Turner, Ralph H., "Role-Taking: Process versus Conformity," in Arnoid M.Rose, Human Behavior and Social Processes: Ail InJ:em(ryjmjj_t__AEj)£5ia?il-Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. (1962).

Yarwood, Dean L. and Dan Nimmo, "Subjective Environments of Bureaucracy:Accuracies and Inaccuracies in Role-Taking Among Administrators, Legis-lators, and Citizens," Western Political Quarterly, Forthcoming, (1976).

THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS DIMENSIONJohn G. Sanzone and Michael D. ReaganUniversity of California, Riverside

The nature of American federalism is in the process ofchanging radically. Starting with the passage of GeneralRevenue Sharing in 1972 (and Special Revenue Sharing shortlythereafter), the decision-making process in the intergovern-mental system is slowly beginning to respond to the ethosof "The New Federalism." As with any substantial change inone element of a system, the potential consequences may beexpected to permeate other elements, and to have unantici-pated (and perhaps unwanted) impacts. The purpose of thisessay is to point up some of the "hidden agenda" of currenttrends in the fiscal federal pattern. First, it will attemptto illuminate the philosophical and value choices implicitin the change from creative federalism to the New Federalism.Secondly, it will explore the impact the New Federalism mayhave on social goals that were thought to be national inscope and policy responsibility, now left to the discretionof state and local governments. Third, some brief commentswill be made about the administrative prerequisites neededto make the New Federalism more responsive and concernedwith social policy outcomes. Finally, we will make a fewcomments on the recent general literature on intergovern-mental relations.

CREATIVE VS. THE NEW FEDERALISM: The philosophy behind theNew Federalism marks an important change from the condi-tional categorical grant programs of the early 1960's.During the Kennedy and Johnson era a new set of goals,policy strategies and working assumptions emerged in re-sponse to social problems visible at the subnational levelthat were thought to be national in scope and in neededpolicy response. This response was dubbed Creative Feder-alism in that it went beyond Grodzin's cooperative feder-alism and emphasized direct federal-city relationships,contractually tied by specific funding and implementationconditions. (See: Grodzins, 1966; Reagan, 1972, p. 23).The result was a conditional categorical grant-in-aidprogram that earmarked specific programs for narrow pro-jects, "targeted" grants for particular minority socialproblems, and held local contracting bodies programmaticallyresponsible for the implementation of national goals andpriorities.

The philosophy behind this policy strategy was thebelief "that the concept of national citizenship establishesan intellectual and ethical base for a national criteria ofequity in the provision of public services and a nationalminimum standard of living: that nationally raised funds

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should not be utilized without some accountability tonational criteria" (Reagan, 1975, 29). It was argued thatsubnational goals and priorities may not be congruent withnationally defined policy goals or the needs of minoritiesat the local level. Historically, this assessment was quitejustified and there was a concern to build into these grantsa sufficient amount of leverage to hold receiving sub-national units accountable to national standards of programimplementation and performance.

Analysts also pointed out that subnational units ofgovernment lacked the fiscal resources, political motivationand professional competence to respond effectively to urbansocial problems. The conditional categorical grant-in-aidsystem developed a service strategy that utilized existingbureaucracies at the state and local level to: (1) makethem more responsive to the needs of disadvantaged groupsand (2) to develop, at varying levels, a minimum standard ofpublic goods and services. This was all within a nationalpolicy strategy of accountability by "carrot and stick."

The New Federalism, on the other hand, appeals to aquite different philosophical school of thought. Its impli-cations for a theory of contemporary federalism reverse, inpart, the operating assumptions that our intergovernmentalsystem has been developing for forty years. Both Generaland Special Revenue Sharing (applying to manpower programsand to housing and community development) reflect the samephilosophy of decentralizing the intergovernmental decision-making process. They assume considerable professionalcompetence, a democratic propensity, and a responsive polit-ical system at the subnational level. Moreover, Generaland for the most part. Special Revenue Sharing, have nosignificant mechanisms for influencing subnational goalsand priorities, or for securing programmatic, accountability.In short, revenue sharing does not have a service strategy,a concern over minimum levels of support for social services,or an implementation system to prod subnational units intoworking within a national social policy framework.

