Gordon Abner is a public management scholar whose research focuses on improving citizens’ perceptions of public employees and government service, and on improving the morale and performance of public employees — which he is particularly interested in within the sphere of social policy. Professor Abner has employed a variety of methods in his research including experiments, content analysis, interviews, and survey research, and he enjoys learning new methods that may be applicable to his work. His research has appeared in Nonprofit Management and Leadership as well as in the Review of Public Personnel Administration.
Guests
Gordon AbnerPublic Management Scholar
Hosts
Peniel JosephFounding Director of the LBJ School’s Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the University of Texas at Austin
[0:00:07 Peniel] Welcome to race and democracy, a podcast on the intersection between race, democracy, public policy, social justice and citizenship. On today’s show, I am pleased to be joined by Professor Gordon Abner, my colleague who is an assistant professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Uh Professor Abner received a bachelor’s degree from trinity University in san Antonio PhD in public policy from indiana University bloomington and his research areas are in employee morale, policy implementation, government performance. Uh Gordon? Welcome to Racing Democracy.
[0:00:54 Gordon] Thank you so much for having me.
[0:00:56 Peniel] Um a lot to talk about. But within the context of the 2020 election season, I think the research you do is so so important because it has to do with the belief that citizens have or skepticism that citizens have about our democracy and our democratic institutions in our governance. So I want us to talk right away about one where is the state of people’s belief in governance in 2020 as we speak.
[0:01:28 Gordon] Yes, so we know from opinion research that americans are very distrustful of members of Congress. Um, but at the same rate, um citizens want government to do lots of different things. And so, um, we have a lack of trust in the people running, uh federal government, elected officials, and also a lot of distrust and federal employees.
[0:01:51 Peniel] And why is that? I want to? Let’s start right there. Why?
[0:01:54 Gordon] That’s a great question. Um, so I think a lot of what goes on in Washington is viewed as hyper partisanship and uh, sort of nonsense and not really getting at the issues that they care about. Um, but there, as, you know, they’re also racial dimensions as well. Um, and there’s a sense that’s not just racial, there’s, you know, across a whole set of demographics. And so people feel like their values are not being reflected, and the people who work in government, um particularly elected officials and also what they see coming up on the docket and the legislature. And so
[0:02:29 Peniel] what are, what are the values that voters and citizens have that they feel are not being discussed or approached in terms of governance?
[0:02:41 Gordon] That’s a great question. Uh, I’m sure there are a wide variety of answers to that. But I think, um, we talked about this before the podcast. I think there’s a lot of sort of local issues and obviously that’s for local government to a certain extent. But um, if federal government doesn’t provide funds for things that are very local, whether it be, um, most recently, not having enough ballot, our election, uh, locations open, um, is a huge concern for people and that’s the most recent, um, things like the coronavirus and a perception that um, we could be doing more uh, is a concern that’s out there. And so,
[0:03:20 Peniel] and certainly when you talked about the long voting lines, texas has become sort of a national embarrassment during this past primary season. Super Tuesday for having at times four or 56 hour lines in Dallas in Houston, in Austin, uh, in other parts of texas. So those are local concerns that certainly aren’t being, um, uh, tackled and advocated by right, even right here in the texas ledge.
[0:03:47 Gordon] Exactly for sure. And it’s something that people interact with, they have a clear experience with. And when people have those clear experiences with something like a voting line, you know, it has a strong impact on how they view government overall. And so, um, if we don’t tackle those things that are very obvious and clear to people, then, you know, it puts everything else that the government tries to do or wants to do, where people want to do at risk.
[0:04:11 Peniel] Now, when you think about local politics, you also said that people are skeptical of government employees. What are the specific employees who they are skeptical of? Give me a, for instance of what institutions, is it the DMV? Is it the tax assessor, who are they skeptical of?
[0:04:30 Gordon] That’s a great question. So, um, certainly people, you know, don’t have positive feelings about the I. R. S. And the people who work for the I. R. S. Um, and, you know, there are things that could be done to make their tax code a lot easier and that’s not necessarily, you know, people who work in the I. R. S fault, it’s more of you, maybe, arguably people who work in Congress, but um, additionally, you know, there’s concerns about police officers, obviously, and um, additionally, public school teachers, I think overall people view public school teachers favorably, but, you know, people are not happy about standardized testing and things like that. And so, you know, it’s a combination sometimes of the actions of public employees, but many times it’s the, the laws with which they’re trying to act that people disagree with. And you know, there’s, uh, hand tied to a certain extent.
