Policy Sciences 14 (1982) 165-178 165 Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam - Printed in the Netherlands

Citizens' Voluntary Governing Boards: Waiting for the Quorum* SCOTT GREER

Urban Research Center, Universit.v of Wisconsin-Milwaukee P.O. Box 413, Milwaukee. W15320l. U.S.A.

A B S T R A C T

In complex societies formal power, legitimacy, and responsibility are typically allocated to councils, or governing boards. This is an old strand in American political culture, strengthened by the growth of private not-for-profit organizations and concern for citizens' representation. It is also a growing trend in Great Britain, West German5, , and other modern societies. Such boards are often taken for granted; we think we understand them, hence the value of investigating the "obvious." In this essay they are examined with respect to their external and internal relations (or struct ure), their problems and performance (or processes), and the blurred nature of their authority in an "'interpenetrated" society where public and private interests are inextricably intertwined. Illustrations are derived from the author's research in the governance of labor union locals, municipal governments and reform movements, urban renewal efforts, community mental health centers, and private hospital governing boards.

T h e first po l i t i ca l s t ruc tu re eve r e v o l v e d by h u m a n i t y was the c i t izens ' g o v e r n i n g

boa rd . T h e m o m e n t the bas ic soc ie ta l uni t e x t e n d s b e y o n d the band , the smal l g r o u p

un i t ed by kin a n d ma t ing , there is the p r o b l e m of r econc i l ing the in teres ts o f l ineages.

These a re the ear l ies t o f the pers is tent sub-un i t s wh ich exis t in " a n t a g o n i s t i c c o o p e r a -

t i o n , " and the s o l u t i o n to the i r conf l ic t is, regular ly , the counc i l o r c i t izens ' g o v e r n i n g

b o a r d . Th is c o u n c i l r ep re sen t s the l ineages t h r o u g h the m e m b e r s h i p o f the i r heads ,

a n d the heads in tu rn c h o o s e a c h a i r m a n . M o s t g o v e r n a n c e t o o k place w i th in the

k insh ip g r o u p , but w h e n this was no t suf f ic ien t to p re se rve the n o r m a l peace o f the

la rger g r o u p , it was necessary fo r the counc i l o f elders to dea l wi th the p r o b l e m . T h e y

ra re ly had a b s o l u t e a u t h o r i t y , fo r there are a lways c o m m o n a l i t i e s wh ich c ross -cu t

l ineages ; one o f the m o s t o b v i o u s e x a m p l e s is age, fo r f r e q u e n t l y y o u n g m e n were

in i t i a t ed t o g e t h e r by age, f o r m a l l y o r i n fo rma l ly , and r e t a ined b o n d s wh ich c o m p e t e d

* This paper is based in part on research supported by The National Center for Health Services Research, Department of Health and Human Services. U.S. Government Grant No. R01-HS-03238-02.

0032 2687' 82:0000 0000:$02.75 �9 1982 Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company

166

with, if they did not transcend, kin differences (Mair, 1964). Thus we can see, in the simpler societies studied by kucy Mair, the primordial origin of governing boards,

public or private - and originally both public and private, joining the public and

private realms. When Aristotle sharply separated the family, consequently, f rom the polity, he was making a significant political statement, for it had not been so very long since political representation in Athens had been through the lineages. The spatializa-

tion of citizenship is a very modern phenomenon and we have not yet learned all of its

implications. Contemporary organizational theory also leads to the primacy of the governing

board. John Kenneth Galbraith put it succinctly - "We are ruled by committee"

(Galbraith, 1973). But to expand the meaning of the phrase, we would have to discuss

the differentiation of tasks in large scale organizations, first between control and

expert advice, then within each category, and the problem of integration. Knowledge

must be checked with knowledge, there should be continual interaction between what was planned, how it was executed, what was learned from the execution about (and

beyond) the plan, and how the plan could be improved. This is possible only through

continual counselling among informed and /o r powerful participants, and this leads

inevitably to the council of the "chief ones," that is, the governing board.

