Politics by Other Means: Administrative Reform in the United States

The main theme of this article is that administrative reform must be viewed in a political context. Three subthemes are especially pertinent. The first is that in the American context, the growth of bureaucracy became identified with the controversial emergence of the social welfare state and with the growth of government financed by increased taxes. In other words, in the contemporary context it became identified with the politics of one party even though its greatest growth has been a function more of warfare than welfare. The second theme is that for most of the 20th Century, American development had been focused around the build-up of the state. But the reform agenda of the past 25 years has emphasized building down the state. The third theme is that current reform agendas founded in a neo-liberal economic agenda and adopted as Reinvention in the United States may be adversely influenced by the events of September 11, 2001. In the present context, the private production of public goods may no longer be seen as acceptable as it had been.