[0:05:24 Peniel] One of the reverberations in the research you do of people having less confidence in public employee or public service sectors, let’s say, for instance, you, you pointed out you talk about teachers, um, police or maybe even first responders, um, not necessarily the I. R. S. Because I. R. S. Is federal, but even like your local tax assessor or, you know, you think about all the stuff that Travis County or Harris County, the executive overseas, What are some of the reverberations or impact of people not having confidence in that?
[0:06:00 Gordon] Yeah it’s a great question. So you know if people don’t trust the police they’re not likely to report crimes. Um And obviously uh police officers need to know what’s going on. They need tips and things like that. Um I think there’s going to be uh in those interactions with these local officials there’s going to be an escalation. Um And because there’s that lack of trust and then with the police, the police officers that can be deadly as we know. Um And so you know that’s that’s a huge issue. Um So there are clear impacts of these sorts of things I think you know the local tax assessor’s office is a huge deal. Um Like you’re suggesting all these local offices are extremely important. Um The D. M. V. Is important and um people have direct experiences with the D. M. V. And so it’s something that people can it’s very tangible and people can make sense of and when it doesn’t meet their expectations, you know, people are not going to be happy. Um
[0:06:57 Peniel] And in terms of your research, Gordon? What does it show in terms of the correlation between skepticism of government institutions, elected officials and partisanship, if anything?
[0:07:10 Gordon] Yeah. I mean, I think there’s definitely more skepticism of what government can do. Well, um Well, I guess obviously there’s a Republican democrat dimension to that, but I think what’s concerning is that on one side there is uh the liberal side, the democratic side, there is a view that we need to do more to address these sort of systematic problems. And on the other side obviously um there’s a view that government is doing doing too much, I can’t do enough. And so that’s pulling people apart, um, and it’s not quite clear what we’re gonna do about it or what can be done about it. Um, other than have conversations, and I think that it sounds cheesy, but we need to have conversations.
[0:07:55 Peniel] So democrats tend to think that government can be effective and maybe even needs to be scaled
[0:08:01 Gordon] up. Exactly.
[0:08:02 Peniel] Okay. And republicans tend to doubt the effectiveness of government of government of government, but also the effectiveness of government employees or public service sector employees.
[0:08:12 Gordon] Exactly. It’s not necessarily crossed every type of public employee. You know, republicans are generally more favorable to or have positive, more positive attitudes about police officers than do the new democrats. Um, um, and that’s sort of like a thorn authoritarian versus not less authoritarian sort of dimension. Um,
[0:08:33 Peniel] maybe even the military
[0:08:35 Gordon] positive, exactly positive, positive use force, the military. And, you know, I think there is at least in my opinion, I think the reality is that all of these sort of professions can do very good things in the design or at least the intention is to do very good things that we just have to think about ways in which they can be more reflective of the desires that people have, but also just common sense and empathy and concern for all communities. Uh,
[0:09:00 Peniel] let’s talk about that. What are what are some solutions here in terms of increasing both at the local and national level? Because I think in the context of the 2020 election, there is at times a disparity between what people want at the local level and the issues they want and what people might be talking about nationally, you know, so one how do we close that gap? Um, and then to when you think about confidence in employees and confidence in the service sector, um how can we increase that? What are what are tools that can be done um to increase that confidence?
[0:09:39 Gordon] Yeah, great question. So I think one sort of interesting dimension that we’re sort of moving into um is not just being concerned about sort of diversity and inclusion, but also thinking about things like equity and sort of anti racism. And I think that’s a new and interesting dimension just because um we want government institutions to be reflective of the populist, right? But sometimes, you know, maybe our views as a populist outdated, right? So just being reflective might not always be good enough. Um And
[0:10:15 Peniel] certainly when we think about what happened in Ferguson Missouri in 2014, we saw government institutions that were at the local level and government employees that we know from the Department of Justice report. We’re actually targeting african american neighborhoods, african american citizens for warrants and finds as a way to raise revenue. Um, and they checked their emails, there was all this racist talk against black people. So in that sense, um government was being used to subjugate black people uh, well into the 21st century after we usually think those stories had stopped.