Governing boards are ubiquitous phenomena in the control and direction of all societies above a minimal level of complexity, yet they have rarely been considered

generically. In this discussion the outlines of their nature provide some guidelines to serious investigation, and within them I have indicated some tentative conclusions

based upon my own research. First I will consider governing boards in terms of their external relations and their

internal structure. Such questions arise as these: why do such boards come about and

what are their ties to other aspects of the society? What is the origin of their power in

the participation of "others" in their vestiture, and how is this t ransformed into

representation of groups, fractions, and interests? Secondly, what is the internal order of boards? What common role-systems emerge, what norms - in short, what culture

holds for such parliamentary bodies? Within the confines of this culture, and using it, what kind of social organization - distribution of tasks and influence on behavior -

can be expected? Finally, what specific social actors, per s o n a e in the game, affect and are affected by the use, adoption, and changes of the board's culture?

It is also important to consider governing boards as problematical, in both their persistence and function. What are the hazards of governing boards, existing between tyranny and anarchy? What devices prevent civil war on the one hand, tyranny on the

other? This brings us to the basic question: do we usually deal, not with democratic councils, but with plebiscites of selected persons who ratify the decisions of the full-time staff?. Are boards worth studying?

The generic discussion applies to governing boards p e r se, but because of our situation in large scale society it is important to note the blurring of the boundaries between public and private. A divigation on the nature of the governing boards of

167

private, not-for-profit organizations, emphasizes the problems of legitimacy in such groups.

Because my major empirical research has been in the United States, this argument will primarily deal with governing boards, public and private, in the United States.

This research has dealt with local labor unions, municipal governments, municipal reform movements, urban renewal efforts, community mental health centers, and,

currently, private hospital governing boards (S. Greer, 1959, 1963, 1966: S. Greer and A. Greet, 1980).

External and Internal Relations

Governing boards may be considered from both the molar and the molecular perspec-

tive; we can be concerned with their external and their internal relations (S. Greer,

1959). Externally, they are always representative of some population or interest; they will represent symbolic, vicarious, and "real" interests, and sometimes be accountable

for the fortunes of those interests. Internally, they will inevitably develop their own "culture" or ways of proceeding.

Governing boards are meant to represent the parts of the population which must be

taken into account in their policy decisions. That is the part which is crucial to their

ability to implement their plans and, from another point of view, one could say that the

function of the board is to co-opt the forces necessary to make policy, to govern . Thus,

the representative character of the board is an indicator of its ability to act. However, those who are represented and whose power is wielded in absent ia may demand a

price: their participation, at the board level or at a more local level, in the formulation

of a position for their "chief man" to promote.

These relationships become more real when we consider: What of a local labor union with a membership of 10,000, whose meeting hall has only 300 seats? In short,

how much face-to-face participation is necessary for what degree of responsiveness to the rank and file? And from another angle, what of the Community Mental Health

Center election process, in a county where the only voters in the election were the

incumbent member of the board and the person who drove her to the polls? In short,

the paragraph above may give an erroneous impression of (l) the clarity with which the process is defined, (2) the degree of participation in the process and, most

importantly, (3) the relationship between participation andrepresentat ion. And mea- sures are tricky. In one study, proport ionate representation of ethnics in the position

of union steward was taken at first as a measure of racial integration in the local union. On closer observation it was discovered that blacks were over-represented in one union which was notorious for its racism. Blacks were favorites for the job with the professional business agents of the union because, as minority workers, their purchase on the job was weak; controlled by the business agents of the union they would not allow union action on the job without the mandate for it f rom the office. Thus the meaning of participation as it relates to represen ta t ion must be carefully examined (S. Greet 1959).

168

In the most simple terms, then, how shall the "representatives" be chosen? The

Athenians chose their magistrates by lot, but as the class differentiation of the population progressed it became necessary to compensate the poorer members for

public service, and eventually it was decided to pay citizens for attending public

meetings. Some contemporary labor unions fine members for non-attendance, as do

the governments of some states (S. Greet, 1959). One wonders about the value of

participation which must be coerced or rewarded with extrinsic values. Some alterna- tives are virtual representation, in which all may vote and none are forced to, with the

assumption that those with real concern will vote and therefore be represented; or a

"stratified sample" in which the vote will be weighted by the presumed importance of the issue to the given class of voter (de Grazia, 1963). The early property requirements

for voting in the United States reflect the latter philosophy.

So public and private governing boards, given the broadest franchise, may have a shaky hold on the public and its acceptance. The Dade County metropolitan govern-

ment, widely hailed by civic liberals in the 1950's, was created by a fluke election in

which one-fifth of the voters bothered to turn out; presidents of the United States have

been elected by twenty-six percent of the eligible voters (S. Greer, 1963). The problem

of matching participation with representation is a continual dilemma for those who believe in a democratic polity.

