Kenneth J. Meier Texas A&M University Part VI: The Past as Prelude: Were the Predictions of Classic Scholars Correct? Kenneth J. Meier is the Charles H. Gregory Chair in Liberal Arts and Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University. He is also a professor of public management in the Cardiff School of Business, Cardiff University (Wales). In addition to his major research agenda on empirical studies of public management, he is interested in race and public policy, methodological innovations in public administration, and the relationship between democracy and bureaucracy. E-mail: kmeier@politics.tamu.edu Governance, Structure, and Democracy: Luther Gulick and the Future of Public Administration Luther Gulick was both an academic and a reformer. In the latter role, he thought seriously about what the future of public administration might look like. his essay examines his work as a lens through which to view the future of public administration in 2020. Gulick suggests that public administration needs a governance orientation to link scholarship with the realities of practice, a recognition of the bias of structures, a stress on the informal elements of organization, additional research on almost every question, a recognition of the importance of ethics, a stress on the importance of context, and a fundamental appreciation of the role that public management plays in fostering democracy. I with how things are but how things might be. Gulick’s view of the scope of public administration in this regard was very broad: “he science of administration is thus the system of knowledge whereby men may understand relationships, predict results, and influence outcomes in any situation where men are organized at work together for a common purpose” (1937b,191). As we shall see in this essay, the criterion “in any situation working together for a common purpose” encompasses all aspects of governance, not just the reform of administration. he phrase “influence outcomes” clearly designates public administration as a design science, the particular challenges of which were readily apparent to Gulick. In the conclusion to Papers on the Science of Administration, he noted how much tougher an administrative science is than natural science. “Natural science, after all, has undertaken the comparatively simple and easy task of understanding the mechanistic and mathematical relationships of the physical world and has left to philosophy, ethics, religion, education, sociology, political science and other social sciences the truly difficult and the truly important aspects of life and knowledge” (1937b, 191).2 n many ways, both the practice of public administration and the study of it in 2020 will be much like they are today. Seeing trends, however, can be facilitated by a historical view; this essay will take the writings of Luther Gulick for this purpose. Although much of academic public administration has dismissed the contributions of Luther Gulick, this is an unfortunate result of Herbert Simon’s “Proverbs of Administration” (1946) critique of the field, a critique that was perceived to focus on Gulick. his absence of attention to pre-Simon literature is problematic, how- his essay addresses specific works of Luther Gulick ever, because Simon misconstrued the work of Gulick that provide insight as to how the scholarship and (Hammond 1990), and, as a result, generations of practice of public administration are likely to be in scholars have not read Gulick’s work and misinterpret 2020. hese include a governance orientation to align his contribution through the scholarship with the realities of eyes of Simon’s critique.1 Alterpractice, a recognition of the [Luther] Gulick treated public natively, scholars view Gulick bias created by organizational administration as a design as having a single-minded focus structures, a recognition of the science, concerned not just with on efficiency but do not incorrole of informal organization, porate the full range of his work the need for additional research how things are but how things (see Miller 2007, xiii; Rosenin public administration, the might be. Gulick’s view of the bloom and McCurdy 2007, 3). scope of public administration in central nature of ethics and values, the role that public managthis regard was very broad. . . . Because Gulick was a reform ers play in fostering democracy, advocate, he was much conand the importance of context. cerned with both the future status of public administration and how that status might be changed through The Governance Approach specific reforms (Fitch 1990). Gulick treated public Gulick would view contemporary public adminisadministration as a design science, concerned not just tration scholarship as exceptionally narrow and not S284 Public Administration Review • December 2010 • Special Issue reflective of public administration in pracIn a later discussion of governing in the 1980s tice. Gulick advocated what we now call the and the problems of the Ronald Reagan governance approach to policy and adminisadministration, Gulick rejected a narrow Although the contemporary tration (see Lynn, Heinrich, and Hill 2001). approach and blamed public administration governance movement is Gulick’s governance approach included in for this narrowness. “Whatever the cause, the framed as an innovative its purview the actions of politicians, the result is clear: an unbalanced focus on public and broader perspective on interaction of politicians with bureaucrats, executives and