PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AS POLITICS*

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AS POLITICS*

C. R. Santos

This paper attempts to explore the ever increasing recognition of the political aspects of public administration. In the process of inquiry, it investigates the current validity of the well-entrenched doctrine of the political neutrality of the civil service in the face of the new thinking about the political character of public administration.

The new conceptualization of public administration as politics seems to have already achieved considerable acceptance among many scholars and practitioners. If this conceptualization be taken as established today, it apparently conflicts with another equally established doctrine, namely, that of the political neutrality of the civil service. Let us then briefly examine the conceptualization of public administration as politics and the doctrine of the political neutrality of the civil service, determine whether any real conflict exists, and suggest some ways of dealing with the problem.

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AS POLITICS: ITS GENESIS

In 1887, Woodrow Wilson wrote a famous essay on public administration in which he distinguished between politics and administration by asserting that politics is "state activity in things great and universal, while administration, on the other hand, is the activity of the state in individual and small things. Politics is thus the special province of the statesman, administration of the technical official. Policy does nothing without the aid of administration, but administration is not therefore

Other scholars, like Goodnow, Willoughby, and White: accepted as axiomatic truth the idea of a politics-administration dichotomy. The belief in the separation of politics from public administration persisted until World War II. Thereafter, a strong ferment in the form of dissent from the accepted orthodoxy about the politics-administration dichotomy

'The author wishes to thank Professors M. S. Donnelly and A. S. Abel for their helrful criticism of an earlier draftp this pa er.

1 'The Study of Administration, Politicaf Science Quarterly, vol. n (June 1887), as reprinted in the same journal later in vol. LVI (December 1941), pp. 481-506, at 494-5. 2See Frank Goodnow, Potitics and Administration, New York: The M a d a n Co.,

1900; W. F. Willougby, Primiks of Public Admim&tratfon, Bdtimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1927; and Leonard D. White, Introduction to the Study of Public Administratwn, New York: The Macmillan Co., 1926.

politics."l

214 CANADIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

started as indicated by some s i e c a n t published works touching on the issue.

A thesis antithetical to the politics-administration dichotomy was boldly asserted in 1949 by Paul H. Appleby in his book, Policy and Administration, which concluded with the observation that “public administration is policy-making . , . where mighty forces contend, forces engendered in and by the society. I t is policy-making subject to still other various policy-makers. Public administration is o m of a number of basic political processes by which this people achieves and controls go~ernance.”~ Shortly thereafter, Harold Stein published Public Ad- ministration and Policy Developmet: A Case Book, in the introductory essay of which he confidently discussed the concept of public administration as politic^."^ Then, in 1966, Charles E. Jacob published Policy and Bureaucrucy, which starts with the statement that “policy and administration, though once thought of to be two separate entities, must be viewed as two inter-related parts of the same governmental process.”6

The close relationship amounting to a fusion between politics and public administration is easily confirmed by any close observation of the process of policy formulation. In the task of formulating basic policy decisions, the political decision-maker has nowhere to turn for advice and assistance except to the career public administrators who are the knowledgeable people in the subject-matter under consideration. When asked for their opinions, it is impossible for career public servants to comply without including their views on a number of matters involving value judgments, even highly political judgments.6 It is well-known that civil servants normally present definite proposals or programs of action to the political superior, who may or may not accept them. Unless the political superior has already arrived at some definite political conclusion of his own or is willing to ignore the warnings of the career public servants, he is likely to be greatly influenced by the concrete proposals of subordinates who are, after all, the experts in the subject-matter a t issue. Thus, it seems reasonable to conclude that public administration, being deeply enmeshed in the realm of policy and values, is really political in character.

THE DOCTRINE OF mE POLITICAL NEUTRALITY OF CIVIL SERVANTS

Greatly influenced by the British practice, the United States through the passage of the Civil Service Act of 1883 adopted the doctrine of the political neutrality of the civil service as an accompanying condition of

3Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1949, p. 170. 4New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1952, Introduction, p. xv. 5New Jersey, D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc., 1968, p. 3. (Italics mine. ) 6Sir Edward Boyle et d., “Who are the Policy Makers? Public Administration

(London), v01. ~ x m , autumn 1985, pp. 251-87, at 256 and 265.

