The challenges of running the federal government in the United States has created an avalanche of headlines. It was not President Donald Trump's unpredictable downsizing of the federal workforce. The news centers on billionaire Elon Musk, brutal slashing of expenditures without taking into account elected members of Congress. Certainly an interesting time and ironic in that the US is preparing to celebrate its 258 anniversary next year, we are not alone. Comparable overhauling of democratic governments has occurred beyond us, borders in Latin America, Africa and so on. This domestic gut punch really got the attention of Chris coliba, a distinguished professor of Public Affairs and Administration at the University of Kansas. He's put out a call for a re examination of the academic disciplines accreditation standards, in response to his belief that there needs to be a redoubling of the effort to ensure democratic standards shape the profession, government and our future Professor. Welcome to the Kansas reflector podcast. Thank you, Tim. Pleasure to be here. Thank you for taking the time. So let's start with some foundational elements here, perhaps you can just begin with the context of the prevailing government attitudes or perspectives that you see. What gives you pause about what's going on right now that led to your call for action? Sure. So
my field of public administration has long had a footing of supporting Democratic administrations, small d, Democratic administrations throughout history, right? So in a non partisan way, whether a Republican or a Democrat was in in the administrative roles and leadership roles, and throughout that time, there has been ongoing work to improve the effectiveness of government service delivery, ensuring its responsiveness to societal needs, ensuring that it's connected to political will as well as well as legal precedents and obligations, so that those public servants that work on our behalf are rooted in constitutional obligations to follow the Constitution and to ensure that the rules of democracy are followed and enforced when necessary. What we've seen in recent years is that the erosion of some of these foundational norms and standards of democracy that have guided the practice of of small d Democratic administrations for for generations, you mentioned 250 it's anniversary of the country, these are long Standing precedents. We're in an era now that's been characterized in the political science literature and as democratic backsliding, the concerns of the deformation or the deconstruction of some of the democratic norms that have guided the administration of of American Society for for generations. And so this is what led me to to write this piece in a variety of other pieces associated with it, to call on my field to revisit what those fundamental standards are for democracy. And so I've reviewed classical political philosophy, constitutional law, contemporary debates and concerns and considerations and in pieces that I've written on the subject laid out a clear set of standards that I believe are have guided American government practices in a democracy for generations, but are in need of a revisitation and a deeper consideration. And what I'm saying in this piece is that our standards to accredit our Master of Public Administration programs are not as clearly defined as they need to be in order to defend the
profession. This backsliding, it's exploitation of loopholes and rules or regulations or the law, and it runs on the margins of the democratic system. So the fear here would be, maybe a populist leader might get elected and use that, use that new authority to to create a more authority state of government, authoritarian government, yeah, and a movement and, and I just to bring it home. In the United States, currently, the Trump administration is ousting civil servants. They have a lot of expertise. I think of it the US Department of Agriculture, meat inspection or the Environmental Protection Agency and clean water. These are the areas where, if we're just going to shrug our shoulders and walk away and people don't understand the consequences of some of this, that that is the danger we're looking at in the mirror.
Yeah, yeah. We have, there's a lot of things that govern. Government does on our behalf that ride below the surface, right below our radar screens. We've named a few, clean air, clean water, safe foods, road infrastructure, you name it. There's so many things that government services provide that we we have taken for granted when you make attempts in the reforms that we're seeing coming out of Washington now to deconstruct the, basically, the apparatus of federal government, the ripple effects can be profound and deeply troubling in many of these respects. And we'll, we'll see how deep these cuts go and how sustained they are, but we are seeing a reformation of democratic institutions at the federal level that could fundamentally alter the nature of our
democracy. You said it well, but this is one quote from you. This call to action is offered up during a time of crisis for the public administration of democracy is a time when democratic principles around rights and tolerance checks on the concentration of power, adherence to the rule of law and under threat in democracies on every continent. So it's not just America, but it's elsewhere.
It is the trends are occurring in pretty much all established democracies around the world in one way, shape or form, to varying degrees, and I'm happy to illustrate, but it's happening all so
you know, this isn't to say, in your view, the government doesn't need a shake up every now and then, right? Yeah. I
mean, Thomas Jefferson was probably one of the first to say that every generation needs its own version of a revolution. When he said that, though he didn't mean to deconstruct the state and build it up from scratch every time, what he meant is, is that as societies evolve and become more complex and problem, new problems arise, the chances to refresh and review some of the fundamental principles of practice in the way that government operates are necessary. And throughout our history, we've had those reforms, those waves of reforms, that have come through, but the rules of doing those reforms are usually guided by things like reason, thoughtful, enterprise, adherence to existing constitutional obligations and contracts, all of which, or many of which, are being upset right now with some of the reforms that are being advanced in Washington, DC. So there's a there's a reasoned way to do reforms of democratic institutions, and then there are those that are basically blowing up aspects of it and rebuilding it into forms that we may not recognize. I'm thinking about
something as fundamental as a separation of powers between the three branches of government, judiciary, the legislative and the executive, and those are just being massively blurred as changes are being made via the executive that I think have really been the providence of of the legislative and if they're going to ignore judicial authority in the administration, that also is dangerous.
