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The Politics of Bureaucracy

Written by B. Guy Peters, a leading authority in the field, this comprehensive exploration of the political and policy making roles of public bureaucracies is now available in a fully revised seventh edition, offering extensive, well- documented comparative analysis of the effects of politics on bureaucracy. Updates to this edition include:

• All new coverage of public administration in Latin America and Africa, with special attention paid to the impact of New Public Management and other ideas for reform

• An examination of the European Union and its effects on public policy and public administration in member countries, as well as an exploration of the EU as a particular type of bureaucracy

• A renewed emphasis on coordination and the role of central agencies • A thorough assessment of ‘internationalization’ of bureaucracies and con-

cerns with the role of international pressures on domestic governments and organizations in the public sector

• Coverage of the wide- ranging impacts of the 2008 economic slowdown on public bureaucracies and public policies, and the varied success of govern- mental responses to the crisis.

Drawing on evidence from a wide variety of political systems, The Politics of Bureaucracy, Seventh Edition, continues to be essential reading for all students of government, policy analysis, politics, and international relations.

B. Guy Peters is Maurice Falk Professor of American Government at the University of Pittsburgh, USA.

“The seventh edition of this popular textbook provides readers with a com- prehensive and updated discussion of challenges and recent developments in the field of public bureaucracy. Modern public administration is placed in its political and intellectual context and analyzed in a skillful manner with insights into the challenges and opportunities of big contemporar y govern- ment.” Per Lægreid, University of Bergen, Norway

“At a time when political parties and politicians in democratic nations seem tone-deaf to concerns citizens have with government, Peter’s classic text brings welcome insights into the inner workings of public institutions and the gargantuan changes that have occurred over the last forty years.” Jill L. Tao, Incheon National University, South Korea

“A comprehensively updated edition with impressive coverage of public administration, topic-wise and globally. A wealth of comparative insights and analysis. Essential reading for all who seek to understand the structures and dynamics of the state, government, and governance in diverse contexts.” Ian Thynne, Australian National University, Australia

The Politics of

Bureaucracy

An Introduction to Comparative Public Administration

Seventh Edition

B. Guy Peters

Seventh edition published 2018 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

The right of B. Guy Peters to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reser ved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

[Fourth edition published by Longman 1995] [Sixth edition published by Routledge 2010]

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Title: The politics of bureaucracy : an introduction to comparative public administration / B. Guy Peters.

Description: Seventh Edition. | New York : Routledge, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017035021| ISBN 9780415743396 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780415743402 (paperback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315813653 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Public administration. | Bureaucracy. | Comparative government.

Classification: LCC JF1501 .P43 2018 | DDC 351–dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc. gov/2017035021

ISBN: 978-0-415-74339-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-74340-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-81365-3 (ebk)

Typeset in Centur y Old Style by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

https://lccn.loc

Contents

about the author vi

1 Public Administration and Governing 1

2 Political Culture and Public Administration 31

3 Recruiting Public Personnel 79

4 Problems of Administrative Structure 123

5 The Politics of Bureaucracy 163

6 The Bureaucracy and Political Institutions 193

7 The Politics of the Budgetary Process 227

8 The Politics of Administrative Accountability 259

9 Administrative Reform 301

10 The Politics of Public Management 323

bibliography 347

index 379

v i

About the Author

B. Guy Peters is Maurice Falk Professor of American Government at the University of Pittsburgh, USA. He has also ser ved as a research professor at the University Center for International Studies (UCIS), as a senior fellow at the Canadian Centre for Management Development, and as honorar y professor at City University of Hong Kong. He is author of Public Administration: Research, Strategies, Concepts, and Methods (Routledge, 2015).

C h a p t e r 1

Public Administration and Governing

The Modern Public Sector 3 The Growth of Government 7 The Growth of Administration 14 Countertrends in Government Growth 23 Summary 27

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I began the first edition of this book with the statement that government has become a per vasive fact of ever yday life and that, in addition, public administra- tion has become an especially per vasive aspect of government. This statement remained true despite the long terms in office of a number of conser vative govern- ments in many industrialized nations (Ronald Reagan and the two George Bushes in the United States, Margaret Thatcher, John Major and then David Cameron in the United Kingdom, Helmut Kohl and then Angela Merkel in Germany). These governments were joined later by right- of-center governments in unlikely places such as Denmark and Sweden. Despite their rhetoric, these governments were never able to reduce the size and influence government to any significant degree. Many contemporar y governments from the political left are not the same types of social democrats as in the past. Most of these governments have accepted many of the same premises about the need to reduce the size of government, and have made concerted attempts to reduce the role of government in the lives of their citizens. Social Democratic governments all over Europe, with the possible exception of France, have adopted some of the same rhetoric of the “Third Way,” albeit in var ying degrees. Government is not the enemy that it was, and is, to some conser vatives but neither is there much acceptance of the “tax and spend” behavior of left governments in the past, even in the Scandinavian governments. What is true for the industrialized democracies is especially true for coun- tries of the former communist bloc, and for many developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The political systems in central and eastern Europe expe- rienced almost total transformations of their governmental structures to reduce the intrusiveness of government and to permit greater personal freedom – economi- cally as well as politically (see Verheijen, 2007). These changes in values have been accompanied by radical transformations of the public sector. The changes included numerous public enterprises being privatized and public employment being down- sized. The countries of Africa, and especially Latin America, experienced significant pressures from international donor organizations to reduce the size of the State and utilize more market mechanisms. While following that “Washington Consensus” for some years, many countries have returned to more inter ventionist styles of government. In the extreme, countries such as Venezuela and Bolivia have adopted a limited form of socialism, while others such as Uruguay have returned the State to a more central position. Despite the best efforts of political leaders, however, an enhanced role for the public sector appears to persist in many countries, and in some cases that role even continues to increase. Leaders of governments have usually found government more difficult to control than they had believed before taking office. This chapter will attempt to document briefly the generalization – if indeed any documentation is required – that the public sector is difficult to control and even more difficult to “roll back.” Indeed, as the state is rolled back in some ways it almost inevitably must “roll for ward” in others. Privatizing industries – especially public utilities – will mean that those industries will have to be regulated in some way to ensure that the public is treated fairly (Majone, 2005). The large- scale privatization occurring in Eastern Europe has meant that legal principles like property rights and con- tracts, as well as regulator y mechanisms, must be created by government. In other

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countries, where the central government has assumed a smaller role in society, lower tiers of government have accepted enhanced roles, and in some cases whole new tiers of government have been created (Hor vath, 2000; Loughlin, 2001). In all of these cases, governments remain involved in the economy and society, just in less obvious ways. The growth and contraction of government have become objects of substan- tial scholarly research (Tanzi and Schuknecht, 2000). Attempts to change the size of government have also become a rallying cr y for political activity, whether the attempt is to expand or to contract the public sector. Any number of explanations have been advanced for the growth and persistence of the public sector. Likewise, the expansion of the public bureaucracy has been conceptualized as either a by- product of the general growth in the public sector or as a root cause of that growth. Further, if government is not able to decrease its size and its influence in a society, the blame is often placed on an entrenched public bureaucracy. For example, the expanding role of the European Union in the daily lives of the citizens of the now 27 member countries is often phrased in terms of expansionar y ideas of the “Euro- crats” in the European Commission (Trondal, 2010). On the other hand it is important to place contemporar y public administra- tion in its political and intellectual context, and the increased concern about the magnitude and impact of government remains an important factor in shaping the current debate about the public sector, and about public administration. At home, governments seeking to provide better and more equitable ser vices to the public must also be conscious of the resistance of the public to taxation. Internationally, the international financial community is skeptical of a large public sector and exerts an influence through the bond and currency markets, including in industrialized democracies such as Greece, Spain, and Portugal.

The Modern Public Sector

The above paragraph was written as if the “size of government” could be clearly and unambiguously measured (see OECD, 2007). In fact, it is a fundamental feature of contemporar y government, especially in industrialized societies, that the bounda- ries between government and society – between what is public and what is private – are increasingly vague. As a consequence of that imprecision, any attempt to say unambiguously that government is growing or shrinking is subject to a great deal of error and misinterpretation. For example, by some measures the government in Russia would be larger in 2000 than it was prior to the collapse of the former system because taxes are now higher as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) than under communism (Stepanyan, 2003). Further, the imprecision in measuring the size of the public sector can be utilized politically to make arguments about the successes or failures of incumbent governments to exercise proper control over the public sector. In an era of skepti- cism about the public sector and resistance to taxation, the issue of controlling the public sector is often important politically (Van de Walle and Bouckaert, 2003). Opposition politicians find it ver y convenient to argue that their opponents have let the public sector “run amok” and can usually muster some evidence to support

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that assertion. Likewise, incumbent politicians can gather their own evidence to demonstrate that they have indeed been good stewards of the public purse. Several examples of the difficulties in measuring the magnitude of the public sector may help to clarify this discussion. One obvious example is the role of the tax system in defining the impact of government on the economy and society – an impact that is not adequately assessed by most measures of the size of govern- ment. In the United States, for example, subsidies for housing through the tax system (primarily through the deductibility of mortgage interest and local property taxes) exceed direct government expenditures for public housing by more than 200 percent; this despite numerous attempts at “tax reform” (see Farley and Ellis, 2014). Likewise, although the United Kingdom has had a substantial public pension program, tax relief for private pensions schemes exceeds £3 billion (but see Wil- davsky, 1985). Similar tax concessions are available to citizens of the majority of industrialized countries, with some of the highest nominal tax rates accompany- ing some of the most generous tax concessions. All of these tax loopholes influ- ence economic behavior and amount to government’s influencing the economy and society just as if it taxed and spent for the same purposes. Tax concessions are not, however, conventionally counted as part of the size of the public sector, as expendi- tures for the same purposes would be. Government loans are another means through which government can influ- ence the economy without ostensibly increasing the size of government. In the majority of industrialized countries governments make loans to nationalized indus- tries that often are not repaid; these defaulted loans do not always show up as an item of public expenditure (Stanton, 2001). Even loans to individual citizens, for example to farmers, or to small businesses, often are not counted as expenditures, given the assumption that eventually they will be repaid. The involvement of gov- ernment is even more subtle when, as in the United States, governments offer guarantees for private loans to companies in financial difficulty or to students who want to go to college. Such arrangements involve the actual expenditure of little or no public money but, again, produce a significant effect in the economy. Not only do expenditures and other uses of financial resources fall on the boundar y between the public and private sectors, but organizations do as well. There has been a significant increase in the number of quasi- public organizations in most countries during the postwar era. In order to provide organizations with greater flexibility in making decisions, or to subject them to greater market disci- pline, or to protect them from potentially adverse political pressures, or simply to mask the true size of government, organizations have been created that straddle the public–private fence. In some instances these organizations are created anew as government enters a policy area for the first time – for example, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in the United States. In other instances organizations that existed previously as a part of government are “hived off ” to a quasi- independent status, as many of the numerous Next Steps agencies in the United Kingdom (James, 2003). That agency model has since been copied in a large number of other countries (Verhoest and Van Thiel, 2012). In addition to the obvious measurement problems these quasi- governmental organizations create, they give rise to even more important problems of account- ability. As they have been divorced from direct control by government to some

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extent, the conventional political and legal means for enforcing accountability (see Chapter 8) may no longer be applicable (Considine, 2001). The result is that these organizations (and the politicians who are responsible for them) have opportuni- ties for abuse of powers. Further, given that they are at once public and private, the average citizen may find it difficult to ascertain who really is responsible for the ser vices they provide. Somewhat paradoxically, as governments have sought to appear smaller and more efficient, the resultant confusion and perceived lack of accountability may cause even greater harm to their reputations with the public.

Public Spending

Although we now can see that it is difficult or impossible to measure the magni- tude of government definitively, we can still gain insight into the changes that have taken place in the role of government by examining figures for public expenditure. This variable is the most widely used measure of the relative size of government and represents perhaps the most visible portions of governmental activity. A better insight about the size of the public sector can be found in the relationship between government expenditure and GDP, a standard measure of all the marketed goods and ser vices produced in an economy. As seen in Table 1.1, there are marked differences among nations in the propor- tion of GDP devoted to public expenditure. The most obvious differences are between the less- developed and the industrialized nations. Even the less- developed country with the highest level of public expenditure (Kenya) spends much less as a proportion of GDP than does the United States, which spends the least among the three indus- trialized countries in the table. Of course, a sample of only seven countries is prone to great error, but similar findings probably would be present were there a much larger sample of nations. In addition, there are differences among the industrialized coun- tries and among the less- developed countries. For instance, Sweden spends over 80 percent more in the public sector as a proportion of GDP than does the United States.

Table 1.1 Public expenditure as a Percentage of Gross domestic Producta

Country 1960 1970 1980 1985 1990 1998

united States 27.5 30.3 33.4 33.2 34.1 34.0 united Kingdom 33.1 33.2 42.2 42.8 41.9 43.4 Sweden 28.7 37.1 57.2 51.9 48.8 49.9 Singapore 11.9 12.8 23.5 39.2 31.5 33.2 Colombia 8.4 16.2 14.9 17.1 16.4 18.9 Kenya 11.5 16.2 20.4 30.1 32.2 34.6 india 11.4 14.1 18.0 25.2 24.0 23.6

Sources: united nations, Statistical Yearbook (new york: united nations, annual); united nations, Yearbook of National Accounts (new york: united nations, annual); World Bank, World Tables (Washington, dC: World Bank, annual).

note a Gross domestic Product at market prices.

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In addition to the differences among the countries, the rate of increase in public expenditure appears substantially higher in the less- developed countries than in the industrialized countries. India has almost quintupled the percentage of GDP devoted to public expenditure over the 38 years from 1950 to 1988, while Colombia has more than doubled the percentage during that time. Kenya almost tripled its percentage of GDP in the public sector from 1960 to 1990, although the increase has virtually stopped. The rate of increase in spending has been almost as rapid in Sweden as in the less- developed countries. The rate of growth of public expenditure has been much more modest in the other two industrialized coun- tries, and has slowed or stopped in Sweden. A major exception to the increasing size of the public sector has been in Singapore, a “newly industrializing countr y,” where the public sector has increased ver y little and there has been a great deal of emphasis on ensuring a good business climate for its rapidly growing private sector (Evans, 1995). Part of the reason for the relatively lower rate of public expenditure in the less- developed countries is that so much of their GDP comes from agriculture and especially subsistence agriculture, as is apparent in Table 1.2. This means that there are fewer “free- floating resources” in the economy that are readily taxed. The other way of saying that is there are fewer tax handles for government to use in extract- ing resources. A cash transaction is easier to tax than if someone is simply growing his or her own crops in order to eat, or is trading by barter. If we calculate the level of public expenditure in relation to the secondar y and tertiar y sectors of the economy (manufacturing and ser vices, respectively), we get a somewhat different picture of the rate of public expenditure in the less- developed countries. Using this calculation, Table 1.3 shows that Kenya, India, and Colombia spend about as much in relation to their readily extractable GDP as does the United States. Thus, the less- developed countries do tend to make rather substantial public expenditures when the difficulties of resource extraction are considered. In the terminology of Almond and Powell (1966), since the extractive capabilities of these countries are weak, so too are their distributive capabilities. These data, while only illustrative, point out that government is a big “busi- ness,” and continues to grow, albeit more slowly than in the recent past. Even in

Table 1.2 Proportion of Gross domestic Product derived from Primary Sector of economy (Agriculture, forestry, and fishing) (Percentage)

Country 1960 1970 1980 1985 1990 1998

united States 4 3 3 2 2 2 united Kingdom 4 3 2 2 2 1 Sweden 7 4 3 3 3 3 Singapore 4 3 2 2 1 1 Colombia 32 26 26 18 16 16 Kenya 38 30 30 29 26 23 india 47 41 31 30 28 26

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the less- developed countries, with their smaller public sectors, a minimum of one dollar (or whatever monetar y unit) in seven goes into public expenditure. In the United States – among the least expenditure- prone of the developed countries – this figure is one dollar in three in the public sector. However, we must remember that when government spends money, it is not shoveled into a hole somewhere in Washington or Nairobi; the expenditures provide education, hospitals, highways, police protection, and the whole range of government ser vices that most citizens require. In addition, especially in the less- developed countries, these funds can be used to promote economic growth. In those developing countries, government must function as a principal source of capital accumulation for future economic growth, and some successful Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs) such as South Korea and Brazil have had state- led development (Evans, 1995). In the more developed economies human capital appears to be the dominant issue in economic growth and government plays a crucial role in providing and/or promoting education and training. Thus, simply reducing the size of the public sector is not necessarily the recipe for promoting economic growth as is sometimes assumed on the political right; at times the effect may be quite the opposite.

The Growth of Government

Forgetting for the time being that the concept of “government” is difficult to measure in quantitative terms, we can proceed to inquire just why this institution – or set of institutions – increased in size and power after the end of World War II. There was a massive increase in the peacetime role of government after that war. In some European countries this reflected a pattern begun before the war, but there was at the time the resource base, and political will, to construct a larger and more influential role for government. The experience of the public sector during the past several decades has been somewhat more ambiguous. During the period of conser vative rule in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom (among others) the public sector was

Table 1.3 Public expenditure as a Percentage of readily extractable Gross domestic Product (Secondary and Tertiary Sectors)

Country 1960 1970 1980 1985 1990 1998

united States 28.6 31.3 34.4 33.4 34.2 34.2 united Kingdom 34.5 34.2 43.2 42.9 42.0 44.6 Sweden 30.9 38.7 59.0 52.2 49.5 51.1 Singapore 14.7 13.4 24.0 40.0 38.9 33.2 Colombia 12.4 21.6 20.0 20.8 19.6 20.1 Kenya 13.1 22.9 29.1 42.4 43.5 44.6 india 21.5 24.0 27.6 36.0 33.3 32.6

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able to resist many efforts to reduce its size. Even in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom that had a decade or more of conser vative govern- ment, there was little or no reduction in the scope of government, when measured by public revenues or expenditures as a percentage of GDP. When the political pendulum again swung back toward the left, there was surprisingly little will to expand government revenue and spending. The new version of the left accepts a much more limited role for government – at least financially – and often depends upon closer alliances between the public and private sectors to influence economy and society (see Giddens, 1998). There are almost as many answers to the question of why governments grow as there are scholars concerned with the subject, but several fundamental approaches can be used to relate that growth to the growth of public bureaucracy. Also, these same answers must be examined to determine whether government can also downsize in response to demands that the public sector become a less per vasive and intrusive aspect of life.

Entitlements

One dominant explanation for the growth of the public sector is that governments extended a variety of “entitlement programs” to their citizens during bountiful eco- nomic times and have been unable to rescind these entitlements as the economy has become less buoyant. These programs have become a form of property for their recipients (Reich, 1964). Examples of these programs are social security, public health insurance, and housing subsidies. These programs are especially dif- ficult to curtail when they are supported by an earmarked tax that gives citizens the impression of actually purchasing something akin to an insurance policy. Enti- tlement programs constitute a major portion of the expenditures of government – approximately 50 percent in the United States, 55 percent in the United Kingdom, and over 60 percent in Sweden. Further, when there are pressures to reduce public expenditures for either political or economic reasons, in the 1980s and now in the twenty- first centur y for example, the proportion of total public spending devoted to entitlement expenditures tends to increase rapidly as discretionar y expenditures are reduced. Entitlement programs in and of themselves would not necessarily produce increases in the relative size of the public sector were it not for the demographic shift occurring in almost all industrialized societies, and some of the less developed. These societies are aging, with a higher proportion of the population retiring each year. In addition to pensions, the elderly tend to consume more medical care per capita than do younger people, so expenditures for public medical care programs are also likely to increase as populations age; on average a person over 65 uses twice as much medical care as one 45–65 years old. This shift in the age structure of industrialized countries is quite rapid. For example, in the United States, which remains a relatively young countr y with just over 15 percent of the population over 65 as compared to over 22 percent in Sweden and 24 percent in Switzerland, the over 65 component of the population is increasing more than twice as fast as the population as a whole. The projected increases of the over 65 population shown

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in Table 1.4 will place a great deal of pressure on public expenditures in the years to come.

Fiscal Pressures

The nature of public sector economics also tends to increase the size of the public sector relative to the rest of the economy. This proposition was advanced in its most extreme version by Adolph Wagner (1890) and has come to be known as “Wagner’s Law.” The basic idea is that, as the economy of a nation grows, a larger proportion will be devoted to the public sector. The logic underlying this proposition is that, as the economy grows, the basic subsistence needs of the population will be met and consequently money for private consumption will have declining marginal utility. A number of empirical studies have found only slight support for this contention, and some scholars have argued that political pressures tend to keep public expen- ditures at the lowest acceptable level, rather than permit them to increase along with economic growth (Berr y and Lower y, 1987). Further, the experience of rapid economic growth in the 1990s appears to be that individual desires for consumption are virtually insatiable. A second financial explanation for the relative growth of the public sector was advanced by the British economists Alan Peacock and Jack Wiseman (1961). They argued for the existence of a “displacement effect,” whereby public tolerance for taxation increased during times of stress, such as a war; and, after the end of the crisis, government would use newly created revenues to fund new programs. Thus, the public’s acceptance of taxation was displaced upward during each successive crisis, allowing those within government to develop new policies and programs. Although originally discussed in terms of wars, other crises such as economic depressions or even natural disasters might have the same consequences. Although this “ratchet effect” has a certain plausibility, it appears equally plau- sible that politicians could reap an even larger benefit from reducing taxes rather than creating new programs. The public has expressed resistance to taxation in any number of polls. The problem with that logic is that the recipients of program benefits tend to be better organized than are taxpayers and representatives of the

Table 1.4 Projected Growth of Population 65 and older (Percent of Total Population)

2005 2025 2050

Australia 13.1 20.3 25.7 france 16.4 21.8 26.2 Germany 18.9 23.7 29.6 Japan 20.0 30.5 39.6 Sweden 17.3 25.2 25.8 Switzerland 15.9 27.4 27.9 united Kingdom 16.0 24.8 25.3 united States 12.4 20.4 20.6

Source: oeCd, Factbook, 2007 (Paris: oeCd).

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“public interest” (Wilson, 1980). Therefore, it may not appear to politicians that they have as much to gain from opposing expenditures and benefits as they do from supporting the programs. The organization of taxpayers’ interest groups and of political parties devoted to the reduction of public expenditure have helped to balance these pressures for more expenditure, but have not been totally success- ful. Even the radical antitax parties of Scandinavia, tax referenda and tax capping in the United States, and a decade of conser vative rule in Germany and the United Kingdom, have done little more than slow expenditure growth. Even with reduced expenditures and austerity after the fiscal crisis beginning in 2008, government is little changed relative to the economy. The third fiscal reason for the expansion of the public sector has been called “Baumol’s disease” or, more technically, the Relative Price Effect (RPE) (Baumol, 1967). Government is a labor- intensive “industry” and, therefore, tends to gain very little productivity from the application of capital expenditures. Many important public services, such as delivering the mail, providing education, or policing, have their costs reduced very little by the introduction of any but the most extensive techno- logical advances. This dependence upon labor means that in an inflationary period the costs of governmental services will increase more rapidly than the costs of other types of goods and services, assuming that public sector pay remains on a roughly equal footing with private sector pay. Thus, in order to provide the same level of services, the costs of government will increase. At one time the British Treasury estimated this relative price effect to be 0.7 percent per year (HM Treasury, 1980). To provide the same level of public services, public expenditures would have to increase at an annual rate of seven- tenths of 1 percent. In ten years, with compound- ing, this rate would amount to an expenditure increase of almost 8 percent. The labor intensity in government leaves public managers with two options: increase public expenditures (and with them taxes) or reduce public services. Neither of these is an attractive alternative for politicians or administrators working in contemporary gov- ernments. The relative labor intensity of government organizations was accentuated since the 1990s by the continuing tendency of private sector organizations to reduce their permanent workforces in favor of hiring temporary workers as and when they are needed. Although governments are also implementing similar programs to save money, many are constrained by civil service rules and union protections. They are also constrained by the need to maintain a public service ethic among workers, espe- cially those dealing with sensitive materials (tax examiners) or in direct contact with the public (social workers). Although the RPE may have had some impact on expenditures for much of the postwar period, toward the end of the centur y a reverse effect appeared to be in place. Now, the public sector appears to be more amenable to productivity changes from the use of computers than does the private sector. Much of the work of the public sector involves the manipulation, storage, and dissemination of infor- mation, the natural tasks of computers. Government work also involves a great deal of communications among its members, and electronic mail and other information ser vices assist in that communication (see Chapter 6). There is some evidence that productivity in the public sector is now rising rapidly with the aid of computeriza- tion, as well as the improvement and deregulation of public management practices (DiIulio, 1994; Mazzucatto, 2014).

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The Political Process

The third reason for the increasing size of government might be termed the “Pogo phenomenon.” That is, “We have met the enemy and it is us,” or government grows because citizens demand more ser vices from it. This expression of demand is rarely, if ever, made through mass political means such as political parties; on the contrar y, politicians often appear to have been successful by promising to reduce the level of expenditure and taxation. Rather, the pressure for more spending gen- erally comes through pressure groups that have ample access to government. Pres- sure groups have ever y incentive to press their demands on government. They can receive a special, concentrated benefit for their members – farmers can collect higher subsidies, businesses can acquire greater tax concessions, and the elderly can achieve higher pensions. The costs of these benefits are dispersed widely across the population so that forming organizations to combat pressures from these more particularistic pressure groups is difficult. Relatively few individuals feel that they have enough to gain personally to invest sufficient time to organize against greater spending. As Theodore Lowi (1979) has pointed out, the public sector may be appropriated for private purposes, all funded by taxpayers’ money. These developments approach the “tragedy of the commons” (Hardin and Baden, 1977; Ostrom, 1990) in which behavior that is perfectly rational for the individual, or in this case the group, may become dysfunctional for the society as a whole. In many political systems there have been significant attempts to redress the imbalance between the forces of special interests and those of the “public interest.” In the United States, organizations such as Common Cause have pressed for legis- lation and procedural changes to assist ordinar y citizens when they must deal with government (Lower y and Gray, 2004). They have also sought to increase the power of those ordinar y citizens in relation to the powers of “special- interest groups.” Similar movements have occurred in many other industrialized countries. Some movements, such as the Greens in Germany and the rest of Europe, have gone so far as to institutionalize themselves as political parties, but the majority remain citizen action groups. The activities of the public interest groups has been increasingly supple- mented by political parties that also stress a single issue but do so through electoral action. Many of these parties have been on the political right, opposing immigra- tion and taxation, but others have sought greater social benefits for citizens and greater political freedom. These parties have been especially active in response to the austerity programs in countries such as Greece and Spain. In addition to the creation of the public interest groups, political devices that force groups contending for more benefits and expenditures to confront one another more directly are able to put some brakes on the seeming inexorable increase of public expenditures. For example, the use of corporatism, and especially network models of government (see Chapter 5) place groups with competing interests in a common decision- making situation and permit them to bargain out their differ- ences. This too is a form of private interest government, but one that may be better able to balance needs for spending and needs for spending restraint. Finally, we should notice that the public does appear to have some sense of what the French would call services publics, or activities that are almost inherently

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the responsibility of the public sector (Stoffaes, 1997). When government attempts to rid itself of these ser vices, it may encounter political difficulties in even the most market- oriented society. In less market- oriented systems, such as most of continen- tal Europe, privatization or contracting out is likely to be opposed vigorously. For example, France has privatized some activities but retains substantial involvement in many industries (Berne and Pogorel, 2004). In the Scandinavian countries there have been some reforms of state programs but government remains active in regu- lation and in attempting to equalize socioeconomic conditions of citizens. Even in these countries, however, neoliberal governments have from time to time sought to reduce the size of the public sector and to emphasize the role of the market.

The Public Bureaucracy

Finally, the public bureaucracy – our principal focus of inquir y – has itself been cited as a cause of growth of public expenditure, and of government generally. One of the many stereotypes of public bureaucracy is that of an acquisitive and expansive set of organizations. This view is perhaps most forcefully expressed in the work of William Niskanen (1971) but has been advanced in any number of other writings. Niskanen argues that bureau chiefs – these are assumed to be permanent civil ser vants – are budget maximizers, and that they will use their control of informa- tion and their ability to disguise the true costs of producing the public ser vices they provide in order to increase their budgets to points far above the level necessar y. In his model, Niskanen argues that legislatures have little or no ability to control the bureaus, because of the monopoly of information held by those bureaus. As a con- sequence, legislatures cannot make independent judgments on the budget and the costs of government will increase. The solution Niskanen offered for controlling the public bureaucracy is to create something approximating a market, with multi- ple bureaus competing in the same ser vice area to provide better ser vices to more clients. This competition is assumed to keep costs down, with the threat of poorer performing organizations being driven out of business, a suggestion adopted by many governments in the form of creating numerous quasi-governmental organiza- tions and relying more on performance measurement. This economic analysis is based, however, on a number of ver y shaky assumptions, and bears limited resemblance to the real world of public admin- istration (see Blais and Dion, 1991). The first and most basic assumption is that individual bureaucrats in a formalized bureaucratic system have an incentive to maximize the size of their bureaus. The individual in such a bureau has little to gain personally from a larger budget, given relatively inflexible pay schedules based on formal position and longevity rather than on organizational size. It is true that those at the bottom or middle ranks of the organization may be able to advance more rapidly when new positions are opened, but the bureau chiefs – the budget maximizers in Niskanen’s model – would themselves gain little or nothing. In fact, increasing the size of the bureau may only generate managerial difficulties for the bureaucrat, an outcome that would conflict with the other prevailing stereotype of the bureaucrat as being interested primarily in minimizing personal difficulty rather than maximizing budgets (Peacock, 1983). Managerial changes in the public

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sector such as performance contracts (see Chapter 10) have increased the pos- sible rewards of increasing bureau size, but even in this setting the rewards may be minimal. Further, the policy preferences of bureaucrats are not necessarily in favor of increased spending, even for their own programs (Dolan, 2002; Jacobsen, 2006). This model of bureaucracy also seriously underestimates the capacity of the legislature to develop means for independent judgment. As we will be pointing out in greater detail later, legislative bodies have made a concerted effort to reestablish their control over public expenditure and have developed independent sources of information about public expenditure and public programs. Even where the “coun- terbureaucracies” have not flourished, legislatures have attempted to organize and reorganize themselves for improved control over spending. Legislatures have developed more sophisticated performance auditing, more effective committee systems, and added staff. In short, the passive, ignorant legislature assumed by the Niskanen model no longer exists, if it ever did. Even if the Niskanen model were descriptive of the United States bureauc- racy for which it was developed, it is doubtful whether it would be as descriptive of other countries, primarily because the independence accorded to bureaus in the United States is by no means typical of countries where the cabinet depart- ments are more dominant (Peters, 1990b). Likewise, outside the United States the career for civil ser vants has been less restricted to a single organization. As a con- sequence, individual civil ser vants may perceive their career future as being more within the public bureaucracy as a whole rather than within the one organization. Such a perception will then produce an emphasis on the creation of a record of trust and dependability rather than on the hiding of costs to produce growth for the one organization. Finally, if the logical and conceptual arguments that can be mounted against this model are not sufficient, it has another basic flaw. It simply does not appear to work. Such empirical work as has been done to test the Niskanen model finds ver y little support (Hood et al., 1984; Blais and Dion, 1991). This is true of the settings outside the United States to which the model has been applied, but it is even true within the model’s countr y of origin. The role of the public bureaucracy in policy making and the dynamics of the budget process are both too complex and subtle to be represented adequately by any such simplistic model. The “bureau- shaping” model is one interesting attempt to address the subtleties of the relationship between bureaucracies and public expenditure (Dunleavy, 1985). The argument of this model is that all public expenditures are not equal for the bureau chief, the main protagonist in this stor y. In particular, large expenditures that are merely transferred to clients, e.g., social programs, do not enhance bureau power to the extent that more discretionar y programs can. Paradoxically, many reforms of the public sector designed to make govern- ment more efficient and effective may, in fact, make the realization of the negative outcomes envisaged by Niskanen more likely. For example, the increasing use of quasi- autonomous organizations, e.g., “agencies,” to deliver public programs (Maor, 1999) provides the type of freedom for bureaucratic entrepreneurs to use their posi- tions for advancing their own interests and the interests of their organizations. Like- wise, the elimination of many internal civil ser vice rules and the implementation of

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“pay for per formance” has tended to make dif ferential rewards more possible. Positions that once were restricted to civil ser vice are now open to open competi- tion and with that also some loss of commitment to public ser vice and the values that may have restricted use of public offices for more personal purposes. Com- petition may have been instilled, but the loss of internal controls appears actually to have created the entrepreneurial world that Niskanen so deplored (Hogwood et al., 2000).

Summary

Government has grown. By whatever measure we would want to apply, govern- ments spend more money, employ more people, and constitute a more per va- sive influence on the lives of their citizens now than for most of human histor y. More impor tant in recent years has been a government’s ability to withstand numerous attempts to reduce its size and scope. The reasons advanced for this growth and persistence are numerous, including those enumerated above. Some suppor t as well as some contrar y evidence can be found for each of the reasons advanced. What may be happening, in fact, is the confluence of all these reasons; there is no single cause for the growth of government, but rather a large number of factors. And growing along with government, the public bureaucracy has become a more impor tant institution for making as well as implementing public policy.

The Growth of Administration

The public bureaucracy is rarely mentioned in constitutions, and generally does not figure in the design of political regimes, yet it has become central in govern- ment decision making, and is still increasing its influence within government. As Samuel Krislov (1974, 40–1) put it:

Bureaucracies are the late bloomers of modern political structure. They grew silently, inexorably in the underbrush – seldom noticed, little analyzed. Convenience and necessity, not ideology and legitimacy, are their lifeblood: they are not loved and respected, but rather tolerated and depended on.

Thus, although public bureaucracies are among the oldest political institutions, they have become powerful – or more likely have been seen to become powerful – only in recent decades. Certainly in ancient empires and other authoritarian states the public bureaucracy was a powerful actor, but it has only been in the post- World War II era that they have come to be widely perceived as powerful policy- making actors within democratic regimes (Eisenstadt, 1970; Peters, 1992a; Finer, 2000). The increasing power of the public bureaucracy has been indicated by growing levels of public employment, as well as by expenditures for general governmen- tal purposes. It is also seen through the capacity of bureaucracies to regulate the economy and society (Page and Jenkins, 2005; Page, 2010). On a less quantified

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level, the growth of bureaucratic power has been documented, discussed, and damned in a number of places. In these discussions several conflicting stereotypes of the public bureaucracy have been developed. On the one hand, bureaucracy is seen as a Leviathan seeking to increase its powers and operating as an integrated, monolithic institution. The Niskanen view of bureaucracy mentioned above advances that power- seeking view of bureaucracy. Likewise, the growth of the European Union (EU) has promoted the view in much of Western Europe that the “Brussels bureaucracy” has taken control over policy in those countries, with a consequent democratic deficit threat- ening the legitimacy of the EU. On the other hand, bureaucracy is pictured as a court jester – a fumbling, bumbling collection of uncoordinated agencies that, at best, muddle through and, at worst, make absolute fools of themselves. The examples of the apparently foolish behavior of bureaucracies have been assembled in several places and include con- tradictor y programs, meaningless memos, and other assorted blunders. So, as one federal agency (OSHA) requires backup sirens on construction equipment, another (EPA) bans them as violating noise pollution regulations. The Citizen’s Coalition in Canada publishes an annual list of what it considers wasteful grants. The Washing- ton Monthly magazine has published a monthly “Memo of the Month” to honor the most ludicrous government memo of the month, and one television network runs a regular series on its nightly news asking whether we taxpayers really need one government program or another. In the United Kingdom the media have reported that failures to coordinate government activities have resulted in public organiza- tions digging up the same street dozens of times during a two- year period. One can find published collections of seemingly nonsensical memoranda and decisions from bureaucracies in any number of countries. The examples of bumbling prolifer- ate, and the negative stereotype of bureaucracy persists and even expands within the popular mind. Both quantitative and qualitative trends in policy formation lead us to the conclusion that we must understand public bureaucracy in order to understand policy in contemporar y political systems and, fur ther, that the power of bureauc- racies is increasing steadily. The task here is to provide an explanation of these changes in the relative powers of institutions. To that end, we argue that the reasons for this change are primarily four: the quantitative growth of public prob- lems and concerns; the qualitative growth of those concerns; the failures of two alternative institutions – the legislature and the political executive – to cope with the changes in the policy- making environment; and the nature of public bureauc- racies themselves.

The Quantitative Growth of Public Concerns

To say that the scope of government has increased because there are more things being done in the public sector is tautological, but it is important to note the sub- stantial array of goods and ser vices now produced by collective action that either were unheard of, or were the subjects of private action, several decades earlier. The developmental scheme proposed by Richard Rose (1976b) is one description

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of the changes in the range of activities in the public sector. Government began with its “defining functions” such as defense and tax collection and then added, first, resource mobilization activities (roads, canals, railways, etc.) and finally social activities to its portfolio of activities. One bit of Rose’s evidence, reproduced and updated, appears in Table 1.5, and demonstrates how these functions have changed in European countries. There was a general pattern of increase in activity, as measured by organiza- tions, until the mid- 1980s. By the early 1990s the increasing privatization of public functions (examples of which are given in Table 1.6) produced a substantial reduc- tion in the number of resource mobilization activities, albeit with little net change in the number of defining and social ministries. Even then, however, if the various forms of government involvement were measured, e.g., devolved agencies perform- ing ser vices rather than ministries, government activities would probably be nearly as numerous. Also, this table does not show clearly the shift toward cross- cutting ministries, e.g., those for women, children, and even the middle class, that attempt to integrate social and resource mobilization activities. Similar patterns would hold for other countries, although newly developing countries must often plunge into doing ever ything at once, given the expectations of their people. Thus, as well as

Table 1.5 Growth of Government – Growth of Ministries

Ministries

States Defining Resource Social Total mobilization

nineteenth-century origin 22 5.7 1.7 1.1 8.5 Twentieth-century origin 9 4.8 3.7 1.9 10.4 1913 25 5.9 4.0 1.6 11.5 1936 31 5.7 4.7 2.4 12.8 1972 32 5.6 9.1 4.4 19.1 1984 34 5.1 7.3 3.7 16.1 1997 38 5.2 5.7 4.8 16.1 2005 39 5.3 5.6 5.0 16.3 2010 45 5.2 5.3 6.1 16.6

Table 1.6 examples of Privatization

United Kingdom France Japan

British Gas St Gobain Japan national railways British Telecom Campaigne Générale Japan Telephone and British Airways d’electricité Telegraph Public Buses Crédit Commercial de france Japan Monopoly British Petroleum Mutuelle Générale française Corporation national freight

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increasing in the level of activity, reflected through the size of the public budget, government is also extending the range of its activities. The increasing complexity of modern economic and social life is one obvious reason for the increased range of governmental activity. This complexity is, at least in part, a function of the technological content of modern life, in which telecommuni- cations, the Internet, atomic energy, rapid commercial air ser vice, space travel, and the mechanization of most production are but a few examples of dramatic increases in technology that impinge upon the citizen as consumer and voter. Further, increases in the rapidity of communication and transportation, and an increasing concentration of people in urbanized areas, have required collective decisions on matters that, in simpler societies, could be handled by individuals. Thus, in the phraseology of economics, the externalities of individual behavior have tended to increase as the size and concentration of the population have increased. Not only have the externalities of individual behavior increased, so too have the perceptions of those externalities. Unfortunately, little research exists to docu- ment changes in perceptions of this sort, but by using somewhat softer evidence we can get some idea of the attitude changes. Some such evidence is given by the increasing level of organization in a number of nations, of individuals attempt- ing to secure regulation of matters such as environmental pollution, deceptive and unsafe business practices, land use, and even economic foreign policy. Likewise, society has been increasingly unwilling to allow individuals to live below minimum standards, although conser vative governments during the 1980s and 1990s less- ened those commitments. To the extent they do continue to exist, however, social programs represent some recognition of the possible externalities of poverty and despair, and at least some concern for the ability of collective action to improve the lot of fellow citizens. Thus, modern society produces situations in which mech- anisms of collective action are perceived as virtually necessar y for a high quality of life. These necessities are apparently accepted by much of the population, although variable both by classes of individuals and by nations, and the bureaucracy has become the institutional manifestation of those needs. In addition to real or perceived externalities, changes in modern social struc- ture have tended to place pressures on government to inter vene in society. For example, the rapid increases in female participation in the labor force have pro- duced demands for public day care, afterschool programs, and other programs to assist working mothers. Also, the increase of leisure time enjoyed by most people has resulted in demands for more public recreational programs. Less positively, the “breakdown” in family life in many Western nations has resulted in programs designed to deal with disturbed, displaced, and delinquent youths. There is also a need for society to care for the increasing number of aged as their families become less willing or able to do so. Society has not been standing still, and government has become the means of addressing problems of social change. For many countries the rapid increase in immigration has produced both social tensions and the need to develop ser vices to assist the immigrants in adjusting to their new home. Finally, the continued aging of populations, combined with the continued breakdown of extended families, is rapidly increasing the demand for ser vices for the elderly.

