Americans will regret their administration when it is no longer doing their jobs
In the novel by Herman Hesse, a journey to the East, a group of worshipers embark on a spiritual journey led by Leo – a seemingly modest employee who takes care of their needs and organizes them. But in the middle of the trip, Leo suddenly disappears and the pilgrimage trip falls into chaos. Those who believed that they were the real leaders of the trip were completely confused without the quiet but significant presence of Leo.
The same risk follows from the loss of experienced state professionals – professional civil servants, administrators and experts who maintain the smooth functioning of the modern country, usually far from the spotlight.
Americans doubt how worthy Trump is to rule
When they are suddenly dismissed – as is the case in key US agencies such as USAID, FBI, CIA, National Scientific Foundation (NSF), National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration and National Institutes of Health – Management does not continue as usual under new leadership. Rather, fragmentation, ineffectiveness and dysfunction predominate – just like Hesse's pilgrims.
Although only one person in Hesse history, Leo represents all anonymous bureaucrats and civil servants who support the ship's ship on the surface.
At the heart of this problem is the Dilemma « Principal – Agent » – a concept introduced by economists Stephen Ross, Michael Jenson and William Mecling in the 1970s to describe a problem that can arise when one country acts on behalf of the other. (The concept « principal – agent » refers to the problem that arises when one country (the principal) hires another (agent) to perform a task on its behalf, but the interests of the agent are not always in line with those of the principal – ed.)
Musk cannot report hundreds of fired that he has thought and are at work
In government, political leaders (principals) rely on bureaucrats or officials (agents) to turn their decisions into actions. While political leaders naturally want their directives to be implemented accurately, bureaucrats are guided by their own specialized knowledge, ethics and imperatives to prioritize long -term stability over short -term results.
In order to overcome this discrepancy, the superiors in the second Trump administration seek to replace or simply eliminate agents. But such purges usually have the opposite effect, because since a paranoid leader eliminates his own agents, he no longer has the means of effective management.
Paranoia is a dangerous way of thinking in management.
- A leader who constantly suspects his own employees in disloyalty can begin to see enemies where they do not exist – as with Trump's perception of threats coming from the « deep state ».
- The result is a vicious circle: with the dismissal or relocation of their posts to more and more employees, institutional knowledge is lost, management becomes less effective, and the fears of the leader are exacerbated by the dysfunction he himself created.
- Instead of a smoothly working administration, management becomes reactive, chaotic and unable to long -term planning.
This can be manifested in several ways.
For agencies such as the FBI and the CIA, forced retirement and resignation of staff for a fee inevitably eliminates the expertise needed to monitor national security threats, weakens morality and discourages future employees. Moreover, the replacement of experienced professionals with political loyal people risks compromising the collection, analysis and sharing of intelligence (some allies of the United States may not want to share sensitive information, fearing that it may fall into the hands of Ilon Musk or Tulsei Gabard), which leads to the highest decisions.
The US foreign policy will also be affected, which, with the destruction of USAID, will lose its long -standing ties with local communities around the world, and this will weaken the diplomatic scope and influence of America and make it difficult for the US strategic interests.
And the loss of experienced agencies such as NSF will prevent research, delay technological innovations and weaken America's ability to respond to emerging challenges and risks, such as those arising from artificial intelligence, climate change or public health crises.
German sociologist Max Weber, who laid the foundations for modern administrative theory, shows that professional bureaucracy is required for effective management. Professional civil servants understand the complex processes behind budgeting, law enforcement, disasters and infrastructure projects. Without rules and merit based systems that maintain the functioning of the government beyond the whims of political leadership, government is falling apart.
| Equally dangerous is the attempt to manage the public administration as a private company in which success and failure are measured only by accounting terms: efficiency, cost and profit savings. |
Although fiscal responsibility is important, the application of corporate -type financial control without understanding public sector goals can have catastrophic consequences. A financial controller or accountant borrowed from Tesla may establish potential state savings that seem rational in the balance sheet, but which will lead to much higher costs in the long run.
| A striking example of the real world is the 2010 SKAT scandal (SKAT). In an effort to rationalize the activity and reduce the costs SKAT carried out aggressive abbreviations to the staff and implemented other reforms to improve « efficiency » – such as the disposal of internal units for detection of fraud, awarding the external contractors of critical functions for collecting taxes and betting on a lot of work. The result? Criminals took advantage of the weakened system to get around $ 2 billion in the form of fraudulent tax payments. The alleged cost reduction measures eventually cost Denmark much more money than they were saved. |
Treatment of governments as businesses can undermine their main functions. The well -managed administration requires not only financial supervision, but also institutional knowledge, strategic prediction and a deep understanding of the unique requirements of management. Priority to short -term savings over long -term stability weakens the state capacity, makes public services unreliable and opens doors for corruption, ineffectiveness and systemic failure.
Through the aggressive contraction of key agencies and examining career officials as opponents, not as experts, the Trump administration moves from the traditional dilemma principal – an agent – when the bureaucrats oppose the leadership – to the « dilemma of the paranoid principle », in which the leader in a desperate attempt to affirm the dominion Effectively.
As in the « journey to the East », where the Pilgrims turn out to be lost without Leo, as well as a government, which fires too many experienced employees, may soon be without the adhesive ingredient that kept everything together.
A leader, who is also a paranoid – who sees potential enemies in his own agents – risks isolating in an administration that is both ineffective and deeply unstable.
Sammy Makhrum is a policy adviser and a professor of practice at the Brussels School of Economics and Department of Solvay.
The « Analysis » section presents different perspectives, it is not necessarily the expressed opinions that they coincide with the editorial position of Dnevnik.
