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PUB Flashcards

Terms in this set (11)

Public Opinion
General public opinion influences the management of public organizations. Two types of mass opinion figure importantly: attitudes toward government in general and attitudes toward particular policies and agencies. Elected officials have often sought to reform government bureaucracies in ways that appealed to public opinion, especially among many citizens who regard the federal government and its employees as inefficient and in need of reform.
Public Opinion Example
Public opinion played a significant role when President Jimmy Carter's administration reformed the U.S. civil service system in 1979, changing pay and disciplinary procedures and provisions for appointing senior executives. The Carter administration promoted the reform as a means of motivating federal workers who needed to work harder and of making it easier to fire lazy ones. The administration took this approach because it drew more media coverage than an approach simply emphasizing improvements to management in government. Media representatives apparently felt that emphasis on firing lazy bureaucrats would appeal to the public (Kettl, 1989).
Public Opinion (Continued)
In state and local governments across this country and in other nations, unfavorable public attitudes about government have provided some of the support for various reforms (Peters and Savoie, 1994). Some reforms have targeted government pay systems, seeking changes that would tie a government employee's pay more closely to his or her performance. The reforms have been justified as a way to remedy allegedly weak motivation and performance on the part of public employees (Gabris, 1987; Ingraham, 1993; Kellough and Lu, 1993). In Georgia and Florida, for example, during the 1990s the governors proposed that merit system protections for state employees be abolished, in part so it would be easier to fire them and to tie their pay more closely to their performance (Kellough and Nigro, 2002; West, 2002). Walters (2002) points out that Governor Miller in Georgia promoted the reforms to the public in the same way Jimmy Carter had argued for similar reforms during his presidency—by connecting them to the stereotype of the inefficient bureaucrats who could not be fired. These sorts of reforms have been undertaken in various nations, and have been particularly prevalent in English-speaking countries in recent decades (Kettl, 2002; Peters and Savoie, 1994; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2011). They reflect the decline in general public support for government spending and programs.
Ambivalence and Paradoxes in Public Opinion
Ambivalent public attitudes contribute to the challenges of public management. In the absence of economic markets as mechanisms for measuring need and performance, public officials and public organizations often struggle with difficult questions about what the public wants. In recent decades, elected officials have often responded with reforms and decisions that directly influence structures, behavior, and management in public organizations. Nations cycle in and out of periods of antigovernment sentiment (Hirschman, 1982). Therefore it remains to be seen whether the negative orientation of reforms—emphasizing the need to reform poorly performing government agencies and employees—will continue. Nevertheless, these examples illustrate the influence on public management of general public sentiment.
Public Opinion and Agencies, Policies, and Officials
The general level of public support for a particular agency's programs affects the agency's ability to maintain a base of political support. Certain agencies hold a more central place than others in the country's values (Meier and Bothe, 2007; Wamsley and Zald, 1973), and the public regards their work as more crucial. The Department of Defense, police departments, and fire departments typically retain strong general public support because of the importance people attach to national defense and personal security. Some social programs, such as those perceived to involve welfare payments to the poor, receive weaker support in public opinion polls.
Media and Public Opinion
Close media scrutiny of government plays an indispensable role in governance. The news media also report aggressively on scandals in private business, yet they appear to place more emphasis on scrutiny of government. Government is often more accessible, and it is more appropriate to watch it carefully, because government spends the taxpayers' money. In cities around the country, local news reporters regularly chase down stories about governmental waste or abuse. For example, in some cities they have searched the parking lots of bars and restaurants during normal working hours to take pictures of the license tags of any government vehicles parked there. In one city a television station carried stories about the high costs of the furniture in the office of one of the county commissioners. Major television networks have news segments and special series that regularly broadcast allegations of government waste.

Instances in which unfavorable press coverage damages a person, program, or agency make concern about media coverage part of the lore of government (Linsky, 1986). Officials and experts from Washington speak of managing in a "goldfish bowl" (Allison, 1983; Cohen and Eimicke, 1995; IBM Endowment for the Business of Government, 2002), with media attention playing a stronger role in government than it does in business management (Blumenthal, 1983). For years observers have worried that some federal executives devote more time to creating a splash in the media than to performing well as managers (Lynn, 1981). Many public employees appear to feel that they will not get into much trouble for poor performance but will get into a lot of trouble for creating bad publicity (Downs, 1967; Lynn, 1981; Warwick, 1975). City and county officials will pack an auditorium to listen to consultants speak on how to handle media relations, and they regularly complain about unfair media coverage

