Stereotypes in Council-Manager Governments (part 2 of 5)

Previous Academic Work

There is an abundance of scholarly work on the topic of professional management in cities. The majority of literature available on the council-manager form of government examines either its rise as a product of the reform movement in the United States or its advantages versus disadvantages as contrasted with the mayor-council form of government. The two areas of focus are linked by the fact that reformers of the late 19th and early 20th century promoted the creation of a city manager as a tool to improve the service of local governments. Inherent in reformers’ desire to professionalize public management and implement the tools of business administration in government is the belief that such a system of government (i.e. the council-manager form of government) is more efficient than the existing mayor-council form. The reformers hoped, and modern council-manager advocates believe, that separating the administrative duties of a city from the political process better serves the public.

The argument that the council-manager form of government produces better governance is not new. Reformers made the same arguments for increased accountability and efficiency around the turn of the twentieth century in response to the political bosses and party machines that ran city services. But whereas Progressive Movement reformers focused more on aspects of corruption, graft, and nepotism when attacking mayor-council systems, modern advocates for the council-manager form focus primarily on perceived increases to efficiency, accountability, (perceived) lower taxes, and equality in service delivery. However, the legacy of New York City’s Tammany Hall and Kansas City’s Pendergrast machine are not lost on strong-mayor opponents such as those in Sacramento who labeled the June 8th, 2010 vote to adopt mayor-council form of government the “Boss Mayor Initiative” (Democratic Party, 2010).

Several scholars have attempted to examine the claims that council-manager form of government produces better governance than the mayor-council system through quantitative analysis. These analyses seek to empirically test statements by council-manager proponents that link level of citizen satisfaction and municipal success with a particular form of government. Examples of these types of statements include the following from two of ICMA’s Executive Directors:

…Highly trained, appropriately educated, and experienced local government managers share a set of values, skills, and practices which… lead to the success and high quality of life the communities they serve (O’Neill, 2007).

The presence of a professional manager in 3,741 US communities has significantly improved service delivery and enhanced the effectiveness of local democracy (Hansell, 2000).

The vast majority of literature on council-manager form of government thus focuses on empirically testing the assumption of original reformers: that the council-manager form of government is the preferred form. Other examples of research that attempt to answer the normative question regarding form of government include studies on which form of government produces greater innovation (Franzel, 2005) and another on which form of government is more efficient based on police, fire, and trash coverage in relation to expenses (Hayes and Chang, 1990). Other strains of empirically based research not related to the question of efficiency focus on leadership roles in cities with mayors and managers (Morgan and Watson, 1992), and city size’s effect on the abandonment of council-manager form of government (Protasel, 1988).

Other important works on the subject of council-manager form of government view Progressive reforms through an American political development (APD) paradigm. The preeminent piece on council-manager APD is Amy Bridges’s Morning Glories: Municipal Reform in the Southwest (1997). Bridges presents the rise of council-manager form of government as a product of power struggles between ethnic and class divisions. She outlines how business interests, championed by affluent, Anglos (WASPs), rewrote the rules of politics under the veil of reform (e.g. city managers, the short ballot, the Australian ballot, at-large districts) to promote their prerogatives at the expense of ethnic minorities and the working-poor.

Bridges offers the most compressive examination of why cities adopt one form of government over another. However, her research does not include a statistical analysis of her data. She includes statistics on voter turnout, social characteristics (including income, education, and % foreign born), and ethnic composition to advance her argument for why big cities in the Southwest adopted council-manager forms of government, but she does not attempt any regression or advanced statistical analysis to identify which characteristics correlate best with each form of government. She quotes only one study that attempted to correlate characteristics with form of government: “[O]ne can do a much better job of predicting a city’s political forms by knowing what part of the country it is in than by knowing anything about the composition of the population” (Wolfinger and Field, 1966 in Bridges, 1997).

Of all the literature I reviewed, only one journal article systematically addressed whether socioeconomic characteristics of municipalities partly determine their forms of government (Schnore and Alford, 1963). However, this study intentionally focused only on suburban communities. Schnore and Alford tested theoretical assumptions (such as those identified by Bridges) regarding why one community adopted council-manager form of government while others did not. For example, Adrian generalized in a prior study that “the upper-middle class suburbs which are the homes of metropolitan businessmen are characteristically administered by a manager” (Alford, 1955). The authors found, among other things, that suburbs with council-manager forms of government have smaller percentages of minority populations, higher percentages of white collar workers, higher percentages of high school educated citizens, and a greater median family income. Suburban communities under the council-manager form of government also experienced greater rates of growth (1950-60), a higher average percentage of home ownership, and a smaller percentage of elderly residents. Schnore and Alford’s findings are limited by the fact that they only provide median scores and not regression analysis of the socioeconomic characteristics. Therefore, the literature contains mostly general observations about the differences between council-manager and mayor-council cities (e.g. “Cities with a manager have a higher average median household income”). But the question of whether socioeconomic, regional, or demographic characteristics affect the likelihood of a city having a particular form of government the other remains unanswered.

Stereotypes in Council-Manager Governments (Part 1 of 5)

This blog post is part one in a five part series. Each post is an abridged section taken from Kevin Carter’s practicum paper for Georgetown University entitled “Beyond Stereotypes: Socioeconomic Characteristics of Modern Council-Manager Cities.” The purpose of this blog is to encourage study into “the profession’s” past and start a dialog between theory and practice – academics and managers.

The original paper (and by extension, this blog) examines the prevailing stereotypes surrounding the council-manager form of government, provides a literature review on the political development of those stereotypes, and then tests socioeconomic differences between the two forms of government through regression analysis.

Sources can be found in the original document.

Structure

The council-manager form of government is the most prevalent form of local government in the United States. Originally known by the term “city manager plan” the council-manager form of government, in its pure form, is composed of an elected governing body (i.e. the council) and a manager hired by the council through an employment contract. The council selects, from amongst its members, a mayor to serve as a ceremonial figurehead for the city. Although reformers such as Richard S. Childs insisted that a weak mayor chosen by and from the council be the defining factor of the council-manager form of government, others, such as the National Municipal League, in its Model City Charter, endorse hybrid and alternative systems such as those in which a strong mayor is elected from the city at-large and serves in a recognized leadership role.

Today, variations and alternatives to the pure form as advocated by those of the “true faith,” as Childs called it, exist and are formally recognized by the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) as council-manager local governments (ICMA, 2010). Cities also popularly elect mayors in conjunction with hiring appointed chief administrative officers who manage the city. One example of this system would be the City of Las Vegas, which earned ICMA recognition as a council-manager local government in 1934, yet maintains an influential mayor in addition to its city manager.

The council, as the other half of the council-manager form of government, is responsible for setting the political agenda, approving the budget, establishing tax rates, and voting on public policy. The council’s size generally ranges from five to nine seats for a city and are elected at-large in nonpartisan races.

Alternatively, the mayor-council (also known as the “strong-mayor”) system is the older and more traditional form of government and consists of an elected council and a mayor serving as the chief executive. The mayor-council form of government most closely emulates the federal and state government systems with their elected chief executives and legislatures. As with the council-manager form of government, the mayor-council form of government can exist as a hybrid system. In some mayor-council cities, a professional administrator similar to a city manager is hired to assist with city operation; however, these positions lack the autonomy or responsibility granted to chief administrative officers in council-manager forms of government.

As of 2009, 49% of all local governments used some form of the council-manager system while 44% had mayor-council forms of government. A third form, the commission form of government, governs most of the remaining communities and is generally used in jurisdictions of less than 2,500 people and usually confined to New England.

Brief History

The rise of the council-manager form of government is a product of the reform movement in the United States. As America entered the industrial age, swelling urban populations –fueled by immigration – required unprecedented infrastructure (e.g. roads, sanitation, clean water, parks, public health, social services, etc). Political bosses stepped in to provide these services on a mostly partisan basis through patronage and spoils. These party bosses controlled City Hall through their election to council seats representing specific wards. They used their power to provide special treatment and projects to their constituents. Although responsive to the needs of politicians’ political bases, the spoils system proved over the years to be highly inefficient, often corrupt, and expensive. For example, a comparison in 1960 of the strong mayor cities of New York and Chicago with the council-manager cities of San Antonio and Phoenix showed that New York and Chicago spent nearly twice the amount per capita on “common functions” as San Antonio and Phoenix. Additionally, Phoenix and San Antonio employed nearly half the number of employees per 10,000 residents for “common functions” compared to the two mayor-council cities. The reformers of the late 19th and early 20th century, inspired by the gospel of scientific management, believed that government could and should be run more efficiently using the principles of business administration. To achieve these aims, reformers called for the separation and insulation of the task of governing from politics for “like the revolutionaries and the Jacksonians, the Progressives imagined a politics that, ultimately, pressed beyond representation altogether.”

Progressives called for a series of reforms including the elimination of ward-based, partisan elections, the short ballot, and – perhaps the crown jewel of the reform movement – the hiring of trained administrators rather than partisan legislators to govern cities. Progressive Theodore Roosevelt also supported the separation of politics from municipal management arguing, “the worst evils that affect our local government arise from and are the inevitable result of the mixing up of city affairs with the party politics of the nation and state.”

Progressives thought they found their reform darling in the commission form when Galveston, Texas adopted it in its new charter in 1901. The commission system achieved many of the aims they sought, including centralization and consolidation of the legislative and administrative authorities with at large elections. The commission form of government offered “conspicuous responsibility – and hence accountability of all elected officials to the people” and by 1911, the National Municipal League recommended commission forms of government for cities of 100,000 or less (with the potential to be used in larger cities). Some 500 cities adopted the commission form of government by 1918, almost two decades after its creation.

Always eager to promote their reforms’ businesslike efficiency, Progressives claimed the commission form mirrored “a corporation with its board of directors.” However, their comparison was flawed, as Childs, the founder of the council-manager form of government, quickly pointed out: “No, there would have to be a manager put under that board to make it resemble a corporation!”

