1

MEMORANDUM

TO: PADM 620 Students

FROM: PADM 620 Faculty,

Helms School of Government

SUBJECT: The Administrative Memorandum

DATE: November 1, 2017

Good writing skills are essential to a successful career in public administration, law, or

public policy. Learning to write well is a life-long process, and while no single exercise, class or

project can transform you into a good writer, it is important to understand that writing is a skill

that one can master. Understanding the purpose of a given document, the audience’s needs, and

the generally acceptable format and best practices in a particular field are all necessary to

effective communications. Writing for public administration often involves drafting documents

such as budget narratives, public policy proposals, annual reports, press releases and a variety of

memoranda. The administrative memorandum is a ubiquitous and important part of public

administration practice. Dennis L. Dresang, author of The Public Administration Workbook

commented on the importance of the administrative memorandum and provided a good

introduction to the drafting of administrative memoranda by identifying what he called the

“ABCs of good administrative writing: accuracy, brevity, and clarity.”1

1 Dennis Dresang, The Public Administration Workbook. 7th ed. (New York: Routledge, 2016), 70.

2

Administrative Memoranda Must Be Accurate

In practice, Public Administration is a detail-oriented, fact-specific field. When drafting

an administrative memorandum it is very important to exhibit accuracy in both content and form.

According to Dennis Dresang:

Good writing is accurate writing. This is true in two senses. First, the statements that you

make in your writing – the facts on which you rely – should be true. If you are writing a

report for the county office of social services and you note that last year its social workers

had an average caseload of 75 clients each, make sure this is a correct figure. Everyone

makes mistakes occasionally; good writers minimize them. Nothing causes the credibility

of an administrator to plummet as quickly as a reputation for error.

Accuracy is important in a second sense as well: Your spelling, punctuation, and

grammar all should be correct. There is an old saying: "You can't expect anyone to take

your writing more seriously than you appear to take yourself." If you draft a memo or

prepare a report that is sloppy, filled with run-on sentences or misspelled words, you

clearly have not taken your writing seriously. Others will treat it accordingly.

This rule is not hard to follow. One clearly does not need to have "natural writing talent"

to be careful in the use of facts or to use a dictionary.2

Administrative Memoranda Should be Brief

The modern practice of public administration often involves heavy schedules, tight time

constraints, and long lists of complex problems. As such, concise writing is extremely valuable

in all forms of public administration communications and particularly in the crafting of

administrative memoranda. While these documents should be detailed, complete, and

substantive, they should also be as efficient as possible. According to Dennis Dresang:

The best administrative writing is short and to the point. Administrators are busy people.

So are all the legislators, contractors, customers, and others with whom they interact.

Almost no one has the time or patience to wade through a memo that runs on like a Norse

saga. In many offices, the rule is that if a document is longer than three or four pages, it

2 Dresang, 70-71.

3

must have an "executive summary" attached to the front for interested parties to scan

quickly. You need to exercise judgment in following this rule of brevity, of course. If

your assignment is to write an evaluation of the major agency program, you likely will

need to say more than "this program has failed to meet its objectives."3

Learning to exercise good judgment and balance the necessity of specific, accurate, detailed

information and the competing need to package that information in the briefest, most efficient

way that is reasonable for the circumstances is key to crafting useful, high-quality administrative

memoranda.

Administrative Memoranda Must be Clear

Finally, clarity is vitally important to the crafting of high-quality administrative

memoranda. Clarity includes proficient use of language, the effective structuring of sentences

and paragraphs, and logical organization of ideas. In the words of Dennis Dresang:

Good writing is clear writing. It is writing that takes the work – and the guesswork – out

of reading. When you write clearly, your audience knows exactly what you mean, and

that should be your primary goal.

To keep it clear, keep it simple. Too many people knit their words together as if they

were weaving an oriental carpet, producing awesomely intricate and ornamented patterns

of prose. Even if you think your readers enjoyed diagramming sentences in tenth-grade

English (a doubtful proposition, by the way), don't construct your sentences as if they

were puzzles to be solved. For those who aspire to clear writing, there is no better friend

than the simple declarative sentence, arranged in subject–verb–object form (e.g., "The

Department of Transportation [subject] awarded [verb] 300 contracts [object]").

