Is the Citizen Advisory Committee a Threat to Representative Government?

Abstract

T HE professionalization of local government is one of the most important contemporary trends in public administration. Concurrent with this increased reliance on professionally trained employees in both administrative and technical posts is a new emphasis on citizen participation. The concept of citizen participation is not a new one in American local government but today's emphasis is quite different from that of yesteryear. For many decades the common pattern was to have citizens serve in a parttime or full-time capacity in the actual operation of local government. They served as mayors, councilmen, or commissioners; as members of the planning commission, zoning board or civil service board. In recent years the authority of such part-time citizen participants has decreased with the increased reliance on the full-time professional. The growth of the city manager profession is one evidence of this trend. The widespread shift toward increasing the power and the authority of the municipal chief executive at the expense of the various semi-independent boards and commissions is another manifestation of this shift as is the diminishing popularity of the commission form of municipal government. This reliance on professional skill would seem to indicate that the citizen's role in local government is diminishing. However a counter trend has emerged which encourages citizen participation in a different form. This is the growing popularity of the citizen advisory committee.

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