The Keynesian Paradigm and Public Administration By ALFRED H . BORNEMANN

Keynesian theory in macroeconomics and public finance in the United States was compatible with and supportive of a parallel development in the public administration branch of political science that arose in the Great Depression of the 1930s. This was the theory that the initiative in achieving welfare goals should be taken by government agencies acting to resolve conflicting interests. In initiating and taking leadership in bringing about social change, the administrators expanded government into a new bureaucratic State.

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in public administration theory and practice provided the rationale in the Nineteen Thirties for increasing public expenditures by expanding the government structure ( 1 ) . In political science, of which public administration was until the 1930s a relatively neglected branch, the political process had previously been studied and explained in terms of a contest for privilege by a great many regional and economic pressure or interest groups with equal claims(2). The accompanying belief that a legislative act was always the calculable result of a struggle between pressure groups and never a decision between opposing conceptions of national welfare was now replaced by the view that the initiative in improving the national welfare should be taken by government-agency decision-making to resolve conflicting interests ( 3 ) . By pursuing its own self-interest involving expanding its coverage to whatever extent possible and also by initiating additional activiti^ under new agencies, each agency contributed to the equilibrium of national interest. Such expansion involved support and stimulation of existing and possible new pressure groups on the basis of the extent of their promise of help in meeting agency needs and welfare in terms of expanding or at least continuing its budget. The agencies were thus not only associated with outside pressure groups needing their recognition, support, and help but were also pressure groups themselves. The new doctrine not only explained the inherent tendency of bureaucracy to expand. It also provided the basis for control of the economy and society, for it was to be carried out by administrators with the appropriate "mature philosophy of the political economy" who would " initiate and lead" in bringing about economic and sodal change ( 4 ) . The doctrine supported the New Deal expansion under which it was CONTEMPORARY DEVELOPMENTS

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put into ^ e c t following 1933 by administrators of the permanent Gmi Service and the expanding appointed bureaucracy as well as of the a,gendes newly attached to the Oflice of the President. Citizen^p education, which had been the traditioiml practical goal of political sdence, henceforth involved developing public support for advandng extended government in plarc of the earlier limited a)ncept The s|«cific studira method which had for some time been an essential part of political sdence found practical use. The New Dealers, most of whom were young lawyers and economists, numbered no more than 200 or 300 but ^ey "wodked prodigiously" in pursuing their goals ( 5 ) . The expanding government structure not only ab^rbed several hundred thousand Democratic Party patronage appointees who were soon blanketed into the Gvil Service ( 6 ) , but also continued to add hundreds of thousands more employees induding many who had taken the now more widely offered college public administration courses. The enlarged existing departments as well as the newly added agendes were financed by the defidt spending recommended under Keynesian fiscal policy. Costs to the ^vemment were therefore no problem while costs of requirements imposed on the private sector were ignored. Government regulators themselves often set higher prices directly. Although tax revenues were subsequently the prindpal source of support, defidt financing continued into the postwar decades. The limited upward and downward tax rate changes undertaken as supplementary details of fiscal policy continued. Thqr still required formal legislative approval in accordance with Anglo-American legal tradition since the executive had not been given the authority many economists desired. The agencies proposed and lobbied for the necessary laws and obtained them under executive orders when legislative authority was refused ( 7 ) . Proposed new laws covering policy were written in broad general form to provide the widest possible delegation of legislative power, leaving the dd:ails to be filled in later by the administrator as experience suggested. Although this constituted a departure from the traditional AngloAmerican legal system which laid stress on individual liberties, the Supreme Court increasingly held such delegation legal. The resulting proce^ of administrative law in which the agency acted in effect as prosecutor, judge, and jury involved policy dedsions having the effect of law as a regular part of administration. Thfe agencies established formal administrative machinery for the purpose of monitoring all new possibilities, induding state regulation, and

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of taking jurisdidom l^ expansion of their powas and 1^ the addidcm of new activities and functions ( 8 ) . They dderminai the administrative levels on whidi policy daisions should be made. They facilitated the work of policy committees and boards tihrou^ secretariat and res^rch arrangements. Hiey drew on the opinion and taimical information of groups outside the government through advisory committee and opinion polls. They organized procedures so that affected units within the executive branch were comulted in the formation of policy. Thqr established the appropriate role of agency lawyers in tiie making of policy. They C