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The Qualitative Growth of Public Concerns

In addition to the increasing externalities of modern life and the popular desire to have some regulation of economic and social problems, the technological content of life, already alluded to, has definite implications for bureaucratic dominance in decision making. Increasingly, the things that government is called upon to regulate are matters which have significant technological content. This technical content is evident not only for things involving the natural sciences and engineering, but also of developing “social technologies” in areas such as education, chemical depend- ency, and childhood development. Experts in government tend to be concentrated in the bureaucracy, with few legislative or executive structures employing many of their own experts. As the concerns of government are increasingly influenced by available technology, the public bureaucracy as the locus of the public sector’s share of that technology comes increasingly to the forefront in decision making. Just as it has influenced its relationship with other political institutions, the level of technological sophistication of the bureaucracy has also influenced relation- ships with the society. As programs such as atomic energy and space exploration have developed – requiring enormous capital investment, high levels of staffing, and some national security concerns – few if any private institutions would be capable of engaging actively in the problem areas, even if they were legally able. This leaves government as the sole supplier of certain socially important technological ser v- ices. Private concerns that seek to engage in these technologically sophisticated activities – for example, a utility company building an atomic reactor – must seek the guidance and, more importantly, accept the regulation of the public bureauc- racy. Further, research and development activities are diverted from what might be valued in the private marketplace into directions dictated more by political and bureaucratic demands. The spinoffs of these research efforts may have positive values for the citizens, but the impetus and direction of that research has changed from the private to the public sector. Governments have found, however, that this situation does not always produce the most desirable research, especially when economic development must depend in part upon spinoffs from defense research. Hence, there is an increased emphasis on partnerships between the public and the private sectors (Skelcher, 2005). The mixture of the public and private sectors creates new management and accountability problems of their own. Finally, the role of government has, to some extent, been expanded by the internationalization of economies and of social life in general. Even analysts on the political right tend to recognize the importance of government for buffering a domestic economy from the international economy, in which other governments may not play by the same rules. Thus, somewhat paradoxically, as the international market is said to come to dominate domestic economic policies, governments as the players in organizations such as the World Trade Organization become more rather than less important. If the economic success of a countr y, and its citizens, is dependent upon the international environment, as is now the case for probably all countries, then government often must play the role of mediator and protec- tor, given that no private sector organization has the right or the power to do so. Further, the international spillover of pollution and greenhouse gases means that governments must find ways to cope with those transnational problems as well.

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Institutional Weaknesses

The remaining reasons for the increased power of bureaucracies in contemporar y political systems are institutional, related both to the characteristics of bureaucracy as a political institution and the characteristics of other political institutions that are its competitors for power. The competition among institutions is rarely overt, but it does have the effect of delineating the power relationships among those institu- tions and the nature of the policies that are likely to be adopted. This segment of the chapter focuses on the weaknesses of the conventional, political decision- making institutions in government and then discusses the characteristics of bureaucracy that make it a powerful actor in the policy process in a later section. The legislature. The legislature has been the traditional locus of rule-making in democratic political systems, and most nondemocratic systems also use a legisla- tive body to legitimate their actions to their own people and to the outside world. Given this traditional and normative role of legislatures, it is necessar y to under- stand why these institutions are apparently losing, if not the formal powers of deci- sion, at least the actual rule- making powers within many political systems. This will help in understanding why the gainer in this decline of legislative powers is generally the bureaucracy, although many traditional parliamentar y democracies also can now be said to be prime ministerial democracies. Rather obviously, the quantitative and qualitative growth of governmental concerns has contributed to this decline in power. Legislatures, by placing their organizational effort into discussion, debate, and elaborate procedures for the full and open consideration of viewpoints, consequently limit their ability to consider more than a handful of issues in any one session. For example, during the period 1979–2005 the British Parliament passed an average of approximately 55 acts per session; approximately half of these were bills consolidating and clarifying existing legislation or changing administration. The issues that face a legislative body are usually the most important issues confronting a society, and they may set broad parameters of policy, but this still leaves a ver y large quantity of detail to be filled in by administrators. During the period 1979–95, while parliament was making its 55 laws per session, an average of 2,000 statutor y instruments elaborating legisla- tion were adopted. Similarly, in the United States while Congress passes several hundred laws per annum on average (many of which are trivial) the bureaucracy is making an average of over 10,000 regulations per annum (Baldwin, 1994; Ker win, 2012). Further, the qualities valued in legislative recruitment, popular elections, or advancement within the legislature are rarely those needed to handle technically complex materials in large quantity. The nonlegislative careers of most legislators are hardly those that would prepare them for such lawmaking tasks, except perhaps in terms of the legalistic drafting of the legislation. As well as having personal defi- ciencies, the structure of legislative institutions is not well suited to effective gov- ernance. Relative to the bureaucratic agencies that they must confront, legislative bodies are understaffed and underspecialized. Even when well- developed systems of legislative committees exist, as in the United States, Germany, and Sweden, the members of those committees have any number of other duties that prevent their specialization in narrow policy areas (Schram, 2000). Further, few legislative

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bodies are lucky enough to have any substantial functional specialization in com- mittees to begin with, so that policy consideration in those bodies is often a hap- hazard thing. Finally, even when legislative committees exist as highly specialized bodies, rarely do they have independent sources of information to draw upon in considering policy; they commonly must rely upon information gathered and proc- essed by a bureaucratic agency, which presumably has some interest in a particular outcome. Finally, the relative instability of legislative bodies, as compared with the bureaucracy, places the legislature at a disadvantage in any power competition. Even in societies that have not had high levels of governmental instability or fre- quent elections, legislators and legislatures are certainly more transitor y than are bureaucracies. Thus, a certain uncertainty surrounds the conduct of legislative business, and an opportunity arises for bureaucrats to engage in tutelage to new and inexperienced legislators so that those legislators can see the wisdom of the policies favored by the bureaucracy. Further, the bureaucracy can always tr y to wait out the legislature, hoping that at the next election the people or parties in charge will change their minds or not be there at all. Some analysts have argued that the desire for stability, or at least for stable personal careers, is accelerating the decline of legislatures as decision- making bodies. Fiorina (1987) and others have argued that, as legislators have sought to maximize their chances for reelection, they have found that the best way of doing so is to ser ve their constituents well. They can enhance their chances of reelection, for example, by helping with citizens’ grievances and providing “pork barrel” ben- efits, rather than making statements about national policy issues. Strong advocacy of a policy runs the risk of offending voters, while effective constituency ser vice can only benefit voters. Thus, the safe path for the legislator is to vote when he or she must, but to concentrate on ser vice. Such a stance, while rational for the indi- vidual, does not provide the sort of societal leadership that is needed from those in government. The political executive. Many of the problems identified for legislatures are also encountered in the political executives of contemporar y governments. This is especially true in parliamentar y systems, in which executives suffer from the instability of regimes and often inadequate policy staffs. This situation has been described by Richard Rose (1976b) as the “problems of party government” and reflects the difficulty of any political executive imposing its will upon the ongoing administrative offices. There are four particular problems that political executives have when they seek to impose their wills over the policies of their own depart- ments. The first is a lack of skills relevant to understanding the policies that must be made, and a lack of time required to understand and manage those policies. Politi- cal executives must rely on their civil ser vants to shape policy and to advise them about the operations of the ministr y. The British cabinet, for example, is generally composed of individuals with little or no prior knowledge of the policy for which they are responsible, and frequent cabinet shuffles make it unlikely that these min- isters will have time to gain substantial expertise. Britain, and other Westminster systems, may be less well ser ved than other countries in regard to the expert knowledge of ministers. Several European coun-

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tries recruit some of the more important ministers (economics in particular from outside government). A study of the cabinet in Sweden has demonstrated an increasing level of expertise of ministers, although over half may still be “amateurs” (Beckman, 2006). However, hearings for cabinet posts in the United States, as well as cabinet reshuffles in any number of countries, indicate that a knowledge of the policy area is by no means a prerequisite for a cabinet appointment. The Obama cabinets, for example, contained many knowledgeable people but also some indi- viduals clearly appointed for political reasons. The new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe initially faced a situation in which there were few experts who were not compromised by their involvement with the previous regime. There is some evidence, however, that the development of “issue networks” around policy issues (Sörenson and Torfing, 2007) are becoming able to provide experts of almost any ideological stripe for a government that wants to employ them. These people may not get the top position in government, but can be brought into the next tiers in order to guide policy making. Lacking any specialized knowledge, it would be helpful if those in the political executive had sufficient time to spend in running their departments. In fact, most spend a “dog’s life” in their ministerial posts (Marples, 1969). Again, this weakness may be especially evident in parliamentar y systems, and even more particularly in Britain. In France and Nor way ministers are prevented from also being parliamen- tarians, and that has greatly aided these ministers in running their departments, but in most countries ministers can, or must, remain active parliamentarians. Likewise, the norms of parliamentar y systems other than Britain (and other Westminster systems) concerning hours and the time spent in the legislatures may ease political burdens substantially. Even in political systems in which political executives are not members of the legislature, they are political figures and must spend time in public appearances, receive delegations of interest group representatives, and engage in other political activities, with a consequent drain on the time available to contem- plate policy questions. Thus the minister remains at a disadvantage in attempting to understand and control the work of full- time and relatively specialized civil ser v- ants. If the disadvantages of time and prior training were not enough, the political executive is also seriously outnumbered in his or her attempts to impose external political goals upon a bureaucratic structure. Compared with the size of most admin- istrative bodies, the number of political appointees who are imposed at the top of the organization is quite small, but the appointees are expected to control all activi- ties within the organization. This number is, of course, variable by political system – the United States, Belgium, and France, for example, have considerably more political appointees than the United Kingdom or other Westminster systems – and across time with many governments adding more political appointees. Further, the senior civil ser vants in some political systems – Germany and Austria for example – themselves have partisan affiliations so that they can be relied on to support the program of their minister more readily than might a neutral (see Peters, 2013).l Still, the number of committed people in a ministr y pales in comparison to the size of the permanent, full- time bureaucracy. Finally, the willingness of civil ser vants to accept the decisions of their politi- cal masters, and actually to put into effect a partisan program, is another obstacle

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to effective political control. Although few civil ser vants systematically sabotage or even obstruct the stated program of a minister, they still have their own departmen- tal or ideological concerns, which may impede the smooth flow of work (Brehm and Gates, 1999). From all that is known about human nature and behavior in organizations, it is unlikely that civil ser vants who disagree with, or are genuinely neutral toward, a policy will administer it with the same alacrity and vigor as they will a policy they like. Further, given the handicaps under which many ministers labor, civil ser vants are frequently able to control the agenda of the minister suf- ficiently so that few programs actually hostile to the interests of the incumbent civil ser vice will be considered. The power of civil ser vants to control agendas, and their general power in the policy process, has provoked the demand for a more committed civil ser vice, even in countries such as the United Kingdom that have long prided themselves on a neutral ser vice. Further, in transitional regimes, the need to change policies drastically places an even greater strain on the relationship between civil ser vants and their ministers. The tendency of administrators to drag their feet, or at least to not administer programs vigorously, will be exacerbated in situations of high politicization both of particular policies and of the society in general. For example, when a political system is divided communally and changes occur in the composition of the politi- cal leadership in cabinet, frequently this change may require the reshuffling of many senior civil ser vants so that the two sides – civil ser vants and politicians – can cooperate more effectively. Perhaps the most general point that can be made is that civil ser vants have little to gain by close and overt cooperation with particular politicians. Their careers are largely untouched by politicians in many countries (although not all), and it may, in fact, be detrimental for them to be too closely iden- tified with a particular political party or politician – especially if they lose office.

The Nature of Bureaucratic Institutions

Although bureaucratic institutions should not be blamed for (or credited with) the growth of the public sector, they do have some influence on the redistribution of powers away from elective institutions and in the direction of the bureaucracy itself. We will not adopt the totally cynical view that agencies are concerned only with the growth of the agency budget, but neither can we adopt the more naïve view that agencies are concerned entirely with the performance of their constitutionally and legally designated tasks. The truth probably lies somewhere in between. Further, attempts at bureaucratic “empire building” may be closely related to the desire of the agency to sur vive and also to perform functions that it considers essential to a high quality of life for the society. Thus, despite the obvious attempts of the Penta- gon at times to increase the militar y budget to feed its own needs, it is only fair to say that officials in the Department of Defense sincerely believe that they are sup- plying an essential ser vice to the society. Or, as Cleaves (1974, 310–11) once wrote of the Chilean bureaucracy: “Derogator y comments on bureaucracy’s tendency to consolidate its power (e.g., empire building, prestige accrual) are value judgments to the extent that they are not examined in context of the agency’s need to increase its capacity for goal- oriented behavior.”

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In other words, one person’s empire building is another person’s need for sur vival, or even public ser vice. In addition, the model of bureaucratic dominance in policy making assumes that agencies compete over scarce resources – the budget – and for control of policy choices. This competition appears to limit the extent to which any integrated bureaucratic governance might emerge, given that the bureaucracy would tend to behave as a set of competitive entrepreneurs rather than as a unified political force. However, it can also be argued that bureaucra- cies engage in competition primarily when their core interests are threatened; they rarely are competitive over issues that are peripheral to their sur vival or the per- formance of their basic tasks (Downs, 1967). Likewise, in the budgetar y process they can perhaps be best seen as satisfiers, rather than maximizers, again seeking to ensure sur vival of their organization rather than the domination of a policy field. Perhaps the best analogy would be with the balance of power in international affairs, in which all actors involved attempt to gain security through limited or tacit cooperation rather than overt competition. Even if the bureaucracy as a whole does not constitute a unified political force, it may still constitute a formidable force within individual agencies. We have already noted the ability of the permanent staff in a ministr y essentially to deter- mine the agenda for their presumed political masters. This capacity becomes espe- cially important in the presence of an agency ideology concerning the proper goals for the agency to pursue and proper means of attaining those goals. Through the ability to control information, proposals for policy, and the knowledge concerning feasibility, the bureaucracy is certainly capable of influencing agency policy, if not determining it. It requires an unusual politician to be able to overcome this type of control within an agency. Thus, we can view the bureaucracy as being in a powerful position in compe- tition with its ostensible political masters. Having control of information and of the instigation of policy alternatives, having an expert knowledge of the subject matter, and having a ministerial or departmental ideology concerning the manner in which the subject matter should be treated, the bureaucracy can control decisions actually adopted by the partisans at the top. Further, competition among agencies, which might ser ve to limit such powers, is usually confined to a small number of issues in which the basic interests of one or more agencies overlap. Within its pur view, each agency remains supreme and consequently can dominate or influence its own political masters.

Countertrends in Government Growth

Lest we think that all goes well for the statist position in modern society, we should mention several important countertrends that have tended to restrain the growth of government and of the public bureaucracy. In fact, the experience of the last several decades may make the reader wonder how one could defend the position that gov- ernment remains a powerful actor. We must be careful, however, to sep arate the rhetoric of political leaders, including leaders such as Bush, Cameron, and Merkel among others, from the reality of what their governments have been doing and have become. Few if any government leaders in the industrialized democracies

T h e P o l i T i C S o f B u r e A u C r A C y

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were successful in fundamentally altering the size and shape of their public sectors – New Zealand is perhaps the one clear example of a fundamental transformation of the public sector (Boston, 1991; but see Gregor y, 2005), with the United Kingdom being another possible case of fundamental change. Real changes, of course, have occurred in the former communist countries and in some Third World countries that have truly rolled back the state, but now these countries face the problem of creating entire new state structures and governing procedures. The rolling back of government in Eastern Europe and some republics of the former Soviet Union demonstrates the upper limits of the reaction against the power of government and bureaucracy. In many Third World countries the same rolling back has been accomplished less by endogenous political processes than by the involvement of international organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetar y Fund. Even here, however, the state has hardly been dis- mantled and, soon after the revolutions, powerful public institutions are seen to be necessar y to help restructure the inadequate economic bases and deal with the problems of managing newly freed societies. The donor organizations have, in fact, now begun to argue that good governance is crucial to successful economic devel- opment. The above having been said, there have been extensive amounts of privatiza- tion of public ser vices in most European countries (Parotti and Wright, 1999), as well as many countries in Latin America. The difference has been largely that the same ser vices that were public are now private, so that citizens must pay for those ser vices as consumers rather than as taxpayers. Given that many of the privatized firms are monopolies, with their consequent ability to potentially charge exorbitant rates if not controlled in some way, there has been a need for public regulation. Government is now involved in those same economic sectors as a regulator rather than as a direct provider of goods and ser vices. Many of the changes that have occurred have been in the attitudes of citizens toward their government. One obvious fact has been the “taxpayers’ backlash” and the associated strength of more conser vative political parties, beginning in the late 1970s and lasting to the present. Also, the strength of tax protest parties such as the Progress Parties in Denmark and Nor way, Sweden Democrats in Sweden, and True Finns in Finland illustrate the political power of groups seeking to dismantle some of the structure of the contemporar y welfare state. It is debatable whether these reactions are against government in general, or only against certain aspects of taxation, expenditure, and immigration. However, for whatever reasons, words like “cutbacks,” “privatization,” and “deregulation” became common parlance in political circles that a decade or so ago might have been discussing new public programs, or the expansion of existing ones (Starke, 2006). Pressures for austerity in the public sector has also been a consequence of the financial crisis beginning in 2008. In addition to expressing their concerns by voting for political par ties favor- ing reduced taxation, citizens have taken more direct action. The amount of increase in tax evasion is a matter of some debate, but there is general agreement that there has been such an increase. The rejection of the legal claims of govern- ment to their money may be taken as an indicator of a more general rejection by citizens of the government’s claims on the society in general. In fact, the evidence

P u B l i C A d M i n i S T r A T i o n A n d G o v e r n i n G

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is that tax evasion is more an indicator of political protest than it is an indicator of the real economic “bite” that taxes put on the (potential) taxpayer (Peters, 1991a). This is a revolution of sor ts against government, albeit one that is bloodless and ver y quiet. Associated with the changes in behavior have been changes in attitudes among the public. Tables 1.7 and 1.8 show that citizens are expressing substantially lower levels of support for government, and for the public bureaucracy in particu- lar. There are solid majorities against increased public expenditure in each countr y for which we can present data. These majorities have been especially strong in the United States, but it is interesting to note that citizens in one of the more advanced welfare states – Sweden – also respond with increasing reser vations about increased expenditure and taxation. In other data (Table 1.8) the proportion of Swedes oppos- ing cuts in the public sector declined by more than a half from the early 1980s. That reaction against big government, however, appears to have begun to moderate, once some of the consequences of a reduced public sector became more apparent to the respondents. Again, this has been manifested both in political behavior and in attitudes. By the first years of the twenty- first centur y, parties of the political left have returned to office in many countries, and in the United States. These left parties may not be as ready to tax and spend as their counterparts in the past, but they do see a more positive role for government than the parties they replaced. Likewise, the attitudes expressed in opinion polls show that the public has assumed a somewhat more positive view of government and see that the public sector can be important in providing the good life, just as is the market. It is important to note, furthermore, that the majorities against “big govern- ment” often vanish when specific categories of public expenditure are discussed. In Table 1.9 we see that when citizens are asked about which public programs spend too much money and could be cut, there are ver y few majorities in favor of reducing expenditures. In many instances majorities, and even large majorities, could be found for increasing expenditures for particular public ser vices, especially health, education, and ser vices for the elderly (Taylor- Gooby, 1989). Voters also appear willing in many cases to vote for more taxes if there is a direct connection between the tax and a spending program they like. Another sur vey (Table 1.10) found majorities in favor of increased spending for half the programs asked about. The questions included a number of less popular programs (the arts, defense in most countries) and the sample contained none of the large public spending coun- tries such as the Netherlands and those of Scandinavia. Still, there is reason to think that the public is more sophisticated in their assessment of the public sector than is often assumed. It is important to remember, however, that some of the changes that have taken place in the modern public sector are more cosmetic than real. Some of these changes involve trading more intrusive and costly means of government inter ven- tion for less obvious and instruments of governing that impose fewer direct costs (Salamon, 2001). Regulating the prices of a newly privatized electricity company may impose costs on the private sector, but it does not have the visible impact on budgets that running that same electric company would have if it had remained in the public sector. It is often the case that government cannot realistically withdraw from a policy area completely, but instead it must find new and innovative means

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of achieving public purposes while, at the same time, limiting the visibility, and the costs, of its action to the public.

Summary

This chapter should foreshadow what is to come in the remainder of the book. It establishes one crucial component of the environment within which contempo- rar y public administration functions. This is that government in the late twenti- eth centur y is ver y big government, which makes the job of public administrators much more difficult. In the first place, the scale of contemporar y government means that any organization being managed is likely to be a large organization with complex interrelationships with other public and private organizations. Even small local governments now require skilled management to be effective and efficient. The issues about which governments now must legislate require skillful and expert decision makers. The second problem that arises is a constraint on resources avail- able to the administrator: real resources, for example, money; and the “policy space” in which to function in making new policies given the number of programs and organizations already in place (Hogwood and Peters, 1983). Anything an adminis- trator is likely to want to accomplish may involve him or her in a conflict with other organizations over money and “turf.” With limited resources, the conflicts that arise among public organizations over the use of resources become more intense. Even if the administrator is cooperative, he or she will have major coordination problems that will require substantial skill and effort to overcome (Peters, 2015). Finally, citizens are now ever more war y and watchful of government in general, and of the public bureaucracy in particular. The majority of public adminis- trators do not consciously “flee” from accountability for their actions, but the level of concern of citizens may make doing their job more difficult. Also, even in socie- ties where public ser vice has been a respected profession, the “bureaucracy” is increasingly a negative symbol of what is wrong with the countr y. This negative

Table 1.8 Attitudes to the Public Sector in Sweden, 1986–2005

Against Reducing Favor Reduction No Opinion the Public Sector the Public Sector

1986 32 37 31 1988 33 40 27 1990 56 18 26 1992 41 34 25 1995 29 45 26 1998 44 28 28 2000 41 28 31 2002 39 28 33 2005 39 30 31

Source: SoM, Trends in Swedish Public Opinion (Göteborg: SoM institute, university of Göteborg, 2006).

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P u B l i C A d M i n i S T r A T i o n A n d G o v e r n i n G

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image cannot help but harm morale. That loss of morale, in turn, may so damage recruitment and retention that the low quality of the public bureaucracy, so often claimed by its critics, becomes a self- fulfilling prophecy. That having been said, however, administrative reforms of the past several decades have produced, in many countries, a much more effective and efficient public sector.

Table 1.10 Percentage of respondents Wanting “Much More” or “More” Public Spending for Services, 1987

Britain USA Australia West Austria Italy Average Germany

health 88 60 62 52 62 81 67 Pensions 75 44 55 46 50 76 58 education 75 66 64 40 38 63 58 unemployment Benefits 41 25 13 35 16 57 28 law enforcement 40 51 67 30 23 48 45 environment 37 43 32 83 74 61 55 defense 17 20 46 6 13 12 19 Culture and the Arts 10 16 10 14 12 33 16

Source: Peter Taylor-Gooby, “The role of the State,” in r. Jowell, S. Witherspoon, and l. Brook, eds., British Social Attitudes: Special International Report (Aldershot: Gower, 1989).

3 1

C h a p t e r 2

Political Culture and Public Administration

Administrative Culture 34 General Societal Culture 35 Political Culture and Administration 41 Culture and the Internal Management of Organizations 70 Summary 76

T h e P O l I T I C S O f B u r e A u C r A C y

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Citizens do not interpret the behavior of their governments and their public ser v- ants in a vacuum. Rather, they are equipped by their society with an image of what constitutes good government and proper administration. This mental “picture” of good government is composed of a set of complex cognitive and evaluative structures that tend to be (relatively) common among all members of the society, although certainly many countries do have significant differences among seg- ments of society with ver y different ideas about politics and public administration. We refer to these generally shared psychological orientations as political culture (Gibbins, 1989; Harrison and Huntington, 2000). Although at times this common culture is directly imparted to children through civics courses and patriotic exercises, the acquisition of a political culture is usually part of the more general process of learning about living as part of the society. Thus, just as the child learns the prevailing norms concerning economic behavior, social interaction, and table manners, he or she also learns how to under- stand and evaluate politics and government. This process of learning political values and political culture is referred to as political socialization (Eckstein, 1988). We have already seen that the social and economic systems of a countr y place boundaries on the actions of government, and more specifically on public administration. Political culture is equally impor tant in setting boundaries, although the boundaries are less tangible than those determined by economic conditions. By defining what is good and bad in government the culture may mandate some actions and prohibit others. One component of this set of prescrip- tions is the content of policy; governments must do cer tain things in order to be considered a proper government, and they are also prohibited from engaging in cer tain other activities. Another component of the constraints on action is style; governments must perform their requisite duties in certain ways. For example, although citizens now expect governments to exercise some control over the economy, there are some means of doing this (regulation) that have become more acceptable than others (public ownership). For public administration the manner in which members of the public ser vice meet the public and enforce their decisions is extremely important; one of the most common reforms of the public sector has been to attempt to create a more client- centered approach to governing (see Denhardt and Denhardt, 2000). Style issues may be especially important for public administration; both compo- nents are crucial for the success of government. Despite the seemingly abstract and vague nature of these cultural bounda- ries on behavior, governments and individual civil ser vants can violate prevailing political norms only at their risk. This restriction on behavior is true no matter how antiquated and vestigial an element of the political culture may be. This is not to say that society’s cultural values are immutable. Culture is subject to change, and there is a constant interaction of culture and actual politics that redefines the role of government (Wildavsky, 1987). For example, the latitude of action allowed to governments at present would have been unthinkable before two world wars, one major economic depression, and a Cold War fundamentally altered popular perceptions of the role of government, and that latitude has also been enhanced by the relative success of the programs adopted to cope with economic and mili- tar y crises.

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Beginning during the 1980s, however, the dominant culture in most industri- alized democracies was again modified to stress the limits, as well as the successes, of government inter vention (Savoie, 1999). These limits were expressed even in the Scandinavian countries that have a histor y of substantial state involvement in economy and society. The costs, apparent remoteness and indifference, and inef- ficiencies of government all were taken as evidence of the need to reform govern- ment dramatically and to make the public sector more like the private sector (see Chapter 10). The developmental needs of most Third World countries place the role of government in a somewhat different position. While international donor organiza- tions have been pressuring less- developed countries to reduce the size of the public sector, most of these countries continue to rely upon state- led development and citi- zens appear to accept, and expect, an active role for the public sector in economic and social life. The political cultures of these countries tend to retain substantial confidence in governments despite years of corruption in many. At the same time that the acceptable scope of government was tending to contract in the economic and social arenas, some of the other values supporting a democratic political system, such as freedom, equality, and public participation, have remained important or have actually increased in importance to citizens. These democratic values have become widely diffused and “good governance” is increasingly a key goal of international development agencies. The activities now prescribed and proscribed for governments in Eastern Europe are vastly different than they were prior to the overthrow of the communist regimes. Some govern- ments in Central and South America, and in Asia, also have a diminished scope of action after the end of authoritarian rule, and the beginning of large- scale privatiza- tions. Political culture has sometimes been considered a residual categor y for scholars of comparative politics seeking to explain similarities and differences among countries. That is, when all other explanations failed, the cause must have been political culture (Elkins and Simeon, 1979). While this reductionist style of research has been perhaps too prevalent, there has also been a revival of interest in the explanator y capacity of cultural variables. For example, the concept of “policy style” has been used successfully to capture national differences in the process of policy making (Richardson, 1982; Van Waarden, 1995). National “myths” have also been shown to have a per vasive influence on the conduct of government (Girling, 1993) and policy sectors as well as countries have been shown to exhibit distinctive cultural features that influence policy choices (Freeman, 1985). Political culture is a difficult concept to isolate and measure precisely, but it is also a concept that is difficult to ignore, or to dismiss as meaningless for understanding politics and governing. The remainder of this chapter examines the effects of political culture on the nature of the public administrative system. The comparisons made are of two varieties: (1) between political systems, commenting on the differences in admin- istration in different countries, which may be a function of differences in their cul- tures; and (2) within individual systems across time. The second form of change is often under valued, but given the vast transformations of governments in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, Latin America, and South Africa (to name

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the more obvious cases), cultural change across time within a system is a crucial element in understanding contemporar y administrative behavior. Further, as well as participating in the total system transformations mentioned above, public admin- istration itself may change in response to changing values, changing technologies, and changing expectations about ser vice. Indeed, we will have one entire chapter on the reform of public administration as it attempts to adjust to marked changes in expectations about what a bureaucracy should do, and how those tasks should be done.

Administrative Culture

For purposes of understanding public administration, we can think of culture as existing at three distinct levels: societal, political, and administrative. The concep- tual relationship among these three levels can be seen in Figure 2.1. Notice that all three levels of culture influence the conduct of public administration. Ver y general value orientations in the society will influence the behavior of individuals working within formal organizations, as well as the manner in which those organizations are structured and managed. The political culture will also, in part, influence the rela- tionships between political and bureaucratic elites, and between the population and the bureaucracy. Finally, the general orientation of the society toward management and impersonal authority in formal organizations will also affect the behavior of public officials. Public bureaucracies are sometimes portrayed as running rough- shod over their societies, but they are bound by many thin but strong bonds to their societies, and the values of those societies. We should also point out that individual organizations in government will develop their own cultures (Parker and Bradley, 2000). Some organizational cul- tures, such as that of the British Treasur y (Thain, 2004), may be ver y elitist, while

Political Culture

Administrative Culture

Societal Culture

Public Administration

Figure 2.1 Culture and Public Administration

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others (many social ser vice agencies) may be extremely participator y and allow workers and clients substantial influence over decisions. In addition, organiza- tions may provide their members with the means of interpreting general social and political values, so that ver y strong organizations, for example elite militar y organi- zations, can obtain somewhat greater freedom from control by prevailing social norms or other organizations in government. Organizational cultures also provide members of the organization with a set of values to guide their decisions (Goodsell, 2011). Organizational cultures, while important, are more suitably discussed when we consider management in the public sector and more micro- level considerations. In this chapter we will be concerned with cultural questions that affect virtually all public organizations within a countr y.

General Societal Culture

Let us first look at several aspects of societal culture that affect the performance of administration. The first of these cultural elements is the ver y basic question of the acceptability of “bureaucracy” as a means of large- scale organization in the society. A culture will have a basic set of evaluations of formal bureaucratic structures not only in government but also for all large- scale organization. Likewise, those socie- ties that tend to adopt bureaucratic forms of management for one type of enterprise will tend to adopt bureaucratic means for all types of enterprise (see DiMaggio and Powell, 1991). In discussing some aspects of these patterns, Reinhard Bendix (1956) made the distinction between entrepreneurial and bureaucratic societies. Bendix used Great Britain as his example of an entrepreneurial society. This did not mean that business leadership was particularly aggressive or creative, but rather that it was largely personal. The development and management of British enterprise has traditionally been through entrepreneurial action, despite the rather early acceptance of corporations and limited liability. The style of management has tended to remain personal, the development of a rather extensive administrative apparatus notwithstanding. The administration of public policy in Great Britain appears to follow many of the same entrepreneurial principles. Despite the development of the complex bureaucracy in Whitehall, the manner of functioning of public administration appears to be decision making through bargaining and negotiation as much as through the bureaucratic imposition of authority. Even the Treasur y’s per vasive authority over the public budget contains many elements of bargaining and negoti- ation. Much of the administrative process is conducted in an informal, personalistic manner based generally on personal acquaintances and personal trust (Heclo and Wildavsky, 1974; Thain and Wright, 1995). The managerialist reforms of adminis- tration and the reliance on chief executives to manage the “Next Steps” agencies make this personalistic bias in administration even more evident. Finally, the nature of accountability in government has been highly personalized with, in principle, the minister being responsible for ever ything that occurs in his or her department (Marshall, 1989). The opposite of this entrepreneurial approach to administration is the insti- tutionalized bureaucratic style of administration that has been characteristic of

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administration in Germany. Bureaucracy is, of course, a common stereotype of the culture of Germany but is also rather descriptive of styles of administration. Bureaucracy is a dominant form of social organization, in the public and private sectors, just as the relative informality of the committee is a common form of organ- ization in Britain. Likewise, despite continuing change in the society, authority and status relationships may be more important in social relationships, including the family, than might be true in other industrialized societies (Bauer, 1991). In such a society, bureaucracy and its emphasis on authority relationships is a natural and acceptable form of public organization despite modernization of many aspects of the society. This formality is considerably less acceptable in a society more ori- ented toward personal and informal decision making as in the United Kingdom, or the even more extreme case of the United States or some southern European countries (see LaPalombara, 1987; Hofstede, 2001). Bendix was primarily discussing differences among Western industrialized nations, but there are perhaps even more significant differences between that group of nations and the non- Western and nonindustrialized nations. In general, the non- Western world is less accepting of the use of bureaucratic methods than is the Western world. Attempts to import this Western concept into the non- Western world have often resulted in the adoption of the formal aspects of bureaucracy while circumventing the procedural norms usually associated with those structures. Fred Riggs (1964), in his discussion of the use of bureaucratic methods in under- developed countries, talks about the “sala” model of administration – structures having the form of a Western bureaucracy but actually filled with individuals oper- ating according to more traditional norms of family and communal loyalty. Another description of these patterns, especially in Latin America, has been formalism in which there are all the formal rules of bureaucracy but none of the reality. Even in an economically developed, albeit non- Western, society such as Japan, norms of personal and organizational loyalty may supplant bureaucratic reliance on author- ity, achievement, and rules (Sugimoto, 2014). The breakdown of the former Soviet Union, and the attempts of those coun- tries to adapt to more democratic forms of management, has emphasized the existence of another style of administration. This might be termed a “control” system of administration. Rather than relying on individual initiative or the inter- nal controls – hierarchy and law – of the bureaucracy, this form of administra- tion is oriented toward using elaborate (and often extremely expensive) forms of external controls. For example, in most communist systems there were parallel structures of par ty and government that monitored each other. The ultimate goal of these systems was compliance of the individual administrator, and an assur- ance of close conformity to the preferences of the dominant regime (Wilson, 1992). This style of administration appears to have been characteristic of Russia under the Tsars as well as under communism, and to have been expor ted to other countries under Russian influence, e.g., Poland (Obolonsky, 1999). It may still exist to some extent in the People’s Republic of China, Cuba, Nor th Korea, and Vietnam. As well as entrepreneurial, bureaucratic, and control organizations, con- temporar y societies have been developing yet another type – the participator y organization. Rather than relying on the entrepreneurial actions of one or a few

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individuals, the authority of rules and structure, or on external controls, a participa- tor y organization derives its energy from its members and their active involvement. This form of organization is central for voluntar y organizations, but has been less common in workplace organizations. In business or government the participator y organization is intended to take advantage of the desire of most people to partici- pate in the decisions that affect their lives. Participator y organization also helps utilize the expertise that many lower- echelon employees have about their jobs and about the performance of their organization. Participation is then a mechanism for harnessing the informal pattern of relationships that exists within any organiza- tion. Further, as well as involving the members of the organization the participa- tor y organization also involves its clients, or “customers,” and also attempts to use their information and commitment to improve the performance of the organization. Although the idea of enhancing participation in organizations has been in organiza- tion theor y for decades, numerous reform programs in the past several decades have actually implemented those ideas (see Peters, 2001, chapter 3; Speer, 2012).

