Administration as a Civic Institutions

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Administration as a civicinstitution in the political

thought of Woodrow WilsonBrian J. Cook

Department of government and International Relations,Clark University, Worcester, MA

Millennial comparisonsAs the new millennium draws near, many commentators assessing theeconomic, social, and political turmoil of the times have looked to theprogressive era for parallels and guidance in developing responses to theturbulence. A premiere example in the United States is Michael Sandelsexamination of what he terms democracys discontent[1]. Sandel seeks torejuvenate a civic republican way of thinking about democratic citizenship andthe role of the economy in the political life of the nation. That vision, hecontends, was prominent throughout the political development of the US up toand including the progressive era.

Sandel argues that progressives wrestled with many of the same issues thatpolitical leaders and the public in the USA and other democracies are struggling

with today. At the heart of the progressive era debates was a concern for thecivic consequences of economic arrangements. In contrast, the central concernsof today are levels of output, economic bipolarity, and promotion of economicgrowth. Sandel includes Woodrow Wilson in his review. He notes that Wilson, inagreement with his chief competitor for the presidency in 1912, TheodoreRoosevelt, was concerned with assessing economic and political institutions fortheir formative effects on the citizenry, especially their tendency to promote orerode the moral qualities that self-government requires.

Before he ascended to the status of world statesman, Woodrow Wilsonthought, wrote, and lectured a great deal about the problem of publicadministration and management in a modern democracy. Over the span of adecade, he arrived at a civic, or constitutive, conception of politicalinstitutions, including administration. A close look at the development ofWilsons thinking on this score can enrich the context for understanding thecurrent public discontent about how government is run, and the efforts atreform such discontent has spawned. It can provide a foundation for raisingcritical questions about the impact of reform initiatives like the now seeminglyomnipresent reinventing government[2].

The initial study of administrationHenry Bragdon argues that Wilson, in early 1884, had begun to concern himselfwith administration as well as with legislation and matters of high policy in his

Journal of Management History,Vol. 3 No. 4, 1997, pp. 287-297.

MCB University Press, 1355-252X


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essay Committee or Cabinet Government[3]? The editors of Wilsons papersnote his first writings directly on administration are his late 1885 articles Thecourtesy of the senate and The art of governing[4]. It is not all thatsurprising, then, that Wilsons first book, Congressional Government[5], whichwas published in early 1885, gave considerable attention to administration.

Wilson announced in his preface that his chief aim for the book was to makeas plain as possible the actual conditions of federal administration. Wilsonwas, of course, concerned with patronage, corruption, and thus with civil servicereform. Yet to Wilson, the chief problem with the federal administration wasmostly not with administration itself, but with the organization and operation ofthe legislature. Congress, in Wilsons view, created administrative problems by

failing to fix clear responsibility for the actions of administration. Congress thusfailed to give the public every opportunity to exercise its control andjudgment over administration as a result.

At this early stage in his treatment of the subject, Wilsons conception ofadministration was wholly instrumental. From that conception emerged hisfirst statement on the now infamous politics-administration dichotomy. Wilsoncharacterized administration as something that men must learn, notsomething to skill in which they are born. Americans take to business of allkinds more naturally than any other nation ever did, and the executive duties ofgovernment constitute just an exalted kind of business[6]. Wilson stated thisamidst his discussion of the president as the chief administrative officer. Headvocated adequate preparation and training to give individuals occupying the

presidency the time to develop their capacity for efficiency. Efficiency, in turn,he insisted, is the only just foundation for confidence in a public officer, underrepublican institutions no less than under monarchs[7].

Wilson acknowledged that the president was not the entire executive. Indeed,almost all executive functions are specifically bestowed upon the heads of thedepartments[8]. Over the course of the development of the constitutionalsystem, these public officials had been recognized as independent rather thanmerely ministerial[9]. However, their independence was never very clearlydefined. This ambiguity in the status of administrative officers violated hisprinciple that responsibility must be clearly fixed. The separation of powerswas a major source of that blurring of responsibility, accompanied by thedevelopment of the fragmented committee system in Congress.