Parliamentary Culture

Any group which meets together with some regularity and has assigned tasks will

develop its own rules, formal and informal, which may be called its "culture." Parlia-

mentary bodies, i.e., "talk" bodies, are particularly prone to such rules; usually

dominated by people who talk for a living, they must set the limits of discourse, else

they would be meeting around the clock. So effective governing boards adhere to ground rules. Sometimes they are aware of them (the most popular course in Ameri-

can labor union education is Parliamentary Procedure), and sometimes they simply

accept the broad norms of decision, delegation, and chairmanship. In the English- speaking states, these are often based upon Robert's Rules qf Order, a recipe for conducting meetings of public bodies. There has been little research into the origin and

meaning of such "Rules" but it is clear that they were derived from long, cumulative experience with the processes of parliamentary confusion, filibustering, delay, and sabotage. Skillfully used, of course, the Rules of Order may be just as disruptive of discourse and the orderly finding of opinion as the mayhem and discord they are meant to prevent. However, in the rules there is usually the opportunity for redress of wrong, for setting the vessel back on its course. In some degree, parl iamentary culture within its own limits is self-correcting.

Within the broad limits of such ground rules, the governing board develops its set of roles, from chairperson of the board to sergeant at arms. More importantly perhaps, it develops its informal sub-units, cliques and rival cliques. One reason for the emer-

169

gence of cliques is purely quantitative the span of personal interaction is limited.

With each additional member, the number of possible interacting persons increases

according to the previously existing base. (Bossard, 1956). There are substantive differences also; the most important working members of the board generally consti- tute an executive committee, whether it is formalized or not. Chairperson, secretary,

treasurer will know each other, share information and responsibility, and "take the heat" together. In other cases, if the board governs a multi-purpose organization, there

will be specialization by interest and aptitude. Certain members of the United States

House of Representatives are known for their competence in such fields as fiscal policy or arms control; they are referred to and deferred to accordingly. Certain members of

the governing boards of community mental health centers are known for their concern

and competence with respect to the mentally retarded ("developmentally disabled"),

and they are given a weight beyond their numbers in considering policy for these

clients. Then too, there are associations by technical specialty. The knowledge of financial

affairs, legal affairs, and the particular specialties of the larger organization, tend to produce cliques. At an extreme, you cannot "get into the game" in certain subject areas

if you do not understand the terminology and basic theory of ( for instance) account-

ing, social statistics, nuclear physics, the law of torts. Thus cliques are formed through

formal, responsible position on the board; through substantive interest and concern;

and through tool-skills and technologies extrinsic to the stated purpose of the organi-

zation but necessary to its operation.

It is not possible to ignore variations in personalities, or social personae in the analysis of parl iamentary cultures. The latter are not static but emerging, and con-

straining only within broad limits. Thus a George Washington was probably crucial to

the stabilization of the loose confederacy known as the United States of America; his military reputation and his acceptability to most factions were enormous resources.

Indeed, Seymour Martin Lipset argues that his accepting the second term as president

was crucial to the continuing unity of the States (kipset, 1963). But then again, as

accomplished a political actor as Representative "Tip" O'Neil has had great difficulty

with the House since he has been the Speaker, largely because the majority party

structure no longer holds and the party has little suasion with the members. No matter how wise and potentially effective the committee member, he is still constrained by the

state of the parl iamentary culture, the ground rules, cliques, and dominant coalitions,

or lack thereof. There is nothing inevitable about order in the citizens' governing

board. To understand what happens, and why, in a given board, one must know the culture

of the board, the personalities in key positions, and the interaction between the two. What each must do for it to work is not a simple problem to solve. A mayor, such as Robert Sabonjian of Waukegan, may develop and maintain power through personal

relationships accumulated over the years. An affable and dynamic fellow, he was almost irresistible on a one-to-one basis (A. Greer, 1974i. However, Richard Daley of

170

Chicago, working through a coalition of ward organizations, needed much less charm,

and Mayor Henry Maier of Milwaukee developed considerable power in a govern- ment that in principle (like Chicago's) was a "weak mayor" town. He did it through

shrewd use of intergovernmental relations and a very effective campaign style. Thus

the chairman of the board's effectiveness is a result of the political culture of (1) the

relevant constituency, (2) the board itself as a parliamentary body, and (3) the

particular abilities of the chairman.

