| In 1986, President Reagan issued Executive Order 12564, which initiated the "war on drugs" in the federal workplace. Since the implementation of the Order, public policy makers and employees have debated the viability and constitutionality of public sector employee drug testing.; This study utilizes a documentary-historical methodology to explore and analyze the history of drug testing issues and policies in the public sector. The units of analysis are judicial decision making, administrative policy making, and employee rights. These three constructs represent competing interests in the on-going debate over drug testing in the workplace.; The historical analysis and discussion of competing interests are guided by an integration of the existing scholarly work in fields such as law, public administration and policy, political science, psychology, and management. More specifically, the study analyzes government documents, court cases, public policy documents, research reports, and scholarly research journals.; Rosenbloom's (1983; 1990) theoretical model was incorporated in the study to broaden the analysis by linking the competing interests to perspectives on public administration and the balance of power between the three branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial.; The use of Rosenbloom's theoretical framework leads to the initial conclusion that the failure to reach consensus over drug testing may have more to do with the Constitution in action and the historical traditions of three distinct approaches (managerial, political, legal) to public administration.; This study finds that there is the possibility that the three approaches to public administration may actually evidence the core issues that undergird the drug testing debate and not the competing interests in and of themselves. Additional findings suggest that it is possible for one or all three approaches governing the organizational behavior of the respective branches of government, to be reframed or reconstructed in order to justify a policy direction that may stretch the envelope of what is constitutionally permissible. |
