Book Reviews: Values for Public Administration Renewal

Richard Stillman II, Creating the American State: The Moral Reformers and the Modern Administrative World They Made (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1998). 207 pp., $29.95 cloth. Introduction Public administration did not fare well during the last half of the twentieth century. Whereas during the first hall Progressive Era machine politics, depression, and world war seemed to catalyze the public administration community into greater heights of creativity and ingenuity, things changed slowly, then more noticeably during the latter hall American public administration entered the post-Progressive Era attempting to live off the intellectual capital generated by the Progressive founders. Lately, there are promising signs of creativity that may end this interregnum era. Scholars of public administration are now searching for not only new governing theory but also new core values to energize the profession. Three recent and notable attempts warrant the consideration of those interested in the renewal of the profession. Collectively considered, the books by Stillman, Stivers, and Rosenbloom bear some similarities. Each is written by an established scholar from the field. Each is well-researched, and each grounds the argument for renewal in twentieth-century history. Finally, each identifies values that could renew the field. However, beyond these commonalities, similarities wane. The Stillman book chronicles the lives of seven individuals whose dedication, determination, and values contributed to the early twentieth-century state. Hence, renewal lies with strong individuals, tenacity, and moral values. The Stivers book compares and contrasts the reform strategies of Progressive Era men who worked in various bureaus of municipal research with that of women who worked in settlement houses. Hence, women should be included in the renewal of twenty-first century public administration. The Rosenbloom book traces the development of congressional involvement in agency administration. Hence, the legislature must be a prominent feature of twenty-first century renewal. One understandable response to the disagreements among three prominent authors is pessimism. Why should a public servant aspire to be professional when the so-called gurus of the profession disagree? Academic disagreement ran rampant in the post-Progressive Era, and this disagreement did not serve the profession well. Is this typical post-Progressive academic wrangling? Can anything be accomplished by reading three books written by academicians who come to different conclusions? I think so! Here's why. One reason for reading these three books is that they serve notice that a new value base for the profession may be forming, different from the one that launched the profession over one hundred years ago. The old value base was not indigenous to America. Rather, the values that spawned the profession were substantially drawn from the European experience. Imagine the frustration of turn of the twentieth century reformers such as Woodrow Wilson or Luther Gulick who were forced to rely upon foreign expertise and foreign experience. In contrast, the new value base identified by Stillman, Stivers, and Rosenbloom is a distinctively American value base. These three authors urge administrative renewal--reasoning wholly within the context of the American historical experience. These authors do not rely on a twenty-first century analog of Henri Fayol. The very existence of these books suggests that in the next century, American experience, not the experience of other nations, will be the primary historical context for reasoning about the next wave of American reform. A second reason for reading these books is that these authors are quite careful. In contrast to intellectuals who would acquire an audience by fanciful leaps of logic or by outrageous premises, Stillman, Stivers, and Rosenbloom ground their arguments in the historical record. …