Impersonal Rules and Organizations

The acceptance of impersonality and universality of rules is related to societal acceptance of bureaucracy as a means of organization. Talcott Parsons, in describ- ing general patterns of cultural development, discussed the universality of rules as one of his five pattern variables (Parsons and Shils, 1951). Likewise, Mar y Douglas’ conceptions of culture (1982) place an emphasis on the extent to which individuals are controlled by rules and other external restraints; what she calls “grid.” Like- wise, in his empirical study of organizational values, Hofstede (2001) identified “individualism” as one of the four central values, with its antithesis appearing to be impersonality. Wilson discusses political culture in terms of compliance ideologies, with “positional compliance” being ver y similar to an emphasis on bureaucracy and authority. For their smooth functioning, bureaucracies depend on the acceptance of impersonality and universality of rules (Berg, 2006). If the rules of an organization must be renegotiated for each individual – whether employee or client – bureaucra- cies become not only inefficient, but superfluous as well. Bureaucracies have been developed to provide consistency and universality in the application of rules. These characteristics are demanded by law as well as by “modern” conceptions of fairness and justice. Thus, although often criticized for their adherence to rules a properly functioning bureaucracy is intended to provide equality for citizens. Other conceptions of justice, of course, depend more upon giving each individual an appropriate response, and in such a setting a bureaucracy may be of little real use. As governments tend to permit clients to have greater involvement in the administration of laws that affect them, and also more rights to complain about perceived administrative failures, formal bureaucracies become less valuable and less culturally acceptable (Divedi and Gow, 1999). Further, workers in public organizations may seek the same sorts of freedoms from rigid hierarchical controls. What sort of cultural systems tend to support the bureaucratic concept of universality and impersonality of rules? Those values can be associated with what

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has been called rationalist or deductive cultures (Sar tori, 1969). These have been characteristic of developed countries in which political ideologies are rela- tively impor tant, and are especially characteristic of the countries of continental Europe. These cultures tend to emphasize the deduction of specific statements and actions from general statements of principles. It is only a shor t step from this type of argument in the general social culture to the bureaucratic style of deci- sion making, in which the decision about an individual case is made on the basis of deductive reasoning from a legal premise. This deductive variety of political culture is also to some degree manifested in the legal system of codified law, which attempts to detail ever y aspect of the law and thereby to minimize the need for personal discretion (Damaska, 1986). In these cases, if the deduction of the specific decision is per formed correctly, there is little basis for argument. Both client and administrator can accept the adequacy and the justice of the ruling. The client will not always like the ruling made by the administrator, but the cor- rectness of the impersonal application is difficult to question within that cultural context. This is almost a stereotype of the Weberian bureaucracy, but also appears to function in some real- world settings. The rationalist culture may be contrasted with the pragmatic or empirical culture that has been said to characterize the United Kingdom and much of north- western Europe. In these cultures, generalities are derived from a series of indi- vidual decisions or inductively from obser vations. This type of culture is perhaps best typified by English (and American) common law, built up through centuries from individual decisions. This style of political culture is not so amenable to the development of bureaucracies or to impersonal decisions as are the rationalistic cultures described above. Each case is, to some degree, a new case and the particu- lar individual circumstances may be sufficient to modify or overturn an apparent generality. In the inductive culture, administrative and legal decisions are almost inherently individualized and, although precedent certainly may rule, each case may be contested on its personal merits. The above statements should not be taken to indicate that the United Kingdom and the United States do not have bureaucratic organizations. By almost any definition of bureaucracy, that would be a foolish statement. Rather, they do mean that there tends to be less rigidity and impersonality accepted in these more inductive cultures than would be true in the more deductive, continental systems. In addition, the rulings made by administrators will be governed less by codified law than by precedent and perhaps by even less formalized conceptions of equity in law. The concept of individuality and individual rights, as one component of the more empirical culture, tends to make the job of the bureaucrat more difficult and forces more attention on specifics rather than on the generalities of the case (see Peters, 2004b). Katz and Eisenstadt point to an interesting case in which the norms of imper- sonality developed by a bureaucratic system are undermined by an influx of clients unaccustomed to those norms (1960). Israel was settled initially by Jews of Euro- pean origin accustomed to the norms of impersonal and universal rule applications. These same norms were not held, however, by later waves of immigrants from the Eastern branches of Judaism. Socialized into the largely personalistic and barter cultures of the less- developed nations, the new settlers were unwilling to accept

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even the most basic universal rules, for example, that ever yone who rides the bus should pay the same fare. Moreover, these immigrants were to constitute a major portion of the caseload for a number of social ser vice agencies in Israel. Inter- estingly, both the clients and the administrative structures found it necessar y to modify their behavior in order to accommodate the strains on their usual behavior patterns. The immigrants tended to adopt some of the basic ideas of impersonal- ity, but the administrators also became more aware of personal differences among clients. Caiden (1970; see also Mahler, 1990) found rather similar conflicts between the older immigrants to Israel, who had become accustomed to operating in a Middle- Eastern style, and the native- born sabras, who had become more oriented toward impersonality and bureaucracy. Much the same pattern of conflicts in values would be encountered in many less- developed societies where individuals raised in rural districts confront the more “modern” cultures that have evolved in urban areas. Such conflict may also be increasingly characteristic of government in developed democracies as the number of immigrants from the less- developed countries continues and public officials must interact increasingly with people with ver y different value systems. Even in wealthy and previously homogenous countries such as Switzerland, Denmark, and Nor way the influx of immigrants places some strain on the efficient administration of public policies (see Triandafyllidou, 2001). The above example points to three important aspects of the relationship between culture and public administration. The first is the “barter” nature of the political cultures encountered in a good portion of the underdeveloped world. These nations present a variety and richness in cultural patterns, while universality and impersonal rules remain largely attributes of developed, Western societies. In the non- Western world, and even in some portions of the Western world, all decisions are assumed to be subject to influence through personal bargaining and negotia- tion. Thus, formal rules promulgated by the bureaucracy merely constitute a place to begin the bargaining. Likewise, Fred Riggs has noted that societies in transition from traditionalism to modernity, which he terms “prismatic,” adopt a style of deci- sion making that he refers to as “double- talk.” Riggs notes (1964, 201):

Even more typically prismatic is a law which provides for one policy although in practice a different policy prevails. A rule is formally announced but is not effectively enforced. The formalistic appearance of the rule con- trasts with its actual administration – officials are free to make choices, enforcing or disregarding the rule at will. We have already seen that over- conformity and non- enforcement of laws is typically prismatic. It makes pos- sible prismatic codes which, while appearing to promulgate a rule, in fact permit a wide variety of personalized choices by enforcement officials.… Apparent rules mask without guiding actual choices.

Arguably, this form of administrative “double- talk” is prevalent in societies that have well- developed bureaucratic apparatuses but which lack the cultural infrastructure to support them. This mismatch between formal and actual rules would be true in some less- developed countries, such as in Africa and in parts of Latin America, as well as in many former socialist countries (Gould, 1991).

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As control systems eroded in the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the bureaucracy often persisted in the formal structures, but lost much of its impersonal and authoritative character. Administration in those regimes has come to appear ver y much like Riggs’ description of a prismatic administration, and has also become plagued with the corruption often characteristic of adminis- tration in the Third World (Hesse, 1993). That having been said, however, many of these countries inherited a tradition of formal bureaucracy from their precom- munist past, and are more capable of developing effective bureaucracies than countries lacking that inheritance (Agh, 2001). The trend toward more impersonal, bureaucratic forms of governing has been reinforced by accession to the European Union (Meyer- Sahling, 2011). Thus, we can imagine a rough continuum of cultural orientations toward impersonality and universalistic rules, ranging from the barter cultures described by Riggs and others to the highly rationalistic, impersonal attitudes that have been characteristic of continental European countries. On such a continuum, the prag- matic culture of the Anglo- American democracies might constitute something near a halfway point. That is, compared with many non- Western political systems, the political culture of the Anglo- American countries would appear quite accepting of impersonal rules. When compared with other advanced and industrial countries of Europe, however, the culture of the United Kingdom and especially the United States, would appear more personal and less bureaucratic than most other nations at similar levels of socioeconomic development. The second point emphasized by the Katz and Eisenstadt research is the importance of interaction in setting and changing the norms of administration. We have been stressing the importance of the lower echelons of administration and of their contact with clients. Not only is this type of contact crucial for the client, it may also be crucial for the organization in the formulation of its policies. In the case of Israel and the immigrants, we see the organization modifying its basic orienta- tion toward clients and toward administration as a result of a problem in applying rules to specific clients. This same pattern of interaction is also important at the bottom of almost all public organizations providing direct ser vices to clients. These “street level bureaucrats” may have their own values and practices shaped by their interac- tions with clients (see Meyers and Nielsen, 2012). The work done in Israel and in less- developed societies can be supplemented by the more plentiful work done on “street level bureaucracy” in the United States, and on the “bottom up” view of implementation in a number of settings. A general conclusion of this work is that organizations are more successful when they take into account the characteris- tics and needs of their clients rather than reacting in a stereotypically bureaucratic manner. The emphasis on “citizen involvement” as a part of contemporar y admin- istrative change is another indication of the belief in, and the reality of, a role for greater participation (Vigoda, 2002). The third point raised by the research on Israeli immigrants, although it is now decades old, is that the reaction of the immigrants to bureaucracy may be indicative of an emerging general pattern of interactions between citizens and gov- ernment. All Western societies have undergone substantial cultural change since the 1960s, and individuals socialized politically in the 1960s and 1970s are now

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assuming major leadership roles in their nations. A major characteristic of that cul- tural change was a negative reaction to the impersonality and perceived inhumanity of large organizations in society, and the desire to create less- bureaucratized social and political systems – “postindustrial” or “post bureaucratic” society. While some of the ideas espoused at that time have been appropriately criticized as utopian, there has been some real effect on politics and administration. Governments are now attempting to find means of balancing demands for individual treatment with demands for adherence to law and rules. Politically, the desire for a more participator y and less bureaucratic society has been manifested in a number of political parties, and movements of the political left and right are attrib- utable in part to this desire. These movements include the Greens in Germany and, in other parts of Western Europe, the Progress Party in Denmark and Nor way and Podemos in Spain. There appear to be pressures that may be able, at least in part, to debureaucratize even highly bureaucratized Western societies. Further, increasing waves of international immigration are requiring civil ser vants in the more bureau- cratized countries to cope with clients who do not accept the norms of impersonal rules and laws. In summar y, we have examined two aspects of the general cultural values of society that are potentially important for understanding public administration. These two dimensions are only a sample of these values, but any further enumera- tion would run the risk of being somewhat tedious. Further, it would distract atten- tion from the more important relationships of the political culture of a countr y to the functioning of public administration in that countr y. These political values tend to be more proximate to the decisions of civil ser vants, and to influence not only how they make their decisions but also the content of those decisions. We will now turn our attention to the examination of these political aspects of the culture, and their relationships to public administration.

Political Culture and Administration

When discussing political culture, we are concerned with the specific orientations of individuals in a society toward politics as one type of social action and collective decision making. Public administration is a component of government and, there- fore, may be analyzed most effectively from the more politicized perspective, rather than being examined as simply another form of managerial activity. Some academ- ics and practitioners have argued that public management is much the same as private management, but we will be arguing that there are, in fact, a number of significant differences (Allison, 1986; Meijer and O’Toole, 2011). Public administra- tion is perceived as a managerial activity within public organizations themselves, but is perceived more often by citizens as another component of government, albeit generally the least respected component of government. For citizens, public administration matters primarily because of the ser vices it delivers rather than as an arena where managerial skills can be exercised. Unfortunately for our purposes, the analysis and classification of polit- ical culture have been concentrated largely on the “input side” of the political system. Most attention has been given to attitudes and values concerning political

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participation, democratic procedures, political efficacy, and political involvement. Much less scholarly attention has been devoted to classifying the orientations of citizens to the institutions of government, and to the outputs of the political system. Our knowledge of popular conceptions of public administration is even weaker than our knowledge of people’s feelings concerning legislatures, the political executive, and perhaps even the courts. It is difficult to avoid the general idea that most citizens do not like the bureaucracy, but there is little direct evidence to support that idea. There is a great deal of anecdotal evidence about how people view the bureaucracy, but less system- atic evidence (Brunet, 1998). There is now, however, an increasing body of informa- tion about the ways in which citizens evaluate their public bureaucracies, especially in industrialized societies, as is illustrated in Table 2.1. These data from a number

Table 2.1 Popular evaluations of Public Bureaucracy

A. Fairness (percentage of those answering)

United States

Canada

(Government) Government Business

Good and Very Good 43.8 68.9 84.4 So-so 29.2 21.1 10.6 Bad and Very Bad 27.0 10.1 4.9 Total 100.0 100.1 99.9

B. Government vs. Business (United States) (Percentage)

Government Business

Better Same Better No answer

Considerate 11.5 47.8 37.5 3.2 fair 18.8 33.6 44.5 3.1

C. Public Employees Are . . . (Percentage Responding Yes)

United States Australia

Too numerous 67 54 Working less hard Than Business 67 63

D. Descriptions of Public Administration (France) (Percentage)

High Integrity Efficient Competent Accountable

Good description 79 54 67 41 Bad description 11 38 23 45 no answer 10 8 10 14 Total 100 100 100 100

Sources: david Zussman, “The Image of the Public Service in Canada,” Canadian Public Administration, 25 (1982): 63–80; daniel Katz et al., Bureaucratic Encounters (Ann Arbor, MI: Survey research Center, university of Michigan, 1975); The Bulletin (Sydney), 20 August 1977; J. l. Quermonne and l. rouban, “french Public Administration and Policy evaluation: The Quest for Accountability,” Public Administration Review, 46 (1986): 401.

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of countries point to a varied conception of what governments should do and how they should do it. The public is rarely of one mind about the actions of their public ser vants. How these data are evaluated may depend upon whether one believes that the glass is half empty or half full. On the one hand, given some of the exagger- ated statements made about the incompetence and venality of public officials, the ratings of public officials are generally rather good. On the other hand, the ratings given generally are not as good for public sector employees as for private sector employees. Even for fairness, which should be the public sector’s strong- est point (see Chapter 8), the public sector did not generally rate as high as the private sector. Further, some of the evidence suggests that actual contacts with the public ser vice, even if favorable, have little impact upon attitudes; the evaluation of the public sector appears to be culturally determined as much or more than it is determined by the actual performance of government (Serra, 1995; Goodsell, 2004). In the terms of role theor y, the role which many societies have assigned to their public employees is one of incompetence, bungling, and high- handedness, and empirical evidence may have little impact on citizens’ evaluations. As well as discussing relationships with civil ser vants, we can also see the public’s evaluation of the public ser vice by examining how well they think those ser vices are performing. In the United Kingdom the public were asked how well a variety of organizations and institutions were run. In general, public institutions fared rather well in this evaluation. Banks were considered the best- run organi- zations in the society (Table 2.2), but the police, the BBC, and universities (all public or quasi- public) came in second, third, and fourth. The civil ser vice was rated almost as highly as private industr y in terms of its being well run. It is impor- tant to note, however, that most public organizations in Britain experienced a size- able drop in positive evaluations even in the short period from 1983 to 1987, while private institutions improved slightly. Even in the United States, presumably having a political culture with little respect for the public sector or public services, those public services actually rank very well. For example, health services provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs had 27 percent better consumer satisfaction than did those of the private sector (DVA, 2006). More comprehensive data from consumer surveys indicate that the public sector is regarded about as well as the private sector by people who come into contact with it. The pervasive stereotype of an inefficient and indifferent public service seems to be encountered relatively infrequently in the real world of citizens. Also, if we examine the evaluations of public services and public servants in France and Italy, we can see that respondents in these two societies give rather positive evaluations of many of their public services. Indeed, their evaluations are, in many cases, more positive than for private sector organizations, including major market organizations. Both of these countries have had a large public sector, and France has been more reluctant to cut back the size of government than have most other European governments. The strength of the positive evaluation of government in France may be seen in the popular outbursts against several attempts to reduce public sector involvement in providing public service (Peters and Hunold, 1998). Several other studies also point to generally positive evaluations of the per formance of the public sector in delivering ser vices. One study in Canada

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showed generally high levels of satisfaction with a variety of public ser vices, with no ser vice having more than a majority of the respondents saying they were dis- satisfied with the ser vices (Table 2.3). French respondents expressed somewhat less positive views of ser vices, but only marginally so. Another Canadian study

Table 2.2 Perceptions of Management of Institutions in the united Kingdom (Percentage)

“Well run”

1983 1987

Banks 90 91 Industry 43 48 unions 29 27 BBC 72 67 national health Service 52 35 nationalized Industries 21 33 universities – 65 Civil Service 42 46 local Government 35 29

Do the Following (Public) Institutions Work Well?

Post Office 80 Police 69 railways 65 hospitals 63 Schools 57 Social Security 49 Justice System 29

Sources: roger Jowell and richard Topf, “Trust in the establishment,” in roger Jowell, Sharon Witherspoon, and lindsay Brook, British Social Attitudes, Fifth Report (Aldershot: Gower, 1988); L’Etat de l’Opinion, 1996 (Paris: editions de Seuil), p. 326.

Table 2.3a level of Satisfaction with Public Services in france (Percentage Satisfied or Very Satisfied)

1995 2000

education 57 53 Justice 29 32 Police 69 73 hospitals 63 89 Social Security 49 – Post Office 80 77 Telecommunications 92 85 railways 65 – electricity/Gas – 92

note See (Warin, 2000, 25).

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showed that a large, and increasing, propor tion of the population considered public ser vices to be “good value for money,” although a similar British study revealed much less suppor t for public ser vices (Table 2.4). Another sur vey in France asked respondents whether they believed the quality of ser vice provided would improve if the ser vice were privatized (Lemaitre, 1996). For a majority of ser vices the modal response was that privatization would make the quality of ser vice worse, and only for hospitals did a majority think that privatization would produce an improvement (Table 2.5). In shor t, although the public ser vice may

Table 2.3b Satisfaction with Public Services (Percentage)

A. Canada (1990)

Very Somewhat Somewhat Very Don’t Satisfied Satisfied Dissatisfied Dissatisfied Know

fire department 64 27 2 1 6 Garbage Collection 61 29 4 3 3 libraries 49 33 4 2 12 Medical Services 48 38 9 4 1 Postal Services 46 40 10 4 – Police 46 41 8 3 2 elementary Schools 35 32 8 3 22 recreation 33 42 11 4 10 high Schools 29 33 12 4 22 Street repair 19 35 24 19 3

B. France (1987)

Satisfied Not Satisfied Don’t Know

fire Services 96 1 3 Municipal Services 90 7 3 Gas and electricity 85 14 1 Postal Services 82 17 1 hospitals 79 18 3 Social Security 37 58 5 Tax Collectors 35 62 3 Justice 32 53 15 education 28 57 15

C. Italy

1976 1979 1985 1988 1995

Post Office 47 44 64 53 53 Telephones 65 69 80 76 84 State railways 43 33 49 35 53 Medical Services – – – 31 22

Sources: Jean-luc Bodiguel and luc rouban, Le Fonctionnaire Détrôné? (Paris: Presses de la fondation nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1991); dOXA, Alcuni Aspetti dell’Opinione pubblica (March 3, 1995).

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Table 2.4 Value for Money in Public Services (Percentage)

A. Canada

Good Value

1983 1988

fire Protection 86 87 Medicare 86 87 Garbage Collection 83 83 Police 79 82 education 58 60 Postal Service 47 58

B. Great Britain

Good Value

1986 1988

Police 73 69 Garbage Collection 71 69 national health Service – GPs Services 65 68 Sports and recreation 60 62 national health Service – hospitals 57 56 Primary education 44 50 family Allowances 44 39 universities 41 46 housing 41 33 elderly Services 40 37 roads 36 29 Secondary education 32 42 Pensions 31 25 unemployment Benefits 31 23 Maternity Benefits 30 26

C. Italy

Honesty and Capacity and Commitment Competence

1967 33 39 1974 6 7 1976 4 4 1984 19 29 1991 9 23 1993 8 21 1995 46 41

Sources: e. h. hastings and P. K. hastings, Index to International Public Opinion, 1988–89 (Greenwood, CT: Greenwood Press, 1990); dOXA, Alcuni Aspetti dell’Opinione pubblica (March 3, 1995).

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have a negative public image in general, citizens do appear to appreciate the ser v- ices it provides to them. The above positive perception of public ser vices may hold true for the indus- trialized world, but is much less true for the developing countries. The evidence is limited here, but there is a sense that much of the population has come to expect poor quality ser vices and less than fair treatment from the ser vice providers. For example, over half of the Zambian respondents to a sur vey said that they found four government ser vices poor or ver y poor (Table 2.7). The same sur vey pointed out that the Zambian population found their civil ser vants incompetent, rude, and

Table 2.5 Perceived effects of Privatization in france (Percentage)

Positive Negative No Don’t Difference Know

health Insurance 25 30 27 18 Postal Service 27 27 32 14 education 29 32 24 15 Prisons 20 23 20 37 hospitals 30 29 24 17

Source: Le Nouvel Observateur, October 10–16, 1986.

Table 2.6 expectations about Behavior in the Public Sector (Percentage)

Gifts from Contractor for:

Company Local Government Manager Official

nothing Wrong 39 13 A Bit Wrong 23 14 Wrong 29 43 Seriously Wrong 7 28 don’t Know 2 3

Good Descriptions of Public Administrators? (France) (Yes)

1980 1989 1996

They love Paperwork 71 75 76 They Play favorites 40 33 – They Are honest – – 78 They Work Too little – 40 39 They Are Competent 64 60 62 They Are friendly 47 49 51

Sources: Michael Johnston and d. Ward, “right and Wrong in Public and Private life,” in roger Jowell and Sharon Witherspoon, eds., British Social Attitudes, 1985 (Aldershot: Gower, 1985); L’Etat de l’Opinion 1990 (Paris: editions de Seuil, 1991), p. 188; L’Etat de l’Opinion 1997 (Paris: editions de Seuil, 1991), p. 155.

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unfair. More recent evidence (Table 2.8) from a number of African countries indi- cates that citizens in most of these countries are satisfied with important public ser vices. Although the evidence is less quantified, several reform ef forts in less- developed countries in Latin America are centered on improving the quality of public services. Some of the negative evaluations of public ser vants encountered in sur veys may be a result of ver y high popular expectations about the behavior of their public officials. For example, in one sur vey in Britain there were ver y different feelings

Table 2.7 Perceptions of Public Services and Public Servants in Zambia

Quality of Public Services

Very Poor Poor Good Very Good

education 23.8 39.1 32.1 5.1 health 27.0 38.4 31.7 2.9 local Services 59.8 24.1 14.4 1.7 Post Office 8.0 18.7 55.4 17.9 Police 29.6 28.0 35.3 7.2

Evaluation of Civil Servants

Very Poor Poor Good Very Good

Competence 41 47 11 1 fairness 22 55 20 3 Politeness 12 53 30 5

Source: Mamadou dia, Africa’s Management in the 1990s and Beyond (Washington, dC: World Bank, 1994), pp. 65, 67.

Table 2.8 Perceived Quality of Public Services in African Countries (Percentage reporting Good or fairly Services)

Education Health

Benin 59 49 Botswana 82 84 Ghana 70 73 Kenya 85 69 lesotho 57 92 Malawi 71 75 Mozambique 71 70 nigeria 36 42 Senegal 66 63 South Africa 71 64 Tanzania 85 70 Zambia 59 60 Zimbabwe 45 32

Source: Afrobarometer (2005–6).

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about a manager taking a gift from a firm with whom he or she was doing busi- ness, depending upon whether the manager was employed in industr y or in local government (Table 2.6). Three times as many people thought that such a gift was totally acceptable for someone in business than believed that it was acceptable for someone in government ser vice. There are clearly different standards of behav- ior expected for public ser vants, and therefore, perhaps, greater disappointments when there are ethical failures (Chapman, 1993a; Cooper, 2004). Evidence about citizens’ attitudes toward the public bureaucracy is spotty, but the increased interest in transparency and corruption in the public sector has gen- erated more information. Rather earlier, Eldersveld et al. (1968) were able to make some comparisons between citizens’ attitudes toward administration in the United States and in India. Although the Indian respondents surveyed were more willing to work in public jobs than private jobs, their general evaluation of public administra- tion was much less positive than that of a sample in Detroit. The Indian respondents felt that they were treated badly in their interactions with administrators and had a cynical view of corruption and favoritism in the public bureaucracy of India. This result may be accounted for, in part, by the “prismatic” nature of Indian government and its administration. It does point out, however, that despite the findings of Levy and others, Americans are not entirely negative about their public administrators, especially when their attitudes are compared with those of citizens of underdevel- oped countries. Other studies conducted in underdeveloped countries have pointed to the same negative evaluations of the civil service (Baker, 1991). Some recent studies from formerly communist Eastern Europe point to extraordinarily negative evaluations of the public bureaucracy (Sarapata, 1992; Verheijen, 2000). This assessment is perhaps to be expected given the behavior of bureaucracies in the former communist regimes, and in many, the behavior of bureaucracies in previous regimes. It may, therefore, require years if not decades for bureaucracies to develop the legitimacy of bureaucracies within these govern- ments, even if the political institutions are able to create greater legitimacy for their activities. Leaving aside for the time being a lack of much direct evidence concerning popular orientations toward administration, we can undertake a more analytical discussion of the effects of political culture on administration. This should begin with some of the possible dimensions for analysis. As was mentioned previously, the majority of analyses of political culture have dealt almost exclusively with mass political participation. Thus, Almond and Verba (1964) speak of parochial, subject, and participant cultures on the basis of the willingness of the individual to partici- pate on the input side of politics. Almond and Powell (1966) use cultural seculariza- tion as one of their three variables to describe political development. Although this is a broad concept, one of the primar y components is an orientation toward poli- tics involving manipulation, and the attainment of individual goals through political action. We do not want to paint with too broad a brush, however. Some discussions of political culture have been concerned with problems of authority and of govern- mental institutions. Nettl (1967) used “constitutional” and “elitist” as the two basic dimensions of his analysis of culture, with these two dimensions defined largely by the authority relationships within the society and polity. This is, therefore, some- what similar to Eckstein’s discussion of authority (1973) as a crucial dimension of

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the analysis of political culture. Likewise, Elazar’s (1994) discussion of the dimen- sions of political culture in the United States rather explicitly involves a discussion of the cultural acceptability of certain types of public policies, and authors following his lead have found connections between culture and the policies adopted by state governments. Thus, we do have some amount of guidance in attempting to relate political culture to the activities of government and to major institutions.

Dimensions of Political Culture

There have been a number of attempts to classify political cultures. Perhaps the two most useful general conceptualizations of political culture are those provided by Lucian Pye (1966) in the introductor y essay to Political Culture and Political Development and Mar y Douglas’ (1982) general conceptualization of culture in, among other places, her essay “Cultural Bias.” Pye developed his four dimensions for the examination of political inputs, but these dimensions are also useful for our analysis of the administrative aspects of government. Although not explicitly linked, these dimensions can be related to Douglas’ ideas about the underlying dimensions of culture. Douglas discusses cultures as the intersection of two dimensions – “group” and “grid.” The “group” dimension refers to the extent to which an individual is incorporated into a defined group, and hence the extent to which individual deci- sions are subject to group influences. “Grid” refers to the extent to which an individ- ual’s life is bound by externally imposed restrictions, and hence the extent to which individual factors and individual negotiations can determine life circumstances; in “high grid” societies there is less room for individual autonomy. The interaction of these two dimensions produce four social and patterns that are relevant for administration (Hood, 1998). In societies that have both high group and high grid values, individuals have little option to shape their own lives, politi- cally or socially, and hence adopt a fatalist approach. On the other hand, low group/ low grid value societies provide little guidance to individuals and allow individual autonomy. We can also relate these concepts to those of Pye as we discuss the four dimensions of culture that Pye described. These two variables interact to form four cells with distinctive types of cultural relations. Hierarchy and equality. The first dimension of culture mentioned by Pye is hierarchy and equality. Most administrative structures have a hierarchical struc- turing of personnel and authority in formal organizations, and the cultural values concerning authority and impersonality of rules mentioned above are important for determining the acceptability of hierarchical management practices. Several other more basic political questions also surface when we consider hierarchy and equal- ity in public administration. First, what are the means of recruitment into administrative positions? Parsons and Shils (1951) used the terms “achievement” and “ascription” to describe how societies recruit people to positions. In an achievement- oriented society, an indi- vidual’s place in society is determined by his or her ability. Advancement in society is determined by what the individual can do, not by conditions of birth. Ascriptive

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societies recruit individuals to positions in society (and the public bureaucracy) on the basis of ascriptive criteria – class, status, race, language, caste, gender – and the individual’s position is determined by these largely immutable personal character- istics. As one would imagine, achievement criteria have generally been linked with “modern” society while ascriptive criteria have been linked with “tradi- tional” societies. As was discussed by Weber, as well as most other commenta- tors on administration, bureaucracy and administration are inherently modern and achievement- oriented components of the political system (Gerth and Mills, 1991). Voters may choose a traditional elite to rule the countr y, but the bureaucracy would (in theor y) still select the best people regardless of socioeconomic position or other ascriptive characteristics. Even traditional, ascriptive rulers may want to have the best trained and most modernized bureaucracy possible. This is true in theor y, but the actual application of the principle varies markedly from society to society. In Douglas’ terms, ascription and achievement criteria are a function of the group dimension of culture, or more specifically, of a political culture. The question is to what extent are the opportunities of any individual for a leadership role in gov- ernment a function of his or her group membership in the society? In a traditional society, that would be high on both the group and grid components of her scheme, the role of an individual would be determined largely by ascriptive criteria. Even if there were room for some bargaining on a personal basis (“low grid”), the ascrip- tive criteria would often play a strong role in determining the scope of the bargains. In such a society individuals would find it difficult to escape the circumstances of their birth, and would be locked in a “fatalist” position without much control over their destiny. Equality in the recruitment of public administrators is discussed at length in Chapter 4, but a brief discussion is necessary here. The issue of equality of recruit- ment arose in the United Kingdom over the issue of social class. Kingsley’s seminal discussion (1944) of representative bureaucracy in Britain found that the middle classes were heavily overrepresented in the higher civil service. The study was, however, ambivalent concerning the effects of that overrepresentation. It is probable that even bureaucracies recruited on the most achievement- oriented basis possible would still display this same dominance of the middle and upper classes because of the correlation between social class and the ability to take standardized tests, success in school and so forth. The fact that the bias detected may be produced by other social forces has not prevented recruitment from being a political issue. Equality in recruitment is especially important given the composition of the clientele of most public bureaucracies. While a number of public administrators are concerned with business and industr y, agriculture, foreign policy, and defense, the majority of the clients ser ved directly by public agencies are from the relatively disadvantaged segments of the population. A common situation in the public sector has been to have middle- class administrators attempting to provide solutions for working- class, or “under- class,” problems (Wineman, 1984). While both groups may share a common national culture, there are often marked differences among social classes in their values and their expectations about behavior. This problem is especially important when class lines coincide with ethnic, linguistic, or other cleavages.

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Because of the importance of ethnicity and class in the perception of govern- ment by clients, some reformers have advocated the recruitment of administrators on a quota basis to ensure that administration accurately reflects the society it is attempt- ing to govern. This perception may be especially important for the lower echelons of the bureaucracy who interact frequently with the public. The proposed solution, of course, can easily be interpreted as running counter to the value of achievement- oriented recruitment, usually characteristic of modern administrative systems. Thus, somewhat paradoxically, attempts at generating one form of equality in service may be seen to require some inequalities in recruitment. Equality raises a second question for public administration. As has been stated several times, bureaucratic organizations in Western societies have involved the use of hierarchical authority. Superiors in the organizations have always attempted to exercise their authority to tell subordinates what to do. Some cultural groups have been more willing than others to accept this authority. In his class book on bureaucracy Michel Crozier (1964) points to distinct differences in the accept- ance of authority within French, British, American, and Russian organizations. He points out that French organizations are plagued by the inability of many of their members to accept authoritative commands from a superior, whereas patterns of deference ingrained in British culture made such an authoritative command quite acceptable. Massive changes in orientations toward authority have taken place in Western societies and in Russia, but many of the problems and differences cited by Crozier persist. Likewise, several studies of public administration in developing societies point out that orders from a superior may be obeyed as a function of the personal characteristics of that individual, and personal loyalty, rather than from an acceptance of the authority of the position, although this patrimonialism is also present in many economically developed societies (Piattoni, 2001). Despite these differences, acceptance of authority has declined in all devel- oped nations. This trend may be seen as a part of the new individualism of the “postindustrial society” (Inglehart, 1977, 1990). Alternatives to the traditional hier- archical structuring of organizations have been proposed with such titles as “dialec- tical organizations” and the “collaboration–consensus” organizations (Denhardt, 1981). Other analysts have advocated the need to “break through” or “break down” bureaucracy in public organizations. These and myriad other proposed reforms have had in common the desire to replace authority with more spontaneous forms of organization based on greater equality among all the members of a work group. In these conceptions the “leaders and the led” characteristic of hierarchical organi- zations would be replaced by groups of collaborators. Some of the most important efforts in the direction of equality in organiza- tions have taken place in industrial management. Going under the general label of “industrial democracies,” some organizations have replaced the leadership of the foreman with joint decision making by the work group. For example, workers at numerous Swedish industrial plants have been able to choose their own work leaders and own working pace and times. A number of companies, as well as an increasing number of public organizations, have also imported mechanisms, such as “quality circles” from Japan and “Total Quality Management” in a number of countries, in an attempt to create greater involvement of the workers in their jobs and improve the quality of the products (Osborne and Gaebler, 1991; Barzelay,

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1992). Finally, in Germany and Scandinavia, companies are required to give virtual equality on their boards of directors to representatives of their workers, and less extreme versions of this practice of Mitbestimmung have been instituted in other industrialized countries. As I will point out in Chapter 9 on administrative reform, one contemporar y strand of reform of the public sector is “participator y.” The argument of these reformers is that government is too hierarchical, so that the lower echelons of the public ser vice are not able to influence the decisions being made within the organization. This is argued both to deny the worker the right to feel involved in the organization and to deprive the organization of his or her expertise. Further, reducing hierarchical controls enables governments to eliminate large numbers of middle- management employees whose job was super vision, e.g., in the National Performance Review in the United States (Peters, 1999). In modern political cul- tures granting greater opportunities for participation is almost essential for good management, whether in the public or the private sector. These new forms of organizational management pose a unique question for public organizations: what is the role of the client in relationship to the organiza- tion? Public organizations tend to be “people- processing” organizations in which the “product” has many of the same human needs as the “producer.” As such, the position of the client as either subordinate or participant must be defined by the organization. Few public organizations could afford the luxur y of making the client an equal partner in the decision- making process, no matter how normatively desir- able such a form of organization might be to some obser vers (and clients). At the same time, however, the participator y reforms discussed above, and the participa- tor y ideal in most modern societies argue for more participation by clients, espe- cially in the management of facilities such as schools and public housing (Sörenson, 1997). Public organizations also have legal and moral obligations to fulfill that prevent their being overly responsive to their clients. At the same time, public organizations do have the opportunity and ability to involve clients in some aspects of decision making concerning their cases, as well as in the general functioning of the organization. If nothing else, public organizations can ensure that their clients are treated fairly and are given the right to influence, if not control, decisions that affect them. Indeed, clients may be more willing to accept adverse decisions if they have been allowed opportunities for participation and have had the reasons for the decision explained to them. Thus, the accountability criteria of responsibility and responsiveness may be in conflict in modern organizations (see Chapter 8). The evidence derived from the first decades of the postindustrial society indicates that clients are increasingly unwilling to accept a passive and subordi- nated position vis- à-vis the public organization – in Douglas’ terms the citizens are seeking lower grid positions. This change in values is certainly true of more edu- cated clients of programs touching large segments of the population – for example, public retirement programs, such as Social Security – and is increasingly true of lower socioeconomic classes for whom terms such as “empowerment” represent a desire to change their relationship with the bureaucracy. Also, reforms such as “citizens’ charters” make it more evident to the average citizens just what his or her rights may be vis- à-vis the bureaucracy (Connolly et al., 1994).

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Liberty and coercion. Closely allied with the ideas of hierarchy and equal- ity is the dimension of liberty and its opposite, coercion. As a gross generality, most of the societies discussed here have been undergoing historical changes in their value systems, favoring decreased economic liberty and increased liberty of expression and social action. It is often the bureaucracy that must decide the limits of both types of liberty and also determine how much coercion is acceptable in enforcing these decisions. This is, of course, true for economic regulator y agen- cies, but we often fail to remember that the police are themselves one of the most ubiquitous forms of administration. The enforcement of social programs, such as the “workfare” reforms being implemented in many industrialized democracies, also involve imposing restraints on the liberty of some citizens, even though they may not have committed any crime (Pierson, 1996). We can make the argument that the stability of a democratic society may depend upon the degree of value consensus among the enforcers of those rules and the majority of the citizenr y. As numerous student activists during the late 1960s demonstrated, and continuing protests against racial inequality, nuclear weapons, nuclear power stations, and environmental degradation have continued to demon- strate, there is a great deal of value dissensus with respect to the amount of liberty felt to be desirable and, relatedly, the amount of coercion deemed necessar y to enforce one side of the argument. Student rebellions in places such as South Korea and China also point to the fact that, in a society, freedom and coercion themselves can be central issues in the value dissensus. Finally, conflicts over issues such as abortion and divorce point to the reemerging role of religion and culture, as well as generational differences, as a cause of value dissensus over the role of government in regulating activities. Despite the above- mentioned conflicts and outbursts, the application of direct physical violence is less acceptable and probably less frequent in modern societies. On the other hand, the application of indirect coercion is becoming an increasingly frequent and controversial technique of political control. Here we are referring not only to the potential use of psychological devices to exercise thought control, in the manner of Or well’s novel 1984, but we are also speaking of the ability of administrative agencies to impose their wills on citizens without the opposition of those citizens. The “War on Terror” in North American and European countries is a recent example of public willingness to accept controls from government. This imposition of the wishes of the public sector can be done in a variety of manners, with the most common now being through claims on behalf of efficiency, and the appeal to technological criteria in decision making. It has become increasingly difficult for the average citizen, or even the excep- tional citizen for that matter, to dispute the decisions made by a technologically competent and well- insulated bureaucracy. Government has therefore become an amalgamation of large organizations making decisions on their own terms and forcing them on individuals. Emmette Redford (1969, 66) has said that:

The first characteristic of the great body of men subject to the administra- tive state is that they are dormant regarding most of the decisions made with respect to them. Their participation cannot in any manner equal their subjection. Subjection comes from too many directions for man’s span of

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attention, much less his active participation, to extend to all that affects him. Any effort of the subject to participate in all that affects him would engulf him in confusion, dissipate his activity and destroy the unity of his personal- ity. Democracy, in the sense of man’s participation in all that affects him, is impossible in the administered society.

I, and perhaps Professor Redford, may be guilty of overstating the case, but the pos- sibility of administrative tyranny is apparent in even the best- administered modern societies. Some obvious examples would be the general absence of public involve- ment in a range of scientific, environmental, and energy issues that have profound effects on citizens. The decisions surrounding these issues tend to be dominated by experts, albeit frequently by disagreement among experts, and citizens have little information and less opportunity to make choices (Huntington, 1974). More deliberate mechanisms for resolving these issues are being developed and tried, but the public remains outside most decision making (Dr yzek, 2007). We comment on this problem here only as a dimension of culture, and will leave the analysis of possible solutions until Chapter 9. Furthermore, while the possibilities for manipulation are certainly great in the administered or postindustrial state, we must not lose sight of the fact that the degree of control exercised over the individual through noncoercive means may be as great or greater in traditional society. This is, in fact, very clear in Douglas’ discussion of the restrictions on individual behavior within societies, and controls existing along both the group and grid dimensions. Thus, the period of mass democracy and liberal- ism during the early and middle twentieth century may be merely a period of transi- tion between two more “totalitarian” forms of government. In the traditional society, this use of nonphysical coercion is justified on the basis of religious or ideological dogma. In the postindustrial society, it may be justified through appeals to efficiency and technology and the media, which constitute the dogma of the modern societies striving for cumulative social and economic rationality. The increasing level of education of the population, and the consequent increase in the perception of their competence to par ticipate in political deci- sions, may generate increasing tension within a postindustrial society. In one scenario, there will be sufficient citizens with sufficient competence to have real impacts on policy and administration. In a less optimistic scenario, the intellec- tual demands of the technology will increase more rapidly than will citizen com- petence, producing large- scale alienation from the political system itself. These tensions are now being played out in conflicts over nuclear power, reproduc- tive technologies, the environment, and defense policy. Whichever scenario is correct, and there is the possibility that both will be apparent in respect to dif fer- ent policy issues, public par ticipation in a bureaucratic and technological society is likely to be a continuing problem of postindustrial society. Institutional change and public awareness of the oppor tunities for par ticipation continue to promote involvement while the daunting technological demands make ef fective par ticipa- tion difficult. The dangers of technological and elite domination of decision making in democratic societies is not recognized as a problem, but there are no easy solutions.