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AS POLTLZCS 215

the institutionalization of the merit system. That Act provides that civil servants can neither be coerced to respond to political assessment nor to contribute their services to political campaigns. The Hatch Act of 1939 confirmed and strengthened the doctrine by providing that “No officer or employee in the executive branch of the Federal Government . . . shall take active part in political management or in political campaigns . . . ”7 It also declares that the activities heretofore determined by the United States Civil Service Commission to be prohibited to employees in the classifled service of the United States by the civil service rules shall be deemed to be prohibited to Federal employees covered by the Hatch Act.8 The Hatch Act of 1940 extended the prohibition on political activities to state and local government employees compensated in whole or in part by Federal funds? Except for a 1942 amendment which lifted the prohibition of partisan political activities on the parts of persons employed by the United States federal, state, or private educational and research institutions,’O the ban on the political activities of public servants falling under it remains intact and admits of no differentiation among categories of civil servants. Thus, in the United States, the doctrine of the political neutrality of the civil service has generally been accepted as established on two grounds: (1) to avoid what is regarded as a public evil of using government employees for partisan political purposes; and (2) to maintain political impartiality in the administration of the laws.

The doctrine of the political neutrality of the public service is also recognized in Canada. The prohibition of partisan political activities is generally prescribed explicitly or implicitly by most of the ten provinces, except Saskatchewan and Ontario which allow subject to certain restric- tionsll provincial civil servants to participate like any other citizen in political activities or campaigns. Although Canada generally adheres to the doctrine of the political neutrality of the public service for precisely the same reasons as Great Britain and the United States, recent developments at the federal level tend towards the political emancipation of the public service. Such developments tend to sustain the validity of the newly developed attitude that public administration is a basic political process.

For example, the Public Service Employment Act of 1967 which repealed and superseded the Canadian Civil Service Act of 1961 provides that no deputy head and, subject to certain qualifications, no employee can engage in work for, on behalf of, or against a candidate or a political

753 US. Statutes 1148, 1939, sec. 9 (a) . sIbM., sec. 15; Federal Personnel Manual, Civil Service Rule w, sec. 04. 1, p.

954 U.S. Statutes 767, 1940. lopublic Law 7 5 4 , s U.S. Statutes 980,1942. Wee Saskatchewan Public Service Act of 1947, sec. 54; and the Ontario Pubh

Zi-213.

Smice Amendment Act, 1962-63, sec. 3.


party in the Federal, provincial, or territorial legislature or himself be a candidate for a legislative office.12 However, the acts of attending political meetings and giving money contributions to the election funds of a candidate or a political party are not prohibited. Moreover, an employee may apply to the Public Service Commission for a leave of absence without pay if he wishes to seek a political nomination as candidate for an elective office in the federal, a provincial, or a territorial legislature. If the Public Service Commission is of the opinion that the usefulness of the employee in the public service position he occupies would not be impaired by reason of his being a candidate for election to a political office, the Commission may grant the leave of absence. If granted, the leave of absence ends on the day on which the results of the election are officially declared or on such an earlier day as may be requested by the public service employee who has ceased to be a candidate. Once elected to a legislative political office, the person on leave of absence ceases to be a public service employee. Thus, no person can become both a legislator and a public service employee at the same time.

In the case of a deputy head who has been adjudged by a board of inquiry, established for the purpose by the Civil Service Commission, to have contravened the provisions on political partisanship, the Governor in Council, upon receipt of the report of the Commission after the same has been notified by the board of inquiry of its findings, may dismiss such deputy head. In the case of an employee, the Public Service Commission, upon being duly notaed of the board's decision, may similarly dismiss such employee.

