graduate education in canadian public administration: antecedents, present trends and portents

A. PUUZ Pross and v. Seymour Wiz-~on

Abstract. Education in Canadian public administration has undergone some significant changes in the past decade. One of these changes with profound educational implications is the relationship between political science and public administration. The authors examine the nature and extent of this relationship by first discussing the intellectual origins of modem Canadian public administration. This is done by reviewing important aspects of the American wing of the field, pointing out divergences from, as well as contributions to, the Cana- dian experience. Then Canadian public administration's potential in the political economy tradition is discussed, contrasting the field's early development with the malaise it experienced in the 1960s. Reasons for the field's revival are given, the new programs in Canadian public administration are analysed, and the conditions which have created institutional independence for public administration are critically discussed in light of the uneasiness created in political science by this institutionalization. The authors conclude by arguing that although separation has opened some wounds in field and discipline this institutionalization would, in the long run, leave the study of government and public &airs in both political science and public administration considerably strengthened.

Graduate education in Canadian public administration : antecedents, present trends and portents

Sommaire. L'enseignement de l'administration publique canadienne a subi des modifications importantes au cours des dix demi&res annkes. L'un de ces change- ments qui a des implications Cducatives profondes est le rapport entre le science politique et l'administration publique. Les auteurs examinent la nature et la porte'e de ce rapport en considkrant tout d'abord les origines intellectuelles de Padministration publique contemporaine au Canada. Ils le font en Btudiant les aspects importants de l'6cole amCricaine de cette discipline et en dQgagent ce qui la distingue de l'expkrience canadienne ainsi que ce qu'elle a apportk A celle-ci. Ils envisagent le potentiel de l'administration publique canadienne dans la perspective de l'6conomie politique traditionnelle en opposant ses premiers dkveloppements au malaise ressenti pendant les annCes 60. Ils donnent les rai-

A. Paul Pross is associate professor of public administration, Dalhousie University, and participated in the establishment of the Dalhousie programs in public administration. V. Se our Wilson is associate professor of political science and acting director, SchooE Public Administration, Carleton University. This is an abridged and revised version of a paper presented at the Annual Meeting

of the Canadian Political Science Association, LaVal University, May 31, 1976. We would like to thank our colleagues G. Bruce Doern (Carleton), J.E. Hodgetts (Toronto and Memorial), Julien Bauer (UQAM), D.V. Smiley (York) and Iain Gow (Mon- trM) for their perceptive and critical comments on the earlier paper. While the arguments in this paper benefited greatly from their constructive criticisms, the authors alone bear the full responsibility for the analysis and interpretation presented here.

A. PAUL PROSS, V. SEYMOUR WJISON

sons du renouveau qui se manifeste dans ce domaine, analysent Ies nouvelles causes de l’indhpendance institutionnelle de l’administration publique A la lumikre du malaise crkk en science politique par cette institutionalisation. Les auteurs concluent en dkclarant que bien que la skparation ait 6th responsable de heurts A la fois thkoriques t:t pratiques, elle renforcera considhrablement, B la longue, YBtude du gouvernement et des affaires publiques en science politique comme en administration publique.

Graduate education for public administration in Canada has undergone some significant institutional and intellectual changes in the past decade. As in most western countries, public administration in Canada has strong intellectual and institutional roots in the field of political science. Evolu- tionary changes during the past decade have however called into question the nature and extent of this relationship, and this paper is an attempt to come to grips with a metamorphosis which is ineluctable in form and pervasive in intent.

Our task is to analyse the origins of this changing relationship between political science and public administration in Canada and to assess the strength of the connections that remain. We discuss first the intellectual origins of modem Canadian public administration. We begin this review with a glance at the American wing of the field, pointing out its diver- gence from, as well as its contributions to, the Canadian experience. Then we turn to Canadian public administration’s potential in the political economy tradition and contrast this early development with the malaise of the field experienced in the 1960s. Having come thus far, however, we turn away from exploring intellectual origins to show how the professional manpower requirements of the public sector revived the field and created the conditions for its institutional independence. In the last part of the paper we discuss the ramifications of institutionalization for future relations between public administration and political science.

The American influence: some antecedents

No serious discussion of contemporary Canadian public administration education can omit the pervasive influence which American public administration has exerted on this field. Anglo-Saxon influences on administrative thought in Canada are, of course, also important, particularly insofar as some crucial institutional building and styles of administrative behaviour are c0ncemed.l Nevertheless, the American traditions in

1 For a good illustration of this British influence see J.R. Mallory, ‘Mackenzie King and the Origins of the Cabinet Secretariat,’ CANADWV PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, 19, no. 2, pp. 254-66. For further references see footnote 22.

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GRADUATE EDUCATION IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

public administration as intellectual focus remain much more influential? No attempt can be adequately made here to summarize the broad sweep of developments which public administration has experienced in the United States over the past four decades. We feel that there are a few salient aspects of that development which have profoundly affected the Canadian experience, both in terms of the way public administration has been traditionally treated in university curricula and in the present-day attempts to institutionalize new programs.

In almost every country where public administration is conceived as a field of study it has developed as an offshoot of either political science or public laws3 More particularly in the North American continent, public administration developed near the turn of the century in reaction to the corruption and machine rule then common in American politics.‘ Early public administration was given over to administrative reform. Its concern for eradicating patronage in civil service appointments and for efficiency in administrative performance led the American pioneers to emphasize financial probity and office management. Early scholarship was also basically management-oriented: research activity was centred on organization and methods, budgeting, program operation, personnel, and rational planning. For the first five decades of its existence, both scholars and practitioners confidently assumed that all administrative problems could be solved through ‘a scientific examination of administrative experien~e.’~

These assumptions came under widespread attack by the end of the Second World War. Public administration, both as an intellectual field of inquiry and as an area of professional expertise, was shaken to its foundations by the persistent questioning to which it was subjected by both scholars and practitioners. It must be emphasized that this intellectual ferment was almost in its entirety an American phenomenon: few

2 For a rather critical look at public administration as intellectual focus in Britain see F.F. Ridley, ‘Public Administration: Cause for Discontent,’ Publtc Adminkitration (London) 50 ‘(Spring 1972), pp. 65-77. 3 millan Press Ltd.. 1970). DD. 51-58.

W.J.M. Mackenzie, The Study of Political Science Today (London: The Mac-

4 For a more detailed’ iiGoduction to this development see Nicholas Henry, Public Administration a d PubZic Afaalrs (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1975), pp. 5-18; Alice B. Stone and Donald C. Stone, ‘Early Development of Education in Public Administration,’ and Rowland Egger, T h e Period of Crisis: 1933 to 1945,’ in Frederick C. Mosher, ed, American Public Administration: Past, Present, Future (Uni- versity of Alabama Press, 1975). 5 For a discussion as to what this rationalization meant in practical terms for some aspects of administrative practioe see V. Seymour Wilson, T h e Relationship between Scientific Management and Personnel Policy in North American Administrative Sys- tems,’ Public Administration (London) Summer 1973, pp. 193-205. This quotation however should be qualified. In the United States, the statement is essentially true of earl developments, while in the United Kingdom the tradikion of administrative generdst tended to mitigate this emphasis.

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A. PAUL PXOSS, V. SEYMOUR WILSON

social scientists outside the United States took part in this debate.6 But, as we will attempt to show, the ramifications of this debate would have profound implications for the study and practice of public administration, not only for Canada, but for many other parts of the world.

A few of the major highlights of this debate can be succinctly sum- marized for the purpose of this paper: inherent contradictions in the field’s prescriptive models were exposed;’ the claims to a ‘science of administration’ both as to substance and method were erroneous;a the fundamental goals of economy and efficiency were shown to be analyti- cally inadequate;O and the separation of politics and administration, (the politics/administration dichotomy upon which the ’science’ was founded), was misconstrued and had to be analysed on new terms.1° The field was therefore in a state of disarray: the verities which had been previously identified tended either to be culture-bound or to be so general as to have limited significance for behaviour in the conduct of the public business.

