Restoring Faith in Government: A Sisyphean Task?

• Author: Mary R. Hamilton
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12861
• Published date: 01 November 2017
• Date: 01 November 2017

948 Public Administration Review • November | December 2017

Restoring Faith in Government: A Sisyphean Task?

Mary R. Hamilton is senior executive

in residence in the School of Public

Administration at the University of Nebraska

Omaha and founder and director emeritus

of The Nebraska Certified Public Manager®

(CPM) Program. Previously, she was

executive director of the American Society

for Public Administration (ASPA), and a

senior executive with the U.S. Government

Accountability Office (GAO).

E-mail: mrhamilton@unomaha.edu

Paul R. Verkuil , Valuing Bureaucracy:  e Case

for Professional Government ( New York, NY:

Cambridge University Press , 2017 ). 186 pp. $29.97

(paper), ISBN: 131662966X .

S everal years ago, conservative pundit William

Kristol asked, “How can we love our country

and hate our government?” The question

continues to be germane in our discussions of

government today. And in the interim, hatred of our

government has increased significantly.

In his latest book, Paul R. Verkuil makes a valiant

case for rebuilding professionalism in government.

Drawing on his recent experience as chairman

of the Administrative Conference of the United

States (ACUS) during the Obama administration,

Verkuil argues that rebuilding professionalism in

government is essential to accomplishing all of our

major goals. For example, he asserts that we cannot

rebuild our physical infrastructure without fixing our

human infrastructure. And he contends throughout

the book that the way to value bureaucracy is to

re-professionalize it. His argument will resonate with

people who respect government and understand

that quality government is essential to a strong

democracy. Unfortunately, it likely will go unheeded

by the majority of the population, including most

politicians.

How did we allow our professional government

workforce to decline both in size (shrinking relative

to the size of government) and in what Verkuil

calls “bureaucratic energy” (i.e., “the energy that

professionals provide ensures directed, purposeful, and

accountable government”) (1)?

Let us look at some context. Federal civil service

is the same size today as when John F. Kennedy

was president in the early 1960s (about 2 million),

yet the U.S. population has grown from 180.7 to

326.5 million, an 80% increase. Also, since the late

1960s and early 1970s, a federal government that

was once trusted and respected has become at best a

laughingstock, at worst a hated institution. Politicians

who promote distrust of government and push for the

smallest government possible are prevailing. Tax has

become a dirty word. Rather than being “what we pay

for a civilized society,” which was the general response

after WWII, it is now “tax burden.” As a result,

increasing the federal workforce to serve the much

larger citizenry has become inconceivable. Politicians

Danny L. Balfour , Editor

Mary R. Hamilton

University of Nebraska Omaha

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 77, Iss. 6, pp. 948–950. © 2017 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12861.