A Government of Strangers

Hugh Heclo

doi:10.5771/9780815705192

Summary

How do political appointees try to gain control of the Washington bureaucracy? How do high-ranking career bureaucrats try to ensure administrative continuity? The answers are sought in this analysis of the relations between appointees and bureaucrats that uses the participants' own words to describe the imperatives they face and the strategies they adopt.

Shifting attention away form the well-publicized actions of the President, High Heclo reveals the little-known everyday problems of executive leadership faced by hundreds of appointees throughout the executive branch. But he also makes clear why bureaucrats must deal cautiously with political appointees and with a civil service system that offers few protections for broad-based careers of professional public service.

The author contends that even as political leadership has become increasingly bureaucratized, the bureaucracy has become more politicized. Political executivesusually ill-prepared to deal effectively with the bureaucracyoften fail to recognize that the real power of the bureaucracy is not its capacity for disobedience or sabotage but its power to withhold services. Statecraft for political executives consists of getting the changes they want without losing the bureaucratic services they need.

Heclo argues further that political executives, government careerists, and the public as well are poorly served by present arrangements for top-level government personnel. In his view, the deficiencies in executive politics will grow worse in the future. Thus he proposes changes that would institute more competent management of presidential appointments, reorganize the administration of the civil service personnel system, and create a new Federal Service of public managers.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2011
ISBN-Print: 978-0-8157-3535-9
ISBN-Online: 978-0-8157-0519-2
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 272
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
1. What Is at Stake No access
2. The Search for Political Leadership No access
3. The Idea of Civil Service: A Third Force? No access
1. Who's Who? No access
2. Trends No access
3. Results No access
4. Summary No access
1. The Political Executive System No access
2. The Selection Process No access
3. Characteristics of Political Executives No access
4. A Summary and Look Forward No access
1. The Higher Career System No access
2. Job Protection No access
3. Bureaucratic Dispositions No access
1. Self-Help: The Starting Point No access
2. Self-Help Is Not Enough No access
3. Whom Do You Trust? No access
1. Using Strategic Resources No access
2. Using People No access
3. Mutual Support and Its Limits No access
4. Conclusions No access
1. The Case for Reform No access
2. The Shape of Reform No access
3. A Third Force: The Federal Service No access
4. Costs and Prospects No access
1. A No access
2. B No access
3. C No access
4. D No access
5. E No access
6. F No access
7. G No access
8. H No access
9. I No access
10. J No access
11. K No access
12. L No access
13. M No access
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15. O No access
16. P No access
17. R No access
18. S No access
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20. U No access
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23. Y No access
24. Z No access