As Wilson had already argued as far back as 1879, he much preferred theBritish cabinet system, which cleaved to the principle that the representativesof the people are the proper ultimate authority in all matters of government, andthat administration is merely the clerical part of government. Legislation is theoriginating force. It determines what shall be done[10]. To correct theconsequences of this blurred responsibility, civil service and other reforms wererequired. Unfortunately, the separation of powers blocked effective reform inthe USA because of the confusion and role conflict it created for political officersin the government. To Wilson, recognizing a fundamental distinction betweenpolitics and administration was thus an independent pre-requisite of reform.


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Questions about whether, and to what extent, Wilson contributed to theestablishment of the politics-administration dichotomy have engenderedconsiderable debate[11]. Yet to interpret Wilsons argument in CongressionalGovernment in any other way than through a politics and administrationdichotomy is not defensible. Politics, he argued, involved choosing betweenpolicies and fix[ing] upon political purposes, while administration was thework of bringing policies and purposes to realization. The one thing Wilsonmade clear was that he regarded the distinction as critically important todemocratic governance. He insisted that the separation of powers obscured thatdistinction, resulting in both bad policy and bad administration.

Although distinct realms and activities, Wilson nevertheless concluded that

politics and administration had to be properly and securely linked. Again, theseparation of powers and the congressional committee system stood in the wayof achieving this linkage. This led to the weakening of legislative responsibilityfor administration[12], creating the forcible and unnatural divorcement oflegislation and administration[13]. This outcome undermined publicconfidence in the executive, left the nation helpless to learn how it was beingserved, and distracted legislation from all attention to anything like anintelligent planning and superintendence of policy[14].

In congressional government, then, Wilson argued quite clearly for adistinction between politics, or perhaps more accurately legislation, andadministration. He called for separate institutional arrangements that werenonetheless linked functionally and instrumentally. Administration had to be

subordinate to legislation. This did not mean administration was of minorimportance. On the contrary, administration could be equated with governing:legislation is like a foreman set over the forces of government. It issues theorders which others obey. It directs, it admonishes, but it does not do the actualheavy work of governing[15].

Initially, then, Wilson saw governing as a wholly instrumental activity,fulfilling the purposes set by politics, especially the politics of constitutionmaking. This put Wilson squarely in the same camp as most of the Americanfounders, which is something of a surprise given the extent to which hecriticized their mechanical, or Newtonian, theories of government[16,17]. Yetout of his instrumental conception, combined with the universal principal ofinstitutional change he derived from his organic view of politicaldevelopment[18], Wilson eventually developed descriptive and normativearguments that recognized governing, including administration, as not merelyinstrumental to the polity. Far more than that, he concluded, law andadministration help constitute the polity, that is, they give new shape to thecharacter of the citizenry, and define new purposes for the regime.

Toward a constitutive conception of administrationWilson carried the theme of the clear fixing of responsibility for administrationforward from congressional government through the two short essays of 1885and into section II of his 1887 essay The study of administration. Indeed, one


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of his most well-turned phrases therein is that large powers and unhampereddiscretion seem to me the indispensable conditions of responsibility. Publicattention must be easily directed, in each case of good or bad administration, to

just the man deserving of praise or blame[19].But Wilsons field of view was broader in the 1887 article. The principal

difficulties of modern administration rested not only in properly fixingresponsibility, but also in adapting to democracy administrative methodswhose origins would be found in authoritarian regimes. The task was to findthe proper relationship between administration and democratic control. Theseparation of politics and administration provided the platform on which theproper arrangements for administration and democratic control could be

established[20]. However, as countless public administration scholars since the1930s have argued, and as Wilson himself eventually recognized, such aconception is descriptively inadequate. Worse, the dichotomy is normativelypernicious. An alternative conception of public administration for democraticgovernance is required. Wilson expended considerable thought in the quest,beginning with the 1887 essay.

The 1887 essay revisitedWilsons central concern was the adjustment of democracy to the modern worldthrough the adaptation of effective administrative methods to democratic rule.He thought this was possible because he saw administration as amenable tosystematic study not because it involved the dull level of technical detail.