neglect by public administrathe relationships between bureaucrats and tion of legislatures, the judiciary, and the policy and administration, clientele, the use of nonprofit and for-profit electorate. Fundamental reforms on a broader governance is actually a return organizations to implement public programs, scale are needed” (1990, 602). While some to the traditions of public and even how voters affect elected officials. might think this recommendation departs administration and political Although the contemporary governance from the thrust of Gulick’s earlier work, in his science prior to the behavioral movement is framed as an innovative and classic study of personnel systems at the fedrevolution. broader perspective on policy and admineral, state, and local levels, he stepped outside istration, governance is actually a return to the personnel system per se and advocated the traditions of public administration and the adoption of a short ballot among other political science prior to the behavioral revolution. he progressive political reforms (Gulick 1935, 7). Politics and administration, reform tradition, of which Gulick was a part, did not observe an in Gulick’s view, need to be melded in a symbiotic relationship to academic politics–administration dichotomy in their scholarship; generate the best results. Reforming one but not the other is a recipe they were quite willing to propose how political arrangements for suboptimal results. could be fixed to generate better governance results overall. Changing the narrowed focus of public administration was a conhe two best illustrations of the reformers’ governance approach sistent theme in Gulick’s later writings. In a 1977 essay in Public are city manager government and the independent school district; Administration Review, Gulick commented, “[P]ublic administration both combined elements of political and administrative reforms. must not concentrate solely on doing the defined work, delivering City manager government, of course, incorporated a wide range of the services, allocating the scarce resources, increasing productivity, governance reforms, including unity of command under the control and improving management in general. We must give equal attenof a professional administrator; merit system personnel processes; tion to defining ethical standards and goals, developing programs, nonpartisan, at-large elections; and a division of functions between educating voters, harnessing technologies to the decision process, politics and administration. Similarly, the independent school disand helping officials and laymen to evaluate the results achieved” trict followed the same principles, with a professional administrator; (707). he scope of Gulick’s proposal is extensive. While some of merit procedures for hiring teachers; nonpartisan, at-large elections; the broader topics such as defining ethical standards and goals have and a proposed politics–administration dichotomy in which school been part of the public administration curriculum for a long period boards set policy but left administration to the experts.3 he design of time (see Appleby 1952), the notion that public administration of these electoral systems illustrated the reformers’ clear incorporashould be responsible for educating voters is a significant expansion tion of the governance process as they tried to limit the influence of of its scope. political parties (both through nonpartisan elections and by holding those elections at times when no other elections were held), sever Although Gulick provided no specifics, his proposal foreshadowed the linkage between policy makers and neighborhoods (so elected other arguments in the public administration literature. Brian Cook officials represented the entire polity not a segment), and replace the (1996) contends that U.S. bureaucracy should have a constitutive politics of class and ethnicity with the politics of business elites (see role rather than just an instrumental one; by constitutive, he means Tyack 1974). Although these structures did not eliminate politics, efforts to cultivate the democratic capabilities of the citizens. Cook but merely shifted politics to different forms and forums, they did sees a key role for bureaucracy to play in deliberative democracy— privilege some forms of politics over others. that is, bureaucracy needs to interact with citizens in ways that develop citizens’ capacity for effective participation in the democratic Gulick’s own focus on governance, not just administration, within process. Gulick, in short, was advocating that the subject of public the broad reform tradition of public administration during the early administration be governance, whether in terms of the linkage of twentieth century is self-evident. His classic contribution is the voters to elected officials, the power of elected officials, the interacBrownlow Committee report and its effort to strengthen executive tion of elected officials with bureaucrats, or the more traditional administration, in this case the U.S. presidency. While Gulick was process of implementing programs. clearly associated with strong executive governance, his concern was the quality of governance overall. Even in “Notes” and in the focus Gulick’s lesson for the future of public administration is clear: the of the Brownlow report on executive influence, Gulick provided practice of public administration involves governance, and the a broader view and a subtle warning: “Instead of superseding or scholarship of