Parties and American Administration

Abstract Public administration has long defined itself in distinction to politics. Reprising Weber and Goodnow’s view that public bureaucracies and parties are the two dominant organizational forms in modern politics, this essay argues that the more relevant distinction is between administration and parties: in a representative democracy, parties are administration’s inevitable rival. Important aspects of American institutional and administrative design sought to curb partisan influence over administration, but with necessarily temporary and partial success. Today, partisanship hinders administrative efficacy and is driving contraction of administrative capacity. More significantly, partisans have learned to use the forms of administration to pursue ideological goals inimical to core public administrative values of efficiency and equity. It is now urgent for public administration, despite a reasonable aversion to discussing partisanship, to confront the intense, ongoing partisan challenge to the working of American administrative institutions.