Opinion
Political, Social and Economic Context of Public Administration
Bureaucracy embeds democracy at a different level of proportions and applicability. Shutdowns show how bureaucracy can affect the will of the people. Ideological conflicts, like those over the Wall Shutdown, are highly inflexible and partial. In the recent American Shutdown, the executive branch is seeking billions of dollars in border wall funding; however, opponents have rejected the amount. These collisions foment studies about public power as well as individual rights. Right and left parties have their ideologies, but they need to be together when one principle has more priority than others.
Preventing illegal immigrants can be the chosen public policy in the context of political collisions, and this choice is lawful. Perhaps, the problem occurs when constitutional principles of one policy negatively affect principles of other policies. According to Shafritz et. al (2016), “the ‘problem’ begins with the fact that the American government is inherently pluralistic” (p. 53). In other words, the government needs to know the weight of their choices and effects. The United States government has been required to do a balancing, or weighing of the colliding political ideologies because the proposed construction of the wall might limit constitutional rights as well. Ronald Dworkin (1981), philosopher of American law found that the combination of individual intentions needs to provide “a constitutional intentioned of the framers as a group” (487). In the “Constitutional rights and proporcionality”, he conceptualizes applicability of principles as a measurement of weight, that is, they are evaluated to determine which one deserves to be prevalent over another (n.d., 22).
On another hand, the current essay offers a potential resolution of ideological conflicts by affirming an opponent's status. The bureaucracy around the shutdown has affected federal workers in their financial lives; as a result, the buying power has diminished gradually. The reasons for not paying the salaries of workers from department and agencies such as Homeland Security, Justice, State and Treasury, Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, who dedicate much of their lives to serving the population violates constitutional principles. Decreasing individual budget, they will use more public transportation, school, and social benefits. These servers may not be able to pay the state and federal taxes it owes, generating a negative looping cycle. The negative feedback will be visible if these default shortages of public coffers in the United States, and it can trigger an economic crisis because they will start to use more public services. This status is a critical social dimension to be considered in chosen a solution.
Work without payment negatively impacted the economy of the United States. The negative weight of the impact; when compared to the foresing wall effects will give the solution to the people. As a result, a balancing of interests is mandatory to achieve real democracy. Multi-faceted interests are visible now. Leaving aside political connotation, essential dimensions of values are present in the conflict, and the best area to allocate the money, how to ensure the national security, and what are the social, economic, and individual dimensions affected by the mentioned shutdown, for instance. This case shows that one principle behind the decision to construct the wall cannot be satisfied without detriment to other principles behind not do it.
The mentioned choices involve labor social value, the dignity of human beings, citizenship, the supremacy of the United States, security, democracy, and other ideas that can be more comprehensive by interpretation founded in the principle of proportionality. Goodman (2010) found that “The danger of the Tocqueville`s Tyranny of the Majority may have to fruition with these types of ballot measures” (248). The United States can apply this principle to avoid disproportionate decisions of the American Congress or other kinds of decisions by a simple combination of three others just as it has been used in German constitutional law (Alexy, 2005, p. 573). By applying this reasonable combination composed of the principles of suitability, necessity, and proportionality, the American Government can use the idea of optimization as a reference.
Principles have optimization requirements that demand studies. In this context, the structure of convergent perspectives on the ideologies among James Madison and Thomas Jefferson will be a crucial variant. The bureaucracy-democracy relations between the Jeffersonian normative model that focus on the personal happiness and the Madisonian analysis to reduce factional influence (Box, 2015,186-187) seems divergent, but when you select the significant group which sometimes will not be the measurable majority, it can be a possible resolution. Studying the stakeholders, politicians, citizens, non-profit organizations, academia, and public administration can work together solve conflicting interests. Besides, if they prioritize the quantitative and qualitative statistical research in that analysis, the public workers can figure out what is, in concrete cases, the most significant involved group. Ideas like crowdsourcing and population participation are relevant, but most of the time there is political opposition. Interest groups can indirectly support the public managers to find the main points of collision. When the town Manager of Town of Miami Lakes, Alex Rey (2019), discussed leadership perspectives for 2019, he mentioned that deciding to choose one principle and opposing another principle demands a certain level of sacrifice. However, he always scales how many people will be affected by his decision, and if it is the most effective way, finds a balanced solution. The bureaucracy in a democracy necessarily needs to flow to the public interest, people.
In conclusion, the reason for being a democratic state may be contradictory given the ideological diversity of democracies composed by a vast spectrum of values. The recent American shutdown is an example of how the perception of the political actors is essential for the will of the people. The rule of democracy is by the people, for the people (Lincoln, 1863), so involved people is the most important consideration. The impacts in social, economic, political levels can foster the real optimization of American democracy.
References
Alexy, Robert. (2005, October 01). Balancing, constitutional review, and representation. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1093/icon/moi040
Alexy, Robert. Constitutional rights and proporcionality.pdf. (n.d.). Retrieved February 11, 2019, from https://www.scribd.com/document/215615670/ALEXY-Robert-Constitutional-rights-and-proporcionality-pdf
Alexy, Rey. (2003). Best Practices Conference: Leadership Perspectives for 2019 and Beyond. 13th annual South Florida Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration.
Dworkin, Ronald. (1981). The forum of principle. New York University Law Review 56(Issues and 3), 469-518.
Goodman, C. (2010). (m)ad men: Using persuasion factors in media advertisements to prevent tyranny of the majority on ballot propositions. Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal (Comm/Ent) 32(2), 247-302.
Lincoln, A. (1863). The Gettysburg Address. A Lincoln Anthology (Lit2Go Edition). Retrieved February 11, 2019, from https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/184/a-lincoln-anthology/4822/the-gettysburg-address/
U.S Government in Its Longest Shutdown." Youngzine, 16 Jan. 2019. Student Resources In Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A570338809/SUIC?u=miam11506&sid=SUIC&xid=45d99810. Accessed 11 Feb. 2019.
Tags: Public Policies, Ideological conflicts, American Shutdown, democracy, ideological diversity, public interest, Executive Branch, principle of proportionality, conflicting interests, leadership, Constitucional Rights, government, Government Management, Decision Makers, public sector, balance, Bureaucracy, Public Administration, law