The Structure and Organization of Government: Concepts and Issues

Abstract

The most basic question about the structure and organization of government is Why we should be concerned about this question at all?' Many of us trained in political science programs during the behavioral revolution were taught to believe that the structures of government were insignificant as a focus for research. The structures ofgovernment became encapsulated in an opaque black box; that part of the political system where decisions were made. Fortunately, this view no longer prevails and there is increasing interest in structural questions, in part generated by the increasing interest in the state as a focus for political inquiry (Dyson, 1980; Benjamin and Elkin, 1985). Much of the work on the state as yet, however, leaves that concept largely undifferentiated and has not dealt systematically with the structure of the state apparatus. Thus, concern for the development of state theory, as well as the concerns of those interested in public policy, has returned structural questions to a more central position in political science.