This dissection of the field as an area of intellectual inquiry led to attempts at redefinition of what public administration is all about. The debate is now well known to students of public administration and again will only be briefly touched upon here.ll Some contended that public administration is any kind of administration carried out in the public interest, or simply governmental administration. Others felt that a more precise metaphysical definition was in order: public administration is ‘an attempt through government to harness natural human resources for the purpose of approximating politically legitimated goals by constitutionally mandated means.’ Many, however, just as forcefully argued that public administration does not have discernible boundaries and cannot be easily defined. Others also argued that in the absence of a validated general theory of administration, a theory of public administration was simply unattainable. 0 See Ridley, ‘Public Administration.’ 7 Robert A. Dahl, ‘The Science of Public Administration: Three Problems,’ Public Administration Reuiew, 7 (Winter 1947), pp. 1-11; H.A. Simon, ‘The Proverbs of Administration,’ Public Administration Review, 6 (Winter 1946), pp. 53-61. 8 H.A. Simon, Administrative Behuviour, 2nd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1957 ) . 9 For a good article on this aspect see Willard H. Hogan, ‘A Dangerous Tendency in Government,’ Public Administration Reoieur, 0 (Summer 1946), pp. 235-39. 10 For an early masterpiece reflecting this perspective see E. Pendleton Herring’s Public Administration and the Public lnterest (New York: McGraw Hill, 1930). Also see Paul Appleby, Big Democracy (New York: Knopf, 1945). 11 The literature on this subject is now legion. However, two excellent overviews of the issues involved are Dwight Waldo, ‘Public Administration,’ in Marian D. Irish, ed, Political Science: Advance of the Discipline (N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1908) and Robert T. Golembiewski, ‘Public Administration as a field: Four Developmental Phases,’ Georgia Political Science Association Journal 2 (Spring 1974), pp, 21-49, essentially reproduced in Robert N. Spadaro, ed, Toward Understanding Public Pdicy (Lexington, Mass: D.C. Heath and Co., 1975).



By the late 1950% although the debate continued in lively overtones, a consensus seemed to have emerged among American scholars and practitioners. Most agreed that administration is a general ot generic social process of which public administration is only one uariety or CIS- pect. Generic administration is therefore all-embracing, making no &- tinction between public and private administrative practices. Reflecting in part political science’s flirtations with the behavioural sciences, but also autonomously, public administration as intellectual focus began to interact extensively with the fields of sociology, psychology and business administration.12 This massive infusion of behaviouralism, while providing a host of insights and intellectual stimulation to students in public administration, left in its wake a number of contradictions and unexplainable aspects of reality.

Two aspects of these contradictions have persisted both in the Ameri- can literature of public administration and the manner in which U.S. university curricula have been fashioned to teach the subject. We have singled out these aspects because in many ways the Canadian debate has been fundamentally imitative of the American. The first was readily obvious to anyone possessing a passing acquaintance with the literature. The dazzling array of behavioural studies of complex organizations did not hide the fact that for public administration students the political element of policy-making seems to have been the forgotten element. The classical school of organizational literature was guilty of studying organizations without people. The behaviouralists, on the other hand, wrote about people without organizations. If the old public administration was in disarray because of the behaviouralist invasion, at least there was one point on which many of the old academics and seasoned practitioners and some of the Young Turks and zealous proselytes of the new systemic approaches tended to agree: the political input in public administration gives shades and nuances of meaning to the nature of decision-making which cannot be duplicated in the generic administrative process. In a word, politics affected structure, and the nature of structure affected the behaviour of people within public complex organizations.

The other aspect of the debate was somewhat more subtle, but even- tually it was to find full expression in the manner in which all U.S. and Canadian programs in administrative studies were to be designed or refurbished in the 1960s and 1970s. Essentially the debate centred around the dominant theoretical focus of decision-making pioneered by H.A. Simon in the mid 1940s. Simon’s focus contained a built-in kernel of anti- thesis. On the one hand, decision-making is accomplished by human

12 For further description of these infusions see the survey by James W. Fesler, ‘Public Administration and the Social Sciences: 1946 to 1980’ in Mosher, American Public AdminJstmtih, pp. 117-25.

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beings, and any theoretical formulation must take into full consideration built-in psychological aspects of decisional behaviour. On the other hand, Simon’s theory of decision-making is explicitly committed to making decision-making rational and almost totally imper~ona1.l~ As he himself has expressed it, his life work is dedicated toward a ‘new science of management decision.’l* This complex of administrative behaviour is composed of a number of facets, chief among which are the rapid development of data-processing techniques, and the access to administrative power of applied mathematicians (or econologicians). There is an almost polyannic assumption that science can solve all social problems, and that this centralization, highly managerial in scope, can effect the wiser governance of mankind. Omitted almost totally from consideration are the political, social and psychological considerations mentioned earlier. Individual cooperation is eliminated because the new science of management decision can control more variables. But the paradox remains that as the new econologicians are increasingly successful in doing this, the inequities of the system will increasingly become op- pressive. The reconciliation of psychological needs and administrative centralization in the calculus of decision theory has not been achieved.15

This dichotomy was established, to a greater or lesser degree, in the American academic programs in administrative studies and, given the appropriate time lag, in the Canadian programs as well. Those schools advocating the generic school of administrative studies tended to place strong emphasis on the new science of management decision. Their programs stress proficiency in problem-solving, decisional strategy, training in the use of statistics and data and business school staples such as CPM, XIBO, PERT, OPMS, etc. ... The orientation is heavily in favour of ‘getting things done’ by improved techniques: an appearance is given that there is a ‘technological fix’ for every problem of public and private

13 Simon has attempted to mitigate this problem in his work by conceding that rational administrative man may fall short of rationality’s demands and that self- interested rationality may conflict with organizational rationality. The problem could be lessened by expanding the realm of programmed decision-making. See his ‘The Changing Theory and Changing Practice of Public Administration’ in Ithiel de Sola Pool, ed, Contemporary Political Science: Toward Empirical Theory (New York: McGraw-Hill Co., 1967) pp. 86-120. 14 H.A. Simon, The New Science of Management Decision (New York: Harper & Bros., 1960). 15 The solution to this ‘problem’ was found in the development of the ‘disjointed incremental’ model of David Braybrooke and Charles Lindblom. In this model the policy-making process is viewed as a series of actions in which decision-makers ‘muddle through’ a limited number of closely related alternatives without having to evaluate all the consequences of each one. See D. Braybrooke and C . Lindblom, A Stmtegy of Decision (London: Free Press, 1963) especially chapters 4, 5 and 6; C. Lindblom, ‘The Science of Muddling Through‘ in Amitai Etzioni, ed, Readings on Modern Organizations (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1969), pp. 154-65.

520 CANADIAN PUBLIC ADMINlSTRATlON


decision-making.la Old wives’ empiricism, which Simon did so much to deprecate, seems to have been replaced by an Orwellian mechanism in a majority of these curricula.

The schools and programs which emphasize administration as public affairs have been very much preoccupied with the social, political and psychological considerations found in the theoretical focus of decision- making. These schools have also sought new horizons in both the social and physical sciences. But nevertheless their programs remain essentially rooted to the political environment. It is this essential political element which makes the policy/management approach in Canada and the so- called ‘public affairs’ programs in the United States somewhat similar, a point to which we will return in the second part of this paper.

