| Review of: | The Common Good by Amitai Etzioni America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy by Francis Fukuyama Deliberative Democracy in America: A Proposal for a Popular Branch of Government by Ethan J. Leib Democracy and Populism: Fear and Hatred by John Lukacs The New Constitutional Order by Mark Tushnet |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Michael W. Spicer |
| Reviewed in: | Public Administration Review |
| Date accepted online: | 02/11/2007 |
| Published in print: | Volume 67, Issue 2, Pages 343-366 |
Some Reflections on Democracy and Their Implications for American Public Administration
American public administration, as an academic field of inquiry, has long been concerned with the idea of democracy. Indeed, a good argument can be made that the field originally emerged in America out of a question about how to reconcile an efficient and energetic public administration with the values of a democratic state. In light of this history, some of the ideas presented in five recent books may be of interest to readers who are concerned about the relationship between public administration and democracy. These books raise a number of interesting questions with regard to democracy:
1. Why should we be concerned about the promotion of democracy overseas, and what are the best means to promote it?
2. What are some of the problems that democracy has created for us in the modern age?
3. In what ways can we improve democratic governance?
4. In what ways do our evolving constitutional traditions affect the way in which we, as Americans, practice democracy?
This review essay seeks to examine these questions, drawing on each of the five books, and explores the implications of the ideas raised here for public administration. In particular, I shall argue that public administration scholars, as well as political writers, might do well to adopt a more modest view of what democracy can contribute to government.
Promoting democracy overseas is the major theme of Francis Fukuyama's book,
Second, Fukuyama argues that the administration, in engaging in a dubious strategy of preventive warfare, "failed to anticipate the virulently negative global reaction to its exercise of 'benevolent hegemony"' (6). Administration officials, in his view, "failed to recognize that they were pushing against a strong undertow of anti-Americanism that would be greatly exacerbated by their seemingly contemptuous brush-off of most forms of international cooperation" (6). Finally, in Fukuyama's view, the administration "failed to anticipate the requirements for pacifying and reconstructing Iraq, and was wildly overoptimistic in its assessment of the ease with which large-scale social engineering could be accomplished not just in Iraq but in the Middle East as a whole" (6-7). Its policy rested on a mistaken belief that "democracy was a default condition to which societies would revert once liberated from dictators" (116).
Consistent with his previous writings (Fukuyama 1992), Fukuyama continues to assert democracy as a universal ideal. In his view, "there is a universal human desire to be free of tyranny and a universalism to the appeal of life in a prosperous liberal democracy" (116). However, he warns us that "there are certain critical intervening variables known as
The lesson that Fukuyama draws from the Iraq experience is not that the United States should abandon its efforts to promote democracy, as well as human rights, around the world. He believes that U.S. policy should continue to be concerned with "what goes on
Fukuyama provides an elegantly written and nicely nuanced critique of American efforts to promote democracy overseas. If there is a weakness in his argument, it is that, in advocating greater American and international efforts to promote economic and political development, he is perhaps open to the charge of advocating the same type of ambitious social engineering for which he faults the proponents of the invasion of Iraq. This is surprising, as Fukuyama himself concedes that "we know relatively little about how to create or strengthen [institutions] where they are non-existent or weak" (124) and that "establishing or reforming institutions is almost always more of a political problem than a technocratic problem" (124). He notes, for example, that in Africa, "despite large levels of outside donor assistance and advice for three decades, per capita incomes in most of the region shrank, African states that had always been weak deteriorated and, in the case of Somalia, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, disappeared entirely" (122). In light of this history, one might question whether the application of "soft power" is any more likely to succeed at promoting political and economic development than the application of military power. Fukuyama, of course, hopes that it will, but he provides little convincing evidence to support this hope.
Nonetheless, despite this problem, Fukuyama provides some useful insights into the relationship between public administration and democracy. Perhaps the most important of these is his observation that "before you can have a democracy, you have to have a state" (125). It follows, for Fukuyama, that we should seek "the promotion of good governance, not just democracy" (140). This involves "things like state-building and the creation of effective institutions that are conditions of democratic government but not necessarily democratic in themselves" (140). As Fukuyama makes clear in his earlier book on state building (Fukuyama 2004), these institutions must include strong institutions of public administration, without which effective governance would surely be impossible-a message that perhaps has been forgotten too often in our desire to shrink the state all around the world.