A related statute, the Public Service Staff Relations Act of 1967, which instituted a system of collective bargaining in the public service of Canada, enjoins the Public Service Staff Relations Board from certifying as bargaining agent for a bargaining unit any employee organization that receives, handles, or pays any money for activities carried on by, or on behalf of, any political party.l8

The trend in Great Britain has also been towards a relaxation of the prohibition on the political activities of civil servants, In June 1949, the British Government published the report of the Committee on Political Activities of Civil Servants (under the chairmanship of J. D. Masterman) which recommended the division of the British Civil Service into two parts consisting, on the one hand, of grades the members of which were to be free of any special restrictions on their political activities and, on the other, of grades the members of which were to be subject to restrictions, being barred from certain political activities in the national field though free to seek permission to take part politically

12Canadian Statutes, 14-15-16 Eliz. II, ch. 71, sec. 32. 13Cunodian Statutes, 14-15-16 Elk. n, ch. 72, sec. 39 (2).

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AS POLITICS 217

in local government activities.14 As a result of opposition from the staff of the Civil Service National Whitley Council16 and in the House of Commons, the Masterman Committee recommendations were submitted for discussion by the members of the Joint Committee of the Civil Service National Whitley Council. Both the staff and officials of the Whitley Committee endorsed the creation of an intermediate group between the politically free and the politically restricted groups sug- gested by the Masterman Committee. The proposal concerning the creation of the intermediate group was accepted by the Government, which issued establishment circulars to implement such a modification. Those civil servants included in the intermediate group are eligible to seek and get departmental permission to engage in national political activities (except for becoming a parliamentary candidate) open to the members of the politically free group.la Departmental permission may be granted or denied, depending on such considerations as the degree and nature of contact with the public in the performance of his duties and the extent to which his political activities are likely to be known as those of a civil servant whose official duties involve his taking decisions affecting the personal well-being of clients of his department.

In France, it is relatively easy for politically inclined civil servants to become active participants in the electoral contests, sometimes with the active encouragement of the political r6gime. For instance, leave of absence with full pay during the campaign period has sometimes been granted to facilitate the candidacies of prominent members of the public service, belonging to either the Conseil d’Etat, the Cour de Comptes or the Inspection Generale des Finances.17 It is not surprising that in 1964, among the members of the Conseil d’Etat, seven were members of parliament and one was a senator; and, among the members of the Inspection Generale des Finances, two were ministers, one was a

14Cmd. 7718, June 1949. W’he British Whitley System consists of councils and committees set up at the

national, departmental, and local levels of government, on which both the staffs, through their associations, and the directing officials are represented. The Whitley councils and committees are empowered to discuss most subjects and it is usual to reach agreement - or compromise if necessary - on such matters through the Whitley joint councils before important changes are introduced in the Civil Service. (See E. N. Gladden, An Introduction to Public Administration, London: Staples Press,

lasee, Establishment Circular 26/53 of August 14, 1953, printed in part in Public Administration (London), vol. xxxn, Nov. 3, autumn 1954, pp. 324-8.

17The Conseil d’Etat is the quasi-judicial and quasi-administrative body which serves as the expert adviser of the Government and also the highest appellate court for administrative cases; the Cour de Comptes is the financial court responsible for the regularity of public accounts; and the Inspection Generale des Finances is the organ primarily responsible, through spot audit and investigations, for the financial management of the various departmental units or agencies in receipt of government aid. (A. D. de Lamothe, “Ministerial Cabinets in France,” Public Administration (London), vol. XLIII, Winter 1965, pp. 365L81, at 380.)

1966, pp. 117-18.


senator ’and two were deputies, including the president of the National Assembly.ls

While serving as an elective official, the French civil servant is usually permitted to contribute payments to build up his pension as a member of the civil service and, until 1950, could even be promoted to a higher rank in the civil service corps where he belongs, even during his term of elective 0ffi~e.l~

CONFLICT OF DOCI’RINES

The impact of the new line of thinking about the political character of public administration on the generally accepted doctrine of the political neutrality of the civil service needs to be examined carefully. If public administration is one of the basic political processes by which any people in a democratic political system achieves governance, then civil servants are unavoidably entangled in a major stream in the political process. If this be so, how is it that civil servants or public administrators in the civil sentice are, in many jurisdictions, prohibited by statute or conventon from engaging in political activities under the still prevailing doctrine of the political neutrality of the civil service?

