Volume XIII, Number 1 - School of Public Affairs and Administration

197 Pages·2013·9.24 MB·English

by  Iryna Illiash

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1 Volume XIII Number 1
Public Voices

Editor-in-Chief: Marc Holzer, Rutgers University – Campus at Newark
Managing Editor: Iryna Illiash, Rutgers University – Campus at Newark
Book Review Editor: John Phillips, Benedictine University at Springfield
Assistant Editor: Ginger Swiston, Rutgers University – Campus at Newark

Editorial Board

Robert Agranoff, Indiana University William Lester, Jacksonville State University
Danny L. Balfour, Grand Valley State University Carol W. Lewis, University of Connecticut
Sandford Borins, University of Toronto Robert A. Maranto, University of Arkansas
Geert Bouckaert, Catholic University of Leuven, Patricia Marsolais, City of Dallas, TX
Belgium Michael Miller, City of Phoenix, AZ
Frances Burke, Suffolk University, Boston Brent R. Never, University of Missouri –
Linda F. Dennard, Auburn University at Kansas City
Montgomery Kenneth Nichols, University of Maine
David John Farmer, Virginia Commonwealth Valerie L. Patterson, Florida International
University University
Vatche Gabrielian, American University of Michael W. Popejoy, Central Michigan
Armenia University
Terence M. Garrett, University of Texas at Beryl Radin, American University
Brownsville
Wilbur Rich, Wellesley College
Charles Goodsell, Virginia Polytechnic Institute
Mark Rutgers University of Amsterdam
and State University
Richard W. Ryan, San Diego State University
Anne J. Hacker, Broomtree Hermitage – Battle
Dolph Santello, University of New Haven
Creek, MI
Elizabeth Sharpe Overman, University of
Rachel Hadas, Rutgers University – Campus at
Central Oklahoma
Newark
Lynette Shaw-Smith, Benedictine University
Arie Halachmi, Tennessee State University
at Springfield
Lenneal Henderson, University of Baltimore
James E. Storbeck, University of Texas at
Candace Hetzner, Boston College
Brownsville
Elizabeth Hull, Rutgers University – Campus at
Richard Swaim, University of Baltimore
Newark
Heather Wyatt-Nichol, University of
Glenda Kirkland, Bloomfield College, NJ
Baltimore
Public Voices

Editor-in-Chief
Marc Holzer
School of Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA)
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey-Campus at Newark

Managing Editor
Iryna Illiash
School of Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA)
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey-Campus at Newark

Book Review Editor
John R. Phillips
Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Benedictine University at Springfield

Volume XIII Number 1
Publisher

Public Voices is published by the National Center for Public Performance at the School of
Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA), Rutgers University-Campus at Newark.
Copyright © 2013

Front Cover
“Allegory of Good Government” (detail) by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, fresco, 1338. Palazzo

Pubblico, Siena, Italy.

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National Center for Public Performance
School of Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA)
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Washington, DC 20042-0041

Electronic issues of Public Voices are available at
http://spaa.newark.rutgers.edu/public-voices

ISSN 1072-5660
Public Voices Vol. XIII No. 1
Contents

Analysis and Commentary

Visions of Good Governance: Through Artists’ Eyes…………………………………………..1
Carol W. Lewis

This article is designed for teaching about the importance of culture for transmitting ethical
norms and beliefs. The focus is on the link between ethical behavior and political power and
the allegorical representation in popular culture of ethics as a battle between good and evil.
Public art most often supports the ruling regime and is intended to underwrite the rulers’
ideology and legitimacy. Three sets of murals spanning six centuries illustrate how public art
communicates the epoch’s authoritative view of the ethical foundations of good governance
and, conversely, the immoral basis and undesirable consequences of bad governance.

