CHAPTER THREE

Bozeman, B. (1979). Public Management and Policy Analysis. New York:

St. Martins Press.

Policy Philosophies,
Public Management, and
the Public Interest
Before turning to the meat of the bookthe chapters related to theory
and practice in the management of public organizationsthis chapter is a
fanciful fling at ~the broad philosopht6~l-value premises of public
management and public policy. In this chapter there is no concern with
social science, observable data, verification, operational concepts, and all
those other matters dear to the hearts of analytically oriented students and
practitioners of public administration. This chapter is designed to
encourage reflection about good and bad in policy and
administration, with particular attention to that old bugaboo of
empirically oriented social scientists, the public interest.
The concept policy philosophy is introduced here to help us explore the
value component of policy. The basic notion is that a relatively small
number of primal values have influenced policy and administration
throughout the ages. These clusters of valuesand this is the substance of
a policy philosophy, a cluster of valuesfilter into the policy process
through the political culture, the legal system, and even the psychological
predispositions of individual decision-makers. Another of the ways that
policy philosophies have been influential is through various conceptions
of the public interest. If a policy philosophy is an enduring set of values
about the basic ends and means of government, any particular conception
of the public interest may be thought of as a conclusion drawn from the
premises of a policy philosophy.
60

POLICY PHILOSOPHIES
To reiterate, a policy philosophy is a set of values about the purposes
of government or the most desirable means of achieving purposes. The
policy philosophy concept should not be taken as absolute and should not
be rigidly defined, nor should the particular policy philosophies identified
in this chapter be taken as an exhaustive list. The policy philosophies
discussed here have been subjectively developed and loosely defined, and
others may wish to develop additional or alternative policy philosophies
that are more in accord with their subjective interpretation of the basic
value clusters influencing policy and administration.
Six policy philosophies will be discussed hereprotectorism, rationalism, brokerism, pragmatism, transferalism, and egoism. The values
associated with each are discussed, the place of the policy philosophy in
modern and classic political thought is alluded to, and in a later section
the relation of each to various conceptions of the public interest is
explored.
Protectorism
The chief premise of protectorism is that policy exists to protect people
from one another and from themselves. The political executive as
protector is a theme that emerges early in political philosophy. One of the
first protectorist philosophers was Plato. While there is a strong
antidemocratic element involved in the elevation of restraint to a guiding
principle, the antidemocratic bias is only one aspect of protectorism and
not the most important. The pillar of this conception of governing is a
negative view of mankindboth in regard to abilities and, more
important, to intentions. Man is, by this view, a natural troublemaker and
a consistent malefactor. The view that the common man is ill-equipped
for political participation is clearly assumed in Platos Republic; the
inevitability of conflict and the need for a legitimate enforcing and
regulatory agent are beliefs that pervade Hobbess Leviathan. The
underpinnings of protectorism lie, then, in these assumptionsman must
be protected because of his limited knowledge and abilities; man must be
protected from his aggressive and avaricious nature.
The implications of this policy philosophy are far-reaching. First, the
prospects for an open government arc dim. Both Plato and Hobbes
viewed governing as a matter to be entrusted to the few. Plato divides
society into three classesthe guardians, a largely hereditary

61

PHILOSOPHIES, MANAGEMENT, AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST

Box 3.1: Philosophical Roots of Protectorism

Such transgressions as the Watergate cover-up, the CIA excesses, and other instances of the politics of lying might be
viewed as embodying the values of egoismmindless self-aggrandizement at any price. But a more charitable interpretation
Is that many such instances of government deceit are
misguided attempts at espousing protectorism. Consider Platos
commentary on the politics of lying:
If anyone, then, is to practise deception, either on the
countrys enemies or on its citizens, it must be the Rulers of
the commonwealth, acting for its benefit; no one else may
meddle with this privilege. For a private person to mislead
such Rulers we shall declare to be a worse offence than for
a seaman to misinform his captain about the state of the
ship.
...

But for the quintessential protectorist we must turn to

Thomas
Hobbes:
The obligation of subjects to the sovereign is understood
to last as long, and no longer, than the power lasts by which
he is able to protect them. For the right men have by nature
to protect themselves when none else can protect them, can
by no covenant be relinquished. The end of obedience is
protection, wheresoever a man sees it either in his own or in
anothers sword, nature applies his obedience to it, and his
endeavor to maintain it.
. . .

Source:
The Republic of Plato, trans. F. M. Cornford (Oxford university
Press, 1945). Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651).

ruling class of philosophic rulers; the auxiliaries, a class of military men

and civil servants; and the class of producers and artisans which
composes nearly the entire population. The closed society of Hobbes is a
result of the need to unify power to the greatest degree possible in a
single sovereign.
A more important implication of protectorism is in connection with
the activities of government. If the chief purpose of governing is
protection, the activities of government are regulatory and enforcing.
Conferral of collective benefits, redistribution of societys resources, and
representation are government activities foreign to protectorism.