On the surface, it seems clear that there is a basic conflict between the axiom of public administration as politics and the doctrine of the political neutrality of the civil service. The doctrine of the political neutrality of the civil service, primarily charged with public administration, is a corollary to the old axiom of the separation of public administration from politics. Once the axiom of public administration as politics is accepted, however, the doctrine of the political neutrality of the civil service immediately loses its validity unless it can find some independent support to justify its continuance. Let us, therefore, examine some of the possible independent justifications for the doctrine of the political neutrality of the civil service.

If the effective enforcement of political direction from top to bottom of the administrative structure be the prime consideration, sufficient statutory and administrative sanctions are available to the politically responsible chief executive against civil servants resisting policy directions from above, such as the laws and regulations against insubordination. If the goal of the impartiality in the administration of the laws be held paramount, it can be achieved through means other than the political sterilization of public administrators. Neither the consideration of executive political responsibility nor the preservation of public confidence in the impartial administration of the laws as they affect citizens

Wbtd., p. 380. 1QRoger Gregoire, “The French Fonction Publique and the British Civil Senice,”

Canadtun Public Administration, vol. vnq No. 4, December 1965, pp. 457-69, at 487.

PUBLIC ADMINISTEMTXON AS POLLTICS 219

constitutes an independent, adequate justification for retention of the doctrine of political neutrality.

Circumstances and conditions in modern society have changed im- mensely towards directions favouring the political emancipation of career public servants. The triumph of the merit principle in the appointment process, the professionalization of public servants, the high degree of administrative and technical competence, the rising level of education among career public administrators today - these are the characteristic trends in the public service that are conducive to the continuing develop- ment and growth of a new breed of politically conscious and administratively responsible public administrators. Today’s public administrators are entitled to political emancipation from the shackles of an old doctrine which has outlived its usefulness.

PARALLELISM BETWEEN THE JUDICIARY AND THE CIVIL SERVICE

The judiciary is in much the same situation as the civil service, inso- far as public expectations regarding the political activities of its members are concerned. Judges, like civil servants, are participants in the total political process. While conventionally expected to be only inter- preters of the laws or statutes, judges nevertheless do legislate. Thus, Justice Cardozo affirmed, “The power to declare the law carries with it the power, and within limits the duty, to make law when none exists”2o and further, that “I have grown to see that the (judicial) process in its highest reaches is not discovery, but creation; and that the doubts and misgivings, the hopes and fears, are part of the travail of the mind, the pangs of death and the pangs of birth, in which principles that have served their day expire, and new principles are born.”21 The judges let their ideological preferences seep into the process of statutory interpretation. When they do, they in effect reformulate the basic legislative policy embodied in the statutory language. With the passage of time, the same statute has to be interpreted and re-interpreted according to the demands of changing conditions and circumstances and often in the light of new social, economic, or political theories.

In a similar fashion, civil servants, before they administer the laws, need to interpret them administratively, In the process of administrative interpretation of the laws, public administrators, like judges, are highly conditioned by their social and political backgrounds and philosophical and ideological outlooks in life. Within the constraining limits of prevailing public expectations regarding the performance of their official duties, they act according to their philosophical and ideological beliefs.

W h e Nature of the Judicial Process, New Haven, COM.: Yale University press, 1960, p. 124.

ZlIbid., pp. 166-7.


Like the judiciary, the civil service is a participant in the broad political process of public policy-making. The broad political process is obviously not limited to the periodic electoral contests between or among the political parties, To be able to get the majority support needed to govern, political parties are constrained to make a broad public appeal to the different blocs of voters representing the various interest groups across the entire political spectrum. Consequently, political parties in North America tend to be more pragmatic and less ideological than their European counterparts. They normally take equivocal positions on the controversial public issues of the day so as to avoid offending certain blocs of voters representing powerful interest groups. The political party, in other words, is but a convenient and expedient device to or- ganize a loose coalition of different blocs of voters representing various interest groups for the purpose of winning elections or influencing public policy-making. The most dominant group or coalition of groups within the party structure occupies the most advantageous position in the legislative process of bargainings, negotiations, and compromises among the contending interest groups, terminating formally with the passage of a statute. However, the continuing combat between or among the contending groups does not end with the temporary triumph of one side in the legislative struggle. The combat may be carried over to the administrative arena where the statute is construed and interpreted by civil servants or public administrators who may already have played a major part in drafting the statute. The civil service, therefore, performs a crucial role, both in the formulation and implementation stages of public policy-making.