Childs remedied the separation of powers question by establishing an appointed executive to manage city administration. Hoping to capitalize on the momentum already gained by the commission form of government, Childs called his new form of government “the commission-manager plan.” However, that name quickly proved unnecessary as the invention and subsequent rise of the council-manager form of government decreased the commission form’s popularity to the point of irrelevancy. By 1958, only 320 cities used the commission form of government, and today, only three of the 100 most populous cities use it and only 143 cities with over 2,500 citizens use it in total.

Despite the council-manager form of government’s impressive rise from reform movement innovation to the most prevalent form of local government in the United States, the growth has not been linear. The council-manager form of government saw a large increase in popularity from its creation in 1908 until 1934. And “[b]etween 1918 and 1923 alone, the period of its most rapid spread, more than 150 cities adopted the council-manager plan.” After the Great Depression, the percentage of cities with council-manager form of government leveled off to around 18 percent of all cities at the end of the Second World War. This period of plateaued growth coincided with changes in the polity on the national scale, including the strengthening of labor unions rights and the expansion of government welfare. Council-manager form of government opponents of that time compared the unelected city managers to fascist Hitler, painted businesslike administration of government as a threat to the collective bargaining interests of civil employees and claimed that “American democracy is a challenge to the primary claims made for the city manager system.” During the interwar period, calls for reform often went unanswered.

However, the interwar period of stagnated growth of the council-manager form of government was quite short lived. From 1947 to 1977, the council-manager form of government grew from 20 percent of all cities to approximately 55 percent. As further evidence of just how common the council-manager form of government became, 1972 represented the first year that the council-manager form overtook the mayor-council form as the most prevalent form of local government in the United States. The tremendous growth in council-manager form of government resulted from the concentrated and renewed efforts for reform and charter revision. Business leaders believed that council-manager form of government offered the most effective and efficient means to meet the challenges presented by postwar growth – especially in the southwest where migrant populations and wartime industry fueled growth – and founded civic and commerce groups which pursued pro-growth policies, including the adoption of a city manager.

During the 1960s, the growth of the council-manager form of local government slowed and in the 1970s reversed path. From approximately 1980 through 1985, spurred by voting reforms and a desire for more activist government, the mayor-council form of government returned as the most prevalent form of government. The literature suggests that increased suffrage (such as the appeal of Arizona’s literary-test in 1972 and the abolition of the poll tax in 1966) empowered ethnic minorities, often underrepresented in council-manager cities, to vote in elections and seek representation through popularly elected mayors. Further, some Anglo and middle-class voters who had been the primary supporters of reform became increasingly dissatisfied with the sparse offerings of “efficient” local government and became more sympathetic to the War on Poverty and other activist programs. Whereas business leaders, land owners, and developers supported the council-manager form of government for its perceived efficiency in delivering services such as water, electricity, and roads (the infrastructure needed to grow cities) over the delivery of social services such as welfare and education, voters during the 1970’s abandoned the pro-growth incumbents in favor of limited or “management growth policies.” For example, the working poor, African-Americans, and Mexican Americans in San Antonio denounced the Good Government League as a “machine” no better than the political machine it claimed to have replaced with businesslike administration a half century earlier. Attacks like these, led some cities to return their form of government to mayor-council or produce hybrid forms, which attempted to “reform the reform.” Many unreformed cities hired chief administrative officers under the title of City Administrator, rather than that of a City Manager, to assist the mayor with the administration of the city but retained most of the formal powers in the mayor and council. Reformed cities attempted to increase representation (especially of ethnic minorities) through the implementation of district rather than at-large elections.

However, abandonments of the council-manager form of government did not occur evenly across all cities. Greg J. Protasel found that during the period of 1970 to 1981 (the period of council-manager form of government’s decline) cities with populations 5,000 to 9,999 had the highest rates of abandoning the council-manager form of government, while no city over 250,000 reported abandonment. This finding contradicts the prevailing myth that mayor-council governments are more suited for larger cities, while council-manager form of government is more effective in mid-to-smaller communities. As further proof that the council-manager form of government is not limited to smaller-to-mid sized cities, over the last decade the number of council-manager cities with over 500,000 residents doubled from 5 to 10 while mayor-council cities over 500,000 only increased from 20 to 21 total. This is likely a result of mid-sized cities with managers growing into large cities and not necessarily because large, formerly mayor-council cities have adopted the council-manager form of government.

In fact, El Paso, with a population of 581,000, was the only large city since 1998 to adopt the council-manager form. (Okubo, 2005). The next largest municipality was Cedar Rapids, IA , with 122,206 residents. Meanwhile, the cities that abandoned council-manager in order to adopt mayor-council during that the past decade include Oakland, CA; Miami, FL; Richmond, VA; Spokane, WA; and San Diego, CA. (San Diego has a population of nearly 1.3 million people, Oakland and Miami are around 400,000, and Richmond and Spokane both have populations of about 200,000. Over the past ten years, only one of the largest 100 cities by population adopted council-manager form of government while three abandoned the form. So, although the council-manager form of government governs more large cities than ever before, the form of government’s growth is primarily due to population growth in mid-to-large sized cities that already employ city managers and not because large mayor-council cities have switched. In fact, the only city to ever change form of government with a population of over one million people adopted mayor-council (San Diego).

The number of cities under council-manager form of government versus mayor-council is in constant fluctuation. Although two cities might adopt council-manager government, a third might abandon the form in order to adopt a strong mayor system. Thus, when ICMA says that council-manager form of government is the fastest growing form of government in the United States, the statement must account for the staggered nature of the growth. Today, the council-manager form of government is found in 3,520 of the 7,194 total cities with populations over 2,500 residents (ICMA Municipal Yearbook, 2008). Over the past 30 years, the council-manager form of government has been “the fastest growing form of government in the United States” (ICMA). Table 1 shows the percentage of cities with each form of government:

Table 1
Percentage of Municipalities with Council-Manager Form of Govt (2,500 and over)

1978 1988 1998 2008

Council-Manager 34% 35% 44% 49%

Mayor-Council 56% 55% 48% 44%

Commission 3% 3% 2% 2%

Sources: ICMA, The Municipal Yearbook, 1978, 1988, 1998, 2008 (Washington, DC)

Name Brands

So, I have noticed that people in DC are so pretentious/obnoxious/smart that they no longer refer to the school they went to by the university’s actual name, but rather the name of the college or school within that university. Below are my examples. Please add to the list:

1. Kennedy School of Government (Harvard)
2. Wharton School of Business (UPenn)
3. Maxwell School (Syracuse)
4. Walsh School of Foreign Service (Gtown)
5. Woodrow Wilson School (Princeton)

* I’ll admit, I’m a snob for name brands.

Organizational Entrepreneurs: 21st Century Leaders

Making Mountains out of Capitol Hill

A first time visitor to Capitol Hill will probably be surprised to find the legislative branch of United States government essentially run by twenty-something-year-olds fresh out of school. “I’m 33 and I am past my time,” Eric Johnson, former Chief of Staff to Robert Wexler (D-FL), told a group of visiting high school students. “People look at me and say, ‘What are you still doing here Johnson?’”[i] His hyperbole illustrates a point that’s been true for some time: The Hill attracts some of our country’s brightest and most motivated young people to work long hours for little pay (according to the Washington Post, “Many paid interns — which Hill aides often start their careers as — take home barely $200 per month,”[ii] and a fulltime staffer can expect to start in the low $30,000s) to do some of our country’s most important work.

But pay isn’t what motivates these staffers. Instead, they’re driven by an intense interest in politics and a sincere desire to affect change on a national scale. They stay, and work the long hours for low pay, because the structure of Congress allows even the lowest level staffers to play an integral part.

The dirty little secret of Capitol Hill isn’t an affair or cover-up but the simple fact that most of the work we elect our Congressmen and Congresswomen to do isn’t done by them. Unpaid college interns open mail, an autopen signs the response letters, and paid staff research, write, and pass legislation with minimal oversight from their bosses. And although it’s popular, especially now, to dwell on the partisanship that occasionally gridlocks Congress, it’s important to note that Congress still performs remarkably well in representing the interests of its constituents and members.

The secret to Congress’s success is its structure. Eric Redman, a former member of Senator Warren Magnuson’s staff explains in his book, The Dance of Legislation, that Congress, as an institution, offers staff a great deal of individual initiative and responsibility. This type of organizational structure represents a new paradigm. It pushes decision making down to the level of the staffer who must implement and work towards the outcome. The staffer, due to her proximity to the issue and process, best understands not only the desired outcome, but also how to achieve it. If the staffer owns the project, she is more likely to be personally invested in its success. Further, the Senator “at the same time increase(s) the quality and quantity of his legislative output.”[iii]

The new model for leadership is to funnel the natural energy, initiative, and interests of followers in such a way that produces the outcomes desired by the leader. Redman explains the process of leadership in the context of Congress:

“Contrary to what one might think, therefore, the “best” Senator is not one who sees to every detail of his legislation at every stage in its development, or who personally studies each issue on which he must vote, or who comes to the office each morning and tells every individual staff member precisely what he or she should be doing that day. Such a strict hierarchy is inefficient, and produces only a demoralized, browbeater, and unimaginative staff – and a torpid legislative career for the Senator.

An efficient office is one in which the Senator devotes his time to tasks that he alone can perform, delegating responsibility for all the preliminaries and details to his aid… Such an office is exciting to work in, for ideas flow up as well as down, and everyone has something important to be doing all the time.”

- Eric Redman, The Dance of Legislation, pg. 210-211

But this type of leadership goes beyond just delegating… it’s about empowering employees and followers. The Senator is responsible for setting the vision and agenda, and, because she is ultimately responsible to the voters, for achieving goals. Staffers do the rest.

A Senator who clings to the old hierarchical model gets left behind. He can’t produce nearly the necessary quantity or quality of legislation needed to stay relevant if every policy idea has to come down from him and every initiative has to travel upwards for approval. Voters wait a few years and replace him with someone who can meet their growing demands and expectations – with shrinking resources.

If that last sentence sounds familiar, it’s because every business, every organization, every person, is facing a similar problem: How to meet the growing demands and expectations of clients, customers, or constituents with fewer resources. Congress answered that question by blowing up the old hierarchy that governed its structure and empowered staffers to be organizational entrepreneurs – essentially someone who can take an idea and run with it. How are you going to answer the question?