61
A modern curator of protectorism is Edward Banfield, and his The
Unheavenly City embodies several of its values. In assessing the social
programs of the 1960s, Banfield observes:
PHILOSOPHIES, MANAGEMENT, AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST

Faith in the perfectibility of man and confidence that good

intentions together with strenuous exertions will hasten his
program onward and upward lead to bold programs that promise
to do what no one knows how to do and what perhaps cannot
be done...1
In outlining his own twelve-point programs for amelioration of urban
problems, Banfield relies heavily on regulation and enforcement and
largely ignores structural solutions. Intensified law enforcement,
abridgement of offenders freedom, and promotion of individual rather
than social responsibility for misdeeds are all important elements of the
Banfleld proposals.
The policy philosophy of protectorism appears to exert some influence
in the policy making and activities of a great many bureaucratic agencies,
and in some it is the dominant theme. Agencies that are chiefly involved
in regulatory or enforcing activities are most likely to be operating with a
protectorist conception of the public interest. Examples of agencies that
are predominantly protectorist include the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and the Federal Trade Commission, both of which protect
people from others, and, in a very different sense, the Social Security
Administration, which protects people against their own thriftlessness.
Any agency may manifest several policy philosophies, or parts of
several policy philosophies in their activities. The Social Security Administration is an example of a mixed type, whereas the Federal Bureau
of Investigation is a purer type. It should be expected that most agencies
will embody several policy philosophies. One reason for this is that
policy philosophies, as conceived here, involve not only the ends of
bureaucracy but also the means. Protectorism is chiefly concerned with
ends; rationalism, by contrast, is chiefly concerned with means.
Rationalism
The policy philosophy of rationalism is rooted in a faith in mans
reason and the assumption that problems of governance are amenable to
reasonable solution through scientific analysis, logic, and systematic
inquiry. The prototypical rationalist administrator is the management
scientist.
Rationalism as a policy philosophy is reflected in the writings of
several classic philosophers. The writings of empiricists such as Berkeley,
Hume, and Locke include themes that are related to this policy
philosophy, but typically their empiricismeven that of Locke is less
related to governance than to a more general philosophy of

Box 3.2: Rationalism and the Value of Human Life

In a sense, rationalism is the most optimistic policy philosophy.
It says that the world may be complex but by employing reason
and developing analytical tools, we can manage complexity. But if
rationalism is optimistic in its prospect for the human (and policy)
condition, its hard-nosed adherence to objectivity and technique
(and its lack of regard for the intangible and subjective) can lead
to cold-blooded approaches and outcomes.
There are few better examples of hard-hearted rationalism than
policy analysts calculations of the value of the most qualitative
of values~ human life. As Steven Rhoads notes in a recent article,
analysts find themselves groping for figures representing the
value of life when considering such matters as government
sponsorship of kidney dialysis machines ($30,000 per year to
keep one patient alive) and costs of pollution control devices
(recently the Council on Wage and Price Stability questioned the
costs of coke-fume standards: $4.5 million per worker saved).
The most common technique used by policy analysts to evaluate human life is the discounted future earnings (DEE) approach.
Rhoads describes it: The basic DEE approach takes the average
age at which death of people killed by a certain type of disease or
accident occurs and computes what their expected future income
would have been if they had lived a normal term. This future income is discounted since a dollar received today can be invested,
and is thus worth more than a dollar received in future years. The
present value figure that results is taken as the value of life for
the average member of the group in question.
This approach, despite an undeniable logic, can lead to bizarre
conclusions, such as that males are usually more valuable than
females; young, white adults are the most cherished segment of
the population; lives are additive. In an example used by Rhoads,
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare studies showed
that a media campaign encouraging the wearing of motorcycle
helmets might save a life for $3,000; a cervix cancer program that
was also being contemplated would save a life for about the same
cost. But DEE figures showed the programs not to be even close
in return on investment The benefit ratio for the motorcyclehelmet program was 55.6 because the lives saved would chiefly
be those of young adult males, while the benefit ratio for the
cancer program was only 8.9 because the lives saved were
chiefly those of older females.
Source:

Steven Rhoads, How Much Should we Spend to Save a Life?, Public

Interest, 51 (Spring 1978), 7492.

inquiry. There is also a strong element of rationalist policy

philosophy in Aristotles Politic, but it is a less than perfect
example because of his organic conception of the state. As
conceived here, rationalism implies an instrumental conception of
the state that places value on planning and assumes that effective
administration involves design.
The pre-twentieth-century philosopher who provides the best
illustration of the rationalist approach to public affairs is Bacon.
The ideal of the scientistpublic official is realized to the fullest
in Bacons Novum Organum (1620). Bacons House of Solomon
is a decision-making body composed entirely of scientists.
In modern political theory the link between science and public
decision making is of a more specialized nature; while it is true
that some scholars advocate a bureaucracy composed of a greater
number of liberally trained scientists,2 the more routine means of
bringing the blessings of the scientific approach to the
administration of public affairs is by the inclusion of scientific
management techniques in the curriculum of would-be public
servants. Taylorism was an approach (a partly bogus approach) to
bringing science to administration. The writings of Taylor, whether
or not scientific, certainly gave impetus to a concern with the
possibilities for a science of public administration.
Another important contributor to rationalism in public
administration was the German sociologist Max Weber. Unlike
Taylor and his disciples, Weber never made a strong argument for
applying science to public affairs, but his classic typology of
bureaucracy provided a framework that enhanced the application
of social science methods and techniques to the study of public
administration.
Of the several contemporary theorists involved in the
development of a scientific administration, two of the most
prominent are C. W. Churchman and Russell Ackoff. 5 These two
pioneers of systems analysis and operations research have been
especially influential in the development and popularization of
quantitative approaches to management and administration. The
recent spread of management science in both public agencies and
private industry has been remarkable, and the entrance of large
numbers of management scientists into the federal bureaucracy has
produced a basic change in the approach of several agencies to
administration. The agency that has been in the forefront of this
movement has been the Office of Management and Budget.
The impact of rationalism on bureaucracy has been so extensive
as to virtually defy analysis. At the level of the individual greater
acceptance of and familiarity with scientific analysis in
administration and management has had an impact on the day-today operation of