[0:10:54 Gordon] Exactly. And that’s a great example. And you know, I think diversity can help. But in a case like Ferguson that wouldn’t have been enough, right? I mean, there’s a greater sense that sort of, it’s important to have government institutions be reflective in a number of ways of the people that they serve. But you know, having a couple of more minority police officers for something like Ferguson wouldn’t help. I mean, I think the policies and the procedures that they were enacting fundamentally were racist and um, without rethinking that basis, you know, that whole thing, you know, having more people of color in and of itself is not necessarily going to, how
[0:11:35 Peniel] do we get to the equity piece when it comes to governance and these institutions then where it’s not just an add on, it’s not a dynamic of tokenism,
[0:11:45 Gordon] but
[0:11:46 Peniel] it’s really equity where they’re serving equitably, all these communities and equity is not equality. So when we think about equity to gain equity, you might have to do more for some communities than others because those communities are starting at a lower common
[0:12:01 Gordon] denominator. So there are a number of things, um, the first thing I’ll start with, I know you’re big on this and it it sounds maybe to some people, it sounds cheesy, but we need to teach these things early on. Um, and because when somebody time someone’s 40 you know, it’s hard, it’s not impossible, but it’s hard to change people’s understanding or perspectives by that, by that age. And so as you have advocated, you know, teaching history african american history, black history, the history of marginalized groups in public education and early age is really important, and that can’t be said enough. Um Additionally, I think it’s important to think about what these institutions celebrate what they reward. Um and um how performance in general is evaluating those organizations. Like you said in Ferguson, you know, it was about giving tickets, generating revenue and, you know, if people are going to be if their jobs are dependent if their performance evaluations dependent upon that, that’s what they’re gonna care about, unfortunately. And we have to be aware of that and change the way in which we evaluate how these organizations are run and make it transparent to people because you shouldn’t have to do digging to figure this out and it shouldn’t be so covert. Um
[0:13:18 Peniel] And when you think about right now, we’re talking about diversity equity inclusion. But I would think of it as sort of racial justice in public policy and public management. Um when I think about public management, public management usually doesn’t talk about race, even though there’s real disparate um impacts uh for public policy based on race, based on class, based on ethnicity, gender, all these different things, sexuality. So how uh and does your work deal with that? Or how can we deal with the fact that, you know, um Public management is not just neutral as well, you know, because these institutions are not just neutral. We love a world like that, but we know not just because of our history, but because of contemporaneously our present day that that these these policies impact different citizens um in different ways.
[0:14:11 Gordon] For sure. Yeah, I think one area in which I am working and I wish I want to expand upon is representative bureaucracy. That that’s really the mainstay of the way in which public management interacts with or at least talks about race, but it’s not enough because as we’re finding that, you know, if you go into a massive bureaucracy, um and you’re a person from and underrepresented group, you don’t have very much power to change that massive bureaucracy. And if you’re the person who is the head of that massive bureaucracy, right, you still don’t have that much power to change it because there are lots of people that you can’t necessarily oversee at every point in the day. And so they have lots of discretion, which I think the to certain extent should. Um, and so either whether you’re at the top or whether you’re coming in at the bottom, that’s not going to be enough. And so I guess that’s partly what we’re finding. And so, you know, an inclusion is importance. Um, but what are you being included into? Right. I mean, you know, you you don’t want to have to in any organization, you have to a certain extent, adapt to the norms of that organization, but you don’t want to completely assimilated, Right? And so it’s obviously, you know this, but, you know, it’s sort of this duality, right? You want to, there are things about the organization that you care about, but they’re also things about it that you want to change, and, um, that’s one area. But I think the other thing that I’ve become really interested in, I’m sorry, doing some initial research is there’s a lot of important local government institutions, particularly offices of Equity, um, in cities, some cities across the country, particularly larger cities. And to see what they’re doing, what those offices are doing to enhance equity and enhance inclusion in
[0:16:00 Peniel] the city of boston. Just hired its first chief equity officer just maybe last year.
[0:16:06 Gordon] Exactly, yeah. So I’ve been fortunate to talk with him a bit about his work and to figure out what he’s doing. And I want to to research across the country and figure out what other cities are doing. What
[0:16:17 Peniel] is he trying to do here in Austin?
[0:16:19 Gordon] Yeah, So a lot of it is, has been sort of training, um, local government employees about anti racism. Um, and, you know, coming up with some metrics to measure the extent to which, um, these local government offices here in Austin are being more equitable or being more inclusive. You know, you can use different, probably perhaps different language. I’m not being 100% specific to what you said, but that’s the general idea and I think it’s important. I think also um they’re writing up reports about different policies and programs that local government has implemented is considering implementing and giving their their opinion and their judgment about those. Um and so I think it expands the conversation um you know, you can’t decide what people are going to do with the information and research that we provide, but at least it expands the conversation so that we’re not just thinking in one dimension.