public administration needs to recognize that reality. destroying legislative bodies, consultative institutions, and indehe lessons of public administration can be and should be applied pendent examination and audit because they stand in the way of to political institutions, not-for-profit organizations, interest groups, quick changes in government programs, has not the time come to and all facets of governance. Reforming public administration withstrengthen these organizations . . . for the more orderly considerout attention to problems generated by other institutions is a recipe ation of new policies for the future?” (1937a, 45). for failure. Governance, Structure, and Democracy S285 The Bias of Structures Gulick focused much of his commentary and reform efforts on designing organizational structures. Many perceive this work as focused on only the relationship between structures and efficiency, but Gulick was very much concerned with the biases that structures create. his discussion anticipated two streams of current literature, one of which fails to discuss Gulick and another that accepts the same misconceptions that Simon does. In the current neoinstitutional literature, the predominant view is that structures are created to solve collective action problems, that structure-induced equilibria are how problems get simplified and solved efficiently (Williamson 1990). In contrast, Jack Knight (1992) has a view closer to Gulick and suggests that structures are value laden and that they are essentially ways to institutionalize biases that favor one set of actors rather than another. he second literature, the politics of structure literature, creates a straw man of “he Orthodox heory of Organization” to argue that federal bureaucratic structures do not represent efforts at efficiency but rather reflect the distribution of political power (Seidman and Gilmour 1986).4 Although appropriate structures might enhance efficiency, Gulick’s discussions of bias clearly indicate a concern with issues other than efficiency. his view comes through clearly in “Notes.” He first described how organizations structured around purpose, process, place, or clientele might look and what the advantages are for each. More telling for his concern about how structures create biases is his discussion of the problems with each type of organizations, problems that he framed in terms of the traditional question of the relationship between bureaucracy and its democratic sovereigns. In regard to organizations organized by purpose, he stressed how such organizations could become self-sufficient and the subsequent problems. “[A]n organization fully equipped from top to bottom with all the direct and collateral services required for the accomplishment of its central purpose, without the need of any assistance from other departments, drifts very easily into an attitude and position of complete independence from all other activities and even from democratic control itself ” (1937a, 23). he other criteria of departmentalization are also examined in the context of democracy. In terms of organization by process, that is, around professional specializations, Gulick contended that “experience seems to indicate that a department built around a given profession or skill tends to show a greater degree of arrogance and unwillingness to accept democratic control” (1937a, 24). Gulick extended this assessment of biases to comment on the performance aspects of process-structured organizations: “there is always the danger that organization by process will hinder the accomplishment of major purposes, because the process departments may be more interested in how things are done than in what is accomplished” (1937a, 24; emphasis in original). For organizations structured around clientele, Gulick warned, “difficulty arises from the danger of dominance by favor-seeking pressure groups. Departments set up by clientele seldom escape political dominance by these groups” (1937a, 26). Finally, organization by place generates “the increased tendency of such a system to come under the control of localized logrolling pressure groups. . . . An administrative system also set up by areas is peculiarly subject to spoilation by politicians as long as we have the spoils system” (Gulick 1937a, 30). Indeed, the concern with organization by place was also a general principle that S286 Public Administration Review • December 2010 • Special Issue reformers applied to municipal and school district electoral systems with their preference for at-large elections rather than ward-based, single-member districts. In later writings, Gulick returned to the theme of the biases inherent in structural arrangements. In particular, he noted the increased variance in how government services were delivered. He concluded that the trend away from a single government agency being the normal process of service delivery would continue. “[T]here will be a continual development of alternative ways of producing and delivering public services, such as by contracting out, creating new public organizations, cooperative action, and designing innovative ways to attacking old problems. Creating independent authorities to deal with specific problems will always be tempting, but it is dangerous to trust monopolies” (1990, 602). An independent authority in this view is similar to organization by purpose and potentially has the same ill effects. To Gulick, structure is a central element of public administration; structures are important