“Squandered in Real Time”: How Public Management Theory Underestimated the Public Administration–Politics Dichotomy

• Date: 01 August 2020
• Author: Sarah L. Young,Kimberly K. Wiley,Elizabeth A. M. Searing
• Published date: 01 August 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/0275074020941669
• Subject Matter: Institutional Responsibilities & Obligations of the Administrative State to the Citizenry IT ServesPublic Management, Public Trust, & the Quest for Democratic Governance

https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074020941669

American Review of Public Administration

2020, Vol. 50(6-7) 480 –488

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0275074020941669

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Public Management, Public Trust, & the Quest for Democratic Governance

Introduction

The gravity of ineffective public service delivery systems,

about which scholars had been ringing alarm bells for years,

has become glaringly obvious during recent crises. At the

state level, crises such as the State of Illinois Budget Impasse

brought the delivery of public services in the state almost to

its knees. After politics held the State of Illinois budget hos-

tage from 2015–2017, 69% of social service agencies (in

Illinois) received almost no payments during that entire

period, resulting in 46% fewer individuals receiving critical

services like drug and alcohol treatment, youth emergency

shelters, and prisoner reentry programs (United Way of

Illinois, 2017).

At the federal level, major crises like the COVID-19

Pandemic illustrated gaping holes in the U.S. public service

delivery system. During the pandemic, local hospitals

quickly became overrun. States battled each other for

resources (Ali, 2020). The federal government invoked the

Defense Production Act of 1950, requiring private compa-

nies to produce critically low supplies such as ventilators,

and targeted manufacturers struggled to produce equipment

they had no knowledge of in a timely fashion (Memorandum

on Order Under the Defense Production Act Regarding

General Motors Company, 2020; U.S. Congress, 1970).

Although no one could plan for a pandemic of such

magnitude, the government response was fractured at best,

causing the international press to muse that they were

watching “vast power being squandered in real time”

(O’Toole, 2020).

Good theory can help explain and predict answers to

questions like what services are best provided by govern-

ment and how those services are best operationalized.

Answers to these questions become even more necessary

during times of crisis when delivery of public goods and ser-

vices can mean the difference between life and death for

many. Scholars contend that public administration and man-

agement have been revolutionized during successive waves

of theory. In the late 1980s, public administration was

advanced with the development of New Public Management

(NPM). NPM viewed citizens as customers and decentral-

ized service delivery through the use of market and quasi-

market structures (Hood, 1991). Critics of NPM expanded

941669ARPXXX10.1177/0275074020941669The American Review of Public AdministrationYoung et al.

research-article2020

1University of North Georgia, Oakwood, GA, USA

2University of Florida, Gainesville, FL USA

3The University of Texas at Dallas, USA

Corresponding Author:

Sarah L. Young, Department of Political Science and International Affairs,

University of North Georgia, 159 Strickland Academic, Oakwood, GA

30566, USA.

Email: Sarah.Young@ung.edu

“Squandered in Real Time”: How Public

Management Theory Underestimated the

Public Administration–Politics Dichotomy

Sarah L. Young1, Kimberly K. Wiley2, and Elizabeth A. M. Searing3

Abstract

The United States places great emphasis on the public administration–politics dichotomy, but what happens to public

management when the dichotomy breaks down? The authors critically evaluate the public management frameworks, New

Public Management and New Public Governance, in the context of two major public management failures: the U.S. State of

Illinois Budget Impasse during 2015–2017 and the COVID-19 Pandemic. A definition of public management failure is proffered,

and both public management frameworks are found to have polarized and opposing views on whether process or outcome

should have priority in crisis. We question whether the two major seminal theories in our field are still generalizable when

their assumptions about the dichotomy and political neutrality are challenged in times of crises. The polarized perspectives

were found to contribute to the public management failures. Ultimately, both frameworks were found to minimize the

political influences that public administration and public management operate under, leaving a need for a more holistic and

realistic framework.

Keywords

public administration dichotomy, nonprofit, COVID-19, new public management, new public governance