Administration and Politics Dichotomy

Administration and Politics Dichotomy 1 Woodrow Wilson’s essay, “The Study of Administration” (1887), is about the

separation of politics and administration in public administration. There is still a lot of

debating among politicians and scholars alike whether this dichotomy is practical or not.

There are some advantages and disadvantages about this theory.

Wilson believed that it was needed to discover what the government could

successfully do and how it could be done more efficiently; that the government needed to

be reformed. He developed this theory because of increased corruption, urbanization and

immigration. Due to these issues, he believed that less qualified people were getting

public service jobs, therefore contributing to the increasing inefficiency of public

administration. Wilson felt that politics should determine what the government should

actually do and be decided by elected representatives. He believed administration should

be the ones to put these policies into effect by appointed civil servants.

In a euphoric world a political administration dichotomy would provide a solid

foundation to a nation. It could even be beneficial in a society that is evolving; such as
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one coming out of a third world status, the fall of a dictatorship, or even the overthrow of

communism or socialism. This form of government can work well at a small town

environment where there is a town manager to run the day to day operations of the

community and a board of alderman (possibly also known as town council) that creates

the laws the community operates under.

That being said, it is my opinion that in today’s United States of America,

separating politics and administration is not something that can be done successfully.

Throughout the years politics has become more complicated, which means the line

between them has become very blurry. All levels of the government have come to rely

on each other more and more. For example, every day new policies and laws are made or

amended, and that means more people on more levels need to be consulted. Life is ever-

changing, and so are all of the policies.

The major advantage of implementing political administration dichotomy is

politicians and administrators would be operating of the same philosophy of doing the

right thing and not off of doing what each political party says. It could provide rationale

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for insulating the practice of public administration from political interference.

A disadvantage of implementing a political administration dichotomy at the

national level in a modern industrial nation that was previously run by a democratic

government, such as the United States of America, would require having an exclusive

relationship between the politicians who create political policies and the public

administrators who oversee the administrative processes. This would remove the check

and balance system established in the United States Constitution. These checks and

balances have become the foundation of law in this country.

Wilson’s public administration dichotomy theory would make the governmental

life so much simpler. Unfortunately, the world and the people in it are anything but

simple. To believe that we could have one group of people make up the policies, and

another to put those in to action without those people relying on each other’s opinions

and knowledge is absurd. The idea is so simple, but implementing it would be so

complicated. The debate about the practicality of this dichotomy had been going on since

it was written in 1887, and will probably still

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References

Stillman, Richard J. II, (2010). Public Administration Concepts and Cases (ninth edition), 6 - 15

References: Stillman, Richard J. II, (2010). Public Administration Concepts and Cases (ninth edition), 6 - 15