Theory Of Bureaucracy Research Articles

Environmentalism, the Forest Service, and the Hispano Communities of Northern New Mexico

The Hispano communities of northern New Mexico have farmed, ranched, and exploited forest resources since the 1600s. After United States conquest in 1848, much of the common grant land used for subsistence was alienated from the Hispano owners, eventually being managed by the U. S. Forest Service. Thus, continuation of traditional use practices is dependent to a considerable degree upon access to resources on former grant lands that are now federally managed. Increasing federal regulation and environmental litigation impact traditional resource-use practices of Hispano communities, who respond with protests and litigation of their own. This discussion examines causes of land and resource loss within their historical context and also explores the ways in which local communities are attempting to maintain and regain land and resource access. Concepts derived primarily from sociological theories of colonialism and bureaucracy are used to examine land and resource loss, while the concept of ethnic boundary maintenance is used to explore community response to resource loss.

Political and Bureaucratic Power in Australian Government: A Weberian Approach

In one of his three theories of bureaucracy, Weber argued that the extent to which bureaucrats play an independent policy role depends on whether politicians exercise political leadership. This paper shows that the history of Australian government vindicates Weber's theory. Senior officials have played an independent role in the absence of political leadership. Notwithstanding this, they have exhibited the leadership limitations that Weber ascribed to bureaucrats. Contrary to Weber's belief though, such limitations are not insurmountable, since the work of bureaucrats enables them to acquire leadership skills. Greater political leadership since the 1980s has curtailed the independence of bureaucrats. This may be attributed in Weberian terms to the emergence of politicians who possess political conviction and administrative competence. One result has been the hybridisation of political and bureaucratic roles. The paper concludes that Weber's theory incorporates the best features of bureaucratic politics and institutionalist theory but not their limitations.

The new business environment of latin america and the caribbean

Latin America and the Caribbean Region experienced dramatic changes in the 1990s. Politically, all but one country, are governed by a democratically elected government. Economically, import substitution industrialization policies (ISI) followed in the past, were replaced by liberalization programs aimed at reducing inflationary pressures and creating a competitive environment. The significant increase in capital flows to Latin America in one single year, 1990, buried the 1980s as the “lost decade,” and the successful implementation of privatization programs region-wide prompted to affirm that the 1990s might constitute the “Latin America's decade.” Where does the euphoria come from? Is there any implicit promise to be derived from such international capital flows? Will the pattern be sustained? Has Latin America begun a new era? Are unfolding events on defiance of fundamentals? These and many other questions can be raised regarding the spectacular transformation of Latin America and the Caribbean, particu...

Implementation of the IDEA by school psychologists: An exploratory study using the theory of Street-Level Bureaucracy.

Implementation of the IDEA by school psychologists: An exploratory study using the theory of Street-Level Bureaucracy.

Antitrust policy in a hostile environment: institution building in venezuela's procompetencia

Theories of bureaucracy in Latin America generally stress institutional weakness, political volatility and the politicized nature of government agencies. One product of market liberalization in Venezuela was the creation of the anti-monopoly agency called “Procompetencia”, which managed to survive a change of government and a move toward interventionist, anti-market mechanisms hostile to its survival. The strategy and tactics of this agency are reviewed with the objective of detecting bureaucratic responses to threat and successful efforts to survive. Some lessons are derived for infusing more stability into weak institutions.