Hazards of Governing Boards.

In making crucial decisions, governing boards inevitably move towards some regular

process for finding of collective opinion. The ballot, secret or not, is the touchstone in

most advanced societies. (The people of Poland have recently (1981) shown what happens when a ballot b e c o m e s secret.) With a secret ballot, there is always an element

of uncertainty in decision-making; each person who ballots has a certain, inevitable

weight in the process. What are the consequences for the relationship between the

chairman and the board?, between the board and the executive staff?.

The chairman's relationship to other board members is contingent on both the

conditions of his tenure and the mode of operation. If he is clearly dominant, serving at

the pleasure of a higher authority, he will be clearly"head". (A colleague, moving from

a lesser institution to the University of Wisconsin, opined that the quality of the

institution was inversely related to the value of headmanship - the stronger the university, the harder to find able people who would be chair, and the fewer the

rewards overall.) If, however, the chair is equal among equals, the role can be played

only by (1) knitting together coalitions with respect to issues that arise, or (2) develop- ing a solid " rump" of directed votes which guarantees dominance no matter what the

issue.

The first is liable to anarchy. To make coalitions continually over a wide array of

issues means to court anarchy. This is one of the worst scenarios, and to avoid it many

boards avoid hard decisions altogether. Such non-decisions, of course, are chickens

who come home to roost; one can defer maintenance only so long, then the cost of

making up for all the irresolution is to replace the entire structure, which may in turn bankrupt the enterprise. Most often, however, the outcome is a steady-state gover-

nance, good enough if (1) nothing external changes, and (2) there are no opportunities for fruitful departures from the habitual. If these conditions do not hold, one is faced with organizational vulnerability to change, or to stagnation and dominance by competing organizations.

In view of these hazards, it is understandable that citizens' governing boards tend to evolve toward the opposite; tyranny. It is rarely so designated. What occurs is an informal coalition of the head person and the technically necessary team players, in a small clique which controls information and has, en masse , considerable interpersonal influence. When asked about divisions of vote on the board, a Communi ty Mental

171

Health Center's board member replied that there were none, for the director had talked

to all the interested members beforehand. This is frequently the case.

These are bland examples of tyranny, and probably the most common. One can also see examples of blackmail, torture, and murder as the source of tyranny. The domi-

nant clique takes advantage of the legitimacy conferred by the governing board, and

uses this leverage to increase its hold on the board, and, through the board, the larger social formation. In the relatively bland world of community mental health centers it is

not unusual to find a board and executive director persuaded, if not terrorized, by a

member of the board who has political power outside of, and often irrelevant to, the

purpose of the center. This is easy to explain; the power may be crucial to the existence

of the center. But it is not easy to see this as the best of all possible worlds.

But tyranny is usually customary and routine. As Charles Perrow maintains, the

most powerful control over behavior comes through the use of unquestioned assump-

tions or, in a word, culture (Perrow, 1972). Most people are not given to the analysis of

basic assumptions, and those who are have an advantage. The "confidence trick" is

fairly frequent in board procedures, though rarely recognized as such. In conversation with executive directors one hears such statements as: "Get them preoccupied with

budget and you can make the policy you want" which may mask incipient disaster,

civil war. Civil war occurs when the irreconcilables surface. Each clique puts its self-definition

above the necessity for coalition, and the bridges to operation collapse. If this occurs,

then warfare between the two (or more) cliques tends to perpetuate itself. This is the

self-sealing error. It is common in private, not-for-profit organizations and not

unusual in public and private corporations. It is naive to think that organizations

cannot persist under such circumstances; like the addict who "lives with his habit," organizations handle such matters as usual costs. How many government agencies are

operated by coalitions of the "ins" and "outs"? How many "ins" can foresee the day they will be out? Thus civil war may be handled by truce in the same fashion that many

marriages survive.

The Null Hypothesis: Staff Domination

Underlying much discussion of community controlled boards is the assumption that

they c a n n o t govern the enterprise, whether public, private or mixed private-public.

