Even though the supposed dichotomy between politics and administration is one the oldest issues in public administration, it continues to hold great relevance for administrators today, Early essay by Woodrow Wilson frame the initial study of public administration in the USA. In addition to his emphasis on businesslike practices, Wilson was concern as well with isolating the processes of administration from the potentially corrupting influences of politics. While policies were to be debated and decided by politicians, they were to be carried out by a politically neutral, professional bureaucracy. In the way, the everyday conduct of government would be isolated from the potentially corrupting influence of politics.
Other early writes joined Wilson in talking. at least analytically, about the distinction between politics (or policy) and administration. More practical reformers went further, creating governmental forms, such as the council-manager plan for local government, that were based on a separation of policy and administration. As we will see later in this form of government, the council presumably makes the policy and city manager carries it out. The council is engaged in politics (or policy) and the manager in administration. Over the first decades of this century, however, the distinction between policy and administration was increasingly broken down even in council-manager governments. Managers found that they had expertise that was needed by policy makers and began to be drawn into the policy process. The increasing involvement of administrators in the policy process was in part attributable to the facts that the operations of government were becoming more complex and the technical and professional skills needed to operate public agencies were dramatically increasing.
The underlying issued here is that administration could and should be institutionally separate from politics. If this concept were to be applied to the council management approach this would enable the manager to be a neutral party who is efficiently and effectively carrying out the policies of the council. However evidence has supported the idea that the manager throughout the history of council-management has had an active role in the policy process. Mission-management acts as a continuum for which a manager has some flexibility in the policy making process while still holding true to the idea of role separation.
We tend to focus on the politics-administration dichotomy as a professional standard (guidelines) rather than focusing on the dichotomy as an actual description of actual behavior. The dichotomy of politics and administration was a concept introduced to outline the theory of democratic accountability, not as a tool to guide behavior. This dichotomy was intended to protect themselves from political machines. Still such things as Particularism are still prevalent today. The ban on Particularism was not intended to remove discretion as long as the administration was held accountable. But reformers felt accountability was nearly impossible due to the separation of powers doctrine. They believe there should be a concentration of power which would facilitate accountability and this concept is found as an exception in the council-manager form of government.
Frank Good now tried to reinterpret these dichotomies by dissecting the three basic functions of government - the executive, the legislative, and the judicial functions of government. He felt there should be just two: the expression of the populaces will and the execution of their will. It seems the three function of government were founded on these two principals and the respective branches appear to work together in order to promote the expression the populaces will and the execution of it.
Administration was intended to lie outside the sphere of politics. Therefore administration questions are not political questions. This clearly illustrates a separation of politics and administration. Wilson dealt with two types of politics, partisanship and patronage and that of policy making. These two distinction are essential because if politics includes policy making then the administrator is void of the ability to participate in the functions of the organization. What Wilson wanted to do was to simply remove patronage politics from administration. He believed administrators were politicians, and they must have freedom to make ethical decisions. The dictionary definition of politics dose limit the part of the policy-making process of guiding or influencing the policy of government. However it also allows for patronage. This definitely backs Wilson’s view and it gives solution to Goodnow’s interpretations.