John Murphy, the Legislative Representative for theNational Association of Counties, points out one of themajor shifts of the New Federalism: " . . . the GeneralRevenue Sharing program was never intended to be anothercategorical human resource program . . . Rather, theprogram was designed—and the legislative history confirmsthis—to allow local elected officials to expend relatively'string free' federal funds on the highest priority needsof their communities, as those needs are determined by themand their citizens" (Murphy, 1975, pp. 133-34). Conse-quently, the New Federalism, at least as far as GeneralRevenue Sharing is at issue, does not explicitly involvethe national government in social policy outcomes at thestate or local level. National programs and goals that weredesigned to help balance the inequities at subnationallevels, are now left to the discretion of local officials.As Samuel Beer makes clear. General Revenue Sharing is adistributive policy and not part of a national redistribu-tive program (Beer, 1975).

The important questions for contemporary federalism andthe administration of intergovernmental relations revolvearound the query: What will happen to programs and goals

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that were targeted to combat national social problems oncesubnational governments no longer feel compelled to support,fund, innovate, or set minimum standards for social ser-vices? In short, what will be the fate of social policyoutcomes under the New Federalism?

THE NEW FEDERALISM AND SOCIAL POLICY OUTCOMES. Between theongoing monitoring study directed by the Brookings Institu-tion, and Caputo and Cole's recent research on the expendi-ture patterns, priorities and administrative changes underGeneral Revenue Sharing, some social policy outcomes arebeginning to become clear (Nathan, et al., 1975; Caputo andCole, 1974; 1975). It seems as though the social serviceprograms of the 1960's are not faring very well. Wheresocial services are receiving some support, it is not at allclear if it is because of a subnational social conscience,or the fact that previous federal programs and guidelinesencouraged new sets of political actors into the policyarena, so that they can now compete in the budgetary processfor a fair share.

It may be that without any counteracting federal influ-ence, local officials will be inclined to cater to the morepowerful interest groups, unless low-income and minoritygroups mobilize to bring pressure on the local politicalsystem. But, if current minority group pressure is corre-lated with the use of federal influence to gain access intothe local decision-making process, an important stimulus tosuch mobilization has been lost by the shift from cate-gorical grant programs to "no strings" sharing of nationally-gathered revenues.

The outlook for social policy program gains underGeneral (and perhaps Special) Revenue Sharing thus seemsbleak indeed. Goals that were thought of as nationallonly afew years ago are now passed back to subnational units with-out accountability incentives, expenditure conditions, ormeaningful policy guidelines. Yet there is no reason fordespair, i_f steps are taken to develop more responsivestate-local political-administrative systems. The NewFederalism can either revitalize local political life bybroadening the extent of citizen participation and sensi-tizing local administrators to a broader sense of valuesthan those generally fostered in technical MPA programs, orit can produce further deterioration of our political lifeby locking out of the decisional process those individuals,groups and interests which have only recently begun to gaineffective access through the stimulus of federal categoricalaid programs. Let's look now at some of the problems andpossibilities in administrative structure for a more respon-sible and effective new federalism.

ADMINISTRATIVE IMPLICATIONS AND IMPERATIVES. We hypothesizetwo factors that we believe will be among the crucial deter-minants of the social policy impact of revenue sharing.One is citizen participation requirements, on the premisethat a guaranteed, public access to the local political/administrative arena is both prerequisite to having one'spolicy interests heard and is also likely to be at leastpartially effective in having one's political interestsattended to. The other consists of the recruitment policiesand standards (and resulting levels of competence and

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concern) for state-local administrators. The hidden premisehere is that to enlarge the policy-making and life-improvingresponsibilities of state-local governments is to create animperative for both political and technical skills farbeyond those traditionally found at those levels. Let'selaborate a bit.

The special revenue sharing program that replaced mostof the prominent housing and urban development categoricalgrants is known as the Housing and Community Development Actof 1974. It does contain some specific national objectives:to develop viable urban communities by providing decenthousing and a suitable living environment, principally forpersons of low and moderate income. To assure that planssubmitted for obtaining the particular jurisdiction's for-mula share of funds go toward those objectives, the Actrequires formulation of a three-year strategy and a one-year incremental program of development, blighted areaelimination, and improved facilities and social services.It also requires "adequate citizen participation" and regu-lations define this as including a citizen participationplan, local dissemination of information, public hearings,and opportunities for citizen involvement in the developmentof each city's application for HCD funds. Those provisosadd up to a substantial set of expectations of competenceon the part of local officials (and local elected politicalleadership, too), and these expectations now apply to everystate, city, county and village beyond a very minimal size.