Avoid unnecessary jargon and fancy words. Although you may be justly proud that you

have mastered the foreign language of your profession (Pentagon-speak, legalese,

accountingish, or whatever), don’t assume that all your readers are equally adept. The

great essayist E.B. White wrote more than 40 years ago, "do not be tempted by a $20

word when there is a ten-center handy, ready and able."

3 Dresang, 71.

4

Clarity does not come cheap. In fact, there is an inverse relationship between the ease of

reading and the ease of writing. As Hemingway put it, "Easy writing makes hard

reading." Thus, it is a good guess that the crisper and cleaner the sentence, the longer it

took to write. The key is to rewrite, and then rewrite some more.4

4 Dresang, 71.

5

Bibliography

Dresang, Dennis. The Public Administration Workbook. 7th ed. New York: Routledge, 2016.

Symposium Introduction

John M. Bryson is the McKnight

Presidential Professor of Planning and

Public Affairs in the Humphrey School of

Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.

He wrote Strategic Planning for Public

and Nonprofi t Organizations and co-

wrote, with Barbara C. Crosby, Leadership

for the Common Good. He received

the 2011 Dwight Waldo Award from the

American Society for Public Administration

for “outstanding contributions to the pro-

fessional literature of public administration

over an extended scholarly career.”

E-mail: [email protected]

Barbara C. Crosby associate professor

in the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at

the University of Minnesota, has taught and

written extensively about leadership and

public policy. She is author of Leadership

for Global Citizenship and coauthor,

with John M. Bryson, of Leadership for

the Common Good. As former academic

codirector of the University of Minnesota’s

Center for Integrative Leadership, she

conducted training for senior managers of

nonprofi t, business, and government organi-

zations in the United States and abroad.

E-mail: [email protected]

Laura Bloomberg is associate dean in

the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at

the University of Minnesota. Her teaching,

research, and publications focus on U.S.

education policy and administration,

cross-sector leadership, and program

evaluation. Previously, she was an urban

high school principal and executive director

of the University of Minnesota’s Center for

Integrative Leadership. She worked with

former U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton

to launch the global Women in Public

Service Project.

E-mail: [email protected]

This article has been updated with minor copy-editing changes after fi rst online publication. 445

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 74, Iss. 4, pp. 445–456. © 2014 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12238.

approach. In this regard, the emerging approach reemphasizes and brings to the fore value-related concerns of previous eras that were always present but not dominant (Denhardt and Denhardt 2011; Rosenbloom and McCurdy 2006). Th is renewed attention to a broader array of values, especially to values associated with democracy, makes it obvious why questions related to the creation of public value, public values more generally, and the public sphere have risen to prominence. Th is article highlights some of the key value-related issues in the new approach and proposes an agenda for the future.

First, we outline what we believe are the main con- tours of the emerging approach. Next, we clarify the meaning of value, public value, public values, and the public sphere; discuss how they are operationalized; and summarize important challenges to the concepts. We then discuss how public value and public values are used in practice. Finally, we present an agenda for research and action to be pursued if the new approach is to fulfi ll its promise.1

An Emerging View of Public Administration Public administration thinking and practice have always responded to new challenges and the short- comings of what came before (Kaufman 1969; Peters and Pierre 1998). Table 1, which builds on a similar table in Denhardt and Denhardt (2011, 28–29), presents a summary of traditional public administra- tion, the New Public Management, and the emerg- ing approach. Th e new approach highlights four important stances that together represent a response to current challenges and old shortcomings. Th ese include an emphasis on public value and public values, a recognition that government has a special role as a guarantor of public values, a belief in the importance of public management broadly conceived and of service to and for the public, and a heightened emphasis on citizenship and democratic and col- laborative governance. Th ese concerns, of course, are not new to public administration, but their emerging combination is the latest response to what Dwight

A new public administration movement is emerging to move beyond traditional public administration and New Public Management. Th e new movement is a response to the challenges of a networked, multisector, no-one-wholly- in-charge world and to the shortcomings of previous public administration approaches. In the new approach, values beyond effi ciency and eff ectiveness—and especially democratic values—are prominent. Government has a special role to play as a guarantor of public values, but citizens as well as businesses and nonprofi t organizations are also important as active public problem solvers. Th e article highlights value-related issues in the new approach and presents an agenda for research and action to be pursued if the new approach is to fulfi ll its promise.