Rather, it involved the lasting maxims of political wisdom, the permanenttruths of political progress that transcended even the debatable ground ofconstitutional principle[21]. This formulation was the first hint of furtherdevelopment in Wilsons thinking about what public administration is and howit is related to policy politics[22].

For Wilson, the core problem in the development of democraticadministration was distilling administrative methods based on those lastingmaxims and permanent truths. These methods should be placed into the handsof a well-trained administrative cadre who were given the latitude to operatewithout violating the principle of consent of the governed. In tackling theproblem, Wilson ran into the conceptual obstacle posed by a purelyinstrumental distinction between politics and administration. After assertingthat administration is a separate realm and proclaiming it to be purelyinstrumental or mechanical in character, [Wilson] admits that in anypracticable government it is impossible to establish lines of demarcationbetween administrative and political functions[23]. Wilson argued that agreat deal of administration goes about incognito to most of the world, beingconfounded now with political management, and again with constitutionalprinciple[24]. In other words, politics and administration, although essentiallydistinct, continued to be confused. But the reason for the difficulty inestablishing clear lines of separation was also that in practice administrationis deeply embedded in law[25].


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Public administrations essential instrumental quality was still at the centerof attention, because to speak of it in practical terms is to speak of it withreference to some end. It is law that gives public administration its definition,that provides its ends, and establishes the basis for the choice of means[26]. Sopublic administration is the practice of government, the matching of specialmeans to general plans[27]. Public administration is nevertheless permeatedby politics, or the evaluative[28]. An administrator should have and doeshave a will of his own in the choice of means for accomplishing his work. He isnot and ought not to be a mere passive instrument[29] Furthermore, questionsof administration do trod on political, or, more precisely, constitutional ground.Administrative questions, which concern both efficiency and trustworthiness,

are inextricably linked to questions about the proper distribution ofconstitutional authority and the suitable fixing of responsibility[30].

Although the distinction between politics and administration was difficult tomaintain, Wilson regarded the distinction as analytically essential fornormative theory and the practice of democratic government. The centralproblem was to establish structural arrangements affording an unhamperedexpression and an unhampered implementation of the popular will[31].Paradoxically, however, public opinion could interfere with the efficientimplementation of the popular will through the administrative instrument[32].

Eventually, Wilson concluded that a key part of the answer to the paradoxwas reliance on the government official closest to public opinion the president

who therefore could direct and interpret that opinion as much as respond to

it[33]. But the more immediate answer was an autonomous civil service, themembers of which are obedient to their superiors who, at the top, are responsiveto the representatives of the people[34]. Hence, the separation of politics (theexpression of popular will) from administration was essential. Thedifferentiation between two types of officials fulfilling these distinct functionsfollowed. Steady, hearty allegiance to the policy of the government[administrators] serve will constitute good behavior. The policy will have notaint of officialism about it. It will not be the creation of permanent officials, butof statesmen whose responsibility to public opinion will be direct andinevitable[35].

Perhaps the only clear and consistent theme in the 1887 essay is thatadministration should be the object of intense, systematic study, and that theresults of such study had great potential for contributing to improvements indemocratic governance. What public administrations relationship todemocratic politics is or should be, comes across in the essay as somewhat moretangled and ambiguous. Nevertheless, Wilson was reasonably consistent inholding to the idea of a distinction between politics and administration.Administration was simply the vehicle for realizing collective aspirations.

Thus, Wilson was still in the first stage of his thinking about the relationshipbetween administration and politics, and the role of public administration inconstitutional government. However, he was on the verge of taking the next stepbecause the 1887 essay shows a dawning realization on Wilsons part that


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administration was somehow implicated in the formation of collectiveaspirations and the constitution of the community. Sidney Milkis has stated itquite dramatically. Wilsons concept of a separation of politics andadministration camouflages his commitment to a very important political rolefor the bureaucracy the infusing of liberal democracy with the institutionalcapability for a significant expansion of public action[36]. In other words, anew, self-conscious (or self-aware[37]) public administration was critical toadjusting US democracy to the modern world. By providing the operationalsetting and structural capacity for positive government, it would help to alterhow citizens thought of government and how they related to it.