bureaucracy. From a broader perspective the policy philosophy of

rationalism has been influential in policy making because it inspires
confidence. It says that though the world may be complex and its
problems of great magnitude, social, economic, and political problems
may be understood and perhaps solved. The rationalist brings a Lockean
optimism to public affairs. The human condition is not irremediable,
policy processes need not inevitably entail conflict and power politics;
there is a best way to proceed, and by resorting to reason we may find
that best way (or at least a close approximation). Thus, unlike several of
the policy philosophies, rationalism encourages government by design
planning, social engineering, and intervention.
Brokerism
The pluralist conception of government is a strong theme in
brokerism. Society is conceived as an amalgam of group interests, and
government is a glue that helps hold society together by balancing
interests and serving as an integrating force. David Easton views politics
as the allocation of values and resources in society by an agent (the
government) that is perceived by the affected parties as a legitimate
authority. Eastons is a brokerist view of policy making.4
Representativeness is a value given high priority in brokerism. If
policy is to be employed as a balance wheel, then it is essential that all
the most relevant interests be clearly articulated and that some
consideration of these interests enter into policy making. Additionally,
group politics has increased significance. The government cannot hope
to operate as a balance of individual interests given (1) the difficulty of
securing information about the preference of individuals, (2) the absence
of preference in a great many policy matters, (3) the complexity of
calculating some equilibrium of individual interests, and (4) the lack of a
standardized and ongoing means for communicating individual interests.
The vote is an important indicator of individual preference but is too
generalized to be of use in most instances of brokerist policy making.
Thus the associational (as opposed to categorical) group becomes a
virtually indispensable element of the policy process.
Organized groups can routinely make inputs into the policy process
and can be expected to do so when an issue is sufficiently pertinent to
their interestsproviding that they are aware the issue is on some
official agenda and that they can make their opinions heard. Thus,
another requisite value of brokerism is widespread access to policymaking apparatus. If governing is the balancing of interests and

good policy reflects an awareness and accommodation of diverse interests, then every effort must be made to insure that the interests have a
forum.
A penetrating critique of brokerist policy making is provided by
Theodore Lowi in his The End of Liberalism 5 Lowi attacks interestgroup liberalism, a cousin of brokerism, as a mechanism for assuring
conservatism in policy making. Giving precedence to the view of
established groups insures conservatism because established groups are
by nature conservative. Less established groups dont usually have easy
access to policy-making machinery. Lowis indictment of interest-group
liberalism is somewhat less pertinent for brokerism. Pure brokerism
assumes access of all groups, while interest-group liberalism recognizes
that groups do not have equal access.
A more troubling issue is that interests may not be balanced
effectively even if all organized groups are assured access and influence.
Some interests are not represented in an organized fashion by any group.
Until recently the interests of the poor were not included in the brokerist
policy equation because no significant organized group represented
them. Likewise, the interests of the consumer have not been articulated
by organized groups until recently. The thousands of persons in prisons
and mental institutions are represented in second-hand fashion if at all,
even though these political nonpersons have a great stake in many
policy issues.
The extreme emphasis placed on interest balancing in the brokerist
policy philosophy can lead to logrolling and coalition building with only
passing consideration to questions of justice and morality. Lowi speaks
of the decline of meaningful adversary proceedings in favor of
administrative, technical, and logrolling considerations
questions of
equity rather than questions of morality. 6 The brokerist conception of
governing is, according to Lowi, partly responsible for increased
political cynicism; citizens are asked to accept policy decisions not
because they are good but because they reflect group interest.
The origins of brokerism and of the conception of policy making as
the balancing of interests are less apparent than are the origins of
protectorism. Perhaps this is because, as Lowi asserts, this conception
has become a dominant theme only since the second quarter of the
twentieth century. Still, some elements of brokerism can be found in the
writings of several classic political philosophers. A superficial reading of
Bentham might lead one to believe that the utilitarian philosopher was
chiefly a brokerist. Bentham is perhaps the single classic philosopher
that embodies some of the values of all the policy philosophies outlined
here, but interpreting as brokerism his principle
. . .

of utilitythe greatest happiness for the greatest numbershows

confusion of ends and means. Brokerism is chiefly a philosophy of
means, and while the greatest happiness for the greatest number might be
a directive for some brokerists, brokerism does not require such
motivation. Nor does Benthams approach involve the balancing of
expressed group interest. His conception of happiness is not defined in
terms of narrow sell-interest. In his Deontology Bentham declared that the
first law of nature is to wish our own happiness; and the united voices of
prudence and efficient benevolence addseek the happiness of others,
seek your own happiness in the happiness of others. No classical
political philosopher seems primarily brokerist, perhaps because the rise
of associational interest groups as major forces in policy making did not
occur until the late nineteenth century.
Several contemporary political scientists include brokerist themes in
their writings; one of the most prominent is Robert Dahl. A concise
brokerist statement provides the theme of Dahls textbook, Pluralist
Democracy in the United States.7 Dahls fundamental axiom in the
theory and practice of American pluralism is multiple power centers
sharing power, with none in a position to dictate policy. He contends that
the existence of several loci of power
will help (may indeed be necessary) to tame power, to secure
the consent of all, and to settle conflicts peacefully because:
[if] one center of power is set against another, power itself will be
tamed while coercion will be reduced to a
minimum. [when] even minorities are provided with
opportunities to veto solutions they strongly object to, the consent of
all will be won in the long run. constant negotiations
among different centers of power are necessary in order to make
decisions, [and in this way] citizens and leaders will perfect
the precarious art of dealing peacefully with their conflicts not merely
to the benefit of one position but to the mutual benefits of all the
parties to a conflict.8
...