This apparent power of the media has mysterious qualities. The potential damage from bad coverage is often unclear. Ronald Reagan earned a reputation as the "Teflon president" by maintaining popularity in spite of sharp criticism in the media. As an additional irony, much of the worry over press coverage amounts to worrying over an entity in which the general public expresses little confidence. Public opinion polls find that public confidence in journalists and the news media is lower than public confidence in many other institutions and has been declining in recent decades (Patterson, 2001). For a long time, many experts argued that the media exercise little influence over public voting patterns and attitudes about specific issues. Some experts on the news media now argue that the media exert a powerful influence on public attitudes, but in a diffuse way. Media coverage develops a climate that pervades the informational environment, and this in turn influences public opinion (Lichter, Rothman, and Lichter, 1986; Murray, Schwartz, and Lichter, 2001). In addition, some experts conclude that journalists develop a shared view of what constitutes news, and this leads to a version of the news that is generally shared by the different news organizations (Patterson, 2001).
Media and Public Opinion (Continued)
Media attention also varies. Some agencies regularly get more media attention than others. Hood and Dunsire (1981) found that the foreign affairs office and the treasury get particularly high levels of press coverage in Britain, whereas other central government departments get relatively little attention. The media often seriously neglect administrative issues. Yet public officials also know that media attention can shift unpredictably. In one large state, where the department of administration ordinarily received little public attention, the director decided to change the set of private health insurance plans from which the state's employees chose their coverage. Many employees disliked the new set of plans. An outburst of complaints from state employees caused a sudden wave of coverage in the newspapers and television news around the state. A legislative committee soon called the director before special hearings about the changes.
Officials at higher levels and in political centers (capitals and large cities) often pay a great deal of attention to media strategies. Many city governments issue newsletters, televise city council meetings, and use other methods of public communication. Some federal and state agencies invest heavily in issuing public information. Even so, many public managers resist suggestions that they should devote time to media relations, regarding themselves as professionals rather than as "politicians." More active approaches, however, usually prove to be the most effective (Graber, 2003). Various experts have offered advice on how to deal with the media.
Interest Groups
What kind of group support bolsters an agency? Apparently, the most effective support comes from well-organized, cohesive groups that are strongly committed to the agency and its programs. Conversely, capture of an agency by a constituency can damage the agency and bias it toward the self-interested priorities of that group (Rourke, 1984; Wilson, 1989). Critics have accused some regulatory agencies of being captives of the industries or professions they supposedly regulate, and they complain that other agencies are captured by the clientele who receive their services (allegedly, the Forest Service has been captured by timber interests and the Bureau of Mines by mining interests). Agencies appear to have the most flexibility when they have the support of multiple groups; they can then satisfy some groups, if not all, and even have them confront one another about their conflicting demands (Chase and Reveal, 1983; Meier and Bothe, 2007; Rourke, 1984).

When groups do exert influence, they often provide useful information about policy issues and group positions (Abney and Lauth, 1986; Brudney and Hebert, 1987; Elling, 1983). Abney and Lauth (1986) found additional evidence that agency managers at the urban level see interest-group involvement as appropriate when it focuses directly on the agency and inappropriate when it is channeled through the city council or the mayor. The managers may be too forgiving of interest-group influences, but the findings also suggest a more positive or at least necessary side of interest groups. Experienced public managers see maintaining relations with these groups as a necessary part of their work, often frustrating but also challenging and sometimes helpful. Public managers have to be accessible to such groups, seriously attentive to what they have to say, patient and self-controlled when the groups are harshly critical, and honest (Chase and Reveal, 1983; Cohen and Eimicke, 1995).
Agenda Garbage Can
Public policy researchers also help characterize the complex context of public management by analyzing how certain matters gain prominence on the public agenda while others languish outside of public notice. Kingdon (1995) said that this process resembles the "garbage can model" of decision making developed by March and his colleagues (Cohen, March, and Olsen, 1972). As described in more detail in Chapter Seven, the garbage can model depicts decision making in organizations as being much less systematic and rational than is commonly supposed. People are not sure about their preferences or about how their organization works. Streams of problems, solutions, participants, and choice opportunities flow along through time, sometimes coming together in combinations that shape decisions. (An example of a choice opportunity is a salient problem that has to be addressed by a newly formed committee with sufficient authority to have a chance at getting something done.) The process is more topsy-turvy than the organizational chart might suggest. Sometimes solutions actually chase problems, as when someone has a pet idea that he or she wants to find a chance to apply. Sometimes administrators simply look for work to do. Choice opportunities are like garbage cans in which problems, solutions, and participants come together in a jumbled fashion.
Agenda Garbage Can (Continued)
Kingdon revised this view when he applied it to public policy, referring to streams of problems, policies, and politics flowing alongside one another and sometimes coming together at key points to shape the policy agenda. Problems come to the attention of policymakers in various ways: through indicators, such as unemployment figures or figures on budget deficits; through events, such as crises that focus the policymakers' attention on them; and through feedback, such as citizen complaints and reports on the operation of programs. Policies develop within the policy community as various ideas and alternatives emerge from the "policy primeval soup." Like microorganisms in a biological primeval soup, they originate, compete, evolve, and prosper or perish. They are evaluated in think tanks, conferences, staff meetings in legislative bodies and government agencies, and interest-group activities. They may be partially tried out in programs or legislation, and a long period of "softening up" often follows the original proposal, in which the alternative becomes more and more acceptable. Some alternatives have a long history of implementation, shelving, alteration, and retrial.
Agenda Garbage Can
In Kingdon's portrayal, the agenda-setting process appears difficult to predict and understand, but not wildly out of control. The processes of gestation and evaluation focus considerable scrutiny on ideas and alternatives and their workability. Still, this analysis illustrates the dynamism of the policymaking environment in which public managers must operate.

Many of the challenges facing a public manager turn on effective assessment of the political feasibility of particular actions and alternatives and of the array of political forces shaping or curtailing various opportunities.

Public managers, especially at higher levels, must skillfully manage their relationship with the external authorities, actors, networks, and policy processes described in this chapter. They also have to operate effectively within the pattern of interventions and constraints from their environments. The following chapters examine major dimensions in organizing and managing in the public sector. At many points, the discussion illustrates and shows evidence of how the political and institutional environments of public organizations affect their characteristics and the behaviors of the people who work in them.
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