Aside from the substantial influence of the civil service in the formulation of final policy at the political stage of action through its role as expert adviser to the ruling political rhgime, it can also modify public policy at the implementation stage of the governmental process. Where the civil servants as a group do not agree with changes in policy taking place at the political level, they are usually able to modify public policy when it reaches the administrative level, without much fear of detec- tion. Since this takes place sub rosu and behind closed doors, one can only guess at how many instances of modification of policies escape the attention of political superiors.

When civil servants as a group collectively resist particular policies under the cloak of feigned acquiescence, the top policy executive who is directly responsible to the political superior becomes practically help- less. The career bureaucrats may profess that what the executive de- sires regarding the enforcement of such policies will be done; but there may be at each stage of the bureaucratic hierarchy a progressively longer delay in taking the necessary steps for their implementation. The baffling thing about collective bureaucratic resistance to political direction is that it is SO elusive that the policy ofEicial can hardly pinpoint

PUBLIC ADh4lNBTRATION AS POLITICS 221

which segment of the bureaucratic establishment is answerable for the slowing down, Although the entire bureaucratic class may be presumed to be held accountable, no single civil servant can be picked out as the responsible individual. Each can easily evade responsibility through shifting the blame or making ready excuses such as alleged inadequacy of personnel or the pressure of other work. Individuals can afford to incur the displeasure of a policy official, if confident of the expressed or implied support of the majority of the career bureaucrats. Such support is usually forthcoming because the intransigents, after all, are ad- vancing what is considered to be in the common interest of the career group as a whole. The more adept and skillful the bureaucrats are in this collective resistance to new policy directions from above, the more easily they manage to modify politically approved policies, without com- mitting any clear act of open insubordination or outright Clearly, modification of the politically approved policies by the administrative establishment is practically the same as the making of new policies. Like the judiciary which makes laws and policies by its interpreta- tions, the civil service makes rules and policies administratively.

When the bureaucratic establishment, in the exercise of its rule-making or adjudicatory power, makes an administrative decision concerning personal or property rights, it is actually deciding on the allocation of privileges, benefits, and advantages among categories of individuals and among interest groups, signaling the momentary victory of one group or coalition of groups over others. Occasionally, an administrative decision is successfully taken to the judiciary for review. Then, the codlid among the contending groups reaches the judicial arena where legal knowledge, procedural skill, and forensic ability are used to make policy at that level. An issue publicly viewed to be controversial and significant enough to be challenged even after the highest court of the land has made its solemn pronouncement may again be taken up and the political combat renewed on the electoral and legislative terrains, as with the provinces’ repeated announcement that they will not abide by the Supreme Court’s decision that offshore mineral rights constitutionally belong to the Dominion.

It is hard to deny that the judiciary, because it shares the power to govern the political system, is inevitably entangled in the political process. In the selection of the judges, factors such as geographical or sec- tional representation, religious affiliation, personal ideology, and party membership of the nominee are normally involved. This, though no more true, is more frankly recognized in the United States. For example, in connection with the proposed appointment of Holmes to the Supreme Court, President Theodore Roosevelt commented in a letter to Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, “But in a higher sense, he is not in my judgment

22Seymour M. Lipset, “Bureaucracy and Social Change,” in Robert K. Merton d ul., eds., Reader in Bureaucracy, Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1960, pp. 226-7.