...

...

This quotation sheds light on the seeming valuelessness of brokerism.

The reduction of conflict is often a core value in brokerist approaches to
policy making.
The brokerist approach is so commonplace in modern bureaucracy that
almost every agency operates in that style to some degree and with
respect to some types of issues. An agency in which brokerism is
fundamental and routine is the National Labor Relations Board. Here
negotiation is almost a substantive concern. Many of the agencies that are
protectorist are also likely to be brokerist since brokerism

is often an approach to regulatory politics. Thus those agencies that are

chiefly regulatory in function typically operate in a brokerist style.
Almost as commonly, however, agencies whose objectives are the
conferral of benefits operate in a brokerist style. Even such an agency as
the late Office of Economic Opportunityan agency with an explicit
substantive mission, the reduction of povertyhad, according to some
observers, adopted an operating style that was largely brokerist. Students
of the War on Poverty such as Moynihan, 9 Levitan,0 and Donovan ii have
argued that the balancing of group interests often took precedence over
rational approaches to the amelioration of poverty. Analyses of agencies
in several substantive policy domains including science, 12 welfare,13
housing,14 environment,15 and health6 provide evidence of the
pervasiveness of brokerism in policy making. In sum, at the higher levels
of policy making, brokerism is the dominant policy philosophy in all but
a few agencies.
Pragmatism
It has been said with some justification that pragmatism is Americas
only major contribution to philosophy. The writings of James and Dewey
gave substance to the direction If it worksdo it. But pragmatism as a
policy philosophy (as opposed to a codified general philosophy) has been
with us since long before the advent of modern bureaucracy. In fact, the
rise of modern bureaucracy can to some extent be interpreted as a
repudiation of ad hoc governing and pragmatism. Bureaucracy is a means
of standardizing government, policy, and decision making. The standard
operating procedure, record keeping, impersonalism, and formal chain of
command in bureaucracy is built on a structure of formality that impedes
pragmatism.
Despite the constraints that orderliness, routine, and formality impose
on pragmatism, bureaucracy (or bureaucrats) can still promote
pragmatism in public policy. While the formal structures of bureaucracy
almost invariably obstruct pragmatism, the bureaucrat does not always
heed formal structures. Sometimes constraining structures (rules,
jurisdictions, formal lines of authority) either do not exist, are not clear, or
can be ignored without fear of reprisal. The range of discretion for
bureaucrats may be enormous, and in such cases pragmatism is likely to
be the guiding principle in administering and policy making.
One of the best explanations of pragmatism as a policy philosophy is
found in the works of Charles Lindblom. According to Lindblom, policy
making and administration are necessarily incremental and

suboptimal because decisions must be made quickly, searches for

information are costly, and consequences cannot always be anticipated.
Policy-makers are often firemen responding to the most pressing
demand of the moment rather than philosophers pondering all available
alternatives or scientists applying a one best way. Policy-makers
should not, then, be expected to arrive at optimal policy, but are
commonly given to pragmatism and the art of the possible. The best
feasible solutions often are consistent neither with standard operating
procedures nor with legislative intent.
Transferalism
Transferalism is the policy philosophy of the welfare statetake from
the haves and give to the have-nots. While several classic political
philosophers contributed to the intellectual lineage of transferalism
Marx, Rousseau, Ricardothe actual use of policy as a vehicle for
reducing economic inequalities was uncommon until after the first
quarter of the twentieth century.
An insightful commentator on transferalism has been A. C. Pigou. In
his The Economics of the Welfare State8 he discusses the premises of
transferalism, along with the economic and philosophical problems of
various income transfers in society. A fundamental axiom of transferalism is the importance of relativity in income. As Pigou explains:
For a single person or family to be forced to accept a lower living
standard while their friendsand their enemiesare left as before
may be very distressing; but, if the whole of their class or group suffer
alike, they will scarcely suffer at all. In short, a
large part of the economic satisfaction which people derive from
substantial incomes depends, not on their income being large
absolutely, but upon its being larger, or at least not smaller, than those
common in their social entourage. This consideration greatly
strengthens the commonsense view that transfers away
from better-to-do persons do not hurt the victims much, while the
beneficiaries, whose needs are more elementary and less
complex, gain from them a great deal.19
...

Today the term relative deprivation is increasing in usage and indicates

that the conception of need as comparative has gained widespread
acceptance.
Another assumption of transferalism is that benefits from income
transfer accrue to society at large as well as to the individuals receiving
the supplement. Increased incomes allow poorer people to pursue