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One recommended solution is electronic democracy, with the public being given the opportunity to participate in decisions (at least as voters) through numer- ous electronic referenda (Garson, 2005). Other critics argue that this simple form of participation is inadequate, in part because the questions to be considered have been determined before the public becomes involved. These critics advocate more deliberative forms of democracy, with the public being involved throughout the process, and being given the opportunity for some reflection and discussion about the issues (Elster, 1998). The critics of deliberation, in turn, raise questions about the practicality of this method for making political choices (Knight and Johnson, 1997). Loyalty and commitment. The third dimension of political culture men- tioned by Pye was loyalty and commitment, referring mainly to the terminal com- munity to which the individual gives his or her ultimate loyalty. For many developing societies, and even for some industrialized societies, there is little identification with people outside the family. Even where the commitment to the family is not par- amount, loyalties to language, religion, caste, or ethnic group diminish individual commitment to the national political system and produce the potential for political unrest and instability. Further, in Europe there is a growing transfer of allegiance to the European Union, so that identification with the nation- state is under attack from yet another direction (Wessels, 1995). The implications of a lower level of commitment to the nation- state by the public for public administration are profound. This is especially true when those commitments are to subnational groupings outside the family. First, the exist- ence of this type of social cleavage will tend to direct power upward toward the bureaucracy. Political decision making in situations of extreme social cleavage is a difficult if not impossible process, although some countries of Europe have been developing structural and behavioral mechanisms to circumvent the problem. For example, both the Netherlands and Switzerland have found consociational means of coping with divisions, with strong elite agreement used to manage the potential for conflict over language and religion (Vatter, 2009). In transitional regimes social pacts among elites have been used as means to manage social and political conflicts (Higley and Gunther, 1992). In most cases of cleavage, however, either immobilism or the necessity of imposed decisions will limit the effectiveness of legislative or executive decision making. In these cases, the public bureaucracy may be the only effective decision- making body in the nation. In addition, if the bureaucratic ethos expressed by Weber and others, that the bureaucracy is above politics, is successfully inculcated into the population, the bureaucracy may be able to function quite effectively. It can present the image of acting independently and rationally, while at the same time make important policy decisions for the society when more conventional demo- cratic institutions are inoperable. Certainly France in the Fourth Republic and, to some degree, contemporar y Italy and Belgium (Ongaro, 2008), would fit this char- acterization, as would a number of Third World countries. As that central decision- making role becomes apparent, however, the apolitical conception of bureaucracy may erode, limiting the future effectiveness of the bureaucracy in immobilist or fragmented societies. The bureaucracy ceases to be an impartial arbiter of justice and becomes the object of manifest political appeals.

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A second implication of the segmented nature of many political cultures for public administration concerns the relationship of administrator and client. As pointed out when discussing the relationship of social class to recruitment, so we must, in this instance, give attention to differential hiring by ethnic groups. Domi- nation by one group is common in countries of the Third World, especially where current national boundaries were drawn by former colonial powers with little regard for the social composition of the political unit being created. For example, ethnic conflicts in Rwanda, Burundi, Nigeria, and other countries are in part over the domination of the public sector (including the army) by one group or another. These ethnic divisions are not, of course, confined to the Third World; they are found in such cases as the domination by Protestants in Northern Ireland and his- torically by the English- speaking community in Canada. The implications of these divisions are not only for civil unrest, but also for day- to-day political tensions. One aspect of this tension between social groups is the usual position of the dominant- culture personnel in administrative agencies. These administrators are placed in positions administering programs involved in aiding mostly people from the subject culture. As noted with respect to social class, we generally find the majority of administrators coming from the dominant cultural groups in a society, while a disproportionate share of their clients come from the subject cultures (see Chapter 3). This situation not only contributes to the underly- ing tension between the groups, but may also place important limits on the effec- tiveness of the administrative structures. Most public administration is people processing. It involves the communication of desires and demands from client to administrator, the administrator then making a decision, and the transmission of that decision to the client. This is obviously a communication process and, like all communication processes, it depends upon the existence of common values, symbols, and cognitive structures. This consensus does not necessarily exist between members of different subcultural groups in a society. In these cases the probable result of interactions between administrators and clients is not the development of effective communication and empathy, but rather hostility, resentment, and the reinforcement of existing prejudices. This will be especially true when the program involved is a social program affecting the values of the client and administrator. The majority of direct evidence in this regard comes from the study of interactions of different social classes, but if we generalize, we can agree with Sjoberg et al. (1966) when they note the “critical role of bureaucratic organizations in sustain- ing social stratification.” Trust and distrust: a theor y of bureaucratic power. The fourth and final aspect of political culture is the level of trust and distrust among the popula- tion. The political trust has become extremely popular as an explanation for the relative success of different political systems, and especially for different levels of success in building political democracy (Putnam et al., 1993; Fukuyama, 1995). In our discussion of this dimension of culture, we will attempt to develop a theoretical explanation for the differential development of the power of public administration in different political systems. We argue that differences in the level and growth of administrative decision- making powers in contemporar y countries are not due entirely to random or irra- tional forces, but instead, at least in part, reflect patterns of political cultures in

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these societies. The patterning of trust in the political cultures may play an espe- cially important part in this explanation. To begin with, we should distinguish two separate components of social or political trust. The first component is trust in individuals, as opposed to personal cynicism. This variable is conceptualized as the degree to which individuals in the society believe that others outside their immedi- ate family can be trusted, or at least are not actively an enemy. In addition, trustful individuals tend to have a benign view of human nature. Trust of other people is not at all evenly distributed across cultures. Almond and Verba (1964) offer some of the best direct evidence of this variation. In their sur vey they found that 55 percent of the Americans, 49 percent of the British, but only 7 percent of the Italians in their sample indicated that they believed that “most people can be trusted.” Rather similar distributions of trust and distrust were found on several other items. Social distrust has been well described in the French context by Wylie (1963, 113), who notes that many of the provincial French with whom he was familiar felt: “since all individuals are on the whole malicious and since society never tames the deeper self, ever y individual is actually motivated by hidden forces which are probably hostile.” While certainly French politics and social life have modernized substantially since Wylie wrote those lines, some of the underlying negative conceptions of human nature appear to remain (Hollifield, 1991). More recent evidence confirms different levels of trust (see below). The importance of trust and distrust in a political culture for the growth of administrative power is that the lack of social trust removes the possibility, or at least the probability, of informal and self- regulative activities in society. In more trusting societies, these types of activities can be used to supplement the activities of government in regulating relationships within the society. In political systems such as the United States, the United Kingdom, or the Scandinavian countries, where social trust is high, nongovernmental alternatives to public administration emerge quite readily. Individuals feel that they can safely form organizations and can allow those organizations some control over the lives of the members. Some rather obvious examples of this are the use of bar and medical associations to regulate important aspects of public policy. A variety of mechanisms for the co- production of public ser vices – block watches for crime and tenant management of housing projects – also fit into this categor y (Koven, 1992). This dimension of trust can be further evidenced by the comparative powers of labor unions in these soci- eties in the regulation of economic affairs, often now through social networks (Klijn and Koppenjaan, 2005; Sörenson and Torfing, 2007) although the United States would represent something of an anomaly here. Thus, in cases where high levels of trust among individuals exist, we may expect a large number of other wise public functions to be performed privately. Robert Putnam and his colleagues (1993) have argued for the importance of different levels of “social capital” in explaining differences among societies. In his conception, building successful democracy is dependent upon the capacity of individuals to form associations outside their family or immediate social groupings. These groups not only ser ve as what is in essence practice for democratic par- ticipation, but also indicate a willingness to work with people who are different from themselves. Further, these social organizations inter vene between state and society, and thereby minimize the direct imposition of authority on individuals (see

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Kornhauser, 1959). Putnam uses these differences to explain variance in regions of a single countr y (Italy), as well as differences in the one countr y across time (see also Putnam, 2000). Here we can also see an instance in which political culture may be undergo- ing some systematic change. One of the common features of the programs of many right- of-center governments during the 1980s and into the 1990s has been the priva- tization of functions that previously were public. Even in societies that historically have assigned a ver y positive role to public sector action, e.g., France and Italy and many Third World countries, many public functions have been privatized (Wright, 2000). Whether this will be an aberration, with a return to more étatiste policies after the fashion of the “New Right” passes, has yet to be seen. It may be, however, that if the privatizations are reasonably successful, attitudinal changes will follow changes in behavior. As well as the overt privatization of economic activities, the deliver y of public ser vices, now more than ever perhaps, depends upon the active involvement of not- for-profit organizations – the “Third Sector.” A variety of public and private sector interactions now characterize the deliver y of public ser vices, with public–private partnerships being one of the more important. This pattern of ser vice deliver y is often efficient and effective, and permits some debureaucratization of the ser vices. On the other hand, it raises questions of accountability and control and requires government to be able to monitor a variety of contractual and partnership arrange- ments, rather than simply using hierarchical controls (Kearns, 1996). Indicators of interpersonal trust. Using the willingness to form associa- tions as one indicator of trust among individuals, we again find high levels of varia- tion by countries. For example, Almond and Verba (1964, 207) found that 40 percent of Americans and 30 percent of the British preferred outgoing leisure- time activi- ties, most of which involved some type of group membership. In contrast, only 7 percent of the Italian sample and 11 percent of the Mexican sample preferred activi- ties of this type. An early sur vey (SOFRES, 1963) of French respondents, reported earlier, displayed equally low interest in outgoing activities (only 11 percent prefer- ring activities involving any sort of group membership), although some later evi- dence points to a rich, and growing, associational life in France (Bloch- Laine, 1981). A sur vey performed in a number of industrialized democracies showed that the French, Italians, and Japanese were much less likely to join voluntar y organizations than people from other countries (Table 2.9). When a common pattern of group membership and participation does not exist, the pattern of participation appears to be one of long periods of quiescence broken by periods of large- scale and even violent social movements (Tilly, 1986). Another indicator of the willingness to form groups may be taken to be the proportion of the work force that belongs to labor unions. Unions have emerged as probably the principal organizational groups in Western society, especially in terms of their influence on the political system. Thus, if we look at the proportion of the economically active population involved in these organizations, we get some indication of the organizational skills and interest of the respective populations, as is illustrated in Table 2.10. Here we see that the smaller European democracies, the United Kingdom and Australia have disproportionately higher levels of union membership than the other nations. We have already mentioned the high levels

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of interpersonal trust in the United Kingdom, and the organizational propensities of the Scandinavian countries have been noted frequently (see Petersson, 1989b). Similarly, countries of the Third World lack a strong labor movement, reflecting in part the relatively low levels of interpersonal trust in these societies, as well as the relatively small portion of the labor force in the monetized sectors of the economy. The most interesting aspects of Table 2.10 are the low percentages of union membership reported in France, the United States, and Japan. As we have been seeing throughout this discussion of trust, Italy and France have low levels of social trust among their populations. This low interpersonal trust is manifested here in low levels of organizational activities. Not only is this a quantitative indication of the lack of organizational propensity, but qualitative studies also indicate weakness within the organizations that do exist. Rather than functioning as a cohesive whole, the labor movements in France and Italy are riven by ideological and political dis- putes that constrain their effectiveness in shaping and implementing public poli- cies. Given the findings concerning attitudes of social trust and the use of outgo- ing leisure- time activities, somewhat higher levels of union membership might be expected among Americans. This is apparently an isolated manifestation of a lack of interest in joining a particular type of organization, rather than a more general indi- cation of the propensity to join organizations. Finally, although Japan is sometimes taken as the model of a group- oriented society, it has low rates of union member- ship. In this instance, low union membership appears to be a result of one organiza- tion (the company) replacing another (the union) as the focus of organization in the work force. If the current economic recession forces Japanese firms to begin to dismiss workers, this pattern may change. Although these data are not shown, in almost all countries the level of union membership has been declining. For example, even in Sweden with ver y high levels of union membership that level has declined from 91 to 86 percent, and in Nor way from 68 to 57 percent. This finding may represent some changes in eco- nomic structure, as fewer people are employed in large manufacturing industries, but it may also represent some decline in levels of social capital and interpersonal trust.

Table 2.9 Average number of Group Memberships

Sweden 6.8 denmark 6.4 netherlands 5.9 Germany 4.8 Canada 4.7 united States 4.4 united Kingdom 3.7 Italy 2.6 Japan 2.1 france 1.7

Source: Calculated from World Values Study.

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Trust in government. A second aspect of trust is trust in government and political institutions. Here we are especially interested in the degree to which an individual believes that the “political” structures and politicians, as opposed to administrative structures, are worthy of trust. Also involved in this conception of political trust, or its reverse of political cynicism, is the idea that politicians will take the citizen’s viewpoint into account when making decisions. The implications of this type of trust for the development of administrative power are perhaps more obvious than the implications of generalized social trust. If the majority of the popu- lation, or even a significant minority, does not trust government and politicians to be fair, honest, and impartial, then government will have at best a ver y difficult time in ruling the countr y. Decisions of a highly distrusted political system will be difficult for the population to accept as legitimate; the assumption would always be that some sort of corruption, deception, or favoritism was involved in the decision.

Table 2.10 Trade union Membership as a Percentage of labor force

Iceland 94 Sweden 91 finland 80 denmark 76 Belgium 73 norway 68 Austria 62 luxembourg 61 Philippines 58 Poland 57 Ireland 53 Australia 51 Czech republic 39 united Kingdom 39 Canada 37 Italy 36 new Zealand 36 Germany 35 Greece 34 estonia 33 Switzerland 32 netherlands 30 Argentina 27 Japan 26 france 24 Spain 20 Singapore 17 united States 15 Zimbabwe 13 South Africa 13 India 8

Source: M. upham, ed., Trade Unions of the World (london: Cartermill, 2004).

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We also find considerable variation across cultures on the level of political trust, just as we did for interpersonal trust. In a study of political socialization in France, the Netherlands, and the United States, Abramson and Inglehart (1983) compared the trust expressed in a child’s father and in the head of state. In the Netherlands and the United States, the children were ver y slightly more trusting of the political official; in France, the children were much more trusting of the father than the representative of the political system. More recent research has found that French citizens trust politicians less than they do other occupational groups – including civil ser vants (see Table 2.11). Rather high levels of political trust have also been reported in Scandinavia and in the Low Countries, although even here the level of political trust appears to be in decline (Rovik, 1992). The level of trust in politicians can also be seen in declining membership in political parties and declin- ing participation in elections (Dalton and Wattenberg, 2000). If social researchers discovered significant variation in the level of trust in developed countries, the variations would be more extreme if substantial sur vey evidence were available from less- developed societies. Some indication of the pre- vailing level of distrust can, however, be obtained through other methods. The general finding is a ver y low level of trust in government in those societies, and a feeling that anyone who goes into government employment must be doing so for personal gain. This attitude, in turn, tends to be related to the prevalence of authori- tarian regimes in those societies, given that other forms of government would have difficulty in gaining sufficient compliance from citizens to be effective. Trust in government has been in decline in most industrialized countries since the time that Almond and Verba did their research. Nowhere has that decline been more precipitous than in the United States, where the traumas of the Vietnam War and Watergate followed so closely on one another. For example, in response to a question on whether they could expect the government in Wash- ington to do the right thing all the time, most of the time, or only some of the time, 77 percent of Americans in 1964 said all or most of the time. By 1977 that percentage had dropped to 32 percent. Looking at the problem the other way, 22 percent of a sample in 1964 said that government could not be trusted to do what was right, whereas in 1977, 64 percent said government could not be trusted unconditionally. While trust in government to some degree rebounded in the United States during the Reagan administration, the “Irangate” scandal and the Congressional banking scandal produced additional declines in the confidence in

Table 2.11 Trust of Politicians in france (Percentage)

“Do You Believe that Most Politicians Are More Honest, Less Honest, or Equally as Honest as . . . ?”:

More Less Equally No Opinion

Banks 6 15 68 11 lawyers 7 24 53 16 Civil Servants 4 42 37 17 Industrialists 6 24 52 18

Source: CSA/Le Journal du Dimanche Survey, April 5 and 6, 1990.

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government expressed by citizens, according to public opinion polls. For example, by 1993 only 24 percent of the public thought that government could be trusted to do what was right, although that had rebounded slightly to 27 percent by 2004 (Harris Polls). The United States is by no means alone in having citizens who are skeptical about their government. A lack of confidence appears to be a common phenomenon in the industrialized democracies, perhaps in part because of the (relative) failure of governments to provide citizens with high economic growth and improved social conditions. For example, although 34 percent of a sample of Americans had little or no confidence in their civil ser vice, 35 percent of a British sample said the same thing. Even more surprisingly, over one- fourth of a West German sample expressed the same negative sentiments toward their bureaucracy. Thus, as we argued above, political cultures do change. It is unclear, however, whether the changes we see in the last part of the twentieth centur y are a short- term response to specific events or a more fundamental shift in the population’s assessment of government. Although there does appear to be some loss of confidence in government, the glass may be at least half full as well as half empty. For example, the European Community has been asking citizens of its member countries how satisfied they are with the performance of democracy in their countr y. The average level of satisfac- tion (“ver y satisfied” plus “somewhat satisfied”) across the Community in 1989 was 60 percent, and dropped to 57 percent in 1998. These later figures are significantly higher than satisfaction in 1973 (47 percent) even with the addition of three coun- tries (Greece, Portugal, and Spain) with less than average levels of satisfaction. There were also substantial differences in levels of satisfaction among the countries, with satisfaction with democracy in 1998 ranging from 28 percent (Italy – only 1 percentage point higher than in 1973) to 84 percent (Denmark). In general, the countries of southern Europe were less satisfied with their governments than those from other parts of the continent. In the best of all worlds we would want ever y citizen to be satisfied with the way in which his or her government functions, but there does appear to be a substantial reser voir of popular support for this set of governments. Likewise, when asked about their perceptions of their governing institutions, citizens of Western European countries demonstrated a good deal of confidence (Table 2.12a). Regarding confidence in the civil ser vice, there were marked differ- ences among the countries, with ver y high confidence in countries such as Denmark and Ireland, but ver y low in others like Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Further, in some countries (Denmark, France, Ireland) the public had more confidence in the civil ser vice than in their parliament. Also, the public on average lost little confidence in the civil ser vice during the 1980s. Trust and administration. We have now developed two dif ferent dimen- sions of trust – trust in individuals and trust in government (Carnevale and Wechsler, 1992). These two dimensions can be interrelated in a typology, as shown in Figure 2.2. In this typology, we attempt to explain dif ferent levels of political power and af fect of the population toward administration from the posi- tions on the two trust dimensions. In referring to political power of administration, we mean the decision- making power of the public bureaucracy relative to other decision- making bodies (for example the legislature) in the political system. Over

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time the policy- making power of administration has increased, but at dif ferent rates in dif ferent societies. The second variable in this typology is the affect felt by the population toward the administrative structure. It may be difficult to love a bureaucrat, barring the chance that he or she is a member of your immediate family. Yet there are instances in which cultural orientations toward the administrative apparatus are at least benign, and perhaps even positive. Some populations hold the public bureaucracy in high regard as a traditional societal elite. In others this positive affect may be only a grudging respect for their administrative and technical competence, but it is still a positive view of administration. As is shown in Figure 2.2, we do not include all possible combinations of the two dependent characteristics of the typology in our predicted outcomes. Instead we have chosen to hedge our bets and have labeled two of the cells as having mod- erate administrative power. This is, however, something more than a simple hedge and is related to some characteristics of the political and social systems expected to fall into those cells of the typology. Following is a discussion of each of the four cells, with an attempt to explain and justify our predictions of administrative power. The first cell of the typology contains societies that have high levels of inter- personal trust and high levels of trust in government. In these cases we would expect to find the weakest administrative structures. In these political systems the normal “political” branches of the government are reasonably successful in ruling the countr y and tend to maintain a strong hold on their decision- making preroga- tives. They are able to make and enforce rules without excessive assistance from their public bureaucracy. At the same time there are successful decision- making bodies outside government that are capable of performing a number of regulator y functions that might other wise have to be performed by the bureaucracy. The most obvious example of a nation that would fit into this categor y of high interpersonal trust and high political trust is the United Kingdom. In this case, the cabinet and, to a lesser extent, the parliament, comprise an effective political decision- making body, and the level of political trust is sufficiently high in this

Trust in Others

High

Low

Political Trust

High

Low Administrative

Power

Moderate Administrative

Power (negative affect)

Low

Moderate Administrative

Power (positive affect)

High Administrative

Power

Figure 2.2 Relationship of Dimensions of Social Trust to Administrative Power

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system to permit the political decision makers extreme latitude after an election (Nordlinger, 1967). The population can thus exert direct political control over its elected politicians only at the time of an election, although a number of informal mechanisms for interim participation have been increasing in importance. In addi- tion, there has traditionally been a good deal of self- regulation by organizations within the society. Perhaps the best example of the reliance on self- regulation is the ver y low level of government involvement in regulating labor–management disputes. At various times Conser vative governments have proposed and imple- mented some labor legislation, but even that put through by the Thatcher govern- ment has been quite meager when compared to that in the United States, or to several members of the old Commonwealth countries. This should not be taken as saying that the British bureaucracy is entirely dormant and uninvolved in making policy. There has, in fact, been substantial concern about the policy- making role of the civil ser vice in Britain (Page and Jenkins, 2005). However, unlike the case in a number of other political systems, the cabinet, and, to a lesser extent, parliament, retain more than rubber stamp powers over the actions of administrators. The tradition of parliamentar y control of ministers has tended to prevent the accretion of bureaucratic authority expe- rienced in other regimes, for example, France. Fur ther, a succession of govern- ments (including the Labour government elected in 1997) have been concerned with the powers of the public bureaucracy, and have been attempting to asser t greater political control (Grice and Brown, 1999). The United Kingdom, there- fore, remains a political system with a relatively low level of administrative power and control. In the opposite cell would be countries that have neither high levels of trust in the political system nor high levels of interpersonal trust. Among industrialized countries, France and Italy (despite their continuing social change) would come close to fitting into this categor y. Some indication of the level of interpersonal trust in developed democracies is given in Table 2.12a and 2.12b. Certainly, the respond- ents coming from those two countries do appear to be ver y distrustful of others. This characterization would also fit a large number of Third World countries, espe- cially those nations with ethnic diversity that have been unable to build effective national institutions. In these nations, there is little or no basis for the construction of effective extra- governmental organizations that could be useful in the regula- tion of some economic or social affairs (Gyimah- Boadi, 1996). A number of authors have also noted the relative weaknesses of civil society organizations in France and Italy. These societies are certainly not devoid of interest groups, but the groups that exist tend to be fragmented and effective largely as defensive groups. They further lack the firm normative and political commitment on the part of their members that is so characteristic of groups in other societies; a major exception may be labor unions (Labbe and Croisat, 1992). The governing capacity of the political components of government in these societies is relatively weak, although years under the Gaullists and then the Social- ists under Mitterrand in France certainly strengthened the system there. Some evidence of this tendency is given in Table 2.12a. Politics has tended to be char- acterized by fragmentation, ideological argument, and “blockage” (Crozier, 1970). These difficulties are in part a function of the institutions themselves and in part a

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function of the values of the societies that stress family and individual roles rather than the role of the government. Thus the population is less willing to accept the decrees of government than the needs of the family or the guidance of the local patron. In these cases, the bureaucracy may be required to step in to fill a power vacuum in the political system. The countr y must be run somehow, and the logical heir to powers ordinarily held by parliament or the executive is the bureaucracy. Unfortunately, perhaps, this pattern tends to be self- reinforcing. As more power and decision making pass to the bureaucracy, the popular image of government as authoritarian and impersonal is reinforced. This image further reduces the legiti- macy of the political system in the eyes of the population and further prevents the legislative and executive bodies from becoming effective rule- making bodies. Thus, a cycle of bureaucratic domination tends to perpetuate itself, being broken mainly by “charismatic personalities” who are capable of producing effective politi- cal action either through or around normal political channels. These problems in governance appear par ticularly pronounced in countries of the Third World, even those that have been making economic progress, and the countries of the former Communist Bloc. The new nations tend to lack interper- sonal trust among the population, as well as trust of government (Lechner, 1987). This absence of trust is often traceable to the predominance of ethnic cleavages in the society, and the use of protective as opposed to promotional groups. Each segment of the society tends to protect its interests against all others, rather than of fering an alternative means of social decision making; the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and ethnic conflicts in Rwanda represent the extreme cases here. Likewise, the long histor y of colonial rule and the lack of a social and eco- nomic infrastructure usually associated with democratic government have made the bureaucracy and the army the two logical contenders for power in these soci- eties (Wallis, 1989). In some countries there is an alternative source of distrust of social organiza- tions. In some countries in the Southern Cone of South America, for example, the state itself has been a powerful, and in some cases largely benevolent, actor so that third- sector organizations that seek to fulfill some of the purposes of the state are viewed with suspicion. As these governments attempt to conform to the manage- rial and neoliberal styles of governing now becoming the norm around the world, their commitment to government as a means of solving problems may be a major barrier. As well as being the choices by default, the bureaucracy and the army also have some of the characteristics of modernity that would qualify them for the management of developing economies and societies. Both institutions tend to have had relatively extensive contacts with more modern nations and to have values and attitudes that conform more closely to those of the modern state than to those of other political elites. Thus, just as with the developed countries of France and Italy, the bureauc- racy in the underdeveloped world fills a power vacuum when it exists. One ques- tion that remains is whether this will be a continuing phenomenon or whether the underdeveloped countries will be able to develop the political and interpersonal trust that a large proportion of the developed world has been able to generate. We move now to the two cases with mixed degrees of trust. These have been characterized as having moderate levels of administrative power, but they differ in

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P O l I T I C A l C u l T u r e A n d P u B l I C A d M I n I S T r A T I O n

6 9

the affect felt by the population toward the administrative system. The first is the case of low interpersonal trust and high trust for government. This would appear to be typical of the “consociational democracies” of the Low Countries, Austria, Switzerland, and (once) Lebanon. In these societies, strong cleavage between reli- gious and linguistic groups in turn produces relatively few feelings of interpersonal trust. Lor win (1966, 174) notes that in Belgium: “Flemings know little of Walloons’ thinking; Walloons know little of Flemish thinking. People of each side therefore tend to see and resent the others as a solid bloc arrayed against them.” Again, there has been substantial social modernization, but political conflict and even violence over language took place during 1987, resulting in the creation of a rather extreme form of federalism (de Winter and Dumont, 2006). Similarly, traditionally Dutch political sociology emphasized the “pillarization” of their society, with the three major groups (Protestants, Catholics, and the nonreligious) vertically integrated and having relatively little contact with members of other “families.” Mass com- munications and secularization have reduced this isolation substantially, but some separation remains (van Mierlo, 1986). These societies obviously have the inherent potential to develop the immobi- lism and the conflict that had been characteristic of French and Italian governments in earlier eras. Fortunately, however, there is a well- developed sense of mutual trust among the elites of each of the “families,” as well as a general feeling of political trust for the government. Thus, although vertically integrated, compromise and interaction at the elite level enable the political system to function effectively. It is also able to function with only a moderate level of administrative power. The legisla- tive bodies are fragmented politically but, at the same time, have formed coalition governments with the continuing support of the population. This feeling of trust and respect for the government is carried over into the generally positive feelings of the population toward the administrative structures. The final set of nations are those with relatively low trust in the political system but high levels of interpersonal trust. This pattern would appear to be displayed in the United States. The political culture of the United States has traditionally been one preferring individual and group action to governmental action (Bellah, 1985). A number of functions that might be performed by government, or at least with extensive governmental inter vention, are still performed privately in the United States. The most notable example of this is health care, although a number of other professions and businesses have also retained the right to administer their own affairs and to make decisions that in other societies would be considered a matter of direct public concern. Despite this, sur vey evidence has shown that Americans at least expect fair treatment from the political system, although this expectation is not so high as in the United Kingdom. Moreover, when compared with levels of interpersonal trust, the government comes out a rather poor second. Thus, if we use the level of interpersonal trust as an “expected” level of trust, the level of trust found for government is low, and getting lower. Whether or not the United States can be said to be indicative of this pattern, what are the consequences for administrative power? In the first place, we may expect a moderate level of administrative power. The use of nongovernmen- tal organizations for a variety of regulator y tasks lessens the work load of the administration; at the same time, the relatively bad image of the political arms of

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government forces a number of questions to be decided administratively rather than politically. The “political” branches of governments tend to be so weighted down with checks and balances that the bureaucracy must again be called on to fill something of a decision- making vacuum. This is apparent in par t in the wide- spread utilization of regulations written by the bureaucracy in place of other leg- islation and in the difficulties that some presidents have experienced in tr ying to control the administrators whom they nominally command (Ker win, 2012). Even given the relative powers of the public bureaucracy, however, the general view- point of Americans vis- à-vis the bureaucracy is negative. Americans may have some respect for individual administrators, but the dominant theme of the culture is well indicated by the successful presidential campaigns of presidents since at least Jimmy Car ter, campaigning ver y hard against Washington and the public bureaucracy. In summar y, a relatively simple typology of variations in the levels of trust among the population toward two different social objects – individuals and the gov- ernment – can be useful in explaining differences in the degree of administrative power in modern governments. This typology and its conclusions are rather obvi- ously an oversimplification of a complex reality. A number of other cultural and political factors must be taken into account in the final explanation or prediction of administrative power. However, the relatively strong correspondence between the predictions of the typology and this descriptive analysis of representative political systems offers some credence to the relationships hypothesized.

Culture and the Internal Management of Organizations

Up to this point we have been examining the relationship between the societal and political cultures (types of which are given in Table 2.13) and the role prescribed for the public bureaucracy; that is, we have considered what role the bureaucracy performs within the political system rather than the manner in which it chooses to perform those tasks. We now turn our attention to the question of the impact of culture on the internal management of complex administrative organizations. This is a complex topic worthy of several volumes in itself. However, only two topics will be discussed here: the relationship between superiors and subordinates in an organization; and the cultural basis for the motivation of workers. As has been true for most other topics in this book, we are especially interested in the effects of these internal management practices on the policy outputs of the public organization.

Table 2.13 Types of Social and Political Cultures

Group

High Low

high hierarchist fatalist Grid low egalitarian Individualist

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Culture and Authority

The definition and acceptance of the authority of one individual by another is a func- tion of culture and society. As with virtually all cultural values, there are individual interpretations of the norm, and hence individual variation, but certain modal pat- terns emerge. The use of impersonal and “rational–legal” authority as a means of controlling individuals, as suggested in formal models of bureaucratic management, is a culturally determined concept. First, it is intimately connected to the social– cultural patterns of the West, and even then to a rather small segment of Western thought. This managerial strategy, to be successful, would require the support of a generally hierarchical and bureaucratic society – the Germany of Weber, perhaps. A culture that stressed the virtues of individualism and personal equality would find it difficult to accept such an impersonal system of management. Weber has presented the classical discussion of the sources of authority in society (see Gerth and Mills, 1991). Much the same can be said of patterns of authority in organizations. Weber argued that authority had three sources: tradi- tion, charismatic personality, and rationality. The first was assumed to characterize most traditional societies. The authority exercised by an individual in government or in a private organization (such few as might exist in a traditional society) would be a function of the individual’s position in the traditional hierarchy in the society. This hierarchy may be ordained by some alleged divine connection, or it may be a function of possessing property, but the source of authority is not subject to any rational challenge. Charismatic authority is a transitional variety of authority. This source of authority stems from the force of personality of the individual. Weber spoke of char- ismatic authority largely in terms of social and political leadership, but the same type of authority could characterize organizational leaders. Some individual execu- tives are capable of commanding respect and obedience through the force of their individual personality. Weber notes that, over time, charisma tends to be institution- alized and to be converted into rational–legal authority. In the third variety of authority the individual employee willingly accepts the authority of the superior, simply because of the hierarchy of the organization or society. Thus, if an individual occupies a superior position within the organiza- tion, that is sufficient to provide the individual with authority. In Herbert Simon’s terms (1947), the subordinate willingly suspends judgment and accepts directions given by the superior with little consideration. Individual leaders may squander this natural source of authority by what is in essence “negative charisma,” but they begin with a reser voir of authority with which they can manage their organization. A good deal of management thinking in the public sector is still bound to this Weberian conception of rational–legal authority, and of the right of the superior to command the subordinate. Fortunately or unfortunately, most real- life manage- ment does not actually depend upon such clear lines of authority and obedience. In his study of Weber’s model of bureaucracy, Page (1992) points to the role of bargaining and informal power, even in what is assumed to be a prototype of the Weberian public bureaucracy (Germany). Attempts at hierarchical management are increasingly impractical and, in fact, would appear to be one of the major causes for discontent in most large organizations in the Western world today. The cultural

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values of these societies have changed decidedly in favor of the right of people to decide their own futures. Workers, especially younger workers, are seeking greater involvement in decision making. This desire has been phrased largely in terms of the management of industrial enterprises, but much the same can be said of public organizations. The lower echelons of these organizations are also seeking new forms of management that facilitate participation by the people (themselves and their clients) affected by the decisions. Further, their organizational superiors (if that term continues to have much meaning) often support more participative management. In some governments major management reform programs, such as PS2000 in Canada and the National Performance Review in the United States, have been initiated to promote greater involvement by employees in the organizations (Privy Council Office, 1990; National Performance Review, 1992), with a further push for citizen engagement attempting to include clients as well as the lower levels of administration. Another challenge to hierarchical authority is expertise. The appeal of tech- nology and expertise in modern society is almost hypnotic in its effects. Expertise has become a new basis of charisma for leaders of an organization. The problem is that this source of authority often (usually?) conflicts with the rational–legal basis of authority. Victor Thompson (1961) long ago argued that this divergence between expertise and formal authority is the fundamental problem of modern organiza- tions. Authority is concentrated at the top of the organizational pyramid while expertise is concentrated at the bottom. The conflicts intrinsic in such a situation are obvious. In public organizations expertise is often not only technical, but also consists of direct knowledge of the clientele and their problems, which may be considered unimportant by those in the upper levels of the organization. Conflict, over both knowledge and values, in such a situation is virtually unavoidable. The problems of authority and management in underdeveloped nations are rather different. The acceptance of hierarchy and rational–legal authority in many of these cases is formalistic at best. This pattern of authority conflicts with a persist- ing traditional basis of authority in most other relationships. Even under colonial rule, the traditional authority structure was often borrowed by the colonial power for its own uses, and subsequent attempts to modernize have placed new strains on traditional power structures. In many cases, the ideology of modernization has required the destruction or bypassing of older systems of authority. The weakening of these authority systems has created a vacuum that has been difficult to fill on the basis of rational–legal authority. Thus, modern institutions may often ser ve as a thin disguise for traditional practices, much as expected in Riggs’ dualistic model of administration. In addition, charismatic leaders supply another major source of authority both for government as a whole and for public bureaucracies. In fairness, however, it is not only the administrative structures of Third World countries that contain vestiges of traditional and charismatic authority. Per- formance in many “central agencies” in developed countries is based upon the per- sonal leadership of an individual leader (Campbell and Szablowski, 1979; Savoie, 1994, chapter 6). Individuals remain a part of those organizations so long as they have confidence in, and the confidence of, the person in the executive position – be it president, prime minister, or whatever. Organizations with this personal authority constitute a small but crucial component of the administrative structures of most

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countries. In addition, the importance of these organizations may be increasing as political leaders find themselves frustrated by the existing career organizations and demand ways of breaking out of that mold. Likewise, there are increasing efforts to impose political criteria for appointment in a wide range of posts in public bureauc- racies in order to ensure greater personal and political control.

Culture and Motivation

How do you motivate workers to join an organization and to produce once they are members? To some degree, this is a part of the prior question of authority, in that Weber tended to assume that authority was itself a sufficient motivation for performance. Beyond this seemingly naïve expectation, how can the manager of a public organization activate his subordinates to perform their jobs effectively, and have at least a modicum of loyalty to the organization for which they work (Brehm and Gates, 1999)? Answers range from using physical coercion, either real or threatened, to permitting enhanced participation by the organization’s workers in decision making. In each instance, the choice of motivational strategy will be, to some degree, a function of the culture of the society. In general, we can think of four basic motivational techniques that are avail- able to managers. The first technique, if it may be given such a euphemistic title, is coercion. Fortunately, the contemporar y world has largely left behind the period in which direct coercion might be used as a means of gaining organizational com- pliance. The use of indirect or implied coercion is still an actively used technique, however. The coercion is rarely physical but involves other types of deprivations to the employee. In particular, this can include the loss of prestige, status, and accept- ance through either loss of office or demotion. Newspapers carr y stories of the deportation of out of favor administrators to the countr y’s functional equivalent of Siberia (for example, Cut Bank, Montana, for the FBI in the United States). While this relocation is certainly better than a public flogging in most people’s minds, it can still be a severe deprivation in both physical and psychological terms. A somewhat more subtle form of coercion is the use of ideological or religious doctrines as a motivating force. Perhaps the two most famous examples of this are the Protestant ethic and the thoughts of Chairman Mao. The former religious and ideological doctrine has been cited as one of the principal reasons for the develop- ment of Western industrial society (Weber, 1930). By equating success in business or profession with salvation, the Protestant ethic constituted an important moti- vating force for the growth of Western business and commerce. Even now, when direct belief in the correlation of success and divine election has waned, the culture of the West has been sufficiently influenced by this doctrine that success is valued as a good in itself. More recently, Moslem fundamentalism has played a similar role in motivating political and social behavior in several countries in the Middle East, most notably Iran. The thoughts of Chairman Mao, although less widespread, constitute perhaps the best example of the use of a secular ideology as a motivating device. Exhortations to progress, development, and efficient production through this ideology were an important if not crucial factor in China’s economic develop- ment. This was true despite a number of economic inefficiencies dictated by the

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doctrine. On a more personal basis, the desire to fulfill the thoughts of Mao and to please him and the people of China as a whole ser ved as important means of moti- vating the individual. As with the Protestant ethic, the threat of coercion has been internalized by the individual. The deprivations for the individual are more often than not internal, so that personal pressures of compliance constitute the major motivation for the individual. The thoughts of Chairman Mao, therefore, may have been an important transitional phase between the old China and a new China which at times appears to be operating closer to the ideals of the Protestant ethic than to Mao (Earley, 1989). It should be noted here that the use of ideology and religion can be at once a very expensive and a very inexpensive means of motivation. On the one hand, once the ide- ology is accepted by the population, it requires largely symbolic manipulation in order to be effective. This is certainly less expensive than having to pay people money to motivate them or to involve them in decision making. Thus, as with any cultural device, the ideology of a society (or organization) provides a set of symbols that can be manipu- lated by those in power. The ideology also provides a set of psychological deprivations for the individual for failure to comply with the ideology. At least psychologically, the manipulation of symbols can constitute something approaching coercion. Ideology used as a means of motivation becomes expensive when it restricts forms of action available to the organization. One of the defining characteristics of an ideology is that it prescribes and proscribes actions for individuals and groups that, in turn, limit the flexi- bility of action for the organization and society. Political leaders have been quite adept at justifying virtually any policy in terms of the dominant ideology, but this is costly both in the time required and in the probable weakening of commitment by some individuals. The same types of problems are encountered in attempting to change an ideology to meet changing social conditions. Thus an ideology can be an exceedingly inexpensive motivational method in the short term, but it may impose a number of long- term costs. The rational assessment of the net benefits of this particular motivational strategy will therefore depend upon the discount attached to long- term costs as well as the level of short- term demands. The third motivational technique available to managers is monetar y reward. Probably the prevailing concept of management in Western societies has been that monetar y rewards are a sufficient inducement to gain the compliance of workers with the demands of the organization. The impor tance of money as a means of management and motivation is that, in many ways, it is the cheapest means of motivation, par ticularly in administrative organizations. Here, the main “product” is not goods or ser vices, but rather decisions. If the majority of the work force can be motivated through their paychecks, then the need to allow their par ticipa- tion in decision making is eliminated. This will allow greater latitude of action for decision makers than can be found in ideological or involvement systems of man- agement. This type of motivation was, in fact, a major assumption of Weber’s ideal type of bureaucracy. It makes bureaucracy vir tually a neutral instrument that can be used for almost any purpose by its managers, with the monetar y reward being a major reason for joining. While this assumption is rather obviously overstated, the latitude granted to managers through monetar y motivation is an impor tant consideration for any manager. The choice, however, is probably not individual but cultural.