Differences in the Canadian experience While the debate referred to above, concerning the nature and scope of public administration, permeated the United States’ literature in the postwar period, no such debate, either in scale or intensity, occurred on the Canadian scene. Indeed Canadian political scientists, very few in number, were much too busily engaged in fending off the pervasive influence of economics.17 Until recently Canadian public administration’s comfortable niche as an integral part of political science has not been questioned. After all, in 1950 there were only thirty political scientists in the seventeen English-speaking Canadian universities and they were busy staking out ‘... a claim for a distinct piece of social territory which it would be the responsibility of political scientists to analyse.’lS Even the economists regarded this liaison as a natural Indeed, they expressed the hope that the growing interest in Canadian public administration would continue a political economy tradition.*O For, though by

16 When this revolution first reached Canada in the late 1960s one skeptical senior public servant denounced it all as ‘a surfeit of alphabet soup.’ See H.L. Laframboise, ‘Administrative Reform in the Federal Public Service: Signs of a Saturation Psychosis’ CANADIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, 14 (Fall 1971 ) , pp. 303-25. 17 Alan C. Cairns, ‘Political Science in Canada and the Americanization Issue,’ Canadian Journal of Political Science 8, no. 2 (June 1975), p. 195. 18 Ibid., p. 196. 19 See the remarks of Dr W.A. Mackintosh in ‘Should we have Specialized Degrees in Public Administration Given by Universities?’ 1949 Proceeding6 of the First Annual Conference of the Institute of Public Administration of Canada, ChPteau Frontenac, Quebec, October 3 and 4, 1949, pp. 27-34. Arguing for the public policy focus, Dr Mackintosh asserted that ‘As the scope and direction of government changes, the case for a greater content of the social sciences, and particularly of political science, becomes stronger’ ( p. 29). 20 See the papers and discussions at the first and fourth general sessions of the First Annual Conference of the Institute of Public Administration of Canada, ChPteau Frontenac, Quebec, October 3 and 4, 1949. See also Donald Rowat’s obituary of one of the educational pioneers of public administration, ‘R.O. MacFarlane’s contribution



the 1950s it was generally conceded that in our universities the tender shoot of Canadian political economy was more economics than politics, many remained convinced that it offered the promise of being the most insightful approach an indigenous social science should take in the analysis of the Canadian polity.

D.V. Smiley provides us with some clues as to why this assumption was made by our social scientists:

Public problems which agitated and continue to agitate Canadians - problems of external trade and natural resource development, of immigration and trans- portation and fiscal policy and so on - almost invariably presented themselves with both political and economic aspects, and if we add the complications of a division of powers between federal and provincial governments, usually a legal- constitutional dimension as well. Thus Canadian scholars discovered early what has become the necessary working assumption of those now studying the developing nations, i.e., that the disciplinary boundaries between economics, politics and sociology could be maintained only in those geographical areas where there existed a relatively high degree of subsystem autonomy in respect to economy, polity and society.”

Public administration was one perfect example of social science studies which presented a natural for the political economy focus and which, it was hoped, would grow to strengthen this unique Canadian multi-disciplinary tradition. The hope was there. However the hard work involved in delineating the distinguishing features of this Canadian approach and explaining exactly how Canadian public administration could benefit from its insights and methodologies were nowhere explained or spelled out.

A second influence which prevented the total inundation of the fledg- ling Canadian public administration under the rubric of the American administrative debate tout court has been the influence of the British tradition in the Canadian administrative experience. This influence and its consequences have been amply traced in articles elsewhere,22 but certainly one of its distinguishing characteristics has been the British

to the Education of Public Administrators,’ CANADIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, 14, no. 1 (Spring 1971), pp. 145-47, and J.E. Hodgetts, ‘Dives and Lazarus: Three Reports on the Teaching of Political Science,’ Canudian Journal of Economics and PoZiticaZ Science, 18, no. 1 (February 1952), p. 92; W.D.K. Kernaghan, ‘Public Administration in Canada,’ CANADIAX PUBLIC A D h f I N I s m n o N , 11, no. 3 (Fall 1968),

21 D.V. Smiley, ‘Contributions to Canadian Political Science Since the Second World War,’ Canadion Journal of Economics and Political Science, 33 (1967), pp. 569-80. 22 See Donald Cow, ‘Public Administration Training, For Whom? For What? Optimum, vol. 1, no. 3, 1970, pp. 22-33; G.B. Doern, ‘The Teaching of Public Ad- ministration in Canadian Universities,’ in W.D.K. Kernaghan, ed, Executiue Man- power in the Public Sewice: Make or Buy (Toronto: Institute of Public Administra- tion of Canada, 1975).

pp. 291-308.

522 CQNADIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATTON


preference of having public administration submerged as a component of social science studies: in the United Kingdom, public administration hardly exists at all as a matter for separate study.23 Thus in Canada for close to two decades after the war we resisted the institutionalization of separate schools of public administration, and in 1954, in the one case where a school was actually created, at Carleton College in Ottawa, all full-time appointments to the stafF, including the director, were political scientists, and the degree awarded was a Masters of Arts.

The winds of change began to blow in the 1960s when political science as a discipline began to exhibit spectacular growth. The increase in the numbers of political scientists alone from 1950 to 1975 gives a good indication of this phenomenal growth. As already noted, in 1950-51 the number of political scientists was about 30, comprising some 2 per cent of faculty in the arts and sciences; in 1964-65 between 184 and 2OO;Z4 in 1966-67 approximately 250;26 and in 1970-71 around 517.26 By 1972-73 the figure stood at 664;27 a peak which has apparently not changed much in the intervening years.28

One of the most obvious consequences of this growth was the mounting desire for a completely independent status for political science, which in Canada meant independence from the economists. Inevitably this lessened any further impetus for the growth of the political economy tradition in political science: the young plant simply began withering on the vine. Thus one noted Canadian political scientist committed to the political economy tradition lamented ‘... the lust for professional independence and discipline autonomy, especially independence from econo- m i c ~ , ’ ~ ~ and another decried the ‘conspicuous neglect of previous Cana- dian scholarship, including works in the political economy tradition, the existence of which is virtually unknown to possibly the majority of Eng- lish Canadian political scientists who are cut of€ from the domestic past of their dis~ipline.’~~

23 Ridley, ‘Public Administration.’ 24 R.R. March and R.J. Jackson, ‘Aspects of the State of Political Science in Cana- da,’ Midwest Journal of Political Science, 11 (November 1967), pp. 434, 435. 25 J.E. Hodgetts, ‘Canadian Political Science: A Hybrid with a Future?‘ in R.H. Hubbard, ed, Schohrship in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968),

26 W.H.N. Hull, ‘The 1971 Survey of the Profession,’ Canadian Journal of Political Science, 6, no. 1 (March 1973), pp. 89-120. 27 C.B. Macpherson, ‘After Strange Gods: Canadian Political Science, 1973’ in T.N. Guinsburg and G.L. Reuber, eds, Perspective on the Social Sciences in Canada (To- ronto: University of Toronto Press), 1974, p. 56. 28 Information supplied by Professor John Trent, former Secretary-Treasurer, Cana- dian Political Science Association. 29 Macpherson, ‘After Strange Gods,’ p. 64. 30 Alan C. Cairns, ‘National Influences on the Study of Politics,’ Queen’s Quarterly, 81, no. 3 (Autumn 1974), p. 335.

p. 100.

