UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The way people think about public administration is often based on everyday experiences with public service employees — getting a driver's license or a vaccine card, for example. But public administration is much more. It is both a function and core element of what people think of as the state in general and of democracy itself.

Modern governments — both in the U.S. and abroad — give public administrators the means to implement policies and promote democratic values as well as the authority to make trade-offs, writes Anthony Bertelli, Sherwin-Whitmore Professor of Liberal Arts and professor of public policy and political science, in his book, "Democracy Administered: How Administration Shapes Representative Government," published by Cambridge University Press.

"Politicians don't know all the answers. They delegate powers to bureaucracies that are populated with experts, and those bureaucracies build the capacity of the state to solve particular problems," Bertelli said.

His book considers how the actions of public safety officials might impact democratic values. Using as an example a Capitol police officer, who on Jan. 6, 2021, had the authority to decide whether a protestor would be permitted to move past barriers, Bertelli says democratic values influenced the officer.

"These are individuals with a very narrow amount of discretion at the street level, but just thinking about it in the whole structure of the state, each Capitol police officer can reshape the way American democracy operates," Bertelli said. "That's something we don't typically think about, and that's what the book is trying to focus our attention on. Public safety officials should reinforce the values of their representative governments, as long as they don't violate the law."

"We are in an age of anxiety about democratic values," he continued. "It's an important time to be thinking about this problem. If unelected officials can reshape democratic values and the way the democracy in which we live works, then we ought to ask two questions. Do they do it, and how should they do it?"

What are the consequences for democracy?

Bertelli advises those who advocate for a particular kind of governance to be clear about both what that kind of governance can and cannot do and its consequences for democracy.

"Democracy is defined by the people. Everyone votes with equal weight," Bertelli said. "Your vision of the good life doesn't matter more than mine, and we both ought to have the opportunity to implement our vision so long as it comports with a sort of reasonable pluralism. Democracy is really about everybody, not just winners and losers."

The book's goal and the goal of a related international research project are to help people understand what it means for public administration to be part of the state and part of democracy in a country.

European Research Council

Bertelli says that researchers need more fieldwork, more time thinking about and working on questions related to the role of public service and reshaping democracy.

"Democracy Administered: How Administration Shapes Representative Government" provides the catalyst for a $2.8 million, multi-year, interdisciplinary research project funded by a grant from the European Research Council. Titled "Representative Governments through Democratic Governance," the project includes faculty members from Europe as well as Bertelli and other Penn State scholars. It began on Jan. 1 and will be hosted by the Institut Barcelona Estudis Internacionals. 

During the project, Bertelli and the research team will examine how public administrators reinforce values as policy workers from various sectors serving discretionary authority. They will use qualitative research, surveys, lab experiments, and machine learning techniques to search for a syntax of value reinforcement in legal statutes dating back to World War II. 

With collaborators and research planned in Italy, Spain, Belgium, and the United Kingdom, Bertelli says the project "aims to build a forum to talk more broadly about these kinds of issues with members of government, the public and academics. We are not just building a network of collaborators; we are promoting a better understanding about the problems of democratic governance."

"Professor Bertelli's ERC grant establishes a long-term grant with the Institut Barcelona Estudis Internacionals, an international thought leader on the global challenges to governance, and his research lab will conduct cutting edge research and facilitate academic debate among top scholars from across the globe," said Lilliard Richardson, director of the School of Public Policy.  

In the eyes of an average citizen, public administration officials do not have to have much power to impact how democracy works in the U.S. or anywhere else, according to Bertelli.

"Public safety officials have enforced masking policies, and others stepped into enforcement roles because of inaction," he said. "Scholars and policymakers need to consider the legitimate exercises of discretion in public administration." 

Bertelli has been working on these issues for more than 20 years and credits Penn State with the opportunity to make a difference in the field.

"Public administration and democratic values have been my passion since I began in the field, and this project will help put my research into practice," he concluded. "This work is a synthesis of the humanities and the social sciences; it is the kind of project that could only happen here in the College of the Liberal Arts."