Unless you live in China or India, the answer can’t be “let’s lower the cost and produce more of the same.” Author Dan Pink has already shown that “abundance, Asia, and automation” spell death for any job that can be outsourced overseas or done by a computer formula. Instead, the 21^st century leader needs to focus, more so than ever before, on organizational entrepreneurship rather than organizational hierarchy. Our world moves too quickly and there are too many choices for a customer to wait around while they’re transferred from the customer service desk to the supervisor to the shift manager to the store owner.

This means that leaders need to create an organization that pushes autonomy and innovation down the chain of command to those serving the customer. Former General Electric Chairman and CEO Jack Welch is known as “Neutron Jack” for both his decimation of staffing levels and how he blew up the old hierarchy that governed GE. “Hierarchy is an organization with its face towards the CEO and its ass towards the customer,” Welch once famously said. Welch should know. He almost left GE in 1961, a year after starting, in part because he was fed up with the red tape and bureaucracy. Desperate to keep Welch, a higher-up, Reuben Gutoff, promised a small-company environment with big-company resources. Welch agreed to stay and adopted that leadership style of empowering employees as his own. “The idea flow from the human spirit is absolutely unlimited,” Welch said. “All you have to do is tap into that well. I don’t like to use the word efficiency. It’s creativity. It’s a belief that every person counts.”[iv]

So, the future of leadership is, in part, one that empowers. Decisions can’t solely come from the top to be executed by the bottom. The hierarchal pyramid takes too long, stifles creativity, and makes work a terrible place to… well, work. 21^st century leaders understand this. They can see better than anyone else that the old system isn’t just dying – it’s dead – and they can see a future in which their organization must be nimble, efficient, and responsive. Implementing the changes and structure that move their organization to that goal is why leaders are paid the big bucks, but leaders shouldn’t be so arrogant as to think that the person on the line (i.e. the person closest to the client, the customer, or product) has nothing to add – no better way of doing things.

“Companies… have to put more and more accountability, authority, and information into the hands of the people who are closest to the products and the customers.”

- Robert Hass, CEO of Levi Strauss[v]

In fact, the litmus test of a 21^st century leader is how they treat those front line employees. The Senator in the earlier example is an effective leader because she built a system that allows talented young people to pursue policy goals on her behalf. It’s her vision and his agenda, but it’s the energy, motivation, and skill of these young organizational entrepreneurs that get things done. If she hadn’t changed the system, the voters would have replaced her long ago. If you’re a leader and not empowering your employees to create more, be responsive, and essentially, be human; not just a cog in your organization, your customers will replace you too. The only difference is: they don’t constitutionally have to wait every six years to do it.

The Leader as a System Destroyer

Micro-managing is the paradigm of old, outdated leadership. A good leader in this 20^th century model is one that can maximize the output of staff by developing a better hierarchical system (e.g. Henry Ford’s assembly line and division of labor). Most great leaders of the 20^th century were engineers by training because the old leadership model required the type of systematic, analytical problem solving, left brain thinking that most engineers excel at. Processing more applications, according to the old model, is essentially a mathematical problem. A leader can increase output by employing more workers, creating divisions of labor, and establishing standard operating procedures. By implementing these changes, leaders could ensure their workers became very proficient at process oriented tasks.

So, why did this model become obsolete? Why aren’t all good engineers also good leaders? The answer is: The nature of work changed.

The tasks associated with application processing can now be automated or outsourced, and in an age of open source and unlimited information, anyone with the Internet can access best practices. Essentially, it’s not enough to perform a task as proficiently as possible, because workers abroad can do it cheaper and computers can do it faster. As the old type of work is automated or outsourced, the new type of work even low level employees face is often complex and requires creative, yet timely solutions. Whereas, a standard operating procedure might have been appropriate for processing applications, it isn’t very useful when dealing with an irate customer angry that he hasn’t heard anything two weeks after sending a thousand dollar check.

“The world works too fast for centralized control. These systems can’t be run by a supervisor at the top of the organizational chart. Bullet trains in Japan run fast and on schedule without a centralized switchboard. It turns out that pushing decision making down the chart is faster and more efficient.”

- Seth Godin, Linchpin p. 37[vi]

Pushing decision making down the chart has to be a deliberate leadership style. Leaders need to understand that holding employees to strict SOPs, manuals, rules, and chains of command will only make staff as proficient as the system allows. Empowering staff to think, innovate, and respond creates a new dimension of success. Consider the axis on the previous page. Any changes that improve the performance of a task (e.g. having one staff member process applications while another sends receipts) move production upwards along the Y-axis. However, these improvements plateau at a certain point of diminishing returns – where the cost of adding another staff member is less than the value that staff member produces.

The responsibility of a leader is to move the organization along the X-axis toward greater efficiency. These changes don’t necessarily require more training, resources, or direction; what they do require is innovative ideas and the redesigning of work. At my work, we could move right on the X-axis by installing software similar to what Amazon uses – not only because it’s cheaper and faster, but also because it allows workers to deal with complex and often emotionally charged problems that computers simply cannot. But the only people who likely understand the value of implementing such changes are those on the front lines dealing with the applications – or other task work – on a daily basis.

Google understands the importance of empowering employees to be entrepreneurs within the organization. That is why Google requires that all their employees spend 20 percent of their week pursuing activities that aren’t in their job description – essentially tasks that move the organization towards “good” on the X-axis. According to a Google Staff blogger, “You can use the time to develop something new, or if you see something that’s broken, you can use the time to fix it.”[vii] Engineers following the 20 percent rule produced Gmail, Adsense, and Google News. For a leader, empowering employees is a value added and output maximizing proposition.’

The Role of the Leader

Vivekanand Salimath is the founder and Managing Trustee of Initiatives for Development Foundation (IDF), a nonprofit organization in India that provides expertise in micro credit, sustainable agriculture, rural development, and micro financing for entrepreneurs. Like many of his partners, Salimath background was in the big banking industry of India. And like many Indian industries, banking is dominated by the hierarchical top-down system of leadership. Salimath said only the Chairman of his bank made big decisions and any small decision Salimath made – even a simple emailed response – required a statement that clearly outlined the thought process and logic behind it.[viii]

So when Salimath left banking for the nonprofit world, he did exactly as he was trained and prepared a flow chart justifying his decision making for his new boss. His boss called him in and told him that there should only be two times that he needs to report in: 1) If he can’t make the decision 2) To share progress.

Salimath adopted this style when he founded IDF and it led the foundation to being named one of the top 50 Microfinance Institutions in India. Salimath says his leadership style of empowering employees boils down to one word: “trust.” He says that if you look at decision making processes in the microfinance industry, most losses happen because of delays in decision making. If you empower staff to make decisions, they’ll be even better decision makers in the future. Salimath knows that his staff won’t always make decisions the way he would, and that sometimes that means losses for IDF. But he views each loss as a professional development expense and budgets accordingly.

Salimath’s view of “trust” is a recurring theme one hears over and over from top leaders.

“It has become obvious over the past few years that people will in fact work more creatively and more productively if they are trusted and empowered, and if they know that what they are doing means something.”

- Jack Welch, Chariman and CEO, General Electric

Having that level of trust in your employees requires a tremendous level of self-awareness. According to Daniel Goleman’s “What Makes a Leader,” “self aware people know – and are comfortable talking about – their limitations and strengths… They have a firm grasp of their capabilities and are less likely to set themselves up to fail by, for example, overstretching on assignments.”[ix] The first step, then, to becoming a leader that empowers is to recognize that you can’t possibly know all the answers. When you recognize that simple fact, trust, empowerment, and relationship management – all the things needed to work with others to reach decisions – come naturally.

The 21^st century leader’s responsibility is not to be a system builder (developing SOPs, manuals, and rules to govern employees); instead, a successful leader needs to funnel the energy of followers towards a vision and give them the resources needed to get there.

Models of Leadership

Below is a graphical representation of the old model of leadership. It is the traditional top-down hierarchy that governed work for hundreds of years. It was highly proficient during the industrial age because low level workers did monotonous tasks over and over and having an organizational chart guaranteed that tasks were done precisely to leadership’s specifications. Researchers at MIT agree. They found that “for simple tasks under static conditions, an autocratic, centralized structure, such as has characterized most industrial organizations in the past, is quicker, neater, and more efficient.”[x]

Today, those routine tasks are being outsourced or automated and the top-down model is no longer efficient or sufficient. According to the same MIT research on organization and communication, “for adaptability to changing conditions, for ‘rapid acceptance of a new idea,’ for ‘flexibility in dealing with novel problems, generally high morale and loyalty… the more egalitarian or decentralized type (of system) seems to work better.’” MIT researchers have confirmed what others have long argued – that leadership is the ability to empower organizational entrepreneurs to meet ever changing conditions and challenges. This style of leadership requires a new model that illustrates the decentralization of decision making and empowerment of employees.

In this model, the leader acts as a funnel for staff. The leader is responsible for articulating a vision and clearly identifying the goals, objectives, and measures of success for the organization. He or she needs to take the wide array of ideas found in a diverse workplace and channel them toward a more narrow goal.

Using the earlier example of Congress, we can envision the Senator as a funnel for her staff. As an effective leader, she informs her staff of her agenda through briefings, statements, and campaign promises and leaves it to them to pursue the appropriate policy proposals. As a congressional staffer, Redman came to Capitol Hill with a desire to affect health care legislation on a national scale. Senator Magnuson’s leadership provided the boundaries for what policies would be appropriate and acceptable, and within that framework, he allowed Redman to develop what would become the National Health Service Corps – essentially on his own.

However, providing direction and funneling energy is insufficient to produce success. A leader must also provide staff with the resources (represented by the arrows in the model) needed to be organizational entrepreneurs. In the Redman case study, Sen. Magnuson’s status provided Redman with the prestige and institutional reputation needed to garner co-sponsors. He also provided Redman with unfettered access to other key players in the health care debate. An effective leader doesn’t just produce a vision statement and then let staff run wild. Rather, empowerment has two parts. The first is psychological – inspiring people, getting buy-in for your agenda, and creating a culture of entrepreneurship. The second is physical – the resources required to implement change. Sen. Magnuson could have pushed every decision down to staff level, but unless he also gave them the tools to implement decisions, the results would be futile.