The reasons are several, and we will discuss them in order. Briefly, it is held that the complexity of technology and the rate of technological change make governance

impossible; that regulation by the larger society and the ubiquity of bureaucratic control make governance unfeasible; and that the requirements of delegation, follow-

ing from complicated organization, make it almost impossible for a layman's advisory and governing board to know enough to monitor and guide an organization (S. Greer

and A. Greet, 1980). Each of these arguments is plausable. An entire generation of computers, electronic

172

body scanners, or a combination of the two may come and go in a five-year period.

Hospitals may bet wrong and suffer sorely in prestige and income as a result. However,

most members of the hospital governing board are not naifs; indeed, they tend to be

members of governing boards in other, private and public, organizations. What is

needed is council. Much has been made of the need for "advocacy planning," in which

professional planners argue for the community, and for ombudsmen, by which

publicly paid and established figures act for the citizenry vis ~ vis the governing

authority; little has been said about the need of the citizens' governing board for a

neutral, but informed, source of information on the business of the agency for which it

has taken responsibility.

Nobody claims to understand the economics, social relations, organizational prob-

lems, logistic problems, and therapeutic problems of a given community hospital. In

one of Joseph Wambaugh's police novels, one character remarks that, as a police

officer, he feels like a human garbage man. His fictive wife says the garbage is in his

eye. He protests and I think I agree with him. There are certain social formations

which are basically "uncertainty absorbers": police are such, hospital boards are such,

as are zoning bodies and planning commisions. We all know that something should be

done, but we haven't the foggiest notion as to what. Like Edward Bear, we sometimes

think there must be a better way to get downstairs, "but then again, perhaps not."

As for regulation and the consequent bureaucracy, who is better qualified to protect

the local interest against the larger order than the truly representative citizens' govern-

ing board? We pay our money and take our chances, but who knows best what this local reality wishes or requires? Who knows where that street traffic light or park

should be located? The general assumption is that such decisions are not political, but

obviously they are and, within the limits of the feasible, should be decided by those

they aid and those who pay for them. Further, we should remember that the bureau-

cratic structure is an interest in its own right; collectively, individuals in agencies are

very interested in their privileges.

Interviewers in a recent study asked a simple question, suggested by a past executive

director of the National Council of Community Mental Health Centers: "Why have a

citizens' governing board at all? ''~ This turned out to be one of the most productive

questions used. A board can be both advocate for the organization and for the

community; it is both an arena and an annealing flame, a continual dialogue aimed at

finding correct policy directions - not peace but a sword. Could this be delegated to staff?. I think not; the most able staff we interviewed argued strongly for the value of

the citizens' governing board as a bridge to the local community. The governing board

was seen as a means to carry the message of the organization and its mission to the

relevant parts of the community, and to provide clues to the community's felt needs,

but finally we come back to the brute fact that the governing board does not build

1 In field research on Community Mental Health Center Boards; nobody disputed the need for boards; many respondents were shocked at the questions. This may well be peculiar to American (U.S.) society.

173

freeways, run hospitals or organize neighborhoods; to the paid, full-time staff is

delegated implementation.

How can the staff be controlled by a voluntary body which rarely spends one-tenth of the time and concern the staff spends on the enterprise? In general, there is nothing

automatic about the process, and informal counselling is crucial. But the board can be wise in the ways of power, the uses of information, the general political and social

climate. They can delegate in such a way that they can ask: What came of it? They can set goals (minority share of jobs, service of backward areas, transport across new

routes) and can monitor the staff's plans and procedures. Nobody in his right mind expects to be competent in all the areas which a complex organization covers.

The problem, for public, private, and mixed private-public organizations is the

same. In the words of a veteran board president, the members tend to be "underedu-

cated, overworked, and under-rewarded."