educational and employment opportunities; thus production is enhanced

and society benefits. Yet, as Pigou recognized, there is some point of
diminishing return (in economic terms) in the transfer of economic
wealth.
While giving us insight into the underpinnings of the policy
philosophy of transferalism, the economics of income transfer provides
only a partial explanation. There is also a moral strand in transferalism,
the idea that the poor should be provided for regardless of the economic
utility of doing so. Governments sometimes extend the benefits of the
poor even during times of inflation, thus contributing to the inflationary
spiral. Such a policy is not rational and cannot be accounted for in
terms of welfare economics; its origins are moral or political.
Transferalism is largely a twentieth-century policy philosophy. In past
times the poor have been objects of contempt. It was assumed that
providing the poor with public assistance would lead to idleness. Further,
the explanation for poverty was evolution. Indeed, Herbert Spencer and
other Social Darwinists argued that caring for the poor should be
discouraged because intervention would interfere with a natural order,
the survival of the fittest.
Today the common view is that poverty is less a product of an
individuals indolence or the natural order than it is of the structure of
society. This assumption is, however, somewhat less common in the
United States than in other Western nations. Many Americans tend to
divide the poor into two classesthe deserving poor and all others. As
Gilbert Steiner has pointed out, widows, orphans, and the disabled are
generally viewed as deserving. 20 The attitudes toward welfare recipients
who are young, fit, and black are quite unfavorable. Persons who face
economic hardship because they are unskilled, not socialized to
employment norms, victims of racial discrimination, or unwed or
deserted mothers caring for children are often objects of scorn in the
United States, and much of the welfare and poverty legislation has
reflected the concept of the deserving poor. Economists who argued that
cash payments or income subsidies would be more helpful in the War on
Poverty than service-training programs were overruled by President
Johnson, who wanted to guard against an image of his programs as the
Johnson dole.
The large role that transferalism has played in recent policy seems a
bit puzzling given the pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps tradition of
the United States. In a land where individualism, the work ethic, and
Calvinism are so much a part of the culture, the existence of a
multibillion-dollar welfare budget seems incongruous. There are several
explanations for this apparent contradiction. First, the Great Depression
made poverty respectable. When hard-working middle-class

PHILOSOPHIES, MANAGEMENT, AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST

71

people were reduced to poverty, the Spencerian interpretation of poverty

seemed less appealing. Moreover, the impetus for the welfare state
during the depression came not so much from charity as from the
survival of a nation. Also, todays public leaders are somewhat more
likely to view poverty as caused by social ills. Finally, the same nation
that pays homage to individual initiative also subscribes to the notion of
equal opportunity for all, and both public myths are powerful.
Egoism
The policy philosophy of egoism entails the assumption that the
bureaucracy or the agency exists as an end in itself beyond any social
mission and that public careers are a means of advancing oneself, even
to the possible detriment of agency goals. This philosophy need not take
so crude a form as simple graft or corruption. Extreme careerism may be
a manifestation of the policy philosophy of egoism, as may be an
obsessive desire to expand ones agency or organizational unit.
Egoism is not only reflected in the aggressive careerist or bureaucratic
empire-builder. The conserver pattern of behaviorthe bureaucrat
who avoids controversy and hopes to be so inconspicuous as to blend in
with the woodworkmay be based on an egoism policy philosophy. If
all ones actions are framed in terms of survival value (rather than
agency objectives), then a policy philosophy of egoism is dominant.
Moreover, in regard to the individuals philosophy of egoism, we may
make the distinction between the self-promoter egoist and the detached
egoist.
One of the earliest works in political philosophy that might be considered a treatise on egoism is Machiavellis The Prince. Machiavelli,
like the modern egoist, was little concerned with the substance of policy
or decision except as it impinged on the personal career of the
individual. Strategies are devised to maximize ones position of power
and to promote ones self-interest.
One scholar who has brought great insight into the nature and operation of egoism is Anthony Downs.2 Downs argues that the motives of
bureaucrats are complex but that the desire to maximize ones selfinterest is consistently significant.
The fundamental premise of the theory is that bureaucratic officials,
like all other agents in society, are significantlythough not solely
motivated by their own self-interests. Bureaucratic officials
in general have a complex set of goals but regardless of the
...

...

l~ PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN Fkibk15(JIIV15

particular goals involved, every official is significantly motivated

by his own self-interest even when acting in a purely official
capacity.22
No great amount of reflection is required to understand that the
behavior of public officials will, in most cases, be influenced by their
estimation of the consequences of any decisional alternative for their
personal needs and interests. While it is true that public officials are
sometimes judged by more stringent criteria than private administrators
and are expected to act in the public interest, it would be unrealistic to
expect them to be more than human. Yet despite the obvious influence of
egoism,. some prominent theories of policy making largely ignore the
role of self-interest. The common failure to come to grips with this
element of decision making is vexing but understandable. Gathering
empirical data concerning the motives of policy-makers is a task that is
not only delicate but fraught with methodological problems. Even if we
could find public officials who would agree to submit a motive
inventory of some sort, the data would be of questionable validity.
Motives may, of course, be inferred from actions, but such inferences
can be made only tentatively.
Moving from an individual level to an agency level, egoism is reflected in extreme efforts toward agency expansion, agency budget
growth, territoriality, and bureaucratic imperialism (when these efforts
are not designed to promote some social mission). Again, the role of
egoism is hard to measure because even the most obvious power grabs
are often cloaked in the best of intentions.
POLICY PHILOSOPHIES AND THE
PUBLIC INTEREST
The term public interest has been used in a variety of contexts and to
express diverse, sometimes conflicting meanings. Walter Lippman
defined the public interest as what men would choose if they saw
clearly, thought rationally, and acted disinterestedly and benevolently.
23 By contrast, J, W. R. Cox contends that the public interest, once the
irrelevancies are stripped away, is the equivalent of the majority
interest.24 Gunn holds that the public interest is little different from
Benthams utilitarianism.25 Still others, such as Sorauf 26 and Schubert,27
contend that the concept is too vague, too value-laden, too utopian, and
too inconsistent with the policies of group accommodation to be of much
value,
Given the multiple usages of the term, its vagueness and value