The Moral Argument for Empowerment

Throughout this paper, I have attempted to make the practical argument that the key to successful leadership is to empower employees and followers. I’ve argued that empowerment creates innovative solutions, costs less, is quicker, and is simply more productive for your business. Now, I would like to argue that leaders have a moral imperative to empower.

“The quickest way to increase dignity, meaning, and community in the workplace is to involve people in redesigning their own work.”

- Marvin Weisbord, Productive Workplaces[xi]

There is a myth in our culture that work needs to be joyless – even painful at times – to qualify as “work.” Unfortunately, that myth perpetuates the oppressive, autocratic, centralized leadership style that is ill-suited for 21^st century type of work. One could argue that the foreman on an assembly line was needed to keep industrial workers performing the same monotonous tasks, but few could argue that the foreman is a productive way to make architects design better buildings, lawyers win cases, or software engineers develop iPhone apps. The old system shackles innovation and creativity. It discourages people from exercising their whole selves in the service of a task. Empowerment is emancipation.

It’s no surprise then that Philip Slater and Warren G. Bennis wrote forty-six years ago that empowering employees was the “democratization” of corporations.[xii]

“Democracy has been so widely embraced not because of some vague yearning for human rights but because under certain conditions it is a more ‘efficient’ form of social organization.”

- Slater and Bennis, “Democracy is Inevitable,” Harvard Business Review[xiii]

The authors establish five key values to define “democracy.” Inherent in each of these are improvements in both efficiency and the way leadership views followers.

1. “Full and free communication, regardless of rank and power.
2. A reliance on consensus rather than on coercion or compromise to manage conflicts.
3. The idea that influence is based on technical competence and knowledge rather than on the vagaries of personal whims or prerogatives of power.
4. An atmosphere that permits and even encourages emotional expression as well as task-oriented behavior.
5. A basically human bias, one that accepts the inevitability of conflict between the organization and the individual but is willing to cope with and mediate this conflict on rational grounds.”

Empowerment is essentially the way an effective leader treats other human beings. It should come as no surprise then that one of the most common traits found in a good leader is emotional intelligence. As the work we do becomes less systematic, less process-oriented, and less automated, the ability to relate to and understand others will become more important.

Conclusion

Whenever I share my views on leadership, someone inevitably provides a caveat. “This type of leadership only works if you have great employees.” “That can’t work here.” “My employees don’t have the education or the drive.” Inherent in each of these statements is hubris. If you think that you are the only one in your organization with the right answers, ability, and technical skills, then yes, this leadership style will not work…but its failure won’t have anything to do with your employees.

If you believe in the possibility of others – that every person adds value and wants to do their best – then it becomes your mandate as a leader to unlock that potential.

Kevin Carter is a Presidential Management Fellow

Email him: KevinR.Carter@gmail.com

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[i] “Fighting the Good Fight.” The Hill. Sundance Channel. 2006. Television.
[ii] Goldfarb, Zachary A. “Hill Salary Site Proves Too Big a Hit.” Hill Salary Site Proves Too Big a Hit 27 Sept. 2006. The Washington Post. Web. 27 Apr. 2010. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/26/AR2006092601277.html>;.

[iii] Redman, Eric. “Pg 210.” The Dance of Legislation. Seattle: University of Washington, 2001. Print.

[iv] Byrne, John A. “HOW JACK WELCH RUNS GE: A Close-up Look at How America’s #1 Manager Runs GE.” BusinessWeek. 8 June 1998. Web. 27 Apr. 2010. <http://www.businessweek.com/1998/23/b3581001.htm>;.

[v] Hass, Robert, quoted in Robert Howard, “Values Make the Company: An Interview with Robert Hass,” Harvard Business Review (September-October 1990), p. 134

[vi] Godin, Seth. Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? New York: Portfolio, 2010. Print.

[vii] K., Alex. “Google’s “20 Percent Time” in Action.” Web log post. Official Google Blog. Google, 18 May 2006. Web. 27 Apr. 2010. <http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/googles-20-percent-time-in-action.html>;.

[viii] “Interview with Vivekanand Salimath.” Interview by Christina Gonsalves. Email.

[ix] Goleman, Daniel. “What Makes a Leader?” Harvard Business Review January (2004): 2-11. Print.

[x] Slater, Philip, and Warren G. Bennis. “Democracy Is Inevitable.” Harvard Business Review March-April (1964): 167-76. Print.

[xi] Weisbord, Marvin Ross. Productive Workplaces: Organizing and Managing for Dignity, Meaning, and Community. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987. 311. Print.

[xii] Slater, Philip, and Warren G. Bennis. “Democracy Is Inevitable.” Harvard Business Review March-April (1964): 167-76. Print.

[xiii] Slater, Philip, and Warren G. Bennis. “Democracy Is Inevitable.” Harvard Business Review March-April (1964): 167-76. Print.

The Health Care “Fit”

Jacob Hacker’s statement regarding the importance of “‘fit’ between the strategies reformers employ and the institutional structures through which they must pursue their goals,” also exists as a major theme in Richard Neustadt’s Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents. Neustadt, like Hacker, presents the idea that presidents must make strategic leadership choices regarding what they “ought” to do, and for Hacker, strategic choice refers to the path through which presidents “navigate the institutional constraints they face.” However, Neustadt’s interpretation of strategic choice is limited primarily to informal presidential powers such as bargaining. According to Stephen Skowronek, in his seminal work, The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton, Neustadt makes “concerted action a matter of striking bargains among independent institutional actors who were themselves possessed of a stubborn tendency towards gridlock” (Skowronek, p. 5).

Neustadt’s theory suggests that “presidential leadership becomes a function of relative skill at manipulating politics-as-usual” (Skowronek, p.4). Neustadt’s and Hacker’s models remind me of the so-called New York Times style of leadership where all presidents have to do is make the right choice or series of choices – that any individual can overcome institutional structures given the right strategy. However, it ignores a nuance that I believe Skowronek makes regarding other constraints, including the political environment and history, which might affect fit.

Skowronek argues that Neustadt’s periodization of modern presidential leadership implies that “presidents do not change the political system in any significant way” (Skowronek, p. 5). Such a claim would suggest that Clinton’s failure to pass health care and Obama’s success are based solely on the later president’s ability to implement a strategy that better “fit” the structure of American government. Obama’s strategic choices fitting with the institutional structures of American government is not an adequate explanation of why his plan succeeds while Clinton’s failed.

Although strategic choice, including bargaining, played an important role in health care’s passage, political time (irrespective of strategic choice) had an equal, if not greater, effect on success or failure. Hacker’s argument that “whether efforts at policy change fail or succeed is usually a product… of the fit between the strategies reformers employ and the institutional structures through which they must pursue their goals,” suggests that Clinton and Obama were playing on the same field and success was merely a matter of drawlingly up the right game plan.

As Skowronek states, “to compare Truman and Eisenhower by the same standard, Neustadt had to assume that Truman did not do anything to alter Eisenhower’s political challenge or leadership prospects (p. 5-6).” The same could be said about comparing Clinton and Obama.

Skowronek divides the periods of limitations or opportunities into four categories: reconstruction, disjunction, preemption, and articulation (or orthodox-innovation). It is not important to define each of those periods here suffice to say that presidents serve their terms with political structures and in political environments not of their own choosing. However, this is not to say that presidents have no control over their own success. Actually, Skowronek believes that a president who identifies and understands the secular and political time during which he governs can actually wield immense influence in achieving his political agenda. Skowronek provides the example of President Eisenhower’s restraint in pursuing a conservative agenda because Eisenhower realized that he was a preemptive leader whose presidency came during the midst of New Deal and Fair Deal liberalism. Skowronek argues that Eisenhower mastered “(pruning) the edge New Deal liberalism” (Skowronek, 46). Eisenhower’s success did not result solely from the structure of American government nor did it come solely from a formulaic strategy memo (like those Neustadt sent LBJ). Rather, success came from his ability to match strategy with structure. This structure refers not only to the institutional constraints. That is why he entitled his book the politics presidents make.

Such a view is consistent with Hacker’s and Neustadt’s statements as an explanation of why the Obama administration’s health care reform passed while that of the Clinton Administration failed. However, where Skowronek focuses on the “fit” between political time and strategy, Hacker and Neustadt focus on the “fit” between institutional constraints and strategy.

The Clinton administration neither implemented a strategy for producing policy that matched the structure of American government, nor did exist in a political time that would allow the substantive reform Clinton sought. In fact, Clinton pursued a strategy seemingly at odds with the structure of government. By developing their own health care proposal, the Clinton administration took the act of legislating out of the hands of the legislature. Although the mandated separation of the executive power from the legislature is an example of America’s “fragmented constitutional structure,” other presidents, including Obama, have passed major legislation despite this constraint. The Clinton administration presented a reform bill that attempted to bypass the constitutional constraints and the steps to policy making as outlined by John Kingdon. Instead of allowing the legislature to come up with their own compromises – such as those that developed in Obama’s health care reform bill – the Clinton bill preemptively tried to include the compromises within its language. Further, Clinton’s proposed mechanism for achieving reform (i.e. managed competition) was not the compromise Clinton’s administration presented it as. Rather, managed competition proved to be an ambiguous campaign term which appealed to disparate interests that each believed the term referred to their policy preference. So, when managed competition reached the policy defining stage, there were still substantive disagreements.

The Obama administration, due mostly to the fact that it had already expended most of its energy and political capital on passing the stimulus package, passed the responsibility for health care reform to Congress. Whether Obama’s empowering Congress was a strategic decision (in reaction to Clinton’s hands-on) or simply a logistical necessity, the fact is it represented a strategy that more closely fit with the structure of American government with the legislature as formulator of policy, which resulted in the bill’s passage. Here, one sees two distinct strategies for pursuing major social reform. Each is through a different branch of fragmented constitutional structure, but only one proved successful.

