Discuss efforts (particularly during the Clinton and George W. Bush Administrations) to improve productivity in the agencies of the federal government of the United States in the context of the notion of "dichotomy" in the historic public administration literature

After reading and researching the topic that was given to us, it seems that during the Clinton – Bush era, a dichotomy did not exist. Personally, it seems that the two had word together to accomplish the same goal.  I say this because during this time, both republicans and democrats agreed with how their elected officials ran the government. By the two working together seemed to improve productivity in the agencies of the federal government of the United States.

During the Clinton administration, his ideas were significantly influenced by the New Public Management (NPM).  The NPM was a trend that surfaced in Europe and Oceania during the 1990s.  One of the key components of NPM was acknowledging citizens as customers.  The case for this strategy rested  on the fact that more local government services were becoming “ fee- for – services” based, and citizens in general were demanding a level of service quality , one equivalent to the one that was provided by private sectors. Clinton reinvented the federal government by altering the ways in which the federal government conducted its affairs and interactions with the “customers” (citizens) they served.  Under the Clinton administration, he created the National Performance Review which incorporated reinventing government principles and exhorted federal agencies to downsize, eliminate unnecessary regulations, focus on results, and offer customer service equal to or better than “the best in business.”  The NPR goals included:

1.       Employee empowerment

2.       Restructure and “do more with less”

3.       Performance budgeting

4.       Enhance use of information technology

5.       Identified performance goals and set customer service standards.

During the Bush administration, the use of data to make budgetary and programmatic decisions became the foundation of the President’s Management Agenda (PMA). The PMA was the Bush administration plan for the federal government. Under the Bush administration, private alternatives such as competitive outsourcing were favored as a performance management measure. President Bush espoused competition and privatization as the best option to overcome bureaucratic resistance.  Under the PMA, federal agencies were required to show how public programs achieve results more efficiently than other methods, such as faith – based, private, or nonprofit alternatives.  The MPA goals included:

1.         Strategic management of human capital

2.        Competitive sourcing – privatization

3.       Improved financial performance

4.       Expanded electronic government

5.       Budget and performance integration (GPRA)

Under both the Bush and Clinton administration efforts had a citizen/customer focus and emphasized a greater use of electronic government. The Clinton electronic government effort spawned the Government Paperwork Elimination Act and hundreds of innovative web projects. The Bush effort winnowed those efforts to 24 that had the potential for significant changes in government (such as an electronic travel system), for citizens (such as a common portal for federal benefits), and for businesses (such as a common portal for all regulations affecting businesses). It extended its efforts via the E-Government Act of 2002. Both reform efforts also placed greater attention on improving program performance and obtaining results. While the Clinton reform effort undertook the initial implementation of the Government Performance and Results Act, which created a new supply of performance information, the Bush administration systematically attempted to leverage that information to improve agency performance and increase accountability for results. Both administrations, after several years of top-down recommendations and initiatives, shifted to more of a support role in which they worked with senior agency leaders to develop initiatives and performance targets jointly. This led to greater ownership by agency-level political appointees. Together, both reform efforts shared a number of common recommendations on improving financial management, strengthening human capital, and achieving budget reform. Efforts begun under Clinton were more concretely implemented under Bush. Interestingly, both also encountered challenges in explaining the results and value of their effort to the public.

Despite these similarities, the Clinton and Bush reforms displayed a number of important differences, especially in their implementation. Clinton’s initial six month Performance Review generated over 1200 recommendations. By sheer volume, some thought it discredited itself. There were enough idealistic ideas in the initial set of recommendations that those naturally opposed to real reform used them to impugn the credibility of the entire effort. In addition, the Clinton effort continued to generate initiatives and recommendations during the course of the entire eight-year effort. It issued over 100 reports and publications. Bush’s Management Agenda, on the other hand, focused on a few large ideas that represented long-standing, well-known management challenges. The Bush administration doggedly focused on the implementation of these core elements for its entire eight years and added or deleted relatively few items from its Management Agenda.

