Controlling Internal Controls

Two recent examinations of management practices in three federal departments provide contemporary evidence of the need to incorporate procedures like those of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the public sector. Although each department established what appeared to be well-designed internal controls, all lacked sufficient monitoring and assessment of the efficacy of those controls. By requiring senior management to attest to the strength of their control mechanisms, as required by the newly revised OMB Circular A-123, the quality of this monitoring should improve. Findings from a recent study of private-sector implementation of these reforms are described, along with suggestions for public administration research and practice at all levels of government.     

“Civic discovery” as a rhetorical strategy

Much research in the field of public management is distinguished by its rejection of the politics-administration dichotomy and its emphasis on the public manager's responsibility for political management. By rejecting the dichotomy, however, scholars in public management have reopened debate over an old question: Why is it right for public managers to exercise political power in the policymaking process? It is argued that the dichotomy served as a rhetorical strategy for allaying public concern about bureaucratic power, and that public management scholars must now invent a new strategy to take its place. This article evaluates one strategy, proposed by Moore and Reich, which is premised on the idea that managers may legitimize the exercise of discretion by showing it to be consistent with a mandate that is produced through a fair process of deliberation. It is argued that the new strategy may overestimate the ability to build mandates, the ability to build deliberative processes that are manifestly fair, and the willingness of dissentient citizens to defer to such mandates. The new strategy will also bind public managers to a demonstration of neutrality not unlike that imposed by the politics-administration dichotomy.