Thus the null hypothesis is useful. It states that citizens' governing boards have little

independent effect on the operations, that the true picture is one of staff dominance,

with the board serving as a front, a public relations device, a weak form of representa-

tion. Indeed, one scholar has proposed that the major function of such boards is not policy formation at all; it is to maintain communication between the agency and its

relevant community. The most useful thing we can say is that the control structures

within boards, and between boards and operational staff, vary by organizational culture specific to the given group, generic to the type of group, and much modified by

the force and style of the incumbents. In such a case we must play close attention to the

"minute particulars" and keep shy of loose generalizations. Boards and staffs create

their own working arrangements, their own "culture," and it is usually not an adver-

sary relationship. There is a division of labor and a division of control, generally

respected by all parties (Hahn, 1981). Furthermore, we have evidence that citizens' governing boards do govern, and in

important ways. We have the example of one hospital in Southeastern Wisconsin

which was turned around from a rather stodgy community hospital to an enterprising

high-technology medical center, chiefly at the instigation of the board. Another

hospital is remarkably prosperous, cautious, "gentlemanly" and, again, reflects a board philosophy which emphasizes the division of labor, leaving hospital philosophy

largely to the medical staff. They see themselves as primarily fiscal monitors. Finally,

in some church-run hospitals, we find no real citizens' governing boards at all. The

hierarchy, in the person of the nun-in-charge and the motherhouse, does the deciding.

These three patterns have different origins and consequences, and we hope to expand,

test, and elaborate them in forthcoming publications.

Indeterminate Areas

In what Peter Drucker has called the "third sector" of the political economy, the private-not-for-profit corporations, the confusion of public and private interests is

174

complex indeed (Drucker, 1979). Blue Cross hospital insurance claims to be in this category and, in turn, acts as financial resource and claims agent for hospitals which are, in turn, private-not-for-profit organizations (Law, 1974). American medicine is a large enterprise, consuming about nine percent of the gross national product. Hospi- tals and insurers make no profit, on paper; but their salaries at the professional and managerial level are quite respectable. Yet they are typically governed by appointed boards, which frequently appoint their successors a self-perpetuating oligarchy.

In the early industrial societies, the "help industries" were often created and main- tained by private benefactors. Thus the governance of hospitals by the people who raised the money for their maintenance made a certain kind of sense. Today, with publicly collected funds and Blue Cross providing the majority of operating costs, it is not clear just what legitimacy private governing boards have. Nor, on the other hand,

is it clear just how they should be chosen and who they represent. In short, such governing boards spend publicly collected money but have only the loosest, if any, responsibility to the citizenry. We have the privatization of public power on a scale Americans are not used to, yet the venerable tradition of private charities still provides

some superficial legitimacy to such boards. Indeed the notion of a sharp distinction between public and private, initiated by the

Athenians who gave primacy to the public, and resurrected by the theorists of industrial capitalism, who favored the private, is basically an aberration in human

culture (Polanyi, 1957). So conservative an economist as Schumpeter knew you cannot long keep separate polity and private economy in large scale society (Schumpe- ter, 1962). If you claim to do so you are merely masking the true balance of privilege. When the federal government bails out the lurching enterprises called the City of New York and the Chrysler Corporation, funds 'private' not-for-profit health and legal services, and acts as general caretaker for the economy, it is difficult to accept the autonomy of private enterprise on the one hand, polity on the other.

There is an inherent confusion of function in the creation of such special purpose governments as community mental health centers or East Bay Water Districts (Bollens, 1957). By concerning themselves with a few functions of government, they distract attention from the broader problem, the setting of priorities - which is what government is all about. Under the guise of tl~e given pieties, the hospital governing board plays freely with the distribution of health dollars in urban centers. The prob!em confronting the public-minded citizen (or unbiased social scientist) is two-fold: under- standing what is implied in the going order and evaluating it in a broader vision of public good. Private not-for-profit organizations can be just as greedy and costly as any cut-throat private enterprise.

Such governments pose several kinds of problems for political theory. First, what of accountability? If it is acceptable that organizations funded by private persons may be governed by the same persons, what happens when the funding becomes pre- dominantly public money? In some community mental health centers governed by citizens' boards, almost ninety percent of the funds were public (S. Greer and A. Greer,

175

1980). Accountability may be read as simply honesty: did the funds go where they were

said to go and supposed to go? It may also be interpreted as checking out a moral

order: were these the appropriate ways to spend public funds? Concretely, was "obesity control education" cognate at all with mental health services? Or, block

parties and little league baseball? Who should say? One position is that many activities going under the rubic of health, education, and welfare are really policy choices: what

does the constituency think is important in these areas, if anything? And it would follow that whatever they choose is the rank order of importance, since we are dealing

with value choices. Then the problem is to find out what they think, a task for the governing board (Carver, 1980).