public policies

1. Problem Definition

Policies are developed in response to the existence of a perceived problem or an opportunity; they never exist in a vacuum. The context is extremely important because it will shape the kinds of actions considered. In defining the problem or opportunity and to help address the questions above, background studies are required. The state of affairs needs to be provided which will identify the actors, the issues and the possible means that are available. It is also important to forecast trends in order to identify whether the issue is likely to change

2. Policy Objectives and Options

The eventual success of a policy depends upon establishing clear goals. If there are multiple objectives they must be consistent. They must be flexible enough to change over time as the circumstances evolve

In simple terms the objectives must:

Identify the present conditions and situation, indicate what the goals are, identify the barriers to achieving the goals, identify what is needed from other agencies and the private sector, determine how success will be judged and measured, and identify what steps are required to achieve success.
Having defined the problem and objectives, policy options must be formulated and evaluated. In many cases more than one solution has to be considered for policy adoption. The objectives may be realized in many different ways. Best practices from other jurisdictions may be considered, and all other possible solutions need to be considered. By evaluating the options it may be possible to identify the one that best meets the goals that have been established and at the same time is the best fit for local circumstances. These types of evaluations are referred to as ex ante, because the outcomes are being assessed even before the policy is put into practice. Although one can never completely anticipate the outcome of different prospective policy options, ex ante evaluations are capable of bringing to light what problems may develop when the preferred option is implemented. Thus, when the future policy is to be evaluated (ex post), problems of data, reporting, and identification of success criteria may have been already anticipated and resolved through an earlier ex ante assessment.

Many types of evaluation methods are employed in both ex ante and ex post assessments. These include cost-benefit analysis, multi-criteria analysis, economic impact and Delphi forecasting. Because evaluation takes place at several of the steps in the policy process, it is now regarded as a critically important issue. New ideas involving managing the policy process include performance based management, where evaluation is built into the entire process. It means in the policy process, a great deal of attention has to be paid as to how the goals, results, and beneficiaries are to be measured. The selection of indicators has to be agreed upon by policy managers from the inception.

3. Policy Implementation

The implementation of the selected option represents a critical aspect of the policy process. The most carefully crafted policy that is widely accepted by those it affects can flounder because of improper implementation. It is impossible to define an optimal implementation procedure because of the wide range of socioeconomic circumstances that policies are applied, and also because of the diversity of policies themselves.

4. Policy Evaluation and Maintenance

The implementation stage is not the final step in the policy process. The effectiveness of the policy needs to be assessed after a certain period of time, and steps must be taken to ensure that there are resources and means to maintain a successful policy. In the past, this tended to be overlooked, and after a while policies would be sidetracked by other newer initiatives. The long term effect was the presence of many different policy initiatives frequently with conflicting goals. Prior to the ISTEA, US federal highway policy was marked by an accumulation of interventions, the so-called ‘entitlements’ that were added one after the other, with little thought as to compatibility or integration with other funding. The result was that policies in place frequently conflicted with each other in terms of goals or implementation measures.

On-going program evaluation is thus central to the maintenance of policy. This has tended to be a difficult issue for managers who today find their programs being assessed by methods and data requirements that were never built into the policy initially. Performance Based Management has become an essential tool in the policy process as a result. Under this system evaluation is built into all stages of the policy process, and indicators are agreed upon by the managers who carry out the programs as well as the units that undertake evaluation.

Dimensions of Diversity

Diversity refers to human qualities that are different from our own and those of groups to which we belong; but that are manifested in other individuals and groups. Dimensions of diversity include but are not limited to age, ethnicity, gender, physical abilities/qualities, race, sexual orientation, educational background, geographic location, income, marital status, military experience, parental status, religious beliefs, work experience, and job classification.

Diversity as a concept focuses on a broader set of qualities than race and gender. In the context of the workplace, valuing diversity means creating a workplace that respects and includes differences, recognizing the unique contributions that individuals with many types of differences can make, and creating a work environment that maximizes the potential of all employees.

Diversity is also about having the long term goal that the campus work force should generally reflect the population of the state it serves in all its dimensions.