This last fact suggests the great (and largely unan-ticipated, we suspect) change from the past: earlierprograms in this area (urban renewal, public housing. ModelCities, etc.) were on a competitive local application basis.Those jurisdictions with alert leadership and competentofficials made successful applications; those without suchcapacities failed, and often had sense enough not to try forwhat they really didn't know how to handle. Now everybodyhas to fill out the forms. Will they do so meaningfully?Not, in far too many instances, until and unless a greatdeal of "Point IV-type" technical assistance flows from thefederal government to lower levels; and not unless thenational government does a thorough job of monitoring itsown procedural requirements vis-a-vis citizen participation.One cannot be very sanguine on either count, for one findsthat the evidences (given in part of the Act) of an intentionnot to let revenue sharing mean a total elimination of na-tional objectives and policy guidance are effectively under-cut by procedural provisions which implicitly tell theapplicant jurisdictions that they really don't have to worryabout how they do the job. Specifically, the Act statesthat applications "must be approved unless they describeneeds and objectives plainly inconsistent with generallyavailable information or purpose . . . activities which areplainly inappropriate."* That is, unless one blatantlyignores the stated objectives in one's rhetoric, one getsthe money even if the plan submitted is quite inadequate.

We use the Housing and Community Development specialrevenue sharing program as an example to point up the

*Office of the White House Press Secretary, Fact Sheet, 22 August1974.

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problems because it presents revenue sharing's best case;i.e., there are at least some ostensible safeguard provisionsin this act, as compared with the GRS program, which does notstate national objectives and does not (though renewallegislation pending may possibly change this) require publichearings and a citizen participation plan. Since it isclear that HCD is deficient, it follows a fortiori that GRSposes problems which may be soluble, or at least subject toamelioration, only if specific reforms of local governmentcapacity and decisional structure are inaugurated. Toinaugurate such is most likely to mean to be imposed by thenational government as a condition of continued aid—a pointwell made by Rep. Henry Reuss some time ago. One kind ofrecognition of the need is symbolized by the recent OMB-NSFjoint effort to identify areas of fruitful potential federalintervention to bolster state-local governing capacities,partly in explicit recognition of present inability of mostsuch jurisdictions to live up to the demand.s imposed by theNew Federalism.

Of many other administrative-political implicationsthat might be mentioned, space permits brief reference tobut one more, but a most interesting one. It is the thrustthat revenue sharing gives to the politicization of senioradministrative officials (department heads, especially) atthe local level. When categorical grants are awarded byfederal agencies on the basis of local proposals in func-tionally specific areas, and those areas are ones in whichnational-level lobbying is maintained by functionally spe-cific interest groups, then the skills needed by city/county department heads seeking a share of such funds are theskills of professional knowledge, professional contractsat state and local levels, and of administrative politics.Under general revenue sharing, and the more so as citizenparticipation increases, emphasis will shift toward thelegislative/representative style of politics: the ta.sk ofthe department head will be to build up a local constitu-ency of a kind that will impress the city council or boardof county supervisors. The politics-administration dividingline will be blurred even more than before, and the demo-cratic effectiveness of bureaucratic leadership, like thatof elected political leadership, will depend not less uponknowledge and skill of a technical sort, but more upon thekind of understanding for which a liberal arts undergraduateeducation is likely to be more relevant than that obtainedin the course of MPA training.

THE NEW FEDERALISM IN PERSPECTIVE. Some hard questions needto be asked. It is true, as Beer and others point out, thatthe transfer of only five to six billion dollars a year willnot in itself radically change the federal system (Beer,1975, p. 5). It is also true, however, that the idea ofunconditional revenue sharing might have an impact beyondits immediate area of operation, and should be assessed asif it will continue to expand. Again, to refer to Beer,"one can see the possibilities of a new localism" emergingfrom the philosophy behind the New Federalism (Beer, 1975,p. 5). What impact might this new localism have on socialpolicy outcomes? How will this new intergovernmental processaffect nationally defined priorities, citizen participationand problems of social equity? Revenue sharing will havenot one area of impact but several: on fiscal policy; on

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income distribution; on citizen participation; on thefederal-state-local power balance; and on the substanceof programs. In the last analysis the New Federalism needsto be assessed against social equity standards that weremade explicit under creative federalism. We have come along way in the policy responsibility and implementation ofsocial policies concerned with national problems of socialequity. If the New Federalism is to measure up and re-spond to this mandate, changes in philosophy and adminis-trative structure will be needed.

THE STATE OF THE ART. Turning now to the more generalquestion of: what have been the major recent contributionsto the literature on intergovernmental administration, asan aspect of administering public policy, we have a fewsupplementary comments to make.