[0:17:17 Peniel] And when you think about elections in our democracy, I love for you to tell us why is public management so important because I think it crucially is important, but people don’t understand um what we mean by public management and what what what do the bureaucracies under um that rubric? What do they do um for people? So why is when we think about um enhancing and expanding american democracy for all people especially in a a way that’s racially just and um interested in what I would call intersectional justice of race class uh women’s rights. You know trans um L. G. B. T. Q. Rights. Why is it so crucial?
[0:18:00 Gordon] Yeah. So one another area in which I think public manager research is starting to intersect with the issues that you talked about is a research about administrative burdens and how different government agencies particularly as relates to voting in elections are making it difficult, providing an administrative burden that keeps people from accessing these rights. You can think about it would snap and trying to drug test, you know, poor people to figure out whether they qualify
[0:18:30 Peniel] and snap is supplemental nutrition assistance program. So what used to be called food stamps.
[0:18:34 Gordon] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so, um so one area is just, you know, acknowledging that there are politicians who are intentionally trying to make it difficult um through bureaucracies for people to um receive what government says they are entitled to receive. Um and so that’s extremely concerning. And it happens in, you know, think of pretty much any social program you can think of. There are concerted efforts to keep people from getting what they’re entitled to. I think the other thing where public management intersects is um just by not fulfilling government positions are open, you know, vacancies, you know, and especially in rural communities, um, there are lots of vacancies as relates to health care, right? And so by not filling these positions, people are having long way, it’s not just in rural communities, also into times in urban communities where these jobs are being fulfilled and people, their ability to access government services is undermined. And so I think that’s another area. I also think that um for african americans in particular, access to government jobs has been a way into the middle class. And so when we sort of, you know, try to undermine the pay and the benefits government workers were impacting disproportionately impacting uh black people in particular. And so, you know, these are serious issues and the reality is especially for those vacant jobs, those jobs are already available, There are lines for them and we should do what we can to fulfill them. And also as it relates to uh receiving government services, people are entitled to receive those government services if you don’t want them to have those, that’s an issue to deal with, you know, at the legislature, but they’ve already been approved. So we shouldn’t be denying people what they’ve already are entitled to.
[0:20:24 Peniel] And I want to talk about public management vis a vis voting rights, because I think a lot of people are surprised that who decides polling locations, who decides whether a polling location is going to be moved um, away from a predominantly black or latin X community, maybe sometimes 2030 45 miles away, um in places like texas, in places like Georgia everywhere. Um, um, and it’s not just necessarily your local elected official, it is connected to what we’re talking about in terms of public public management.
[0:20:58 Gordon] Yeah, for sure. And, you know, we’ve allowed, um, you know, voting to become partisan and, you know, that’s really once you do that, you know, it’s gonna, you know, people are going to use it to their benefit to the detriment of whatever population they’re going against. And I think, you know, if we don’t trust government employees, then we’re going to make it up to um, you know, allow elected officials to make some of these decisions and that’s very concerning. And so, you know, that, you know, voting locations, polling locations should be something that’s very neutral. Not everything in government is neutral, obviously, but that’s something that should be neutral. We can clearly see how far polling locations are from different communities and we can map that out and say, well, this is too far, you know, we need to have closer locations and to acknowledge that there’s an inequity there, and I think, like, we’re sort of brought up and I think you’re doing a great job, bring it up here, is that when we don’t trust government employees, we just put it up to elected officials and that is a huge concern. Um, and, you know, and if some, um locations are, you know, don’t the city of the in those locations don’t include minority people, don’t include underrepresented voices. Then some, perhaps even the people who are supposed to be neutral aren’t actually thinking about minority voices. So it, you know, there’s lots of uh there can be concerns either way. And I think that’s why these conversations are so important, because, you know, we don’t know what we don’t know and we don’t learn new things until we interact with new ideas and new people. And, um, Mhm.
[0:22:36 Peniel] When was the heyday of confidence in government and public employees?
[0:22:41 Gordon] Yeah, I mean, I I that’s a good question. I would say it, you’d have to go back to, say, the 19 sixties, it’s been on a steep decline, especially in, uh, approval of members of Congress for some time. Um, and, you know, how much americans want government to do sort of wax and wayne’s. But in general, people still want government to do things. It’s just we don’t want to pay for it a lot of times, um, and we don’t want to enact the policies that are required to make those outcomes a reality, right? We don’t want certain things to be restricted or certain things to be expanded. And so we have this sort of confusing desire for government to do more and to offer more, but we don’t give government the authority are we reluctantly give government the authority to do so?