A second problem with mixed private-public organizations is that of policy integra-

tion. Frequently we develop integrated sub-programs, which may care for the walking

wounded of the society in some respects, but have little or no legitimacy in relation to

other societal values. An extreme example is that of the handicapped who, under the

guise of participating in "sheltered workshops," may be simply sweat labor. Economic

equity and altruism may be hopelessly confused. The use of the "bot tom" line is difficult enough to evaluate private, for profit

organizations. In not-for-profit organizations, there are many bot tom lines, most of them hard to quantify. Yet if the organization is to have a defensible public policy, they

must each be evaluated relative to the aims of the organization as a whole. These, in

turn, must be seen as claims to scarce resources, for which other organizations with other goals compete.

Governing boards need to consider such matters, and to take action upon them.

This requires that they have a much broader calculus of values than simple money-

personnel expenditure per service. Unfortunately, we frequently rely on the cash nexus

because (1) it is acceptable; (2) alternatives are complex and difficult; and (3) who

would judge the governing boards? What are we trying to do? We can measure cost-efficiency in a mechanical fashion, but the questions remain: costly to whom, with

what foreclosed opportunities? Efficient for what? The inescapable conclusion is that citizens' governing boards have one major

purpose: to govern. If they are to be more than a symbol or subterfuge, they must

avoid the bookkeeping "hype," the technological "fix". With some adequate staff work, they should avoid corruption and bankruptcy, incompetence and dereliction.

What they must avoid is a lapse in overview, a falling back upon unexamined

assumptions. Hospitals may vary widely, but the governing board is finally responsi-

ble for the course they take; whether they are a "family hospital" devoted to the

sensitive relationship between social, psychological, and physical health; a high- technology medical center concerned with the latest breakthroughs in biomedical science; or a staid, conventional hospital, where care is as important as cure, the board

is custodian and mentor - like it or not. The alternatives may be governance by professionals, who take the hit between their teeth and do what they like to do; rule-ridden functionaries, bookkeepers, or other members of a body without

integration.

176

At this point, one may ask whether such a development is inevitable, or even likely.

Why can' t a professional adminis t ra tor do the job and do it well? Why governing

boards? The answer is, in part, a version o f " W h o will guard the guards?" Thinking of

boards in general, Peter Drucker puts it this way:

Institutions need strong, competent management. Only a strong, effective, and independent board can ensure management competence. A strong board is needed to remove a top management that is less than fully competent. And only a strong board can force incumbents to make adequate plans to prepare, train, and test successors to top management... Yet today, especially in the large publicly-owned company, the Chief Executive Officer. once installed, can be removed only through disaster or coronary thrombosis (Drucker, 1979).

Drucker continues with other functions which will be carried out by the board, or

probably not at all. To paraphrase, he sees boards as answering such questions as

these: (1) What are we doing and is it wor th doing? (2) What innovat ion is needed? (3) Is the organizat ion 's behavior moral? (4) What is a disinterested '+outsider's" appraisal

of the key choices facing the organizat ion? (5) What goes on in the larger"real world,"

to which the board is exposed? and finally, (6) How will important constituencies,

within and outside the organization, unders tand the reasons for administrative deci-

sions? In short, Drucker sees a board as a check on the tendency towards "institutional

autism" - the situation where management has lost touch with important aspects of

the world outside the "forty-fifth floor."

There have been efforts to "train" boards in their functions. These hor ta tory

exercises are rarely useful, since they do not face the key issues of substance: technol-

ogy specific to the enterprise and the resulting division of labor, outside regulation and

the resulting bureaucratic burdens, and finally, delegation (which Philip Selznick calls

the primal act of organizat ion) with the necessary complexi ty this introduces into

supposedly simple acts (Selznick, 1948). Drucker argues for professionally trained

board members, on retainer; perhaps he is right.

Finally, I would like to remind the reader again that I have only a superficial

acquaintance with other western, industrial democracies, and none with the rest of the

globe, except by literature. F rom visits abroad it is clear that the nature of citizens'

boards varies greatly. In some countries they are simply sub-sets of bureaucrats (in

The Netherlands, the local sociologists were fascinated by discussion of the citizen

part icipation movement in the United States; they had never heard of such a thing). In others, such as Great Britain, citizens are appointed as virtual representatives of the interested parties, chiefly middle-class. And so it goes. Yet such bodies are reappear-

ing, outside the usual precincts of formal government , and taken seriously (Lands-

berger, 1978). Whether they are read as symptoms of a greater societal awareness of,

and concern with, the gap between local and national, public and private, professional

and lay, or seen as indications of important structural change, they deserve much more serious study than they have had in the past.