content, why should we be concerned with such a fuzzy concept? First,

being value-laden does not, as Diggs has pointed out, 28 disqualify the
public interest as a communicative term. Nor does its use in different
contextsphilosophy, political debate, statute, judicial interpretation
mean that it is too broad to serve a purpose. Indeed, Colm contends that
the term is generally employed in such a fashion that the meaning can be
inferred from the usage.29
The most important reason to consider the public interest has little to
do with semantics or connotations. Whether or not the term has multiple
or vague meanings, it is nevertheless used in the law, judicial
proceedings, definitions of agency activities, and the policy statements
of both elected and appointed public officials. That the term is used in
different ways to justify different, sometimes conflicting, actions simply
points to the need for further study.
A helpful analysis of the meanings of the public interest has been
provided by Leys and Perry.30 They divide the usages of the term into
formal meanings and substantive meanings. Formal meanings are
easily identified; the formal meaning is the express objective of duly
authorized governmental action. The substantive meaning of the public
interest, according to Leys and Perry, is the object that should be sought
in governmental action and is subdivided into several categories of
usage. One is the aggregationalist conception, which conceives the
public interest as the maximization of particular interests. Another
category is the procedural conception, which holds that the public
interest has been served when the proper procedures have been
employed to arrive at public decisions.
Leys and Perry also subdivide the procedural conception of the public
interest according to the type of procedure that is taken as proper. The
single conception involves absolutist and inflexible rules such as
majority rule and due process. The pluralist conception is not
absolutist; it involves the observance of the procedural rules of
whatever legal or political power that happens to become the decisionmakers for a given issue.
A third type of substantive meaning of the public interest is the
normative conception, in which some substantive value, such as social
equality or economic opportunity, must be maximized for the public
interest to be served.
The categories and subcategories of Leys and Perry can be confusing:
Table 31 is adapted from their work and summarizes their framework
of meanings of the public interest. It is important to understand the Leys
and Perry framework because it is employed below to help us understand
the relationship of the policy philosophies to various conceptions of the
public interest.

74 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN PERSPECTIVE

TABLE 3.1 The Leys and Perry Framework of

Meanings of the Public Interest
I. FORMAL MEANING: the objective of government action
II. SUBSTANTIVE MEANING: the objective that should be sought
A. AGCREGATIONALIST CONCEPTION: the maximization of particular
interests
B. PROCEDURAL CONCEPTION: the proper decision procedures are
employed
1. SINGLE CONCEPTION: absolutist rules and procedures
2. PLURALIST CONCEPTION: changeable and flexible rules and
procedures
C. NORMATIVE CONCEPTION: some substantive value is to be
maximized
Source: Adapted from W. A. 11. Leys and C. M. Perry, Philosophy and the
Public Interest (Chicago: Committee to Advance Original Work in Philosophy,
1959).

Rationalism: A Formalist Conception of the Public

Interest
Rationalism is the policy philosophy that is closest to the formalist
conception of the public interest. Glendon Schubert characterizes contemporary theorists of the public interest as realists, idealists, and
rationalists. The rationalists view, described below by Schubert, is
compatible with the premises of the policy philosophy of rationalism:
Government decision-making processes become value-neutral
technical processes, with the authority of expertise. Their job is to
translate into specific rules of action the public policy goals
already determined by the decisions of the people. Human
discretion is minimized or eliminated by defining it out of the decision...

making situation

According to the rationalist view of the public interest, public administrators respond to the directives of elected officials who have translated
the public will into law. A common criticism of the rationalist view, as
Schubert points out, is that sometimes there is no clear public will.
Brokerism:An Aggregationalist Conception of the Public
Interest
The realist theory of the public interest advanced by Schubert draws
from the values of the policy philosophy of brokerism:

PHILOSOPHIES, MANAGEMENT, AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST

75

The Realists are skeptics and sophisticates who have put behind
them myths which postulate any independent, substantive concern for
such notions as the public will and the public interest.
For them the supreme virtue of a democratic system
of government is the multiplicity of points of access that it affords for the
manifold conflicting interests which necessarily arise
in a pluralistic society. The function of government officials is to
facilitate the continuous readjustment of conflicting interest
...

The difficulty with the realist view of the public interest, according to
Schubert, is a failure to judge one set of interests as better than another.
An interest is an interest and must, by this rather mechanistic
conception, be represented if equilibrium is to be achieved.
Transferalism: An Element in the Normative Conception
of the Public Interest
All policy philosophies and all conceptions of the public interest have
a normative component; even in rationalism, an objective phi losophy, the
values of expertise and minimal discretion introduce an element of
normativeness. Transferalism is a policy philosophy with an explicit and
operational goal and (unlike rationalism) is less concerned with means
than with ends. By most criteria it is distinctly normative.
As a policy philosophy with an estimable but limited goaleconomic
equality in societytransferalism doesnt give rise to a general
conception of the public interest. Even the most ardent transferalist would not be
likely to contend that the meaning of the public interest is the redistribution of
wealth. There are simply too many significant public issues in which
economic equality is not a central consideration. While questions of economic
equality might impinge on a wide array of public issues, transferalism is more a
value to be taken into account in particular questions concerning the public
interest.

Protectorism:

A Procedural Conception of the Public Interest

Just as the protectorist approach to governing is protection via constraint,

protectorism implies an approach to the public interest based on constraint. In
this case the constraining factor, as is generally the case in protectorist policy
making, lies in setting and following procedure.
After reviewing several usages of the term public interest, Frank

76 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN PERSPECTIVE

Sorauf38 comes to the same conclusion as Schubertthat the term is

generally so muddled as to be virtually useless. Sorauf goes on, however, to propose a conception of the public interest that is basically
procedural. Americans have agreed on a governmental process that
reconciles divergent interests according to established rules and processes. We are bound together, therefore, in accepting the process of
democracy as a method of compromise, regardless of the policies it may
produce. To this extent we may claim a public interestour interest in
the democratic method. Thus, according to Sorauf, a procedural
conception of the public interest is much more realistic than other views.
. . .