I would not go quite as far as Milkis in my interpretation of Wilsons thinking

at the stage of development represented by the 1887 essay. In his lectures onpublic administration, politics, and public law of the decade that followed,however, Wilson did indeed delineate a distinctive institutional domain andconstitutive role for public administration in constitutional democracy. To stateit simply, Wilson came to regard public administration as a political institution.

The lectures on administrationIn a short, unpublished, August 1887 essay comparing socialism anddemocracy, Wilson presaged the initial direction his lectures on administrationwould take. He acknowledged toward the end of the essay that socialism anddemocracy rested on the same essential principle: that every man shall have anequal chance with every other man[38]. Moreover, in the contest between

government and dangerous combinations of wealth and influence thatdefined much of the character of the modern social world, democracy mightadmit the need to superintend every mans use of his chance. The essentialconcern was how the community can act with practical advantage in thissuperintendence. Socialism and democracy differed in their approaches to thisconcern, and thus parted company on a question of policy primarily, but also aquestion of organization, that is to say of administration[39].

Wilson at this point still defined politics as a matter of what the state was todo, and administration as a matter of how the state was to do it. Much the sameconception is evident in his first lecture on administration organized for JohnsHopkins. Wilson observed that, We must know what, in the main, the functionsof government are before we can go on with advantage to administrationsnarrower questions as to the way in which they are to be performed[40].However, he also contended that, the State in a large and increasing measureshapes our lives business-like the administration of government may andshould be but it is not business. It is organic social life. The way in which itoccupies that sphere is our subject, the subject of administration[41].

Thus, Wilson had reached a truly expansive conception of publicadministration: the organization of social life, not just legal prescription andcommand. This suggests Wilsons abandonment of the more narrow,functionally instrumental conception of administration of the 1887 essay. Ifadministration concerned organic social life, then it must be fundamentally


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political, it is a prime constituent of the regime, and it would have a majorimpact on the character and aspirations of the citizenry.

By 1890, Wilson had pulled back somewhat from what he concluded was toobroad a formulation. However, he engaged in new and vigorous conceptualdevelopment on the topic after discovering the German literature on public law.In this extension of his thinking, Wilson established the essential idea ofadministration as law-related, but ranging beyond the boundaries of law itself.He defined the field of administrative activity as the field of the discretionaryeffectiveness of institutions the field, not of law, but of the exercise (realization)of legalized function[42]. He continued to refine the idea of administration asinstitutionally a distinctive function by making fully clear that the distinction

was between legislation and administration. He also characterizedadministration as itself a source of law (ordinance), i.e., of the detail of law[43].

By 1891, Wilson argued that legislation, as well as administration, may bedescribed as the active promotion of the ends of the State[44]. He described thedifference between law and administration as the difference betweenorigination with its wide range of choice, and discretion with its narrow range ofchoice. Thus the field of administration encompassed the field of organization,of effective means for the accomplishment of practical ends[45]. Wilsonmaintained throughout his lectures that administration was substantively andinstitutionally distinctive. It was subordinate to legislating. Thus, in the notesfor his 1892 lectures, he continued to maintain that we must make thedistinction between offices of policy and control and offices of administration

proper: the distinction between policy and administrative instrumentalities[46].By the time of this second cycle of his lectures on administration (1891-1893),however, Wilson had arrived at a more complete recognition thatadministration encompassed not only instrumental but also constitutivequalities. In concluding that administration was part of public law, Wilsoncontinued to argue that administration was indirectly a constant source ofpublic law. He also contended that it is through administration that the Statemakes [a] test of its own powers and of the public needs makes [a] test also oflaw, its efficiency, suitability, etc[47]. Taking this a step further, Wilson arguedthat administration is always in contact with the present: it is the Statesexperiencing organ. It is thus that it becomes a source of law: directly, by thegrowth [of] administrative practice or tradition[48].