Yeah, there's a was a fringe theory of unitary executive theory that was floated in conservative, ultra conservative circles for for a couple decades now, that is now coming to the fore, and it's basically attempts to concentrate power into the executive officer. And in essence, what we're concerned about here is also the ability of the executive branch, and particularly the president in this case, to essentially more court rulings or legislative review and oversight. And so these checks and balances are part of the fundamental norms. It's the rule. It's rule number two of democracy. The first one is that citizens have power. The second is, is that power needs to be checked and not concentrated in the hands of any one branch or any one individual. And so these are, this is a serious concern. Yeah,
fund, fundamental for sure. So in your new general art cleaver educators, deans and researchers like yourself, public administration roles to build upon accreditation standards to get at this issue. Let's talk, if you could explain for us what accreditation standards are in terms of higher education and universities.
So to understand accreditation in this context, we need to take a step back and look at the matter of professions and societies have evolved. Civilizations have evolved through the specialization of professions we often find the top of mind comes to doctors and lawyers and ministers are actually some of the first professions as well, and in those evolving frameworks for these professional practices, these professions. And self organize and create norms and standards for themselves to guide and dictate their actions. An MD has to go through a very rigorous training and education and ongoing continuing education to get accredited and certified, essentially to be able to treat you, to operate on you, to give to subscribe medicines and whatnot. Same thing for lawyers and so on and so forth. And I would argue, as well as plumbers and your electricians, right, they don't just let anyone off the street to go in and do the wiring of your home, I would argue, and we argue that the administration of the people's business through public administration is no different. And so several decades ago, the network of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration called NASA was founded in the early 1970s and out of that grew the development of an accreditation standards for educating those who are getting a Master of Public Administration degree, and in that, there is a set of core learning competencies that have evolved over time. And these are things that every public administrator we think should know and note and to do well. And those standards are very good. And so I suggesting that we we get rid of them at all. What I think we need to do is refine them to the point and putting a sharper point on some of the democratic standards elements of this work, including things that you've mentioned before, individual rights, checks on power, promotion of tolerance, the use of evidence and as best you can fact based information to guide policy making and implementation. Some of the things that we we had taken for granted, honestly, because we had a stable democracy for generations, we were able to look beyond the borders to think about how these principles can apply to authoritarian states, even, and now that we have a crisis at home, we need to revisit what those fundamentals are to ensure that the political wills the partisan politics of local jurisdictions, don't get in the way. And basically suggest, yes, you can protect the whites of the rights of certain people, but, but not the my others, which goes against constitutional obligations that public administrators have. So there's, there's a need to fine tune these standards, to reflect and to respond to the current crisis of the day.
Can you? Can you? You want to make the the rules, the the ideas and the goals more explicit in terms of illuminating dedication to democracy? Can you think of just an example, just that of such a rule that maybe you say the rule is, democracy is good, but maybe, maybe it's the ideas in these documents elaborate
on that, yeah, be more precise. So we don't have a clear
standard in our accreditation standards relative to constitutional obligations and adherence to the rule of law. It's implied, very much implied, and it's very often taught, but it's not a sort of bulwark foundational standard. There's no standard that explicitly references the need to use evidence and reasoned assertions regarding the analysis of policy alternatives and the implementation of policies and the assessment of impacts of policies, so that we need to be able to protect public administrators, to be able to ground their work in some some semblance of truth claims. We can debate what those are, but in the very least, we need to adhere to some core standards about, well, what is an observable corresponding fact of an observable phenomenon? We're in a very post modern moment right now where alternative facts organize lying and are being pervaded and used to set public policies, and it's very troubling, especially as you look at the history of this fine country. We evolved in tandem with the evolution of science and reason, of applying those ideals to the functions of government, and if we start to lose those foundational ideas, what are we left with? We left with a highly politicized apparatus that is then subject to to the whims of authoritarian movements. And that's a concern, a real concern.
How do you take academic standards that are written by an association and and embraced by universities? How do you get that down to this? Student level, how do you how do you apply those so that people emphasize reason, the use of evidence and finding truth through science, and try to hold up their hand and ward off organizational lying or this political manipulation, or conspiracy theory theories and the like. Well, they
get integrated into the courses we teach. All good instructors will have learning objectives tied to their course syllabi. Will use a variety of pedagogical techniques, from from case studies to empirical analysis to historical analysis to Philo philosophical treaties analysis. The field of public administration does have a code of ethics based out of built out of the and supported by the American Society of public administration, there would be a review of those those standards and recognize and and teach the students to understand When these violations of democratic norms are being transgressed, and what are the options that they have in expressing dissent, or certainly in the best cases, respond, being responsive to those democratic norms. So
you're talking about master's degree PhD students as well. Oh, undergrad. Okay, so really what you're trying to do is insert into the Caribbean more precise language to help people who go work in City Hall somewhere to grapple with somebody who walks in and starts talking about a conspiracy theory about election fraud or something like that. So just how to frame those conversations? Maybe, yeah,
I talk about a lot now about narrative leadership, right? So and providing public administrators and, you know, pro democracy, anyone along this continuum. I want to be very clear, too. Tim, that this isn't just a classical liberal conservative debate, right, classical conservativism. That's, you know, when we think of Ronald Reagan, for example, was a small d Democrat right. He did not violate some of the foundational norms that we're talking about here today. Republican administrations, for generations have bolstered and strengthened these standards, and the language that's also being used by by the ultra right is using some of this language, but I would argue they're using it in ways that are not accurate to the foundational premises. So I just want to be clear, clear about that in this context. So I suppose to
the damaging of a democracy can done, be done from the right and the left?
