Wilsonian Expertise vs. Political Democracy

Every president must choose which of the two major theories of American governmental management he shall follow, or have it imposed by those below him. The Post favors the expert progressive leadership model dominant in the professional public administration community since Woodrow Wilson. I espouse the conservative political management type from before Wilson. It was revived by President Jimmy Carter in his Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA), was implemented by Reagan in his first term, and is now apparently being brought back again in Trump’s second term.

President Woodrow Wilson, in office from 1913 to 1921, was no fan of the Constitution, nor of democracy for that matter.  In accord with the progressivism of his day, he believed that as society evolves to ever-higher heights, modern science would resolve all of our problems, so that government is best left to experts.

As Randolph May says in his article Woodrow Wilson’s case against the Constitution,

Wilson was convinced, in no small measure by his admiration for prominent late 19th century German social scientists, that “modern government” should be guided by administrative agency “experts” with specialized knowledge beyond the ken of ordinary Americans — and that these experts shouldn’t be unduly constrained by ordinary notions of democratic rule or constitutional constraints.

So, in his seminal 1887 article, “The Study of Administration,” published in the same year that the first modern regulatory commission, the Interstate Commerce Commission, was created, Wilson explained that he wanted to counter “the error of trying to do too much by vote.” Hence, he admonished that “self-government does not consist in having a hand in everything,” while pleading for “administrative elasticity and discretion” free from checks and balances.

So the Wilsonian approach to government, “the expert progressive leadership model,” a professional civil service, its members chosen on the basis of their test scores so as to select the smartest individuals possible, would take care of basic government functions.  Political leaders voted by the people would come and go, but the civil service, whose members had more or less permanent job security, would stay the same.

This model prevailed until the presidency of Jimmy Carter, who served from 1977 to 1981.  Though usually considered an ineffectual president, as we blogged about, he actually made some under the hood innovations that proved to be highly consequential and beneficial, like deregulating the airlines, the trucking industry, and the railroads.

He also pushed through the Civil Service Reform act of 1978 (CSRA). Responding to the perception that the federal bureaucracy had become too large, complex, and ineffective–as well as being too difficult to change, thanks to job guarantees and the public employees’ union–Carter made big changes. According to the Wikipedia article on his reforms,

Carter ran his campaign promising to “strengthen presidential control over federal services”, and once in office created the CSRA. Carter intended for the act to create more bureaucratic officials involved with policy making (rather than administration) and that were more closely politically controlled by the presidency.

According to Stuart E. Eizenstat’s article Jimmy Carter and Civil Service Reform, Carter eliminated over 300 agencies with a savings of $1 billion and set up rigorous assessment and accountability processes.

As Carter noted in signing the bill, “It gives managers more flexibility and more authority to hire, motivate, reward, and discipline employees to ensure that the public’s work gets done.” The Act required the establishment of a performance appraisal system within each agency to adequately evaluate the performance of those in the SES. . . .Dismissals for inadequate job performance increased by 1500 percent during his term, since the Act was enacted.

The next president, Ronald Reagan, further implemented Carter’s reforms.  Devine said that Reagan, in addition to his firing striking aircraft controllers, enforced a senior executive performance management system and cut 100,000 government employee positions.

Eventually, though, the Wilsonian model re-asserted itself.  Comments Devine:

The Wilsonian professional class, especially at the top, considers that its superior expert knowledge is an end in itself that promotes government success and the public good. Progressive expertise’s perceived obstacle to good government is the political power of the president and his appointees — which is precisely what political management seeks, as provided both by the Constitution and the Carter CSRA reforms. The voters elect the president, and he is to execute policy through Article II and his agency officials subject only to the law. Wilsonians disagree and so resist political leadership — believing that in doing so they are acting righteously and are generally supported by other progressives. Musk understands this difference and actually has already accomplished his true political mission, which is to have government employees understand that they and their expert career bosses are not wholly untouchable or fully in charge.

Ironically, the Democrats today are decrying Trump’s purge of the Executive Branch, over which the President has constitutional authority, as an assault on democracy and as an imposition of “oligarchy.”  While actually, the “political management” model pioneered by Carter, a Democrat from back in the day when Democrats championed the working class, puts the government bureaucracy more under democratic control.  While the Wilsonian “expert progressive leadership model” specifically and purposefully sets up a government by an oligarchy of “experts.”

Photo:  President Woodrow Wilson by Harris & Ewing, photographer – Library of CongressCatalog: https://lccn.loc.gov/2016857913Image download: https://cdn.loc.gov/service/pnp/hec/16800/16849v.jpgOriginal url: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2016857913/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=159819182