ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the understandings of the dichotomy held by Woodrow Wilson, Frank J. Goodnow, and Max Weber. It focuses on the meaning of the politics–administration dichotomy in the threefold sense. The chapter explores two diverging variants of the dichotomy from their accounts. It also presents a double-edged assessment of their position, defending them against common charges, but also subjecting them to another, less current, line of criticism. An important exception in the American literature is Hyneman, who in his Bureaucracy in a Democracy reversed the 'direction' of the dichotomy. In contrast to Wilson, Goodnow, and indeed the mainstream of American Public Administration, he argued that politics has to be defended against administration rather than vice versa. With his contrast between democracy and bureaucracy and his emphasis on the subordination of administration to politics, he closely follows Weber.