Oh, sure. Oh, it absolutely can. I mean, you can see violations of individual rights on on, on both ends of that continuum. You know, I want to caution against both side, isms all the time, okay? And gas lighting at the same time, she's thinking
about the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. And absolutely
so left leaning movements, as well as right right movements, have thwarted and deconstructed democracy. So there's not one side that's has the moral high ground, although I would argue that there have been good examples of populist movements in this country that have worked to reform democratic institutions and not tear them down, and any populist movements, and those include the labor movement and the civil rights movement, the women's rights movements and whatnot. They've pressured government to reform but have done so using the rules of democracy, by expanding the rights, the franchise of rights and citizen rights, to broadening circles of individuals. So that's what marks a small d Democrat from authoritarian. Authoritarianism wants to restrict rights, wants to put limits and instill a hierarchy, a hierarchy of rights of who has and who is deserving. And those rights will be disposed, will be bestowed through patronage, on those who agree with whatever the regime is saying. And that's, you know, I'm not saying we're there yet, but these are the concerns that are circulating in our heads.
Try to think, I've covered the State House in Topeka for 20 years on a regular basis, and I think about how many times it's unimaginable, how many times I've heard the rule of law. We got to do this. We abide by the rule of law, and when if you crack that kind of foundation, I think it's one of the things that separates us from a lot of countries, that foundation where if you're wrong, somehow or somebody does something terrible, well, there's a process. You can go to the federal district court or the state court, and you can have an independent arbitrator look at it, and you can evaluate who's right, who's. Wrong, and sometimes that's a successful process. Sometimes it's not, but to adhere to those standards, and the rule of law is such a foundational element of our society that to see that eroding away, that is scary. Yeah,
it and there are examples of this happening across the world, right? Hungary is a good example where, basically reforms advanced by urban who is, who is democratically elected. I mean, this is one of the challenges of a democracy that Franklin and Jefferson both foresaw, is that, you know, Ben Franklin, was asked Mr. Franklin, what do we got here? And he says, Well, you have a we have a republic. Madam, if you can keep it right. Notion is, is that that citizen authority democracies is a powerful signal and but, but the challenge is, is, what happens when a majority of those, that population essentially votes to deconstruct its own democratic apparatus, and we're seeing elements of that, and it has happened in other states around the world. So this is a challenge that we have, and I think this is where we're closely monitoring how the Supreme Court rules on some of these executive orders that are coming out, and whether they're going to play some boundaries around, around some of these, these concerns, and then the political side of this is evidenced in in Congress, and we'll see whether Congress is is able to slow The train a bit and allow for more reasoned reviews. You know, we're leaning into wanting to take a deep look at the at the administrative state, without calling names and without deriding the good works that people that are hired to do our work for us, on our behalf, our friends and neighbors who are working in these contexts, there are places and times to do reasons. Reforms infusing more technological advances and efficiencies in the federal government is desperately needed. Reforms to our civil service hiring procedures is definitely needed, but do it in a reasoned fashion that can bring people along, and the end result will be a stronger democracy as a result. So that's what we're leaning towards, or wanting to see happen.
All right, before we go, I think we could chat long and hard about this, but I wanted you to touch on the new research center. Stood up, I think in 2024 that you're directing the Center for democratic governance. You want to just tell us a little bit what that's about and what you're trying to accomplish.
Yeah, so my position here at the University of Kansas is it's a endowed chair position that's been held with by some leading luminaries in our field who have asked some very big and critical questions of the time, and I was humbled to be asked to take this on. What I thought to do with the establishment of the center is to create an institutional repository for the asking of big questions, particularly around democracy. And so we started this center. It's interdisciplinary. So we've got faculty affiliates from philosophy, education, communications, Latin American Studies, law, science, my own field of public administration and public affairs, among others, American literature even. And we are investigating what it means to live in a democracy through a multi faceted lens, and we're launched a series of discussions on pressing matters. Later this week, we have one on the courts and whether they call balls and strikes well, and we'll have another conversation about civic education, civic virtue. We're also going to have another one on the international context, what's happening in Eastern Europe and Russia as in regards to these democratic governance issues. And there'll be more of these kinds of activities going forward. We run webinars, and we've got some research programs that are anchoring this project as well that I can talk about at some other late, some other time, but it, it they focus on core democratic ideas and principles.
Yeah, interesting. Okay, good. I think we're gonna have to leave it there. I want to thank our our podcast guest, Chris Cole coleba, excuse me. Coliba, Distinguished Professor of Public Affairs and Administration at the University of Kansas. Thank you for your time today. Thanks for inviting me. Thank you. Okay?
