Editorial: Have an Administrative Rx? Don't Forget the Politics!

Editor in Chief In this period of calls for administrative rebuilding, refounding, reinventing, and just plain improving, it is important to remember that there has been and continues to be a politics of administrative prescription (National Commission on the Public Service, 1989; Wamsley et al., 1990; Osborne and Gaebler, 1992; DiIulio, Garvey, and Kettl, 1993). Recommendations for administrative reforms at the federal level inevitably involve issues of the separation of powers and the distribution of burdens and benefits in the polity. Calling for management impact statements is insufficient. We need a full-fledged discussion of the political impact of the would-be reformers' prescriptions. For surely the day is long past when proponents of change can act as if there are no tradeoffs, collective action problems, or fundamental disagreements over the means and ends of government. A look at the historical record shows that if we buy into significant administrative reform, then we are also buying into significant political change. Let's take a brief and (by now) conventional look.