[0:23:36 Peniel] And what about gerrymandering? How does gerrymandering impact this?
[0:23:40 Gordon] Yeah, I mean, that’s another huge issue. Um, gerrymandering can create, you know, really homogeneous, obviously creates homogenous districts, um, which then can increase polarization, say, um across districts. And um so jerry patrick doesn’t help either, I think, you know, and it goes to, you know, segregation doesn’t help either. I mean, I think if we don’t have these conversations, I know it’s a cheesy thing to say, but gerrymandering decreases likely that we have these conversations, segregation decreases like we have these conversations and if we just sort into, you know Republican and Democratic areas or you know, liberal, conservative parts of the country, then it just feeds into itself. And so um yeah,
[0:24:31 Peniel] so part of this is about getting more racial integration, less class stratification, having more proximity. Because I think earlier in our conversation, you you use the word empathy and I think part of the way in which people get empathy is just through proximity.
[0:24:47 Gordon] That’s exactly right. And those, you know racial segregation, um class stratification and you know, gentrification, all things that are happening here in Austin, right? And you know, it’s going to continue unless we talk about it, then like take some really difficult decisions to do something about it, otherwise, you know, it’s gonna get worse. And yeah, I mean, just not having interactions with people who are different than you. You know, it messes with your world view and it makes you think has the potential to make one think that, you know, their view is the only view um and that their concerns are the only concerns that matter and that’s concerning.
[0:25:30 Peniel] Well, my final question is um in a broadway, what do you think it’s gonna take to transform the situation? Because I think to myself, we said you talked about the 19 sixties being a high point, I think about especially somebody like john f Kennedy and and this idea of uh you know, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. But then you think about um the social movement leaders like dr martin Luther king Jr um and then I think flash forward to Barack Obama and seems like during the 2000 and eight election, there was a real call to citizenship and service again, including sort of having faith in government and governance, elected officials, but also bureaucracies that could help us. Obviously, that time changed and transformed. We’re in the age of right now of of of trump. But what could be done because I do think that what Obama showed me and this is just 12 years ago, was that people were hungry. And he used this this this slogan that now at times people make fun of, but at the time it really resonated and it was called Hope and Change, right? And he also said, yes, we can that we could use these institutions, these these bureaucracies to help each other. We know what sort of what happened to that. But I think that that’s still there. And how can we get that undercurrent that call to service back?
[0:26:55 Gordon] That’s great. Yeah. I mean, I think if you sit down and talk with people, um there are government institutions that everyone there, at least some government institutions that everyone thinks, you know are successful. I’ve done
[0:27:10 Peniel] some including Medicare,
[0:27:11 Gordon] including Medicare is a great example. Social Security people are generally happy about. Um And so, you know, it’s concerning when you have elected officials, particularly the highest levels office. Let’s say that government can’t do anything well, and I think to a certain extent, until those people are no longer in office, it’s going to be a challenge. And I don’t think that government does everything well, obviously Hurricane Katrina was a disaster. Um and so, you know, we have to be honest about that and be honest about it when it comes from either party, the rollout of Obamacare wasn’t great. Um, but you know, you can’t sort of just throw things away when as adults, we can’t just throw things away when they don’t work the way we want them to work. We have to improve them. And I think electing people who are honest about the shortcomings but have a general understanding that, you know, every day there are a lot of things that go well at the local level, from the local level to the national level. And when we get our mail every day, um, you know, for the most part our water is clean. Obviously there are race and class dimension to that and if that’s the case then we need to be honest about that. Um But I think if there’s not changed at the highest level of office in this country, I think convincing people that government can do uh good is going to be a challenge and so. Yeah,
[0:28:34 Peniel] well, we’ll end on that note. I I still think, you know, we’re both optimists in the sense that people are hungry um to have confidence and believe in government and believe that uh local bureaucracies and state bureaucracies can help each other can help, you know in terms of poverty, in terms of health care, in terms of education, in terms of first responders, all these different things, the environment that we value. Um Gordon? It’s been a pleasure to speak to you.
[0:29:01 Gordon] Thank you so much for having me.
[0:29:03 Peniel] Thanks for listening to this episode. And you can check out related content on twitter at Peniel Joseph. That’s Peniel Joseph and our website CSR D dot LBJ dot utexas.edu. And the Center for Study of Race and Democracy is on facebook as well. This podcast was recorded at the Liberal Arts Development Studio at the College of Liberal Arts, at the University of texas at Austin. Thank you.