The Search for Meaning in Political-Administrative Relations in Local Government

Local government provides a useful setting for examining political-administrative relations. In an examination of roles and relationships beginning in the 1980s, my interpretation of the nature of interaction between elected officials and administrators shifted from a partial endorsement of the dichotomy model to a demonstration that both sets of officials have extensive interactions, are interdependent, and have reciprocal influence. There is evidence that public administration scholars in the United States from the beginning recognized and advocated this kind of interaction. It is useful to analyze political-administrative relations in terms of a model of complementarity in which two distinct and partially separated sets of officials come together to shape the governmental process.