Of course, to stress the importance of state institutions is not to suggest that the promotion of democracy is unimportant to governance. To the contrary, although it may be true that, as Fukuyama observes, "modernizing authoritarians might be preferable in some cases to feckless democracies," it is probably also true, as he argues, that "good governance is ultimately not possible without democracy and public participation" (140-41). For one thing, democracy can act as an important check on executive and administrative misconduct. As Fukuyama notes, "the quality of a bureaucracy that is insulated from public scrutiny and oversight deteriorates over time; corruption can be reined in only if a broader public is made aware of its existence and demands better performance from public officials" (141). Moreover, administrative corruption is not the only problem here. If Fukuyama is correct about the limits of social engineering, we may also need administrative accountability to democratic institutions as a means to check well-meaning but overzealous executive leaders and public administrators who engage in radical and risky plans and programs to promote what they see as the public good. Fukuyama's observation that "ambitious social engineering is very difficult and ought always to be approached with care and humility" (9) is surely as relevant to the general conduct of public administration as it is to the conduct of the Iraq war.
Also very relevant to public administration is Fukuyama's observation regarding the trade-off between effectiveness and legitimacy in international organizations. As Fukuyama observes, "international legitimacy ...requires working through international institutions that are inherently slow-moving, rigid, and hobbled by cumbersome procedures and methods. Legitimacy is ultimately based on consent, which, in turn, is the by-product of a slow process of diplomacy and persuasion" (191). He notes that institutions "that are regarded as legitimate (such as the United Nations) are not terribly effective, while those that are effective (the U.S.-led coalition of the willing) are not regarded as legitimate" (163). This trade-off might also apply to public administration: In our desire to promote greater flexibility, entrepreneurship, efficiency, and effectiveness by "hollowing out the state" through nonbureaucratic devices such as contracting out to private and nonprofit organizations and other forms of public-private partnerships, we should consider carefully whether, in seeking to "reinvent government," as some have termed it, we risk losing legitimacy in government actions. Moreover, because "institutions are very difficult to establish" (117), as Fukuyama notes, we should be wary of the danger of undermining existing administrative institutions, as, once lost, they may be difficult to restore.
If public administration is to be democratically accountable, does this mean it should serve simply as an effective and efficient instrument of the will of democratically elected leaders? Such an approach has always held a certain appeal in our literature. However, it seems problematic if John Lukacs is correct in his view that our democracy is deteriorating into a form of populism that corrupts both our culture and the way in which we govern ourselves. According to Lukacs in
In discussing the development of democracy and what he sees as our ongoing drift toward populism, Lukacs argues that "the entire so-called modern age, 1500-2000" has been marked by "aristocracy retreating, democracy advancing" (7-8) so that "the principle of popular sovereignty is now universal" (17) and "democracy has become unlimited, untrammeled" (11). As a result, in Lukacs's view, we have seen "the emergence and the powerful attraction of two new enormous movements, nationalism and socialism, that turned out to rule most of the history of the 20th century-indeed, most of the world even now" (31). For Lukacs, the widespread adoption and advocacy of socialist aspirations, principles, and demands "by liberals and even by conservatives ...was the expectable and unavoidable consequence of democracy, including universal suffrage, universal literacy (of sorts), popular sovereignty" (33). Even more important than this, in Lukacs's view, is the extent to which democracy has also promoted a distinctly modern and virulent type of nationalism, one that is fueled by right-wing populism, both in Europe and the United States. Lukacs distinguishes this nationalist populism from patriotism: Unlike patriotism, "nationalism is aggressive, ...both modern and populist," it involves "the love of ...the myth of the 'people,' justifying everything" and it becomes "a political and ideological substitute for religion" (71-72).
