Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Part I The state-building problem in American political development
- Part II State building as patchwork, 1877–1900
- Part III State building as reconstitution, 1900–1920
- Introduction: From patchwork to reconstitution
- 6 Reconstituting civil administration: economy, efficiency, and the repoliticization of American bureaucracy
- 7 Reconstituting the army: professionalism, nationalism, and the illusion of corporatism
- 8 Reconstituting business regulation: administrative justice, scientific management, and the triumph of the independent commission
- Epilogue: Beyond the state of courts and parties – American government in the twentieth century
- Notes
- Selected bibliography
- Index
6 - Reconstituting civil administration: economy, efficiency, and the repoliticization of American bureaucracy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Part I The state-building problem in American political development
- Part II State building as patchwork, 1877–1900
- Part III State building as reconstitution, 1900–1920
- Introduction: From patchwork to reconstitution
- 6 Reconstituting civil administration: economy, efficiency, and the repoliticization of American bureaucracy
- 7 Reconstituting the army: professionalism, nationalism, and the illusion of corporatism
- 8 Reconstituting business regulation: administrative justice, scientific management, and the triumph of the independent commission
- Epilogue: Beyond the state of courts and parties – American government in the twentieth century
- Notes
- Selected bibliography
- Index
Summary
… greater efficiency on a far higher plane is necessary if we are to democratize our industrial and political life. Our political machinery – national, State and local; legislative, executive, administrative, and judicial; constitutional and extraconstitutional – our whole political machinery in all its parts must be adapted to all the changing purposes of government. It is of small advantage that our legislators are democratically nominated, elected and controlled; it is of small advantage that each separate government wheel turns with noiseless ease, if the system as a whole is ill-geared. If in a government there is a lack of proper co-ordination among the parts, if certain parts are weak which should be strong, and certain parts are strong which might be weak; if between State and nation there are jurisdictional disputes; and if there are jurisdictional disputes between legislative and judiciary; if there is fluctuation where there should be stability, and a stiff unchangeability where there should be elasticity and change – if there are these or any of these, then no true efficiency can be maintained.
Walter E. Weyl, The New Democracy, 1912The Progressive era is celebrated as the age of economy and efficiency, the period in which business principles and scientific management techniques turned the tide in the battle against profligacy and waste in government. The list of official bodies formed in the early twentieth century to deal with questions of efficiency in civil administration lends credence to this characterization: The Commission on Department Methods, the Commission on Economy and Efficiency, the Bureau of Efficiency, the Central Bureau of Planning and Statistics, the Bureau of the Budget, the General Accounting Office, the Personnel Classification Board.
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- Information
- Building a New American StateThe Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877–1920, pp. 177 - 211Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1982