The Radical Right, the National Municipal League Smear File, and the
Controversy over Metropolitan Government in the United States during
the Postwar Years……………………………………………………………………………………….17
John F. Brennan

This paper reports on activities undertaken by the National Municipal League (NML) and
the Public Administration Service (PAS) during the 1950’s and 1960’s to counter libelous
and slanderous actions taken by grass roots activists in opposition to efforts to reform
metropolitan governance across the United States. I utilize records from the NML
archives—and give special attention to their “Smear File”—to chronicle and analyze the
key events and actors. Specifically, I focus on the ideas of opponents of metropolitan
government reform from the South and West in the United States including Jo Hindman,
Dan Smoot, and Don Bell. These individuals used right-wing idea distribution vehicles
including magazines, small-town newspapers, and subscription newsletters to disseminate
their arguments and rally support for their cause. I also analyze the actions of their foes
at the NML and PAS—namely those of Alfred Willoughby, Executive Director of the
National Municipal League; H.G. Pope, President of the Public Administration Service;
Public Voices Vol. XIII No. 1 i
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Richard S. Childs, former President of the National Municipal League; and Karl Detzer,
Roving Editor for Reader’s Digest and contributing writer for the National Municipal
Review, the academic and professional journal of the National Municipal League. This
study adds to the literature explaining the lack of metropolitan governmental frameworks
at the local level in the United States, which has been built on the work of Charles
Tiebout, Vincent Ostrom, Robert Bish, Ronald Oakerson, and Roger Parks. Although
this analysis is idiographic and historical in perspective, it does not necessarily challenge
the core empirical results of the nomothetic modeling of these scholars.

A Progressive Era Idea for Reforming Government that Didn’t Make It:
Recall of Judicial Decisions………………………………………. .................................... ..58
Mordecai Lee

As a reform movement and an academic discipline, American public administration
generally coalesced during the Progressive era (1890-1920). Progressive reforms for the
public sector seeped deeply into the DNA of the field, including separation of civil
servants from politics, reliance on expertise, fewer elected offices, and public reporting of
agency activities. However, not all of the governmental reforms proposed during this era
were enacted. One of the most controversial and least known was Theodore Roosevelt’s
proposal in 1912 that the voters be able to have a referendum on major court decisions,
permitting them to overturn those decisions. His idea was only enacted in Colorado,
where it remained on the books until 1921. This article reviews the original concept and
its history in Colorado.

The Highway Coalition Revisited: Using the Advocacy Coalition
Framework to Explore the Content of the American Association of State
Highway and Transportation Officials’ Daily Transportation Update….………………79
Richard Watts, Russell W. Mills, and Robert Fish

This paper examines the news articles selected for AASHTO’s Daily Transportation
Update—an electronic news service circulated to 23,000 users each day—over a six-year
period between 2006 and 2011. Using the advocacy coalition framework, the researchers
argue that how an organization, in this case AASHTO, selects and aggregates news about
transportation helps to shape and reinforce the dominant core beliefs of a policy
subsystem. In this case study, we examine news selection in the context of an external
shock—a change in presidential administrations—and two internal policy shocks—the
turnover in authorizing committee leadership and the collapse of the Interstate-35W
Bridge in Minnesota. We found that that the selected news articles illustrate the
transportation subsystem’s core belief in motorized forms of transportation over
nonmotorized forms.

“Reinventing” Higher Education: Symbolism,
Sloganeering, and Subjectivity in the Lone Star State………………..…………100
Staci M. Zavattaro and Terence M. Garrett

The authors analyze public higher education policy in Texas during the current era of
fiscal austerity in the state through Morgan’s (2006) images of organizations. Scarce
ii Public Voices Vol. XIII No. 1
Contents

resources have led to cuts in educational funding and a refocusing of faculty work using
statistical methods designed to enhance the status of teaching over research. In the name
of efficiency using “reinventing government” rhetoric, politically appointed Regents and
their ideological proponents in the Texas Public Policy Foundation have made attempts to
turn what is commonly thought of as a public good into a consumer one. Faculty and
their supporters have resisted these initiatives. The authors employ Morgan’s (2006)
images of organizations as political systems, cultures, and psychic prisons as modes of
understanding the conflict and lack of consensus between these affected groups.