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The abandonment of political economy stymied especially the development of Canadian studies in public administration, partly because basic taxonomic work in the study of government was discouraged. There has been and continues to be a lack of descriptive work in Canadian public administration and political science preventing the development of a full picture of the Canadian political system. But a more important impediment to the development of Canada public administration was the fact that the branch of behaviouralism favoured by political scientists in this country necessitated a significant shift in disciplinary emphasis. No- body has spelled out precisely what the political economy tradition is, but in a recent article Smiley has pointed out three distinguishing features of early scholarship in this tradition: it was historical in emphasis, individualistic in conception and expedition, eclectic in scope and showed ‘a marked disregard for the boundaries of academic discipline^.'^^ To Smiley this is crucial. The very eclectic nature of the tradition, he asserts, forces an ‘... academic concern with the inextricably related political economic dimensions of public policy in contradistinction, so far as political scientists are concerned, to our recent pre-occupations with the input side of the political pro~ess.’~‘ In other words, it is being claimed that this tradition would dispose us to ask fundamental questions concerning the nature of both outputs and outcomes in the system, and as well focus our attention on the essential process of ‘withinputs,’ to use the language of systems analysis.33

We contend that it is precisely in these neglected areas of social science inquiry that public administration and political science become kissing cousins. After all, a substantial core of public administration concerns lie in the areas of outputs, outcomes and withinputs. However, for reasons which are not entirely clear, it is a fact that contemporary political scientists have not shown a systematic and sustained interest in these areas, and in the latter part of our paper we will return to this theme to indicate some ways in which a mutual concern would be fostered and allowed to grow.

31 Journal of Canadian Studies, 9, no. 1 (February 1974), pp. 38-39. 32 Ibid., p. 39. 3 3 For a full description of the use of systems analysis in political science see David Easton, The Political System: An Inquiry into the State of Political Science, 2nd ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971), especially the epilogue, ‘Continuities in Political Analysis: Behavioralism and Post-Behavioralism,’ In it Easton clarifies the difference between outputs and outcomes. ‘In formulating systems approach I have also suggested that we need to distinguish carefully between outputs and outcomes .... Recent concern for the generation of social indicators to estimate more reliably the effects nf outputs on bringing about changes in society - of crime, poverty, safety, political apathy and involvement, health and the like - represents a first step toward formerly differentiating outputs (laws) from outcomes (social effects)’ (pages 374-75).

Donald V. Smiley, ‘Must Canadian Political Science be a Miniature Replica?’



Thus, faced by this lack of clarscation in precisely those areas most vital to its intellectual well-being, Canadian public administration was allowed to languish. The behavioural revolution which arrived in Canada in the sixties would only compound the many difficulties already con- fronting public administration. For example, it was natural that the attitudes towards public administration fostered largely in American graduate schools should be mirrored in the manner in which the Young Turks and zealous proselytes viewed public administration studies in Canada. Already stagnating because of its insdcient taxonomic base and lack of definitional clarity in the Canadian context, public administration became more and more a peripheral subfield of Canadian political science, exhibiting marginal growth both in terms of numbers in the profession and in current research and publications.

The Canadian Political Science Association material compiled by W.H.N. Hull in 1970-71 affords some measure of this fact!’ Hull reports that between 1964 to 1970 (the period incidentally when Canadian political science experienced its most spectacular growth) public administration as an area of professional interest showed a growth in numbers from 3.5 per cent to 8.6 per cent. The marginal nature of the field however is demonstrated by the percentages reported for other subfields in 1970: comparative politics, 23.3 per cent; Canadian studies 26.8 per cent; international affairs, 9.2 per cent; and political theory, 10.9 per cent.

In terms of research and publications, the figures indicated what should be logically expected because of the nature and extent of this professional growth. The “scientSc” study of politics proliferated in such areas as legislative roll call analysis, opinion surveys and voting studies. Public administration as a subfield of political science continued to suffer a malaise, a fact repeatedly emphasized by active scholars in the s~bfield.3~ Since some 50 per cent of Canadian political science faculty are located in Ontario,a6 we can take the 1974 findings of the Advisory Committee on Academic Planning of the Ontario Council on Graduate Studies as a fair indication of disciplinary trends across the country. The ACAP study corroborated Hull’s data, showing that by 1972-73 public administration/public policy was a major field for only 7.54 per cent of Ontario faculty. Table 1 gives the ranked distribution of other subfields within the discipline.

Public administration occupies a similar place within the range of

35 See O.P. Dwivedi, ‘Public Administration in Canada: Some Musings,’ paper for panel discussion, Annual Conference of the Canadian Political Science Association, St. John’s, Newfoundland, June 1971; ames D. McNiven, ‘Public Administration

University, Montreal, June 1972. 36 Hull, ‘1971 Survey,’ p. 93.

34 Hull, ‘1971 SWV,’ pp. 89-120.

and f or f as Political Science,’ paper for d iscussion, Annual Conference, CPSA, McGill


A. PAUL PROSS, V. SEYMOUR W O N

TABLE 1: Major Fields for Research arid Teaching of Ontario Political Science Faculty, 1972-73

Rank FIELD % order

Comparative Government and Politics 23.89 1 International Relations 19.81 2 Canadian Government and Politics 18.86 3 Political Theory - Historical and Normative 14.46 4 Public Administration/ Public Policy 7.54 5 Urban and Local Government 5.03 6 Political Process and Behaviour 3.77 7 Political Theory (Empirical) 3.45 8 Methodology 1.25 9

SOURCE: Ontario Council on Graduate Studies, Adviso Committee on Academic Planning, Perspectives and P ~ M for Craduate Studies: Pxt ical Science 1974 (Toron- to: The Council, 1974), Table 12( a).

TABLE 2: Areas of Discipline Offered for University Teaching by Year Employment Expected (vertical percentages; multiple responses)

Allres- Rank AREAS 1973 1974 1975 pondents order

Canadian 66 47 36 47 1 Comparative 40 43 43 45 2 In tema tional 37 38 36 39 3 Philosophy 23 44 39 35 4 Area specialization 29 26 21 29 5 Empirical theory 23 18 39 23 6 Other 11 18 7 14 7 Local and provincial 9 19 4 12 8 Behaviour 9 3 11 7 9 Administration 9 9 21 10 10

SOURCE: F.C. Engelmann and David Cox, Repwt of the Mahpwer Committee (Ot- tawa: Canadian Political Science Association, mimeo, 1973), p. 9.

research projects (6.7 per cent, ranking 6 out of 8 subfields) and research publications (8.1 per cent, 5 out of 8 subfields) reported by Hull in 1971. Of graduate courses offered by Canadian departments of political science in 1974-75, 8.4 per cent (54) were in the combined, and nebu- lously defined, field of ‘public administration and government,’ com- pared, for example, to 18.2 per cent in the field of international relation^.^'

Moreover, there are indications that this imbalance will not correct itself. Engelmann and Cox, in a study commissioned by the Canadian

37 H.G. Thorburn, Political Science in Canadu: Graduate Studies and Research (Kingston, Ontario: mimeo, 1975) Table 2:4, p. 27.


GRADUATE EDUCATION IN PUBUC ADMINISTRATION

TABLE 3: Theses in Progress in Ontario, 1972-73 (N = 217)

Rank AREAS % order Canadian Government 27.64 1 Comparative Government 19.81 2 International Relations 17.97 3 Normative and Historical Political Theory 17.97 4 Urban, Regional and Local Government 5.99 5 Public Administration 4.60 6 Political Process and Behaviour 3.22 7 Empirical Theory 2.76 8 Methodology 0.00 9

SOURCE: As Table 1; Table 13, p. A-58.

Political Association in 1973, surveyed more than half of the full-time PH.D. students then enrolled in Canadian political science departments. Though the average PH.D. candidate recognized that government employment represented his or her principal alternative to university or college teaching, the survey revealed that ‘preference and competence appear low for the administration, local and behavioural areas.’38 This is more than evident when we examine, in Table 2, the areas of the discipline offered by these graduate students.

A similar lack of interest and expertise among current graduates is reflected in the ACAP tabulation of theses underway in Ontario in 1972- 73. Table 3 above gives the detailed breakdown.

In other words, while we may be concerned about current faculty interest in public administration, the future - if we take career, teaching and thesis interests as guides - promises an even more limited role for public administration in the discipline of political science.

Present trends The rapid development of graduate level professional education in public administration in this country has brought institutional changes which have had, and will continue to have, profound effects on public administration and political science. We shall turn first to the more practical aspects of the situation - the teaching of public administration and the field‘s institutional relationship with political science - and second, to the more abstract problem of the scope of political science as a ‘mother’ discipline.