In this explanation, Hacker and Neustadt’s theory of strategic choice seems adequate as an explanation for why Obama succeed and Clinton failed: Obama simply employed a strategy that fit the structure of legislative policy making in the United States. However, that explanation is not wholly adequate because it ignores the impact Clinton’s presidency might have had on the conditions of Obama’s presidency – beyond just Obama’s decision to pursue a strategy different than Clinton’s failed attempt.

Looking at the Clinton and Obama examples through a political time narrative, Skowronek would argue that Clinton’s was a preemptive presidency. Clinton, like Eisenhower, served his term in the midst of opposition control of government. But whereas Eisenhower competed against the New Deal coalitions, Clinton faced foot soldiers of the Reagan Revolution. However, Eisenhower recognized his situation and the political time and adopted a policy of incremental rather than wide sweeping reform. Clinton, on the other hand, sought too sweeping of reforms too early and ran into substantial opposition (including an impeachment).

Obama, however, would fit Skowronek’s definition of a transformative president (following the disjunctive presidency of George W. Bush). Because of the political environment created by past presidents, including Clinton’s laying the foundation for reform, Obama was able to successfully pursue his health care agenda.

The constitutionally fragmented structure of American government presents significant obstacles which major social reform must overcome, but it is only part of the story.  In addition to fitting strategy with structure, presidents must understand the political time in which they serve and pursue policy aims which are possible given the constraints.

Language of the Tea Party Movement

Introduction:

The Tea Party movement of 2009 and 2010 began, appropriately enough in a new century dominated by social media, as a CNBC news segment that quickly went viral on sites like YouTube. In February 2009, Rick Santelli, CNBC Business News editor, stood on the floor of the Chicago mercantile exchange during an interview and said, “We’re thinkin’ of having a Chicago tea party in July. All you capitalists that want to show up to Lake Michigan, I’m gonna start organizing.” Traders on the floor briefly stopped whatever they were doing to cheer and whistle.[i] Viewers at home responded with similar excitement and quickly posted and shared the video online. Even established conservative institutions, such as the Heritage Foundation, posted or linked to the clip on their sites.[ii]

Despite the amount of attention it received, Santelli’s call to protest was not novel. Earlier in 2009, other conservative activists had called for and staged protests around the same issues Santelli identified. [iii] But these movements had neither the impact nor the popularity of the Tea Party, and eventually they consolidated into local chapters of the Tea Party movement.

These early protests focused on the same issues, occurred within the same time frame as Santelli’s so-called “shout heard ‘round the world,” and had equal access to main stream media, yet failed to gain traction. For example, a Google News search (performed by this author) for “Porkulus” – conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh’s term for the Obama stimulus package[iv] – only returned 230 results from January – May, 2009. Whereas, the same search for “tea party” returned 11,300 results. One can further witness the complete abandonment of “porkulus” (only 41 news stories in 2010) in favor of “tea party” (25,600 news stories in 2010). The question then is: Why was the term ‘tea party” more successful as the label for an ideological movement for limited taxes?

This paper examines not only the term tea party but also the language used by the tea party movement and the language used by similar popular political movement in the past.

“Tea Party”

            I propose that the success of the term “tea party” is primarily a result of its existence in the national narrative. The term appeals to a common knowledge that exists in the minds of citizens. It refers to a shared national experience, the Boston Tea Party, and is therefore forever linked to the values associated with that historical event. By referencing the revolutionary era and Founding Fathers, the Tea Party invokes the imagery associated with patriotism and liberty. The phrase, “tea party,” for Americans (especially those native born and educated in US civics and history in her schools) connotes the conditions that served as a catalyst for what was essentially America’s first tax revolt. According to scholar Dall W. Forsythe, “Parliament’s attempt to tax the colonies was the first link in a chain of events which culminated in the Revolutionary War.”[v]

            Thus, the term performs a speech act that is common in American politics: appealing to the nation’s founding and the supremacy of the constitution. It is common practice in American political discourse to frame one’s argument as being supported by the values, principles, history, and myths surrounding the nation’s founding. I call this appeal “original intent” and nearly all actors in American political discourse engage in it. (One obvious example is the arguments for and against DC congressional representation.) However, it is seen with uncommon frequency in the Tea Party movement and in popular political movements generally. Rick Santelli performs the speech act in his interview by proposing that Chicago have its own tea party in the same vein as the original. His references to the original intent become so obvious that a pundit back in the studio says, “I want to congratulate you on your new incarnation as a revolutionary leader.”

            Rather than rebuke this sarcasm, Santelli embraces his label as a revolutionary and further redefines the original intent in his own terms saying, “Somebody needs one. I’ll tell you what, if you read our founding fathers – people like Benjamin Franklin and Jefferson, what we’re doing in this country now is making them roll over in their graves.” Rather than discredit Santelli, the label instead legitimizes him. As a revolutionary, in the same vein as the original founding fathers, Santelli claims the authority to interrupt how Franklin or Jefferson (his co-revolutionaries) would perceive modern America.

            Santelli’s appeal to original intent continues with the reporting of his interview. CNBC.com, Santelli’s employer, titled their article on the story, “Rick Santelli’s Shout Heard ‘Round the World.”[vi] The title serves as another allusion to the revolutionary war (in reference to the first, unordered shot fired among the British troops and colonial Minutemen at Lexington.)[vii] By describing Santelli’s statements using a historical label, CNBC places Santelli in the same context as the historical event and elevates him to the level of legitimacy and deference shown to the founding fathers.

            It’s worth noting that other movements have used the speech act associated with original intent to label their selves using historical terms. For example, proponents for stricter immigration enforcement label themselves “Minutemen”, pulling from the same historical event as Santelli’s “shot.” Both movements seek legitimacy as defenders of the constitution through use of labels.

            However, use of these labels has also created unintended negative consequences for the movements. Terms like “revolutionary,” “shot,” and “minutemen,” have clear militant connotations and are perceived as violent words. Opponents of the Tea Party movement have successfully tied isolated incidents of vandalism and verbal assault to the greater movement.[viii] However, I would argue that the behavior and intensity of the Tea Party protests are not substantially different than what was seen during anti-war and anti-Bush rallies of the last administration. During George W. Bush’s 2001 inauguration, four protestors were arrested for throwing objects at the presidential limo and “several major activist groups called for a nonviolent ‘Day of Resistance’ against what they termed an ‘illegitimate’ presidency…”[ix] Unsurprisingly, Tea Party organizers, like Dick Armey have claimed that their followers are “more well mannered than protestors on the left.”[x] What Armey fails to realize is that manners have nothing to do with perception – language does. Some people perceive the Tea Party as militant because the language it uses comes from a historical time period in which the same language was used as a call to arms against a tyrannical government.

            The Tea Party advocates further embrace the notion that they are defenders of the constitution and its original intent in their Contract from America. First, the name Contract from America, itself, is a modification of the language used by Newt Gingrich and Republicans in Congress during the 1994 midterm elections. They wrote the Contract for America, which outlined their agenda and promises to the American people should they be elected. The Republicans ultimately won control of both the House and Senate in what is now known as the “Republican Revolution” – again, a phrase that suggests violence. As with the phrase “Tea Party”, Contract from America requires an educated understanding of American (and specifically Republican Party) history to fully grasp the intent of its organizers. Such a requirement is probably acceptable to the movement’s leaders – values such as accessibility and inclusiveness are not necessarily of importance to the movement’s overall goals. The Tea Party movement’s use of language steeped in historical context (especially a historical context dominated entirely by wealthier, educated, white men) limits access to outsiders who might not have the background knowledge necessary to effectively understand the historical allusions.

            The use of language as a barrier to the movement could in part explain why Tea Party supporters, according to the oft cited New York Times/CBS poll, “tend to be Republican, white, male, married, and older than 45.”[xi] This demographic is the most likely to have been exposed to the narrative of America’s founding and also most closely resemble the political actors of that story. The poll finds that “Tea Party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public…”[xii]  This further supports the theory that the Tea Party supporters know the historical context behind the movement’s language and can express a great deal through their shared understanding of phrases such as tea party.

            By using restrictive language, Tea Party supporters further strengthen the bonds and commonalities that unite them while limiting access to outsiders. This is likely the cause of the “us versus them” narrative both within the Tea Party and outside it. It probably also helps support opponents’ claims of Tea Party racism. However, as one can see from the language in the Contract from America, the Tea Party is primarily focused on economic issues – a fact supported by the NYT/CBS poll, which found that although more conservative than average on social issues, Tea Party supporters believe that economic issues are more important by a margin of 78% to 14%.[xiii]

            The Contract from America is essentially the manifestation of the Tea Party movement’s interpretation of the Constitution. Using an online voting process, 454,331 supporters voted on the party’s platform, and although it does not represent all Tea Party supporters, the document is supported by over 100 coalition groups and partners including Tea Party Patriots, College Republicans, and the Leadership Institute.[xiv] The document provides a fairly accurate depiction of main stream Tea Party supporters.

            As self-described defenders of the Constitution, the Tea Party movement models their Contract from America after the Constitution. It begins with the preamble:

“We, the citizens of the United States of America, call upon those seeking to represent us in public office to sign the Contract from America and by doing so commit to support each of its agenda items, work to bring each agenda item to a vote during the first year, and pledge to advocate on behalf of individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom.”

This passage is of interest because it mimics the syntactic style of the US Constitution. Like the Constitution, the Contract from America begins with the word “we,” and then describes “we.” However, in the Constitution, the founders defined “we” as the “the People of the United States.” The Contract from America instead uses the phrase “the citizens of the United States of America.” The use of “citizens” limits who can be considered a Tea Party supporter and implies that non-citizens and illegal immigrants are not “the People of the United States.”

