The Protection of the Public Interest with Special Reference to Administrative Regulation

Abstract

There are two aspects of the relation between government and interest groups which are of primary significance for the political scientist. One is the realistic approach to the study of interest groups, which gives attention to the demands of groups, their pressure on government, and the ways government yields to or tries to accommodate their conflicting demands. The other is the idealist tradition that the purpose of the state is the common weal, which has been expressed diversely, as for example, in the concepts of salus populi suprema lex and "public office is a public trust." If these two were necessarily in conflict, we should have to choose between ethical nihilism and utopianism. This paper moves from the assumptions that realism and idealism both have a place in the study of political science, today as in ancient tradition, and that in the study of the particular problem of government control of the economy, analysis of the upward impact of interest pressures and their accommodation through government policies should be supplemented by a search for the best means of strengthening the impact of the concept of the common weal in the decision-making process.

Public Values Theory: What Is Missing?

“…Public interest theory was a primary theory focus in political science and public administration for many decades, especially the first half of the 20th century when intellectual giants such as Carl Friedrich (1940), Harold Lasswell and McDougal, 1942, and Emmette Redford (1954) framed their work in public interest concepts. Pendleton Herring’s (1936) work in public interest theory provided a spur, not only because of his academic credentials but also due to further attention received during his service as president of the American Political Science Association.…”

Reflections on Defining the Public Interest

“…Following Sorauf, political scientist Glendon Schubert (1960) used typological language, where the goal is to provide a working definition and to try and link theory to practice. Schubert (1960) provided a three-group definition of administrative decision making in the public interest: (a) Rationalists, who traced the public interest within the rational, logical positivist framework of the decision-making process, leaned heavily on the work of Herbert Simon (1976) and others for justification; (b) Platonists, who viewed the public interest in a highly moral world, such as Emmette Redford (1954), who argued that administrative decisions are based on the common interests of society, and Paul Appleby (1952), who contended that the public interest was greater than the sum of private interests, administrative, political, economic, or even social; and (c) the Realists, who argued that the public administrator is merely a catalyst through which conflict, criticism, and compromise among various interest groups is examined, analyzed, and transmitted into framing the public interest-what is logical and reasonable is given to the parties involved, the question at hand, and the outcomes sought. Thus, Schubert (1960) contended that the public interest as a working empirical concept was "dead on arrival" and effectively a nonentity.…”

“…E. Long (1991). For additional discussion of the role of administrative regulation and the protection of the public interest, see Redford (1954). Herring himself provided further insight into his administrative autonomy thesis.…”