First we must specify what kind of education we refer to when we

38 F.C. Engelmann and David Cox, Report of the Manpower Committee (Ottawa: Canadian Political Science Association, mimeo, 1973), p. 9.


A. PAUL PROSS, V. SEYMOUR ‘WIZSON

speak of teaching public administration?* Initially, we are speaking of graduate level professional education in the field, not the academic study of public administration (though we shall discuss that briefly at a later point), nor training, which we see as ‘practical in its objectives and content ... designed to develop skills which are directly related to the em- ployee’s existing j0b.’40 Training is best conducted through in-house courses or programs. Professiollal education4I in public administration, on the other hand, is best pursued in the university because it is oriented not to the immediate work place, but to a future career in a particular environment. It is intended to help the student develop approaches to work and a general understanding of the environment, rather than to teach him specific skills. In this endeavour, the university offers the student a broad perspective and removes him or her from the immediate pressures of the current job.

Professional education in public administration has three principle components: the study of the environment of the public service, both the internal environment of public agencies and the more general community which they must serve; the processes of policy development and the task of policy analysis; and what has been referred to as a ‘functional’ component, an exposure to, though not a thorough training in, the techniques and practices of administration. It is these three central elements

39 Those familiar with the field will recognize some important lacunae in the follow- ing discussion. One of the most significant is our failure to discuss in any depth the programs of I’Ecole Nationale dAdministration Publi ue and its affiliation with the Department of Political Science at UQAM. We do solecause ENAP, with its close ties to the Quebec government, its focus on mid-career development and its independence of the usual university constraints occupies a unique position in the public administration communi . we are aware that a number of universities - Regina, Waterloo, Brock, Carleton, to name some - have important undergraduate programs. However, we do not feel that an undergraduate program meets the criteria for a professional degree which is usually more extensive and more specialized. 40 Kenneth Kernaghan, ‘Management Development for Canada’s Public Services,’ in Kernaghan, ed Executive Manpower in the Public Seruice, p. 4. 41 We have not defined the tern1 ‘professional’ in the text, but point out that we accept the Carr-Saunders-Wilson view that a profession is characterized by ‘the application of an intellectual technique to the ordinary business of life, acquired as the result of prolonged and specialized training’ (A.M. Cam-Saunders and P.A. Wilson, The Professions [Oxford: Ckrendon Press, 19331, p. 491). We realize that the public service is not a highly structured and institutionalized profession such as medicine or law, but we argue that it is increasingly dependent upon those who have experienced ‘prolonged and specialized training’ in administration. Furthermore, we suggest that it is increasingly displaying such typical professional attributes as similarity in educational preparation; credentialism; the maintenance of supportive associations like the Institute of Public Administration of Canada, and the Committee of Directors of Schools and Programmes in Public Administration, all promoting professional acceptance, a supportive literature and encouraging research and the acceptability of an ethical code of conduct.

We have also ignore 7 undergraduate education in public administration, though



of professional public administration education - enoironmental, policy and functional studies - that are of special concern to us here. For the recent debate over the relationship between political science and public administration has centred on the presence and importance of each of these in the study and practice of administration.

In the past decade or so Canadian students have been exposed to three approaches to professional public administration education: the political science approach; the generic approach; and the policy-management approach. The political science approach has been called the generalist ap-

p r ~ a c h . ~ ~ It is associated with the British tradition and holds that the best education for a career in the public service is one that exposes the student to the larger issues of public affairs, especially those encom- passed in the study of history, political science, law and economics. In a sense the political science approach is an environmental approach. It pays as much attention, if not more, to the setting in which the public service is located as it does to the inner workings of the service. As we have indicated in the first part of this paper, the generic stance is quite the opposite, for it concerns itself primarily with the internal management of all complex organizations. Furthermore, it holds that ‘core administrative activities are the same in public and non-public organizations, and that while “public” adds something to the administrative enter- prise, it is more productive for research and training to concentrate on the common elements of administrative activity.’43 The policy-management approach, on the other hand, strives for a balance between the two older approaches, together with a sigdcant treatment of various aspects of policy studies. In this regard it is analogous to the American schools of public af€airs/public policy previously described.

The Canadian development of the three approaches began in 1954 when Carleton University launched its Master of Arts program in public administrationP4 The relationship between the political arm and the public service, particularly the problem of maintaining executive and

42 See G. Bruce Doern, The Teaching of Public Administration in Canadian Uni- versities’ in Kernaghan, ed, Executive Manpower in the Public Setoice, pp. 80-103. 43 Allen Schick, ‘The Trauma of Politics: Public Administration in the Sixties’ in Mosher, ed, American PubPc Admdnistration, pp. 167-68. 44 Carleton CoIIege, Thirteenth Ann& Calendrrr, 1954-55, pp. 70-71. A graduate diploma had been offered from 1952-53. It is interesting to note, as an historical aside, that Toronto and McGill provided federal trade commissioners with short courses in export marketing as early as the 1920s. (See 0. Mary Hill, Salesmcln to the World: The History of the Department of Trade and Commmce, forthcoming). Various undergraduate programs also pre-dated the School, including Carleton’s own, and Dalhousie’s honours program in public administration which, in possibly unique imitation of American practice, was located in the Institute of Public Affairs. The program flourished briefly in the later 1930s and was terminated during the Second World War.


A. PAUL PROSS, V. SEYMOUR W O N

administrative accountability to the public, was the centre of concern. Little attention was paid to public sector management, or to the behavioural characteristics of large public bureaucracies. As time passed the Carleton programs became identified, by public servants and academics alike, with the political science approach to public administration. In 1967, when Dalhousie's Department of Political Science began planning its program in public administration, the Carleton program served as a model. Only after discussions with the head of the federal Bureau of Staff Development and Training, G.G. Duclos, and faculty members in law, business administration and economics, were the Dalhousie propo- sals modified to reflect a stronger management orientation.

As the Dalhousie experience suggests, by the end of the 1960% the Carleton approach, and by extension the political science approach, had come under attack, particularly within the public service.46 Time had brought about major changes in the public service, changes which made the political science approach less and less appealing as a professional base. The catalyst was the Glassco Royal Commission. Appointed by the Diefenbaker regime and criticized by many for its strong espousal of 'efficient', 'businesslike' public administration,1° the Commission's re- commendations nevertheless found favour with senior officials who had long wanted a major reorganization of the power relationships of Treasury Board and the Civil Service C0mmission.4~ Amongst the most important changes were the decision to strengthen the management role of Treasury Board and to decentralize management responsibility (including important personnel and financial functions) to the departments.

Decentralization of the order envisaged by the reorganizations preci- pitated an unprecedented i d u x of new specialists into the federal public service. Personnel and financial managers were in great demand and so to a lesser extent were individuals capable of manning the technical support structure now required by individual departments as well as by central agencies. The introduction of collective bargaining into the public service forced the introduction of yet another specialist, the labour relations expert. The Glassco Commission had trumpeted 'let the managers manage,' but few agencies had an adequate cadre of managers with which to carry out their reorganized and expanded responsibilities.

Inevitably the universities were expected to help governments meet their staffing needs. The universities, however, had been slow to appreciate the s i e c a n c e of the governmental reorganizations that were

45 46 Canada, Royal Commission on Government Organization. Report (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1962-63). 47 See J.E. Hodgetts, W. McCloskey, R. Whitaker and V. Seymour Wilson, The Biography of an Institution: The Cioil S h e Commission of Canada, 1908-1967 ( Montreal: McCill-Queen's University Press, 1972).

