them. A public agency, in other words, is just that: public. It is not the equivalent
of a private-sector producer serving a market niche by satisfying the preferences
of a certain set of customers. A public agency’s job is to serve the collective institutions of the democratic system and, ultimately, the Constitution. An agency’s
clientele might not like some of the actions when they are responsive to such topdown considerations, but public administration is supposed to serve the will of
the state, not the selfish wants of the individual. There are any number of conceivable instances in which an agency might serve its clientele well, but, in doing
so, harm the common good. A school in a competitive education market, for example, may offer religious indoctrination as part of the curriculum. Parents who
find this attractive can take their children, along with their tax dollars, to such a
school and be highly satisfied. From an individual and market perspective, all is
well—supply is efficiently matched with demand through the mechanisms of
competition among producers and choice among consumers. From a group-level
democratic perspective, the result is less pleasing. The central legal justification
for public schooling—to teach the imperatives of democratic citizenship—is subordinated to market demand, if not lost altogether (Rebell ).
Democracy is ultimately a set of guarantees about process—a person’s rights
to participate in collective decisions—not about outcomes. The market delivers
what the individual wants; democracy delivers what we can all agree upon and
live with. The two, as critics of rational choice take some pains to point out, are
not the same thing in practice or in theory (Callan ). For such reasons, critics
argue that rational choice is a poor choice for the central paradigm of public administration. Market values and democratic values are not interchangeable equivalents, and rational choice favors the latter over the former. The decades since the
seminal contributions of Waldo () and Simon (/) may have been
marked by an intellectual crisis in the study of public administration, and the discipline’s difficulty in intellectually accommodating its scholarly underpinnings
with democratic values is by now well known.
Conclusions
Rational choice theory has provoked some of the most contentious and controversial debates in public administration scholarship, but it has also provided the
discipline with a little-rivaled intellectual stimulant. Regardless of whether the
purpose has been to advocate the theory or to expose its faults, some of the most
original and valuable contributions to public administration knowledge come
from those working from a rational choice foundation.
The attractions of rational choice theory (especially its formal applications) are
not only its internal consistency but also its ability to generate logically deduced,
empirically testable propositions. As long as its founding premises hold, it is ca-
them. A public agency, in other words, is just that: public. It is not the equivalent
of a private-sector producer serving a market niche by satisfying the preferences
of a certain set of customers. A public agency’s job is to serve the collective institutions of the democratic system and, ultimately, the Constitution. An agency’s
clientele might not like some of the actions when they are responsive to such topdown considerations, but public administration is supposed to serve the will of
the state, not the selfish wants of the individual. There are any number of conceivable instances in which an agency might serve its clientele well, but, in doing
so, harm the common good. A school in a competitive education market, for example, may offer religious indoctrination as part of the curriculum. Parents who
find this attractive can take their children, along with their tax dollars, to such a
school and be highly satisfied. From an individual and market perspective, all is
well—supply is efficiently matched with demand through the mechanisms of
competition among producers and choice among consumers. From a group-level
democratic perspective, the result is less pleasing. The central legal justification
for public schooling—to teach the imperatives of democratic citizenship—is subordinated to market demand, if not lost altogether (Rebell ).
Democracy is ultimately a set of guarantees about process—a person’s rights
to participate in collective decisions—not about outcomes. The market delivers
what the individual wants; democracy delivers what we can all agree upon and
live with. The two, as critics of rational choice take some pains to point out, are
not the same thing in practice or in theory (Callan ). For such reasons, critics
argue that rational choice is a poor choice for the central paradigm of public administration. Market values and democratic values are not interchangeable equivalents, and rational choice favors the latter over the former. The decades since the
seminal contributions of Waldo () and Simon (/) may have been
marked by an intellectual crisis in the study of public administration, and the discipline’s difficulty in intellectually accommodating its scholarly underpinnings
with democratic values is by now well known.
Conclusions
Rational choice theory has provoked some of the most contentious and controversial debates in public administration scholarship, but it has also provided the
discipline with a little-rivaled intellectual stimulant. Regardless of whether the
purpose has been to advocate the theory or to expose its faults, some of the most
original and valuable contributions to public administration knowledge come
from those working from a rational choice foundation.
The attractions of rational choice theory (especially its formal applications) are
not only its internal consistency but also its ability to generate logically deduced,
empirically testable propositions. As long as its founding premises hold, it is ca-
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