This type of populist nationalism, when combined with socialism, brings to mind, of course, the experience of Nazi Germany under Hitler, but Lukacs, though certainly devoting significant attention to Hitler, argues that most modern regimes, whether they are dictatorships or liberal democracies, reflect the influences of both socialism and nationalism, with an increasing emphasis on the latter. As he sees it,
[C]onsidering the ubiquity of the welfare state-we are, at least in one sense, all national socialists now. Of course, this conjunction of nationalism and socialism has varied from people to people; it could coexist with democratic institutions and with traditions of liberal freedom .... German National Socialism was but one extreme variant that ended in disaster. (40-41)
Lukacs traces the historical development of socialism, nationalism, and populism in the United States and Europe. However, it is clear that he thinks that, since World War I, the United States has played a key role in the global spread of these ideas, especially with regard to populism, and that this has had detrimental consequences for human civilization. From his perspective, because of the growth of American influence in the world, "the evolving history of the democratization of the world is well-nigh inseparable from the Americanization of the world" (5). He sees within American culture, because of its extreme populism, certain paradoxical dualities, including "permissiveness together with the administration of crude power; a superficial propagation of privacy together with widespread weakening of private moral standards and convictions, ...the disappearance of most of the former and privately known differences of class together with an unceasing appetite for publicly demonstrable labels of 'class"' (152). For Lukacs, what the United States, with its populist culture, is exporting to the world is a "rolling and mobile civilization marked by a steady increase in carnality, vulgarity, cruelty" (153). "Fear and hatred are prevalent among us, manifest and evident in the increasing savagery ...in and around our everyday lives" (216). He notes the growing "appeal of certain acts of criminality" and the "shocking disappearance of social disapproval, let alone ostracism, of many criminals" (226).
Moreover, with respect to modern democratic-or, more accurately now, populist-politics, Lukacs worries about "the cult and culture of publicity" (182). He bemoans "the rising and eventually overwhelming influence of publicity, of its manipulations, and of its ever more pervasive influence," a danger that he sees "as perhaps even more insidious than that of the tyranny of a majority" (185). According to Lukacs, in our populist culture, "entertainment has pervaded, infiltrated, and more often than not substituted for 'information"' and "television has by and large replaced the functions of a more or less 'free' press"' (222). In his view, because of the rise of populism, we face
the prospect of a modern democratic society in which the corruption of words and speech, in which television, with its near monopoly on news and information, may be governed by the manipulators of popular majorities, in which opposition parties and papers are permitted to exist, but their impression and influence hardly matters since their voices are weak, and in which political freedom hardly amounts to more than to the absence of "totalitarianism." (223)
Lukacs's self-styled jeremiad may strike many readers as excessively European in its viewpoint, and his constant carping about modern culture has a somewhat aristocratic, as well as prudish, tone. However, his critique of modern democratic politics contains, in my view, an important kernel of truth that should give pause to those, both on the Left and Right, who too often overly romanticize democracy, along with its notions of the popular will and popular sovereignty. Moreover, if Lukacs's characterization of modern democratic politics and its preoccupation with publicity and celebrity is even only partially correct, it should make uneasy those in our field who continue to see the appropriate function of public administrators as little more than the efficient and effective execution of some democratically expressed will of the people. If elections have become little more than manipulative contests in publicity and celebrity, it follows that administrative responsibility should involve much more than simply following the desires of the people and their elected leaders.
Of course, Lukacs is not alone in his critique of democratic practice in the modern world, and he is but one of many current heirs to a long line of critics of democratic practice dating back all the way to Plato. Ethan Leib also seems to fall into this camp, and unlike Lukacs, he has what he sees as a specific remedy for democracy's ills. In his thought-provoking "proposal for a popular form of governance" in
Leib fleshes out his proposals for a fourth branch of government in considerable detail, but the essential elements of such a branch are as follows: First, randomly selected samples of 525 voters would debate and vote on prepared bills, as a fourth branch of government, in small groups or civic juries of about 15 people. Second, these bills could be referred by legislatures, courts, or groups of voters to the fourth branch for deliberation. Third, service on civic juries would be compulsory for all citizens, similar to a draft. Fourth, to be enacted, a bill would have to be approved by a supermajority of a civic jury, and then it would be subject to veto by either the executive or legislative branches of government. Finally, there would be a commission composed of representatives of political parties and independents, as well as directly elected members, that would assist the fourth branch in the administration of its business.
Leib's analysis is helpful in getting us to think creatively about the ways in which we might enhance democratic values by increasing citizen participation in governance. However, the major problem with his particular proposal, in my view, is that it seems unlikely to achieve the very result that he seeks-namely, a more legitimate democratic process. The notion that the decisions made by a small subgroup of a random sample of 525 voters would somehow command greater legitimacy among citizens than the decisions of their own elected representatives strikes me as more than a little fanciful. Indeed, the decisions of the former would not likely be seen as legitimate by anyone, with the possible exception of academically trained social scientists with a somewhat positivist bent to their research. It is one thing to use random sampling to gauge public opinion on policy questions, but quite another to use it as the direct basis for enacting legislation.
