College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University

Public service

In his latest book, political science's Yong Lee says public employees shouldn't exclusively follow a business model.

Why can't government be more like business?

After all, business can do things much more efficiently and economically than government.

That seems to be the general consensus of the American public.

Yong Lee, professor of political science and public administration, couldn't disagree more.

"Unfortunately, many are led to believe this is the primary goal of public administration," Lee says. "The media and others have convinced the public that public administration should be able to function like business.

"Self-serving politicians preach this, too. They moralize that everything in government should be based on the consideration of economics and efficiency."

In his latest book, A Reasonable Public Servant, which traces the constitutional foundations of public service, Lee and co-author David Rosenbloom of American University argue that efficiency is only one facet of the social contract the Constitution mandates for public administration. Equally important, if not more, the Constitution mandates public administration deliver public service in a manner that comports with fundamental fairness.

Lee says this is no small task.

"All public administrators who enter upon public service take an ‘oath' affirming they will be faithful to the Constitution of the United States," Lee says. "If public administrators are to remain faithful to the Constitution then they need to defend the values, principles and ethics underpinning that document.

"When you get right down to it, I believe most people would agree fairness is the most important attribute for a public servant. However, the public are misguided by the market paradigm to believe efficiency and returns on investment be the guiding principles for a public servant."

To the extent public servants should be both fair and efficient, Lee says the social contract underlying the Constitution requires the utilitarian and efficiency considerations be subordinate to justice as fairness.

"It is of paramount importance that a public servant be both efficient and fair," he emphasized. "But when the two are in conflict and you have to make a choice, I believe fairness should carry the day."

A Reasonable Public Servant illuminates the role of the reasonable public servant, who strives to perform authorized functions efficiently, yet in a manner that aligns with constitutional values embodied in the Bill of Rights.

Lee and Rosenbloom reviewed hundreds of Supreme Court opinions and thousands of lower court decisions in the book. They reviewed these decisions in order to develop a portrait of a reasonable public servant in a constitutional regime. A constitutionally reasonable public servant is one whose conduct is guided by clearly established constitutional and statutory rights that a "reasonable" person should know.

These include the old and new property rights, fundamental fairness under the Due Process Clause, domains of critical speech and expressive conduct, privacy, equal protection, and a rapidly expanding area of statutory civil rights, including the Americans with Disabilities Act.

"These freedoms and rights represent what this nation stands for," Lee said, "and what a reasonable public servant is required to safeguard.

"In developing the portrait of a reasonable public servant," he continued, "we relied on the Court's opinions as the exemplar of public reason and paid close attention to the manner in which the Court balances among competing value premises: the rights of a public servant as an employee as well as an individual citizen, and the needs of government as a sovereign, as well as an employer."

A Reasonable Public Servant is forthcoming from M.E. Sharpe this September.