ABSTRACT

From: Public Administration Review 53:3 (May/June 1993): 261-264. Abridged. Efforts to legitimize public administration go back a long way. In the past

decade or so, these efforts have turned toward legitimizing public administration as a separately constituted institution of government. Legitimizing public administration is something every regime has to do.

The Federalists probably saw administration legitimized as long as “a few good men” were in place to make a few good decisions. The Jacksonians had a theory of legitimate administration that was, in fact, a general theory of government within which administration was legitimized. In effect, government should not only be small within a strict construction of the Constitution, it should never be involved in any activity that is beyond the ability of the common person to administer. What the critics eventually called the “spoils system” was actually a quite sustainable and logical argument that administration was legitimate as long as it was consistent with democracy, and it was consistent with democracy as long as it was accessible to the common person. Rotation of officials in public office according to which political party was victorious could be considered a simple and logical application of the principles of democracy, especially party democracy. “Meritocracy” was the late 19th-century middle-class answer to the highly

successful legitimizing theories of the Jacksonian Democracy. What is interesting about the merit argument for a legitimate public administration is not merit itself but the associated principle of neutrality. Administrators, according to the old axiom, were to be “on tap but not on top.” They could be entrusted with the great powers and responsibilities of government not merely because they were trained in their craft and would spend a lifetime in the agency dealing with the problems of that agency, but because they added to their professionalism and training a willingness to subordinate their abilities to the wishes of the elected officials. “The neutral civil servant” was the key to legitimacy, not the professionalism by itself. This made meritocracy logically compatible with legislative supremacy, which is the core of the American Constitution. Thus, through the 19th century and well into the 20th century, several

theories were aimed at legitimizing public administration. The purpose of