222 CANADIAN PUBLIC ADMIMSTRATION

fitted for the position unless he is a party man, a constructive statesman, constantly keeping in his mind his adherence to the principles and poli- ties under which this nation has been built up and in accordance with which it must go on; and keeping in mind also his relations with his feIlow statesmen who, in other branches of the government, are striving in cooperation with him to advance the ends of government.”25

Similarly revealing are the sentiments of Taft expressed in a private letter opposing the appointment of Brandeis: “It is one of the deepest wounds that I have as an American and a lover of the Constitution and a believer in progressive conservatism that such a man as Brandeis would be put in the Court. ... He is a muckraker, an emotionalist for his own purposes, a Socialist ...”%

Political and social myths are useful in that they provide stability to the political order of the community. Principles no longer consistent with social and political reality are gradually transformed into social and political myths which to a certain extent continue to shape the atti- tudes and behaviour of those who perform official or public functions. In spite of the political element in the selection of judges, the members of the judiciary have generally succeeded in performing their delicate tasks with dignity and responsibility. The myth of the independence of the judiciary from politics has persisted due to the enlightened self- restraint of the judges who, while apparently staying aloof from politics, have been able to participate in their own way in the political process of governance.

However, the policy function of judges is no longer hidden; it is mani- fest and accepted. Similarly, the civil servants cannot forever be chained to the doctrine of political neutrality. In today’s world, it is unrealistic to insist that the judges and the civil servants become or remain in our eyes as non-political beings, wrapped in the myths of the independence of the judiciary from politics and political neutrality of the civil service.

TOWARD THE POLITICAL EMANCIPATION OF THE CIVIL SERVANTS

If the prevailing major assumption that public administration is politics is correct, then civil servants who perform public administration activities are unavoidably engaged in politics. Under this assumption, it would appear to be logically inconsistent to prohibit political activity on the part of public administrators in the civil service, at least to the extent that such activities are related to public policy-making functions.

It does not seem realistic to expect public servants to administer policies contrary to their personal convictions. Under a situation of conflict of beliefs, the career public servants cannot fully execute a specific pub-

23Quoted in Felix Frankfurter, Mr. Justice H o l m and the Supreme Court, Cam- bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1938,

%Henry F. Pringle, Ltfe and Times of WilclHowurd Tuft, n, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1939, p. 952.

PuBk,IC ADMINISTRATION AS POLITICS 223 lic policy they abhor and they should not be expected If, as a result of change in political direction, certain commitments make it awkward or embarrassing for top career public administrators to shift to new policies, it may become necessary to transfer or re-assign them to equivalent positions elsewhere.

Reform involving an arrangement which confers on career public servants a rank they could carry into other positions for a given maxi- mum period, say four years, would give the necessary flexibility facili- tating administrative adaptability to political changes occurring with the change of ruling parties and political direction.26

There may still be compelling reasons for some minimal restrictions relating to the specific electoral campaign activities of civil servants, which are exclusively and highly partisan and hence, destructive of public confidence in the impartial administration of laws and public policies. Notorious identification of a civil servant with one set of political candidates may in extreme cases render him truly incapable of implementing the programs of action and policies of the victorious electoral opponents. Nevertheless, restrictions on electoral, campaign and other partisan activities should result in neither the sterilization nor the “depoliticizatim” of the civil servant or public administrator.

If public administrators are in principle accorded opportunity for full political participation, including being a candidate for legislative office, certain problem areas call for further study. For instance, what would be the probable general effect on the quality of public administration in a new system where administrative subordinates, by means of public speeches or otherwise, are free to publicly challenge the wisdom of certain lines of policies advocated by their political superiors? What administrative arrangements would be most practical to allow any member of the career administrative group the opportunity to be a candidate for political office? If leave of absence is a feasible device, what administrative adjustments are necessary to ensure the return of the career public servant to his original position (or, if that is inadvisable, to an equivalent position) in case of defeat; or, in case of success, to assure his return to the civil service upon the expiration of the tenure of his political office or the end of his political venture? Is a personnel career system based on a rank hierarchy which exists apart from the administrative structure of the governmental organization, instead of one based on the concept of position and directly related to the organizational structure, a necessary prerequisite to the full political emancipation of the career civil servants? These and other related problem areas need further study and careful exploration.

z6David M. Levitan, “The Neutrality of the Public Service,” Pubtic Administration

z6Rufus E. Miles, Jr., “Administrative Adaptability to Political Change,” Public Review, vol. n, No. 4, Autumn 1942, pp. 317-23, at 320.

Admtnistratfon Review, vol. xxv, No. 3, September 1965, pp. 221-5, at 222-3.

Documents

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AS POLITICS*