because they influence outcomes. he future public administration and especially its scholarship needs to examine structures and processes to determine who wins and who loses. Organization, in Gulick’s view, is politics by another means. The Stress on Informal Organization A persisting stereotype of Luther Gulick and traditional public administration is that they were concerned only with the formal aspects of organizations and ignored the informal elements. his stereotype derives in part from the emphasis on structural solutions to political problems—strengthening executive administration with the addition of staff and assigning budgeting to the executive, proposals for streamlining state governments, efforts to change the structures of city governments and local school districts, and so on. Paul Van Riper, in an assessment of Gulick’s contribution to public administration, attributes to Gulick the “integrationist model of classical management. For government, this was thought of as involving a strong, centralized executive management, functionally organized, with well-developed personnel, financial, and planning staff functions, all supported by an informed and active citizenry. Design of this type of management system was not original with Gulick, but he was a main figure in its elaboration, popularization, and wide dissemination during the first half of the twentieth century. His special term for this concept was ‘the managerial executive’” (1990, 611). While it is true that Gulick frequently offered structural, formal solutions to governance problems, his work focused on both the formal and the informal aspects of organizations. In his view of administration in practice, he often used the analogy of organizations as organisms, the implication being that organisms are fluid and flexible over time rather than rigid and static. Structure to Gulick was a reasonable start to administrative reform, but not the entire story. Gulick was highly critical of a pure structural approach to the study of organizations. “In the standard organization chart, all you have is a flat, static skeleton, a collection of bones for the archeologists. Left out are the muscles, the power system, the neural system with its sensing organs, communication, memory, information storage, coordination and command. . . . Where is Likert’s ‘informal organization’ and the social and psychic structure emphasized by Mary Follett and the Hawthorne studies?” (1987, 118). “An organization is not a machine, but an organism” (118). Quoting later writings by Luther Gulick should not be taken to imply that his biological view of organizations developed late in his career. In “Notes,” Gulick clearly stated, “An organization is a living and dynamic entity” (1937a, 32). Nowhere is Gulick’s endorsement of informal organization stronger, in fact, than in “Notes,” in which he discussed the limits of organization. “Organization is necessary; in a large enterprise it is essential, but it does not take the place of a dominant central idea as the foundation of action and self-co-ordination in the daily operation of all of the parts of the enterprise. Accordingly, the most difficult task of the chief executive is not command, it is leadership, that is, the development of the desire and will to work together for a purpose in the minds of those who are associated in any activity” (1937a, 37). Gulick juxtaposed normative inducements as an alternative to structural elements of control in “Notes,” but, in essence, he was arguing that both the formal structure of organization and the informal aspects of leadership and value socialization are important. If anything, Gulick stressed that the balance between formal and informal had shifted to the latter. To make this argument in its most forceful way, Gulick applied it to the case in which one might expect hierarchy and structure to matter most of all. “he power of an idea to serve as the foundation of co-ordination is so great that one may observe many examples of co-ordination even the absence of any single leader or of any framework of authority. he best illustration is perhaps a nation at war” (1937a, 38). Gulick then extended this discussion of the limits of organization and of leadership to focus on totalitarian governments. Gulick’s discussion of the rise of totalitarian governments in Europe and their ability to mobilize and carry out tasks foreshadowed his later conclusions in his study of World War II (1948) that democracies are capable of achieving effectiveness and efficiencies greater than those of totalitarian states. ambiguous, and in some cases went on to outline a research agenda or specify some testable hypotheses. he case of span of control—the number of individuals that one person should supervise—illustrates Gulick’s concern with research. Simon boldly charged, “his notion that the ‘span of control’ should be narrow is confidently asserted as a third incontrovertible principle of administration. . . . Proponents of a restricted span of control have suggested three, five, even eleven, as suitable numbers, but nowhere have they explained the reasoning which led them to the particular number they selected” (1946, 56–57). Yet Gulick neither endorsed a specific span of control nor ignored the logic by which one might determine the span of control. First, he conceded that scientific research on the subject was lacking: “when we seek to determine how many immediate subordinates the director of an enterprise can effectively supervise, we