Doern, 'Teaching of Public Administration,' p. 86.


under way. The h s t to take notice were the business schools. Their graduates, rather than political science students trained in public administration, had the skills needed to fill the new management positions. As the 1968 report of the federal Public Service Commission stated, recruit- ment of university graduates recognized ‘the increasing demand for graduates of the faculties of business administration and commerce.’** Consequently, business schools became aware of the pressure for graduates before political science departments began to pay attention to t h i s need. The latter were, in any case, far too preoccupied with the problem of expansion and development to which we have already referred.

It was, perhaps, inevitable that the business schools should have em- braced the generic approach. It made minimal demands on their resources, just as the generalist approach appeared to make minimal demands on the resources of political science departments. Supported by the view that ‘regardless of where you work as a manager - in a hospi- tal, in a school, in business or in government - what you should know is common to d,’40 one such school made a virtue of offering the public administration student as few as one or two courses dealing with the organization and function of government as a subject in its own right.50 In addition, however, the development of the generic approach in Canada may have been fostered by the educational background of newly recruited lecturers in business administration, many of whom were familiar with the well-established American variant?’ Inclination was but- tressed by external advice, at least in the case of York University, where ‘by 1968, when York was ready to launch its new School of Public Ad- ministration, advice from all levels of government was strongly supportive of such a professional edu~ation.’~~

48 Canada, Public Service Commission. Annual Report (Ottawa, 1968). p. 10. 49 Joseph Debannk, quoted in Flnundal Post, September 5, 1970 (‘Management FIexibiIity Ottawa School’s Objective’). 50 Ottawa’s Faculty of Management Sciences, established in 1989, made its ‘emphasis on instilling basic managerial tools ... so predominant that a student really can choose only one of two courses that have direct bearing on any particular managerial specialty. One of those courses deals with marketing in business administration, the other with the function and organization of government for those heading to the public service.’ The bulk of the student’s time was devoted to subjects that were ‘institution-free’ - organization theory, behaviour, industrial relations, managerial economics, Operations research, roduction management, finance and control, managerial account- ing and marketing. (%id). 51 Of the thirteen faculty members whose curricula vitae are included in the York submission for the public administration degree programs, eight can be fairly said to have enjoyed careers and education oriented to business administration. Two were political scientists and three elude classification. 52 Walter Baker, ‘Trends in the Education of Public Administration.’ Paper presented to the Institute of Public Administration of Canada, September 1969, p. 4. McGill’s Faculty of Management Studies was encouraged in the same fashion when it considered a similar program.

531 ADMINISTRATION PUBLJQUE DU CANADA


By now aware of the threat, political science defended its turf. A series of jurisdictional battles occured at various universities, resulting generally in a tendency for the older universities to reaffirm political science’s jurisdiction in public administration, whilst in the newer institutions public administration (or, as it was frequently called, public sector management) fell under the suzerainty of schools of business or faculties of administrative studies. The net effect was that at the end of the 1960s there were seven universities offering graduate level professional education in public administration. Of these, three - at York, Ottawa and Lava1 - were associated with administrative studies faculties, and were generic in orientation. The remaining four, at Carleton, Dalhousie, Queen’s and Toronto, were closely associated with political science departments and offered a generalist’s orientation to the field.

In practice neither the political science nor the generic approach delivered a public administration program that met the needs of the contemporary public services. The reasons for failure were various, though one common element was a reluctance to cut the programs out of whole cloth. Since the inhence of the generic approach is a minor theme in this litany we shall note that by September 1972, John Carson, chairman of the Public Service Commission, was sadly berating York for ‘still graduating both MBA’S and MPA’S as though they were two quite separate groups of people ,... The heavy emphasis, the real lustre is on your MBA course with the MPA tagging along as a poor r e l a t i ~ n . ’ ~ ~ Car- son’s hopes exceeded reality. At a time when business schools were tax- ing their own resources it was asking too much of them to radically alter their priorities. And, despite the theory, the teaching of public sector management did entail a restructuring of interests and concerns amongst business adminisbation scholars. As Dwight Waldo points out:

[The] generic school, however persuasive its logic, faces substantial practical problems, [which] may prove decisive. These pertain to the optimal size of educational units, to the diversity of the habitats and functions of administration, and to the forces of specialization and professionalization in the university and in society. It is easy enough ... to specify a curriculum common to all who wish preparation for administration: quantitative methods, organizational sociology and social psychology, systems theory and analytical techniques. But how is the ‘common core’ to be bridged over to the different functional areas: how is it to be adapted to the pulls and demands of specialization and professionalization? To these practical problems there are practical responses; the generic schools develop separate programs or options, such as business administration, public administration, health administration, education administration. Such responses ‘make sense’. But they also make generic schools vulnerable to the charge that the change is nominal and not substantial; that to keep things

53 1972 ) . Convocation Address, York University, September 29,1972. (Ottawa, PSC mimm.,


GRADUATE EDUCATION IN PUBLIC ADM.INISTRATION

on a proper scale and in a convenient location, and to adjust to labitat’ it makes (at least) equal sense to have the ‘generic’ subjects taught in separate schools or programs.64

The continuing story of the generic approach to public administration education in Canada, though interesting, is less germane to this discussion than the developments in public administration which took place in departments of political science. Here there have been striking changes, best illustrated by the fact that despite political science’s initial assertion of jurisdiction only one of today’s eight graduate level programs in public administration - the University of Toronto’s MA (PA) - is housed in a department. There has been a general shift away from a close organizational association with political science, and a tendency to seek a degree of independence from both political science and business administration in schools of public administration. The shift, which seems to parallel a decline in American political science involvement in public administration educationp6 has been dramatic enough to demand explanation here. At this point in time, that explanation seems to revolve around two factors: (1) The institutionalization of an organizational or administrative separation; and (2) the tendency for Canadian students of public administration to find less satisfaction in an exclusively political science approach to public administration research than in a multi- disciplinary approach; in what David Easton has called ‘the second behavioral revolution.’

As we have noted, Canadian political science was alerted to its performance gap in public administration education when it encountered difEculties in placing graduates, the emergence of functional rivals and the outspoken criticism of public officials. Its responses have varied from attempts to persuade the environment that the student educated in the political science tradition has indeed been adequately prepared for a career in the public service66 to the actual differentiation of the public administration education function, though not initially outside the traditional political science departments.

This latter response, though it served to stave off the inroads being made by the business schools, exacerbated allocational rivalries within political science departments themselves. Because these tensions could not be contained within political science departments, internal differen-

54 Dwight Waldo, ‘Education for Public Administration in the Seventies’ in Mosher, ed., American Public Administration, pp. 211-12.

Mackelprang and A. Lee Freitschler, ‘Graduate Education in Public Affairs/Pub 55 See ’c Administration,’ Public Administration Redew, 35, no. 2 (1975), pp.

56 See the letter from John Meisel, on behalf of the Canadian Political Science Association, to Ms I.E. Johnson, of the PSC, October 24, 1974, which is reproduced in the SCSP/CPSA Bulletin, November 1974.

182-91.



tiation gradually led to a more profound change: that of complete organizational separation of public administration programs from political science departments. To appreciate how t h i s has come about we must review the history of departmentally sponsored public administration education since the jurisdictional battles of the beginning of the decade.

We must first consider the situation faced by departments of political science as they emerged from their jurisdictional battles with the schools of business. They had retained possession of the field, but were committed to mounting professional programs in public administration. They soon discovered that it is quite a different thing to offer a professional degree than to offer an academic degree. The most important and striking difference is the fact that a professional program possesses a much stronger feedback loop than does the usual academic program at the MA level. Students, for example, tend to be keenly aware that the degree provides entry to a s p d c job market and they constantly assess their program in terms of that market. Faculty consequently are under con- tinual pressure to adapt courses and even whole programs to shifts in the labour market. In fact, faculty have sometimes had to fight hard to maintain the principle that the professional degree is intended to provide an education for a career, not simply training for a specific job.

