Blending Professionalism and Political Acuity: Empirical Support for an Emerging Ideal

Public Administration Review

Nyhan

2008

114

The politics–administration dichotomy has been one of the most disputed theories of public administration. Despite serious critiques, neither the theoretical utility nor the normative power of the dichotomy has totally disappeared over the past decades. The dichotomy has been advocated on the grounds that the dichotomous division of labor and authority between elected and administrative officials increases the democratic accountability and planning ability of public administrators. This article first builds a theoretical model of the politics–administration dichotomy and then evaluates the model using empirical data collected from a nationwide sample of city managers serving in council‐manager local governments. Results of structural equation modeling illustrate that the politics–administration dichotomy fails to obtain its predicted tendencies in actuality. The authors interpret the findings in light of the contemporary public administration literature. The article aims to make a theoretical‐empirical contribution to one of the most challenging questions in public administration.

Section: Political Guidancementioning

confidence: 95%

The Politics–Administration Dichotomy: An Empirical Search for Correspondence between Theory and Practice

Public Administration Review

Nyhan

2008

114

“…Public administration scholars have treated administrative involvement in conflict resolution in relation to Downloaded by [University of Chicago Library] at 13:34 26 December 2014 1. its impact on emotional stress and turnover among managers, 2. political identification as a result of involvement in conflict, and 3. conflict resolution skills of public administrators which would determine the success or failure of their efforts in the end (e.g., Sparrow, 1984;Newell & Ammons, 1987;Daniel & Rose, 1991;Kaatz, French, & Prentiss-Cooper, 1999). The complex and diverse policy environment is laden with conflicting forces, and this inevitably requires managerial involvement in conflict resolution.…”

Section: Conflict Resolution: Responsiveness and Representationmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…E-mail: tansu.demir@utsa.edu this image and search for alternative role conceptualizations for public administrators, consequently making the profession more encompassing in terms of the values it embraces (Kammerer, 1964;Booth, 1968;Daniel & Rose, 1991;Nalbandian, 2000;Nalbandian & Nalbandian, 2003). Responsiveness emerged as an important value and point of strong emphasis in the contemporary literature, reflecting, in large part, the increasing critique on bureaucracy for its failure to meet the expectations and demands of elective institutions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Professionalism, Responsiveness, and Representation: What do They Mean for City Managers?

International Journal of Public Administration

2011

public administrators are expected to be responsive to their elected superiors. As representatives of the community, they are expected to voice the concerns and demands of citizens. Professionalism, responsiveness, and representation all are considered fundamental values that must be reflected in administrative decisions and actions. Despite the importance of these three values for public administration, insufficient empirical research has been done to examine what these values mean for public administrators. That is, the critical question that remains unanswered is: "What activities of public administrators are associated with these three values?" Based on a nationwide survey of city managers, this article identifies critical activities in which public administrators get involved, then reduces these activities into factors (dimensions), and finally examines the correlation of these factors with attitudes of city managers towards professionalism, responsiveness, and representation. The findings of this research help make these three values more concrete by associating them with major policy and political activities of city managers.

“…Because a large part of the research has not been guided by an explicit or articulate theoretical framework, most of the findings turned out to be mixed and inconclusive, open to being interpreted in conflicting ways that may support one school or the other. For example, it is quite possible to interpret a low yet positive correlation between professionalism and political acuity (e.g., Daniel & Rose, 1991) as support for the political school or the separation school, depending on the researcher's perspective and expectations.…”

Section: Empirical Approach: a Search For Fit Between Theory And Pracmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some studies specified and tested hypotheses to understand whether public administrators are effective in politics. For example, Daniel and Rose (1991) measured the correlation between professionalism and political acuity. Although the correlation between the two turned out to be somewhat low, the authors presented the findings as empirical support to the emerging ideal of blending professionalism and politics.…”

Section: Empirical Approach: a Search For Fit Between Theory And Pracmentioning

confidence: 99%

Politics and Administration

Administrative Theory & Praxis

2009

The question of how public administration fits into the governance process of a democratic society has been of great concern to scholars and practitioners since the emergence of public administration as an academic field of study in the late 1880s. The politics-administration relationship is considered of pivotal importance, as the issue bears important implications for both the disciplinary identity (and autonomy) and the institutional development of public administration. Despite a voluminous literature on the subject, the question remains unanswered. Scholarly inquiry to this date identifies two major positions, one separation and the other its opposite, political. Unlike prior conceptualizations, this article distills the literature into three major schools of thought as separation, political, and interaction. The article then examines the state of the research that has followed three strands as historical, conceptual, and empirical. The author makes an overall evaluation of the past research and lays out a different approach in studying this important question.