The Public Administration Theory Primer

28 2: Th eories of Political Control of Bureaucracy

cannot be controlled. It does mean that elected offi cials and upper-level public
administrators oft en hold diff erent values and beliefs about democratic gov-
ernment and about organizational eff ectiveness. John Nalbandian (1995), a city
mayor and a professor of public administration, sets out these contrasting val-
ues as shown in Figure 2.7.
At the city level, following Nalbandian, Svara, Timothy Bledsoe, and others,
elected offi cials and bureaucrats clearly have diff erent values. Th eir views of their
roles and activities diff er, as do their tools and conversations. Although there may
not be a literal politics-administration dichotomy, there certainly is a dichotomy
of values. Elected offi cials and political analysts might regard the city bureaucracy
as out of control. It isn’t. It isn’t out of control, but it is infl uenced by values that
are, at times, diff erent from ordinary political values.
Th e evidence indicates that street-level bureaucrats have some discretion in
policy implementation as well as considerable infl uence in policymaking. In re-
cent research on schools, Kenneth Meier, Joseph Stewart Jr., and Robert England
compared three hypotheses regarding the direction of policy discretion by public
administrators:

Th e underclass hypothesis contends that political systems are biased in the dis-

tribution of policy outputs, that poor and minority residents receive a less than

equal share of city services. Th e elections hypothesis views politics as a way either

to counter the class bias of urban government or to reinforce it. Th e elections

hypothesis suggests that political elites will distribute urban services to benefi t

FIGURE 2.7 Political and Administrative Values

Politics Administration

ACTIVITY

PLAYERS

PIECES

CURRENCY

CONVERSATION

DYNAMICS

Game

Representatives

Interests/Symbols

Power

What do you hear?

Conflict, Compromise,

and Change

Problem solving

Experts

Information, Money,

People, Things

Knowledge

What do you know?

Harmony, Cooperation,

and Continuity

C I T Y M A N A G E R