Chapter 1 begins with recounting the BP Deepwater Horizon spill and the Flint, Michigan public water disaster; these cases illustrate what Kettle describes “the essence of modern government.”

“We the people identify problems that we expect the government will solve, to promote the general welfare. How does it do so? Government, on behalf of us all, sets goals, and then it creates complex organizations to meet those goals. And these tales also capture a fundamental challenge: Does government have what it takes to do what its citizens expect?” (Kettl, 7^th)

The American people have the expectation that government will solve problems. In order to do so, government must coordinate with partners through complex systems. Deciding what to do and how to do it invites politics as different values and priorities come into play. Yet throughout the process there is the expectation by the people that government will be effective, efficient, and accountable. The chapter provides another example, that of the Flint, MI water crisis, which had origins in running government more like a business. Americans are suspicious about the exercise of political power yet they expect efficiency, effectiveness, and equity from their government, but as this case illustrates, sometimes this has devastating results.

Accountability is firmly rooted in American history. The Founding Fathers were necessarily ambiguous about the details of public administration, leaving big administrative questions for later leaders to work out due to the politics of the time. The Progressives, in the late nineteenth century, grappled again with these questions and helped to further develop American ideas around executive power. Woodrow Wilson, among them, helped to outline a central difficulty in public administration referred to as the “policy-administration dichotomy,” where elected officials, accountable to citizens, make laws, but administrators, who are accountable to these elected officials, are the ones who actually carry out the laws. His ideas were challenged by political scientist John Gaus who pointed out that laws are not always clear and are further impossible to translate into administrative action that is transparent and predictable. Gaus’ solution was to rely on administrators’ professional norms. This led to a famous debate between Carl Friedrich (who was aligned with Gaus) and Herman Finer in 1940 about whether it was possible to rely on these professional norms or if external controls were necessary to keep administrators accountable. The chapter goes on to question both Wilson and Gaus saying that as policy problems have evolved first they are no longer easily traceable down a hierarchy of command as many partners are involved, making the rule of law approach untenable. Also, there is no longer just one set of professional norms for administrators as each agency has their own culture with a different set of norms.

                The chapter also focuses on a defining bureaucratic responsibility and its relationship to accountability and ethical behavior. One element of bureaucratic responsibility is accountability: faithful obedience to the law, to higher officials’ direction, and to standards of efficiency and economy. This accountability depends on systems of control made more complicated by the fact that elected officials tend not to desire clear chains of responsibility, which create a “gotcha” effect. Different ways to measure performance come from these elements of accountability: fiscal, process, and programmatic accountability.

                The other element of bureaucratic accountability is ethical behavior: adherence to moral standards and avoidance of even the appearance of unethical action (standards that are that are perhaps higher than those of the private sector). When hen faced with conflicting directions from controllers, administrators can either “voice” (remaining in their positions and fighting for what they think is right) or “exit” (resignation). These challenges specific to government service (accountability, and ethical behavior) sometimes make it difficult to recruit the best people for the jobs who often go to the private sector instead.