Administration and Politics: Two Related Domains During 1920s and 1930s, a widespread perception prevailed to delink politics from administration. Also called the politics-administration dichotomy, it had roots in the Progressive Reformism of Western cultural history, The politics- administation dichotuimy intended ty separate adininisuative tasks fui political maneuvering. Sunply put, it aimed to exclude politicians from admmnistrative policy making and policy implementation.
Woodrow Wilson, one of the pioneers of the orthodox model of public administration, said, “[t]he field of administration is a field of business. It is removed from the hurry and strife of politics’(1 887). Matters of administration were different from matters of politics. Though politics determined administrative duties, it should not interfere in the discharge Of administrative functions. Since administration was often found tangled with politics, he believed that civil service reform in particular and administrative reform in general could ensure separation of administration from politics. Administration, devoid of politics, would help to improve methods of appointment and carrying out executive functions as well as establish the sanctity of public office and restore public trust (Wilson ibid.).
Dwight Waldo held views contrary to the orthodox model of public administration. His experience in the field of public administration witnessed intertwining of politics and administration. This explained his averseness to the very idea or model of strict division between politics and administration expected to eliminate risks of bureaucratisation of politics and politicisation of administration (Svara, op.cit.). In the words of H. George Frederickson, Waldo’s critique challenged the basic axioms of public administration “particularly the assumption that public administration is the neutral and objective management of State affairs” (Lowery, 2001).
Inthe Book, ‘The Administrative State: A Study of the Political Theory of American Public Administration’ (1948), Waldo made certain essential observations: (1) the rigid separation of politics from administration was untenable. The positions of public servants required doing more than merely implementing policies crafted by elected representatives.
Administrative policies, procedures, and actions were located within political assumptions and preterences so that administrators based their work within the framework of constitutional democracy, (2) bureaucracy (connected with values of scientific management) and democracy (related to values of humanistic management) were found to be ina strained relation so that career public servants were compelled to adhere to democratic principles. (3) efficiency (as propounded by scientific management movement) had to be negotiated with due process and public access to government, and (4) the business-like view of government was not feasible because public servants were bound to uphold the Constitution and other democratic imperatives.
Administration and Politics: A Nuanced View
In his earlier writings (from 1940s to 1950s), Waldo adopted a pragmatist view where politics and administration (rather than politics-versus-administration) were a reality.
Herbert Simon, Paul Appleby, H. George Frederickson, Kevin B. Smith, and many others credited Waldo for demolishing the pre-World War II belief in politics- administration dichotomy (Brown and Stillman (1986). In the seventh chapter of “The Administrative State’ Waldo( 1948) coined the term “heterodoxy” to signify the mid 20th-century critical position against politics-administration dichotomy and saw himself as a representative of heterodoxy. The critical attitude towards dichotomy was carried forward in Waldo’s other works such as “The Study of Public Administration’ (1955), and lecture series on ‘Perspectives on Administration’ (1956). Thus, most of Waldo’s early publications echoed his dissatisfaction with the politics-administration dichotomy.
Curiously, Waldo never used the word “dichotomy” in any of his works. In ‘The Administrative State’, he called it politics-administration “formula” (1948: 115, 12], 208), “distinction” (1948: 116), “notion” (1948; 115, 123), and “axiom” (1948: 110).
He used the words “politics-administration” (1948: 75, 207) and “dichotomy” individually. While dichotomy meant separation, the rest of the terms indicated allocation or balance or expounded spheres of'administration or class of officials (Svara, op.cit.)
Overeem (op.cit.) questioned exactly what was Waldo ardently rejecting in his writings. He noted that Waldo rejected the orthodox model of strict separation of politics from administration, which was popular prior to World War IT. His hetcrodoxical stance disagreed only with the “spirit of rigid separatism” between deciding and executing. Moreover, Waldo rejected the separation of decision-making from execution arising from Constitutional division of powers. As a result, he rejected comparison of administration with execution because administrative work was more than “a mechanical application of political decisions made elsewhere, but is suffused with politics and concerned with policy making”.
One may consider Waldo’s later writings (from 1970s onwards), where the focus still remained on Waldo’s notion and appraisal of the dichotomy. After his acquaintance with Max Weber's writings on bureaucracy, his focus shifted from interceding politics and administration or deciding and executing to negotiating democracy and bureaucracy. He described democracy substantively (involving values of humanistic management such as equality, liberty, free association, widespread debate, representation, opportunity, and dissent) while he defined bureaucracy procedurally like Weber (involving values of scientific management such as hierarchy, expertise, discipline, control of communication, efficiency, legalistic and formal procedures, and impersonal relationships). Now, Waldo re-evaluated politics- administration dichotomy where “he clearly spoke up for the dichotomy” suggesting that the stiff institutional distinction might be possible in theory but not quite so in practice. Waldo’s lifelong fascination with politics-administration dichotomy requires a nuanced understanding. Overeem marked that Waldo was “neither a champion nor an opponent of the dichotomy” because he added qualifiers to his earlier criticism of dichotomy and he remained elusive about the idea of dichotomy by attaching it to a wide range of issues.
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