The context for all of these observations was Wilsons conclusion thatadministration was an integral component of politics and the law.Administration was part of what made up, or constituted, the law and politicsof a liberal democratic regime. Not so very different from his pre-1890viewpoint, he insisted that administration cannot be divorced from its intimateconnexions [sic] with the other branches of public law without being distortedand robbed of its true significance. Its foundations are those deep andpermanent principles of politics which have been quarried from history andbuilt into constitutions; and it may by no means properly be considered apartfrom constitutions[49].


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Wilsons most compelling statement on the nature of administration and itsplace in a liberal democratic regime connected his understanding of itsconstitutiveness with his long-standing concern for the relationship betweenadministration and the controlling force of public sentiment.

Administration, therefore, sees government in contact with the people. Itrests its whole form along the line which is drawn in each State betweeninterference andlaissez faire. It thus touches, directly or indirectly, the wholepractical side of social endeavour. Its questions are questions of adjustment, theadjustment of means to ends, not only, but of governmental function tohistorical conditions, to liberty[50].

Concluding the point, Wilson echoed Alexis de Tocqueville, who had

argued that administration directly influenced the character of thecitizenry[51]. Here lie, of course, the test [questions] as to the success orfailure of government. There is an organization which vitalizes, and there isan organization which kills. If government energizes the people by themeasure of assistance which it affords, it is good; if it decreases the energyand healthful independence of individual initiative, it is bad, bad just to theextent it does this[52].

Wilson argues clearly in this passage that how the state is organized tooperate is vital to the civic vitality of the regime. The domain ofadministration being organizational effectiveness, that is, the adjustment ofexperience and law, or facts and ideals, it therefore plays a substantial role indetermining the character of the citizenry. To be sure, administration is still

primarily an instrumentality of politics. By virtue of the central operationalfunction it performs, however, it invariably has a formative effect on thepolity.

In the third and final cycle of lectures on administration of 1894-1896, Wilsonrefined many of his statements further, but they retained the essential thrust ofthe second cycle. He then took one further formal step in clarifying his ideasabout the relationships between politics, constitutions, and administration. Hepresented his views in his Princeton lectures on the elements of politics andconstitutional government, which he delivered nearly in parallel betweenearly March 1898 and late November 1900. His ideas also appeared in his lastformal notes for the major scholarly work he planned but never completed, thephilosophy of politics.

In his elements of politics notes, he characterized politics as of broadersignificance than political science, because it is a study of life and motive aswell as form and object[53]. He defined politics, then, as the study of the life ofStates; of the genesis and operation of institutions; of the ideas, purposes, andmotives of men in political society[54].

Wilson argued that the objects of political society were many and variedbecause of the varied histories and political lives of nations. However, twocommon objects were order and progress. Four modern political ideas haveshaped the pursuit of these objects by political societies: self-government,freedom, equality, and nationality and humanity (which he alternately labelled


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internationality). Wilson clearly saw politics as concerned with the most basicquestions of civilization: how people could live in society given their diversemix of motives, ideals, and purposes. In contrast, constitutional government,law, and administration are the integrated institutional instruments of politicalsociety. They are the means by which political purposes can be achieved.

Thus, in his constitutional government lectures, he defined its ultimateand essential object to bring the active and planning will of each part of the[government] into accord with the prevailing popular thought and need, and tomake it an impartial instrument of all-round national development[55]. As hehad from congressional government onward, Wilson saw law-making andadministration as distinct, but closely linked. He elaborated on the object of

constitutional government as a cordial understanding between people andgovernment, and a most fully developed constitutional government was thatunder which the cordial understanding extends beyond questions offundamental law to questions of administration and policy[56].

Although constitutions, laws, and administration were instruments ofpolitics and the purposes polities seek to realize, Wilson left no doubt that heunderstood all three to exert formative effects on those purposes. He made thisclear in his discussion of the moulding and modifying power of law in hisconstitutional government notes[57]. For Wilson, experiment and experience,particularly in the hands of administrative experts, are a prominent part of thatmodifying power. He stated the idea finally and unequivocally in his last notesfor his unfinished magnum opus. Institutions are subsequent to character.

