Curbing Patronage without Paperasserie

Curbing Patronage without PaperasserieAuthor(s): Christopher DanielSource: Public Administration Review, Vol. 53, No. 4 (Jul. - Aug., 1993), pp. 387-390Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Society for Public AdministrationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/977151 .

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Christopher Daniel, Kentucky State University

Must antipatronage reform create more paperwork in the public personnel system? No, answers Christopher Daniel, who argues that contemporary personnel managers have more resources at their disposal to help them avoid paperasserie. Patronage operatives depend upon centralized control systems, so it may be possible to reduce their influence by decentralizing hiring authority within line organizations. Antipatronage reform is one of several reasons governments should invest in assessment technology, replace informal interviews with structured ones, and thoroughly publicize job openings and promotional opportunities. Reformers should inte- grate antipatronage activities into more general efforts to revive personnel management and to invigorate the public service.

Antipatronage reform is a perennial issue that refuses to go away. Systemic patronage continues in many counties, some cities, and at least a few states. Stahl (1990, p. 309) discerns renascent patronage amid "a profound weakening of the federal career service." Of course, some political hiring and firing is legitimate. This com- mentary uses the term "patronage" to refer only to politically motivated appointments made at the entry and middle organizational levels. Patronage appointments of upper level policy makers and their confiden- tial assistants is easily justified, but extension of the principle to others reduces organizational effectiveness and violates First Amendment rights protected by Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois (1990).

Patronage continues to adversely affect the efficiency of the public service. It has become anachronistic as public jobs have become more complex, professionalism has grown, and new approaches to organizing for productivity have emerged. Many organizations pursue quality and productivity by developing mission-oriented cultures and fostering decision making by production- level workers and their supervisors. Unfortunately, patronage practices stifle such efforts. Decisions to select or promote individuals send strong signals about real priorities, be they mission fulfillment, cronyism, or supporting campaigns.

Patronage reinforces bureaucratic centralism; instead of eliciting production-level participation, it sends supervisors and employees the message that their views do not matter much. The National Academy of Public Administration (1983), Ingraham and Rosenbloom (1990), and Carnevale (1991) have advocated increasing the personnel authority of line managers, but such efforts are not likely to succeed unless patronage pres- sures are restrained.

Public Administration Review * July/August 1993, Vol. 53, No. 4 387



Despite their architects' virtuous intentions, civil service reforms sometimes create new problems, enmeshing public personnel in a control mentality emphasizing "the triumph of technique over purpose" (Sayre, 1948). Such systems produce excessive paperwork, which the French aptly call paperasserie (Sharp, 1952). In some jurisdictions, restrictive practices have outlived the abuses they were designed to curtail; improvement may be accomplished there by loosen- ing the controls. A dilemma occurs, however, in jurisdictions where patronage endures despite the presence of restrictions. Which threat is greatest to such organizations' effectiveness, the dysfunctions of patronage or those associ- ated with traditional remedies? There are traditional patronage jurisdictions, such as some rural counties, have never experimented with reform. How should their innovations proceed? Perhaps fresh reform approaches can address these dilemmas.

To curb patronage while minimizing paperasserie, jurisdictions should be pragmatic, not moralistic, emphasizing monitoring of employee perceptions, decentralization of hiring, and increased use of assessment technology. Sired by reform movements and invigorated recently by the courts, antipatronage efforts have often been ambitious and moralistic, seeking to completely eliminate problematical practices. Litigants and unions often describe patronage and merit issues in terms of individual rights, justifying draconi- an remedies. If patronage supports a political "evil" or violates citizen or employee "rights," then logically, great effort should be made to eliminate it. When, however, the prima- ry goal is to enhance organizational effectiveness, then merely curbing the practice, reducing its incidence, may be satisfactory.