As student population grew, tensions mounted over admission stand- ards and performance. Professional students came from more varied backgrounds5' and were expected to undertake not only more courses but more diverse courses than those in political science. Traditional academic assessment procedures were felt to be unfair. Internships, practi- cums and other strategies for developing professional capabilities while students were still in the programs were looked at askance by academically oriented faculties. Again, disagreement over staffing priorities gave both sides cause for concern. Internally, then, once political science departments differentiated the professional degree in public administration from academic degrees in political science, and once they established faculty groups to run the degree programs, they created a situation in which new roles would develop. Such roles were to prove in- compatible with established degree programs in political science,

Added to the tensions created by role changes was the fact that political science could not service the field of public administration as it was conceived by practitioners and, to an increasing extent, as it came to be perceived by political scientists working in the field. In particular, the

57 The Committee of Schools and Programmes in Public Administration estimates that some 100-120 MPAS or r . 4 ~ ( P A ) S should graduate in 1976. Between 1955 and 1965 when Carleton was alone in the field, 49 MA (PA)S graduated. Some 60 per cent of public administration students have social science backgrounds (usually economics, political science or commerce); 20 per cent took their first degree in the humanities and the remainder in the sciences.

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discipline provided little or no perspective on the technical support field that many graduates expected to work in. Not only was this lack of perspective sigmficant in its neglect of basic skills, but it diminished the discipline’s capacity to appreciate the policy ramifications of major changes in administrative practices. In other words, from the students’ and the employers’ point of view, the traditional political science orientation not only failed to provide graduates with specific skills (a function to which neither departments of political science nor schools of public administration should aspire) but more importantly it also failed to provide the graduate with either an appreciation of the s iwcance and utility of such techniques, or an understanding of the manner in which they iduence the relationship between the bureaucracy and the community it is supposed to serve.

Public administration programs could not, in the long run, ignore these elements of public administration. Initially they tended to fill their program needs by making appropriate business administration courses mandatory. Unfortunately, business administration courses turned out not to be appropriate. Tensions between student bodies developed ideo- logical as well as practical overtones, whilst in many respects the content of such courses failed to satisfy demands for public sector applica- tions of theory. As resources became available, public administration programs sought to develop internal expertise in these fields6* To do so they had to recruit non-political scientists - and here again organizational distance from political science became an established fact.

What are the implications of separation both for public administration and political science?

The most important effect from the schools’ perspective has been the freedom that separation has provided for the development of a policy- management approach to public administration education. As a result of moving from a uni-disciplinary base to a multi-disciplinary one, the schools have been able to take on specialists from fields other than political science. Their participation has not only broadened the research capability of the schools, it has permitted them to offer courses that were formerly taken as options in other departments, notably economics, business administration and sociology. In some cases, for the fist time such courses can now be oriented to the uniqueness of public sector management. As well, the fact that the greater part, and particularly the core, of the public administration program can be offered by a single unit has enhanced the sense of identity and professional involvement of the student body. Most important, however, is the opportunity separation has

58 Full-time faculty at the Carleton School, for example, include holders of degrees in law, business administration, and economics as well as in public administration and political science.

535 ADMIN’ISTRATION PUBLIQUE DU CANADA


afforded for the development of a distinctive approach to the teaching of public administration.

This is the policy-management approach, and it can best be characterized as being dedicated to inculcating a sense of the continuity and inter- relatedness of policy and administration in the public sect0r.6~ The approach aspires to maintain *an appropriate balance between the technical skills of management and the broader issues of public policy.’Bo The extent to which individual programs emphasize each of the environmental, policy and functional aspects of public administration education natur- ally vanes. However, there seems to be a consensus that though know- ledge of certain functional areas is a prerequisite to the development of the public servant’s career, in the final analysis that career is concerned with the development and implementation of policy. Consequently, with the exception of Queen’s, which places greater stress on policy sem- inars, the programs usually require the first-year student to take several mandatory courses which have a strongly functional orientation. These tend to include some or all of quantitative analysis, public sector management, and aspects of financial management. Policy and environmental courses receive less stress. An introduction to the policy process and analysis is usually required, as is a course which relates public administration to the broader environment. Where possible economics is also included in the first year.

Most programs offer a respectable range of policy and functional options in the second year, so that if the student wishes he or she can specialize in such areas as management information systems, financial management, personnel management or specific aspects of policy development and implementation. The latter are not intended to foster delu- sions of grandeur in the graduate, but are used as a springboard for in- tensive discussion of the pervasive influence management concerns exer- cise over the process of policy analysis and also the constraints and opportunities which encompass policy implementation. Special pedagogical approaches in the final year include the use of extensive project reports, experimentation with an internship scheme, and the gradual development of a series of Canadian case studies.s1 A particularly elusive aspect

59 This summary is drawn from a compendium of Canadian public administration calenders prepared by G. Bruce Doem for the Committee of Schools and Programmes in Public Administration as background material for its Conference on the Future of Schools of Public Administration, Ottawa, April 22-23, 1976. Some of the more general assessments are drawn from the discussion at the conference and from ‘Management Development for Canada’s Public Services’ in Kernaghan, ed, Execu- tive Manpower in the Public Service. 60 Committee ... ‘Outline of Public Administration Programme at Dalhousie Univer- sity,’ p. 1. 61 Notably the ‘Case Program in Canadian Public Administration: Cases and Simulations in Canadian Public Policy and Management’ which has recently been inaugurated under the sponsorship of the Institute of Public Administration of Canada.



of the policy-management approach, as it is presented in the schools of public administration, has been the attempt to expand an awareness of the public interest and to grope toward an appropriate ethical standard for the professional public servant. This last reflects national and international concerns but has been facilitated by the development of independent schools and recent Canadian studies of the subject.e2

It should be noted that while the newly independent schools have moved most radically toward the policy-management approach, the York, ENAP and Ottawa programs have also moved in this direction. As Doern points out, there is an emerging synthesis in public management education in Canada: Virtually all the programs that have been developed in Canada in the last few years seem to have identified a common group of components in a contemporary management education program. Moreover, almost all of the programs regardless of their institutional origin have begun to move towards a genuine balance between the core components and between the two ends of the policy-management continuum.63

Much of this movement must be attributed to environmental pressures and, in part, to the trauma of institutionalization experienced by the schools; but it has been facilitated by recent surveys of the field carried out by Bruce Doerne4 and by the work of the Committee of Schools and Programs in Public Administration which has provided a forum for discussing program development and for consulting governments.

Some Portents ‘If it bleeds,’ Luther Gulick once warned, ‘don’t divide it.’66 Specializa- tion of function is a necessary part of modem organizational life but, as Gulick recognized, functional divisions that make sense from one perspective may weaken, even destroy, other essential relationships. By locating professional education in public administration outside departments of political science, discipline and field have reduced the tensions of working in harness; they have enhanced opportunities for interdisciplinary research and teaching in public administration, and they certainly have improved the quality of public administration education available 62 Especially Kenneth Kernaghan, Ethical Conduct: Guidelines for Guuernment Employees/Cwmportement Professionwl: Directiues d l’lntention des Fonctionnuires (Toronto: Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 1975). 63 Doern, ‘Teaching of Public Administration,’ p. 90. 64 Ibid., and various articles on the subject which have appeared from time to time in CAN~DIAN Pmuc ADMINISTRATION and Optimum. 65 This is really a paraphrase derived from Luther Gulick‘s famous discussion of the division of labour. After warning that ‘the subdivision of work must not pass beyond physical division into organic division,’ Gulick concludes his discussion with a series of rhetorical questions, the last and most striking of which is: ‘Does it bleed?’ Luther Gulick, ‘Notes on the Theory of Organization,’ in Gulick et al., Pupers on the Science of Administration (New York: Institute of Public Administration, 1937), pp. 1-47 at p. 5.