A sociologist who has spent much of his life s tudying voluntary associations and

177

citizens' boards remarked in conversation that "there is much less here than meets the eye." The point is, what meets the eye may be crucial, whether as symbolic politics or as the stuff of government. If Thomas Jefferson could govern by dinner party (and go broke as a result), perhaps citizens' governing boards can govern, and be accepted as legitimate, even though spending many anxious minutes "waiting for the quorum."

A major critique of the value that participation has in "mass society" is based on the numbers from survey research (S. Greer, 1959, 1963). Most Americans belong to between one and two voluntary organizations, if any. When they belong they partici- pate sparely, and only a few are ever elected to the governing boards. Yet this may obscure the real phenomenon we are dealing with: leadership. If we construe represen- tative democracy as meaning the consent of the governed, whether passive or active, and delegated authority, however broadly defined, then I think we can say that citizens' governing boards, public and private, are critical to our lives.

In our need to be specific, we oversimplify. We tend to forget that most social organizations are intermittent; human beings interact, go apart, and do other things. The fact that routine local labor union participation is rarely higher than twenty percent of the members (and thus the tiny meeting halls) should not obscure the fact that these same locals have in the past, and still may, bring the most powerful organizations, private and public, to a halt. If they do, this will usually be decided by their governing boards.

References

Bollens, John C. (1957). Special District Governments in the United States. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Bossard, James (1956). Tlie Large Family System. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Carver, John (1980). "Is America ready for self-governance: the third sector," a paper presented at a

conference, The Crisis of Authority: Citizen Boards and the Governance of Public and Private Agencies, sponsored by the Urban Research Center, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, in cooperation with the Johnson Foundation, Wingspread Conference Center. April 24.

de Grazia, Alfred (1963). Essays on Apport ionment attd Representative Government. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute.

Drucker, Peter (1979). "Managing the third sector," Tlie l~'?dI-Street Journal. October 3. Galbraith, John Kenneth (1973). Economics and the Public Purpose. New York: New American Library. Greer, Ann L. (1974). The Mayor's Mandate: Municipal Statecraft and Political Trust. Cambridge:

Schenkman Publishing Company. Greer, Scott (1959). Last Man ht: Racial Access to Union Power. New York: Free Press. G reer, Scott (1963). Metropolitics, A Study o f Political Culture. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Greer, Scott (1966). ~#'ban Renewal and American Cities, The Dilemmas o f Democratic Intervention.

Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill and Company. G reer, Scott and Greet, Ann k. (1980). "'Governance by citizens' boards: the case of community mental

health centers," in David Nachmias (ed.) The Practice o f Policy Evaluation. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Hahn, Susan (1981). "Governing boards, executive directors and organization environments." Duplicated and distributed by the Urban Research Center, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Hoebel, E. Adamson (1949). Man in the Primitive World. New York: McGraw-Hill. t, andsberger. Henry. (I978). "'The Trend To~ard 'Citizen Participation' in Western Democracies: A

Challenge to the Professions?" Paper presented at the Ninth Congress, International Sociological Association, Uppsala, Sweden. August 14-19.

178

Law, Sylvia A. (1974). Blue Cross: What Went Wrong? New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Lipset, Seymour M. (1963). The First New Nation. New York: Basic Books. Mair, Lucy. (1964). Primitive Government. Baltimore: Penguin Books. Perrow, Charles. (1972). Complex Organizations: A Critical Essat~. Glenview, Illinois: Scott Foreman. Polanyi, Karl. (1957). The Great Transformation. Boston: Beacon. Schmandt, Henry J. (1965). The Milwaukee Metropolitan Study Commission. Bloomington: Indiana

University Press. (With William H. Standing.) Schmandt, Henry J. (1971). Milwaukee: A Contemporary Urban Profile. New York: Praeger Publishers.

(With John C. Goldbach and Donald B. Vogel.) Schumpeter, Joseph A. (1962). Capitalism, Socialism. and Democrac.r. New York: Harper. Selznick, Philip (1948). "'Foundations of the theory of organization," American Sociological Review 13:

25 35.