Moreover, although Leib's proposal would technically allow other branches of government to veto bills passed by civic juries, his commitment to the idea of a separation of powers-and more generally, to our constitutional traditions-appears, at best, lukewarm. He consider it problematic that under our current constitution, "divided government often renders legislatures impotent" (2), and he notes that under his proposed system, if either the executive or the legislative branch was, in fact, to veto the actions of the civic juries, they should be prepared to risk "impeachment or recall for contravening the informed will of the people" (14). Such a veto, in his words, "is likely to be political suicide, if not perceived as authoritarian" (23). In other words, Leib hopes and expects that adoption of his constitutional reforms would significantly weaken, though not entirely vitiate, our constitutional separation of powers-an attitude that is not surprising, coming from one who complains about "our society's fetishization of written constitutions" (134).
If Leib is correct, another effect of his proposal might also be to weaken the role that public administrators play in our constitutional system. After all, one reason that public administrators are able to exercise significant discretionary power is that our separation of powers makes these administrators accountable to different branches of government and, in doing so, reduces the control that any particular branch can exercise over the actions of administrators (Spicer 2001; Wilson 1989). To the extent that Leib's proposal would weaken the separation of powers and, as a result, that the executive and legislative branches of government would feel compelled to follow the wishes and desires expressed by civic juries, this might lessen opportunities for administrators to exercise their discretion.
Of course, one cannot really predict whether Leib's proposed reform would weaken our separation of powers or, for that matter, what other effects it might have on our system of government, and this raises the most serious problem of all. Leib's proposal, in my view, seems precisely the type of "ambitious social engineering" that Fukuyama warns us about in his book and, for that reason, if implemented, would likely have many unforeseeable and potentially destructive consequences in terms of how we govern ourselves. For example, the way in which the news media cover all sorts of murder investigations and trials nowadays suggests that civic juries would not necessarily be any less susceptible to the pressures of populism than their fellow citizens or their elected representatives. This is not to argue that nonbinding citizen juries of the type that are sometimes used to solicit the views of different groups of citizens on public issues are without value. Rather, it is to suggest that we should be cautious about conflating the outcome of the deliberations of such bodies with some sort of sovereign democratic will of the people and then redesigning our entire constitutional system around them.
An alternative approach to improving governance is suggested by Amitai Etzioni in his new book on the idea of
Etzioni goes on to examine a number of specific public policy issues that pose questions about our commitment to the common good, including public displays of vulgarity and nudity, the protection of children from pornographic and violent materials and harmful advertising, government surveillance of electronic communications, and DNA testing. Not surprisingly, Etzioni, as a self-professed communitarian, favors governmental actions to promote the "common good" that civil libertarians might feel uncomfortable with. With respect to protecting children, for example, he observes that parents and teachers, but also society at large, "have not merely a right but a duty to shape the cultural environment in which [children] grow" even "if this requires some limitations on adults" (94). He also argues, in regard to government surveillance of electronic communications, that although government agencies engaged in such surveillance should be held accountable, we should not deny "public authorities the tools they need to do their work ...in a world in which new technologies have made their service more difficult and in which the threat to public safety has vastly increased" (123).
Although he clearly favors a more active role for government over the individual in promoting what he sees as the common good, Etzioni believes that fostering moral dialogues within strong communities is much more important in changing public behavior than direct governmental action. He seeks voluntary rather than forced compliance by citizens with shared standards of social behavior because, as he puts it, "the moral voice is much more compatible with free choice than with state coercion" (153) and because of "our limited ability to rely on introducing social change through the law" when the law is "not backed up by values" (158). Furthermore, like Lukacs, Etzioni worries about nationalism as a basis for defining the common good. He favors "shifting much of the defining involvements of citizens in those countries that are inflicted with nationalism from the nation-state to the body of society, specifically to communities (not to be confused with local governments), the community of these communities, and to a 'thick civic fabric"' (163). This means encouraging stronger communities by "developing and championing public policies, institutions, symbols, and belief systems that help people realize that they can maintain their sense of self, identity, and social and cultural distinctiveness, as well as a good part of their control over their individual and collective fate-all through involvement in a variety of communities" (163). Etzioni hopes, in this way, to foster the development of a communitarian state in which there is a clear distinction between state and society and in which the state serves mainly to resolve conflicts that arise among different communities, as well as to protect and promote the social values shared across them.