enter a realm of experience which has not been brought under sufficient scientific study to furnish a final answer” (1937a, 8). Second, Gulick continued to discuss how one might logically derive what might be an optimal span of control using the context of the organization as a guide: “Where the work is of a routine, repetitive, measurable and homogeneous character, one man can perhaps direct several score workers. . . . Where work is diversified, qualitative, and particularly when the workers are scattered, one man can supervise only a few” (1937a, 7). Yet this is proposed not as gospel, but rather as a research agenda on what we need to know. “It would seem that insufficient attention has been devoted to three factors, first, the element of diversification of function; second, the element of time; and third, the element of space. . . . he failure to attach sufficient importance to these variables has served to limit the scientific validity of the statements which have been made that one man can supervise but three, or five, or eight, or twelve immediate subordinates” (1937a, 8–9). Gulick’s proposed research agenda on span of control served as the theoretical starting point for a series of articles by Meier and Bohte. As to the future of public administration, Gulick stated it best: “the In “Ode to Luther Gulick: Span of Control and Organizational task of the administrator must be accomplished less and less by Performance,” Meier and Bohte (2000) note that Simon’s critique coercion and discipline and more and more by essentially ended research on the linkage persuasion. In other words, management of the between span of control and organizaPerhaps nowhere is Luther future must look more to leadership and less to tional performance (or alternatively, what Gulick’s contribution to authority as the primary means of co-ordination” the optimal span of control might be in an (1937a, 39). organization). hey blend Gulick’s insights public administration more with that of principal–agent theory, early misunderstood than in the A Call for Research, Not Gospel work on industrial organization (Woodview that Gulick and others Perhaps nowhere is Luther Gulick’s contribution ward 1980), and neoinstitutional theory contended there were hard and to public administration more misunderstood (Williamson 1990) to propose how the fast rules for organization. . . . than in the view that Gulick and others contendoptimal span of control in a given type of In reality, as design scientists, ed there were hard and fast rules for organization. organization might be determined. hey he image created by Herbert Simon is that Guthen provide evidence on how spans of Gulick and others were lick and others were willy-nilly applying a series control at different levels of the organizastrong advocates of research of proverbs without any thought to whether their tion affect performance for a set of school on administrative practices, prescriptions would solve the problem. In realdistricts. Meier and Bohte (2003) take the whether time and motion ity, as design scientists, Gulick and others were research agenda another step by implestudies for production-like strong advocates of research on administrative menting Gulick’s specific arguments that processes or field observation practices, whether time and motion studies for optimal spans of control should vary by production-like processes or field observation for diversity of function, time, and space. for more macro-governance more macro-governance issues. Gulick in many Again using school districts, they show issues. cases stressed what we do not know or what was that the span of control does vary by Governance, Structure, and Democracy S287 diversity of function, time, and space; however, the impact of these factors is not always the same at different levels of the organization. A second illustration that Gulick recognized the ambiguity of many existing organizational principles and similarly called for more research can be found in his discussion of how to organize based on purpose, process, clientele, or place (what Gulick referred to as “departmentalization”). Simon aimed his most critical commentary at this topic, suggesting that the principle was internally contradictory—that, for example, organizing by purpose often conflicted with organization by place and no clear guidelines were given. Even a superficial reading of “Notes,” however, shows that this was exactly the point that Gulick was making, albeit in a more analytical and precise way. Gulick specifically discussed how each of these principles conflicted with each other and produced a set of charts to show how the principles were inconsistent with each other (1937a, 17–19). Gulick’s extended discussion of departmentalization indicates that managers need to consider a variety of factors, such as motivation, complexity, and size of organizational units in determining the most appropriate approach to organization. he discussion of the pros and cons of various ways to organize indicates that Gulick viewed departmentalization as a discretionary choice on the part of management and thought that management should determine the best fit between an organization’s structure and the needs of the organization. To underscore this main point, Gulick concluded, “Students of administration have long sought a single principle of effective departmentalization just as alchemists sought the philosophers’ stone. But they have sought in vain. here is apparently no one most effective