Policy of Preference: Lessons from India, the United States, and South Africa

Has the sanguine public policy of preference turned out to be a political soccer game? Has it been a victim of ideological fights? Can it undo the past? In India, it has become a tool of competitive populism. In the United States, it has been subjected to the ideological positioning of the Supreme Court and with all types of backlash, the policy appears to be in the doldrums. In South Africa, it is turned on its head with the majority enjoying preference resulting in the flight of the minority white tribe. Given all the tribulations, can altruism be rescued from politics? All modern nations have tried to reach out to minorities in an effort to their public service more representative. Such efforts are known by several names, the most commonly used being affirmative action. This article briefly compares the experience of three different nations in an effort to get a better handle on the issues revolving around this important public policy. The article provides a brief rationale for affirmative action, describes the policy initiatives and the politics of preference, and presents an assessment followed by some concluding remarks. The three nations chosen here are India, the United States, and South Africa. India, the largest working democracy, in an effort to transform an essentially unequal and hierarchical society into a Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic has over the last 50 years embarked upon a serious measure of reservations to undo institutionalized social discrimination practiced over the millennia. The United States of America, an immigrant nation and the most stable democracy, has to come to grips with its ethnic diversity and more importantly undo the impact of past discrimination against minorities. South Africa, after a long rule by a tiny minority, has come into the comity of modern democratic nations only recently with the transfer of power to the majority blacks in 1994. While the experience of India and the United States in this context is formidable and long, the South African experience is nascent but important. While it is not necessary to go into an elaborate discussion of the rationale behind preferential treatment and the criticism of it since much has already been written, it is useful briefly to recall the arguments. Those who support affirmative action argue mainly on four criteria. First, the concept of compensatory justice implies that the damage done by historical discrimination against some groups either from custom and tradition or through deliberate public policy, should be undone and due compensation should be extended to them. Second, distributive justice demands that the just distribution of social goods and wealth requires equal opportunity and access to all. Third, social utility theory asserts that everyone in the society has something to contribute and that the society is better off when everyone can participate. This is an argument for inclusion rather than exclusion, which is also quite democratic. Diversity in itself becomes a core value (Rosenbloom, 1998). Fourth, there is the concept of responsiveness, an outcome of the theory of representative bureaucracy, which suggests that if public service personnel become more diverse and representative of all segments of the community, the service itself will become more responsive to the needs of all. In addition, there is an emerging definition of merit based not solely on test scores, which may or may not be valid, but on an expanded concept of deserving in other ways. There are numerous arguments against affirmative action. The first is that of reverse discrimination, which argues that an effort in the present to prefer a minority in order to undo previous discrimination, perpetuates discrimination even though it is now being practiced on a different group. Second is the make argument, which posits that at best, preference should be given only to those individuals who actually experience discrimination and not to the whole class of which they are a part because some numbers of that class may be quite successful and well off. …

Managing Uncertainty through Bureaucratic Design: Administrative Procedures and State Air Pollution Control Agencies

Managing Uncertainty through Bureaucratic Design: Administrative Procedures and State Air Pollution Control Agencies

Analyzing problems in schools and school systems: a theoretical approach

Contents: Preface. Part I: Methodology. Conceptual Framework and Overview. Describing and Documenting Problems, Stakeholders, and Decision Makers. Analyzing the Causes of a Problem. Developing a Solution Strategy and Recommendations to Stakeholders. Part II: Theory Sketches. Bureaucratic Theory. Social Systems Theory. Political Systems Theory. Leadership Theory. Burrell and Morgan's Meta-Framework. Systems Thinking: Modeling Problem Systems. Conclusion: Problem Analysis as a Hermeneutic Process. Part III: Case Examples. A. Scheier, School to Work: An Analysis of Vocational Education as Provided by Greater Stanton Technical School. J.R. Dolan, The Implementation of the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993 at the New England School for Special Students. A. Bernstein, Analysis of an Organizational Decision: The Placement Process for the Honors Track at Brandywine Regional High School. J.J. Pavese, Analysis of an Organizational Decision: The Placement Process of the Latin American Scholarship Program of American Universities. References. Suggested Readings.

Administering Success: The Legitimacy Imperative and the Implementation of Welfare Reform

Based on a case study of Florida's Family Transition Program (FTP), the first time-limited welfare program implemented in the United States, we argue that extra-legal “rules” and popular definitions of success can constrain bureaucratic action and shape policy outcomes. On paper, the FTP permitted considerable discretion in the administration of post-time-limit benefits and included a job guarantee for compliant participants; yet, as the program was implemented both the job guarantee and the benefit extensions were virtually eliminated through administrative procedures. In contrast to what we would expect from current theories of bureaucracy, the unwillingness of administrators to make use of their formal capacity could not be accounted for by the actions of interest groups or street-level bureaucrats, nor could it be explained solely by a lack of resources. Using a combination of insights from historical institutionalism in political sociology and neo-institutionalism in organizational analysis and bringing a new emphasis on the power of the media to define programmatic success, we argue that the legitimacy of the FTP would have been threatened if administrators made use of some of the policy options permitted by law. We conclude by offering three hypotheses on the relationship between media attention and bureaucratic action.

