normative, democratic goals of its authors, implies that the values of New Public
Administration had endured into the 1980’s and 90’s. Public Administration scholars
were still discussing and evaluating the democratic implications of bureaucracy on
society decades after Minnowbrook. They were still committed to responsiveness
and even change within bureaucratic practice.
However, on the flip side, the presence of the Blacksburg Perspective also
implies that the work of the New Public Administration scholars was still left
incomplete. There may have been incremental reforms, but the need for further
change in the field was felt and commented upon. However, the expressions of
Blacksburg participants may offer some hope in the endurance of bureaucratic reform
movements. “So far as we are concerned, the refounding of public administration is
an ongoing project, a work under construction that hopefully will never be
fmished.”’°*
For New Left alumni, this comment may offer some consolation. The field of
bureaucratie theory and administrative practice had become receptive to reform as
well as more responsive to felt needs for change. However, the work was still
unfinished, meaning that deep-rooted problems in bureaucracy remained to be
eradicated. The persistence of these problems has led many SDS alumni and
researchers to give more attention to the failures of the New Left than to its successes.
The legacy of New Public Administration, however, represents a definite success for
the New Left. Those serious activists in the latter years of SDS may have shot for
revolution, but what they got were the important and lasting, if incremental, reforms
the organization had originally sought.