Politics/Administration Dichotomy Analysis

For years, two of the greatest ideologies of American government have constantly intersected with each other. The separation of powers formed the foundation of the American Constitution. While the politics/administration dichotomy was the instrument that scholars used to solve the complex issues created by the law of the land. Laurence J. O 'Toole, Jr. (1987) is his article, Doctrines and Developments: Separation of Powers, the Politics-Administration Dichotomy, and the Rise of the Administrative State, contends that the development of the American administrative state was an amalgamation of the politics/administration dichotomy and the constitutional principle of separation of powers. He argues against early American administration reformers’ idea of dichotomy over separation and reinforces his argument by revealing the connection in one prominent American policy. In this essay I will analyze and review O’Toole’s arguments supporting a mesh of politics/administration dichotomy and the constitutional principle of separation of powers as the basis of the American administrative state.
Dichotomy Over Separation: The Early Reformers Mantra.
Early American public administration reformers believed that separation of powers created unnecessary …show more content…
However, these arguments ultimately fall short. The concept of a politics/administration dichotomy has been revealed as a fictions notion that never really had any ground. Administrators have always worked with, alongside and under political officials, having integral roles in policy making. The more involved administrators became in policy the more interaction they had with the different branched of government. The administrative state was not a mesh of two devious concepts but a bureaucracy that was controlled by a separation of powers in