Creating public value is a hot topic for both public administration practitioners and schol- ars (Van der Wal, Nabatchi, and de Graaf

2013; Williams and Shearer 2011). Why is that? What is going on? We believe the answer lies with the continuing evolution of public administration think- ing and practice. Just as New Public Management supplanted traditional public administration in the 1980s and 1990s as the dominant view, a new movement is now under way that is likely to eclipse it. Th e new approach does not have a consensually agreed name, but many authors point to the need for a new approach and to aspects of its emergence in practice and theory (e.g., Alford and Hughes 2008; Boyte 2005; Bozeman 2007; Denhardt and Denhardt 2011; Fisher 2014; Kalambokidis 2014; Kettl 2008; Moore 1995, 2013, 2014; Osborne 2010; Stoker 2006; Talbot 2010). For example, Janet and Robert Denhardt’s excellent and widely cited book Th e New Public Service (2011) captures much of the collabora- tive and democratic spirit, content, and governance focus of the movement.

While effi ciency was the main concern of traditional public administration, and effi ciency and eff ectiveness are the main concerns of New Public Management, values beyond effi ciency and eff ectiveness are pursued, debated, challenged, and evaluated in the emerging

Public Value Governance: Moving Beyond Traditional Public Administration and the New Public Management

John M. Bryson Barbara C. Crosby Laura Bloomberg

University of Minnesota

446 Public Administration Review • July | August 2014

Table 1 Comparing Perspectives: Traditional Public Administration, New Public Management, and the Emerging Approach to Public Administration

Dimension Traditional Public Administration New Public Management Emerging Approach to Public Administration (e.g.,

Denhardt and Denhardt’s [2011] New Public Service)

Broad Environmental and Intellectual Context

Material and ideo- logical conditions

Industrialization, urbanization, rise of modern corporation, specialization, faith in science, belief in progress, concern over major market failures, experience with the Great Depres- sion and World War II, high trust in government

Concern with government failures, distrust of big government, belief in the effi cacy and effi ciency of markets and rationality, devolution and devolution

Concern with market, government, nonprofi t and civic failures; concern with so-called wicked problems; deepening inequality; hollowed or thinned state; “downsized” citizenship; networked and collaborative governance; advanced information and communication technologies

Primary theoretical and epistemologi- cal foundations

Political theory, scientifi c management, naive social science, pragmatism

Economic theory, sophisticated positivist social science

Democratic theory, public and nonprofi t management theory, plus diverse approaches to knowing

Prevailing view of rationality and model of human behavior

Synoptic rationality, “administrative man”

Technical and economic rationality, “economic man,” self-interested decision makers

Formal rationality, multiple tests of rationality (political, administrative, economic, legal, ethical), belief in public spiritedness beyond narrow self-interest, “reason- able person” open to infl uence through dialogue and deliberation

The Public Sphere or Realm

Defi nition of the common good, public value, the public interest

Determined by elected offi cials or technical experts

Determined by elected offi cials or by aggregating individual prefer- ences supported by evidence of consumer choice

What is public is seen as going far beyond government, although government has a special role as a guarantor of public values; common good determined by broadly inclusive dialogue and deliberation informed by evi- dence and democratic and constitutional values

Role of politics Elect governors, who determine policy objectives

Elect governors, who determine policy objectives; empowered managers; administrative politics around the use of specifi c tools

“Public work,” including determining policy objectives via dialogue and deliberation; democracy as “a way of life”

