A more carefully argued examination of the politics-administration dichotomy was offered by
Frank J. Goodnow (1859–1939) in his book, Politics and Administration, published in 1900.
Goodnow, one of the founders and first president (in 1903) of the American Political Science
Association, was one of the most significant voices and writers of the progressive reform movement.
24 To Goodnow, modern administration presented a number of dilemmas involving
political and administrative functions that had now supplanted the traditional concern with the
separation of powers among the various branches of government. Politics and administration
could be distinguished, he argued, as “the expression of the will of the state and the execution of
that will.”
Reprinted here is Goodnow’s original analysis of the distinction between politics and administration.
Note how even Goodnow had to admit that when the function of political decision making
and administration was legally separated, there developed a “tendency for the necessary control to
develop extra-legally through the political party system.” The articulation of the politics-administration
dichotomy also reflected the next phase in the emergence of American public administration.
Whereas the first phase before World War I focused primarily on the evils of patronage and spoils
systems and eliminating corruption in municipal government, the second phase would emphasize the
growth of public spending and the ascendance of the “new management” in government. City managers,
executive budget systems, and centralized and accountability-driven administrative systems were
all key reform themes