COMMENTARY
Outsider Dobelle lacked feel for Hawai'i
By Fred W. Riggs
The recent firing of President Evan Dobelle by the University of Hawai'i Board of Regents cannot be understood as just a political problem pitting the governor and Republicans against the Democrats and a high-spending president.
At root, there's a structural problem than will surely trap any future president unless we face up to some basic design issues.
DOBELLE
CAYETANO
LINGLE
An underlying reason is our ethno-cultural diversity based on high levels of in-migration and a repressed indigenous population.
One way to cope with this problem is simply to rotate leaders as we have done in the governor' s office itself. By re-electing the governor every four years, it's been possible to rotate the office among haoles, Japanese, Hawaiians and Filipinos: John Burns (1962-74), George Ariyoshi (1974-86), John Waihee (1986-94), Ben Cayetano (1994-2002) and now Linda Lingle. When you have diversity and choose insiders, you can rotate leaders among major factions, as we do here.
However, this is not feasible when presidents are selected as long-term incumbents. How can they satisfy all the competing demands when resources are limited? Dobelle decided to prioritize the Hawaiians, the medical school, etc., but this antagonized the rest. Despite his best efforts, he did not raise enough money to satisfy everyone or meet expectations.
The problem Dobelle faced in Hawai'i can best be understood if one studies the history of city managers as described by Gladys Kammerer — a very distinguished political scientist — in a slim monograph she published in 1962 called "City managers in politics: An Analysis of Manager Tenure and Termination" (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1962).
Her basic goal was to explain why city managers in some Florida towns survive in office a long time but others are frequently discharged. There is a striking analogy here, and I'd like to point it out.
To oversimplify, there are two kinds of city managers: locals and outsiders. The former are amateurs, but they know their communities well; the latter are professionals with more experience and skills but lacking local roots. You guessed it: the amateur locals last, the professional outsiders frequently come and go.
There' s a lot of lip service to the need for the kind of expertise Dobelle brings to the job, but at base, he lacks the feel for Hawai'i and the links to its social networks that are needed for survival here. Knowing this, one might ask why any city would choose an outsider to manage its affairs. The answer applies to Hawai'i: it's diversity.
Communities with a homogeneous, long-resident population almost always choose an insider as city manager, one of their own who shares their values and background and is broadly networked. Somehow he (usually a male) is able to manage, even though without much professional experience.
However, where many in-migrants have produced a heterogeneous local population marked by ethnic and social clashes, it's hard to gain consensus on a local to head the city. The City Council decides to reach outside and recruit a professional who will not only be be neutral between clashing factions but also bring expertise to running the local government.
Sadly, he (or she) soon runs afoul of one or more local factions and is fired. Surely diversity prevails in Hawai'i. The old-boy system prevailed until statehood, and then the Democrats came to power with strong support from previously marginalized ethnic communities, especially the Japanese. Their war-time heroism and veterans organizations gave them clout that made their support necessary and galvanized the local revolution that ousted the old network.
But it did not produce a new harmony. You know the story, but Dobelle failed to grasp its ramifications. Perhaps he identified Hawai'i with Hawaiians because he certainly gave new vigor to their cause, and he surely understood Inouye's support base when he plugged for Democratic governor candidate Mazie Hirono.
As for our future, my guess is that David McClain, now the university's acting president, has become local enough to play by the rules that the regents understand. Moreover, his business background makes him familiar with the normal rules for a chief executive. I expect he will remain for quite a long time as acting president. At least, it will be hard to find another highly qualified outsider of Dobelle' s stature willing to walk into this lion's den.
However, we also face a complex problem of clashing rules of the game that needs further discussion. I'll not try to explain it here, however. It deserves separate analysis in a follow-up piece that I'll offer later.
Fred Riggs is a professor emeritus in political science at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa.
