Theorizing the Administrative State

Abstract

Modern governments formulate and execute policies with consequences for society (Hupe & Edwards, 2012). Yet, governance takes place within and through bureaucratic structures. These structures provide the resource basis for governments to govern, broadly speaking, and also the foundation of modern political order and civilized political life (Fukuyama, 2014; Kristof, 2016). This chapter applies an organizational approach to account for how bureaucratic structures shape governance of the administrative state. It is argued that bureaucratic structures intervene in governance processes, thereby creating a systematic bias that makes some process characteristics and outputs more likely than others. An emphasis on bureaucratic structure presupposes a theory of organizations that assumes that ways of organizing may affect how organizations and their members think and act (Hammond, 1986; March & Olsen, 1983a, 1983b). Structural factors include bureaucratic structure, demography, culture, and location. In this chapter, however, the role of organizational structure is central to the argument. There are at least two important reasons for this choice: First, some of the most promising research findings are related to this variable. Second, contemporary scholarship lacks a comprehensive analysis of how organizational structures affect governance.