Emmanuel A. Turuka
Western Michigan University
Introduction
The
great economic depression of the 1930s and WWII forced President Franklin D.
Roosevelt to come up with New Deal initiatives. The Great Depression resulted
in rapid declines in the production and sale of goods and a sudden, severe rise
in unemployment. More than 15 million Americans, one quarter of the nation’s
workforce, were unemployed. President Roosevelt decided to create the program known as the New
Deal to overcome the effects of the Great Depression. Then he called on the
federal government to create more jobs through public works and to promote
recovery by regulating production, prices and working conditions. These
programs increased employment and forced the government to establish new
agencies to take over the new duties rather than continuing using the old
institutions. (p.5). It is from this background David H. Rosenbloom came up
with the book Building a Legislative Centered Public Administration.
This
book illustrates an understanding how the passage of New Deal initiatives
marked the rise of a legislative-centered administration with Congress is shaping
the structure, focuses on agencies as the extensions, and vesting much of its
legislative authority in the hands of administrative agencies. (p.4)
The
author highlights the legislation that followed the post WW II growth of the
administrative state, especially the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946.
Through the reform, Congress had lost its sense of institutional role. This is
because the legislature had been overwhelmed by rapid growth in the federal
government‘s role in the economy and society. As a result of the expansion of
federal administration there were years of budget deficits. Congress was uneasy
about all the expansive development; hence, it was forced by federal administrative
state to reposition itself. According to Rosenbloom (2002) “Congress had lost
its mission and was consequently atrophying and become irrelevant” (p.1). In
solving this problem, Congress established a relationship with large and more
extensive agencies and found a way internally to meet the demands stemming from
policy proliferation and reelection.
The
growing complexity of many public policies gave Congress no alternatives but to
share policymaking power. Rosenbloom (2002), argues that “Administration is actually a continuation of
the legislative process: the primary purpose of congressional direction of
administration is to improve the legislative functions by providing feedback,
reducing slippage through, maladministration, and securing more faithful
implementation of statutory goals” (p.62; Stillman II, 1982). Therefore the
rule making became a common way for Congress to delegate to federal agencies
while retaining control. Congress provided authority over many of these
agencies on an on going basis. Hence, the result has been legislative- centered
public administration.
The
author argues that the cooperative effort by legislators and federal
administrators to make policy has not always been peaceful. Federal agencies
had traditionally been looked upon as the implementers of public policy. They
were allowed some discretion in the implementation of the law but with the passage
of the 1946 legislation, there evolved a “collective understanding by Congress
that because agencies exercise legislative power to regulate the economy and
society they should be considered as adjuncts, (p.21).
Rosenbloom argues that legislative-centered public
administration is the only answer the nation has come up with tried to answer
the following question: what is the correct role for Congress in the
administration of the federal government after the New Deal and WW II
initiatives? In this regard, Congress is responsible for administrative
organization authority and procedures as well as for directing supervision and
controlling activity. There is no strict dichotomy between politics and
administration. Administrative decisions and actions are often political
because they allocate benefits and burdens like rule making vis-à-vis
enforcement of both personnel and budgeting systems. According to Rosenbloom,
legislative-centered public administration rejects the political administration
dichotomy; it is difficult to separate constitutional structure and procedure
from administration because public administration includes legislative functions.
(p.58, Ostrom Stillman)
The author contends that one of the results of
legislative-centered administration has been the adoption of legislative values
like openness, public accountability, representativeness and responsiveness by
many public agencies. As Waldo argues administrator must focus on who gets
what, and who doesn’t get anything and why? (Waldo). Another result has been
the transfer of much constituency work from Congress to the agencies (105). The
purpose of this is to make Congress more efficient and to strengthen it as an
institution. According to this philosophy, politics and administration are not
two antagonistic elements because each part depends very much on the other part
for the effective accomplishment of its sphere of actions. In fact, they are
two parts of the same coin, and in reality, they work jointly no matter what.
What comes to mind is that administrative agencies have become central to
government and politics, but at the same time, administrators are required to
adhere to legislative values when making rules because the responsibility to do
so has been delegated to them by Congress.
Before
turning to what is missing in this book let us look at the difference between
Rosenbloom outlooks with Stillman. Rosenbloom shows the development and
involvement in agency in American administration, while Stillman reminds us
that the American public administration, was constructed by principle of strong
individualistic, and more values,
In discussing
what is missing in Rosebloom book I agree with the author’s advice, “critics of
legislative-centered public administration would probably do better to work
within its parameters than reject it entirely” (p.155). Because of its
theoretical coherence, historical background, and a measure of legitimacy, as
Frank Goodnow held that “while the age that has passed was a one of
constitutional, the present age is one of administrative reform whether we like
or not because of reform legislative centered public administration is here to
stay.
The author failed to explain in detailed the lack of
clarifications in case of theoretical ambiguity concerning the legitimacy of
public administration, in execution of issues of delegation, which mighty
arises from policy making, judicial review and etc. Under the New deal,
administrative officials were increasing being assigned responsibility for
accomplishing complex and controversial goals with few reliable protections
against the abuse of power, because such ambiguity can perpetuate inefficient
in the long run. This situation needs more clarifications (Derteli, Finer,
1940, Friedrich 1940. Goodnow).
The critical problem, which one can see, is that
when the administrative agencies become the fourth branch of the government how
cans one make an analysis about the role of enforcement of administration?
Rosenbloom argues that “It is clearly observed here that, there is no guarantee
that enforcement will be fair as the separation of powers collapse into the
agencies, administrators becoming the lawmakers, prosecutors, juries and
judges of their own laws” (p.31). There is a need to harmonize this situation
for efficiency, transparency and responsiveness in fulfilling the duties. The
author has not provided enough explanation on how to handle this situation when
the problem arises. On the same line Herman Fines argued that responsible
administration in a democracy could only be ensured through external control;
they are responsible to the elected representative of the public. (Finer,
1940.p.336, Frank Goodnow pp.97-98)
Conclusion
The author has made clear the
relationship between Congress and Federal agencies, especially, after the Great
Depression and WW II and the New Deal initiatives which were introduced by
President Roosevelt. The book is very useful for public administrators because
it creates a foundation of Public Administration. Successful public
administrators are those skilled with management professions and public law
knowledge, and have the ability to practice it more openly. The administration is much more about performance
and doing the right thing at the right time. Despite the shortcomings, ‘Building
a Legislative Centered Public Administration’ is one of
the best books in the context of the American practice of public administration. I
recommend the book to those who are inspired to work in public administration
within the U.S. context to read this book intensively. It is an excellent work,
which deserves congratulations, and I believe it can be used as a leadership
tutorial handbook to someone who wants to be an effective public administrator
he/she must read this book. I would call it a must read book.
Reference:
Finer H. (1940). Administrative
responsibility in democratic government. Public Administration Review, 1 (4) 35
–50
Friedrich C. J. (1940) Public Policy
and Nature of Administrative Responsibility in Public Policy: A yearbook of the
graduate school of public administration. Harvard University Press.
Goodnow F. J. (1990) Politics and
Administration:
A study in Government. New York
Russell and Russell.
Wilson W. (1887). The study of
administration. Political Sciences Quarterly 2 (2) 1997- 222.
Ostrom V. (1973). The intellectual
crisis in public administration. University of Alabama Press
Stillman R. (1982). The changing
patterns of public administration theory in America
Waldo D (1948). The administrative
state: A study of the political theory American public administration. New
York. The Ronald Press
