Constitutional Subordinate Autonomy Revisited

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By Thomas Barth
October 10, 2025

Given these times when the very foundations of our government are being challenged by the current Presidential Administration, it is useful for public administrators to reflect on a concept developed by scholar John Rohr: constitutional subordinate autonomy. In his seminal book To Run a Constitution, he makes the following argument:

The role of Public Administration is to fulfill the objective of the oath of office: to uphold the Constitution of the United States. This means that administrators should use their discretionary power in order to maintain the constitutional balance of power in support of individual rights. This, of course, is what Congress, the president and the courts are supposed to do as well. This unity of purpose is as it should be, because Public Administration, like Congress, the president and the courts, is an institution of government compatible with the constitutional design of the framers (p. 181).

No doubt that current Administration officials would consider such a concept balderdash with their counter view that Public Administration exists to carry out the will of the President with unquestioning loyalty, but it is fundamental for career public administrators to reflect on their role given that presidential administrations with different ideologies will come and go over their years in service. Just as one example, there is little doubt that federal support for DEI programs will return if a Democrat gains the Oval Office in 2028. Public administrators must ride the ideological pendulum and attempt to moderate the extreme swings by offering sound evidence wherever possible.

Delving further into what constitutional subordinate autonomy means at a practical level for public administrators, whether you are at the federal, state or local level, it provides theoretical support for the role of neutral competence, most often associated with scholar Herbert Kaufman. It means that public administrators do serve directly under the President as head of the Executive Branch, but as constitutional officers they also are responsible to the other branches of government. That is, is a given order coming from their lines of authority in the Executive Branch consistent with both the letter and spirit of relevant law and legal? If not, it is the responsibility of the public administrator to exercise their neutral competence and speak truth to power. Or, even if a directive is within legal parameters, is it wise public policy given the professional expertise and experience of the public administrator and their understanding of the intent of the legislation?

A high-level, dramatic example of neutral competence is the scientist Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, who had directed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and was one of four institute directors at the N.I.H. to be fired in recent days after first being demoted and placed on administrative leave in the spring. Dr. Marrazzo said in her whistleblower complaint last month that she was demoted after objecting to Trump administration actions that she said had endangered research subjects, defied court orders and undermined vaccine research. Although subordinate to HHS Secretary Kennedy she exercised her autonomy by speaking out, particularly when court orders were being ignored.

However, for lower-level public administrators who may understandably not be in a position to put their careers and salaries at stake, there are less dramatic and yet responsible ways to exercise subordinate autonomy and neutral competence within their role of serving the Executive Branch. In my dissertation research during the Reagan Administration when there were comparable swings opposed to the prior Carter Administration, I interviewed a number of federal civil servants to understand how they practiced subordinate autonomy. For some there was a keen sense of the importance of supporting a given Administration’s agenda, even if it conflicted with personal policy preferences, in order to realize a government responsive to the electorate. Once the overall policy tone is set by the Administration, the civil servant’s role is to further the “intelligent development” of that policy.

Importantly, serving the Administration’s interests is a much more complex concept than merely falling in line with cues from the White House or political appointees in the agencies. Sometimes this involved privately challenging a superior at every opportunity, doing their best to explain why a policy was simply not workable because of existing laws and regulations. They stopped short of telling their superior that they were simply wrong or going public, because they knew they would either lose their job or at least the confidence of their superior. In either case, someone else would replace them and have to deal with the same problem (or just go along to get along). They believed the prudent course of action was to continue to cultivate a working relationship that would enable them to influence their superior’s policy decisions.

Thus, exercising constitutional subordinate autonomy can take different forms, but it suggests that the legitimate responsibility of a public administrator goes beyond responding unquestionably to any single line of authority.

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Author: Dr. Tom Barth is Professor Emeritus in the Gerald G. Fox MPA program at UNC Charlotte. [email protected].

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