The Job of Government: Interweaving Public Functions and Private Hands

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12336
• Published date: 01 March 2015
• Date: 01 March 2015

Donald F. Kettl is professor of public

policy at the University of Maryland. He

is also a nonresident senior fellow in The

Volcker Alliance and in governance studies

at the Brookings Institution. He is author of,

among other books, The Politics of the

Administrative Process and System

under Stress, both published by Sage/

CQ Press.

E-mail: kettl@umd.edu

The Job of Government: Interweaving Public Functions and Private Hands 219

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 75, Iss. 2, pp. 219–229. © 2015 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12336.

Donald F. Kettl

University of Maryland

Abstract: Lively and sometimes raucous debate about the job of government has increasingly engulfed American

politics. Much of that debate has swirled around government’s size, with conservatives arguing the case for shrinking

government and liberals f‌i ghting to grow it. In reality, however, neither of these debates engages the critical

underlying trend: the increasing interweaving of governmental functions deeply into every f‌i ber of the nongovern-

mental sectors. Many reforms have sought to rein in government’s power, but none has engaged the fundamental

interweaving of policy implementation, and, not surprisingly, most have failed. Indeed, many have eroded the

public’s trust in the governmental institutions on which they depend.  is process raises fundamental challenges for

def‌i ning government’s core role, for building the capacity to govern ef‌f ectively, and for enhancing the accountability

of governmental programs. Many of government’s administrative tools are a poor match for the governance problems

they seek to solve.

Practitioner Points

• Managers f‌i nd themselves increasingly responsible for obtaining outcomes from nongovernmental partners

they do not control, so managers need to devise new strategies of leverage to advance accountability and the

public interest.

•  ese partnerships mediate government’s relationship with citizens, so managers need to help citizens under-

stand better how to connect with government.

• Managers need to f‌i nd new strategies for leadership rooted in managing for broader outcomes instead of just

managing their own operations, so that they can ensure ef‌f ective twenty-f‌i rst-century governance.

was the biggest threat to the country. In 1965, 35

percent of those responding said the biggest threat

was big government. By 2013, that number had more

than doubled, to 72 percent (Gallup 2013). A 2014

Rasmussen poll found that 37 percent of likely voters

feared the federal government, and 54 percent of

respondents believed that the federal government was

a threat to individual liberty rather than a protec-

tor of it. Two-thirds of respondents saw the federal

government as “a special interest group that looks out

primarily for its own interests,” a profound worry for

a government whose job is to look out for its people

(Rasmussen Reports 2014).  ese patterns have fed

citizen distrust. When it asked, “How much of the

time do you trust the government in Washington,”

the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press

found that those responding “just about always” or

“most of the time” had dropped from 73 percent in

1958 to 19 percent in 2013 (Pew Research Center

2013a). For anyone who cares about government and

its administration, these numbers are frightening.

 ey suggest a growing lack of conf‌i dence in govern-

ment and its institutions.

 e Job of Government: Interweaving Public

Functions and Private Hands

The United States has a government built on

paradox. Its founders demanded liberty or

death but also enshrined in the Constitution

a commitment to “promote the general welfare.”

Balancing this quest for liberty with a search for solu-

tions to public problems has never been an easy one

for the nation, but in recent years, the paradox has

become even sharper. To meet citizens’ rising demands

for solutions to their problems, policy makers have

created more government programs; in an ef‌f ort to

keep government small, they have interwoven the

implementation of governmental programs ever more

deeply into the private and nonprof‌i t sectors.  is, in

turn, has deepened the paradox by blurring the lines

between individual liberty and government authority,

increasing the complexity of public administration,

and making it harder for the government to deliver on

its pledge to promote the general welfare.

It is not surprising, therefore, that Americans’ views

about government are becoming more contentious.

For decades, the Gallup poll asked respondents

whether big business, big labor, or big government