O.C.McSwite, Legitimacy In Public Administration: A DiscourseAnalysis
| Published date | 01 September 1998 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9299.00120 |
| Date | 01 September 1998 |
| Author | Mark Bevir |
REVIEWS 591
changes between the approaches of the Thatcher and Major governments are not examined.
As a result, some of the important developments in public sector management during the
Major years – market testing, private finance, the Nolan reforms, the Citizen’s (and Patient’s)
Charter are not fully explored.
In summary, this book will be useful to students and researchers in the field of public
sector management and in particular those interested in health services research. As a study
of organizational and managerial change, it certainly gets my endorsement. However, those
wanting to know more about the processes of policy change or the impact of ‘new public
management’ reforms on services will be less satisfied.
Rob Baggott
De Montfort University
LEGITIMACY IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: A DISCOURSE
ANALYSIS
O. C. McSwite
Sage Publications, 1997. 306 pp. £39.99 (cloth), £17.50 (paper)
The plot is simple. In the beginning was the good – a naive good with some problems but
still the good. Then came the bad, triumphing partly because of the naivete
´of the good and
partly because of the subtle power of its wickedness. Now, however, the good will return. To
some extent its return derives from an inexorable, process, but at the same time it requires
us to act for it. Provided we do our bit, the good will triumph, a good, moreover, that will
be fully conscious of itself. This plot is familiar to us from sources such as the Bible, romanti-
cism, Marxism, and new age religion. Professors Orion F. White and Cynthia J. McSwain,
writing as McSwite, now narrate the history of American government using this plot.
The bad is government based on a Man of Reason theory of governance. Citizens can vote,
but their participation in government is thus limited, with an e
´lite governing wisely on their
behalf. Such government creates a legitimacy problem: it raises the questions, ‘what is the
proper relationship of administration to politics in democratic government?’ and ‘can bureauc-
racy be a legitimate part of democratic governance?’. McSwite shows how both Herman Finer
and Carl Friedrich, in their famous debate on these questions, tacitly assumed a Man of Reason
theory of governance. The good, in contrast, is a decentralized, communal form of government
characterized by dialogue, openness, and co-operation. McSwite argues that such a form of
government removes the legitimacy problem. The nature of the involvement of citizens in the
processes of administration constitutes its legitimacy.
The bulk of McSwite’s argument consists of a historical study of the fortunes of the good
and the bad. The present American Constitution represents the triumph of bad federalists over
good Articles of Confederation defended by anti-federalists. Its establishment led inexorably to
the economic injustice, social dislocation, and political corruption of turn of the century Amer-
ica. The pragmatists, populists, and some progressives tried to overcome such evils by
returning to the good, with public administration being founded as a part of their efforts.
Sadly, however, public administration was transformed into a form of technocratic Utopian-
ism: it became a matter of professional expertise, not a popular, collaborative mode of govern-
ance. McSwite traces the dominance of the Man of Reason view of governance from the found-
ing of American public administration, through Herbert Simon’s modernist revolution, on to
the Minnowbrook Meeting and the Blacksburg Manifesto. Now however, McSwite continues,
post-modernism is inspiring theories akin to those of the anti-federalists and pragmatists. In
particular, there is a growing interest in a facilitative administration based on open dialogue
and co-operation with citizens, not the e
´lite application of expertise. McSwite suggests this
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1998
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