Pragmatism: A Pluralist Conception of the

Public Interest
Pragmatism implies a pluralist conception of the public interest in the
meaning of pluralism employed by Leys and Perryobservance of rules
that happen to become the decision-maker for a given issue.
Griffith ~ has described a conception of the public interest that would
fit into the pluralist category of Leys and Perry. According to Griffiths
conception, the public interest is that which conforms to the norms of a
given society at a given time. The approach to the public interest implied
by pragmatism involves following rather than leading the prevailing
social norm and, extending the Griffith model, following the narrow
organizational and institutional norms in defining the public interest for
a given case. By this conception the public interest is fluid.
Egoism: A Disregard for the Public Interest
By definition the policy philosophy of egoism precludes consideration
of the public interest. Since the predominant factor in policy making is
the interest of the organization or the individual bureaucrat, it makes
little sense to speak of the public interest implications of egoism.
Two works by Anthony Downs argue the importance of the selfinterest view.36 According to Downs, bureaucrats are motivated primarily
by personal needs; hence philosophical arguments about the public
interest are largely futile. In another work Downs responds to the
criticism that his analysis of bureaucratic behavior is amoral. 37 While
arguing that his conception of how bureaucrats do behave is accurate, he
goes on to formulate a conception of the public interest

PHILOSOPHIES, MANAGEMENT, AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST

77

Box 3.3: Ethical Dilemmas

Robert K., a government accountant in the auditing
department of a large city, discovered that funds that were
supposed to be in the maintenance and supply account of the
office of the city clerk were missing. The missing funds
amounted to about $20,000. He approached his good personal
friend the city clerk and asked, off the record, about the
missing funds. The clerk replied, Im embarrassed to admit
this, but I really dont know what happened to those funds.
Theyve been on the books now for about three years without a
dime in the account. I was afraid to report that the money was
missing because I knew no one would believe it was just lost;
they would think I took it. I hope you wont have to say anything
about this because it could get me into an awful mess.
Knowing the city clerk to be a man of high moral character and
knowing that disclosure of the finding would have a disastrous
effect on the clerks reelection bid (the election was only a
week away), Robert K. decided not to mention the missing
funds in his report.
Having just begun his job as state highway inspector, Morris
J. asked his supervisor about the departments policy in regard
to travel reimbursement. Morriss job would require a great deal
of traveling, and he was anxious that he not lose money
traveling for the state. Listen, Morris, his boss began, were
the most underpaid office in this underpaid department, right?
Where can you get qualified engineers to work for what we do?
The state is very loose about its travel policies, so given our
underpayment its been our policy to claim our real expenses
plus 50 percent. Anyway, a lot of the things that we spend outof-pocket money on while were on the road dont really fit the
states expense account categories. And dont worry about
doing it this way; everyone knows about it, even the state
legislature. Its a good way for them to look good to the voters
by holding down our salaries, but the fudge factor gives us a
decent living. Morris had to agree that he was underpaid, and
this seemed to be a pretty good way to compensate.
In her capacity as planner and evaluator in the state
department of social services, Jean T. was responsible for
gathering and analyzing data related to proposed programs.
The
most
recent
program
was
the
innovative
deinstitutionalizatlon program that had been formulated by the
head of the department. Her analysis revealed that the
program, which would take mental patients out of state and
private institutions and release them on their own recognizance
to find jobs and residences within nearby communities, was
seriously flawed. While the program would help solve a major

PHILOSOPHIES, MANAGEMENT, AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST

77

problemthe tremendous overcrowding of the states mental

institutionsit would create others. The basic problems were:
(1) inadequate care had been taken in locating acceptable residences prior to release; (2) patients received no more
assistance in finding a job than anyone else would who had
recently visited the state bureau of unemployment; (3) too little
care had been taken in screening the patients to be released,
some of whom had not received a serious examination in
several years; (4) the best available data indicated that similarly
designed programs had not worked well in other states. Jean
reported these problems, giving supporting data, in her formal
evaluation and sent it to her supervisor, who sent it along to the
head of the department of social services. In a few days a terse
message came back from the head of social services: Change
the numbers. I know you can do anything you want to with
statistics, so why shoot down a program that will free people,
relieve overcrowding, and save the taxpayer money? Besides,
you said yourself that some of these people hadnt been
examined in several years; this should be evidence that we
need to reduce the load, not build it up. Jean T., fearing for her
job, changed the numbers and wrote a report that presented the
deinstitutionalization program in a favorable light.
1. Which, if any, of the behaviors in these cases do you find
objectionable? Which is most objectionable? Least? Why?
Can you formulate any general ethical rule that would
cover these situations?
2. Do you empathize with any of these people? Could you
see yourself behaving similarly if you were in their place?
How might you behave differently?
3. Which of the behaviors in these cases is most seriously
counter to the public interest? Why?

that prescribes how bureaucrats should behave. His conception is one of

majority benefit and is basically aggregationalist:
Anything that is in the long run detrimental to the majority of citizens

cannot be in the public interest, unless it is essential to the protection

of those individual rights included in the minimal consensus (about
the basic rules of conduct and decision making that should be
followed and about the general principles and fundamental social
policies that the government should carry out). 38

PHILOSOPHIES, MANAGEMENT, AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST

77

CONCLUSION
Conceptions of policy philosophies and the public interest are unlikely
to contribute materially to behavioral analysis of bureaucracy and
administration. But such broad philosophical interpretation can be useful
in understanding assumptions about how government should operate and what is
worth achieving. Behavioral approaches contribute to our understanding of
how things work but provide only a few clues to how things should

work. Abstract categories of policy philosophy and the public interest

are an inadequate guide to the inner workings of bureaucratic machinery but
may help us determine the type of policy product that the machine can be
expected to produce.

