Behind the public scenes of political turmoil in Washington, professional public administrators are quietly debating their own responsibilities to good government.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Two camps are emerging, both sincerely trying to reflect the values of responsible government and public service. There are distinct differences between the camps, one emphasising the democratic authority of the Trump administration and the other emphasising the principles of ethical public administration, though some are switching from one camp to the other as the administration lurches from day to day. Those more firmly in the first camp may shift to the second over time if their preferred approach proves unsuccessful.
The debates are taking place in forums of the American Society for Public Administration (the US equivalent of the Institute of Public Administration Australia) and the National Academy of Public Administration (a more specialised academy than our Academy of the Social Sciences that has a congressional charter to provide expert advice to government). Participants include current and former senior practitioners and top scholars from across the United States.
Before the election, the society and the academy cooperated in developing the Memos to National Leaders, which aim to identify key challenges and guide the new administration. Coordinated by the academy's chairman, Paul Posner, a professor at George Mason University and former senior Government Audit Office leader, the memos covered 25 public management and policy subjects (see box below). Each was prepared by an acknowledged expert in that field and subject to careful review, and written to be helpful for whichever candidate won the election. The composite might be considered "best practice" in advice from professional associations (geared, of course, to US institutional arrangements and current US issues). They are, however, being totally ignored right now by the Trump administration.
The first camp, while disappointed that the memos have had no affect to date, is strongly committed to serving the elected government whatever the weaknesses of its policies. Donald Trump will not avoid owning his administration's handling of events on its watch, whether these are initiated by his own policies or by incidents requiring government response. Those in this camp note how George W. Bush never recovered from the debacle over Hurricane Katrina, nor Barack Obama, really, from the disastrous handling of the computer roll-out of Obamacare; Trump will surely be determined to avoid such political disasters and protect his reputation. Eventually, he will need help from expert public administrators, whether political appointees, civil servants or seconded academics.
Within this camp are some more supportive than others, as they see the new administration providing the opportunity for much needed rethinking about long-standing policy and management issues that have left many Americans behind and allowed a complacent establishment to continue unchecked.
Those in this camp also highlight the complexity of the issues Trump has already identified in his policy statements. Amending Obamacare will require consideration not only of healthcare and health financing but also of the implications for federal relationships. The so-called "wall" between the US and Mexico will require cooperation among a wide range of federal agencies, several states and, of course, Mexico, and will involve not just construction but ongoing administration and clarification of the status of people now living and working across America. Tax "reform" will involve more than revenue and distributional effects, including federal-state implications, economic efficiency and, in all likelihood, a range of other policy effects if the agenda affects tax expenditures. As one senior academy fellow put it, Trump's business approach is all about top-down vertical control but every major public issue requires horizontal management.
The second camp questions the first camp's assumption that eventually some mutual trust will emerge. This would require Trump and his core team to respect the values of public administration – including impartiality, non-partisan management and commitment to serve all the Americans – as well as firm ethical standards. Trump's very character makes this at best uncertain. Moreover, the continued claim by key Trump supporters of a "deep state" throughout the federal public sector determined to thwart the elected government would seem to place an enormous obstacle to eventual collaboration and alignment.
This antagonism, exemplified by the "drain the swamp" rhetoric, goes further than Ronald Reagan's claim that "government is the problem", in that Reagan nonetheless made senior appointments who were experienced administrators able to work with government agencies and the civil service. So far, Trump has yet to nominate candidates for the vast majority of political positions: fewer than 100 nominations have been made for the 1100 positions requiring congressional approval, and a similarly low proportion of appointments made for the other 3000 political positions. Some people are suggesting he does not think the positions are needed. This does not mean he is happy to rely more heavily on the civil service but that perhaps he is unconvinced that many functions of government are needed at all or need to be managed by government officials. This "home alone" syndrome, as some are referring to it, adds further to the difficulty of those in the first camp ever being successful: with whom do they work to achieve collaboration and alignment?
What are those in the second camp advocating? It depends on where they sit. For those inside the civil service, the options are limited: mostly behind the scenes reinforcement of ethical standards and, when opportunities arise, lawful public statements about the role and responsibilities of different agencies and of the civil service; when push comes to shove, "whistleblowing" may well be justified about both unlawful behaviour and the inevitable deterioration in performance; and, if there are irreconcilable differences, resignation. Those outside have more freedom but they still need to be careful not to be easily typecast as partisan if they wish to have influence in Congress and to provide comfort to those inside government.
For the most part, I have been an observer only of these discussions and debates over the last two weeks. But I have also noted the responsibility that the society and academy's leaders have to promote the public service values they have articulated to their members across all levels of government and among both their political and non-political members. That, in my view, cautions against too readily accepting the second camp's approach, which could so easily be self-fulfilling: nothing more quickly confirms distrust than leaking confidential information. Moreover, new governments always take time to settle, and agencies' civil servants always take time to appreciate the philosophy and style of a new government and what needs to change to get alignment and allow collaboration.
Yet the second camp is not just being difficult. Trump's character and the agenda of some of his supporters raise very serious issues for public administrators and the upholding of age-old values of responsible government. Just before the US election, I had a fascinating discussion with the society's then new president-elect, Janice LaChance (a former head of the Office of Personnel Management, with broadly similar responsibilities to those of the Australian Public Service Commission), when we were in China talking to the US-educated dean of Renmin University's school of public administration. His school's role, he said, was not to teach China's Politbureau members but to help build the capability of potential leaders at all levels and in all arms of government, because, unlike the US, China has yet to build the institutional capability to withstand the foibles of some future bad president. The American public administration society and academy's responsibility now is to protect and nurture those wider institutional arrangements on which the US depends.
Andrew Podger, a former departmental secretary and public service commissioner, is a professor of public policy at the ANU's College of Arts and Social Sciences. He attended the American Society for Public Administration and the National Academy of Public Administration's discussions late last month. andrew.podger@anu.edu.au