A. PAUL PROSS, V. SEYMOUR =ON

at the university level. But the question remains: Is separation really in the best interests of Canadian political science and public administration? Will the study of Canadian government benefit? In the long run, will our students benefit?

We have described very recent events. The shadow they cast on the future is barely discernible; too faint to indicate with certainty what the eventual consequences of separation will be. Nevertheless, some concerns have manifested themselves within the field, and we consider them here along with the warnings and criticisms of our colleagues in political science, In particular, we shall consider three problems: (1) the need to maintain a research tradition in public administration in Canada; (2) the retention of a strong political science component in the professional programs; and (3) the problem of assuring the intellectual integrity of research and education in the field.

From the schools’ perspective, the need to continue a research tradition in the field in this country is the most important challenge on the horizon. The schools at present offer students an education for a profession in the public service. They do not offer academic research degrees in public administration. Yet their continued ability to maintain the professional programs depends on their success in recruiting qualified teaching staff with a strong commitment to basic as well as applied research. Given the limited interest Canadian political science has ex- hibited in the field in recent years it seems likely that separation will exacerbate the significant shortage of qualified people in the field. After all, while many political scientists retain a primary interest in public administration, very few universities have developed post-graduate strength in the field. With the exception of the University of Toronto, those few are also the sites of the newly independent schools. Independ- ence has meant that staff who once played an active part in academic as well as professional programs in departments now find that their energies are directed primarily to supporting the professional degree. As a result we anticipate a further diminution of academically oriented post-graduate research in Canadian public administration. We expect this diminution to be exacerbated by the fact that a number of PH.D. programs do not recognize the hcpA as being the equivalent, or near equivalent, of the MA.

Whether this diminution will further undermine the research tradition in the field is not certain. In the past public administration has gained strength from field switching on the part of political scientists and economists, and it may be that this will continue to enrich the field. On the other hand, should this and the more conventional link with political science fail, the schools either will find themselves establishing their own doctoral programs or looking to other disciplines to meet the need for

538 CANMUN PUBLIC ADMINISTWITON

GRADUATE EDUCATION IN PUBLIC ADWINBTRATION

teaching and research staff. In either case, public administration as a field will face the question of how much political science should be included in the academic study of the field.

This issue has already concerned some political scientists, who feel that the MPA degree is a ‘management’ degree and who suggest that those associated with the schools have abandoned original research for ‘relevant’ research. One such critic points out that ‘it would be regret- table if the political science presence in graduate schools of public administration diminished, because, along with law, we are the only discipline used to thinking about the public sector as a whole.’m The majority of those in the schools would agree, pointing out further that an understanding of public administration depends very much on an understanding of the political institutions and patterns of behaviour which fashion government actions. To them there is immense irony in such criticisms, for in their view the Canadian MPA has escaped becom- ing a management degree largely because of the strenuous efforts the schools have made to secure a strong political science component. The real barriers to maintaining a political science presence in the professional curriculum lies not in the attitudes of those now teaching in the schools but in the failure of political science to demonstrate the value of its contribution to the field.

Earlier we alluded to this problem, referring to the abandonment of the political economy tradition and the disproportionate attention that Canadian political science has paid to input studies and to international relations. In our view political science has played a diminishing role in public administration - both field and practice - because it has had little of significance to say to scholars, students and practitioners in the field. In fact, the discipline has treated their concerns as at best tedious and at worst purely manipulative. Yet many of these concerns strike to the heart of power relations in the modem state, and upon them may depend the maintenance of democratic institutions in this country - for example, in the study of the development and administration of the budget; or the administration of regulatory authority; or even the application of personnel policies, as recent debates over bilingualism illustrate.

As we have already argued, one of the strongest forces which could sustain the connection between field and discipline is the revived interest within political science in political economy. We look to t h i s revival with optimism for two reasons. First, it is an interdisciplinary approach. Its development consequently implies some reconciliation between the research traditions of political science, public administration and those of economics, sociology and other social sciences. Second, and more im-

66 Personal correspondence to authors.

%9 ADMINISTRATION PUSIXQUE DU CANADA


portant, the political economy approach, with its emphasis on outputs and outcomes promises a more searching examination of the black box (or withinput) and here we believe public administration will once again be seen as something more than a descriptive backwater of Canadian political studies.

To explore the large issues of political economy the student will have to go far beyond observation of critical actors. He must delve into what political scientists, in unconscious perpetuation of the policy-administration dichotomy, have generally thought of as ‘technical issues.’ He must question the effects of bureaucratic structure on policy development and implementation, For example, some within the Canadian public service, notably Laframboise, have suggested that the extreme pace of change in the public service has created a ‘saturation psychosis’ that has signifi- cantly reduced the federal government’s capacity to deliver the programs Canadians have been promised.67 In other words, though the processes of reorganization may be highly technical in nature, their consequences are not, and anyone who genuinely wishes to understand those consequences must be fully conversant with the administrative aspects of policy. Also, if and as decentralization works its way through the federal public service, we can expect subtle but important changes in the relations between Ottawa and the provinces. Once more the student of change will have to concern himself with the details of administration, especially of field administration. Finally, the attempt to assess the role of the bureaucrat in policy formation must consider the processes of policy development within federal agencies. To do this we not only face the difficult task of assessing the power relations of bureau- crats and bureaucracies, but also we must analyse bureaucratic institutions such as departmental management committees which, though they are scarcely mentioned in the literature, appear to be the real crucibles of government policy.

These and many more issues tie political science inexorably to public administration, should political science decide to embrace the political economy alternative. Should political science not revive its early concerns, or at least fail to address itself more fully to output and outcome issues, we can see only an increasing distance between the mother discipline and a public administration now equipped with an institutional base capable of sustaining independence. Given this choice, some of our colleagues in political science departments might readily respond in the rhetoric of Cromwell: ‘In the name of God, go.’ We believe we speak for most scholars interested in public administration and public policy when we assert that the response, ‘Come, let us reason together’ is more appropriate.

67 Laframboise, ‘Administrative Reform in the Federal Public Service.’

540 CANADIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRAnON


We must now tun to the charge that by choosing independence from political science, the schools have undermined the integrity of Canadian public administration studies. In the view of some, the schooIs have turned themselves over to the control of forces less interested in the significant than the relevant, less concerned with truth than political expediency, and more anxious to extend the scope of bureaucratic manipulation than to serve the interests of the public at large.

Given the extent of state penetration in modern society, these issues should concern any academic, especially those of us studying public affairs. Yet it is doubtful whether schools of public administration are any more or less prone than departments of political science to becom- ing ‘too closely tied to their patrons.’e8 The schools are certainly closer to and more aware of their outside environment than are most departments, and they have indeed considered external criticism in developing their programs. However, the process of program development has been very similar to the procedure followed by political science departments in recent years and reflects considered opinion concerning not the short- term but the long-term best interests of students, the public service and the public. The schools have demonstrated as much awareness as have political science departments that they must ‘maintain their independence against pressures from poIiticaI and administrative circles to be “usefUl”.’eQ In fact, as long as the schools remain within the institutional frame-

work of the university, there is no reason to fear that they will be signi- ficantly more amenable to external manipulation than are political science departments. This applies to both teaching and research and is substantiated both by the programs now in place and by the publishing record of those teaching in the schools.

In conclusion, we revert to Gulick’s warning: separating professional education in public administration from academic education in political science has opened some wounds in field and perhaps discipline. One in particular, the difEculty of maintaining a research tradition, may have ill effects for many years. The others, however, with the application of common sense and a recognition of mutual intellectual interests, should soon mend, leaving the study of government and public &airs in both political science and public administration considerably strengthened.

68 Personal correspondence to authors. 69 Personal correspondence to authors.

541 ADMINLSTRATION PUBLIQUE DU CANADA

graduate education in canadian public administration: antecedents, present trends and portents

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