NOTES
1. Edward Banfield, The Unheavenly City (Boston: Little, Brown, 1968), p.
257.

2. See, for example, Alvin Weinberg, Criteria for Scientific Choice,

Minerva, 1 (Winter 1963), 159171.

3. See, for example, Russell Ackoff, Scientific Method, Optimizing

Applied Research Decisions (New York: John Wiley, 1962). Russell Ackoff
and Fred Emery, On Purposeful Systems (Chicago: Aldine-Atherton,
1972); C. W. Churchman, Prediction and Optimal Decision: Philosophical
Issues of a Science of Values (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1961).
4. Eastons theory of politics is detailed in his A Systems Analysis of Political Life (New York: John Wiley, 1965).
5. Theodore Lowi, The End of Liberalism (New York: W. W. Norton,
1969).
6. Ibid., p. 57.
7. Robert Dahl, Pluralist Democracy in the United States (Chicago:
Rand McNally, 1967).

8. Ibid., p. 124.
9. Daniel P. Moynihan, Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding (New York:
The Free Press, 1969).
10. Sar Levitan, The Great Societys Poor Law (Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins Press, 1969).
11. John Donovan, The Politics of Poverty (New York: Pegasus, 1967).
12. Daniel Greenburg, The Politics of Pure Science (New York: New
American Library, 1968).
13. Gilbert Steiner, The State of Welfare (Washington, D.C.: The

Brookings Institution Press, 1971).

14. Harold Wolman, The Politics of Federal Housing (New York:
Dodd, Mead, 1971).
15. J. C. Davies and B. S. Davies, The Politics of Pollution, 2nd ed.
(New York: Pegasus, 1975).
16. Theodore Marmor, The Politics of Medicare (Chicago: Aldine, 1973).

PHILOSOPHIES, MANAGEMENT, AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST

77

17. See especially D. Braybrooke and Charles Lindblom, A Strategy of

Decision (New York: The Free Press, 1963); and Charles Lindblom, The Policymaking Process (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968).

18. A. C. Pigou, The Economics of the Welfare State (New York:

Macmillan, 1932).

19. Ibid., p. 235.

20. Steiner, The State of Welfare.
21. Anthony Downs, Inside Bureaucracy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967).
22. Ibid., p. 2.
23. Walter Lippman, The Public Philosophy (London: Hamish Hamilton,
1955), p. 4.
24. J. W. R. Cox, The Appeal to the Public Interest, British Journal of
Political Science, 3, 3 (April 1973), 229241.
25. J. A. W. Gunn, Jeremy Bentham and the Public Interest,
Canadian Journal of Political Science, 1, 4 (December 1968), 398413.
26. Frank Sorauf, The Public Interest Reconsidered, Journal of Politics,
19, 4 (November 1957), 616639.
27. Glendon Schubert, The Theory of The Public Interest in Judicial
Decisionmaking, Midwest Journal of Political Science, 2, 1 (February
1958), 125; Schubert, The Public Interest (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press,

1961).
28. B. J. Diggs, The Common Good as Reason for Political Action,
Ethics, 83, 4 (July 1973), 283293.
29. C. Colm, In Defense of the Public Interest, Social Research, 27,
3 (Autumn 1960), 295307.
30. W. A. R. Leys and C. M. Perry, Philosophy and the Public
Interest (Chicago: Committee to Advance Original Work in Philosophy,
1959).

31. Schubert, The Public Interest, p. 31.

32. Ibid., p. 136.

33. Sorauf, Public Interest Reconsidered.

34. Ibid., p. 633.
35. In C. J. Friedrich, ed., Nomos V: The Public Interest (New York:
Atherton Press, 1962).
36. Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York:
Harper 1957); Inside Bureaucracy.
37. Anthony Downs, The Public Interest: Its Meaning in Democracy,
Social Research, 29 (Spring 1962).
38. Ibid., p. 9.

FURTHER READING
Appleby, P. H. Morality and Administration in Democratic
Government. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1952.
Domhoff, C. William. Who Really Rules? New Haven and
Community Power Reexamined. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction
Books, 1978.
Dvorin, Eugene and R. H. Simmons. From Amoral to Humane
Bureaucracy. San Francisco: Canfield Press, 1972.

PHILOSOPHIES, MANAGEMENT, AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST

77

Flathman, R. E. Public Interest. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1966.

Grondin, R. E. Ethical Perspectives on Political Excuses. Policy and

Politics, 5 (June 1977), 7178.
Harmon, M. M. Social Equity and Organizational Man: Motivation and
Organizational Democracy. Public Administration Review, 34 (January/
February 1974), 1118.
Lowi, T. J. The End of Liberalism. New York: W. W. Norton, 1969. Mitnick,
Barry. A Typology of Conceptions of the Public Interest. Administration and
Society, 8 (May 1976), 528.
Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1971.
Wakefield, Susan. Ethics and the Public Service: A Case for Individual
Responsibility. Public Administration Review, 36 (November/December
1976), 661666.