system of departmentalization” (1937a, 31). In short, Simon’s criticism of this proverb of organization is not only irrelevant to the work of Luther Gulick, but also it is far less sophisticated than Gulick’s own discussion of departmentalization. Luther Gulick provides an excellent guide to what the future of public administration scholarship should be: it needs to build the research base of public administration. When does process X work and under what conditions? How does a given structure maximize one set of values but not another? Public programs and organizations can change rapidly; therefore, public administration scholarship of the future needs to bring new insights and new designs to study how public administration practice matters. The Central Nature of Ethics and Values Despite his contemporaries’ stress on the separation of politics from administration and the rising academic stress on the separation of facts from values,5 Gulick appreciated the role that values play in governance and in the education of public servants. An initial reading might give the impression that Gulick was in complete agreement with Simon on positivism as an approach to scholarship. In his concluding essay in Papers on the Science of Administration, Gulick stated, “It thus behooves the student of administration, along with other students of social science, to acquire the habit of separating (a) relationships and (b) value judgments as far as is possible in his work” (1937b, 192). And shortly thereafter, Gulick seems to have limited even the role of values further: “In the science of administration, whether public or private, the basic ‘good’ is efficiency” (1937b, 192). Gulick almost immediately qualified this statement, however, with his strong preference for democratic S288 Public Administration Review • December 2010 • Special Issue governance: “we are in the end compelled to mitigate the pure concept of efficiency in light of the value scale of politics and the social order” (1937b, 193). And, more specifically, he referred to “highly inefficient arrangements like citizen boards and small local governments which may be necessary in a democracy as educational devices” (1937b, 193; emphasis in original). he limits on efficiency as a value should also be placed aside Gulick’s strong case for using ideas or values as a method of coordinating organizations. In later work, Gulick took the notion of values further: “American public administration is tied fundamentally to four sometimes inconsistent principles of social organization: (a) democracy, (b) individualism, (c) specialization, and (d) the market” (1990, 601). Such a statement clearly indicates that there are no absolute values and that the interplay of values is going to affect both policy and administration.6 While the role for values in research and administration might not always have been a consistent theme in Luther Gulick’s work, his position was unequivocal in the case of education for the public service. “[T]he focus of public administration programs has been increasingly on functional skills and techniques–health administration, transportation, budgeting, methods, and so forth. Effective combination of civic values in general education with specialization in technical education still awaits attack” (1990, 601). his lack of focus was linked to many contemporary problems of governance. In regard to the Department of Housing and Urban Development scandals of the Reagan administration, “corruption . . . can no longer be significantly reduced by establishing new procedures–adequate procedures are largely in place. Corruption can only be countered by invigorating values and raising public expectations to support honest and proficient public service” (1990, 602). Again using his broad governance focus, Gulick concluded that “elected officials and political executives must recognize more clearly the constraints of law and the importance of management integrity” (1990, 603). Many scholars currently focus on values and the importance of them to the study of public administration scholarship and practice. Gulick clearly advocated a debate on the various values with no value privileged. hat the central place of values in public administration and in public administration education will flourish in the future is uncontestable. Public Managers and Democracy Gulick focused so much on the role of values in public service education because he understood the real problems inherent in reconciling the need for bureaucracy with the demands of democratic governance. he need for administration is central not just to democracy, but to civilization itself. At the start of “Notes,” he commented, “Division of work and integrated organization are the bootstraps by which mankind lifts itself in the process of civilization” (1937a, 5). here is no question, despite his concerns with the excesses of democracy, that Gulick was an advocate of democracy. At the same time, he recognized that the creation of enduring democracies relies heavily on public administration. “Public administration—professional managers and experts—are crucial for this effort because open government cannot be sold by guns and slogans, but only by performance” (1990, 601). Recognizing the need to incorporate the inefficient processes of democracy, effective administration is required to provide the leeway to absorb the messy political processes and still create an enduring polity. Viewed in this light, bureaucracy or public administration