The pink slips have been flying in Washington of late. The Trump administration has axed civil servants by the tens of thousands, and the country is tuned in: Journalists cover it, citizens protest it, and judges are ruling on it. In response, observers are looking back to the Clinton administration’s Reinventing Government initiative, which similarly cut the federal workforce.
Current commentary has focused on the blow those personnel reductions dealt to bureaucratic capacity. But this story overlooks the fact that Reinventing Government was a comprehensive effort to revitalize the federal bureaucracy; the layoffs were just one part. The full history of Reinventing Government’s civil service overhaul offers broader lessons in what makes government reforms either take root or fade away under later administrations.
Reinventing Government — at the time the most ambitious federal reform effort since the 1940s — sought a more dynamic and entrepreneurial government. In civil service reform, as in other issues, it shunned hierarchy and commands, instead aiming to inspire the bureaucracy. While this approach led to short-term successes, the effort only left a lasting mark through its institutional reforms. The initiative claimed to break with bureaucracy as usual, but the lasting reforms were those that embraced bureaucracy.