            The Contract from America also replicates the litany of principles established in the Constitution. It replaces “form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessing of Liberty” with the values of “individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom.” The Contract from America is therefore a reinterpretation of the Constitution through a narrow ideological frame. It is probably modeled after the Constitution for two reasons. First, by using the syntax of the Constitution, the Contract from America elevates itself to the level of the Constitution. This speech act creates instant authority and legitimacy for the document – similar to how the movements invoke labels like revolutionary or Minutemen to raise personal authority and legitimacy. Second, it suggests that the Tea Party is responsible for protecting the Constitution’s original intent. Tea Party supporters would probably argue that their Contract from America is not a reinterpretation of the Constitution but rather a reiteration of its lost values.

            So as not to lose control of its principles, or allow them to be reinterpreted by opposing groups (as is done with the vague language in the Constitution), the Contract from America continues by defining the values of “individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom.”

“Individual Liberty

Our moral, political, and economic liberties are inherent, not granted by our government. It is essential to the practice of these liberties that we be free from restriction over our peaceful political expression and free from excessive control over our economic choices.

Limited Government

The purpose of our government is to exercise only those limited powers that have been relinquished to it by the people, chief among these being the protection of our liberties by administering justice and ensuring our safety from threats arising inside or outside our country’s sovereign borders. When our government ventures beyond these functions and attempts to increase its power over the marketplace and the economic decisions of individuals, our liberties are diminished and the probability of corruption, internal strife, economic depression and poverty increases.

Economic Freedom

The most powerful, proven instrument of material and social progress is the free market. The market economy, driven by the accumulated expression of individual economic choices, is the only economic system that preserves and enhances individual liberty. Any other economic system, regardless of its intended pragmatic benefits, undermines our fundamental right as free people.”[xv]

The Contract from America presents each of these principles not as a political position but as fact. Words such as “inherent” and “proven instrument” further enhance the view of the Contract from America as the official reiteration of the Constitution. This reiteration, however, relies on a shared interpretation of the Constitution – one that focuses on its restrictive and limiting clauses and glosses over the state building and activist government elements. Such a view is likely consistent with the liberal interpretation to which the Tea Party’s primarily white, male, highly educated, wealthy, older constituency ascribes. Although it is a gross generalization, I would argue that this demographic has benefited most from a limited government, and it is understandable that their interpretation of the Constitution, in the form of the Contract from America, would promote values which continue those conditions. Arguably, a similar document, written by the Tea Party’s antithesis (i.e. an ethic minority, female, low educated, poor, younger constituency) would focus on other elements of the Constitution such as its stated provisions to “promote the general Welfare,” “secure the Blessings of Liberty,” and provide for opportunity and equality.

            One can see other references to the primacy of the Constitution in the Contract from America’s ten tenets (the number ten, of course, is an allusion to the ten original amendments in the Bill of Rights that protect individual liberties).

            The first tenet not only references the Constitution it also requires elected officials to do so in the text of each bill.

1. 1.       Protect the Constitution

Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does.

The forth tenet focuses on making the tax code simpler, but also includes a length provision.

1. 4.      Enact Fundamental Tax Reform

Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words – the length of the original Constitution.

This tenet does not provide any argument to explain why a 4,543 word long tax code is more efficient than one that is 5,000 words (or 10,000 words) suffice to say that is the length of the Constitution. Here, one can observe the irrational amount of credence and deference Tea Party advocates give the Constitution. Rather than view the Constitution as many scholars do – as a political document and practical compromise (see Robert A. Dahl’s How Democratic is the American Constitution) – Tea Party advocates view it as an infallible document and the ultimate authority of American governance. It is also important to point out that the tenet contains the phrase “original Constitution.” The word “original” refers to the Constitution without any of the amendments and suggests that the additions are somehow against the spirit of the original intent.

The call for original intent continues in tenet five.

1. 5.      Restore Fiscal Responsibility & Constitutionally Limited Government in Washington

Create a Blue Ribbon taskforce that engages in a complete audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, and agencies and programs better left for the states or local authorities, or ripe for wholesale reform or elimination due to our efforts to restore limited government consistent with the US Constitution’s meaning.

This is probably the most radical of the tenets because it requires a complete review of the entire state (not to mention that it strips the Supreme Court of its claim to judicial review). Focusing solely on linguistics, one finds the use of only negative language in describing the federal agencies and programs. Terms such as “duplication, waste, ineffectiveness” and “elimination” all imply a known outcome. There is no way that the Blue Ribbon taskforce will find government agencies “frugal and effective.” This tenet articulates how Tea Party advocates view the federal government.  This language is also stronger than any found elsewhere in the Contract from America because it is masked by the preface of “assessing” and “identifying.” Whereas the Tea Party movement might not be so bold as to say the federal government is wasteful, ineffective, and programs would be better left to state or local governments, or eliminated, it can mask its true opinion by calling for the creation of a taskforce to examine whether its descriptions are accurate. The tenet concludes with a reminder that “limited government (is) consistent with the US Constitution’s meaning” – again, appealing to original intent for legitimacy.

Past Movements  

            The Tea Party and its Contract from America is not the first political movement in the United States to appeal to original intent in its language. James A. Morone’s The Democratic Wish: Popular Participation and the Limits of American Government outlines the “recurring American ideology of revolution and reform.”[xvi] According to Morone, each movement invokes the imagery of a romantic, yeomen democracy described by Tocqueville as its ideal. Regardless of era, each movement rejects the established authority and presents itself as the legitimate defender of the Constitution. Andrew Jackson rode early America’s disenchantment with the aristocratic Virginian ruling class and sought to “return” power to the people. Jackson claimed to represent the common man and “the democratic aspirations of ‘the plain people’ and led a charge ‘against the privileges and perquisites of broadcloth.’”[xvii] Jackson’s language includes many of the same elements found in the Tea Party movement: the democratic wish, original intent, limited government, and celebration of the common man.

“Jackson’s rhetoric reshaped the language of republicanism in a way that spoke to both groups (artisans and entrepreneurs). By roasting the moneyed interest, he could articulate artisan fears and pin them on apparently specific malefactors; by balancing his attack with a celebration of the ‘farmers, mechanics, and laborers,’ Jackson appeared to offer the restoration of republican society. At the same time, the rhetoric echoed entrepreneurial complaints about political favors; the repeated assertion that ‘rewards’ should go to ‘superior industry, economy and virtue’ seemed to promise a clear way for those with the capacity to ‘get ahead.’”[xviii]

There are four main elements from Jackson’s rhetoric that can also be found in the Tea Party movement’s language. First, both movements sought the restoration of republican society as defined by original intent. Second, each describes its supporters as the “plain people,” “stout, upright, moral and common men.” Jackson championed the “farmers, mechanics, and laborers.” The Tea Party calls them “freedom-loving Americans.”[xix] By describing its supporters as “freedom-loving Americans,” Tea Party organizers label their opponents as “freedom-hating.” Further, the movement gains supporters who identify with the label. For example a non-politically-aware person might not know what the Tea Party supports, but they self-identify as a freedom-loving American, and because Tea Party supporters are freedom-loving Americans, they must be a Tea Party supporter.  The purpose of this speech act is to claim majoritarian support for one’s cause.

            Santelli attempted to claim majoritarian support in his interview. He turned from the camera to face the Chicago derivative traders and said that what he saw was “a pretty good cross-section of America: The silent majority.”[xx] As with the phrase “Contract from America,” the reference to a silent majority requires knowledge of American (especially Republican Party) history. However, Santelli’s speech act fails because the idea of derivative traders as representative of the majority of Americans – regardless of how vocal or silent – is not believable. Calling “farmers, mechanics, and laborers” or “freedom-loving Americans” the silent majority is much more likely to be perceived as plausible. The Santelli example suggests that language will not be persuasive if it is not rooted in some degree of reality.

            It is interesting that the Tea Party movement uses the contradictory language of individualism and collectivism. The Contract from America is essentially a call for the expansion and protection of individual liberties, but it invokes the support of communal values. Using “common men” suggests that there is a “common good.”

            Third, both movements use language to attack opponents. Jackson’s opponents were “inevitably concrete: the national bank, public administration, the old electoral forms.”[xxi] The primary opponent of the Tea Party movement appears to be the recently passed health care bill as evidenced by the Contract from America.

1.   Defund, Repeal, & Replace Government-run Health Care

Defund, repeal and replace the recently passed government-run health care with a system that actually makes health care and insurance more affordable by enabling a competitive, open, and transparent free-market health care and health insurance system that isn’t restricted by state boundaries.

Tea Party supporters describe their opponents (i.e. those that support the government-run health care) using the label “socialist”. In fact, 92% of Tea Party supporters believe that President Obama’s policies, including health care, are leading the country towards socialism.[xxii] For these Tea Party supporters, socialism not only represents a political ideology, it also represents the antithesis to original intent.

            Jackson defined opponents using labels of “antirepublican” and “tyranny and despotism.” Monore identifies other instances in which movements used overblown hyperbole to describe opposition:

The National Association of Manufacturers said about big government in 1953: Americans ‘face the prospect of complete… domination by the federal government. And complete federal domination IS totalitarianism.’ School desegregation left southern newspapers speculating ‘how the communist masses in Russia and China must have howled with glee.’ The Kennedy administration’s scaled-back Medicare proposal would lead us to ‘wake up…one day… and find that we have socialism. … We will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was like in America when men were free.’[xxiii]

The trend in American political movements is to define one’s opponent using a foreign political ideology. Or, when the movements do not focus on alien governments, they focus on their own. Jefferson juxtaposed the expanding and independent western frontier (for the “frontier offered to renew the conditions of yeoman independence.”[xxiv]) with the old regime in the East. If Jackson symbolized the West, he needed a formidable enemy to symbolize the East. He chose the national bank. Jackson said, “Banks have been… the enemies of republican government from the beginning,” and cartoonists of the time drew Jackson fighting a giant hydra[xxv] symbolizing the national bank, which was, itself, Jackson’s chosen symbol for the old regime, corruption, and antirepublicanism.