Role of citizenship Voter, client, constituent Customer Citizens seen as problem-solvers and co-creators actively engaged in creating what is valued by the public and is good for the public

Government and Public Administration

Role of government agencies

Rowing, seen as designing and imple- menting policies and programs in re- sponse to politically defi ned objectives

Steering, seen as determining objectives and catalyzing service delivery through tool choice and reliance if possible on markets, businesses, and nonprofi t organizations

Government acts as convener, catalyst, collaborator; sometimes steering, sometimes, rowing, sometimes partnering, sometimes staying out of the way

Key objectives Politically provided goals; implementation managed by public servants; monitor- ing done through bureaucratic and elected offi cials’ oversight

Politically provided goals; managers manage inputs and outputs in a way that ensures economy and responsiveness to consumers

Create public value in such a way that what the public most cares about is addressed effectively and what is good for the public is put in place

Key values Effi ciency Effi ciency and effectiveness Effi ciency, effectiveness, and the full range of democratic and constitutional values

Mechanisms for achieving policy objectives

Administer programs through central- ized, hierarchically organized public agencies or self-regulating professions

Create mechanisms and incentive structures to achieve policy objectives especially through use of markets

Selection from a menu of alternative delivery mechanisms based on pragmatic criteria; this often means helping build cross-sector collaborations and engaging citizens to achieve agreed objectives

Role of public manager

Ensures that rules and appropriate procedures are followed; responsive to elected offi cials, constituents, and clients; limited discretion allowed to administrative offi cials

Helps defi ne and meet agreed upon performance objectives; responsive to elected offi cials and customers; wide discretion allowed

Plays an active role in helping create and guide networks of deliberation and delivery and help maintain and enhance the overall effectiveness, accountability, and capacity of the system; responsive to elected offi cials, citizens, and an array of other stakeholders; discre- tion is needed but is constrained by law, democratic and constitutional values, and a broad approach to accountability

Approach to accountability

Hierarchical, in which administrators are accountable to democratically elected offi cials

Market driven, in which aggre- gated self-interests result in out- comes desired by broad groups of citizens seen as customers

Multifaceted, as public servants must attend to law, com- munity values, political norms, professional standards, and citizen interests

Contribution to the democratic process

Delivers politically determined objec- tives and accountability; competition between elected leaders provides over- arching accountability; public sector has a monopoly on public service ethos

Delivers politically determined objectives; managers determine the means; skepticism regard- ing public service ethos; favors customer service

Delivers dialogue and catalyzes and responds to active citizenship in pursuit of what the public values and what is good for the public; no one sector has a monopoly on public service ethos; maintaining relationships based on shared public values is essential

Sources: Adapted principally from Denhardt and Denhardt (2011, 28–29), with further adaptations from Stoker (2006, 44); Kelly, Mulgan, and Muers (2002); and Boyte (2011).

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Public Value Governance: Moving Beyond Traditional Public Administration and the New Public Management 447

how to govern, not just manage, in increasingly diverse and com- plex societies facing increasingly complex problems (Kettl 2002; Osborne 2010; Pollitt and Bouckaert 2011). Natural disasters, failures of large parts of the economy, unevenly eff ective health care and education systems, a stagnant middle class, deepening inequal- ity, and bankrupt communities off er recent examples that have challenged not just governments but also businesses, nonprofi ts, and civil society generally. In the United States, these challenges are occurring at a time of historic distrust of a broad range of institu- tions (Gallup 2014).

The Emerging Approach Th e responses to these new challenges do not yet constitute a coherent whole, but the outlines of a new approach are becoming clear in, for example, Janet and Robert Denhardt’s (2011) widely cited framework called the New Public Service, as well as in Gerry Stoker’s (2006) public value management, Barry Bozeman’s (2007) managing publicness, Stephen Osborne’s new public governance (2010), and political theorist Harry Boyte and colleagues’ (Boyte 2011) new civic politics. Th ese scholars draw on diff erent theo- retical and epistemological foundations than traditional public administration or New Public Management. Citizens, citizenship, and democracy are central to the new approach, which harks back to Dwight Waldo’s (1948) abiding interest in a democratic theory of administration. Th e approach advocates more contingent, pragmatic kinds of rationality, going beyond the formal rationalities of Herbert Simon’s (1997) “administrative man” and the “eco- nomic man” of microeconomics. Citizens are seen as quite capable of engaging in deliberative problem solving that allows them to develop a public spiritedness of the type that Tocqueville saw in the American republic of the 1830s when he talked about the preva- lence of “self-interest rightly understood” (Tocqueville 1840; see also Mansbridge 1990).