Finally, Etzioni engages in some interesting speculations about the viability of virtual communities in cyberspace and the use of the Internet for democratic processes. Noting both the opportunities and limitations of existing virtual communities, he argues that "the Internet could not only fully duplicate offline democratic procedures and outcomes, but it could also improve upon them" because it would be, in his view, "much easier online ...not merely to gain information and to vote but also to participate in deliberations and in instructing ...[elected] representatives" (189). He envisages the possibility of at least a partial online, multitiered democracy, involving millions of citizens, in which citizens would initially deliberate among themselves in small groups and elect representatives to speak for them, who would then deliberate together in other small groups and also elect their own representatives to engage in further deliberations and elections, this process continuing in a rising pyramid.
One may disagree, in particular cases, with Etzioni in regard to how far we should go in sacrificing individual liberties for the common good, and one might be more than a little concerned when he suggests, for example, that "it is a gross misperception to argue that public safety measures entail a sacrifice of rights" (96). However, he argues his case clearly and eloquently, and his argument has important implications for democracy and public administration. Especially noteworthy here is his observation that "American society is basically organized as a community of communities in which the member communities are free to follow their subcultures in numerous matters" but are expected to adhere to "shared values that serve as a sort of framework and glue," including, among other things, "commitment to the Constitution and its Bill of Rights, the democratic form of government," and "mutual tolerance" (171). If this vision of American society is correct-as I would argue it is-it follows that popular opinion in our democracy will rarely form a simple unity. Rather, more often it will consist of a complex and confusing mosaic of different and conflicting particularistic beliefs and values that are expressed by different groups in society. Therefore, government officials, including public administrators, often do not have the option of executing some clearly formed and unified democratic or public will; instead they must seek not only to discern where there may be some consensus about what is to be accomplished but also (more importantly, in my view) to recognize where there is real conflict among values and among the communities that hold them and, where possible, in handling such conflicts, to protect the diversity of values held by different communities.
At the same time, Etzioni's suggestion for a multilayered online deliberative democracy-which would be intriguing if it were a piece of science fiction-strikes me as unrealistic in our busy society, at least for now, and it might actually end up harming the practice of democracy. Perhaps, like Leib, I am a Luddite, but this is one of the rare instances in which I find myself agreeing with him that "face-to-face democracy has benefits that teledemocracy can never provide" and that "cyberspace isn't yet the place for democracy as long as there is a significant digital divide or a delay in perceiving the emotions a face can convey" (4). Moreover, democracy in cyberspace would seem even more open than our current system of representative government to the dangers of populism that are eloquently expressed by Lukacs.
Of course, public administration is not conducted in a pure democracy but within a constitutional republic in which, I would argue (contrary to Lukacs's assertions), some significant limits on majority rule remain. Moreover, if Mark Tushnet is correct in his new book,
Examining the jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court within this new constitutional order in some detail, Tushnet argues,
[T]he justices ...do not seem to have the same anxiety over justifying judicial review that characterized the early years of the New Deal constitutional order and that continued to dominate scholarly concern through the Warren Court years. They have invalidated congressional legislation without seriously mentioning, or agonizing over, the fact that they were displacing decisions made by a presumptively democratic legislature. (114-15)
This more aggressive exercise of judicial review might raise concerns about our democracy, but Tushnet, at least for now, does not seem overly worried. He sees the Court's role as still relatively modest, and he expresses "skepticism about the prospect of a revolutionary Supreme Court imposing its will on a Congress committed to a course different from the Court's" (93). He observes that "most of the Court's decisions invalidating statutes seem to be a grab-bag of items that come to the Court's attention" and promote no substantive ideological agenda in particular, but rather reflect a "generalized suspicion of legislators, interest groups, and politics" (94-95). Moreover, Tushnet sees "minimalism as the new order's jurisprudence" (130), noting that the Court tends to issue opinions that are "self-consciously narrow" (140) and, "like the other institutions of the new constitutional regime, take small steps" (141).