            The Tea Party movement attacks government-run health care but also chose a more potent symbol as their opponent: Washington. Political communications expert Frank Luntz describes the metonymy:

‘Washington’ is governmental problem. ‘Washington’ spending, ‘Washington’ waste, ‘Washington taxation, ‘Washington’ bureaucracy, ‘Washington’ rules, and ‘Washington’ regulations.[xxvi]

The truth is, Washington is none of those things. Washington is the capitol city of the United States. However, most Americans like their local government. They like their firefighters, police officers, and teachers – all government employees. That is why the Tea Party supporters attack Washington and not government. For most Americans, Washington is far enough away – both physically and in their minds – that it can be used as effectively as a label as communism, socialism, or totalitarianism.

            Santelli uses metonymy twice in his interview. First, he describes the stimulus plan as one which “the Washington economists are selling.” He uses Washington as an adjective to label the government economists as illegitimate. In case the viewer doesn’t understand the he or she is supposed to associate Washington with negative connotations, Santelli continues, “Do you think I want to take a shower every hour? The last place I’m ever gonna work or live is DC.”[xxvii] In that sentence, Santelli begs the question. He assumes that working or living in DC inherently requires someone to take metaphorical showers.

            The fourth element found in both the Jefferson and Tea Party movements is the belief that government limits individual capacity. Jefferson describes this as being able to “get ahead.” The Contract from America describes it as economic freedom.

            Ultimately, Jackson’s attempt to return power to the people devolved into a spoils system that rewarded political patronage. Progressives responded to the spoils system by organizing into the reform movement, which serves as this paper’s second historical case study.

             As with the Tea Party and Jacksonian movements, the Progressive movement sought to take government out of the hands of the establishment (i.e. the parties and the party bosses) and place it with the people. “Reforming civil service was ‘the people’s cause,’ ‘the people’s reform.”[xxviii] Reformers performed the speech act of appealing to original intent. Wisconsin governor Robert M. LaFollette said the reform movement would “return to the first principles of democracy,” and “go back to the people.”[xxix] Those words could be just as applicable today or in Jackson’s time. The reformers appealed to this idealized, if not mythic, original intent as a means of generating popular support. However, once they gained popular support, the progressives delivered power into elitist, impersonal, anonyms, bureaucracy.

Conclusion

            I would argue that the Tea Party is a response to the reforms established by the progressive movement, which, itself, was a response to the spoils system and the direct democracy Jackson established. The progressive movement’s professionalized, efficient, bureaucracy is the Tea Party’s wasteful, bureaucratic, Washington. Reformers moved administration of the state beyond the political realm, but in doing so, they made the government less representative and therefore alien to most Americans. Washington becomes an outsider. Tea Party supporters have no problem attacking Washington and government agencies, which they describe as inherently wasteful, ineffective, and “ripe for wholesale reform or elimination,” because the progressive movement intentionally designed the bureaucracy to be elitist.

            Each movement exists, in essence, as a counter to the previous movement. However, each movement uses language almost identical to the one it seeks to replace. The language of American political movements is formulaic. Supporters describe the status quo as being counter to the aims of the nation’s founders and the original intent. Original intent is malleable, and movements use it to mask their ideological agenda. Movements claim their cause is actually a continuation of the Founders’, and therefore America’s. Movements use historical language and labels from the revolutionary time period to support their claims of being legitimate defenders of the Constitution. Santelli and others proudly associate themselves with labels such a “revolutionary” and wave flags that say “don’t tread on me.” Further, the Tea Party replicates the style of the Constitution in its Contract from America, using the same syntax and requiring that the US tax code be no longer than the Constitution’s length. This sort of Constitution worship as a speech act is a prerequisite in any American political discourse.

            Another speech act visible in each movement is the call to liberalism. Jacksonians wanted limited government so that entrepreneurs could “get ahead.” Progressives wanted a professionalized administration that rewarded individual merit over political patronage. Finally, the Tea Party supporters want government “to exercise only those limited powers that have been relinquished to it by the people.” The language of American politics is rooted in the paradigm of liberalism, and political movements express their support of liberalism by frequent reference to its most important document in American history: the Constitution.

            Ultimately, the Tea Party’s rhetoric is steeped in historical references, in part, because the political movements are, themselves, a recurring element of American history. Each movement builds upon the language of past movements and relies on a shared national narrative to generate popular support for a “common good,” which is actually some variation of individual rights. This process goes back all the way to the first American political movement: the Revolutionary War.

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[i] “Rick Santelli’s Shout Heard Round the World.” CNBC.com. NBC, 22 Feb. 2009. Web. 14 May 2010. <http://www.cnbc.com/id/29283701/Rick_Santelli_s_Shout_Heard_Round_the_World>.

[ii] CNBC’s Rick Santelli’s Chicago Tea Party. Perf. Rick Santelli. YouTube. HeritageFoundation, 19 Feb. 2009. Web. 14 May 2010. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp-Jw-5Kx8k>.

[iii] Zernike, Kate. Unlikely Activist Who Got to the Tea Party Early. The New York Times, 27 Feb. 2010. Web. 14 May 2010 < http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/us/politics/28keli.html>

[iv] Kuntz, Tom. ‘Porkulus’ – Idea of the Day. The New York Times, 8 Feb. 2009. Web. 14 May 2010 <http://ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/porkulus/>

[v] Contract from America. 2010. 14 May 2010 <http://www.thecontract.org>

[vi] “Rick Santelli’s Shout Heard Round the World.” CNBC.com. NBC, 22 Feb. 2009. Web. 14 May 2010. <http://www.cnbc.com/id/29283701/Rick_Santelli_s_Shout_Heard_Round_the_World>.

[vii] Davis, Kenneth C. Don’t know much about history: everything you need to know about American history but never learned. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. P. 50

[viii] Cooper, Michael. Accusations Fly Between Parties Over Threats and Vandalism.  New York Times 25 March 2010. 14 May 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/us/politics/26threat.html

[ix] Protestors line inaugural parade route. CNN.com. Web. 20 Jan. 2001. 14 May 2010

<http://web.archive.org/web/20061206144300/http://archives.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/stories/01/20/protest.wrap/index.html>

[x] Cooper, Michael. Accusations Fly Between Parties Over Threats and Vandalism.  New York Times 25 March 2010. 14 May 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/us/politics/26threat.html

[xi] Zernike, Kate and Megan Thee-Brenan. Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated. New York Times. 14 April 2010. 14 May 2010 <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html?hp>

[xii]Zernike, Kate and Megan Thee-Brenan. Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated. New York Times. 14 April 2010. 14 May 2010 <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html?hp>

[xiii] Taranto, James. Maine Stream, Not Extreme. The Wall Street Journal. 11 May 2010. 14 May 2010.

<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704250104575238413677718580.html?mod=rss_Today%27s_Most_Popular>

[xiv] Contract from America. 2010. 14 May 2010 <http://www.thecontract.org>

[xv] Contract from America. 2010. 14 May 2010 <http://www.thecontract.org>

[xvi] Morone, James A. The Democratic Wish: Popular Participation and the Limits of American Government. Basic Books. New York. 1990 p. 17

[xvii] Morone, James A. The Democratic Wish: Popular Participation and the Limits of American Government. Basic Books. New York. 1990 p. 74

[xviii] Morone, James A. The Democratic Wish: Popular Participation and the Limits of American Government. New York: Basic Books. 1990 p. 78

[xix] Contract from America. 2010. 14 May 2010 <http://www.thecontract.org>

[xx] CNBC’s Rick Santelli’s Chicago Tea Party. Perf. Rick Santelli. YouTube. HeritageFoundation, 19 Feb. 2009. Web. 14 May 2010. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp-Jw-5Kx8k>.

[xxi] Morone, James A. The Democratic Wish: Popular Participation and the Limits of American Government. Basic Books. New York. 1990 p. 81

[xxii] Montopoli, Brian. “Tea Party Supporters: Who They Are and What They Believe – Political Hotsheet – CBS News.” Breaking News Headlines: Business, Entertainment & World News – CBS News. CBS, 14 Apr. 2010. Web. 14 May 2010. <http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20002529-503544.html>.

[xxiii] Morone, James A. The Democratic Wish: Popular Participation and the Limits of American Government. Basic Books. New York. 1990 p. 4

[xxiv] Morone, James A. The Democratic Wish: Popular Participation and the Limits of American Government. Basic Books. New York. 1990 p. 78

[xxv] Morone, James A. The Democratic Wish: Popular Participation and the Limits of American Government. Basic Books. New York. 1990 p. 81

[xxvi] Luntz, Frank I. Words that Work: It’s Not What You Say, it’s What People Hear. New York: Hyperion, 2007. P. 280

[xxvii] CNBC’s Rick Santelli’s Chicago Tea Party. Perf. Rick Santelli. YouTube. HeritageFoundation, 19 Feb. 2009. Web. 14 May 2010. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp-Jw-5Kx8k>.

[xxviii] Morone, James A. The Democratic Wish: Popular Participation and the Limits of American Government. Basic Books. New York. 1990 p. 101

[xxix] Morone, James A. The Democratic Wish: Popular Participation and the Limits of American Government. Basic Books. New York. 1990 p. 109

Terrorism

Juan Zarate, former Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism, laid out several ongoing efforts to eradicate terrorism. At the heart of the efforts, is the importance of language. Although military pursuit and legal prosecution of terrorists are vital in the short term, Zarate said the key for long term success will be to delegitimize the word “terrorism” as was once done with “piracy” and “slavery.”

This comparison; however, illustrates another point that is counterproductive to Zarate’s efforts: the overuse and therefore weakening of the words. Terrorism, piracy, and slavery are all used extensively as metaphors for actions in which the words do not actually match the denotation. For example, the word “piracy,” which in Webster’s dictionary originally meant “an act of robbery on the high seas,” has been co-opted to mean “an unauthorized use of another’s production, invention, or conception especially in infringement of a copyright.” This latter act is one in which a sizable portion of the otherwise law abiding citizenry of many developed and developing countries engage. To call them pirates is laughable. In fact, according to an August 2003 Gallup Youth Survey, 83% of teens aged 13-17 said it was morally acceptable to illegally download (i.e. pirate) music off the Internet.[i] When the word “pirate” is used to describe these teens, it devalues its original denotation and legitimizes its usage. Perhaps this is why there was little outrage from the general populous over the pirates in Somalia.

