Reinventing Government: The Case of National Service

Bill Clinton is often referred to as a "new" Democrat. It is not surprising, therefore, that he brought to his presidency some unconventional ideas about government, among them reinventing government and national service. In fact, Clinton boldly joined these two sets of ideas in the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993. The act simultaneously became an experiment in changing how government does its business (Osborne and Gaebler 1992) and in rekindling the spirit of public service. This case study of national service addresses the relationship between reinvention and national service as it has played out since 1993. We are interested in examining how the reinvention model actually took shape in a particular political and historical context. We begin with a discussion of how reinvention principles were applied to national service programs. We then explore the realities of what transpired in the aftermath of the 1993 act. We conclude with some lessons about the reinvention movement from its application to national service programs. Applying Reinvention to National Service The phrase "reinventing government" came into popular usage with the publication of David Osborne and Ted Gaebler's book Reinventing Government (1992). The central theme of the book is that government in America is restructuring in response to citizen dissatisfaction, competitive pressures of a global marketplace, and revolution in information technology. Reinvention achieved movement status with the Clinton-Gore National Performance Review (Gore 1993) and the National Commission on the State and Local Public Service (Thompson and Radin 1997; National Commission on the State and Local Public Service 1993). Government reform initiatives are known for being short lived, owing in part to the attention spans of politicians (March and Olsen 1983), so the longevity of the reinvention movement is notable. After all, President Reagan's Grace Commission recommendations received only fleeting public recognition and little legislative or executive branch attention. Even Jimmy Carter's high-profile civil service reform, legislated in 1978, lasted only until Reagan's election, when its provisions were dismantled, ignored, or forgotten. The most recent attention to reinvention has been longer lived than many of its predecessors, for a variety of reasons. One is the longevity of the Clinton administration, which, unlike two of its three predecessors, extended to a second term. Another factor is Vice President Al Gore's commitment to and identification with reinvention. Gore's political future rests, in part, with images associated with his role as leader of federal reinvention. The centrality of reinvention in the ideology of new Democrats also looms large in its longevity. In contrast to the Reagan Republicans, new Democrats believe in government and, therefore, are compelled to seek ways to make it work better. What does the reinvention movement have to do with national service? The answer is that Bill Clinton "decreed that the national service program would be the model of his efforts to `reinvent government'" (Waldman 1995, 102). In 1993, Congress passed the National and Community Service Trust Act, creating the Corporation for National Service (CNS), which unified all domestic service initiatives under one roof. President Clinton and implementers of the legislation envisioned national service as an exemplar on several levels. For the president, service was quintessentially American. Service was a means to create community, an enduring strand in America--political philosophy (Sandel 1996). To build on this history was itself exemplary. In his speech unveiling the legislation, Clinton said, "National service is nothing less than the American way to change America. It is rooted in the concept of community: the simple idea that every one of us, no matter how many privileges with which we are born, can still be enriched by the contributions of the least of us. …