is not necessarily a barrier to democracy but a facilitator. In a comparative context, we currently see this dynamic as governments in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere seek to build administrative capacity to sustain their emerging democracies. Gulick believed that this efficiency in support of democracy required that “[a] developing organization must be continually engaged in research bearing upon the major technical and policy problems encountered, and upon the efficiency of the processes of work” (1937a, 38). Similar to other progressive reformers, Gulick believed in professional expertise, and the science of administration was a central element of this professional expertise. Yet Gulick still sought to keep the values of democracy and administration in balance and fully recognized the perils of movement too far in one direction. In many ways, parts of the “Notes” anticipate the classic debate between Carl Friedrich (1940) and Herman Finer (1941) on the role of experts in a democracy. Public administrators are experts, and Gulick warned that “[a]nother trait of the expert is his tendency to assume knowledge and authority in fields in which he has no competence. . . . the robes of authority of one kingdom confer no sovereignty in another” (1937a, 10–11). In the end, however, Gulick came down on Finer’s side of the debate: “Democracy is a way of government in which the common man is the final judge of what is good for him” (1937a, 11). in a given time and place (1937a, 4). At times custom, including the restrictions of craft unions, prevents the division of labor; at other times, the lack of technology can require that work be done in its entirety rather than divided up to gain the benefits of specialization. Similarly, Gulick proposed that the question of coordination must be approached differently “in small and in large enterprises; in simple and in complex situations; in stable and in new or changing organizations” (1937a, 6). In some cases, control by organization is to be preferred, and in other cases, control by ideas. Earlier discussion revealed that Gulick proposed that the optimal span of control was contingent on several factors. His lengthy discussion of departmentalization also suggested that motivation, complexity, and the size of the organizational unit should be considered in deciding to departmentalize in terms of purpose, process, clientele, or place. Fifty years after the Brownlow report, Gulick suggested that the contingencies to be considered might be even broader. “[T]he ‘principles’ of management and administration are eternally tied to the culture in which they arise” (1987, 118). Context will only be more important in the future of public administration. Crises appear to induce more variation within public administration as the U.S. government temporarily owns controlling interest in banks and car manufacturers. he path dependence of public policies cross-nationally means that health care reforms in the United Kingdom are going to be significantly different from those in the United States. Public administration practice and scholarship need to identify and incorporate the relevant contextual factors. Gulick then added another twist to the democracy/bureaucracy discussion by suggesting that what is good for democracy might, in fact, be beneficial for administration. Even the elements of POSDCORB come into play. “Proper reporting on the results of the work of the departments and of the government as a whole to the public and to the controlling legislative body . . . is essential, not merely as a part of the process of democratic control, but also as a means to the development of service morale” (Gulick 1937a, 38). Conclusion Luther Gulick was primarily a man of practice; he would have found the notion of being a futurist or a theorist amusing. As he noted in an interview with Paul Van Riper, “my main responsibility has not been the development of a consistent and scholarly intellectual edifice. My job has been to persuade politically responsible decision makers to take a sensible forward step in governmental management. his approach leads more toward an opportunistic he future scholarship of public administration needs to focus on marshaling of concepts and words designed to appeal to the client how public managers enhance democracy than a philosophical structure” (Van Riper (see Meier and O’Toole 2006). It needs to 1998, 189). Yet it is clear that in attempting Luther Gulick was primarily a eschew narrow views of “political control” of to influence the reform of public manageman of practice; he would have the bureaucracy for the broader perspective of ment, he had to justify his own proposals; in found the notion of being a how management contributes to democracy this justification, we find ample evidence that and democratic institutions. Gulick had a vision for what public adminisfuturist or a theorist amusing. tration scholarship and practice should be. The Importance of Context Contemporary management theory has evolved from a one-besthis essay has used the work of Luther Gulick and his insights to way approach to a contingency theory viewpoint. What might be an discuss what the future of public administration scholarship and effective management strategy in one situation might be an extreme- practice might be in 2020. First, the subject of public administraly poor strategy in another. Contingency theorists stress the nature tion should be governance not just administration. Gulick