The word terrorism faces a similar problem. When terrorism is used to describe a wide range of activities – such as domestic crimes, cyber hacking, or stalking – it devalues the original intent. Because terrorism becomes something one encounters every day, terrorism is an expected norm of life; not the extreme tactic of fringe fanatics. 
Such a conclusion has important implications for how we use language. To guarantee the continued shock value of words, the words need to be limited, applicable, and rare.

[i] Teens OK With Letting Music Downloads Play, Gallup. September 30, 2003 http://www.gallup.com/poll/9373/Teens-Letting-Music-Downloads-Play.aspx, April 22, 2010

Practitioner vs. Academic

“The essence of ultimate decision remains impenetrable to the observer – often, indeed to the decider himself… There will always be the dark and tangled stretches to the decision making process – mysterious even to those who may be the most intimately involved.” – John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy’s quote on the essence of decision making highlights a motif echoed by most of our guest speakers. The guest speakers seemed to agree that there is a difference between what actually happens within an agency or organization and how academics describe what happens.

Academics, as observers, are limited by imperfect knowledge when hypothesizing how decisions are made. With limited information regarding the decision, the decision makers, and the decision making process, academics must build models based on their own assumptions to explain the “essence of the ultimate decision.” Such an understanding will obviously be limited not only by their own knowledge, but also by the fact that even those “most intimately involved” have an imperfect understanding themselves.

Within the agency or organization, practitioners are only cognizant of their own thoughts and the decision making processes to which they are privy. Even with this supposed insider’s perspective, practitioners are still limited by their first person perspective and by the fact that, unlike academics, they often do not often return to the decision to document and review the process.

As a result, I believe academics and practitioners come to two very extreme opposites in their understandings on the essence of decision making. Practitioners are more oft to believe in the importance of their own, or individual, traits and experiences in reaching the essences of decisions. Meanwhile, academics seeking to establish something applicable to other organizations and decisions develop broad, all-encompassing models. Sometimes these models can be so driven by a single theory (such as David Mayhew’s model on Congressional behavior) that they completely ignore the nuances found in the real world and therefore, although interesting, are not overtly useful to understanding decision making.

The process behind understanding decision making should be somewhere between those two extremes. Contrary to the extreme view of some practitioners (including speaker James Woolsey), organizational cultures (their values, traditions, and standard operating procedures) do influence behavior and sometimes interfere with the choices of rational individuals. Further, organizational culture can be so entrenched that even a powerful individual cannot work against it. However, this is not to say, as some academics do, that individuals don’t matter.

This paper presents two case studies and examines how each demonstrates the essence of what Kennedy wrote: that decision making is often a mystery to both the observer and the decider.

The case studies examine the institution of Congress. By reading Eric Redman’s The Dance of Legislation and David Mayhew’s Congress: The Electoral Connection, one can get two very contrasting opinions on how decisions in Congress are reached. First, Redman’s piece describes the byzantine steps of passing legislation. Redman’s work accounts for and illustrates the myriad outside pressures, serendipitous events, and inside political strategizing that affect the legislative process. Further, it is one of the first books that examines the legislative branch’s arguably most powerful, and undoubtedly, largest resource: the Hill staff.

Mayhew’s book, on the other hand, ignores not only Congressional staff, but all individuals. Even the Congressmen described in his model are replaceable as a variable without influence. Mayhew wrote Congress at a time when little academic research existed on Congressional behavior, and at the same time, rational choice theory was gaining popularity among political scientists. These two streams, along with Mayhew’s firsthand experience, led him to his overarching theory that members of Congress are “single minded seekers of reelection.” Although such a bold statement was certainly new, the thought of congress as rational decision makers interested in self-preservation, at the time, was not. Mayhew acknowledges that sometimes members are motivated by and pursue goals that hurt their chances at reelection, but these “saints” are rare and to do anything about those goals, they must first be reelected.

It is easy to dismiss Mayhew’s theory as “single-minded,” itself, but I believe there is value in understanding why Mayhew developed his theory (i.e. a Meta understanding of how Mayhew decided on his decision making model). Although Mayhew worked for some time on the Hill, he was, and is, primarily an outside observer of the process and therefore, as Kennedy wrote, “The essence of ultimate decision remains impenetrable…” With an extensive but not intimate knowledge of the process, Mayhew developed a theory to explain decision making behavior to which he cannot see firsthand. The value of this theory is that it can be used to explain any decision by any actor. If asked why Senator Magnuson pursued the passage of a National Health Service, Mayhew would reply that the NHS contributed to Magnunson’s chances of being reelected. Such an understanding or statement ignores the importance of Magnunson’s personal commitment to social liberalism and Redman’s role in the bill’s passage but neatly explains Magnunson’s motivation.

Redman, himself, is the protagonist in his book, and it is, in large part, his own entrepreneurial initiative that pushes S.4106 through passage. Throughout the book, Redman examines the importance of individuals (especially Senator Magnunson) and views each crossroad from his own psyche. Without Redman’s account, no outside observer would ever be able to understand why certain decisions were made. However, the value of Redman’s account is limited. First, the step-by-step description of the process so completely explains this single bill that it cannot be used to exactly explain the passage of any other bill. Further, as Kennedy wrote, “There will always be the dark and tangled stretches to the decision making process – mysterious even to those who may be the most intimately involved.” So, although the reader gets a thorough description of the decision making process, he or she cannot ever be certain that they received a complete understanding because such an understanding would require a level of self-awareness that neither Redman, nor any decision maker, possesses.

The best way to understand the effects of organizational culture versus (or in addition to) individual contribution would be to examine a decision as Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow do in The Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. Their descriptions use the framework of three conceptual models (the rational actor model, the organizational behavior model, and the governmental politics model) to explain decision making and combine it with the accounts of those intimately involved. The resulting explanations are substantially more nuanced than a mere model could predict and more encompassing and applicable than a single-person perspective could provide.  For example, the authors’ rational choice model presents the US’s blockade response in terms of the rational, or best-choice, solution that anyone should have chosen given the circumstances while also acknowledging the part individual actors and their personalities played in arriving at that decision. Allison and Zelikow compile the known facts and all available testimony from practitioners and fill in the gaps of unknown information with models proposed by academics.

As Kennedy’s quote suggests, observers will always be limited by what they don’t know and those intimately involved will always be limited by what they can’t know. A model derived from academic observation should not serve as a replacement for practitioners’ accounts but rather as a supplement to help others understand and apply a single instance of decision making to other decisions.

Best Speech

While breaking bread with family friends last night, the conversation turned to speeches (they were both former speech writers) and which speech is my favorite.

The answer is easy for me. John McCain’s South Carolina victory speech is by far my most memorable, and it articulates, better than anything else I’ve ever heard or read, what it means to be a conservative. I appreciate the speech for its humbleness in spite of recent victory and the emotion John McCain clearly feels and shows after a lifetime of service to his country.

The best impromptu speech I’ve heard is Col. Tim Collin’s to his troops in Iraq.

Obama and the Symbolism of Threats

Jonathan Landay of McClatchy Newspapers presented, before our class, his belief that the Obama Administration is doing an inadequate job of informing the American public of the true threats posed to our security and the Middle East.  Landay pointed out that in Obama’s speech on Afghanistan before the United States Military Academy, Obama  focuses the call for more troops as a means for fighting our old enemy, al Qaeda, rather than lay out the case for the real dangers associated with a potential collapse of Afghanistan. Landay felt that the president and the news media have done the American people a disservice by not engaging them in a conversation about these real threats. This sentiment was echoed by another guest speaker, R. James Woolsey, former Director of the CIA, in a different class a week later.

The question I then ask is: How can a president engage and inform the public about the dangers of complex threats?

Through some research and background knowledge, I identified three instances in which presidents use political speech, in the form of campaign commercials, to explain threats and create what one might argue is a necessary level of fear given the situation.

Chronologically, the first campaign ad is Lyndon B. Johnson’s infamous 1964 “Daisy Ad.” The ad opens with a young girl picking the leaves off a daisy while counting to nine. A male voiceover fades in and begins a backwards countdown from nine while the camera zooms towards the girl’s pupil. At the word one, the screen cuts to an exploding nuclear bomb and resulting mushroom cloud. A voiceover from Johnson states, “These are the stakes! To make a world in which all of God’s children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die.” A final male voiceover then says, “Vote for President Johnson on November 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay home.”

The second ad is from Ronald Reagan’s 1984 “Bear in the Woods Ad.” The ad features a wandering bear in a field that confronts a steadfast human, and then the bear retreats. The single male voiceover reads, “There’s a bear in the woods. For some people, the bear is easy to see. Others don’t see it at all. Some people say the bear is tame. Others say it’s vicious and dangerous. Since no one can really be sure who’s right, isn’t it smart to be as strong as the bear? If there is a bear….”

The final ad, from George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign, features wolves prowling through a forest and first person perspective of being in the forest from a shaky hand camera. A female voiceover reads, “In an increasingly dangerous world… Even after the first terrorist attack on America … John Kerry and the liberals in Congress voted to slash America ’s intelligence operations. By 6 billion dollars… Cuts so deep they would have weakened America ’s defenses. And weakness attracts those who are waiting to do America harm.”

Each of these ads took very complex security situations (e.g. the threat of nuclear proliferation, the spread of communism in Eastern Europe, and Islamic extremists engaged in terrorism) and replaced them with understandable symbols that evoke fear (mushroom cloud, bear, wolves). Critics complained that each of these ads preyed on the fear and represented the worst of political campaigning, but if the threat is as real as Landay and Woolsey claim, then the ads might serve as models for how Obama could bring adequate attention to the dangers in the region.

Due to the necessity of sound bites and a person’s limited knowledge (especially of foreign affairs), I think the effectiveness of what Landay did – essentially explain the entire situation, region, and potential conflict – is extremely limited.

In order for Americans to understand the threat, Obama needed to use a symbol.  For Obama, for good or bad, this symbol was al Qaeda. Using a symbol, and the refrain of 9/11, doesn’t get into the nuances of the actual threat, but I think it is probably more accurate and just as effective as any of the symbols used in the ads above.