home/aas

Article

Renovating the

Refounding

Chad B. Newswander1, Daniel Boden2,

and Lynita K. Newswander3

Abstract

Manifestos are bold and declarative, often seeking to challenge contemporary

norms. This was true of the Blacksburg Manifesto, which critically

argued that the field of public administration was resting on an unstable

foundation. Instead of merely serving the role of critic, the authors of the

refounding project laid a new foundation that could house a critical aspect

of government: administration. Despite their successes, their answers have

become dated. The field has changed, requiring a renovation. In seeking to

revise the Manifesto, we update the project to make it more relevant for

21st-century governing.

Keywords

refounding public administration, legitimacy, public administration theory

In the 1980s, a collection of scholars at the Center for Public Administration

and Policy (CPAP) at Virginia Tech came together to challenge a narrative

about the founding of the administrative state. Gary Wamsley, Charles

Goodsell, John Rohr, Camilla Stivers, Orion White, and James Wolf issued

the Blacksburg Manifesto, boldly proclaiming that The Public Administration,

as a field, had improperly embraced a science of administration (Wamsley

1Brigham Young University–Idaho, Rexburg, ID, USA

2Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY, USA

3University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD, USA

Corresponding Author:

Chad B. Newswander, Brigham Young University–Idaho, 525 South Center Street,

Stop 2160, Rexburg, ID 83460-0405, USA.

Email: newswanderc@byui.edu

766841AASXXX10.1177/0095399718766841Administration & SocietyNewswander et al.

research-article2018

634 Administration & Society 50(5)

et al., 1990). They argued that embracing objective and scientific protocols

produced unrealistic expectations, placing the field on an unstable founda-

tion. This initial failure was amplified by a progressive spirit that outlived its

movement and became enshrined in a form of orthodoxy that declared a

defense of administration must stand on a science of administration. Such a

defense, however, was unable to make The Public Administration acceptable,

leading to a legitimacy crisis for the field (Waldo, 1984). The Public

Administration was questionable on intellectual grounds for being unable to

properly justify discretionary authority and scorched on political grounds for

being inefficient and oppressive. For these authors, attempts to embed a new

set of values were not enough. The Public Administration needed to have a

new foundation laid.

The task of refounding administration, as the group set out to do, was

audacious. The language surrounding what would be referred to as a mani-

festo lent an underlying radical tinge to their cause while also providing a

level of gravity to it. Yet, they planned to turn the aim of a manifesto on its

head. This would not be a revolutionary call, but a traditional one. In particu-

lar, they understood that the “distinctive nature of The Public Administration

lies in the fact that it is part of the governance process” (Wamsley et al., 1990,

p. 39). This governing orientation allowed the Refounders to confront uncom-

fortable, but undeniable truths about The Public Administration. Most nota-

bly, it was about power and authority. The Public Administration was not

merely a subordinate or managerial entity, but an agential factor that could

autonomously move the body politic from one point to another. The recogni-

tion of such directive power was meant to be ennobling. Like a parent’s

acknowledged and accepted duty to assist with the maturation process of his

or her children, these scholars claimed The Public Administration should also

be acknowledged and accepted to help the body politic develop in a respon-

sible fashion. Because of these paternalistic-like obligations to help raise the

body politic, administrators needed to create a trust threshold between them-

selves and citizens and between themselves and their constitutional masters.

The capacity to refound on these grounds was predicated on securing

legitimacy for The Public Administration to govern. Yet, there was a clear

awareness that this project would be difficult to pull off. Their answer to

acquiring a level of legitimacy to govern was published in various iterations

of the Manifesto (Wamsley et al., 1987; Wamsley, Goodsell, Rohr, White, &

Wolf, 1984, 1992) and two seminal works (Wamsley et al., 1990; Wamsley &

Wolf, 1996b) in which they issued long-neglected calls for the public interest,

a concern for citizen engagement, elevating administration to a vocation, and

embracing the capacity for administrators to act. The answers they proposed

to the legitimacy crisis electrified the field of public administration