Ideas, Interests, and Strategy: Bureaucratic Politics and the United States Navy

Edward Rhodes has proposed that ideas are more important to the formulation of policy than interests are. This article challenges that proposal by examining the role of ideas and interests in the navy's strategic planning of the 1980s. It first examines the role of service unions in naval policy, finding that they were much more influential than Rhodes suggests and goes on to examine the validity of the notion of the superiority of ideas over interests in terms of realist and bureaucratic politics theory. Showing that ideas and interests are not strictly separable, it then examines these findings against the experience of the navy's Maritime Strategy, which further supports the mutual dependency of ideas and interests. This allows analysts to assess the "validity" of strategic concepts using criteria laid down by Roger Hilsman and Bernard Brodie. Successful strategy is that which pays attention to both service interests and national interests. Strategies that neglect either component will ultimately fail, either on the battlefield or bureaucratically.

Bureaucratic Theory Meets Reality: Public Choice and Service Contracting in U. S. Local Government

Public choice theory suggests that if public officials monopolize service delivery, then the result is oversupply and inefficiency (Blais and Dion, 1992; Jackson, 1982; McMaster and Sawkins, 1996; Mueller, 1989). By contrast, if services are contracted out, then the pressures of a competitive market lead to improved performance. The advocates of service contracting in local government have been influenced strongly by public choice arguments on bureaucracy that were developed in the 1960s (Downs, 1967; Niskanen, 1968, 1971; Tullock, 1965). For example, Savas (1974, 474) argues that most city agencies are monopolies, their staffs are automatically in a position to exercise that monopoly power for their own parochial advantage -- and efficiency is rarely seen as an advantage. In short, we have unwittingly built a system in which the public is at the mercy of its servants (see also Bennett and Johnson, 1979). The of public services by external agencies has grown substantially since the early 1970s. As Miranda and Andersen (1994, 28) note, although the use of contracting varies across service areas, contracts have been used for every service local governments provide. The expansion of contracting out can be viewed as a huge natural experiment that effectively tests the validity of public choice propositions concerning the behavior of public managers who possess monopoly powers. Indeed, seldom has the major practical recommendation of an abstract model of bureaucracy been so widely implemented. Public choice theory is perhaps uniquely blessed (or cursed) by policy developments that its creators may have desired, but could not have foreseen. Reviews of the evidence on local service contracting have generally concluded that it does produce the results that public choice theory predicts. For example, Stein (1990, 498) claims that research on contracting for individual goods and services has consistently found this mode of service arrangement to be more efficient than direct service provision and production (emphasis added). Similarly, Kiewiet (1991, 66) concludes that virtually every study that has ever compared the operations of public bureaus with those of private firms providing identical services has found data to support the inefficiency hypothesis (emphasis added). Finally, Bennett and Johnson (1980, 392-93) assert that exception, the empirical findings indicate that the same level of output could be provided at substantially lower costs if output were produced by the private sector rather than the public sector.... The private sector of public services offers an excellent opportunity for tax reductions without sacrifice of services; the best of all possible worlds, at least in this case, can be achieved (emphasis added; for similar arguments see Ferris, 1986; McGuire, Ohsfeldt, and Van Cott, 1987; Miranda, 1994a; Savas, 1979). Such claims on the beneficial effects of local service contracts have also been made in other countries, for example the U.K. (Boyne, 1998a). This article aims to reappraise the empirical evidence on the effects of service contracting in U.S. local government and to evaluate the implications of this evidence for public choice models of public administration. The first part of the article identifies three specific public choice hypotheses on the impact of service contracting on spending and efficiency. The second part of the article evaluates whether these hypotheses are supported by the empirical evidence on contracting with private organizations and other units of government. It is important to note at the outset that this article evaluates evidence that compares local government agencies and external contractors as producers of public services. The aim is not to compare the relative merits of wholly public and completely private provision of local services (studies that contain evidence on this issue include Hirsch, 1965 and Pier, Vernon, and Wicks, 1974, on refuse collection; Becker and Sloan, 1985, on hospitals; Nelson, 1990, Primeaux, 1977, and Yonker, 1975, on electricity; and Bruggink, 1982 and Teeples and Glyer, 1987, on water supply). …

