Administrative Autonomy Among American State Agencies: An Empirical Analysis of Fragmentation and Functionalism

Abstract

Administrative (or bureaucratic) autonomy has been an issue discussed in many different political and policymaking settings. Since administrative agencies are actively involved in the formation and implementation of public policy the issue of administrative autonomy is an important contemporary issue. We measure the concept of administrative autonomy empirically and systematically among state administrative agencies along two general features or components: (1) fragmentation and (2) functionalism. Each of two features of autonomy is subdivided into institutional and perceptual dimensions. The former is based on organizational and position characteristics. The latter derives from attitudes of individual administrators. Data are derived from responses by over 1000 state agency heads from the 1998 American State Administrators Project (ASAP). Among the prominent findings are: (a) there are positive relationships between the institutional and perceptual dimensions for both fragmentation and functionalism, and (b) variations in institutional and perceptual dimension of administrative autonomy among different types of agencies and different selection methods of the agency heads.