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- Title
Rationality and Influence in Public Service.
- Authors
Altshuler, Alan
- Abstract
This article focuses on the rationality and influence in public service. To persuade superiors and political critics that his decisions are authoritative, an official's most obvious strategy is to maintain that they are technical, that public policy has been clearly declared and that the administrator is performing only ministerially as he interprets it. Assuming honesty, a technical expert can be judged only on his competence and not at all on his personality or character. Any number of experts given the same operational objective should come to specific recommendations which differ insignificantly if at all. Highway engineers define traffic service in terms of vehicle miles traveled per unit of time. The performance of any segment of highway, measured thus, is expressable at close, regular intervals along a single continuum from zero to infinity. To the extent that their forecasting methods are reliable, highway engineers can say precisely how much money will be needed to raise the rating of any particular highway by any particular amount on the scale of traffic service.
- Subjects
UNITED States; CIVIL engineers; CIVIL service; MUNICIPAL services; DECISION making; HIGHWAY engineers; AUTOMOTIVE engineering; PUBLIC administration; POLITICAL planning
- Publication
Public Administration Review, 1965, Vol 25, Issue 3, p226
- ISSN
0033-3352
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/973747