Bureaucracies in Retrenchment

Abstract

This article tests some received ideas on bureaucratic vulnerability to cutbacks, using data drawn from U.K central government departments over the period 1975-85. It looks at vulnerability at the level of programs, of groups within the bureaucracy, and of department, and tests three approaches to explaining vulnerability: party-political influences on political outcomes, the impact of prior history, and the influence of bureaucratic processes. Party-political influences and prior history seem to have low power in predicting vulnerability to cutbacks, but bureaucratic process influences have some predictive power for these data, particularly at the group and departmental levels of vulnerability.