The Carter Civil Service Reforms: Some Implications for Political Theory and Public Administration

The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA) marked a major departure in federal personnel policy. Not only did it institute a system of merit pay for mid-level managers, establish a Senior Executive Service (SES) for top administrators, and provide a firm statutory basis for labor relations in the federal sector, but by vesting most functions of the old bipartisan Civil Service Commission in the newly created Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the CSRA redefined the lines of authority for personnel management, placing most responsibilities squarely in the hands of presidential representatives. More remarkable than the substance of this legislation, however, was the overwhelmingly favorable reception it received (and continues to receive) from academic Public Administration. No administrative reform in recent memory has attracted such support or reflected such widespread consensus among students of governmental affairs. Indeed, in some ways the provisions of the CSRA are the premises of modern public administration, a coincidence that presents an unparalleled opportunity to examine some of the basic assumptions of the field. In this article, I dissent from this consensus and use the CSRA to focus a discussion of the linkages between political theory and public administration. My central argument is that Public Administration's recent counsel has been, as Vincent Ostrom put it, bad medicine, a kind of administrative malpractice