Administrative Responsibility in Democratic Government

Abstract

Administrative responsibility is not less important to democratic government than administrative efficiency; it is even a contributor to efficiency in the long run. To the subject of administrative responsibility, Professor Carl J. Friedrich has made several interesting and sagacious contributions, and lie deserves our gratitude for having reintroduced its discussion among primary problems. Professor Friedrich begins his article in Public Policy with some remarks on the Munich Pact, with the intention presumably of showing that administrative responsibility to Parliament is ineffective. In the article in Public Policy to which reference has been made, Professor Friedrich takes a position radically different from my own as hitherto stated, though most of the facts to which both of us refer are common ground. Professor Friedrich imputes to Goodnow "an almost absolute distinction" in this functional difference. As a matter of fact, Goodnow uses the term "mainly busied with the discharge of one of these functions," and deserves credit for the broad distinction.