ABSTRACT
After the field of public administration was already established and the emergent welfare state began its extensive programs, it became evident that the dichotomy between politics and administration was no longer realistic. As government intervention became common, and interest-group liberalism took hold, it became obvious that public agencies themselves were reaching to different constituencies, influencing them and adapting to their needs. This meant change in one of the assumptions upon which the field had been founded-clear, fixed laws of democratic structure where every institution is assigned its specific and exclusive role. It was recognized that there is no set role for public administration in a democratic political system, rather that public administration reflects changes in the society and simultaneously shapes them. Thus, a major trend in public administration has been the movement away from the idea of ‘‘neutrality’’ and toward the idea of ‘‘politics.’’ Although early advocates of administrative neutrality argued that administrators merely implement public policies, that assumption now was seen as naive. It was recognized that values intrude on administration from many external sources and are also present in even supposedly ‘‘objective’’ internal decisions as to policy implementation, and that bureaucrats are necessarily policymakers as much as any other participants in the process.
