Clemons and McBeth - MavDISK

CHAPTER 2
THE RATIONAL PUBLIC POLICY METHOD
Mini-Cases
"McNamara's Retrospective: Rational Decision Making?"
"The Small Town Health Clinic"
ro understand and evaluate the rational model of policy analysis, you need to understand its
~enesis, history, and evolution, including the critical reaction it spurred. After providing you
.viththat base we explain the rational model and provide one case (Vietnam) where it is tradiionally
blamed, perhaps erroneously, for producing poor policy. Next we offer another case
:hatdemonstrates how the rational model can help policy analysis, and we discuss its relevance
,n practice. We then provide you with the tools necessary to evaluate this and other models
:>eforeconcluding the chapter.
Genesis of the Rational Model
The debates over the U.S. Constitution revolved around notions of decentralization versus
:entralization and participation versus hierarchy. Alexander Hamilton, who favored a strong
~xecutive and decision making by experts, argued that democratic decision making could not
)e made by emotional citizens. Instead, Hamilton envisioned a democracy in which an enjghtened
few made policy in the best interests of the masses.
Others such as Thomas Jefferson, although he was not in Philadelphia for the Convenjon,
expressed the belief that democracy must be about decentralization and empowerment
)f the people. In theory, the Constitution created a republican (representative) system of
:hecks and balances and separation of powers that would allow for calm deliberation. In pracice,
however, the initial reality was that Jefferson's view predominated.
For at least the first hundred years, the United States was a country with a relatively small
ederal government.' The political philosophy of the country was one of laissez.Caire
'The Constitution was ratified in 1789. Fifty-two years later, in 1841, the total number of civilians working
Jr the federal government was barely over 18,000. Fifty years later, in 1891. the total was still less than 160,000ut
four years earlier (1887), Congress had created the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). the first regulalOry
~ency. By 1990. the total number of civilian federal employees had peaked at more than 3.5 million. Today there
'e under 3 million. Of course, it is also true that fewer than one-fifth of all govenunent employees work for the fed.
'31government. By far, the largest percentage of employees. work at the ]ocallevel.
CHAPTER2 . THE RATIONAL PUBUC POUCy METHOD
economics, and the primary role of the government was to protect property and control interstate
cornmerce and to control and protect U.S. interests in the realm of international trade. The
states had the power to maintain the safety, health, welfare, and morals of the people under the
Constitution.
Unfortunately, or perhaps inevitably, Jefferson's view of a decentralized government
educating citizens in the principles of civic virtue was not realized either. Instead, state and
local governments were plagued by patronage, corruption, and generally sloppy decisionmaking
practices.
At the federal level, government had been transformed by the rnid-1800s from a
Government by Gentlemen to a system of patronage and frequent corruption. At the same
time, after the Civil War, American society changed fundamentally from an insular agrarian
country to an international and urbanized country. For the first time in its history, the country
had to deal on a large scale with problems like crime, poverty, pollution, monopolization of
industry, economic trade issues, and the growth of technology. These new problems generated
the need for complex policy and competent civil servants.
The assassination of President Garfield in July 1881 at Union Station in Washington, D.C.,
by a disgruntled job seeker named Charles Julius Guiteau, helped spur Congress into creating
a merit-based civil service by passing the Pendleton Act in 1883. This represented the first attempt
to rationalize the bureaucracy and hence to rationalize government decision making. In
accordance with Max Weber's dictum of the ideal bureaucracy, the federal bureaucracy was
staffed (ideally) by neutral experts who would make decisions not under the influence of the
irrationalities of politics but rather through rational, competent, businesslike and scientific
methods of analysis.'
WoodrowWilson published The Study of Administration (1887), making a complex
argument that politics and administration should be separated, largely to protect the administrative
sphere from partisanship, exploitation, and corruption. The separation of politics and
administration is known as the politics/administration dichotomy. Others followed Wilson's
path. Goodnow (1900), more focused on this issue than Wilson, attempted to make clear the
distinction between politics (legislation that follows the public will) and administration (the
execution of that legislation by experts). Gulick (1937) argued that, over time, the decisions
of government would become so complex that only expert bureaucracies could make
informed and sound public policies.
The Rational Public Policy Method
The theories of scientific management-an idea most closely associated with the work of
Frederick Winslow Taylor (1911 )-also influenced the interpretation of what the relationship
should be between politics and administration.Taylor, who pioneered time and motion
'It is generally acknowledged that Max Weber, a Gennan sociologist, developed the classic exposition of
bureaucracies. Weber referred to his model as "ideal" but was not implying that it was ideal in the sense of being
perfect. Rather. he was merely laying forth the hypothetically pure. or archetypal. fonn. Clemons thoroughly
explains bureaucracy as a principle of organization, considers the power of bureaucracies. and discusses the relevance
of bureaucracy to democracy in an essay in Freeman (1997, 175-90).
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