They do not create character, but are created and sustained by it. After beingsuccessfully established, however, they both confirm and modify nationalcharacter, forming in no small degree both national thought and nationalpurpose certainly national ideals[58].

ConclusionHow will the latest initiatives in administrative reform affect the structure andoperations of government agencies and the decisions made by publicmanagers? How will these effects shape the interactions betweenadministrators and citizens? How will these interactions influences theinterplay among citizens that is patterned by the missions public managers andtheir agencies pursue? How will these influences in turn shape how citizens

think of their roles, and their relationships to government? Along with thecommon concerns about efficiency and instrumental effectiveness, these are thekinds of questions political leaders, commentators, and attentive citizensshould be asking about broad-based efforts to reform government management.Woodrow Wilsons thinking about constitutional government andadministration shows a marked evolution. The understanding ofadministrations place in a democratic regime that he developed shows thatthere is much to consider about management reform that is of vital concern tothe quality of democratic governance.


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References

1. Sandel, M.J., Americas search for a new public philosophy, The Atlantic Monthly,Vol. 277, 1996, pp. 57-74; also,Democracys Discontent: America in Search of a PublicPhilosophy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1996.

2. Osborn, D. and Gaebler, T.,Reinventing Government, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1992.

3. Bragdon, H.W., Woodrow Wilson: The Academic Years, Harvard University Press,Cambridge, MA, 1967, p. 97.

4. Link, A.S. (Ed.), The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Vol. 5, Princeton University Press,Princeton, 1968, pp. 43-4.

5. Wilson, W., Congressional Government: A Study in American Politics, Johns HopkinsUniversity Press, Baltimore, 1981 [originally published, 1885].

6. Wilson, Congressional Government, p. 170.

7. Wilson, Congressional Government, p. 171.8. Wilson, Congressional Government, p. 173.



11. Rabin, J. and Bowman, J.S. (Eds),Politics and Administration: Woodrow Wilson andAmerican Public Administration, Marcel Dekker, New York, NY, 1984.

12. Rohr, J.A., The constitutional world of Woodrow Wilson, in Rabin, J. and Bowman, J.S.(Eds),Politics and Administration: Woodrow Wilson and American Publ ic Administration,Marcel Dekker, New York, NY, 1984, p. 32.


14. Wilson, Congressional Government, pp. 198 and 214.


16. Storing, H.J., American statesmanship: old and new, in Goldwin, R.A. (Ed.),Bureaucrats,

Policy Analysts Statesman: Who Leads?, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, DC,1980, pp. 96-9.

17. Tulis, J .K., The Rhetorical Presidency, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1987,p. 120.

18. Wilson, Congressional Government, pp. 28-29.

19. Wilson, W., The Study of Administration,Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 56, 1941[originally published 1887], p. 497.

20. Wilson, The Study of Administration, pp. 493-5.


22. Rosenbloom, D.H., Reconsidering the politics-administration dichotomy: the supremecourt and public personnel management, in Rabin, J. and Bowman, J.S. (Eds),Politics andAdministration: Woodrow Wilson and American Public Administration, Marcel Dekker,New York, 1984, p. 104.

23. Kirwin, K.A., Woodrow Wilson and the study of public administration: response to VanRiper,Administration & Society, Vol. 18, 1987, pp. 394-5.

24. Wilson, The Study of Administration, p. 495.

25. Kirwin, Woodrow Wilson, p. 395.








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33. Wilson, W., Constitutional Government in the United States, Columbia University Press,New York, NY, 1908, p. 127.



36. Milkis, S.M., The President and the Parties: The Transformation of the American PartySystem Since the New Deal, Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 1993, p. 26.

37. Waldo, D., The Administrative State: A Study of the Political Theory of American PublicAdministration, 2nd ed., Holmes & Meier, New York, NY, 1984.

38. Link, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Vol. 5, p. 562.




42. Link, A.S. (Ed.), The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Vol. 6, Princeton University Press,Princeton, 1969, p. 519.









51. de Tocqueville, A.,Democracy in America, Mayer, J.P. (Ed.) (G. Lawrence translation),Perennial Library, New York, NY, 1988, p. 88.








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Administration as a Civic Institutions