DWIGHT WALDO

BACKGROUND
Dwight Waldo (born September 28, 1913) was an American political scientist. He
made a great impact in modern public administration. His most influential work
was The Administrative State which was published in 1948. He was the vicepresident (1976-77), then later, president (1977-78) of the National Association
of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration. His other professional leadership
positions have included the vice presidency of the American Political Science
Association (1961-62), editor-in-chief of the Public Administration Review (196677), and the vice presidency of the American Society for Public Administration
(1985-86).
CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
In recognition of his long service to the profession, the American Society for
Public Administration established the Dwight Waldo Award, given annually to an
outstanding public administrator. To fully understand and appreciate his
contributions, we need to briefly shed into light the important concepts of Public
Administration prior and during Dwight Waldos time.
When Public Administration was first consciously conceptualized, certain
conditions were defined:
(1) politics and Public Administration must be separate entities;
(2) its structure and processes are production-oriented;
(3) specialization of work;
(4) centralization in the name of control and coordination (executive decisionmaking); and
(5) business techniques are applicable in the public sector.
Because of this, the search for Public Administration as an autonomous science
and as a specialized field was encouraged. Since Public Administration is so
diverse a subject, there were those who proposed new ideas.
One of the widely accepted was the Behavioral Approach. It was primarily
concerned with organization structure and management. It sought to modify or
eliminate the hierarchical organizational structures supported by Traditional
Public Administration. Its supporters declare:
(1) focus on the study of actual behavior;
(2) Public Administrations structure and processes are employee-oriented;
(3) expanded range of work functions;

(4) decentralization to appeal to a wider range of human needs, and thus

effectively motivate man in the organization (participatory decision-making); (5)
multidisciplinary in focus;
(6) fact-value dichotomy; and
(7) full use of scientific procedures.
Its basic difference from the first approach concerns the way organizations
should be structured and managed. Now, Dwight Waldo wanted Public
Administration be noticed as a profession that connected many disciplines, not
independent from them. He asserted that the scientific method failed to
harmonize administration with democratic values. Previous ideas held that public
managers should go for a European style of detached, scientific administration,
in which policies were to be implemented objectively. He also said that public
servants should become active, informed, politically savvy agents of change,
whose mission is to improve the human condition and strengthen democracy. He
proposed his four central ideas:
(1) There is an innate tension between democracy and bureaucracy that obliges
career public servants to protect democratic principles;
(2) The separation between politics and Public Administration is false. Public
servants hold political positions that require more than merely implementing
policy set by elected officials;
(3) Public servants must negotiate efficiencies demanded by the scientific
management movement with due process and public access to government, and
that scientific management and efficiency is not the core idea of government
bureaucracy, but rather it is service to the public; and
(4) a government cannot be run like a business. The Constitution and other
democratic imperatives must be honored.

SIGNIFICANT WRITING/ ARTICLE

The administrative state (1984).

The study of public administration (1955).
Perspectives on administration (1956).
Idea and issues in public Administration (1953)
Comparative public Administration
Temporal Dimension of Development Administration (1970)
Public Administration in Time of Turbulence (1971)