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The spread of market- based ideas for public sector management is increasing the use of monetar y incentives for motivating public ser vants. “Pay for perform- ance” has been one of the most commonly adopted ideas in this spate of reforms. This may be implemented by individual contracts for senior managers, through to individual performance measurements of lower- echelon workers who are eligi- ble for bonuses. This technique may have improved motivation for some members of the public ser vice but it also appears to have demotivated others. Many public employees consider themselves in the business of ser ving the public rather than working in the usual manner, and find pay for performance almost insulting (Ingra- ham, 1995). The questions of the decision making and ser vice bring us to the fourth source of motivation. This is the involvement of the workers in decision making in the organization. There are some countries in which workers’ involvement is espe- cially well developed, such as it was in the former Yugoslavia and to some degree still is in China (Tang, 1993). It appears, however, that this method of management has varied across time more than across cultures and is generally considered to be a product of the “postindustrial” or “postwelfare” society. In general, this method of management employs the ability of the worker to perceive that he has greater control over his life and work as a means of motivation. Studies of motivation have shown that the major source of motivation for professional and white- collar employ- ees is the ability to perceive that they are doing something significant and the ability to feel that they could control what happened to them in their jobs. Given the level of education and training required for most administrative jobs, the same type of motivational structure can be expected among administrators. Moreover, the ideology of participation is apparently increasing in importance as an increas- ing number of workers at all levels of administration demand an influence on the decisions that affect them. This development is rather obviously in contradiction to the ideal- type bureaucratic model and to a significant body of literature in public management stressing the importance of executive control and the duty of leader- ship at the top. One interesting aspect of this increasing demand for involvement in decision making is that it has spread not only among administrators, but also among the clients of administration. Thus a new force has to be taken into account by man- agement, and managers must think of motivating the clients of the organization to gain their compliance in somewhat the same way that managers must think about motivating workers. The inducements for compliance are not only of the monetar y (ser vice deliver y) variety, but now also include involvement in decision making. In some instances, this involvement will extend to the co- production of the ser vice, for example tenant management of public housing (Alford, 2002a; Pestoff, 2006). Some of the methods now deemed necessar y to make government ser vices more efficient and effective, e.g., recycling refuse and neighborhood policing, all involve a great deal of involvement by the public. With both workers and clients, involvement is an expensive means of gaining organizational compliance. It reduces the latitude available to a manager and pro- vides possibly ver y little in return for the management of the organization. Unlike an ideology that can be readily used in “normal” times to satisfy employees, involve- ment requires a constant redefinition of goals and priorities. And, like ideological

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change, these types of changes are generally quite costly to the organization in terms of both time lost and personal cost to the losers in the struggle. In public organizations, goal change also involves a redefinition of some aspects of public policy that may require negotiations of other political institutions. Thus, the losses in continuity of programs, in the reanalysis of priorities, and in the personal reshap- ing of work priorities make the granting of involvement an exceedingly expensive means of motivation. Nevertheless, in some cases it may be the only means of moti- vation that will be successful. Increasingly, organized labor has sought to negotiate means for becoming more involved in decision making in plants; some countries, such as Germany, have developed successful mechanisms for co- management of firms. Teachers and other professionals in government demand to have their pro- fessional judgment considered in the making of policy. We should expect that even in times of economic difficulty labor negotiations will be directed at the problem of participation as well as wages, and greater participation may become an alternative to enhanced financial rewards. We should not be totally negative concerning the use of involvement in deci- sions as a motivational device for organizational employees. In terms of human values it is probably the best means of management devised. Furthermore, it may be one means of solving Thompson’s dilemma (1961) concerning the comparative misplacement of expertise and authority within organizations. Increased worker (and client) involvement can diminish any monopolies of information within the organization, and let top managers know what is really happening. In the short term, this method of management has been successful, although its long- term effects have yet to be gauged. Involvement with little real change in the circum- stances of the participating individuals may actually be an alienating experience, given that the worker must also invest more heavily in the organization. Given the character of contemporar y culture, however, demands for involvement can no longer be denied. We have, to this point, avoided the traditional notion that the motivation of the public ser vant is solely or primarily ser ving the public interest. This was not done to denigrate the long ser vice of the large number of dedicated individuals working in the public bureaucracy. Instead, we view the majority of individuals in public organizations to be little different in their motivational structure (although perhaps they are in their value structures) from individuals working in other types of organizations. The concept of public ser vice would therefore be classified analyt- ically as just another of the many cultural or ideological convictions that have moti- vated individuals to participate in organizations. A strong commitment to the public ser vice will, however, compensate for some of the financial deprivations sometimes associated with working in the public sector. The problem many public ser vants now face, however, is that the public ser vice idea is denied by the society and their political masters but the financial rewards are still lower than in the private sector.

Summary

This chapter has attempted to demonstrate the influence of patterns of political culture and general cultural values on the operation of the administrative system.

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We have examined this influence as it affects not only the outputs of the administra- tive system, but also the internal management of the organizations. In both cases, we find that culture has a significant impact on the behavior of public administra- tion. Unfortunately, the assessment of this impact had to remain at a somewhat impressionistic level because of the lack of much hard evidence on these relation- ships. One of the main problems with the concept of culture, and especially of politi- cal culture, is that it generally tends to be a vague and amorphous concept that can be twisted to include virtually anything a researcher wishes. I hope I have avoided this pitfall as much as possible, and have presented the evidence in as unbiased a manner as possible. But we are the products of our own culture and see the world from our own perspective. It is difficult if not impossible to escape the imperatives of a culture taught to us from birth. Any significant progress in relating cultural values and their effects on administration (or other aspects of politics) must come from a more complete empirical delimitation of culture and an examination of its dimensions. I hope that this discussion has been a step in the direction of analyz- ing the potential and probable effects of culture so that more informed empirical analysis can test for these effects.

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C h a p t e r 3

Recruiting Public Personnel

Merit Versus Patronage 80 Representative Bureaucracy 83 Public Versus Private Employment 86 Factors of Recruitment 86 Methods of Recruitment 105 Summary 120

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Before government can make much progress toward administering a public program, the political system must recruit and train a group of public administrators. This is rather obvious, but it simply points to the importance of recruitment in the study of public administration. In order to be capable of saying what a public organization will do, and how it will do those things, we must first know who will perform its tasks and for what purposes – public or personal – the personnel in a government agency will act. Unlike earlier assumptions concerning organizational management, such as Weber’s ideal- type conceptualization of the bureaucrat or the Taylor scientific- management school, individuals who occupy positions in public organizations are not interchangeable parts. The role of individuals is widely understood for partisan political leaders – presidents, prime ministers, etc. – but the same ideological and personality characteristics generally assumed to affect political leadership often are not assumed to influence bureaucrats and their behavior in office. Public ser vants, as well as any other political elite, bring to their jobs a host of values, predispositions, and operating routines that will greatly affect the quality of their performance in the bureaucratic setting, as well as the type of decisions they will make (Putman, 1973; Aberbach et al., 1981). Some of those predispositions are a function of their social, ethnic, and economic backgrounds. Other decisional premises arise from the academic and professional preparation of the civil ser vants. Still other influences come from their work experiences, both within and outside the public sector. It is, therefore, ver y important to understand how governments select their employees, and who within the societies seek to work for government and why they do. Again we must emphasize that public administrators, even those at relatively low levels in the organizational hierarchy, are indeed public decision makers. The proverbial stor y of the judge having burned toast for breakfast and then sentencing the defendant to death may be as true, albeit in less extreme situations, of thou- sands of administrators deciding on thousands of demands for government ser v- ices from clients each day. The policeman on the beat, the social worker working with clients, and tax auditors are but a few of many public ser vants who exercise a great deal of discretion over individual decisions. This chapter examines the way in which governments select administrators, and thereby one of the ways in which they narrow the range of possible outcomes of the policy- making process. As well as being a question about predicting behavior and improving management, recruitment is also a question about democracy. One standard of good government is that it, and its decisions, should be representative of the public that is being served. Therefore, we will also be interested in the extent to which the public service in a range of countries reflects the public and the conse- quences that this representativeness or lack of it may have on services rendered.

Merit Versus Patronage

Several somewhat conflicting themes have dominated the discussion of administra- tive recruitment. The first of these has been the search for efficiency through merit recruitment. One of the defining characteristics of Weber’s model of bureaucracy (Page, 1992) was that civil servants should be selected on the basis of achievement

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criteria and merit, rather than ascriptive criteria such as caste, race, class, or lan- guage. This has been referred to as selection by “neutral competence” (see Kaufman, 1956). The criteria used to select personnel, therefore, may be either their training and expertise for certain identified positions in the bureaucracy, or their general competence and intellectual abilities. In either case, the assumption underlying merit selection of personnel is that bureaucracy must be able to recruit the best possible personnel, and merit recruitment is the logical means of filling positions with the best qualified personnel. It should be remembered, however, that in some instances ascriptive criteria may be important for achieving the purposes of a public organization. An organiza- tion that must provide services to members of minority communities can, everything else being equal, do a better job by using a large number of minority employees in contact with the community than by using members of the dominant community. The concept of “merit” in public office is more complex than it is sometimes assumed to be, and race, creed, color, and gender of public employees may be important in deter- mining how well government really will deliver its services. As ethnicity, gender, and other ascriptive criteria continue to increase in importance as political cleavages within both industrialized and developing countries, issues of representativeness along those dimensions are likely to be even more crucial in the future. In developmental terms, a second impetus for adoption of merit recruit- ment was the desire to remove the appointment of administrative positions from political patronage and to require merit qualifications (Peters and Pierre, 2004). Thus, in addition to removing the inequalities and possible inefficiencies of ascrip- tive recruitment, the merit reforms of the civil ser vice were intended to remove the inefficiencies and favoritism of political appointment. As desirable as the idea of employing the best person possible for each job in the public ser vice may be from the perspective of enforcing the achievement norms of a modern society, and perhaps of achieving contemporar y goals of social equality in a developing society, some important inefficiencies may result from merit recruitment. The potential inefficiencies of merit recruitment may be especially notice- able when contrasted with the alternative: political appointment (see Peters, 2015). Merit recruitment appears to imply the more mechanistic conception of the admin- istrator or bureaucrat as the value- free administrator of programs who will adminis- ter public policies regardless of their intentions or impacts on society. It is assumed that legal and technical criteria will guide their choices and that personal commit- ment to the program being administered, or rejection of it, will have little influ- ence on behavior. This conception of the administrator simply does not conform to the realities. Individuals selected by a spoils system were at least more disposed toward the programs of the political leaders in power than the supposedly neutral appointees of a merit system who may, in fact, be hostile to that program. A com- mitted bureaucracy requires that political appointees be selected for some combi- nation of political disposition and administrative talent, however, and not for their political predisposition alone. Thus, “responsive competence” in some instances may be more important than “neutral competence” in assuring that the tasks of government are accomplished well. This difference between political and merit appointment is, of course, one of degree. Virtually all political systems have some level at which appointments are

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quite clearly political – frequently referred to as “policy- making” positions – and they also have jobs for which appointment is made on a relatively routine basis on some sort of merit system. The question, then, is how far up the ladder of the adminis- trative hierarchy merit appointment, or at least not overtly political appointment, is intended to go; and conversely, what are the limits of political appointment? The differences between two major administrative systems – the United States and the United Kingdom – illustrate the range that may exist in appoint- ment. A president in the United States can appoint approximately 4,000 people to office, and four or even five echelons of political appointees may stand between a career civil ser vant and the cabinet secretar y (Light, 1997). In the United Kingdom each ministr y will have only a few political appointments other than the minister or secretar y of state in charge, but even then, the major interface between political and administrative leaders occurs between the minister and a single career civil ser vant, the permanent secretar y. The reforms of the British civil ser vice have, however, opened up a number of positions to appointments, including the chief executives of agencies and also positions in a growing number of “quangos” (Skel- cher, 2000; Bertelli, 2006). These systems are sometimes assumed to be similar, but they are obviously different, but each seems to function effectively within its own context. What accounts for the differences among countries in the extent to which political appointments are employed as a means of attempting to ensure compliance within an organization? One argument is that bureaucratic structures simply have evolved through histor y and no one has seen any real reason to alter them (Silber- man, 1993). A more rationalist hypothesis would be that the more fragmented the decision- making structures of a government, the more likely it is to provide its min- isters with a number of political appointees to provide some integration of political intentions and actual administration. The relative integration of the political elite and policy system in the United Kingdom, contrasted with that of the United States, could be taken to argue that the United Kingdom simply does not need so many political appointees on top to create compliance within the machiner y of govern- ment. We have been using the United States as the example of a countr y with a large number of political appointees, but several continental European coun- tries would be equally appropriate. In many of those European cases, however, the political appointees, rather than being inser ted directly into the structure of the depar tments or ministries, are linked directly to the minister and his or her private office, often in ministerial cabinets. This system removes some of the direct authority that the appointees might have over a depar tment, but it provides the minister with both policy advice and a group of people whom he can use anywhere within the ministr y (see Shaw, 2010). In other systems, the minister may be able to exercise some choice over the civil ser vants who will ser ve him or her, dismissing some and calling others to office. To some extent this system combines the exper tise of the career civil ser vant with the commitment of the political appointee. In addition to using political appointment through cabinets and other policy advisors, there is an increase in more over t forms of politicization of the public bureaucracy (Peters and Pierre, 2004). For example, there is an increasing number

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of appointments available in quasi- governmental organizations and the newly created boards and agencies that permit political leaders to attempt to control these organizations through appointments (Skelcher, 2000). In addition, the dein- stitutionalization of many civil ser vice systems provides additional oppor tunities for making political appointments to positions that previously had been reser ved for career civil ser vants. In transitional systems there is also a perceived need to ensure that the bureaucracy is loyal to the new government, and will not persist in the old ways. The extent to which the old bureaucracy is retained, however, may be a difficult choice given the relative shor tage of administrative talent in those systems. We must also recognize that not all patronage is the same. First, as noted above, there are var ying levels of patronage. The United States is used as an example of a system with high levels of patronage but compared to some govern- ments in Africa or Latin America levels of patronage are low (Pardo, 2016). And, in some cases, even in Europe, it is difficult to separate clearly patronage appoint- ments from merit appointments (Kopecky et al., 2012). All governments have some political appointees, so the question becomes how many appointments there are and where they are found in the administrative system. Also, there are differences in what patronage appointments are intended to do. In some instances patronage is simply “jobs for the boys” (Grindle, 2011), providing payoffs to the supporters of a political party. These appointments often are found throughout the administrative system. In other instances patronage is used to provide reliable policy advice to a minister or other decision maker. In still other instances the patronage appointments may be used to control the ministerial department and the implementation of policies.

Representative Bureaucracy

A second dominant theme in a discussion of recruitment into public administrative positions is equal opportunity in employment and representativeness of the public bureaucracy (Kingsley, 1944; Peters et al., 2013, 2016). Since Donald Kingsley coined the term “representative bureaucracy,” there has been concern over the extent to which the bureaucracy does, or should, represent the characteristics of the popula- tion in whose name it administers policy (see Van Gool, 2008). Thus, just as some scholars have emphasized the necessity of merit in the recruitment of public admin- istrators, others have stressed the importance of selecting administrators whose social and economic characteristics are similar to those of the people whom they will serve. The arguments are twofold. The first is that narrow recruitment from any social stratum will tend to bias programs and policies. This more “positive” concep- tion of representativeness argues that there is a need to ensure that programs are influenced by the individuals who administer them (Sowa and Selden, 2003). The potential bias of programs is an especially important factor in social programs, because there is a higher probability that the public personnel will be working with members of minority communities, but may impose dominant group values. Studies of teachers, social workers, the police, and other types of public employees indicate a tendency to reward those clients who correspond to accepted

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values in the dominant culture and to punish those who do not (see Skiba et al., 2002). This difference in value structures may not only impair the personal interac- tion of client and administrator, but will also tend to prevent a number of qualified individuals from receiving ser vices. The second argument in favor of greater representativeness is that the ability of the public bureaucracy to hire personnel should be used as a positive means to alter the social and economic structure of the society. Thus, the normative argu- ment is that hiring minority community members can ser ve not only to attack any prejudices within the society but also to provide a means of economic advancement for members of the minority community. In the United States this has taken the form of “affirmative action” programs in which employers (especially government) are pledged to make positive efforts to hire women and members of racial minor- ities. In India the government is similarly required to attempt to hire members of castes and tribes that traditionally have been discriminated against in Indian society (Jain and Ratnam, 1994; Maheshwari, 2005, 72–4). In ethnically plural socie- ties in which the differences among the ethnic communities are not necessarily those of dominance and submission, or in which the ethnic cleavages are intensely politicized, the argument for representative recruitment can be altered to say that it can be used to preserve the social structure and the rights of each of the ethnic communities in administering policy. In both versions of this argument, however, exists the underlying premise that bureaucracies should be representative not simply because it is democratic for them to be so, but because the pattern of recruitment will have a fundamental effect on social structure and social stratification across time. Thus, government may have a special responsibility for fostering greater equality of employment and, over time, creating greater social equality (Beaumont, 1981). This recruitment pattern may be adopted to enhance social equality per se but may even be important for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery by the public sector. This repre- sentativeness is especially important as a means of creating a bureaucracy that will be similar to the clients with whom they come into contact on the job. The political debate over representative bureaucracy has not ended, and continues at present. In the spring of 2000 the Labour government in Britain expressed a variety of concerns about the alleged elitism of leading British uni- versities and recruitment to the civil ser vice, demanding that the universities and the civil ser vice look more like the countr y as a whole. As a consequence the gov- ernment advocated additional means of enhancing the representativeness of the public ser vice (O’Lear y, 2000). Likewise, the debate over affirmative action in the United States continues for admission to universities as well as for recruitment to the public ser vice itself. The issues being raised were not at all dissimilar to those raised by Kingsley in 1944, emphasizing both the efficiency and democratic ele- ments of the representative’s argument.

Caveats

Before anyone goes too far with the idea of representative bureaucracy, however, several important caveats must be advanced. The first is that research on

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representative bureaucracy has consistently found an overrepresentation of middle- class (broadly interpreted) backgrounds among civil ser vants. This is to be expected. The civil ser vice is in itself a middle- class occupation, and the sons and daughters of the middle class tend to have a much higher probability of attaining middle- class occupations than do the sons and daughters of the working class. This tendency toward middle- class recruitment is due in part to the nature of educa- tional recruitment which, even in modern “welfare states,” tends to substantially overrepresent the middle class, and due in part to the nature of the motivations and incentives inculcated in middle- class households (see Bourdieu, 1989, 101–39). In either case, the number of middle- class offspring in the civil ser vice is not a particu- larly damning finding for the bureaucracy but, rather, reflects general patterns of social stratification and mobility in society. Interestingly, this pattern of recruitment persists in societies that have sought to eliminate class barriers in public life, such as China and the former Soviet Union. Such evidence as we have indicates that individuals occupying positions in the upper echelons of these civil ser vice systems tend to come from families of fathers who also held “middle- class” occupations. The civil ser vice in particular tends to overrepresent individuals coming from civil ser vice and political families. A second caveat is that the advocacy of representative bureaucracy assumes that the social class of parents will tend to determine the behavior of their offspring. This is an underlying assumption in a large amount of elite research, but the empiri- cal research attempting to link background with behavior provides quite disappoint- ing results (Eldersveld, 1989). Putnam (1967, 44) described the assumption that social background influenced behavior in public office as “plausible, but ambiguous and unsubstantiated.” Socialization is a lifelong process, and as administrators from working- class backgrounds attain middle- class status, they tend to adopt the values of that class rather than their class of origin. Further, although members of minor- ity ethnic groups may not be able to change their status quite so readily, those who are in posts (especially senior posts) in the public bureaucracy will tend to support the values of the dominant community at a higher rate than other members of the minority group. This phenomenon produces something of a paradox. Regard- less of the degree of representativeness in the recruitment of civil ser vants, there will tend to be relatively great homogeneity of social and political values. We must remember, however, that the composition of the civil ser vice may be as important for symbolic and political purposes as it is for “real,” decision- making purposes. Finally, we must understand that there may not necessarily be as broad a gap between merit recruitment and “affirmative action” as there might appear to be at first glance (Naf f and Crum, 2000). To some degree, possessing relevant ascriptive criteria may be an impor tant qualification for the efficient administra- tion of public programs, especially at the client- contact level of bureaucracy. Language, race, or class dif ferences may prevent proper administration of public programs because clients may perceive these dif ferences as a measure of the program’s commitment to their needs. To prevent those dif ferences from becoming too significant in administration, some attention to ethnic or gender balancing of personnel must be given. Thus, to some degree, defining the person best able to carr y out a job can depend upon demographic characteristics just as it can depend upon formal education and having cer tain skills. As noted above,

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merit recruitment for government depends in par t upon the equality of oppor- tunity for attending university, so diversity in those institutions must also be considered.

Public Versus Private Employment

A final general question about the recruitment and retention of civil ser vants is the relationship between the advantages of public and private employment in terms of salaries, benefits, and working conditions. Most citizens want an efficient and well- qualified civil ser vice, but many do not want that civil ser vice to compete exces- sively with the private sector for the best personnel. The attractiveness of public jobs is especially great in times of recession because of the relative security of a government job. The argument against making civil ser vice employment too attrac- tive is that, through taxation, employers are coerced into supporting their competi- tion in the labor market; further, the public sector lacks effective means of pricing most of its products. Therefore, governments can, to a point, drive up the price of labor to an unreasonable level from the viewpoint of actual productivity of person- nel if they were employed in the market economy. This dis- economy may become especially evident when public personnel are allowed to unionize. Thus, the ques- tion becomes relative demand for public and private goods and the consequent willingness to pay for each type of goods. The evidence would appear to argue that there is considerably less demand for publicly produced goods – especially as they take on the characteristics of public goods – compared with the demand for private goods (Downs, 1960). Citizens appear to value a new car or a new TV more than they value a new park. This lower demand for public goods may accentuate the dis- economies of public employment. There may be no ready solution for this problem, but it is one that must be considered when we discuss the extent and type of recruitment into the public bureaucracy. If we leave aside the economic arguments for hiring “the best and bright- est” versus an adequate civil ser vice (sometimes at best), there are political and administrative questions that must be addressed. One is that even if the public does not express an over whelming demand for publicly provided ser vices, those ser vices are still important; we have already argued that, in fact, they are increas- ingly crucial for contemporar y societies. Therefore, there may be a need to hire higher- quality personnel than a simple economic model of the public sector might dictate. Further, again there is a symbolic factor to be considered, and few citizens would want much of their fate determined – whether that fate included a pension, air traffic control, or nuclear destruction – by someone who is just “good enough” for the job. The public sector does provide sensitive and important ser vices, and having skilled and capable personnel is important.

Factors of Recruitment

In addition to the rather broad questions concerning recruitment outlined above, several issues deal with the more specific methods of recruitment and assessments

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of qualifications for positions. These questions are, of course, greatly simplified if political patronage or other sorts of nonachievement criteria are used, for then only simple appointment by the appropriate political official is required.

Education and Training

The first question is the type of training required for a position and, associated with it, the type of testing employed. Here we are interested primarily in the recruit- ment of the upper echelons of the bureaucracy rather than the clerical positions for which relatively uniform skill requirements can be established. In general, recruit- ment to policy- making positions requires some sort of postsecondar y education, with the major question becoming the degree of specialization of that education. This brings us to the now standard argument between the advocates of generalists versus specialists in public bureaucracy (Ridley, 1968; Page, 2010). The generalist school, as typified by practice in the United Kingdom, selects individuals for the top roles in the civil ser vice largely on the basis of general intellectual abilities and performance in postsecondar y education. The Northcote-Trevelyan Report of 1854 not only called for the establishment of a merit- based civil ser vice in the United Kingdom but also noted that training in the classics was perhaps the best prepara- tion for a future administrator. The assumption was, and largely still is, that general intelligence (rather than specialized education or training) is all that is required to master the task of sifting information and preparing advice for ministers. The tradition of the “talented amateur” has persisted in Britain despite the increasing technological content of government work, and despite attacks on the policy by the Fulton Report (1968) and other public and private investigations of the civil ser vice (Garrett, 1980). As is shown in Table 3.1, arts and humanities

Table 3.1 university concentrations of Recruits to the higher civil Service in the united Kingdom (Percentage)

Arts and Social Natural Sciences/ Other Humanities Science Applied Science

1961–7a 62 24 11 3 1975b 54 28 17 – 1985 56 27 17 – 1989 56 32 12 –

Sources: a. h. halsey and i. M. crewe, “Social Survey of the civil Service,” The Civil Service (london: hMSo, 1968), vol. 3, pt. 1, p. 93; house of commons, Expenditure committee, 11th Report, 1976–7, The Civil Service (london: hMSo, July 25, 1977); civil Service commission, Annual Report (london: hMSo, 1985); civil Service commission, Annual Report (london: hMSo, 1989).

notes a Direct entrants to the administrative class; percentage of total concentrations men-

tioned. b Recruits for administrative trainee positions.

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graduates decreased somewhat as a percentage of all entrants to the senior civil service, but that percentage remained well over half of the total in 1987, and has declined only slightly since that time. Certainly those entering the higher civil service in Britain are extremely talented intellectually, and will be capable of mastering much of the required material while on the job, but they begin their careers at a significant disadvantage when dealing with technical (including economic) questions. Civil ser vice recruitment in the majority of continental European countries reflects another form of generalist education. In most of those countries the role of the administrator is quite similar to that of the jurist, and a law degree is required for almost all senior positions. For example, in one study 92 percent of the senior civil ser vice (Beamte) in the Federal Republic of Germany have legal degrees (Derlien, 1988). Other studies have shown somewhat similar levels of recruitment of lawyers in other continental European civil ser vices (Kickert, 2005). Even then, however, the reliance on lawyers may differ by ministr y. In one study of the Aus- trian civil ser vice several ministries (Interior Justice) had more than 80 percent lawyers among upper- echelon employees, while others (Health, Agriculture) had less than 10 percent (Neisser, 1978). As with British civil ser vants, some training in technical matters takes place on the job, although it is much more common for German and other continental civil ser vants to take advanced degrees in more technical subjects, especially economics. In addition, in Germany there is a national civil ser vice academy to provide training and education for career employees so that they can more readily acquire the needed technical education to add to their legal background. The United States and France represent two different forms of specialist training for civil ser vice careers. In the United States people are recruited to many positions in the civil ser vice on the basis of having some particular educational qualifications prior to entr y. For example, if an individual is seeking a job with the Department of Agriculture, he or she is usually expected to have training in agronomy, agricultural engineering, or some other relevant specialty. This pattern of recruitment means that the higher civil ser vice in the United States tends to be more technically skilled than most of their counterparts in other countries. In France, the specialized training needed for one to become a top civil ser vant is provided by government itself. The principal source of entr y into the higher civil ser vice is the École Nationale d’Administration (ENA), which pro- vides instruction in finance, management, and law (Antoine, 2002). The engineers and technical staf f needed by government in its economic roles are trained in the several grandes écoles, such as the École Polytechnique. Lower- level administrators are trained in the Instituts Regionaux d’Administration (IRA). In total, the French government runs approximately 80 dif ferent types of school for the training of civil ser vants. In this system the government can prepare its future employees in exactly the manner it wants, either as administrators (ENA and IRA) or as techni- cal and scientific staf f. Less- developed countries are in a more difficult position when deciding between generalist and specialist recruitment strategies. In the first place, when countries have recently gained independence, they are frequently left with a civil ser vice trained by the former colonial power and thereby trained according to the traditions of that European countr y (Piekalkiewicz and Hamilton, 1991; Ayee, 2008).

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Further, most underdeveloped countries generally lack technical talent and have had to opt for a more generalist stance in recruitment into new positions. Some countries have attempted to replace an indigenous technical force with one drawn from Western countries – usually the former colonial power – but the demands of national pride and the need for jobs for their own people frequently require that jobs be given to individuals from within the nation, even if they are not always as skilled as potential hires from abroad. At the same time that the administrative system may be somewhat deficient in specialized talent from an absolute point of view, it may have a relative monopoly on such talent within the countr y. A principal charac- teristic of many developing countries is that the political system is forced into the position of becoming the major directive force in social and economic reform. Reli- ance on the private sector has been increasing in most developing countries, in part because of external pressures from donor organizations advocating the “Washing- ton consensus” of neoliberal reforms, but compared to most developed countries there is less implementation capacity on which to rely. There is, however, no single pattern of recruitment for governments in devel- oping countries. For example, the countries of South and Central America that have been independent for a number of years have had time to develop their own distinc- tive patterns of recruitment. In some instances these recruitment patterns are gen- eralist and highly politicized, while in others they may be more technical and merit based (Rauch and Evans, 2000). Most of the African countries and many Asian countries, e.g., India (Maheshwari, 2005) and Pakistan, follow patterns inherited from their former colonial masters, often without the modernization of managerial and organizational techniques implemented over the past decades. Pressures from donors, e.g., the World Bank and the United Nations, are pushing all these coun- tries toward recruitment and management practices more like those found in the developed “First World.” The Western model of development – speaking broadly, as the Western eco- nomic and social systems evolved by several significantly different paths – was blessed with a long time span and the absence of developmental pressures from mass publics and organized segments of the society (Torstendahl, 1991). The developing countries today are faced with producing change within the context of widely disseminated information about the glories of development and consumer- ism. Their leaders face demands for increased production of consumer goods at the same time that they know the need for investment in capital projects. Those investments should bear greater productive benefits in the long run but require a short- term retreat from a consumer- oriented economy toward a more state- directed economy. They face additional pressures from abroad to abandon substantial ele- ments of state inter vention in the economy in order to “let the market work.” Given these problems and counter vailing pressures, it is apparent that these societies have a pressing need for specialized administrators capable of proposing some solutions to these problems, and a large number of skilled personnel to actually manage economic enterprises that may be run directly by the state. The centrality of administration and administrative functions described above for the undeveloped countries, if taken to the logical extreme, might be an accurate description of the nature of bureaucracy in the former Soviet Union and, to a lesser extent, other formerly communist countries (Huskey, 1992). These characterizations

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remain largely true of countries such as China and Cuba (Liberthal and Oksenberg, 1988; Zang, 2004). As the state was not only an economic planner, regulator, and advisor, but also the chief entrepreneur, the need for specialized talent increased in government. Thus the average Soviet administrator, even if not administering a highly technical project, tended to have scientific or social science training. For example, by the 1960s, over 80 percent of all politburo members and regional elites had technical training and this pattern persisted through the end of the Soviet Union (Rigby, 1990). Interestingly, the more generalist talents of ideological argu- ment and broad knowledge of the intended purposes of the Soviet state appeared to be devalued by these upper- level administrators, who differed little in this respect from public administrators in other societies. They had the same, if not greater, demands for production that faced other managers, and they are often confronted with highly technical problems that only someone with a technical background may fully understand. Even more important is the fact that political leaders as well as the administrative elites tend to have that technical education in their backgrounds, so the civil ser vice did not have the degree of monopoly over skills and information it might in other countries. The above discussion has dealt with the recruitment of the higher civil ser vice. At some point in the civil ser vice hierarchy almost all recruitment is done on the basis of narrow, job- specific criteria. Data entr y technicians, for example, are hired because of their ability to type. In terms of sheer numbers, therefore, most civil ser vice recruitment is on the basis of specialized criteria and the ability to perform a specific job. The changing nature of work in modern societies, however, is altering the need for many of the specialized skills previously needed in large numbers – many managers now do their own typing on word processors. Increas- ingly the emphasis in public employment will be on conceptual rather than mechan- ical skills.

Job Placement

The type of training a prospective civil ser vant has affects the means through which the applicant and a position are expected to find each other. Again, there are two principal answers: centralized personnel organizations, or recruitment by each individual agency seeking employees. Centralized placement is practiced by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Italy, and the majority of Third World countries. The last set of countries has used centralized placement in large part as a function of inherited systems of administration. In the centralized pattern of recruitment there is a central civil ser vice organization of some sort that is responsible for advertising new positions, testing applicants, and selecting some smaller set of applicants for final selection by the agency seeking the employee. The usual procedure for centralized placement is that a line agency noti- fies the personnel organization of the existence of a vacant position, a competitive examination is held, and then the agency seeking the person is sent a list of three or more names from which to select the new employee. The selection may be made by personal interviews or simply by taking the individual with the highest score on the examination or by any other rational or irrational criteria. This means of recruitment

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obviously meets the requirements of merit recruitment. Competitive tests are used to fill the position; these tests are centrally administered to prevent bias, and the hiring organization accepts only those deemed qualified on the basis of the exami- nation. In practice, there may be ways around the merit system, especially for those who have professional qualifications, such as physicians, lawyers, librarians, and the like. They may be judged qualified simply on the basis of their degrees and cer- tificates and require no further examination. In addition, recruitment to the senior civil ser vice may be done not so much on the basis of particular needs in particular departments, but on the basis of creating a cadre of administrative elites that will have lifetime careers somewhere within government. The second means of hiring and recruitment is used primarily by the north- ern European countries, Spain, and many Latin American countries. In these systems the central personnel organization is not powerful but rather, each agency is responsible for hiring its own personnel. The most common procedure is for the hiring agency to publish a notice of a vacancy and accept applications from prospec- tive employees. These applications are generally judged on the basis of appropriate minimum qualifications for the job – especially legal training in the Scandinavian countries, Germany, and Austria. After the individual is deemed minimally quali- fied, selection may be made on the basis of less achievement- based criteria. This system of decentralized recruitment obviously allows considerable lati- tude for the use of partisan and ascriptive criteria in hiring public officials, who can become tenured in office and virtually impossible for subsequent regimes to remove. Charges of partisanship in the civil ser vice are indeed made in these systems, even in Sweden and Denmark with their long histories of civil ser vice independence and prestige. For example, there were some concerns expressed as to whether a bureaucracy recruited during the 35 years of Social Democratic government could ser ve the bourgeois coalition elected in Sweden in 1976. A similar question emerged after the 1991 elections which produced another right- of-center government with an apparently more radical program of market- based reforms (Petterson and Geyer, 1992), and to a lesser extent again in 2006. It is a simple matter to hire partisans when there are no formal restrictions to prevent it, and the parties in power would be extremely foolish if they did not tr y to provide employment for their own supporters. They can also employ administrators likely to be favorably disposed toward the programs they will be administering. As with many administrative practices, this is not a simple case of recruitment by merit or by patronage, but rather something of an intermediate means of recruitment that combines some features of both ideal- type methods. There is the potential for substantial patronage, but these opportunities are restrained in practice by the norms, procedures, and pride of the administrators. In each countr y in Europe in which the recruitment of administrators by agency is practiced – with the possible exception of Spain – the civil ser vice is a sufficiently institutionalized and respected profession that few practitioners would seek to demean it by an excessive or blatant use of the personnel powers they find themselves possessing. The nature of recruitment by agency is made more complex when federal- ism is introduced as another variable. In Germany and Switzerland recruitment to public administrative positions is done not only by the individual agencies, but also by separate and in some cases highly independent subnational political units, which

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are, in turn, responsible for the administration of national programs. This system is further complicated by the Swiss bureaucracy’s need to preser ve some balance among regional, linguistic, and religious subpopulations within the civil ser vice (Turgeon and Gagnon, 2013). In general, the use of subnational bodies to perform the recruitment function may provide even greater possibilities for the use of non- merit criteria in recruitment. Nevertheless, in Germany and Switzerland the norms of the bureaucratic system are also sufficiently ingrained so that merit criteria are strenuously enforced. Those who are hired have the necessar y qualifications for the position – legal training and prior legal experience – must pass an examination and then they are made to undergo some sort of postentr y training in the work of administration before they are granted permanent positions as administrators. There is an attempt – in practice a rather thorough one – to employ people who are formally qualified according to the requirements of the law. Thus, in this case as in others, although the rigidity of bureaucracies is often an impediment to innovation, it can also ser ve as an important protective device for the society in preventing illegal or immoral actions on the part of government. The traditional emphasis on centralized recruitment and formal merit criteria is being undermined by the ideas of the New Public Management (see Chapter 10) that emphasize the need for public managers to have greater control over whom he or she hires. This change is designed both to expedite the hiring process and to provide those managers with greater capacity to shape the programs and activi- ties of their organizations. The change in recruitment has been most apparent for upper- level employees, with the lower echelons of the public ser vice still being recruited in rather conventional manners.

Career Distinctiveness

A third question concerning recruitment is the extent to which the public ser vice is a distinct career, one for which the individual may prepare specially and that is regarded as a separate career hierarchy from the rest of the economy. It is interest- ing to note that movement back and forth between public and private employment – especially in policy- making positions – has been used as an indicator of two rather different relationships between society and the political systems. On the one hand, such movement is frequently taken to indicate a healthy congruence between the value structures of polity and society, a means of ensuring the representativeness of the bureaucratic structures, and even a means through which “typical” citizens can exert some influence on public policy. If the public bureaucracy is a more open career, then it is more likely that they will act in ways that the public would find legitimate and acceptable. On the other hand, such movement among sectors can also be taken to indicate the colonization of the society by bureaucrats or, conversely, the coloni- zation of the public ser vice by representatives of certain vested interests in the society. The former of these negative perceptions concerning bureaucracy is best illustrated by the concern of the French over the pantouflage, or “parachuting,” of upper- echelon civil ser vants into important and lucrative positions in the private economy (Rouban, 2010). This movement of personnel is often taken as an indication

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of the attempt on the par t of fonctionnaires and technocrats to manage the whole of economy and society and not just the governmental apparatus. It also means that a great deal of executive talent developed at public expense is expor ted to the private sector free of charge. A somewhat similar pattern is found in Japan, and to some extent South Korea, where civil ser vants who have finished one career in government (especially in MITI – the Ministr y of Trade and Industr y – and other economics ministries) are then hired into power ful and prestigious positions in the private sector (Nakamura and Dairokuno, 2003). This type of movement may help ensure that government in Japan continues to be suppor tive of the private sector. The second, and negative, conception of the lateral movement between the public and private sectors is obser ved in the United States. The sentiment is often voiced that too much of American government is being run by administrators currently on leave from major corporations, major unions, and other significant interests in the society. Consequently, there is a belief that much of government is managed for the benefit of those interests rather than for the benefit of the public at large. Of course, in the United States there is also a good deal of movement from government careers into management positions in the private industr y, especially from the militar y and civilian defense positions into defense contracting firms. The Ethics in Government Act passed during the Carter administration has, however, limited the rapidity with which such movements can be made legally (Mackenzie and Hafken, 2002). Other countries have also sought to regulate the movement of civil ser vants into positions in the private sector that are potential sources of a conflict of interest, but the opening of public employment to direct entr y from the private sector has produced greater concern about possible conflicts of interest (Kernaghan, 1993; Zaring, 2013). The degree of concern over, or distrust of, lateral movements between public and private sectors would appear to be a function of several normative concerns of the society, especially as they relate to the administrative roles of government. One concern is the perception of the values, job, and norms of the public bureaucracy as being distinct from those of the private sector. In the French case, the fonction- naires are perceived as a special group within society, by themselves and by the general population. This perception contains some positive and some negative ele- ments, but the most common is that pantouflage is a means through which they may seek to impose their conception of society onto the society. This is especially true of placing former employees of the public sector into key economic positions to ensure close coordination of the economy with the policies of government (Mei- ninger, 2000). In other societies that seek as much as possible to distinguish bureaucratic careers from private careers, it is rather clear that employment as a public admin- istrator is supposed to carr y with it a rather distinct set of values and decisional premises. For example, in Germany and Sweden the public administrator has been traditionally conceived of in a modified legal role. It is assumed that he or she will act much as would a judge in impartially administering programs pro bono publico and in accordance with the letter of the law. This may be too much to expect from a mere human, but this separation and idealization of administrator and career pat- terns has been useful in justifying decisions made by administrators in societies

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that rely heavily on administration in the conduct of public business. The tradition of the United Kingdom, Canada, and other “Anglo- American Democracies” has also been of a separation of public and private careers but without a judicial interpreta- tion of the role. Rather, the role of the public ser vant is conceived to be just that – someone who will devote a working lifetime to the ser vice of the public (Walsh and Stewart, 1992). A second and related normative concern is the extent to which the society fears bureaucracy and therefore seeks to prevent the development of a large and inflexible bureaucratic structure atop society. There are a number of means of con- trolling the development of such an autonomous bureaucracy, and lateral entr y at the upper echelons is certainly one of them. This pattern of recruitment is perhaps the logical extension of the idea of the amateur in administration, but it is one way in which general social values can be injected into the conduct of government and administration, recognizing all the while that this will likely reduce the efficiency of organizations already attacked as being inefficient. Civil ser vice systems differ markedly in the extent to which their members have experience outside government. At one end of the dimension was the tradi- tional administrative system of the United Kingdom, where civil ser vants rarely had experience outside government and remained in government their entire working lifetime. For example, a study of careers in the British civil ser vice found that only 7 percent had worked in private sector firms. That particular study is several decades old, and there have been important changes in the recruitments of senior managers in the British public sector. The continuing separation of policy and implementation, with implementation functions being vested in agencies often headed by managers hired from outside the civil ser vice, has opened the system somewhat (Moynihan, 2006). To the extent that there have been changes, however, they have been to allow individuals from the private sector to come into public posi- tions, rather than allowing those in the civil ser vice to work elsewhere for short periods of time. The Swedish civil ser vice also had been relatively distinct from the private economy, but managerialist pressures have helped to open the system, at least in principle. In practice, ver y few senior managers have chosen to leave the private sector to take similar positions (Directors General) in the public sector (Soderlind and Petersson, 1988). There are three patterns that assume less separation of the civil ser vice from the rest of the economy and society. One is the American revolving door, or the “government of strangers” described by Heclo (1978; see also Maranto, 2004). In this system there is a great deal of movement back and forth between the public and private sector, with most people staying in government only a few years. They may, however, return to government at a later date. The majority of these “in and outers” would be in political appointments made by the President and his cabinet, but they would be in positions normally occupied by civil ser vants in other coun- tries. Although these appointees occupy the major positions in government, there is still a large permanent civil ser vice that can keep government functioning during the transition from one regime to the next. The French government has used a variant of this approach by making political appointments to top posts in the admin- istration in order to maximize both political control of the bureaucracy and career opportunities for politicians (Genieys, 2006).

