African American Perspectives on Political Science

CHAPTER 14 Race and the Problem of Equity in the Administrative State: Implications for Political Science Theory and Methods

C H A P T E R F O U RT E E N Race and the Problem of Equity in the Administrative State Implications for Political Science Theory and Methods LENNEAL J. HENDERSON JR. T HE INCREASING COMPLEXITY and power of administrative agencies is one of the hidden crises of American politics. Policy is implemented in an array of bureaucracies at the national and subnational level. In the study of political science and public administration, the role of bureaucracy is to implement public policies. This traditional dichotomy between politics and administration, however, understates the power of bureaucracies. Policies made with good intentions are often transformed, truncated, and revised within and over the life cycle of government bureaucracies. There is no better example of this dynamic than race and administration. African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and members of other racial and ethnic groups have a monumental stake in the politics of public administration in the United States. Whether at the level of federal, state, or local government, administrative decision making and implementation often represent fundamental public policy issues and challenges for both public policymakers and for nonwhite American elected officials, public administrators, and leaders of most institutions in minority communities. The political scientist Charles V. Hamilton predicted that this would be the case in the 1990s; it is now even more significant in these early years of the twenty-first century. Hamilton argued that in the future, there would be struggles over resources “as well as struggles over rights.”1 These struggles occur often in public bureaucracies. Given the role of administration in the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of public policy and the centrality of the public sector to the status and fate of nonwhite populations, political scientists, whether black or not, must have the acumen to discern the ways in which policy is modified and influenced by public bureaucracies. These modifications affect minority interests as well as the tendency of bureaucracies to become policy formulators as well as implementers. There is no way to escape what Emmett Redford refers to as “the administrative state.” The thickening of government is a central reality in politics and political science. Nonetheless, political scientists often evaluate policy without fully appreciating its impact on dependent minorities. Race and ethnicity do matter in the allocation of economic resources; and bureaucracies are fundamental suppliers of economic resources, particularly to those most needy. Accordingly, these elements must be teased out of the implementation of public policy. Political science theory and methods are essential in advancing the study of the interplay of race, ethnicity, politics, bureaucracies, and a variety of social, economic , and political resources. This chapter argues that two recurrent issues or problems characterize the relationship of nonwhite populations to public policy and administration in the United States: The first issue concerns public administration, which is at the center of the ethical debate over resource allocations to nonwhite populations in the United States. How should political scientists fashion appropriate methodological and normative tools for analyzing the reciprocal influences of race and bureaucracy? The second issue concerns strategies and designs. Given the perennial ethical problem , public administrators have constantly struggled with the most appropriate strategies and designs for administrative intervention and action concerning needs, demands, and status of nonwhites in the United States. Both problems raise both theoretical and strategic issues for American political scientists. Most scholars in the field have approached these problems through such theories as dominant/submissive group theory; pluralist theory; and representative bureaucracy theory; various forms of elite-mass theory; and most recently, through theories of social equity.2 Yet much is lost in the application of these approaches. For example, a key tenet of pluralist theory is that competing and often conflicting interest groups influence the process of making public policy through lobbying, bargaining, and compromising about political agendas. This bargaining process affects the distribution and redistribution of such key resources as education, health care, employment, and business opportunities. Pluralists recognize that rights provide access to resources. The rights to vote, to hold public office, and to mobilize allow nonwhite Americans opportunities to influence the allocation of public resources: how tax dollars are distributed in public budgets. Because of disproportionate poverty, discrimination, and other historical legacies, nonwhite American politicians and advocacy organizations have fought to make sure that the allocation of resources is fair and equal, whether in terms of taxing and spending, or in the design and development of such...