Controls designed to prevent officials from basing decisions on patronage frequently produce inefficiencies of their own, so officials must accept tradeoffs. To comply with the Sbakman II court decree, the city of Chicago battled patronage during the mid-1980s through a Detailed Hiring Plan (Freedman, 1988; Hoskins, 1989). While lauding the plan's effectiveness against patronage, Freedman also described dysfunctions one would expect to encounter whenever controls are imposed bureaucratically. Chicago officials implemented the hiring plan by documenting more personnel decision making (i.e., producing more red tape) and requiring approval by the personnel department for many routine decisions. Consequently, the time required to fill a position in Chicago increased from two to ten weeks. Perhaps such measures were justifiable, especially if they were temporary and no other means could successfully combat well-entrenched patronage institutions. At some point, centralized control costs become excessive, however, and line managers must be trusted to act appropriately without being constantly scrutinized. Officials must strike a bal- ance, achieving an optimal combination of controls, trust, and acceptance of an intractable residue of patronage activi- ty-

Chicago's hiring plan was reviewed using a process mod- eled after systems of financial accountability, requiring doc- umentation of rationale for personnel transactions, followed

Patronage reinforces bureaucratic centralism;

instead ofeliciingproductin-kwlparticpation, it sends supevsors and employees the message that their vtews do not matter mucb.

by record audits. Financial systems can trace cash and goods, but it is very difficult for reviewers to second guess hiring and promotional decisions. At best, the written record can only provide clues about whether particular decisions were based upon patronage, amicism, predicted job performance, or the simple desire to fill vacancies quickly. Rather than emphasizing accountability through documenta- tion it may sometimes be preferable to promote accountability for perceptions, surveying informed observers about the norms guiding selection and promotion. As Freedman noted, Chicago conducted a survey as an additional method of monitoring compliance with Sbakman, obtaining respons- es from newly hired employees, newly promoted employees, and rejected applicants. Such individuals' interpreta- tions of decision making are useful, especially when comparisons can made among departments and over time. Individuals sometimes perceive events erroneously, but overall survey findings illuminate organizational climate. Disseminating such data may have a positive influence on elected administrations, since those accountable to the elec- torate prefer to avoid negative publicity. The Merit System Protection Board has actively pursued accountability for perceptions by surveying federal managers and personnel offi- cers repeatedly during the 1980s, asking whether they have observed prohibited patronage practices, sex discrimination, and racial discrimination (Ban and Redd, 1990).

Ideally, antipatronage reform efforts should reduce, or at least not increase, bureaucratic centralism. Ironically, both patronage mechanisms and some reform counter measures (clearances from civil service boards, personnel department policing) increase central control.

To ensure that positions and promotions are given only to the politically faithful, patronage systems implement high level clearance systems. Consider, for example, the extreme centralization that led to the Rutan case in Illinois (Katz, 1991). Originally justified on fiscal control grounds, a hiring freeze was extended for ten years, requiring all employment decisions to be approved by the governor's office. Obviously, if cost cutting had been the freeze's only objec- tive, it could have been accomplished by having cabinet- level officials establish ceilings, or approve the existence of position openings, without personally evaluating production- level individuals. What rationale other than patronage could have justified directly involving gubernatorial aides in selection and promotion of a geographically dispersed work force of 60,000?

Ironically, Harold Washington's administration was accused of exercising patronage while it simultaneously exe-

388 Public Administration Review * July/August 1993, Vol. 53, No. 4



T he effectiness of patronage operatives is enhanced

when hiring andpromotion decuisons are highly

centralized within an agency, with al hires andpromo-

tions, no matter how bumble, requiring top approval.

cuted major reforms through Chicago's Detailed Hiring Plan (Freedman, 1988). Accusations centered on the activities of a mayoral liaison who personally approved all sewer department hires. Whatever the reality may have been in that instance, such arrangements look suspicious because they violate sound management principles. Selection and promotion should be based upon appraisals of applicants' future performance, requiring decision makers to know as much as possible about both candidates and jobs. Unless an organi- zation is very small, lower level supervisors are much more likely to possess such knowledge than are those at the top.