Continuity and Disruption: Essays in Public Administration

Through thoughtful essays linking historical concepts and practices, current issues, and modern research, Matthew Holden argues that administration is indispensable to politics. Essentially, public administration consists of making decisions about information, money, and force - the three crucial sources of power. Politics and administration cannot be separated, and no political system can be sustained when its administrative core collapses. In Holden's view of administration, a crucial problem is turbulence: the presence of simultaneous pressures toward continuity and toward disruption. Holden examines turbulence in the intellectual history of administration as reflected in traditional political theory and in specific contemporary theories of organization, bureaucracy, and management. He also analyzes political dogmas as a form of control over turbulence, considering such concepts as executive leadership and the emergence of administrative law. He turns an unblinking eye on the practice of public administration today, buffeted by changes in technology and ethnic diversity.

Bureaucracy as a Representative Institution: Toward a Reconciliation of Bureaucratic Government and Democratic Theory

Theory: Scholars have long debated the question of what assurance the populace can have that government bureaucracies, operating on the basis of specialized knowledge and exercising considerable discretionary authority, will act in a manner consistent with the public interest. One approach to this problem involves the representation of certain groups, particularly racial and ethnic minorities, in the public work force. This research systematically explores the potential for by examining how minority employment or passive representation is translated into the active representation of minority interests in the decisions of public agencies. The article proposes as the crucial intermediary concept in this process the assumption of a minority representative role perception by public administrators. Hypotheses: The article presents a model to explain the minority representative role as well as its likely consequences for decision-making affecting minority groups. Adherence to a minority representative role is influenced by an individual's personal characteristics, including race and ethnicity, organizational factors, and perceived expectations of their work obligations. To the degree that public administrators adopt a minority representative role they will be more likely to make decisions that reflect the interests of minorities. Methods: Ordinary least squares regression is used to test the hypotheses in data collected from a sample of county supervisors from the Farmer's Home Administration (FmHA) responsible for making loan determinations. This assessment offers a rigorous test of a theory of representative bureaucracy since the FmHA has not demonstrated great sensitivity to minorities in either employment or policy implementation. Results: Race, education, age, party identification, years employed by the federal government, and perceived work obligations are found to affect adherence to a minority representative role among the sample of FmHA administrators. Assumption of this role, in turn, increases the likelihood that these officials will make loan decisions favoring minority applicants. These results provide strong confirmation for the minority representative role concept and the underlying theoretical linkages of representative bureaucracy.

Competitive Tendering In Local Government: A Review Of Theory And Evidence

The introduction of compulsory competitive tendering in UK local government reflected conventional public choice theories of bureaucracy. These theories suggest that competition for service contracts will lead to lower expenditure and higher efficiency. Extensions and criticisms of the classical public choice model yield very different conclusions. First, the problems of bureaucratic supply are less severe than originally assumed, and secondly competition may itself generate new problems such as transaction costs, erosion of trust between principals and agents, and rent seeking. The impact of competition on spending and efficiency is therefore indeterminate, and must be established empirically. However, studies which evaluate the effects of competitive tendering in local government are few in number, cover a limited range of services, and are methodologically flawed. Therefore neither the initial imposition of competitive tendering by the Conservatives, nor its planned abolition by Labour, can be traced to a solid foundation of theoretical or empirical support. Theoretical and methodological problems that need to be resolved by further empirical studies are identified.