Reflections

Finding My Way …………………………………………………………………………………..……120
Margaret Morrissey

In this self-study, the author explores how she experiences isolation and belonging in new
situations by walking and taking photographs of shadows along her commute route, the
five-mile length of High Street that runs from the San Francisco Bay to the base of the
Oakland Hills.

Poetry

Bureaucratic Adage ……………….………..……………………………………………………….132
Yonel Pierre

Movie Review

Won't Back Down Misfires on
Parent Trigger, but Gets the Politics, Organizations Right ……………………………..134

Reviewed by Robert Maranto

This essay briefly discusses recent American films about urban public schools, citing
research to suggest that the genre accurately captures the dysfunctions of many schools as
bureaucracies. This sets up a lengthy review of the most talked about education drama of
2012, Won’t Back Down. On its artistic merits, Won’t Back Down is something of an after
school special, with great acting wasted in the service of a melodramatic script. The
education policy instrument portrayed, the “parent trigger” enabling parents to take over
dysfunctional schools, has questionable utility. That said, the movie captures non-
responsive bureaucracies, school boards indifferent to the interests of children, how
bureaucrats can make activist parents and teachers pay a heavy price, and the sort of
organizing tactics that can outlast the educational establishment. Most notably, the film
Public Voices Vol. XIII No. 1 iii
Contents

excels at explaining the tactics and motivations of union leaders and members. In short,
while it fails as a work of art, Won’t Back Down works as work of social science,
exploring dilemmas of bureaucracy and democracy.

Art Exhibit Review

Review of Rise and Fall of Apartheid:
Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life ………………………………………143

Reviewed by Jonathan Woolley

Teaching Case Studies

The Unreal Administrator’s Case Studies: Lessons and
Challenges from Poems, Novels, Movies, Television, and Other Stuff

Series Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………147
Kenneth Nichols

Case Study #1: A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner………………………………….…150

In “A Rose for Emily,” Faulkner discusses the relationship of the individual and the
community. So assume, for the time being, that you live in a modest town, possibly in
Yoknapatawpha County somewhere in rural America. Not only are you a long-time
member of the community, but you are also one of the several people who keep the town
government operating smoothly. You might be the town’s clerk, its manager, or its
mayor. Those townspeople are your friends and your neighbors as well as the public that
you serve. The era might be the early 1900s, as it is here in “A Rose for Emily;” in
certain respects, however, it could almost be today.

Now with that frame of reference in mind, read William Faulkner’s short story.

Case Study #2: The Mask of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe……………………….165

Every era has had its scourge, contagion, pestilence, or plague. And every age has had to
deal with those problems in the best way it could at the time. Edgar Allan Poe creates for
us a leader whose method of “dealing” was, at best, ill-considered.

Case Study #3: When I Was a Lad and Modern Major-General………………………177

“When I Was a Lad” is from H.M.S. Pinafore, a nineteenth century British operetta by
William S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. It’s sung by a man who has become “the ruler of
the Queen’s Navy.” Through the song, he tells about his climb to success. “I Am the
iv Public Voices Vol. XIII No. 1
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Very Model of a Modern Major-General” is from Pirates of Penzance. Sung by the
major-general, it extols his many qualifications and hints at his ambition.

Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operas often involved political satire, and this is the case
with both of these songs. Both songs describe the talents, experience, qualifications of a
government official. Both songs poke fun of officials and their self-importance. Both
songs point to the benefit of having a broad, generalist education for higher-level
positions. And both songs make the point that public officials need appropriate
qualifications and experience. But the characters singing these songs display many
differences as well, and very different outlooks on how to succeed. As you follow the
lyrics, what do you make of the two gentlemen? Who would you want to work for? Who
would you want working for you?

Dear Public Voices Readers,

If you’d like to share your thoughts on the material you read in our journal,
please write to:
Iryna Illiash
Editor’s Letter, Public Voices
[email protected]

To join SHARE’s listserve, please write to Mike Miller at [email protected]

Public Voices Vol. XIII No. 1 v