Recall also that the early public administra tionists hoped that, even though elected and appointed officials do different things, they would more amply fulfill the public interest by working together. This also has come to pass. As a distinguished public administrator and scholar put it, “my interpretation of the nature of interaction between elected officials and administrators shifted [over the years] to a demonstration that both sets of officials have extensive interactions, are interdependent. And have reciprocal influence.”36
Things change so that they may remain the same.
Puncturing the principles
A simultaneous, and even more elemental,challenge was the contention that there could be no such thing as a “principle” of administration. This argument. Of course, included public administration, but it went far beyond the public sector to encompass as well the whole of management theory, which was suffused with the ideology of administrative principles.
Figure 2-1 The “Principle” of Narrow Span of Control