Organizational Rules and the "Bureaucratic Personality"

Theory: Theories of the bureaucratic personality by Victor Thompson and Robert Merton hold that personal characteristics of certain bureaucrats make them prefer elaborate rules and regulations, so this study tests such a model. Yet some organizations really do need more rules, so the study also tests a bureaucratic organization model that predicts that characteristics of the organization determine members' preferences for rules. Prominent theories of bureaucracy also suggest that bureaucratic personalities should be more prevalent in public bureaucracies. Hypotheses: Personal characteristics of organizational managers determine their preferences for more rules, so managers higher on alienation and pessimism will perceive a need for more rules. Alternatively, organizational characteristics (such as layers of authority and number of records kept) determine managers' preferences for more rules, so that where there are low levels of such structural characteristics (e.g., few records kept), managers will perceive a need for more rules. Public sector managers should show more of the bureaucratic personality responses than private managers, and prefer more rules. Methods: Correlation and logistic regression analysis is used on data from the National Administrative Studies Project, a mail survey of managers in a wide variety of public and private organizations. Results: Both personal characteristics, such as alienation, and organizational characteristics, such as the number of records kept, show relations to preferences for more rules. Contrary to expectations and to much of the literature, managers in private organizations (mostly business firms) were more likely to prefer more rules than managers in public agencies.

Public-Service Motivation: Building Empirical Evidence of Incidence and Effect

Three secondary data sources are used to answer four questions that relate to the theory of public-service motivation. The questions focus on the incidence of public-service reward motivations, consistency of these motivations over time, their impact on organizational performance, and the ramifications of a publicservice ethic for the theory of representative bureaucracy. Using descriptive and multivariate statistics, the analyses conclude that there are generalizable and stable differences in the reward motivations of public- and private-sector employees. There is also evidence that public-service motivation in the federal sector is positively related to organizational commitment. In contrast, there is no evidence that public-policy attitudes vary between those who are and those who are not public service oriented.

The Representativeness of State-Level Bureaucratic Leaders: A Missing Piece of the Representative Bureaucracy Puzzle

A long tradition of research in public administration revolves around the concept of representative bureaucracy (e.g., Krislov, 1974; Grabosky and Rosenbloom, 1975; Thompson, 1976; Cayer and Sigelman, 1980; Dometrius, 1984; Meier, 1993a; see also Meier, 1993b, for a comprehensive review of representative bureaucracy theory and research). According to the theory of representative bureaucracy, the demographic composition of the bureaucracy should mirror the demographic composition of the public. In this way, the preferences of a heterogeneous population will be represented in bureaucratic decision making. The theory has been more precisely defined in recent years to include the following types of representation: passive, where the bureaucracy has the same demographic origins as the population it serves, and active, where bureaucrats act on behalf of their counterparts in the general population. Active representativeness theory holds that values linked to demographic origins will be translated into programs, policies, or decisions that benefit individuals of similar origins (Meier, 1993b). Initially, representative bureaucracy theory generated a good deal of controversy because the notion of a public bureaucracy acting as a representative political institution was considered a perversion of democratic rule (Krislov and Rosenbloom, 1981). Despite these early challenges, the theory has gained considerable attention as a legitimation for bureaucratic policy making and as a justification for social policies such as affirmative action (Saltzstein, 1979; Rosenbloom and Featherstonhaugh, 1977). The preponderance of representative bureaucracy research has focused on the demographic representativeness of public bureaucracies, an issue that remains salient not only to researchers but also to elected officials with appointing authority.(1) The composition of government work forces is illustrative of the level of openness of bureaucracies to persons of all backgrounds (Meier, 1993b). It serves as an indicator of equality of opportunity and access. In addition, it can promote the legitimacy of government bureaucracies in that diverse communities may have a greater sense of enfranchisement when the bureaucracies that serve them (e.g., police, health, social services, etc.) are visibly diverse. In these ways, passive representativeness has important symbolic value. Our research joins the debate as to where the study of representative bureaucracy should be concentrated. We depart from previous research by focusing on agency leaders, as opposed to overall agencies or bureaucrats. Top political appointees serve as our locus of representativeness. Many scholars and practitioners have argued that representation is important not just at the upper, policy-making levels, but at the lower levels as well (Meier 1993b; Meier and Stewart, 1992; Thompson 1976). The interest is in street-level bureaucrats, a term coined by Lipsky (1980), which refers to those direct service providers (e.g., police officers, social workers) who have some discretion over the delivery of public services in their domains. In representative bureaucracy parlance, bureaucrats are an important cohort of public employees because they have the power to influence the quality and quantity of services their agencies deliver. While many have acknowledged the significance of bureaucrats as agency representatives (e.g., Thompson, 1976), few have contested the importance of agency leaders as pivotal bureaucratic decision makers. Policy leaders appointed by governors are an integral part of the policy-making machinery of state government. As the pace of devolution accelerates, political appointees will exercise substantial influence over policy development and participate in key resource allocation choices. This study supplies a missing piece of the representative bureaucracy puzzle in that it focuses on the most influential policy makers. …

