Rescuing state capacity: Proceduralism, the new politicization, and public policy
本文指出公共政策领域常忽视国家行政能力面临的威胁，分析了程序主义规则束缚和特朗普时期公共服务的政治化加剧这两大挑战，对理解当代美国行政国家困境有参考价值。
Abstract The administrative capacity of a government matters enormously to public policy design and implementation. But it is usually taken for granted in public policy settings, a background variable left largely unconsidered. This essay argues that the fields of public policy and public management need to more directly consider threats to state capacity. A creeping threat is a tendency towards proceduralism that layers in rules, veto points, and delay that constrains state actors from achieving critical goals. A more immediate threat for the American administrative state is a dramatic increase in the politicization of public service delivery. This new model of politicization pursued by President Trump features three key attributes: 1) a personalist infrastructure of presidential power that centers on loyalty above all other values; 2) governing by fear via conspiratorial messaging towards the public sector and threatening individual public servants; and 3) a weakening of civil service protections that blurs the traditional distinction between political appointees and civil servants and enables purges of those deemed to be disloyal.