Although diversity, equal employment opportunity, and affirmative action are all different, they are interrelated. Each is directed toward achieving equal opportunity in the workplace. Diversity and affirmative action each broaden the concept of equal employment opportunity in different ways. Diversity, equal employment opportunity, and affirmative action together provide a strong foundation for the University's efforts to achieve a fair and inclusive workplace.

Dual Federalism and Cooperative Federalism

The two concepts that I decided to compare was Dual federalism and cooperative federalism . Dual federalism is based on the idea that the federal government and the State governments are co-equals and each is legislating in a separate sphere. Dual federalism is said to be a theory about the proper relationship between government and the states, portraying the states as powerful components of the federal government nearly equal to the national government.Dual federalism is said to be composed of four essential parts which include 1. The national government rules by enumerated powers only. The national government may rule only by using powers specifically listed in the Constitution.2. The national government has a limited set of constitutional purposes. The national government has only limited purposes.3. Each government unit, the nation and state, is sovereign within its sphere. National and state governments are sovereign in their own spheres.4. The relationship between nation and states is best characterized by tension rather than cooperation. The relationships between the state and national governments are marked by tension.Dual federalism is the  states’ rights, which reserve to the states all rights not specifically conferred on the national government by the Constitution. According to the theory of dual federalism, a rigid wall separates the nation and the states.

Cooperative federalism acknowledges a need for cooperation between state and federal governments. It rejects that state and national government must exist in separate spheres and is defined by three elements which include 1. National and state agencies typically undertake government functions jointly rather than exclusively.2. The nation and states routinely share power.3. Power is not concentrated at any government level or in any agency. The fragmentation of responsibilities gives people and groups access to many venues of influence.


After reading and researching both dual and cooperative federalism, the only things that dual and cooperative federalism have in common are the base cores of federalism. Both dual and cooperative federalism both have national and state levels of government.

The relating  concept in which dual and cooperative federalism is federalism.  Federalism is when two or more governments exercise power and authority over the same people and the same territory. Federalism relates becasue it can include both cooperative and dual federalism. For example, the governments of the United States and Pennsylvania share certain powers (cooperative federalism)(for example, the power to tax) but other powers belong exclusively to one or the other (dual federalism). This form of government was the founders’ solution to the problem of making a single nation out of thirteen independent states.

http://thisnation.com/textbook/federalism-what.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_federalism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/dual_federalism
http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/law/9780199238583/toc.html

There Is No "I" In Team

     Our assignment in our public administration class was to post a blog on task coordination. As a class we came to realize that buildings such as sky scrapers and pyramids, or organizations such as the Girls Inc and the YMCA, did not just develop over night. Well, maybe the thought could have for one individual, but the point that I am trying to make is that one individual thought of an idea, and was able to bring a group of individuals together to accomplish the goal that the particular individual originally thought of, which we concluded was task coordination. Now, how is it that one individual is able to bring numerous of individuals together and create basically  "our world" as we know it today?

      In my opinion, you have to posses certain characteristics in order to bring people together. Characteristics such as intuition, strength, and  adaptability. Basically speaking, you have to be a leader.It is important that leaders model the behavior they expect from others. To do this, a person must first be clear about his or her guiding principles and values. Each person must find his or her own voice based on underlying values. Only in this way can a person be “authentic,” “walk the talk,” and consequently earn the right and the respect to lead others.

     When I was younger, I was under the assumption that  "if you were not a leader, then you were a follower." Of course when I was younger, being a "follower" was the one where people would belittle you and  no one liked you because of the title you were given. As I got older, I started realizing that the whole leader and follower scenario was more of a win situation for both parties. I say that because leadership is a process, not just a focus on a single person. Followers influence one another through trusting relationships and open and honest communication. Both leaders and followers have shared purposes, which is a common vision that brings them together.

Overall, now when I think of task coordination, and how can one individual bring others together to accomplish a goal, I do not think of it in that perspective anymore. I now think of  task coordination as individuals coming together who share both the same visions, and have the same insight as that one particular individual (the leader) which then allows them to create the buildings that we see today and powerful organizations throughout the world.