Scholars arguing for the new approach see public value emerging from broadly inclusive dialogue and deliberation. Th e conversation includes community members from multiple sectors because, as Jørgensen and Bozeman note, “public values and public value are not the exclusive province of government, nor is government the only set of institutions having public value obligations, [though clearly] government has a special role as guarantor of public values” (2007, 373–74). Th is aspect of the approach has many precursors, including, for example, the work of Vincent and Elinor Ostrom (Ostrom 1973; Ostrom and Ostrom 1971), which also provides important underpinnings for understanding networked and col- laborative governance (McGinnis and Ostrom 2012; Th omson and Perry 2006). Th e approach encompasses what Boyte terms “public work,” meaning “self-organized, sustained eff orts by a mix of people who solve common problems and create things, material or sym- bolic, of lasting civic value” (2011, 632–33), while developing civic learning and capacity as part of the process. Th is work can engage many diff erent kinds of people, including public-spirited managers from across sectors and citizens. Citizens thus move beyond their roles as voters, clients, constituents, customers, or poll responders to becoming problem solvers, co-creators, and governors actively engaged in producing what is valued by the public and good for the public (Briggs 2008). Budd (2014) captures the importance of work in general for the creation of public value and the special role that labor unions have often played in its creation.

Waldo (1948) called the periodically changing “material and ideological background.” Whether the new approach can live up to its promise—and particularly its democratic promise—is an open question that we explore later.

Traditional Public Administration Traditional public administration (Stoker 2006; Waldo 1948) arose in the United States in the late 1900s and matured by the mid-twentieth century as a response to a particular set of condi- tions. Th ese included the challenges of industrialization, urbaniza- tion, the rise of the modern corporation, faith in science, belief in progress, and concern over major market failures. Mostly success- ful experience with government responses to World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II helped solidify support for traditional public administration and built strong trust in govern- ment as an agent for the good of all. In its idealized form, politics and administration were quite separate (Wilson 1887). Goals were determined in the fi rst instance by elected offi cials and only second- arily refi ned by technical experts in response to political direction. Government agencies were the primary deliverers of public value through the way they designed and implemented politically defi ned objectives (Salamon 2002). Effi ciency in government operations was the preeminent value. Citizens were viewed primarily as voters, clients, or constituents. Of course, traditional public administration in practice was always more deeply enmeshed in politics than its idealized form would suggest (Denhardt and Denhardt 2011, 6–7; Waldo 1948), and government agencies were themselves prone to failure (Wolf 1979).

New Public Management After a long gestation period, the New Public Management (Hood 1991) became the dominant approach to public administration in the 1980s and 1990s. In the United States, the change was marked by Osborne and Gaebler’s best-selling book Reinventing Government (1992) and the Bill Clinton administration’s National Performance Review (Gore 1993). New Public Management arose out of a con- cern with government failures, a belief in the effi cacy and effi ciency of markets, a belief in economic rationality, and a push away from large, centralized government agencies toward devolution and privatization.

In New Public Management, public managers are urged to “steer, not row.” Th ey steer by determining objectives, or what should be done, and by catalyzing service delivery, or how it should be done (rowing), through their choice of a particular “tool” or combination of tools (e.g., markets, regulation, taxes, subsidies, insurance, etc.) for achieving the objectives (Salamon 2002). Markets and competi- tion—often among actors from diff erent sectors—are the preferred way of delivering government services in the most effi cient and eff ective way to recipients seen as “customers,” not citizens. Pu

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