TAKING THE MEASURE OF MORALE: STRUCTURE AND JOB SATISFACTION IN A MULTIHOSPITAL SYSTEM

This study examines the impact of bureaucratic structure on morale among hospital staff. Hypotheses are drawn from Hage's axiomatic theory of organizations, including the predicted negative impact on morale of formalization, centralization and stratification, and the positive impact on morale of task complexity. Contingency hypotheses involving structure and task complexity are also examined. Results indicate morale is either positively affected or unaffected by structure, and negatively affected by process. Some evidence of contingent effects are found. The findings are discussed within the broader context of Weber's theory of bureaucracy. This paper addresses the relationship between several structural features of bureaucracy and workers' morale in a hospital setting. It examines these relationships from broadly defined theoretical perspectives. In this connection, Weber's theory of bureaucracy is treated, as was the case in his original, as part of his general theory of rationalization in modern western society. The study considers the relationship between: 1) Formalization and morale, 2) Centralization and morale, 3) Stratification and morale, 4) Complexity and morale. These structural features of bureaucracy—formalization, centralization, stratification and complexity‐are treated as the means at the command of management for attaining organizational objectives. Worker morale is often referred to as the “level of feeling” about themselves among workers or about the work they perform (Revans, 1964; Veninga, 1982; Simendinger and Moore, 1985; Zucker, 1988). In effect, the term is used in stating that morale is high or low to suggest that something is right or wrong about the organization. Surprisingly, many of these studies do not explain why they are suggesting a particular state of morale, but only that the state of morale is crucial to the performance of the organization. In essence, morale is the level of confidence of the employees. It can vary from one department to the other due to specific or overall structural conditions of the organizations; without giving it routine consideration, performance will degenerate (Nelson, 1989).

A Comparison of Three Emerging Theories of the Policy Process

In an earlier review of political theories of the policy process, Sabatier (1991) challenged political scientists and policy scholars to improve theoretical understanding of policy processes. This essay responds by comparing and building upon three emerging theoretical frameworks: Sabatier's advocacy coalitions framework (ACF), institutional rational choice (IRC), and Moe's political theory of bureaucracy, which he calls the politics of structural choice (SC). The frameworks are compared using six criteria: (1) the bound aries of inquiry; (2) the model of the individual; (3) the roles of informa tion and beliefs in decision making and strategy; (4) the nature and role of groups; (5) the concept of levels of action; and (6) the ability to explain action at various stages of the policy process. Comparison reveals that each framework has promising components, but each remains short of provid ing a full explanation of the processes of policy formation and change. Directions for future theory development and empirical examination are discussed.

Rational choice theory in sociology

James Coleman attempted to reconcile rational choice theory with the classical sociological concerns: the relationship between the individual and society, and the historical and normative status of rationality. He identifies limits to the rational choice model, and suggests some promising but ultimately unconvincing ways around them. His project does, however, offer an important critique of Weber's theory of bureaucracy, which is of value in analyzing relationships between corporate actors and particular persons.