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A second pattern is that in which individuals leave government at a certain stage in their careers and go to work for the private sector. In the United States this has been a move primarily of retired militar y officers who go to work for defense manufacturers, but it is more common in France, Japan, and South Korea for civil- ian administrators. It has been considered a normal part of the career, for example, for top civil ser vants from MITI to take lucrative posts in the private sector, or quasi- public sector, after retiring early from government (Nakamura and Dairokuno, 2003). Civil ser vants of other ministries, to a lesser extent, may find similarly lucra- tive places to land after leaving government. (For Germany see Derlien, 1991.) The option of finding a good position for retirees is, however, a useful incentive to get talented people to work for government for a large part of their careers. Finally, there are interesting cases in which being a civil ser vant is not consid- ered incompatible with a political career. This pattern is most evident in Germany, where the individual, once granted the status of Beamte, retains that status almost without exception. The civil ser vant can leave government ser vice temporarily while pursuing a political career and then return to ser vice or be retired early with a full pension. In a typical lower house of the parliament (Bundestag) one- half or more of the members will be civil ser vants on leave, although many of these are lower- level officials. Likewise in France the members of the Grands Corps remain so whether they are actually ser ving in that capacity or not, and the National Assem- bly and the ministries are well stocked with members of the Corps. Of course, in China, the former Soviet Union, and other communist and single- party countries, the connection between administrative and political careers was and is ver y close, and that closeness is necessar y as the hegemonic party provides an all- purpose elite for the management of the countr y.

Incentives and Motivation

I have already mentioned the question of incentives when discussing one of the more general aspects of recruitment in public bureaucracies. We now discuss more of the methods available to public administration to recruit and maintain their per- sonnel. In a general over view of organizations and membership in organizations, Clark and Wilson (1961) developed a classification of the three types of incentives that an organization can offer its members; material, purposive, and solidar y. Mate- rial incentives are factors such as pay, benefits, and direct financial rewards. Pur- posive incentives are related to the ability of the individual within the organization to have some influence over the shape of public policy adopted and implemented by government, or simply to get something done on the job. Finally, solidar y incen- tives derive from the social aspects of employment and group membership, which in the case of public employment may, in some countries, involve belonging to one of the more prestigious organizations in the society. Even when the civil ser vice is not a prestigious organization the members may find their work and their col- leagues interesting, and enjoy their work. Each of these incentives has, almost as a mirror image, a possible disincen- tive for working in the public sector. Some people may be attracted by the sal- aries of government jobs, but in most countries the top jobs in government are

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paid substantially less than jobs with similar responsibilities in the private sector (Brans and Peters, 2013). Likewise, many people are attracted by the opportunity to achieve policy goals through working in government, but others are frustrated by the slowness with which government often appears to move and the barriers to action. Finally, public employees have become the targets of increasingly adverse publicity and attacks on their skills and integrity – often from their own political masters – that have deterred more people from joining the government ser vice. Thus, we should examine why people say they choose not to join the public ser vice, and why they leave, as well as why they say they join. The generally negative treatment of the civil ser vice in much of the media, combined with the lack of many other incentives that might be found in the private sector, have led some scholars to point to the importance of “public ser vice motiva- tions” for the choice that individuals make to become civil ser vants (Perr y, 2000). This approach to some extent combines the purposive and solidar y incentives dis- cussed above, but focuses on the desire of civil ser vants to produce public ser vice, and to be engaged in positive action for the society. This motivation stands in sharp contrast with the material assumptions behind much of the New Public Manage- ment reform since the 1980s (see Hartley et al., 2015). Most of the discussion of public ser vice motivation has taken place in the United States, but there is some evidence about the existence of this type of moti- vation in other countries. There is some evidence from the more industrialized systems, emphasizing the continuing importance of purposive and solidar y incen- tives (see Kim and Vanderbeele, 2010). For the less- developed systems, much of the reform of the public sector as driven by donor organizations has tended to stress the need to build proper economic incentives for employees (Mookherjee, 1997), although in a number of cases the need to build public ser vice values is a means for overcoming corruption (Kernaghan, 2000). Any organization will potentially provide some of each of these three types of incentives to employees. However, there are cross- national differences in the extent to which each of the three is perceived as an effective means of motivation by current and potential administrators. Some evidence about these differences can be gained through sur vey data, although such data are available for only a limited number of systems, largely from Western nations. As is shown in Table 3.2, there are some differences in response patterns even in this relatively homo- geneous set of countries. In the first place, it is interesting to note that purposive incentives, which might have been thought to be the most significant means of influencing people to join the bureaucracy, are not that important. In the cases for which we have data, one of the other incentives, most often solidar y, is mentioned by a larger percentage of the respondents. It might be thought that the relative under valuing of purposive incentives was a function of the subgroup within the civil ser vice about which we have most information. This group is composed largely of administrators near the top of the administrative hierarchy; they have been in office for some time and may therefore be expected to have developed greater identification with the organization rather than with the ostensible purposes of the organization. In Anthony Downs’ (1967, 106ff.) terminology, they may have become conser vers rather than advocates or zealots. The limited evidence reported from an Australian sur vey seems to dispute

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T h E P o l i T i c S o F B u R E a u c R a c y

9 8

this, however, and the reasons reported for joining the civil ser vice are less pur- posive than those reported for remaining in the ser vice. The differences between the several sets of administrators for which we have data are not particularly striking, but do lead to three rather interesting points. The first is the extremely high percentage of administrators in the United Kingdom who gave answers in terms of solidar y incentives when questioned about their jobs. This result would appear to conform nicely with the stereotype of British adminis- tration as a set of “old boys” who conduct administration in a collegial, gentlemanly fashion and whose role as talented amateurs may prevent any effective policy initia- tive from arising from within the bureaucracy. Of course, numerous recent studies of the administrative apparatus of the United Kingdom indicate that although they may not be educated as experts in any particular technical specialty, many admin- istrators discharge quite significant roles in the formation of policy – in fact, that has been known by the practitioners themselves for quite a long time (Page, 2010). Still, it is interesting to note the extent to which the practitioners give more social reasons for either joining or staying in their positions. Of the countries on which we have data, the French upper- echelon admin- istrators reported the highest levels of purposive incentives (Direction Generale de l’Administration et de la Fonction Publique, 1991). This finding also conforms to the prevailing conception of the French bureaucracy as the groupe dirigeante for the entire society. Traditionally, the way of getting things done in French gov- ernment has been through administration, and we may expect that administrators would perceive a relatively great ability to accomplish things through their jobs. Finally, the Italian administrators gave a ver y high proportion of material answers, indicating the often cited tendency to use the bureaucracy as a means of personal advancement rather than as a force for policy change (Pagani, 2003). Another study of motivations and incentives for working in the United Kingdom contrasted the motivations of public and private sector employees directly (Metcalfe, 1989). This study also contrasted the incentives deemed most important by men and women. All groups examined tended to rate the challenge of the work and certain solidar y benefits as most important in their choices of jobs (Table 3.3).

Table 3.3 Most important characteristics of Jobs for Employees in the united Kingdom

Public sector Private sector

Females Males Females Males

challenge challenge challenge challenge Friendly People Security location autonomy Security Societal contribution Friendly People Friendly People Societal contribution Friendly People Well-regarded Well-regarded organization organization location autonomy Being appreciated influence

Source: Beverly alban Metcalfe, “What Motivates Managers: an investigation of gender and Sectors of Employment,” Public Administration, 67 (1989), pp. 95–108.

R E c R u i T i n g P u B l i c P E R S o n n E l

9 9

Public sector employees, however, also tended to rank the security of their posi- tions ver y highly. In fairness, they also rated their potential contributions to society (a purposive incentive) ver y highly while this value was ver y low in the ratings reported by private sector employees. For public sector employees, material incen- tives such as high earnings and fringe benefits were among the least important incentives available. While the differences between the sectors were not great, they do support most other findings and our general understanding of the differ- ences between the public and private sector work forces. They also substantiate the earlier finding of strong solidar y incentives in the United Kingdom. A similar study in Canada, for example, found less importance attached to solidar y incen- tives, although employees in the public sector there were also less concerned with material rewards than were private sector employees (Jabes and Zussman, 1988). If the evidence on incentive structures for Western administrative systems is rather scarce, then the information on non- Western administrative systems is even more sparse. One study of administrative cadres in the People’s Repub- lic of China found that material incentives were the most commonly cited, but that purposive incentives were rather close behind (Tang et al., 1993). Fur ther, from a number of more descriptive studies, we can rather quickly develop the hypothesis that the major incentives for joining bureaucratic systems in non- Western societies often are solidar y and material rather than purposive. First, given the colonial heritage of most of these societies, the pattern of goal achieve- ment through administration was not well ingrained into these systems at the time of independence. Moreover, in the Latin American systems, which have been independent longer, the administrators are not always protected by merit systems and tenure, so any attempt to use administration to alter the existing social and economic arrangements in other than cer tain ways often meets with a prompt dismissal from office (Klingner and Campos, 2002). There are also more positive aspects to the attraction of the bureaucracy for many prospec- tive employees. The public bureaucracy is a stable and relatively remunerative institution of the society, and compared with oppor tunities that may exist in the private economy, working in the public bureaucracy is frequently an extremely attractive economic option. The operation of the solidar y incentives in administrative systems in develop- ing countries is perhaps less obvious. One of the social and cultural bases of many underdeveloped countries has been an emphasis on status and rank in defining social behavior. Also, in most of these societies the public bureaucracy has been able to establish itself as a high- status occupation. This status may be in part related to the relatively brief separation in time from the period in which recruitment to these governmental positions was determined almost entirely by ascriptive criteria and, in fact, the best families frequently chose to send their sons into the public ser vice. The “social exclusiveness and supreme confidence” of colonial administra- tors tended to reinforce the impression that administrative positions were to be equated with superior social position. Even after the passage of decades from the time of colonial domination, some of these values persist. Further, in societies that value social position above the more achievement- based criteria usually associated with Western societies, one may expect a high level of solidar y incentives among those joining the bureaucracy.

T h E P o l i T i c S o F B u R E a u c R a c y

1 0 0

The incentives of administrators joining the bureaucracy in the under- developed world are obviously different from the types of incentives that we would expect to characterize bureaucrats charged with bringing about important social and economic changes. We have already noted the load being placed upon admin- istration in these transformations, and we find here a great disparity between the requirements of social change and the motivations of the people being recruited (Thomas and Grindle, 1990). This situation cannot, of course, provide an optimistic outlook for the future of administered change. The study from the United Kingdom shown in Table 3.3 is particularly interesting, since it represented the reaction of a group of senior civil ser vants then under fire by an administration that sought to limit bureaucratic control over policy and to limit the pay and prestige that the ser vice had enjoyed. Here, too, the reasons given for leaving senior government positions were a balance of incentives (or disincentives). It is especially interesting that solidar y concerns, such as the denigration of the civil ser vice and political interference in personnel management, were more important than some of the more tangible attacks (e.g., on pay) then being made (Ingraham, 1987). Other subsequent sur veys of senior government positions, and some similar albeit less quantitative work on the British civil ser vice weathering similar attacks, confirmed the impression that pride in ser vice is an important factor in recruitment and retention of top civil ser vants. The same pride in ser vice has been found even more strongly in studies of the Canadian public ser vice. To conclude this discussion of incentives, it is possible to make some highly conjectural statements about the nature of the bureaucracy in China, the former Soviet Union, and other communist countries. On the basis of descriptive accounts and descriptions of prior administrative systems, one can hypothesize that the incen- tive structures of these bureaucrats will be rather similar to those found for admin- istrators in Western societies. That is, there is a balance of material, purposive, and solidary incentives. The purposive incentives are rather obvious, given that even more than most Western societies, communist regimes are heavily oriented toward administration as the means of achieving goals. It might be expected that individu- als would perceive some real ability to accomplish certain goals through working in the administrative structures. The material incentives may appear rather odd in supposedly classless societies, but we know well that there are, if not classes, at least groups for which there are differential economic rewards (Voslenski, 1984). The public bureaucracy is one such group; being a member of the “apparatus” of the state will generally pay off not only directly, but also indirectly through access to scarce consumer goods. Finally, one traditional description of Russian administration was as a set of small and closely knit primary groups operating within the context of a larger governmental structure. We may hypothesize that this same sort of small group were still operating within the Soviet bureaucracy, so there was a high level of solidary motivation for the workers within such groups. Also we might expect that there would be differences by age among public servants in these regimes. Those with their roots in the early days of the revolutions and World War II might think of their work in more patriotic, solidary terms, while younger workers might see the civil service as simply a well- paid occupation in a more stable society. Of course, these are only conjectures about the motivations of these administrators, but there is

R E c R u i T i n g P u B l i c P E R S o n n E l

1 0 1

evidence that each of the incentives is likely to be effective. What is not known is the relative strength of these motivations and incentives.

Pay in the Public Sector

It has been established that money may not be the only, or even the best, means of motivating potential employees to accept governmental careers, or to continue in those careers once they have been employed. However, pay is an important issue in the public sector, not least because many citizens believe that government employ- ees receive large salaries for little work. In addition, it is not only the pay received during the working lifetime of the employees that produces popular resentment, but also the variety of benefits received by civil ser vants, not least of which is an inflation- proofed pension. The comparability of compensation in the public sector with that of the private sector is an important consideration in determining the sat- isfaction of government workers with their jobs, and for determining the satisfac- tion of citizens with their public ser vants. Determining appropriate levels of compensation for government employees is not as simple a task as it may appear. It is true that many public sector jobs are directly comparable to jobs in the private sector; the tasks of a secretar y in govern- ment are almost identical to those of a secretar y in the private sector. However, some jobs in government have no private sector counterparts, and many jobs that appear comparable may not be. Being a police officer is different from any private sector job, even that of a private security guard. And although the job of a govern- ment executive may resemble that of a private sector manager of a similar- size firm, the private sector manager is spared the political responsibility, media exposure, the managerial difficulties (for example, the convoluted personnel management practices of a civil ser vice system) of a manager in government. In addition, deter- mining the value of an index- linked pension, or of the relative security of public employment, involves a number of assumptions about the future rates of inflation, future rates of unemployment, and the preferences of workers for future versus current income. President Ronald Reagan once suggested that civil ser vants be paid 94 percent of what would be earned for comparable jobs in the private sector; the missing 6 percent was for the pension and for job security. This figure was, however, only a guess at best of what the true value is of those components of the civil ser vice compensation package. Most studies of pay comparability between the public and private sectors find that government employees at the lower echelons are better paid than their private sector counterparts. This is especially true of workers in unskilled or semi- skilled positions, such as sanitation workers or bus drivers. This relative advantage of public sector workers derives, at least in part, from the ability of these workers to exert pressure on political leaders by real or threatened strikes, as well as the absence of the “bottom line” that would constrain a private employer. However, as responsibilities increase, government employees are paid less well than workers in the private sector. Those working at the ver y top of public organizations frequently earn only a fraction of what they would be earning for jobs with similar responsibili- ties in the private sector.

T h E P o l i T i c S o F B u R E a u c R a c y

1 0 2

There are some significant exceptions to the above generalization about the rewards of public office. In societies with traditions of strong and prestigious government, senior civil ser vants are often well paid. For example, in the United Kingdom the ver y top officials of the civil ser vice are well paid in comparison to the majority of similar executives in the private economy, although their pay has not kept up with the soaring salar y levels in the financial sector. Even though the pay of the top British civil ser vants has been falling (relative to the private sector) they have done well relative to the rest of the civil ser vice, whose pay has slipped even more. These civil ser vants lack some of the perquisites, such as an automobile, of highly placed private sector employees, but they do have an index- linked pension to look for ward to after retirement. Also, in societies dominated by government, such as the former Soviet Union or many contemporar y Third World countries, govern- ment is by far the most rewarding place to be employed. Indeed one of the best paid civil ser vice cadres is in the “Little Asian Tiger,” Singapore, whose President reput- edly has said that “if you pay people peanuts you get monkeys” (see Lee, 2000). The relative position of public and private sector pay is demonstrated in Tables 3.4 and 3.5 which relate average pay in the public sector to that in the private sector in a number of countries, and more detailed information about rewards of high office in a more limited number of countries. While there are inherent dif- ficulties in making these comparisons – for example, differences in the occupa- tional structure within the civil ser vice and the private sector – these data are, to some degree, indicative of the relative position of the two sets of workers. In most industrialized democracies, civil ser vants earn on average about what is earned in the private sector, while in most underdeveloped countries they earn substantially more. This is indicative of the important position of government, and its employ- ees, in the management and development of these societies. The position of top managers in industrialized democracies is not, however, so good and they tend to be substantially less well paid. Pay determination in the public sector is more than a question of personnel management. It is also a crucial element in economic management. Since govern- ment now employs a ver y large proportion of the total labor force (18 percent in the United States, 31 percent in the United Kingdom, and 42 percent in Sweden),

Table 3.4 Pay of Top civil Servants as a Percentage of average Pay in the Economy

Country Civil Servants’ Pay

united Kingdom 541 germany 487 France 461 Belgium 444 Switzerland 385 Denmark 302 Sweden 223 norway 189

Source: unpublished data from christopher hood and B. guy Peters, Rewards of High Public Office (london: Sage, 1994).

R E c R u i T i n g P u B l i c P E R S o n n E l

1 0 3

pay determination in the public sector influences economic conditions for the economy as a whole. This is one aspect of the economy that government can influ- ence most directly, and when there is an attempt to implement an incomes policy, public sector wages ser ve as guidelines for the remainder of the economy. Further, when governments come into conflict with labor unions over wages, the settlement reached can be used as an indicator of the power and resolve of the government; for example, Conser vative governments in the United Kingdom in 1974, 1982, and in 1985. In contrast, the French government caved in to union demands several times during the 1990s with the consequence that the French public sector continues to absorb more resources than those in most other European countries. Pay for public sector employees is determined in a number of ways. One is to link pay directly to changes in the private sector, or to consumer prices. For example, in the Netherlands, civil ser vice pay has been adjusted biennially to take into account changes in private sector wages, while in Australia pay is adjusted annu- ally on the basis of changes in prices. Pay for civil ser vants in the United States is nominally based upon comparability with the private sector, although the President and Congress make independent judgments about appropriate levels of compensa- tion. In the 1980s the President and Congress consistently passed pay increases below the comparability figures recommended by the more independent Advisor y Committee on Federal Pay. The Pay Act of 1990 loosened the linkage between civil ser vice pay and Congressional pay, although the automatic nature of Congressional increases has facilitated increases for the federal civil ser vants. In several countries pay movements in the public sector are directly linked to changes in compensa- tion in the economy as a whole. This helps remove the incentive for politicians to hold down the pay of civil ser vants. As noted above (pp. 00–0), attacking the civil ser vice in their pocketbooks is good politics in most countries, and politicians can earn substantial credit by being tough on pay awards. Negotiation with unions is the other major means of setting public sector pay. In Denmark this bargaining occurs as a part of negotiations for wages through- out the economy, whereas in Italy, Canada, and a number of other countries, the

Table 3.5 Ratio of central government Wages to Per capita income

Nation

Burundi 15.11 Senegal 9.90 cameroon 7.39 Egypt 5.70 india 4.80 austria 1.06 australia 1.16 Singapore 1.16 norway 1.48 Sweden 1.49

Source: Peter heller and alan a. Tait, Government Employment and Pay: Some International Comparisons (Washington, Dc: international Monetary Fund, 1983).

T h E P o l i T i c S o F B u R E a u c R a c y

1 0 4

negotiation is independent of other labor negotiations. In all negotiations, however, comparability is at least an implicit part of the bargaining process. Germany has a modified version of unionized pay setting in which the salaries of ordinar y civil ser vants (Angestelle) are set by negotiations with unions; then parliament deter- mines pay for top civil ser vants (Beamte). The Beamte have a legal right to a living suitable for their status as representatives of the state (the “alimentation principle” – see Derlien, 1993). The traditional means of rewarding civil ser vants is to pay all individuals at the same grade of the ser vice the same amount, adjusted perhaps for seniority, or social factors such as the number of children supported by the employee. The spread of managerialist ideas during the 1980s and 1990s has produced a greater use of merit pay in the civil ser vice, with differential rewards to employees based upon their perceived performance (Lundquist, 1993; Robough and Kooistra, 1994). In some instances the better performers are given bonuses, while in other systems their salaries are adjusted upward on a more permanent basis. Further, in some of the bonus systems there are well- regulated means of determining those rewards, but in others a huge amount of discretion is available to political and civil ser vice leaders to reward their subordinates, and the bonuses are virtually secret (Brans, 1993; Rouban, 1993). In some instances merit is determined in advance and in private, with many top government managers hired on performance contracts that differ markedly across individuals. A few merit pay systems also provide for reduc- tions in salaries for poor performers, although it is generally difficult to prove that performance is sufficiently poor to warrant reductions. All merit pay systems, however, assume that civil ser vants are motivated more by these material rewards than by the solidar y incentives characteristic of standard pay systems. These plans also assume that it is possible to measure merit adequately and fairly (Hood and Lodge, 2004). That may be relatively easy for many of the lower- level positions, e.g., typists or technicians, but becomes difficult for top managerial and professional positions. It becomes especially difficult for the civil ser vants whose primar y responsibility is policy advice for ministers. To the extent that this is true, merit pay programs tend to emphasize the managerial and techni- cal nature of civil ser vice jobs and may devalue the policy advice functions of those positions. Despite differences in the manner in which public sector pay is determined, several generalities can be made. First, a balance must be struck between fiscal constraints and the need to attract and retain qualified personnel. This is obviously more of a problem at the upper levels of government than at the bottom but may become a problem in regard to people with specialized skills, such as computer operators, as well as to executives. Second, in times of economic constraint or inse- curity, public sector pay is a convenient target for those who want to control the costs of government. This is true despite the fact that personnel costs constitute a relatively small proportion of total costs of government. For example, central gov- ernment wages and salaries in Sweden are only 6 percent of total expenditure at that level; in the United States they are 11 percent (International Monetar y Fund, 2004). In both countries wages and salaries for all levels of government are higher than for just central government, but still are less than one- quarter of all expendi- tures. Public sector wages and salaries are a larger proportion of total expenditures

R E c R u i T i n g P u B l i c P E R S o n n E l

1 0 5

in less- developed countries; for example, salaries are over half of total expendi- tures in Kenya and many other African countries. For much of the developed world, however, holding down public sector pay, despite its symbolic value, may be a small portion of the total fiscal restraint needed to control public expenditure. A third important factor about public sector wages is that public sector employees, by virtue of their central positions in the economy and society (public transportation workers, firemen, defense, etc.) and their increasing levels of unionization, are in powerful positions to influence their own levels of pay. Finally, pay itself is only a part of the total compensation package; to understand fully the benefits of public employment, one must also take into account factors such as index- linked pensions (Hood and Peters, 1994; Hood et al., 2003). Further, as noted above, employment in the public sector may be a stepping stone to more lucrative private sector occupations, so that lower wages in the short term may be an accept- able tradeoff for ver y high long- term rewards.

Methods of Recruitment

We have been discussing the methods by which administrators are chosen and some of the issues involved in the choice of methods. This section examines the effects of these choices by scrutinizing the actual patterns of recruitment of admin- istrators. Again, we are somewhat constrained by the lack of availability of data for administrative systems, especially those of the less- developed countries. Despite these constraints, it is possible to identify substantial recruitment information on the administrative systems of over 25 countries, although the timeliness of those data is varied. The data are on several dimensions of social background, academic preparation, and representativeness that can give important information about how administrators are chosen. However, some important caveats should be noted. This information was gathered by different individuals, at different times, and on somewhat different segments of the bureaucratic population. The majority of data is concerned with upper- echelon administrators, but in some cases the coverage is broader. Therefore, care must be exercised in the interpretation of differences among these countries. Nevertheless, the data ser ve an important function of illus- trating the general directions of recruitment in each countr y. In each case, the source, year, and definition of the administrative population (if different from “top” administrators) are noted. The first dimension upon which there are data is the socioeconomic back- ground of the administrators. Given that public administration is essentially a middle- class occupation, the major variance here is in the occupation of the fathers – or the class of origin – of these administrators. We see from Tables 3.6 and 3.7 that not only is public administration a middle- class occupation, but the origins of the administrators are also primarily middle class. The definition of class of origin is somewhat fuzzy, especially the difference between upper class and middle class, but the largest single class of origin in each case is the middle class. This is even more striking when the categories are collapsed into working class and bourgeois (by adding together middle and upper classes). In each case, few if any children of workers ever make it into the ranks of upper administration, with the most open

Ta b le

3 .6

S oc

ia l c

la ss

B ac

kg ro

un ds

o f S

en io

r c

iv il

Se rv

an ts

(P er

ce nt

ag e)

So ci

al C

la ss

ni te

U ni

te d

an ce

c G

er m

an y

d D

en m

ar k e

ed en

f Sw

itz er

la nd

g Ita

ly h

O rig

K in

gd om

a St

at es

b (1

9 7

1 –5

) (1

9 8

7 )

(1 9

7 4

) (1

9 7

2 )

(1 9

8 0

) (1

9 6

5 )

9 9

5 )

(1 9

5 9

)

u pp

2 8

4 0

4 7

6 1

7 M

id dl

e 5

4 4

6 9

4 4

6 5

W or

ki ng

2 1

1 1

1 4

o th

er /u

nk no

w n

–

1 6

1 9

–

– 1

3 To

ta l

1 0

9 9

0 0

1 0

an ad

a i

In di

a j

Tu rk

ey k

Re pu

bl ic

ai n

Pa ki

st an

n Za

m bi

a o

N et

he rla

nd s p

9 7

7 –8

8 )

(1 9

4 7

–6 3

) (1

9 6

2 )

of K

or ea

l (1

9 6

7 )

(n .d

.) (1

9 6

9 )

(1 9

8 8

)

9 6

2 )

u pp

4 4

2 9

–

2 2

5 M

id dl

e 1

6 6

7 0

7 6

4 3

3 W

or ki

3 6

–

2 3

8 o

th er

/u nk

no w

n –

–

2 7

4 To

ta l

9 9

0 0

9 8

0 0

us tra

lia q

Be lg

iu m

r N

or w

ay s

Br az

il t

Fi nl

an d

u Is

ra el

v G

re ec

e w

9 7

0 )

(1 9

7 3

) (1

9 7

6 )

(1 9

7 2

) (1

9 7

0 –8

0 )

(1 9

8 6

) (1

9 8

8 )

u pp

3 1

–

M id

dl e

7 8

5 9

5 3

5 9

W or

ki ng

1 1

2 3

– o

th er

/u nk

no w

– 1

1 5

–

1 4

ta l

1 0

So ur

ce s

a Pe

te r

Ba rb

er is

, Th

e El

ite o

f t he

E lit

e (a

ld er

sh ot

: D

ar tm

ou th

, 1

9 9

6 );

i. M

. c

re w

e, S

oc ia

l S ur

ve y

of th

e c

iv il

Se rv

ic e,

v ol

. 3

, pt

. 1 o

f T he

C iv

il Se

rv ic

e (T

Fu lto

n Re

po rt)

(l on

do n:

h M

So ,

1 9 6 8 ) p

. 1 9 .

b W

. l.

W ar

ne r

et a

l., T

he A

m er

ic an

F ed

er al

E xe

cu tiv

e (n

ew h

av en

, c

T: y

al e

u ni

ve rs

ity P

re ss

, 1

9 6

3 ),

p. 2

9 .

c Pi

er re

R ac

in e,

“ l’o

rig in

e so

ci al

e de

s en

ar gu

es ,”

L a

Fo nc

tio n

Pu bl

iq ue

. C

ah ie

rs F

ra nç

ai s

(l a

D oc

um en

ta tio

n Fr

an ça

is e,

1 9

8 0 ).

     

d h

an s-u

lri ch

D el

ie n

an d

Re na

te M

ay nt

z, E

in st

el lu

ng en

d er

p ol

iti sc

h- ad

m in

is tra

tiv en

E lit

e de

s Bu

nd es

1 9

8 7 (B

am be

rg : u

ni ve

rs ity

o f B

am be

rg l

eh rs

tu hl

fü r

Ve rw

al tu

ng sw

is se

ns ch

af t,

1 9 8 8 ).

e T.

R au

, D

en d

an sk

c en

ra la

dm in

is tra

tio n

og d

en s

em bs

m an

d (c

op en

ha ge

n: u

ni ve

rs ity

o f c

op en

ha ge

n, in

st itu

t F or

sa m

fu nd

sf ag

, 1 9 7 4 ).

f u

. c

hr is

to ffe

rs on

, u

. M

ol in

, B.

M an

ss on

, an

d l.

St rö

m be

rg , By

rå kr

at i o

ch p

ol iti

k (S

to ck

ho lm

: Bo

nn ie

rs , 1

9 7

2 ).

g Pa

ol o

u rio

, So

ci ol

og ie

p ol

iti qu

e de

la h

au te

a dm

in is

tra tio

n pu

bl iq

ue e

n Su

is se

(P ar

is : Ec

on om

ic a,

1 9

8 9

), p.

1 4

6 .

h Pa

ol o

a m

m as

sa ri,

“ l’e

st ra

zi on

e so

ci al

e de

i f un

zi on

ar i d

el lo

S ta

to e

d eg

li en

ti lo

ca l,”

in a

m m

as sa

ri et

a l.,

Il B

ur oc

ra te

d i f

ro nt

e al

le b

ur oc

ra zi

a (M

ila n:

iu ffe

, 1

9 6 9 ),

p. 2

1 .

i Ja

cq ue

s Bo

ur ga

ul t a

nd S

té ph

an e

D io

n, T

he C

ha ng

in g

Pr ofi

le o

f F ed

er al

D ep

ut y

M in

is te

rs 1

8 6

7 –1

9 8

8 (o

tta w

a: c

an ad

ia n

c en

te r

fo r

M an

ag em

en t

D ev

el op

m en

t, 1 9 9 1 ).

j V.

S ub

ra m

an ia

n, S

oc ia

l B ac

kg ro

un ds

o f I

nd ia

’s A

dm in

is tra

to rs

(n ew

D el

hi : M

in is

tr y

of in

fo rm

at io

n, 1

9 7

1 ),

p. 1

4 5

. k

c . h

. D

od d,

“ Th

e So

ci al

a nd

E du

ca tio

na l B

ac kg

ro un

ds o

f T ur

ki sh

o ffi

ci al

s, ”

M id

dl e

Ea st

er n

St ud

ie s,

1 (1

9 6

4 ),

p. 2

7 1

. l

D on

g Su

h ba

rk ,

“K or

ea n

h ig

he r

c iv

il Se

rv an

ts :

Th ei

r So

ci al

B ac

kg ro

un ds

a nd

M or

al e,

” in

B yu

ng c

hu i K

oh , A

sp ec

ts o

f A dm

in is

tra tiv

e D

ev el

op m

en t i

n So

ut h

K or

ea (K

al am

az oo

, M

i: K or

ea R

es ea

rc h

Pu bl

ic at

io n,

1 9

6 7

), p.

2 7

. m

J ua

n J.

l in

z an

d a

m an

do d

e M

ig ue

l, “l

a el

ite fu

nc tio

na ria

l E sp

añ ol

a an

te la

r ef

or m

a ad

m in

is tra

tiv a,

” in

A ña

le s

de M

or al

S oc

ia ly

E co

no m

ic a,

ci ol

og ic

al d

e la

A dm

in is

tra ci

on P

ub lic

a Es

pa ño

la (M

ad rid

: Ra

yc ar

, 1

9 6

8 ),

pp . 2

0 8

–9 .

n Ra

lp h

Br ai

ba nt

i, “T

he h

ig he

r Bu

re au

cr ac

y of

P ak

is ta

n, ”

in R

al ph

B ra

ib an

ti, e

d. , A

si an

B ur

ea uc

ra tic

S ys

te m

s Em

er ge

nt fr

om th

e Br

iti sh

Im pe

ria l T

ra di

tio n

(D ur

ha m

, n

c :

D uk

e u

ni ve

rs ity

P re

ss ,

1 9 6 6 ),

p. 2

7 1

. o

D en

ni s

l. D

re sa

ng ,

“E th

ni c

Po lit

ic s,

R ep

re se

nt at

iv e

Bu re

au cr

ac y

an d

D ev

el op

m en

t a dm

in is

tra tio

n; T

he Z

am bi

an c

as e,

” A

m er

ic an

P ol

iti ca

l S ci

en ce

vi ew

, 6

8 (1

9 7 4 ),

p. 1

6 0 9 .

p F.

M . va

n de

r M

ee r

an d

l. J

. Ro

bo rg

h, A

m be

te na

re n

in N

ed er

la nd

(a lp

he n

aa n

de n

Ri jn

: W

ill in

k, 1

9 9

3 ),

p. 3

3 4

. q

Ro ya

l c om

m is

si on

o n

a us

tra lia

n g

ov er

nm en

t a dm

in is

tra tio

n, R

ep or

t ( c

an be

rr a:

a us

tra lia

n g

ov er

nm en

t P ub

lis hi

ng S

er vi

ce , 1 9 7 6 );

a pp

en di

x 3 .

r a

nd re

M ol

ito r,

L’ A

dm in

is tra

tio n

en B

el gi

qu e

(B ru

ss el

s: c

en tre

d e

Re ch

er ch

e et

d ’in

fo rm

at io

n so

ci o-

po lit

iq ue

, 1

9 7

4 ).

s Pe

r la

eg re

id a

nd P

au l R

on es

s, “

D e

st at

lig a

an st

äl ld

a i n

or ge

,” in

l en

na rt

lu nd

qu is

t a nd

K ris

te r

St åh

lb er

g, B

yr åk

ra te

r i N

or de

n (Å

bo : Å

bo a

ka de

m i,

1 9

8 3

). t

Pa ol

o Ro

be rto

M ot

ta ,

“T he

B ra

zi lia

n Bu

re au

cr at

ic E

lit e,

” un

pu bl

is he

d Ph

.D . di

ss er

ta tio

n, u

ni ve

rs ity

o f n

or th

c ar

ol in

a, 1

9 7

2 .

u K ris

te r

St åh

lb er

g, “

D e

st at

lig a

an st

äl ld

a i fi

nl an

d, ”

in lu

nd qu

is t a

nd S

tå hl

be rg

, op

. ci

t. v

D av

id R

. n

ac hm

ia s,

“ is

ra el

’s B

ur ea

uc ra

tic E

lit e:

S oc

ia l S

tru ct

ur e

an d

Pa tro

na ge

,” P

ub lic

A dm

in is

tra tio

n Re

vi ew

, 5

1 (1

9 9

1 ),

p. 4

1 4 .

w g

eo rg

e Ve

nd en

dr ak

is a

nd c

at he

rin e

D .

Pa pa

st at

ho po

ul ou

s, “

Th e

h ig

he r

c iv

il Se

rv ic

e in

g re

ec e,

” In

te rn

at io

na l R

ev ie

w o

f A dm

in is

tra tiv

e Sc

ie nc

e, 5

(1 9

9 0

), p.

4 7 4 .

Ta b le

3 .7

E du

ca tio

na l l

ev el

o f s

en io

r ci

vi l s

er va

nt s

(p er

ce nt

ag e)

ni te

d U

ni te

d Fr

an ce

c G

er m

an y

d Sw

itz er

la nd

e C

an ad

a f

U SS

R g

Ja pa

n h

Re pu

bl ic

ng do

m a

St at

es b

(1 9 8 4 )

(1 9 8 3 )

(1 9 8 7 )

(1 9 7 7 –8

8 )

(1 9 5 0 –6

6 )

(1 9 7 5 –8

6 )

of K

or ea

(1 9

6 7

) (1

9 8

4 )

(1 9

8 8

)

h ig

h sc

ho ol

2 So

m e

co lle

2 7

—

c ol

le ge

g ra

du at

e 5

5 5

2 9

3 4

9 9

ol le

ge +

1 9

—

6 6

6 5

—

9 7

To ta

l 1

0 0

1 0

rk ey

j Pa

ki st

an k

Bu rm

a l

Is ra

el m

N et

he rla

nd s n

nl an

d o

C hi

na p

Be lg

iu m

q Ita

ly r

9 6

2 )

(1 9

4 8

–6 4

) (1

9 6

2 )

(1 9

6 9

) (1

9 8

8 )

(1 9

7 7

) (1

9 8

9 )

(1 9

7 3

) (1

9 6

1 )

h ig

h sc

ho ol

—

m e

co lle

—

2 4

1 8

c ol

le ge

g ra

du at

e 9

3 5

2 8

2 1

ol le

ge +

—

6 5

—

1 5

8 2

To ta

l 1

0 0

ai n

s Sw

ed en

t D

en m

ar k u

or w

ay v

Br az

il w

G re

ec e

x N

ig er

ia y

9 9

6 )

(1 9

7 8

) (1

9 9

6 )

(1 9

7 0

–7 4

) (1

9 7

2 )

(1 9

8 8

) (1

9 7

9 –8

3 )

h ig

h sc

ho ol

m e

co lle

—

2 0

1 1

1 0

c ol

le ge

g ra

du at

5 0

5 c

ol le

ge +

6 0

9 4

8 6

1 9

To ta

l 1

0 0

So ur

ce s:

a a

. h

al se

y an

d i.