As with other forms of human endeavor, patronage requires its own administrative infrastructure to succeed on a systemic scale. Several state managers in Kentucky have described structures to this writer closely resembling those discerned by Katz (1991) in Illinois:

The governor's patronage director relied on a net- work of people in each agency to provide information about job openings and the partisan inclinations of applicants. The designated informer within an agency was known as the "key person." He or she was usually an administrative assistant to the agency director. The key person operated separately from the agency's regular personnel office.

Obviously, the effectiveness of patronage operatives is enhanced when hiring and promotion decisions are highly centralized within an agency, with all hires and promotions, no matter how humble, requiring top approval. So, decentralization of these functions within line agencies may dent the covert infrastructure, reducing the incidence of patronage, while empowering supervisors and middle managers. In other words, it may sometimes be possible to curb patronage without resorting to stifling bureaucratic controls.

Reform should not simply reduce the incidence of patronage, but should make selection as demonstrably job related as possible, emphasizing supervisory-level use of assessment technology. Professionally developed tests

remain important, but they should be supplemented with structured interviews and performance simulation activities developed by line officials. This may require personnel staff to alter their roles, shifting from policing modes to a con- sulting and service orientation. Assessment devices developed by lower level officials are sometimes imperfect, but are better than the status quo alternative-informal interviewing. Traditional, informal interviews have little or no validity (Arvey and Campion, 1982), but structured interviews have corrected validity up to .62 (Wiesner and Cronshaw, 1988, p. 284), accounting for up to 38 percent of applicants' later variations in job performance. Structured interviews can be conducted in a variety of ways, but the more time-consuming approaches, emphasizing job analysis and creation of scoring guides, seem to produce the most validity.

Adding structure to interviews can also reduce legal vul- nerability (Gatewood and Feild, 1990). Technically, all interviews are tests, so plaintiffs sometimes challenge their out- comes in civil rights (Title VII), age (ADEA), and disability (ADA) discrimination suits. Informally conducted interviews are vulnerable to legal challenges because interviewers dis- cuss topics not related to the job at hand, sometimes inad- vertently making statements interpretable as discriminatory. A recent study by the Assessment Council of the International Personnel Management Association (Feuquay, 1990) identified structured interviewing, work sample tests, and biodata instruments as promising techniques producing relatively high validity without imposing adverse impact on racial minorities.

Contemporary reformers possess resources their Progressive-era forbearers did not enjoy. Technical tools of surveying, assessment, and decentralized management can now be deployed against patronage, and computer and communications technologies assist dissemination of information about position openings. Tests, long effective tools, have benefited from research by several generations of industrial psychologists. Informed by past experiences with red tape, reformers may finally be able to avoid letting technique triumph over purpose, as creative antipatronage efforts help revive the personnel function and invigorate the public service.

Christopher Daniel teaches public personnel management at Kentucky State University. His previous work has appeared in Public Personnel Management, Review of Public Personnel Administration, Personnel, and Public Administration Review.

Note

1. A 1989 survey of state managers in Kentucky suggests that patronage practices pervade that formal merit system. Sixty-eight percent of 1,491 respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, 'The merit system in public service is outweighed by political pull in influencing merit

appointments." Daniel and Rose (1991) describe that study's methodolo- gy. Patronage practices within Illinois State government were the subject of the 1990 Rutan case.

Curbing Patronage Without Paperasrie 389



References

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Ban, Carolyn and Harry C. Redd III, 1990. "The State of the Merit System: Perceptions of Abuse in the Federal Civil Service." Review of Public Personnel Administration, vol. 10, no. 3 (Summer), pp. 55-72.

Carnevale, David G., 1991. "The Learning Support Model: Personnel Doctrine the Mass Production Paradigm." Paper presented at the National Conference of the American Society for Public Administration. Washington, DC.

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Sharp, Walter Rice, 1952. "Procedural Vices: La Paperasserie." In Robert K. Merton, Ailsa P. Gray, Barbara Hockey, and Hanan C. Selvin, eds., Reader in Bureaucracy. Glencoe, IL: Free Press, pp. 407-410.

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Curbing Patronage without Paperasserie