This article seeks to apply a contractarian approach to the design of public administrative structures and processes. It speculates as to what kind of public administration could have emerged hypothetically from unanimous agreement between rational individuals in a constitutional setting. The contractarian approach suggest the desirability of a system of public administration which provides administrators with significant discretion in following the directives of political leaders while at the same time constraining the use of that discretion for private purposes. Normative implications for various schools of public administration theory are discussed.