M .

c re

w e,

S oc

ia l S

ur ve

y of

th e

c iv

il Se

rv ic

e, V

ol . 3

, pt

. 1

o f T

he C

iv il

Se rv

ic e

(T he

F ul

to n

Re po

rt) (l

on do

n: h

M So

, 1 9 6 8 ),

p. 6

4 .

b u

S o

ffi ce

o f P

er so

nn el

M an

ag em

en t,

St at

is tic

s of

F ed

er al

C iv

ili an

W or

kf or

ce , 1

9 8

6 (W

as hi

ng to

n, D

c : u

So PM

, 1

9 8

6 ).

c Je

an -lo

ui s

Q ue

rm on

ne , L’ ap

pa re

il ad

m in

is tra

tif d

e l’É

ta t (

Pa ris

: Ed

iti on

s de

S eu

il, 1

9 9

1 ).

d h

an s-u

lri ch

D er

lie n

an d

Re na

te M

ay nt

z, E

in st

el lu

ng en

d er

p ol

iti sc

h- ad

m in

is tra

tiv e

El ite

d es

B un

de s

1 9

8 7 (B

am be

rg : u

ni ve

rs ity

o f B

am be

rg , le

hr st

uh l f

ür

Ve rw

al tu

ng sw

is se

ns ch

af t,

1 9 9 8 ).

e Pa

ol o

u rio

, So

ci ol

og ie

p ol

iti qu

e de

la h

au te

a dm

in is

tra tio

n pu

bl iq

ue e

n Su

is se

(P ar

is : Ec

on om

ic a,

1 9

8 9

  

     

  

       

f Ja

cq ue

s Bo

ur ga

ul t a

nd S

té ph

an e

D io

n, T

he C

ha ng

in g

Pr ofi

le o

f F ed

er al

D ep

ut y

M in

is te

rs 1

8 6

7 –1

9 8

8 (o

tta w

a: c

an ad

ia n

c en

te r

fo r

M an

ag em

en t

D ev

el op

m en

t, 1 9 9 1 ).

g Ph

ili p

D . St

ew ar

t, Po

lit ic

al P

ow er

in th

e So

vi et

U ni

on (i

nd ia

na po

lis : Bo

bb s-M

er ril

l, 1

9 6

8 ),

p. 1

4 2

. h

B. c

. K oh

, Ja

pa n’

s A

dm in

is tra

tiv e

El ite

(B er

ke le

y: u

ni ve

rs ity

o f c

al ifo

rn ia

P re

ss , 1

9 8

9 ),

p. 2

2 1

. i

Pa n

S. K

im ,

“W ho

S er

ve s

th e

St at

e: E

du ca

tio na

l B ac

kg ro

un ds

o f S

ou th

K or

ea n

an d

Ja pa

ne se

B ur

ea uc

ra ts

,” u

np ub

lis he

d pa

pe r,

D ep

ar tm

en t o

f u rb

St ud

ie s

an d

Pu bl

ic a

dm in

is tra

tio n,

o ld

D om

in io

n u

ni ve

rs ity

, 1

9 9

1 .

j c

. h

. D

od d,

“ Th

e So

ci al

a nd

E du

ca tio

na l B

ac kg

ro un

d of

T ur

ki sh

o ffi

ci al

s, ”

M id

dl e

Ea st

er n

St ud

ie s,

1 (1

9 6

4 ),

p. 2

7 3

. k

Ra lp

h Br

ai ba

nt i,

“T he

h ig

he r

Bu re

au cr

ac y

of P

ak is

ta n,

” in

R al

ph B

ra ib

an ti,

e d.

, A

si an

B ur

ea uc

ra tic

S ys

te m

s Em

er ge

nt fr

om th

e Br

iti sh

Im pe

ria l T

ra di

tio n

(D ur

ha m

, n

c :

D uk

e u

ni ve

rs ity

P re

ss ,

1 9 6 6 ),

pp . 2

7 9

–8 1

. l

Ja m

es F

. g

uy ou

t, “B

ur ea

uc ra

tic T

ra ns

fo rm

at io

n in

B ur

m a,

” in

ib id

., p

. 4

2 4

. m

n im

ro d

Ra ph

ae li,

“ Th

e Se

ni or

c iv

il Se

rv ic

e in

is ra

el ; n

ot es

o n

So m

e c

ha ra

ct er

is tic

s, ”

Pu bl

ic A

dm in

is tra

tio n,

4 8

(1 9

7 0

), p.

1 7 4 .

n F.

V an

d er

M ee

r an

d J.

R aa

ds ch

el de

rs ,

“S en

io r

c iv

il Se

rv ic

e in

th e

n et

he rla

nd s,

” in

E . c

. Pa

ge a

nd V

. W

rig ht

, ed

s, B

ur ea

uc ra

tic E

lit es

in W

es t

Eu ro

pe an

S ta

te s

(o xf

or d:

o xf

or d

u ni

ve rs

ity P

re ss

, 1

9 9

9 ).

o c

ha rle

s D

eb ba

sc h,

L a

fo nc

tio n

pu bl

iq ue

e n

Eu ro

pe (P

ar is

: c

n RS

, 1

9 8

0 );

to ta

l c iv

il se

rv ic

e. p

Xi ao

w ei

Z an

g, “

El ite

F or

m at

io n

an d

th e

Bu re

au cr

at ic

-Te ch

no cr

ac y

in P

os t-M

ao c

hi na

,” S

tu di

es in

C om

pa ra

tiv e

C om

m un

is m

, 2 4 (1

9 9 1 ),

pp . 1 1 4 –2

3 .

q a

nd re

M ol

ito r,

L’ A

dm in

is tra

tio n

en B

el gi

qu e

(B ru

ss el

s: c

en tre

d e

re ch

er ch

e et

d ’in

fo rm

at io

n so

ci o-

po lit

iq ue

, 1

9 7

4 ).

r Fr

an co

F er

ra re

si , Bu

ro cr

az ia

e p

ol iti

ca in

It al

ia (M

ila n:

il M

ul in

o, 1

9 8

0 ).

s i.

M ol

in a,

“ Sp

ai n:

S til

l t he

P rim

ac y

of c

or po

ra tis

m ,”

in E

. c

. Pa

ge a

nd V

. W

rig ht

, ed

s, o

p. c

it. t

u lf

c hr

is to

ffe rs

on ,

“D e

st at

lig t a

ns tä

lli da

i Sv

er ig

e, ”

in l

en na

rt lu

nd qu

is t a

nd K

ris te

r St

åh lb

er g,

e ds

., B

yr åk

ra te

r i N

or de

n (Å

bo : Å

bo a

ka de

m i,

1 9 8 3 ).

u h

. n

. Je

ns en

a nd

T .

K nu

ds on

, “T

he D

an is

h c

en tra

l a dm

in is

tra tio

n, ”

in E

. c

. Pa

ge a

nd V

. W

rig ht

, ed

s, o

p. c

it. v

Pe r

la eg

re id

a nd

P au

l R on

es s,

“ D

e st

at lig

t a ns

tå lid

a i n

or ge

,” in

ib id

. w

P ao

lo R

ob er

to M

ot ta

, Th

e Br

az ili

an B

ur ea

uc ra

tic E

lit e,

u np

ub lis

he d

Ph .D

. di

ss er

ta tio

n, u

ni ve

rs ity

o f n

or th

c ar

ol in

a, 1

9 7

2 .

x g

eo rg

e Ve

nd en

dr ak

is a

nd c

at he

rin e

D .

Pa pa

st at

ho po

ul os

, “T

he h

ig he

r c

iv il

Se rv

ic e

in g

re ec

e, ”

In te

rn at

io na

l R ev

ie w

o f A

dm in

is tra

tiv e

Sc ie

nc es

, 5 5

(1 9

8 9

), pp

. 6 0 3 –2

9 .

y Bo

la D

au da

, “F

al la

ci es

a nd

D ile

m m

as :

Th e

Th eo

ry o

f R ep

re se

nt at

iv e

Bu re

au cr

ac y

w ith

a P

ar tic

ul ar

R ef

er en

ce to

th e

n ig

er ia

n Pu

bl ic

S er

vi ce

1 9 5 0 –

1 9

8 6

,” In

te rn

at io

na l R

ev ie

w o

f A dm

in is

tra tiv

e Sc

ie nc

es , 5

6 (1

9 9

0 ),

p. 4

7 7

T h E P o l i T i c S o F B u R E a u c R a c y

1 1 0

system apparently being that of the United States, where almost one- quarter of the federal executives came from working- class backgrounds. Despite the elitist image, the French civil ser vice also had a relatively large percentage of inductees from the working class. Germany appears to be the most unrepresentative of the civil ser vice systems (see Derlien and Mayntz, 1988). Other studies show a more representative recruitment pattern in Germany, but not a great deal more repre- sentative than other European countries. Somewhat different samples used by Aberbach et al. (1981) show France to have fewer civil ser vants from working- class backgrounds than does Germany, and the number of working- class inductees into the civil ser vice in France appears to be decreasing. As noted, these differences are a function of different samples, different definitions of the higher civil ser vice, and different definitions of class origins. Lest we become too critical of the bureaucratic systems, we should note that this pattern of elitist recruitment is far from entirely the fault of elitism within these institutions. The bureaucracies are at the mercy of the educational system, and despite efforts by governments in most industrialized countries to make postsec- ondar y education more widely available, it still remains a sanctuar y of the upper and middle classes. Given the job requirements for the vast majority of higher admin- istrative positions, be they for specialists or generalists, a postsecondar y education is a virtual necessity, and in most countries – even ones with social democratic histories – relatively few working- class children are provided that opportunity. This educational nexus is, in fact, the probable reason for the rather positive showing of the United States. Postsecondar y education is more available in the United States than elsewhere, and consequently the pool of potential applicants for the senior civil ser vice is that much larger. We should not, on the other hand, be too quick to absolve the bureaucracies of all guilt for their rather unrepresentative nature (Whitford et al., 2007). All organ- izations tend to replicate themselves, and there is a definite tendency to recruit people like those already in the positions. This type of organizational bias is espe- cially strong during the personal inter views generally required for appointment to upper- echelon positions; the foreign ser vice of most countries is the most obvious locus for class bias in personnel selection. Bureaucracies also utilize formal rules, such as the requirement for degrees or the difficulties in moving from one class of civil ser vant to another (for example, the administrative and executive classes in the British civil ser vice prior to the Fulton Report), as a means of maintaining their recruitment patterns even in the face of democratization of the society and cultures of most Western societies. This tendency to preser ve a more elitist recruitment pattern may not even be conscious, and those doing the recruiting may simply be functioning with a mental picture of a good candidate that eliminates potentially ver y good working- class talent.

Education

We now have some inkling that education may be an important characteristic in describing public administrators, and especially those at the upper levels of the hierarchy. Again, there is less than comprehensive data, but we can get some

R E c R u i T i n g P u B l i c P E R S o n n E l

1 1 1

impression about the educational levels that differ across cultures and educational systems. As much as possible, we have attempted to group the data into categories that are comparable across countries and are meaningful to most readers. Doing this may have some costs in lost precision, but that disadvantage should be offset by increased comparability of the data. The previous discussion of the relationship of education and class in the selec- tion of administrative personnel should have led us to expect a well- educated group of people ser ving as upper- echelon administrators. This expectation is well justified by the data. Almost universally, higher- level administrative personnel tend to have some form of postsecondar y education, with the majority having completed the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree. In some cases, this education may be within the confines of a specialized administrative college, but there is nonetheless a definite postsecondar y phase of education for most administrators. This is true even for less- developed countries that have a scarcity of educated personnel. The data taken from Aberbach et al. (1981) indicate that civil ser vants tend to be more educated than employees in similar types of positions in the rest of the economy. This should be expected in most cases simply because such education is a formal requirement for appointment. Interesting here is that the United States and Canada, which are frequently cited as having more “democratic” political cultures, tend to have larger percentages of their upper civil ser vices lacking any postsecondar y education than do most other industrialized democracies. Israel, however, has by far the most open administrative structures, in part because of the newness of the countr y and in part because of the relatively poor pay levels. As well as having completed college or its equivalent, upper- level public administrators frequently have attended the more prestigious colleges and univer- sities. Studies of the British civil ser vice, for example, have shown over two- thirds of the senior civil ser vice as having gone to Oxford or Cambridge. The civil ser vice appears to have declining appeal for “Oxbridge” graduates, however (Drewr y and Butcher, 1991; Barberis, 1996). Suleiman (1978) also reports that the majority – and, in fact, over three- fourths – of the entrants to the ENA had their university education in Paris. Forty- two percent of these ENA entrants had their entire edu- cation in Paris. A later study shows over half of all ENA students having had all their education there, with another quarter having had their higher education there (Bourdieu, 1989). The dominance of top universities is especially pronounced in Japan, where the University of Tokyo and the University of Kyoto are the principal sources of talent for the senior civil ser vice (Koh, 1989, 86–94). A similar pattern is found for Seoul National University in South Korea and for the Universities of Athens and Salonika in Greece (Vernardakia and Papastathopoulos, 1989; Kim, 1990). Thus, in these cases, the importance of not only attending college but also attending the right college is indeed unmistakable. The American pattern of recruitment from universities is somewhat different from that of other political systems. The (now dated) analysis by Warner (1963) of the college attendance of American career executives shows a rather strong influence of large state- supported universities in the education of administrators. If foreign- ser vice executives are excluded, none of the Ivy League schools is among the top ten in terms of number of degrees held, and only three are in the top 30. Among foreign- ser vice executives, however, three of the Ivy League are in the top

Ta b le

3 .8

c ol

le ge

M aj

or s

of S

en io

r c

iv il

Se rv

an ts

(f or

th os

e w

ith c

ol le

ge B

ac kg

ro un

ds )

ni te

d U

ni te

d G

er m

an y

c Ja

pa n

d Re

pu bl

Tu rk

ey f

In di

a g

C an

ad a

h Sw

itz er

la nd

i Is

ra el

K in

gd om

a St

at es

b (1

9 8

7 )

(1 9

8 6

) of

K or

ea e

(1 9

6 3

) (1

9 4

7 –6

3 )

(1 9

7 7

–8 8

) (1

9 8

7 )

(1 9

8 6

) M

aj or

9 7

0 –4

) (1

9 8

6 –8

)

9 8

2 )

n at

ur al

s ci

en ce

3 2

2 3

3 4

2 8

1 7

So ci

al s

ci en

—

1 h

um an

iti es

2 3

—

1 3

2 1

1 1

7 Ec

on om

ic s

an d

b us

in es

s —

1 8

—

1 6

5 3

2 5

la w

6 3

3 2

—

1 9

1 0

o th

1 8

—

1 5

—

— To

ta l

9 9

0 2

0 1

0 0

4 2

0 1

0 0

et he

rla nd

s k B

el gi

um l

Ita ly

m D

en m

ar k n

nl an

d o

N or

w ay

p Br

az il

q G

re ec

e r

Sp ai

n s

Fr an

ce t

M aj

(1 9

8 8

) (1

9 7

6 –8

4 )

(1 9

7 2

–4 )

(1 9

9 3

) (1

9 8

0 )

(1 9

8 0

) (1

9 7

2 )

(1 9

8 8

) (1

9 9

6 )

(5 th

R ep

ub lic

)

n at

ur al

s ci

en ce

2 0

—

1 4

2 2

2 0

2 So

ci al

s ci

en ce

2 8

—

1 9

2 2

2 h

um an

iti es

—

3 7

—

6 7

7 Ec

on om

ic s

an d

b us

in es

s —

—

1 9

la w

3 5

1 0

3 8

7 3

o th

1 9

—

1 9

1 7

—

To ta

l 1

0 0

0 1

0 0

0 1

0 0

4 0

So ur

ce s:

a Jo

el D

. a

be rb

ac h,

R ob

er t D

. Pu

tn am

a nd

B er

t a . Ro

ck m

an , Bu

re au

cr at

s an

d Po

lit ic

ia ns

in W

es te

rn D

em oc

ra ci

es (c

am br

id ge

, M

a : h

ar va

rd u

ni ve

rs ity

es s,

1 9

8 1 ),

p. 5

2 .

b Jo

el D

. a

be rb

ac h,

h an

s-u lri

ch D

er lie

n, R

an at

e M

ay nt

z an

d Be

rt a

. Ro

ck m

an , “h

au ts

fo nc

tio nn

ai re

s fé

de ra

ux a

m er

ic ai

ns e

t a lle

m an

ds : at

tit ud

te ch

no cr

at iq

ue s

et p

ol iti

qu es

,” R

ev ue

in te

rn at

io na

le d

es s

ci en

ce s

so ci

al es

, 1

2 (1

9 9

0 ),

p. 7

  

c h

an s-u

lri ch

D er

lie n

an d

Re na

te M

ay nt

z, E

in st

el lu

ng en

d er

p ol

iti sc

h- ad

m in

is tra

tiv en

E lit

e de

s Bu

nd es

1 9

8 7 (B

am be

rg : u

ni ve

rs ity

o f B

am be

rg , le

hr tu

hl fü

r Ve

rw al

tu ng

sw is

se ns

ch af

t, 1 9 8 8 ).

d B.

c . K oh

, Ja

pa n’

s A

dm in

is tra

tiv e

El ite

(B er

ke le

y: u

ni ve

rs ity

o f c

al ifo

rn ia

P re

ss , 1

9 8

9 ) p

. 1

3 7

. e

Pa n

S. K

im ,

“W ho

S er

ve s

th e

St at

e: E

du ca

tio na

l B ac

kg ro

un ds

o f S

ou th

K or

ea n

an d

Ja pa

ne se

B ur

ea uc

ra ts

,” u

np ub

lis he

d pa

pe r,

D ep

ar tm

en t o

f u rb

St ud

ie s

an d

Pu bl

ic a

dm in

is tra

tio n,

o ld

D om

in io

n u

ni ve

rs ity

, 1

9 9

1 .

f Re

pu bl

ic o

f T ur

ke y,

o ffi

ce o

f t he

P rim

e M

in is

te r,

St at

e in

st itu

te o

f S ta

tis tic

s, g

ov er

nm en

t P er

so nn

el S

er vi

ce S

ta tis

tic s

i ( a

nk ar

a: S

ta te

in st

itu te

o f S

ta tis

tic s,

9 6

5 ),

pp .

3 2 –9

. g

V. S

ub re

m an

ia n,

S oc

ia l B

ac kg

ro un

d of

In di

a’ s

A dm

in is

tra to

rs (n

ew D

el hi

, M

in is

tr y

of E

du ca

tio n,

1 9

7 1

), p.

1 5

5 .

h Ja

cq ue

s Bo

ur ga

ul t a

nd S

té ph

an e

D io

n, T

he C

ha ng

in g

Pr ofi

le o

f F ed

er al

D ep

ut y

M in

is te

rs 1

8 6

7 to

1 9

8 8 (o

tta w

a: c

an ad

ia n

c en

te r

fo r

M an

ag em

en t

D ev

el op

m en

t, 1 9 9 1 ).

i Pa

ol o

u rio

, So

ci ol

og ie

p ol

iti qu

e de

la h

au te

a dm

in is

tra tio

n pu

bl iq

ue e

n Su

is se

(P ar

is : Ec

on om

ic a,

1 9

8 9

), p.

4 0

. j

D av

id n

ac hm

ia s,

“ is

ra el

’s B

ur ea

uc ra

tic E

lit e:

S oc

ia l S

tru ct

ur e

an d

Pa tro

na ge

,” P

ub lic

A dm

in is

tra tio

n Re

vi ew

, 5

1 (1

9 9

1 ),

pp . 4 1 8 –1

9 .

k F.

v an

d er

M ee

r an

d J.

R aa

ds ch

el de

rs ,

“S en

io r

c iv

il Se

rv ic

e in

th e

n et

he rla

nd s,

” in

E . c

. Pa

ge a

nd V

. W

rig ht

, ed

s, o

p. c

it. l

R. D

ep re

a nd

a nn

ie h

on de

gh em

, “R

ec ru

itm en

t, c

ar rie

re e

t f or

m at

io n

de s

fo nc

tio nn

ai re

s su

pe rie

ur s

en B

el gi

qu e,

” in

D es

ire D

e Sa

ed el

ee r

et a

l., L

a ha

ut e

fo nc

tio n

pu bl

iq ue

e n

Be lg

iq ue

e t d

an s

le s

pa ys

in du

st ria

lis és

(B ru

ss el

s: in

te rn

at io

na l i

ns tit

ut e

of a

dm in

is tra

tiv e

Sc ie

nc e,

1 9

8 8 ).

m a

be ra

ch , Pu

tn am

a nd

R oc

km an

, Bu

re au

cr at

s an

d Po

lit ic

ia ns

. n

h . n

. Je

ns en

a nd

T .

K nu

ds en

, “D

an is

h c

en tra

l a dm

in is

tra tio

n, ”

in E

. c

. Pa

ge a

nd V

. W

rig ht

, ed

s, o

p. c

it. o

K ris

te r

St åh

lb er

g, “

D e

st at

lig a

an st

ål id

a i F

in la

nd ,”

in ib

id .

p Pe

r la

eg re

id a

nd P

au l R

on es

s, “

D e

st at

lig t a

ns tå

lid a

i n or

ge ,”

in ib

id .

q Pa

ol o

Ro be

rto M

ot ta

, “T

he B

ra zi

lia n

Bu re

au cr

at ic

E lit

e, ”

un pu

bl is

he d

Ph .D

. di

ss er

ta tio

n, u

ni ve

rs ity

o f n

or th

c ar

ol in

a, 1

9 7 2 .

r g

eo rg

e Ve

nd en

dr ak

is a

nd c

at he

rin e

D .

Pa pa

st at

ho po

ul os

, “T

he h

ig he

r c

iv il

Se rv

ic e

in g

re ec

e, ”

In te

rn at

io na

l R ev

ie w

o f A

dm in

is tra

tiv e

Sc ie

nc es

, 5 5

(1 9

8 9

), pp

. 6 0 3 –2

9 .

s i.

M ol

in a,

“ Sp

ai n:

S til

l t he

P rim

ac y

of c

or po

ra tis

m ,”

in E

. c

. Pa

ge a

nd V

. W

rig ht

, ed

s, B

ur ea

uc ra

tic E

lit e

in W

es t E

ur op

ea n

St at

es (o

xf or

d: o

xf or

d u

ni ve

rs ity

P re

ss ,

1 9 9 9 ).

t l.

R ou

ba n,

L es

P re

fe ts

d e

la R

ep ub

liq ue

(P ar

is :

c ev

ip of

, 2

0 0

0 ).

T h E P o l i T i c S o F B u R E a u c R a c y

1 1 4

ten, and all eight schools are in the top 30. Later evidence tends to confirm the position of large state universities, especially those of the Midwest, as the breeding ground of future civil ser vants (Aberbach and Rockman, 1990). These data would appear to offer some support for the conception of American society and its admin- istrative system as being somewhat more open than most. It further supports the contention that public ser vice in the United States has been an important means of social mobility, a factor we will elaborate on when discussing the ethnic representa- tiveness of the civil ser vice. The last question to be asked concerning the educational backgrounds of these administrators is the type of degree obtained. Here we are interested in the degree of technical or functional expertise that the administrators are likely to be carr ying into their work as a function of their college education. We have already reported some data of this type for the United Kingdom, and they are reproduced in Tables 3.7 and 3.8 along with data for such other countries as were available. There is considerably more variance in the types of education received than in the level of education, with apparently three rather distinct groups of educational degree types in this nonrandom sampling of administrative systems. The first pattern is represented by the United Kingdom, with a great empha- sis on general education, the arts, and humanities, and consequently less emphasis on technical ability. As was noted, this is indicative of the generalist conception of administration in the United Kingdom. A second type is typified by Germany, Austria, and Sweden. These systems place heavy emphasis on legal training, and consequently about two- thirds of their administrators have legal backgrounds. Many of the remainder also possess some form of professional qualification, such as engineering, medical, or educational degrees. France is somewhat similar but goes a step further by providing most of the future upper echelon of the administra- tion legal, management, and economics training through ENA. All of these systems have a strong emphasis on the legal role of the civil ser vice so that this pattern of education is crucial for success within the system. The final pattern of educational backgrounds is typified by the United States and several underdeveloped countries. The principal characteristic of these coun- tries is the relatively large percentage of natural science (including engineering) backgrounds in the civil ser vice. As was noted above, the United States tends to hire people with specialized backgrounds to do specialized jobs rather than hiring generally qualified personnel. In the Third World countries there is a need to con- centrate the available technical talent in the countr y and to make the most efficient use of this scarce resource. One way of doing this is to hire as much talent as possible in government and then use the government as the means of allocating total societal resources. Moreover, given the relatively underdeveloped state of the economies of many of these countries, the only real employment options for edu- cated individuals may be to work for the government. Many political considerations may prevent the public bureaucracy in underdeveloped countries from fulfilling their potential for administering programs of social and economic change. It would appear, however, from these data that many of the countries do have the raw mate- rial, in terms of personnel within their bureaucracies (especially relative to the pool of educated and trained talent available), that might make those socioeconomic reforms successful.

R E c R u i T i n g P u B l i c P E R S o n n E l

1 1 5

Ethnic Representativeness

Another question to be looked at in the presentation of background data on civil ser vices is the ethnic representativeness of the bureaucracies. Just as there is some cause for concern about the representativeness of public bureaucracies according to social class, so is there concern over their equality in recruitment of various minorities within the society. We may expect the same sort of pattern as was found with respect to class, with the dominant community having a disproportionate share of the members of the civil ser vice, especially in elite positions. As the data in Table 3.9 show, these suspicions are confirmed. In most cases, there is a distinct overrepresentation of the dominant racial, language, or religious group. As with the findings for social class, this may be the result of applying the usual educational criteria, not the result of overt discrimination. Three special points should be made with respect to ethnic representation in the public bureaucracy. The first is that the data that are presented are primarily for upper- echelon personnel; as we go farther down the bureaucracy, the importance of the representativeness of the organization should increase rather than decrease. We have noted the importance of the client- contact personnel of agencies for the success of the agency in ser ving its clients. Such limited information as does exist on the lower echelons of public agencies indicates that they are more representa- tive than are upper, managerial positions (see Meyers and Vorsanger, 2004). These more representative lower echelons may therefore be expected to be more suc- cessful in dealing with their clientele than would top management. Also, the public sector may not be perceived as being as unrepresentative as it actually is, simply because the clients may deal only with the relatively more representative lower echelons. The second point about ethnicity and representativeness is that this is fre- quently a point of bargaining in societies attempting to manage severe internal ethnic divisions. In some societies, most noticeably Belgium, this has gone to the extent of dividing several important ministries by ethnicity (in this case, language) and actually providing two ethnically homogeneous units instead of one integrated unit that might tend to advantage one group or another. Another variant of the same pattern is the Austrian method of carefully dividing the posts in each ministr y according to ethnicity or, more specifically in this case, religious or nonreligious preferences (Liegl and Mueller, 1999). Similarly, the division of posts in the Leba- nese administrative system among the numerous religious groups in that society was an important part of the bargain holding that other wise tenuous union together prior to 1975. Thus, there is no necessity for having unrepresentative bureaucra- cies in ethnically plural societies, but the equalization of the ser vice often requires explicit bargaining and a recognition of the role of the bureaucracy in institutional- izing ethnic cleavage. The third point is that even when there are active programs to recruit members of minority populations, they may not alter the representativeness of the civil ser vice. Affirmative action programs have made only slow progress in recruit- ing nonwhites in the American civil ser vice. Similarly, legal provisions to benefit certain “scheduled” castes and tribes in India that have been discriminated against historically have produced ver y few members in the civil ser vice, and especially

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R E c R u i T i n g P u B l i c P E R S o n n E l

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few at the upper echelons (Sharma and Reddy, 1982). As with the representative- ness of the civil ser vice by class, educational and other social barriers may have to be overcome before legal efforts at greater ethnic representativeness have the intended effects. A final point to be made about the ethnic representativeness of the civil ser vice is that the civil ser vice has ser ved as a means of social advancement for minority groups, in par t because of its reliance upon relatively objective crite- ria for recruitment. For example, while blacks and Hispanics constitute a rather small percentage of the civil ser vice in the United States, they actually comprise a higher percentage there than in total employment in the economy. This would be especially true of nonwhite employment in white- collar and managerial positions, although the relative decline of public sector salaries combined with the increas- ing openness of business to minority employees has made the public sector a less attractive employer in the United States. Similarly, the civil ser vice has ser ved as a means of social and economic advancement for Italians from the poorer south- ern region; in 1978, 56 percent of the Italian civil ser vice came from the southern par t of the peninsula and Sicily, although only 33 percent of the population lived in these regions (Ferraresi, 1980, 114–17). This pattern of regional recruitment does not appear to be changing rapidly, even with pressures from nor thern politi- cal groups who increasingly appear to resent being governed by southerners (Cassese, 1997). The European Community represents a special case of a political system attempting to ensure equality of recruitment in the public ser vice. Community laws and regulations call for recruitment of civil ser vice personnel in proportion to the populations of the member countries, but there are wide disparities in the extent to which member nationals have been offered and accepted positions in the Euro- pean bureaucracy (Table 3.10). It is not surprising that there are relatively more

Table 3.10 Employment in the European community Bureaucracy and Population by country (Percentage)

Upper-Echelon Total Population Positions Positions

Belgium 7.9 12.0 3.1 Denmark 3.6 6.5 1.6 France 17.8 15.2 17.2 germany 15.5 10.2 18.9 greece 5.6 6.2 3.1 ireland 3.6. 2.0 1.1 italy 12.5 17.3 11.5 luxembourg 2.3 8.7 0.1 netherlands 5.6 6.3 4.5 Portugal 4.3 3.7 3.2 Spain 6.3 3.9 12.0 united Kingdom 14.9 8.1 17.6

Source: house of lords Select committee on the European communities, 11th Report, Staffing of Community Institutions, hl 66 (london: hMSo, 1986).

T h E P o l i T i c S o F B u R E a u c R a c y

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Belgian and Luxembourger employees, given that most EC offices are located in Brussels and Luxembourg, but there still is a differential attraction of senior posi- tions in the EC bureaucracy. Spain is markedly under- represented at all levels of the EC bureaucracy, as are the United Kingdom and Germany to a lesser extent. This pattern appears related to the differential attractiveness – in career and financial terms – for senior civil ser vants in different countries, as well as some attempt to ensure that all countries have some representation in the upper levels of the Brus- sels bureaucracy. The differential recruitment may, however, represent a political problem for countries who believe that they do not receive enough good jobs for their people and that EC decision makers may be stacked against them.

Gender Equality

A final dimension of representativeness is gender. The issue of equal treatment of women has become increasingly important in all phases of social and political life, and the public bureaucracy is no different. The issue in the civil ser vice is, in general, not about the total number of women employed; most governments already employ large numbers of women, and in many countries more than half of total public employment is female (Rose, 1987). Even in countries that histori- cally have assigned an unequal role to women, there have been some increases in employment of women (Rawaf, 1990). The issue of gender equality centers prima- rily on the types of positions in which women are employed. Women often comprise a large proportion of public sector employment, and over half in some, but they are concentrated in lower- level positions. The majority of women in the civil ser vice of almost ever y countr y are employed in lower- level jobs, such as clerks and typists, rather than in the higher civil ser vice. Table 3.11 clearly shows the disparity between the total number of women employed in the public sector and the number employed in upper- echelon govern- ment positions. Although, in some cases, over half of total civil ser vice employment is comprised of women, in no case does the higher civil ser vice have more than 15 percent women. Further, that 15 percent figure is reached only in Nor way; the average is only 4.6 percent women in the higher civil ser vice. Women have fared somewhat better in subnational governments, with over a quarter of top employ- ees in some German Länder being women. There is, however, evidence that the proportion of women in senior positions in the civil ser vice continues to increase rapidly. As with the cases of class and ethnic representativeness, we must consider whether these obser ved employment patterns are the result of overt discrimina- tion or reflect other social, economic, or historical factors. It would be difficult to dispute that there has been overt discrimination against women in recruitment to senior posts in government, although the civil ser vice has probably been more open than many other occupations. In addition, historically there have been rela- tively few women putting themselves for ward for the top government positions, or even having the necessar y educational qualifications. As the more overt discrimi- nation lessens, it will still require time for larger numbers of women to be recruited into entr y- level positions for the higher civil ser vice and then to work their way up

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Table 3.11 Employment of Women in the civil Service (Percentage)

Total in In Higher Country Civil Service Civil Service

australia 39 2 Belgium 40 7 canada 47 23 czechoslovakia 67 ? Finland 51 4 France 48 13 greece 31 7 guadeloupe 51 ? guyana 39 ? hong Kong ? 7 israel 52 3 italy 35 4 netherlands 19 2 new Zealand ? 2 norway 47 15 Spain 14 ? Sweden 42 5 Switzerland 26 2 united Kingdom 55 7 united States 51 16 germany 47 9

Sources: charles Debbasch, ed., La fonction publique en Europe (Paris: cnRS, 1981); andre Molitor, L’Administration de la Belgique (Brussels: centre de recherche et d’information socio- politique, 1974); Per laegreid and Johan olsen, Byråkrati og Beslutningar (Bergen: universitetsforlaget, 1978); John P. Burns, “The changing Pattern of Bureaucratic Representation: The case of the hong Kong civil Service,” Indian Journal of Political Science, 27 (1981), pp. 398–429; Royal commission on australian government administration, Report, appendix 3 (canberra: australian government Publishing Service, 1976); P. K. Kuruvilla, “Public Sector Recruitment in canada: Some Perspectives and Problems,” Indian Journal of Public Administration, 26 (1980), pp. 62–90; Jacques Bourgault and Stéphane Dion, The Changing Profile of Federal Deputy Ministers 1867–1988 (ottawa: canadian center for Management Development, 1991); Phillipe clerdieu and christian Theresine, “la fonction publique en guadeloupe – comparisons avec les autres DoM,” Revue Française d’Administration Publique, 31 (1984), pp. 89–120; La fonction publique de l’État (Paris: la Documentation Française, 1998); Richard Rose et al., Public Employment in Western Nations (cambridge: cambridge university Press, 1985); David nachmias, “israel’s Bureaucratic Elite: Social Structure and Patronage,” Public Administration Review, 51 (1991), p. 415; Robin Williams, “The Staffing and Structure of the Public Sector,” in R. M. alley, ed., State Servants and the Public in the 1980s (Wellington: new Zealand institute of Public administration, 1986); uS office of Personal Management, Affirmative Employment Statistics (Washington, Dc: uSoPM, biennial); Data from comparative Public Service Project, Department of Politics, university of Strathclyde.

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the career ladder. Countries that have more open career structures, such as the United States, will be able to accommodate to these changes more rapidly than will those with closed structures requiring years to work up a ladder.

Summary

Several general points about the composition and the representativeness of public bureaucracies arise from the discussion in this chapter. The first is that although public bureaucracies may be highly unrepresentative institutions, they are gener- ally less unrepresentative than other public elites in the same countries. The simple point is that elites are unrepresentative by the ver y function of their being elites. Success in society is related to social background, educational opportunities and interests, and the elite that a society may select to govern it will differ only at the margins in most cases from an elite appointed to govern – at least in terms of their social and educational backgrounds. The dangers of elitism and unrepresentative- ness in public life are general, therefore, and not confined simply to the public bureaucracy. They are only more apparent in the bureaucracy where the emphasis on merit criteria and open recruitment makes it a more ostensibly democratic insti- tution in its selection. But, as Max Weber (1930) pointed out: “These words should not be taken as an exoneration of bureaucracies for their often elitist practices, but rather as a means of placing the problem of representative and unrepresentative bureaucracy in clearer perspective.” Further, we should remember that most of the studies pointing to the unrepresentativeness of the civil ser vice are studies of the higher civil ser vice, and that the ser vice as a whole does tend to be more repre- sentative. As the lower echelons of the ser vice interact directly with clients, govern- ment may in fact appear more representative and, therefore, more democratic than it is (Gerth and Mills, 1991, 240). The second point is that all the furor over social class and ethnic background of administrators, especially top administrators, may be a somewhat misplaced attack on the institutions. Much analysis has shown that social background tends to have a rather slight effect on behavior in public office. This is true of legislators, judges, and administrators. A more important determinant of behavior appears to be the nature of the organization and the goals of the agency. Again, this may be especially true at upper echelons; greater representativeness at lower levels may enable gov- ernment to cope adequately with the clientele that an agency may ser ve. This is not to say that this need be simply a cosmetic gesture on the part of the agency; rather, it is a real need to be effective in interacting with and ser ving the clientele. But the more general point remains that in order to change the policy outcomes from the public bureaucracy, one may have to do more than simply gradually replace admin- istrators drawn from one social class with administrators recruited more broadly from society. The operating routines of agencies, the tendency toward conser va- tism in organizations in general, and the process of organizational socialization all tend to reduce the variability of individuals in the organization, regardless of their social background. Thus, changing policy may be a considerably more complex topic, and it is one that will be probed extensively during the remainder of this volume.

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Public policy does involve a human element. This chapter opened with a discussion of the failure of traditional models of bureaucracy to take into account human differences and variability. The differences, however, may be as much (or more) in values, motives, and goals than in social background. We touched on this briefly when discussing the incentive structures of public bureaucracies, and also when discussing the administrative cultures of society. Thus, studies of recruitment need to delve somewhat into the nature of the personnel recruited to administrative careers, to determine not only where they came from but, more important, where they think they (and the society) are going. The values that are relevant are not just those about the specific programs that the individuals will be administering, but should also extend to questions of accountability and political control of bureauc- racy. These values are not necessarily related to education or background but may say more about the suitability of the recruit for working in government, especially a democratic government.

1 2 3

C h a p t e r 4

Problems of Administrative Structure

Germany 124 The United Kingdom 127 France 130 Sweden 133 The United States 135 The Structure of Administration 137 Internal Organization 153 Summary 161

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Concern over the structure and design of organizations has traditionally dominated the study of public administration. The focus may result from the absence of any readily quantifiable measures of organizational performance – such as profit – in public organizations, so that greater attention must be devoted to practical and the- oretical questions of organizational design. Moreover, the responsibility of public organizations to external political actors and institutions, and the general oppro- brium associated with the word “bureaucracy” also have placed pressure on public administrators to design the perfect organization. For whatever reason, public administration has been almost obsessed with constructing the best organizational structures for implementing public programs (see Hult and Wolcott, 1990). The tendency to focus on structural solutions for the problems of public administration reached one zenith during the 1920s and 1930s with the presumably scientific theories of administration, dismissed by Simon (1947) as the “proverbs of administration,” advocating concepts such as unity of command, span of control, and POSDCORB (Planning, Organizing, Directing, Coordinating, Reporting, Budg- eting) management (Gulick and Ur wick, 1936). The 1980s and 1990s have been another high point in the search for the best possible forms of administrative struc- ture. The reforms implemented in this period have had a number of pro cedural and behavioral elements, but they also had a strong structural component (see Chapter 9). In addition, the structure of the public sector depends ver y significantly upon histor y and economic and social conditions, as well as upon ideas about the purposes of government. The reform of government is a common activity, but no reform, however well informed by organization theor y, is likely to be able to over- come all the inherited traditions embodied within the machiner y of government in any society (Painter and Peters, 2010). Unless that macro level of organizational constraint is understood, any attempt to alter the character of the internal function- ing of the organization is doomed to failure. This chapter has two objectives. The first is to describe in a brief fashion five major administrative systems, representing a range of variation along a number of dimensions of public administration. These descriptions should provide the reader with some basic information about how administrative systems are structured, and how various components fit together to form a more or less coherent whole. Second, the chapter will examine several points concerning governmental struc- tures that are raised by organizational theor y and assess the responses made by governments as they structure and restructure their administrative systems. The range of these answers can be used to gain a better idea about the relationship of organizational structure to the functioning of the public sector.

