Book Reviews
| Date | 01 September 1974 |
| Published date | 01 September 1974 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1974.tb00190.x |
Book
Reviews
The
Intellectual Crisis in American Public Administration
Vincent Ostrom, University
of
Alabama
T’rcss,
1973.
I’p.
165.
$6.00
(cloth),
$2
‘7
j
(paper).
This is
a
stiriiulnting book, clearly
written, introducing an iniportant
controversy about the aims
arid
struc-
ture
of
public administration. Its value
lies in comparing two opposite ways
of
theorizing about administration wllich
are usually expressed by very
different
people talking to different audiences.
Thus the
book
niakes manifest
a
con-
troversy that previously was liartl to
grasp. Tlie
hook’s
wcakness is that it
backs one
of
the protagonists in this
latent debate
011
grounds that are not
really aduluate
or
convincing.
As
an
introduction to an important argument
the book is lucid but one-sided; as
a
polemic it is well argued
but
hardly
convincing.
The
first
protagonist is the
wcll-won
tradition
of
‘scientific administration’
espoused originally by \Voodro\v Wil-
son,
which calls
for
a
sort
of ‘summit’
trcatrneiit
of
the relationship betwcen
politics and administration. I’olitical
authority should be concentrated
at
a
high
cnougli
level
to
set the goals for
an
otherwise self-sufficient system
ol’
administration which can he operated
according to independent principles
and techniques
of
efficiency. \Wson
himself saw the ultimate political
controller as Congress; his successors
substituted thc President which fitted
bettcr with thc administrative theory
of
hierarchy. Ostrom
argues
that this
notion of self-contained efficiency re-
mains the dominant element in admin-
istrative thought despite the hatchet
work
of
Herbert Simon who
(it
is
suggested) largely fell back upon the
saxiic‘ tradition.
liie sccond protagonist is the tradi-
tioil
of
‘democratic administration’ to
be
found in tlie F’cderalist Papers and
in
tlc
Tocquevillc lvhich
was
siibniergcd
by the later \i’ilsonian tradition arid
nt)w
rcappears in the writings of
a
new
school
of
political economists. ’J‘his
tradition calls nut for ‘summit’
but
for
‘base’
relations (my own words) be-
tween politics and administration. On
tliis view the first requirement of
administration is that it should respond
flexibly and obediently to the demands
of
any and all groiips
of
citizens who
share some degree
of
interest in the
provision of
some
public service
or
regulation. Indeed one can hardly talk
of
administration
as
a
structured
system since there should be
as
many
shapes
and sixs of administrative
jnrisdictions
as
thcre are publics and
thcir
pwble!ns,
while the relations
between thcin will be political ones
of
bargaining, co-operation, veto and
so
on,
conducted according to the self-
deterniincd interests of
the
various
publics and arbitrated by an unavoid-
ably complex system of constitutional
law.
I
have had to set out the positions
of the two protagonists baldly, and
I
imagine most people will be unhappy
with either
one.
Kon-Americans may
be sceptical about administrative
effi-
ciency theories, although they continue
to
act
as
if
there was something
in
them, but they are likely to be in-
credulous about the second position
which Mr.Ostrom himself
so
whole-
357
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