This has not been a prolific area of specific focus inthe political science (or social science, generally) litera-ture of the past five years. The relevant writings have,had as their focus specific substantive areas of policy,rather than intergovernmental relations in the abstract orilL SS.- ^°^ example: Harold Wolman on housing policy (1971);Henry Lambright on science policy (1976); or Pressman andWildavsky's Implementation, a superb case study (1974).Among the small number of pieces focusing on Federalism andintergovernmental relations—and having a policy adminis-tration relevance of some significance, we suggest thefollowing: "Federalism" a National Journal Reprint (1975),the research of Deil S. Wright (perhaps the most objectiveand perceptive of workers in this vineyard), such as FederalGrants-in-Aid Perspectives and Alternatives, (1968) and hisarticle in Publius, "The States and Intergovernmental Rela-tions," (1972); fra Sharkansky's The Maligned States (1972)which makes the best current case for perceiving the stategovernments as effective units (contra the present author'sview); and "General Revenue Sharing and Federalism," aspecial issue of The Annals of the American Academy (May1975) , edited by David A. Caputo of Purdue, and variouspublications, seriation, of the Advisory Commission onIntergovernmental Relations and the House and Senate Sub-committees on Intergovernmental Relations. The writingsof practitioners and politicians in this field, frankly,have not been of sufficient analytic quality to merit morethan passing attention. Finally, we suggest that any seri-ous reader wishing to take a long look at intergovernmentalrelations begin with a solid text: W. Brooks Graves,American Intergovernmental Relations (1964).

In reviewing this literature, it occurs to us to sug-gest that a crosscutting matrix provides the best approach:work on a theory out of the studies of specific policyproblems being considered in a multi-level administrativecontext. The conclusion that can be reached here is thatresearch on intergovernmental administration is underde-veloped and needs to be understood as an interdependentprocess. Perhaps the current attention to the administra-tion of general and special revenue sharing will provide thefocus necessary to build a sound theory of intergovernmentalrelations.

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REFERENCES

Beer, Samuel H., "The Adoption of General Revenue Sharing: A Case Studyin the Pub.lic Sector Politics," Delivered at the 1975 Annual Meeting ofthe American Political Science Association, Sept. 2-5, 1975.

Caputo, David A., "General Revenue Sharing and American Federalism:Towards the Year 2000," The Annals of the American Academy of Politicaland Social Science, General Revenue Sharing and Federalism, Vol. A19,May 1975, 130-142.

Caputo, David A. and Richard L. Cole, "General Revenue Sharing Expendi-ture Decisions in Cities over 50,000"; Public Administration Review,Symposium on General Revenue Sharing, March/April (1975), 136-142.

Caputo, David A. and Richard L. Cole, Urban Politics and Decentralization,Lexington Mass.: Lexington Books, 1974.

Graves, Brooke W., American InterRovernmental Relations, New York:Scribner, 1964.

Grodzins, Morton, 'Itte American System, edited by Daniel J. Elazar,Chicago: Rand McNally and Co., 1966.

Lambright, Henry W., Governing Science and Technology, New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1976.

Murphy, John C. "General Revenue Sharing's Impact on County Government,"Public Administration Review, March/April (1975), 131-135.

Nathan, Richard P., et al. , Monitoring Revenue Sharing. Washington, D.C:The Brookings Institution, 1975.

National Journal Reprints, "Federalism," Introduction by Daniel J. Elazar,Vol. 7 (1975-76).

Pressman, Jeffery and Aaron Wildavsky, Implementation, Berkeley,California: University of California Press, 1973.

Reagan, Michael D., "The Pro and Con Arguments," The Annals, Vol. 419,May, 1975, 23-35.

Reagan, Michael D., The New Federalism, New York, Oxford UniversityPress, 1972. For a different perspective see: Daniel J. Elazar,American Federalism: A View From the States, 2nd edition. New York:Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1972.

Sharkansky, Ira, The Maligned States, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972.

Wolman, Harold, Politics of Federal Housing, New York: Dodd, Mead, 1971.

Wright, Deil S., Federal Grants-in-Aid: Perspectives and Alternatives,Washington, D.C: American Enterprize, 1968.

_, "The States and Intergovernmental Relations," Publius, Vol. 1,No. 2 (Winter 1972), 8-68.

LEGISLATIVE-ADMINISTRATIVE RELATIONSJames A. Thurber

The American University

INTRODUCTION. There is not an extensive recent literatureon the relationship between Congress and the bureaucracy,but this relationship is central to most of our nationalpublic policy. There is also a surprising lack of system-atic analyses of state legislative-administrative relations.The linkage between Congress and the administration has beenprofoundly influenced in the last decade by extensive reform

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