of the organization’s environment, the size of the organization, the consistently argued that reforming administration without paying resource dependency of the organization, the levels of professional attention to the political process would lead to suboptimal results. training, and countless other factors. Gulick was well ahead of his Second, organizational structures are more than ways to generate contemporaries, who were still debating between scientific managegreater efficiency. Organizational structures also advantage some ment and the Hawthorne experiments. individuals, ideas, and processes relative to others. In short, structures create biases, and these should be recognized when designing “Notes” begins with a discussion of the division of labor and its central institutions. hird, scholars need to be aware that formal structure role in organization and society. Gulick noted, however, that there are is important, but it is only part of the story. Informal organization practical limits to the division of labor including custom and technology in many ways can be far more important for effective and efficient Governance, Structure, and Democracy S289 administration. Fourth, the principles of administration remain hypotheses, not proven facts. Substantial research needs to be done to systematically test the ideas used in practice. Gulick in many cases specified the key variables and relationships that needed to be examined. Fifth, public administration inherently deals with ethics and values; structures can only do so much. his means that practicing public administrators must deal with values and that public administration education needs to incorporate them into its curricula. Sixth, management is an essential element in the attainment of democracy. Effective management provides the surplus necessary to absorb the higher decision costs in a democracy, and managers play a key role in cultivating democratic results. Seventh, management is context dependent. What works in management depends not just on the context of the organization, but also on the broader cultural context in which programs operate. While these seven items are not necessarily an integrated prediction of the future of public administration, they do provide substantial guidance to public administration scholars and practitioners about the future. hey illustrate the design science nature of public administration and stress the unique problems and challenges the profession faces. Luther Gulick’s words appear as perceptive about the future of public administration now as they did when he wrote them. Acknowledgments Portions of this paper were presented at the Symposium on the Legacy and Contemporary Relevance of Luther Gulick and the IPA at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University, December 4, 2009. Notes 1. An excellent, detailed assessment of Simon’s critique of Gulick is written by Hammond (1990), who covers a wide range points that will not be revisited here. 2. his statement echoes a comment made to the Taylor Society in 1932: “he direction of the government of the city of New York, of the state of New York, or of the federal government is a much more difficult task than the direction of the United States Steel Corporation, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. . . . Because of this fact, scientific management is at the same time more difficult of application and more necessary in the field of public administration than in private industry” (Van Riper 1995, 7). 3. Some state laws prohibit school board members from contacting school employees, for example, except through the superintendent. 4. Although Seidman and Gilmour are very critical of Gulick and refer to his contribution derogatorily as “orthodoxy,” in fact, Gulick and his colleagues made exactly the same point that Seidman and Gilmour do about federal structure mimicking the power structure of Congress: “he [Brownlow] Committee and its research staff knew from experience that proposals to create or rename departments, or to shuffle bureaus among departments, would instantly rouse Congress, pressure groups, and bureaucrats” (Roberts 1998, 251). 5. I am skeptical that even Simon, who strongly stated positivist principles, ever fully accepted them given that they were inconsistent with his notion of a design science (see Meier 2005). 6. While I would very much like to contend that Gulick would have supported my own case for more bureaucracy and less democracy (see Meier 1997), I could find no evidence that Gulick ever specifically supported the notion of more bureaucracy at the expense of some democracy. 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New York: Oxford University Press. 2011 Teaching Public Administration Conference (TPAC) May 17-19, 2011 Kingsmill Resort Williamsburg, Virginia Theme: Our Historical Challenge: Administering a Government for the People, By the People You are invited to submit proposals for papers, panels and presentations. Individual abstracts submitted for the peer reviewed conference proceedings are due February 28, 2011. Proposals (panels, workshops, round tables, etc.) submissions are due March 31, 2011. For complete information about the conference including travel, registration, lodging, Williamsburg area attractions, the tentative schedule, electronic submission requirements, source documents and conference contacts, please visit the Conference website at: http://www.teachingpa.org Governance, Structure, and Democracy S291