In the concluding chapter of his book, Tushnet explores some questions of particular relevance to public administration. Turning from Supreme Court decisions to the regulatory programs of political institutions in the new constitutional order, he observes a new emphasis on the use of output measures and what he terms a "democratic experimentalism" (168). This democratic experimentalism, which encourages decentralized administrative decision making and local public participation, "deals with practical problems ...on a scale that allows ordinary, nonexperts to be involved" and to "draw on their local knowledge to suggest solutions" (168). Such an approach to regulation, in his view, "treats the local decision-making processes as experiments that produce results that can be transferred to other communities" (169). Tushnet is candid about the problems associated with democratic experimentalism, noting, among other things, that "localized deliberations might be less participatory than proponents of democratic experimentalism might hope" (170) and that "the persistence of encrusted interest groups ...places democratic experimentalism under sustained threat" (171). Nonetheless, he remains optimistic that "democratic experimentalism remains the most promising candidate for a theory of government activity in the new constitutional order" (171-72).
Tushnet's book is the most specialized and scholarly of the books reviewed here. Its major weakness is that, because it was written before the Republican capture of the Senate in 2004 and the replacement of two Supreme Court justices by a Republican president, its analysis may turn out to be somewhat dated, although the 2006 midterm elections have brought a return of divided government. Nonetheless, I think Tushnet is right to emphasize how our evolving constitutional practices shape the way in which we govern ourselves, and his analysis makes it very clear that the separation of powers, at least for now, is still very much alive. If this is correct, it is also clear that, as a matter of practical reality, public administrators, whether they wish to or not, cannot simply take as their mandate the implementation of the will of any particular group of elected leaders; rather, they are forced by our separation of powers to be accountable to multiple masters, who may often provide conflicting instructions. Moreover, in emphasizing law, Tushnet provides a useful reminder that public administration, in the final analysis, is a rule-governed practice and cannot be viewed simply as an instrument for the attainment of some set of ends or missions.
These five books, each in its own way, show the continuing relevance of both the idea and the practice of democracy for public administration. They indicate the complexity of-as well as the contradictions within-the idea and practice of democracy, and they raise a number of important questions for public administration. The most important of these, in my view, is whether it is either desirable or realistic to continue to view public administration as an instrument for the execution of some sort of coherent democratic will. The ideas of Lukacs, as well as Leib, raise serious doubts about whether our system of representative government is really capable of articulating such a will to guide the actions of public administrators. Moreover, the difficulties involved in discerning any sort of clear and coherent democratic will are exacerbated not only by the fact that, as Etzioni argues, we are a "community of communities" each with its own particularistic values or conceptions of the good but also by our constitutional form of governance, as discussed by Tushnet. Nonetheless, as Fukuyama reminds us, despite these difficulties, we still need democracy as a check on potential misconduct and abuses of power both by political leaders and bureaucracy.
We might, of course, try to have our system of government formulate a clearer and more coherent democratic will, either by radically reforming our Constitution along the lines advocated by Leib or by moving toward a deliberative democracy in cyberspace, as suggested by Etzioni. However, both of these approaches seem problematic. A better alternative, in my view, is simply to come to terms with a more modest view of what democracy can contribute to governance. In this regard, notwithstanding the long debate in political philosophy about the meaning of democracy, there is much to recommend Karl Popper's view that democratic governments are simply "governments of which we can get rid without bloodshed" (1966, 124). As Popper argues, "Seen in this light, ...the various equalitarian methods of democratic control, such as general elections and representative government, are to be considered as no more than well-tried, ...reasonably effective institutional safeguards against tyranny, always open to improvement, and even providing methods for their own improvement" (125). This view of democracy as a check on tyranny is consistent with James Madison's argument that a republic is "a government which derives all of its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people; and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior" (Wills 1982, 190). Admittedly, this modest and unromantic view of democracy may be out of fashion, particularly given the spread of populism described by Lukacs. Nonetheless, it has the virtue, at least, of allowing democratic accountability without presuming too much about the meaningfulness of any sort of democratic will, as well as being somewhat consistent with our constitutional traditions, including those of representative government and the separation of powers. Perhaps such a modest view of democracy might be worth thinking about as we try to figure out what it means to have an energetic but still democratic public administration. But that would be a subject for another book.