The Revolving Door is generally seen as one that has caused government many problems in that not only may lead to internal corruption with employees obtaining their positions through know-how, favors and connections, but it may also lead to instability within the various government positions itself. More so, high turnover is never good for any institution since it unsettles the institution as a whole. Each employee, particularly, those lodged in high positions, are connected to a networked contingent of others, and when one changes jobs, minor or major changes are wrought in the department depending onto eh status of the individual. When these changes occur on a frequent basis (as is the case with the Revolving Door situation, circumstances can become quite unstable for an institution – the Government – that, perhaps, more than any other – needs its stability. Instability may lead to complaints with job and workplace conflict, particularly if personnel are ill matched to their jobs and/ or suddenly find themselves working in reciprocally frustrating relationships.
The Revolving Door policy is generally seen as one that has caused government many problems in that not only may lead to internal corruption with employees obtaining their positions through know-how, favors and connections, but it may also lead to instability within the various government positions itself. More so, high turnover is never good for any institution since it unsettles the institution as a whole. Each employee, particularly, those lodged in high positions, are connected to a networked contingent of others, and when one changes jobs, minor or major changes are wrought in the department depending onto the status of the individual. When these changes occur on a frequent basis (as is the case with the Revolving Door situation, circumstances can become quite unstable for an institution -- the Government -- that, perhaps, more than any other -- needs its stability. Instability may lead to complaints with job and workplace conflict, particularly if personnel are ill matched to their jobs and/or suddenly find themselves working in reciprocally frustrating relationships.
As the article also showed, individuals finding themselves in positions unmatched to their skills, training and personalities may contribute less, or adversely in a certain area whereas they could have produced far better in the area that they were compelled to leave.
The Revolving Door policy, for these and for toehr reasons, is therefore a hardly popular convention and most critics seem to adopt the same stance as this article does agreeing that its presence is problematic for Political Administration in more ways than one.
Taking a contrary approach, but without negating its evident problems, I would like to suggest that the Revolving Door has, at least, one benefit to offer the nation and government in that it creates broad-minded, multi-informed personnel who, through their treading from Department to Department, become acquainted with the various concerns of the nation and learn different ways of how to deal with them, as well as acquiring a diversified knowledge in the future. Government issues are complex and encompass a plurality of themes. Someone wishing to effectively govern the nation must, therefore, gain a smattering of knowledge in all related concerns of government. The higher he is in status, the more important this holistic Administrative perspective becomes. Consequently, the President who is the highest-placed individual of the nation is expected to have an all-encompassing perspective and working knowledge of all of the Nation's concerns. This does not mean that this knowledge, on each and every point, should be specialized, - for that he may turn to a specialist - but rather that he possess a holistic perspective of the whole. The Revolving Door policy gives oen this ability and standpoint. That this is so is indicated by George (1997) who on her article on Government Think Tanks, indicates that many of these most prominent Think Tanks are comprised of individuals who have been thought the Revolving Door system. Their accumulated and diverse knowledge provides them with the ability of tying diffracted themes together and of contributing novel and expanded insights to particular problems.
Discussion Questions for Kettl, Pollitt, and Moulton
Kettl
I think that my article aligns with the Wilsonian approach that recommends that policy makers should delegate power to administrators since they would better be able to cope with the complexity of government. My article indicates the power that lies in government administration, whilst criticizing certain use and aspects of that power.
Game theory, which sees workers as self-interested individuals, rather than perceiving them in an instrumental sense, can work for this article, since seeing government employees as individuals in their own right rather than tools to be arbitrarily shifted around may hinder the Revolving Door policy.
Networked theory may be plausible here, for our society at bottom consists of stratified, interconnected levels, and the Revolving Door policy, as my article attempts to show, is illustrative of contemporary society.
Kettl states that public administration is wired into the American political system and coming from different traditions, results in conflicting values. Hierarchical authority has still retained its clasp and that whilst network theory can offer potential; it needs to be carefully incorporated if done so. My article offers a system towards this end of how industry and political administrative theory can be prudently combined to the benefit of the greater outcome.
By assessing the origins of the Revolving Door policy and its impact on federal government, this article addresses Kettl's three fundamental questions within the perimeters of enhanced understanding of the phenomenology of the Revolving Door policy.
Pollitt
Some see the multi-disciplinary character of Public Administration as a handicap, but it may not necessarily be so. I see it as one that can give the field so much since I can engage in structured, calm, and reasoned debate with similar extracting from them that which is applicable and helpful to my construction and omitting that which is not. Being that Public Administration is multi-disciplinary also opens me to a range of models and theories that I can incorporate in my work. It is to this end, therefore, that I use a matrix of methods in evaluation of history and influence of the Revolving Door policy. Methods include archival and document-based tools as well as a phenomenological and textual analysis of documents in order to gain as complete an understanding of the process as possible.
Moulton
The public as input begins with political authority, working its way through organizations and eventuating with outcome. General research methods focus on how differences in political organization (such as leadership, structural configurations, networks, and so forth) will lead to different outcomes.
The second approach, however, begins from the reverse direction where desired public outcomes are considered and one works backwards devising and assessing ways of how to accomplish these.
My paper deals with a historical overview and in-depth analysis of the whole. It may, therefore, integrate both perspective -- but then integrating both perspectives in the same article can provide us with the best of both components.
References
George, S. (1997). Winning the war of ideas. TNI. http:/www.tni.org/archives/archives-george-dissent.
Kettl, D. Public Administration at the Millennium, J-Part 10, 2000
Pollitt, C. Envisioning Public Administration as a Scholarly Field in 2020, PA Review, 70, 2010
Moulton, S.: Integrating the Public in Public Administration. PA Review, 2010
You’re 100% through this paper. Sign up to read the full paper.
Sign Up Now — Instant Access Already a member? Log inAlways verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.