Germany

Germany is the heir to a long tradition of administrative development, beginning with the Prussian reforms of 1807–11. This development has produced a highly professionalized civil ser vice, based upon a merit system of recruitment and pos- sessing a high degree of commitment to the ser vice of the state. The nature of the civil ser vice has been altered ver y little by the numerous political changes that

P r O B l e m S O F A d m I n I S T r A T I v e S T r U c T U r e

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have taken place in Germany since the days of the Hohenzollern Empire. Much of the old civil ser vice law remained in place in East Germany as well as in West Germany, so that, after the reunification, the legal requirements for participating in the civil ser vice, if not their implementation, were similar in the two parts of the countr y (Pohl, 1991). The contemporar y structure of administration is highly decentralized in some ways, although some aspects of administration remain centralized. A relatively small percentage of the total number of civil ser vants in Germany were employed directly by the central (Bund) government. The central ministries of the Bund gov- ernment are small planning organizations that develop policies to be implemented by the state (Land) governments (Helms, 2003). The major exceptions to this gen- eralization are the militar y, the post office, and the relatively few remaining nation- alized industries. Of the approximately 5.1 million public employees in Germany, only approximately 11 percent are employees of the central government (Table 4.1). However, despite the decentralization of the implementation structures, the procedures and standards of public administration remain centralized. All public employees must meet the same general standards for employment, as well as those of the particular positions for which they are employed, and all are subject to the legal strictures. Likewise, their training after entr y into the public ser vice is central- ized and super vised by the central government. Unlike the situation in the majority of other nations, the similar legal requirements and procedures apply to many of the employees of the nationalized industries such as those remaining in the state railways. Public employment in Germany is divided into several broad classifications, with admission to each dependent upon specific educational qualifications. The highest level are civil ser vants, or Beamten, and their conditions of employment are determined by civil ser vice law. This level of employment requires university edu- cation and passing an examination administered by a board composed of practicing civil ser vants and professors (actually, in Germany, professors are civil ser vants).

Table 4.1 reduction in the number of local Government Units

Number of Population units per unit

Country (basic unit) 1951 1982 1982

France (commune) 37,983 36,391 1,500 United States (All General Purpose) 41,029 38,732 6,700 Germany (municipality) 24,500 8,510 7,200 norway (municipalities) 746 454 9,000 Belgium (commune) 2,670 596 16,700 netherlands (municipalities) 1,014 820 17,000 Sweden (commune) 2,500 279 29,800 United Kingdom (districts) c.1,500 484 115,100

Sources: richard rose, Understanding Big Government (london: Sage, 1984); US Bureau of the census, Statistical Abstract of the United States (Washington, dc: Government Printing Office, annual).

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The Beamten might be seen as roughly equivalent to the Senior Executive Ser vice in the United States, or the old Administrative Class in the British civil ser vice. They occupy the principal decision- making posts in the bureaucracy and consequently can substantially influence the outcomes of policy making. A second categor y of employment, the Angestellen Dienst, is not strictly made up of civil ser vants but it constitutes the major body of clerical and other lower- level white-collar employees. Finally, there are the Arbeiters (workers), who constitute the blue collar work force in the nationalized industries and in conventional governmental functions, such as sanitation and streets. Most civil ser vants who become Beamte will have a university degree in law (the so- called Justiemonopol), although those who will pursue more specialized and technical careers may have degrees in economics or science and engineering. The continuing importance of law, however, does point to the continuing legalistic conception of administration in Germany (the concept of the Rechtstaat – govern- ment and governing being defined by law – is dominant in German administration). Public administration is commonly seen as the application of the law to particular circumstances, rather than policy making. This is, of course, a mechanistic con- ception of the inherently political process of administration, but it is one that has persisted long after Weber wrote about administration in such terms. This reliance on law also constituted a problem for reunification, given that legal training in com- munist East Germany was significantly different from that in West Germany and the civil ser vice inherited from the East was not of much use in implementing laws drawn primarily from the West German system. Contrar y to practice in most Anglo- Saxon countries, once the individual obtains the status of civil ser vant, it remains with him or her. Thus, the status is vested in the individual, not in the position that the individual occupies at any par ticular time. This system allows the civil ser vant to engage in political activi- ties, although if the individual is successful in obtaining elective office then he or she will have to resign the civil ser vice position. As impor tant as the status of civil ser vant is, however, the position may be more subject to influence by politi- cal leaders than would be true in many other countries. The political leaders have the power to pension of f any members of the higher civil ser vice (those positions being defined as “political” despite their legalistic trappings) and to appoint any qualified person to fill the resulting vacancy. A number of civil positions may be filled by external candidates, especially when there is a change in political par ties organizing government. Thus, although this is a career civil ser vice, it is a career ser vice with substantial room for political influence and outside appointment to top posts. A special case of the connection between politics and administration in Germany is the attempt to prevent students who have been involved in radical political activity from becoming civil ser vants (the Berufsverbot). This was espe- cially important during the period of student activism in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but continues as a means of ensuring that those employed by government are favorably disposed toward the continuance of the democratic political institu- tions established in postwar Germany, a policy perhaps supported by a fear of the fragility of those institutions. While there have been legal challenges to this princi- ple, it remains largely intact, and most recently has been applied to members of the

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Church of Scientology. This principle has also proved extremely useful in sorting out the civil ser vants coming from the former East Germany and deciding who could continue to ser ve the state and who could not. Thus, the administrative structures of West Germany present an internal contradiction. On the one hand, the role of the public ser vant is considered to be highly legalistic, and the definition of the activities attached is strictly defined by statutes. On the other hand, there is considerable involvement in politics by admin- istrators, and some political involvement in administration. The legalistic, Weberian definition of administration simply does not apply to a complex political system administering a wide variety of politically sensitive programs, but there is a desire to maintain some of the high status and quasi- judicial trappings of the civil ser vant. This mixture need not be dysfunctional, for the legalism and high status of the Beamte can be utilized as a means of making what are patently political decisions more acceptable to the public.

The United Kingdom

Attempting to capture the complexity of British administration in a few pages is a difficult task, and becoming increasingly so as the system has continued to reform extensively. Unlike many of the other countries under discussion, British adminis- tration evolved over centuries with few attempts (and even fewer successful ones) to rationalize and reorganize the machiner y of government. Further, unlike the case with the continental countries, bureaucracy and administration have only recently played a prominent role in British thinking about government. As a con- sequence of both of those factors, British administration developed by accretion with relatively little planning and, arguably, without a central organizational format that would make the system more comprehensible. The major exception to this has been the decades following the election of Margaret Thatcher in which succes- sive Conser vative and then Labour governments have systematically transformed administration. To gain some understanding of this complexity of administration, it is first necessar y to identify the major organizations in British government. There are five major types, each of which stands in a different relationship to the political author- ity of parliament and cabinet. The executive departments, such as the Department of Health or the Ministr y of Justice, are most closely connected to that authority. These are typically staffed by civil ser vants (in the restrictive sense of the term), are headed by a politician sitting in Cabinet, and have somewhat similar forms of organization. There is generally a Permanent Secretar y at the top of the civil ser vice pyramid who ser ves as the link between a small number of political leaders and the permanent officials. However, despite their importance and their familiarity to most citizens, these organizations employ a relatively small and declining proportion of total public employees in the United Kingdom (now less than 6 percent). Their legislative actions, however, establish the legal framework within which most other organizations and public employees function. Also, the Treasur y and the Cabinet Office at the heart of this collection of organizations help to determine overall gov- ernment policy.

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The Thatcher government moved a number of the administrative and imple- mentation functions of the executive departments into numerous executive agen- cies, in an exercise referred to as “Next Steps” (James, 2003). These agencies are each linked to a department, but also have a great deal of autonomy in how they organize themselves. The plan was that these organizations would act almost as private corporations seeking to maximize their revenue from ser vice if they can sell their ser vices, e.g., the Passport Office, or tr ying to minimize costs if they had a firmly established budget. Further, the heads of the agencies are not technically civil ser vants but are hired on performance contracts so that they are rewarded by how well the agency performs, and can be dismissed more easily than could civil ser vants. The third form of organization is local government. The United Kingdom is a unitar y government, so the number and functions of local authorities are control- led by the central government, and much of the cost of local government is borne by the central government. Despite this centralization, local authorities enjoy some freedom in the way in which they structure their own organizations, and to some degree in the qualifications they impose on their employees. They have almost as much latitude in those regards as subnational governments in federal Germany, although much less latitude in making policy. The breakup of the six metropolitan governments and the Greater London Council by the Conser vative government has introduced greater complexity, with a number of special- purpose authorities, such as transportation, covering metro- politan areas (Young, 1986). Also, after devolution Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland now have their own governments with their own employees. The sub- national level in Britain is highly complex, even in the face of increased central government dominance over policy. These governments are also rather large in employment terms (approximately 70 percent of total public employment) and are responsible for implementing many central government programs as well as their own functions. The fourth major group of public employees comprises the health services. These employees stand in a variety of relationships to government, depending upon how they are employed and what functions they perform. In general, the employ- ees of the National Health Ser vice are definitely public employees, but they are not civil ser vants. Consequently, many of the benefits – and restrictions – of civil ser vice employment do not apply to them. Hospital physicians (consultants) and all other employees of hospitals are salaried public employees, although they are employees of the National Health Ser vice and not of government per se. General practitioners, on the other hand, are paid on the basis of the number of patients on their register, as well as for performing certain ser vices for their patients, and function under a contract with the National Health Ser vice. As the ideas of the New Public Management have become more dominant in the United Kingdom GPs are also now on performance contracts. Finally, there are a number of nondepartmental public bodies in the structure of British government. These bodies are, in turn, divisible into two groups. One consists of the remnants of the nationalized industries. The nationalized indus- tries are a declining share of British government as the government has sold most industries – British Telecom, British Air ways, and British Gas, for example – for

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which buyers could be found. Within the classification of nationalized industries there are also some 150,000 industrial civil ser vants, with full civil ser vice status, employed primarily in government- owned enterprises supplying the Ministr y of Defense. With the end of the Cold War and the advance of a market conception of government, employment in this categor y is being cut drastically. In addition to the nationalized industries there are a number of nondepart- mental bodies, commonly referred to as quangos (quasi- nongovernmental organiza- tions), which represent a large number of different types of organizations standing in various relationships to government (Hogwood, 1982). Some are simply sections of cabinet departments that have been “hived off ” and may still be staffed by civil ser vants. These bodies would be quite similar to independent executive agencies in the United States in that they perform executive functions but are not components of cabinet departments. The universities represent another set of nondepartmental bodies that, while clearly in the public sector, are kept at arm’s length from govern- ment for reasons of academic freedom. During the 1980s and 1990s, however, the universities were brought closer to government for purposes of cost control and mandating increased levels of ser vice. Finally, there are the true quangos, organizations that are private, or partially private, but that spend public money and exercise the authority of government. Also, there are a number of advisor y bodies for ministries included among the quangos. These bodies at the fringe of government represent great difficulties in administrative accountability and control and were subject to a round of “quango bashing” during the Thatcher government. It should be pointed out, however, that some actions of the Thatcher government, such as reorganization of local government in the large metropolitan areas, actually have added to the number of quasi- independent bodies in British government, a trend that continued under John Major, further under the Labour government (Skelcher, 2000). The Conser va- tive government under David Cameron continued the pressure on quangos, albeit without much apparent success (Tomkiss and Dommett, 2013). The types of public employees staffing these institutions are almost as varied as the institutions themselves, and I will concentrate on the civil ser vice, and par- ticularly the top civil ser vice. The British civil ser vice made its first major move- ment toward modernization as a result of the Northcote- Trevelyan Report of 1853, which stressed the value of a civil ser vice recruited on the basis of merit. Also, the qualifications stressed by this report were of an abstract, intellectual variety, rather than the more practical qualifications traditionally employed in the United States. This report and its sequels resulted in a civil ser vice dominated by class composed almost entirely of honors graduates in the humanities (especially Clas- sics) who, though intelligent, did not have the training in the economic and techno- logical issues that they were increasingly called upon to administer. The careers of this administrative class were varied, with frequent changes among positions and even among departments; these civil ser vants did not specialize in the work of any particular department until rather late in their career. The administrative class was a closed career; if someone was not selected initially for this bracket in administra- tion, the opportunity to work one’s way up was extremely limited. Also, lateral entr y from the private sector was virtually unknown. All in all, this system produced a civil ser vice composed of “talented amateurs.”

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The British civil ser vice came under frequent attacks on the basis of these characteristics, and because of the closed nature of the system. The Thatcher and Major governments also opened the personnel system of the British government. First, Mrs. Thatcher did not trust the advice offered to her by career civil ser v- ants so she brought more personal advisors into government. More importantly, the “Next Steps” reforms mentioned above made the executive positions of the newly created agencies open to private sector as well as public sector applicants so that many principal managerial positions were occupied by individuals with limited public sector experience. The major policy advice positions remained in the hands of career civil ser vants, although the Blair government has formalized the position of political advisor to ministers (especially in the Prime Minister’s office). Also, it is argued that recent governments have asked much more than previous govern- ments “Is s/he one of us?” This question may be related to style as much as to partisan affiliation, but is still an important question about political influence over appointments. In summar y, the British system of administration has adapted slowly to external pressures for change. It retains much of its character as a group of (ver y) talented amateurs, with a good deal of internal differentiation. Despite the pres- sures from Conser vative governments skeptical about their abilities, top public administrators remain the “mandarins” of the political system. Private sector tech- niques, and private managers, have made some inroads, but public administration remains a major cog in the machiner y of government.

France

France has had a long tradition of centralized and strong government, going back at least to the reign of Louis XIV. Many of the administrative institutions developed by Napoleon I as emperor to govern France are still being used, and the princi- pal direction for government activity in France continues to emanate from Paris. This dominant role for the center is true despite several decentralizing reforms introduced by the Mitterrand and Chirac governments, and the activism of the newly created regions in dealing with the European Community. French govern- ment has been, if not dominated by bureaucracy, at least highly bureaucratic. This bureaucracy has been effective in many ways in governing even in the face of the instability of governments during the Third and Fourth Republics and in the face of large- scale economic and social change. This view may be overstated, but the bureaucracy continues to play a ver y significant role in French government and politics (Pfister, 1988). Although it is centralized, the French bureaucracy also has a number of inter- nal divisions. First, there are the vertical divisions between classes of administra- tion (now A through C), which roughly represent educational qualifications needed for positions, with the A categor y being the top administrative positions requir- ing at least a university- level education. The lower categories may require second- ar y education with the lowest requiring no particular education. As with the older conception of the administrative, executive, and clerical classes in the British civil ser vice, movement between these classes is rare. Again, this remains true despite

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attempts by the Mitterrand government to make advancement to the upper civil ser vice more open to the lower echelons (Bodiguel and Rouban, 1991, 98–102). Further, within each of these classes there are divisions based upon the nature of the position, specialty of the individual occupying the position, and so on. Perhaps the most important of all the divisions is the separation of class A into the grands corps, as well as some civil ser vants who do not belong to any of the corps. The grands corps constitute a vestige of Napoleonic administration and have been copied in other administrative systems influenced by the Napoleonic system – Spain, Italy, and some Latin American countries. The corps represent organizations within the civil ser vice and have some of the attributes of fraternal organizations (Thoenig, 1996). When an individual becomes a member of a corps, he or she remains a member for the duration of his or her career. There are two principal technical corps – Mines and Ponts et Chausses – and five major administra- tive corps – Inspection des Finances, Conseil d’État, Cour des Comptes, the diplomatic corps, and the prefectoral corps as well as several minor corps. The names attached to these corps reflect their functional tasks for government, e.g., financial manage- ment, but an individual remains a member of his or her corps regardless of whether or not that function is being performed. Further, the individual remains a member of the corps even if working in the private sector, and indeed the contacts between public and private sectors are increased (perhaps to detrimental levels) by the number of civil ser vants who have “parachuted” into the private sector – a practice called pantouflage (Rouban, 2003). The several grands corps represent something approaching governments within the government, as the informal contacts among members constitute a means of doing business even when formal channels are blocked. An individual becomes a member of one of the corps on the basis of perform- ance at one of the two major schools channeling people into the civil ser vice. One of the schools, which provides personnel for the technical corps, is the École Poly- technique, established by Napoleon to provide the engineers he required to mod- ernize France and to modernize its army. The other school, the École Nationale d’Administration (ENA), supplies recruits for the administrative corps. ENA was established in 1946 as the training ground for future public ser vants. Its curricu- lum stresses law, administration, and, to a lesser extent, finance, emphasizing the legalistic conception of administration in France – not dissimilar to the conception held in Germany. Entr y to the ENA is gained by one of two national examinations: one given to students completing their education at the university, and another for those already employed by government in lower- echelon positions. A third exami- nation – for those working in the private sector and especially for workers, union leaders, and the like – was introduced by the Socialist government but later aban- doned. It produced ver y few successful candidates and, as the size of the public sector was being reduced in the late 1980s, the demand for new “ENAcrats” dimin- ished markedly, along with the opportunities to make the senior civil ser vice more representative. Yet another division in French administration, one common to most admin- istrations but perhaps rather more intense in France, is among the departments and agencies. French administration has a traditional bureaucratic structure, with departments divided into a number of sections and subsections. This structure and

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the competitive nature of policy formation in the system makes the units in the administrative system extremely protective of their budgets and their access to cabinet and to the presidency. There has been a limited increase in the number of autonomous organizations in French government, but not to the extent found in many other countries. The members of the grands corps, and indeed any French civil ser vant, may become involved in politics. The members of the grands corps are par ticu- larly valued as political contacts because of their ties with the power ful and well- connected membership of their organizations. They are par ticularly visible as members of the cabinets of individual ministers (Chevallier, 2005). These cabinets are bodies of advisors for the minister of a government depar tment, and it has been considered essential to have members of the corps, such as the Inspection des Finances, in a cabinet. Socialist government have tended to involve higher civil administrators in cabinets and to purge the older, elitist corps. However, President Sarkozy, unlike other presidents, did not have the elite civil ser vice background and therefore was less concerned with having the Enacrats in his entourage (see Alam et al., 2014). Thus, the civil ser vice in France does not work under the same assumptions of impartiality as in Britain. Many senior civil ser vants are openly political and even participate in politics and hold public office. In fact, a large proportion of govern- ment ministers are civil ser vants or former civil ser vants. Of course, when a civil ser vant becomes involved politically, he or she may become persona non grata for subsequent governments. In that case, there are always opportunities outside gov- ernment for members of the grand corps. A large percentage of French public employees are not civil ser vants but, rather, work for nationalized industries or parastatal organizations (see Table 4.1). Despite some change, France has not progressed as far with privatization as many other European countries, so that there are still a large number of industrial public employees. The employees of public enterprises are clearly public employees but do not necessarily have the same civil ser vice perquisites of other government employees. There is an attempt to impose as much market discipline on these organizations as possible, and for this reason their employees are not tenured (except by arrangement with unions) and their salaries are not so tightly controlled by the grille as those of civil ser vants. Other public enterprises, notably La Poste, remain primarily components of the government, and their employees are civil ser vants. All of these public corporations are subject to pressures for privatization, but the French state remains a powerful economic actor. For example, although telecommunications companies have been spun off as Orange, government still owns a significant share of the firm. Local governments in France have only limited independence from the central government. The criteria for employment in local and regional governments are prescribed nationally. In addition, the major function of local government in most counties – education – is a national function, and the employees of local schools are actually direct employees of the Ministr y of Education in Paris. Likewise, many local public works are controlled centrally through the technical grands corps, so the latitude available to local governments to invest in capital projects as they wish is also limited.

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The latitude of local governments has been limited even further by the pre- fectoral system. France is divided into 95 départements, each named after a particu- lar geographical feature. These divisions are also a Napoleonic device designed to eliminate the traditional provinces in France, such as Burgundy and Normandy, which were perceived to limit loyalty to the nation. The préfet, also a Napoleonic invention, was designed to ensure that each of the départements was governed in the manner desired by the central government in Paris. Each département had a préfet who was responsible to the Ministr y of the Interior for the administration of government policy in his or her area. Prior to reforms beginning in the 1960s and 1970s almost any little thing a local government wished to do – repair a local street, for example – required the approval of the préfet and perhaps even officials in Paris. The powers of the préfet have been weakened further by the Socialists. Some changes have been symbolic, for example, changing the title to “Commissioner of the Republic.” Other changes are more genuine, with most executive power in the department now residing in the President of an elective departmental council. The “Commissioners” do continue to exercise some super visor y powers, although their powers of tutelle (instruction) have been abolished. Now, instead of being able to block local actions they consider illegal by fiat, they must sue in an administrative tribunal (Bezes and Le Lidec, 2010). The Commissioners do continue to have some importance in making sure that the saupoudrage (“pork barrel”) spending contin- ues to flow into their department and to its local governments. French administration remains legalistic and bureaucratic. Unlike the Anglo- Saxon countries that have shifted toward managerialist styles, public administra- tion in France has changed relatively little (but see Bezes and Le Lidec, 2010). One of the most important aspects of the legalism in French administration is the use of ex ante controls over administrative decisions exercised through the Conseil d’État and through the Inspection des Finances. Whereas some of the other administra- tive systems have more political checks on administrative actions, the need to get approval before action slows administrative action. In summar y, French administration is a vast and somewhat contradictor y institution. It has been a major weapon of a centralizing national government but is itself deeply divided and internally fractious. An administrative system that was for- merly highly centralizing is now becoming more decentralized than many admin- istrations that have appeared more open to local influence. French administration is highly legalistic in its own definitions of its work and in its relationships with citizens, but at the same time it is deeply involved with politics. Individuals derive great status from their connections with the grands corps but may spend some or most of their career in the private sector. This system has been capable of govern- ing France when there was little alternative governance available from politicians, but it is not entirely clear that it can always govern itself as effectively.

Sweden

Although it did not industrialize until much later, Sweden developed a skilled central bureaucracy quite early in its histor y. This development began during the reign of Gustavus Adolphus, whose entry into the Thirty Years War required the development

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of a competent bureaucracy if tiny Sweden was to be governed at home and fight a major foreign war (Samuelsson, 1968). Sweden had more civil ser vants per capita than did most countries during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the civil ser vice that developed had an image of competence and honesty. Although its total numbers have been greatly expanded by the programs of the contemporar y welfare state, much the same could be said of the modern Swedish civil ser vice. The public bureaucracy remains large relative to that of other industrial democracies and is also generally quite competent. In addition to being competent, the bureaucracy is also held more stringently accountable than almost any other in the world, so the opportunities for bureaucratic excesses are more limited than in other countries. This degree of control has not made the Swedish civil ser vice immune to complaints about abuses of power but it has ensured them a more positive public image than that enjoyed by most bureaucracies. The organization of Swedish government is a combination of centralized and decentralized features. This characterization applies both to the overall structure of government and to the practices within government. First, although Sweden is tech- nically a unitary government, there is a long tradition of local government liberty. Both the lowest tier of government (the communes) and the intermediate tier (the lan) have a number of policy- making powers, including control of some types of taxa- tion, which they can exercise independently. The lan governments, for example, are very heavily involved in providing hospital care and appear to compete among them- selves over quality of facilities and services. The lan governments are composed of an elective legislative body and a governor general appointed by central government for life – another mixture of centralized and decentralized features. The powers of the various levels of government have been under consideration, as the public demands more influence over their policies but at the same time want greater efficiency. In addition to the division between levels of government, there are also a number of nationalized industries, as well as public participation in a number of joint- stock companies. In these commercial ventures the dividing line between public and private sectors becomes extremely vague. In general, however, the employees of the joint- stock companies are not in any way considered to have civil ser vice jobs, whereas those in the fully nationalized industries – especially the tra- ditional ones such as forestr y – do tend to have that status. As is true for other industrialized democracies, many Swedish nationalized industries have been pri- vatized and many others are under the threat of privatization. The pressures for privatization have increased under the bourgeois government elected in 1991. The formal structures for carrying out public business also have something of a decentralized character, even within the central government itself. The central ministries in Sweden are relatively small organizations, charged primarily with plan- ning and policy formulation. The major task of implementing policy falls to the boards (styrelsen or ambetsverk), which in many ways are independent of the ministries super- vising their work (Soderlind and Petersson, 1988). The separation of these organiza- tions appears related to the tendency in Swedish government to specify as clearly and unambiguously as possible the roles that organizations are to play. The boards are, however, coordinated with the ministries by law and through the all- important budget- ary process. These boards that implement policy are governed in one of three ways. A few continue with the traditional pattern of a collegial management by top officials on

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the board, almost in the manner of a multimember court, with day- to-day management by a director general. Another group is controlled directly by a director general, an appointee of the crown (in practice, the government). The largest – and still growing – number of boards are managed by a lay board convened by the director general, but containing a variety of representatives of important interests in the particular policy area. In all these instances, however, the boards are the major employers of public servants, and it is they who do the day- to-day work of administering Swedish govern- ment (Dahlström and Pierre, 2009). Personnel policy in Swedish public administration is more decentralized than in most other political systems. Agencies are given the latitude to advertise for and hire their own personnel. There is, however, a legal framework for public employ- ment, so although there is latitude to select individuals, the individual selected must meet the necessar y requirements and the field from which the choice can be made may be limited. The histor y of Sweden, with government by the Social Democrats from 1935 to 1976, again from 1982 until 1991, and from 1994 onwards, has pro- duced an indirect politicization of the civil ser vice. Government has been so closely associated with that one party and its programs that the civil ser vice has tended to attract primarily adherents of that party. The bourgeois government elected in 1991 has complained about the civil ser vice they inherited and has sought to redirect government with its own appointees. There are also internal divisions within the civil ser vice, much as has been noted in French, German, and British administrations. Further, although Sweden is frequently cited as a prototype of a socialist society (a description in many ways patently untrue), these distinctions are as institutionalized in Sweden as in any of the other countries. Members of the civil ser vice at different levels are not only on different pay plans, they are in different unions. Those with a university edu- cation belong to SACOSR, the union that represents graduates, while those who are in white-collar positions but who lack a university education tend to belong to TCO. Finally, those in blue collar jobs belong to LO, the principal labor federation. Further, those in the top positions, the tjansteman, have a status similar to that of the Beamte in West Germany, although the position lacks most of the quasi- judicial trappings found in Germany. Another of the apparent internal contradictions in Swedish administration is the emphasis on efficiency in a government that is (relative to population size) one of the largest in the world, and has been controlled for most of modern histor y by a moderate socialist party. Government has had an active policy of managerial improvement and has been able ver y effectively to control the size of managerial and clerical employment (albeit not health and education workers). Further, in con- trast to the emphasis on equality in much of Swedish political life, a system of merit pay has been introduced in an effort to further improve the efficiency of Swedish government (Sjölund, 1994).

The United States

The administrative system of the United States may be thought to be derived in some ways from that of the United Kingdom, and indeed there are some important common

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features. That having been said, public administration in the United States also repre- sents the particular historical experiences of that country, as well as attempts to meet continuing administrative challenges (Peters, 2007). Many Europeans stereotype the United States as having a small public sector dominated by issues of national defense and the other “defining functions” of government. The reality, however, is that the public sector in the United States employs over 22 million people, with the vast major- ity of those working in education and social policy organizations (Table 4.1). The tendency of non- Americans is to assume that the public sector in the United States is a function of the federal government. However, five in six of those public employees are in state and local governments, rather than in Washington. As well as the high level of decentralization in American administration, another important feature of the system is a relatively high level of political involve- ment. At the national level there are approximately 4,000 political appointments in the executive branch, many more than would be found in other industrialized democra- cies. Further, the number of these appointments has been increasing, as presidents and cabinet secretaries attempt to ensure control over the operations of the depart- ments and agencies (Light, 1996). For much of the past several decades that level of politicization had not been a threat to good management; the majority of the people appointed to these posts have a good deal of expertise in the policy area. They were part of the “policy communities” around these issues and are working on the same issues whether they are in or out of government. That pattern was reversed some- what in the second Bush administration, with a number of clear cases of incompe- tence being exposed, with sometimes disastrous results (The New Republic, 2005). In addition to the political appointments at the top of public organizations, there is a large career civil ser vice hired on merit principles. This civil ser vice is divided first into large groups based on the type of work performed, and then clas- sified into a series of grades. The tendency is to hire these individuals (especially at managerial levels) based on their expertise in a particular policy area rather than as generalists. The creation of the Senior Executive Ser vice in 1978 was an attempt to create more of a general management cadre in the federal government, but the system is still one in which experts remain within a single department for most of their careers (Ban and Ingraham, 1984). The meaning of “merit” in the merit system has become more ambiguous as a result of reforms during the past decade, but there is still a strong sense that a demonstration of objective qualifications is required (see Chapter 3). There are a variety of types of organizations in the US federal bureaucracy (Seidman, 1998). First, there are 15 cabinet departments, the secretaries of which (along with several other officials) comprise the President’s cabinet. There are also over 50 independent executive agencies which also report to the President but which are not included in the cabinet – examples are the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Small Business Administration. There are also a number of independent regulator y commissions that are, in principle, removed from control by the President and Congress but which are subject to some control through the budgetar y process. There are also some government corporations existing either independently (Tennessee Valley Authority) or within one of the other types of structures (Seidman, 1998). Some market activities of the public sector, for example the secondar y mortgage market, are in quasi- public

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organizations. Finally, there are some important organizations responsible to the legislative branch rather than the executive branch of government, including the General Accounting Office and the Congressional Budget Office. The accountability system of American bureaucracy is extremely complex, given that the typical public ser vant reports both to the secretaries of the cabinet departments, or some other official in the executive branch, and also to the Con- gress and its committees that oversee the operations of executive branch organiza- tions. The United States also has a more developed system of administrative law than many other Anglo- American systems, with the Administrative Procedures Act of 1946 providing a set of guidelines for administrative rule-making and adjudica- tion (Ker win, 2012). In addition, there are internal, managerial checks on behavior through the Inspectors General located within each large organization. Finally, the performance management system being developed in conjunction with the Gov- ernment Performance and Results Act is providing yet another avenue for enfor- cing accountability (but see Radin, 2006).

The Structure of Administration

Perhaps the most fundamental question of administrative structure is the basis of organization for the administrative apparatus. How will the public ser vice be struc- tured to execute its assigned tasks? Luther Gulick (1937) proposed some years ago that the organization of public administration could be founded on four alternative principles: geographical area covered, processes employed, types of persons or things dealt with, or purpose ser ved. Examples of these forms of organization are readily available. The area ser ved is frequently used as an organizational principle at the subdepartmental level, as in the use of regional offices. The principle may also be institutionalized at the departmental level, as in the office for the South in Italy, the Scottish and Welsh Offices in the United Kingdom, or what are in essence regional ministries in Canada (Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Western Economic Diversification Canada). Organization by process is also commonly encountered at subministerial levels, with divisions or bureaus of accounting, legal ser vices, engineering, and the like. This principle may, however, also be found at the ministerial level, and has tended to do so increasingly as financial strains have placed demands for tighter super vision and management on “central agencies.” Types of persons or things dealt with would include organizations such as the Veterans Administra- tion in the United States, similar organizations in other countries, the Ministr y for Maori Development in New Zealand, and various ministries for women, children, and families in most countries of the world. Finally, the purposes ser ved are the most frequent basis of organization, as the ubiquitous departments or ministries of defense, education, and health and so forth would indicate. Each of these modes of organization has some assets and some liabilities, which have been rather thoroughly discussed by Gulick and others working on the problem since then. There is no need to engage in an extensive discussion of that theoretical literature here. Rather, let us begin to examine how these four categor- ies of organization can be used to analyze differences in administrative systems

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cross- nationally, and what the implications of these differences are for administra- tion. No government will use any one of these as the sole basis of organization, so the question becomes under what conditions each should be selected, and how they should be integrated for greatest effectiveness. The bulk of our analysis is on modes of organization other than by purpose, since that mode is the most common and the one with the fewest comparative differences.

Organization by Area Served

Organization by area provides the most interesting comparative differences across countries. These differences in administration are related to broader organizational questions for the entire political system, especially the degree of centralization. In fact, the two most important variants of a real administration emanate from quite different solutions to the problem of managing territor y. One solution is for the central government to attempt to control and super vise closely the execution of its policies throughout the nation. One of the most powerful means to ensure uni- formity is using prefectoral officers in localities. Prefects are officers of the central government responsible for the execution of national programs at the subnational level. Each ministr y may have its own field ser vice, but these are coordinated and, to some degree, super vised by the prefect. The prefect, in turn, is responsible to the Ministr y of the Interior or some other ministr y charged with super vising administration. In France, and other countries following the Napoleonic tradi- tion, the prefect also has been responsible for local governments, especially their finances. While the decentralization programs described above have reduced that authority in France, the prefects do continue to monitor local government. There are differences in the exact ways in which prefectoral systems operate, but the common thread of such systems – as in France, Italy, Japan, and some Latin Ameri- can system – is that one officer should coordinate and be responsible for public policies delivered in one subnational area. Prefectoral systems in practice often operate quite differently from the formal model of central control. In addition to ser ving as representatives of the national government to the locality, prefects also represent their locality – and themselves – to the center. That is, prefects frequently are co- opted by their localities and will support claims for local variances in national programs. Worms (1966) and Thoenig (1987), among others, have noted a number of points of convergence between the interests of prefects and similar central government officials and the interests of local politicians. Other analyses of the policy roles of the prefect in France have pointed to local rather than central dominance (Gremion, 1976). The prefect, in practice, is often the man in the middle, linking the demands of the local constitu- ency for special treatment and rapid action to the demands of the central govern- ment for uniformity. Prefects must also think of their own careers, so that it may benefit them to cooperate with their localities in order to obtain smooth and suc- cessful execution of the tasks for those local authorities (see Duran, 2000). The other common answer to the question of central control is not to tr y too hard, and is implemented through a variety of schemes for administrative devolu- tion and administrative federalism. These either transfer control of administration

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downward to a subnational unit or provide deconcentrated control of the adminis- tration. Probably the most extreme versions of this form of organization are found in Germany and Switzerland, where the functions of the national bureaucracy are confined primarily to program development in the ministries, defense, and running the state railroads, the post office, and several nationalized industries. The vast majority of the work of administering public policies (federal and subnational) is done at the level of the equivalent of states – Länder in Germany, Cantons in Swit- zerland (Erk, 2007). Although federal ministers have the responsibility for ensuring that pro- grams are administered properly, they have few resources to enforce uniformity, other than the legalism of both administrative systems (Damaska, 1986). Indeed uniformity is not a goal in many administrative settings, because of historical, cultural, and practical dif ferences among the component par ts. This has been especially true for Switzerland, but is now also the case for Germany after the addition of former East Germany. Such a decentralized administrative system raises a number of impor tant problems concerning public accountability for policy and possibilities for public control of policy and administration. The centralized system may be inflexible and possibly autocratic, but at least responsibility for policy is clear. Thus, similar to the internal management of public organizations, the conflict between centralization and its associated responsibility for decision, and decentralization and its associated flexibility, rages at the broader level of the organization as a whole. The decentralization of administration in Germany is somewhat extreme, but virtually all central governments use their subnational governments to administer national policy. For example, in the United States, the majority of federal social pro- grams – Medicaid, the reformed program of social welfare, and many others – are administered by state and local governments. The central governments of Canada and Australia, two other geographically large federal governments, also depend upon their provincial or state governments to administer large shares of social and economic policy. Even in more centralized governments local authorities adminis- ter central government programs. In the nominally unitar y Scandinavian countries, for example, major functions such as health, education, and even tax collection may be devolved to counties or communes (Christensen, 1997). The United Kingdom has become an especially interesting study in decentralization within a largely unitar y system. With devolution in 1999, the former Scottish and Welsh offices have been terminated in favor of greater self- government in these regions. Likewise, a new Nor thern Ireland government took over a large number of activities from London in spring 2000. There are also dif ferences in the administration of the law (and in some cases the law itself ) in these par ts of the countr y. That having been said, the central government still administers some programs in these regions. In addition, local (regional and district) governments administer policies such as housing, criminal justice, and education for the central government. Also, there can be conflicts between local governments and the central government over the manner in which the policies are implemented. These par ticular conflicts have been politically motivated, but conflicts could easily arise over the interpretation of the law. Fur ther, even in cen- tralized governments, local governments are usually capable of obtaining some

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autonomy in the management of a number of policies, especially when they have some sources of revenue of their own. Administrative decentralization is now a widely used tactic for coping with problems of ethnic and regional differences in what might other wise be centralized countries. For example, in Spain there has been a movement to decentralize admin- istration to ethnic and linguistic areas, e.g., Catalonia and the Basque countr y, that have demands for special considerations, and in Belgium the separation of the regions is almost complete. The decentralization of economic planning in France into the rather new regions, and the regionalization of Italian government, are in response to demands for greater autonomy, as well as real needs of government to respond more flexibly to local conditions. Another version of administrative decentralization is emerging within the European Community. Despite numerous complaints by politicians in the 12 coun- tries about the “bureaucracy in Brussels,” the public ser vice in the European Com- munity itself is rather small – approximately 2,000, leaving aside the interpreters and clerical staff. Like the central government in Germany, the European Commu- nity depends upon a lower level of government – in this case the nation- states – to implement its policies. In this case the administrative and legal traditions are much more diverse than among the Länder in Germany (even after the inclusion of the former East German Länder) so that much greater variation may be expected. In addition, many EC laws depend upon the member states adopting them as a part of national law, so that there are also variations in the extent to which national legisla- tures have acted to comply with European policies (see Falkner and Treib, 2005). Related to the decentralization of decision making is a second area question relating to the size of administrative units, or the size of local governments them- selves. There has been a consistent tendency among governments to reorganize administration and local government (the two may be synonymous) into larger and larger units. As Table 4.1 indicates, Sweden, for example, reorganized over 2,500 local governments into 279, with similar changes occurring in other Scandinavian countries, the United Kingdom, and Germany. These reforms have generally been justified by economies of scale in the production of public goods and ser vices and by the ability of the larger units to provide a broader array of public ser vices. Sweden has since moved on to consider creating regional entities for some func- tions, for example “West Sweden” around Gothenberg (Nilsson, 2004). Further, urban areas in particular require the integration of a range of ser vices (transporta- tion in particular) that, in turn, require large local government areas. There is, however, little systematic evidence that these presumed benefits actually materialize. First, as the size of governmental units increases, there is a ten- dency for overhead expenditures to increase as a proportion of total expenditures; after some point, gains from the economies of scale are absorbed by increases in overheads. Further, each ser vice has a different size unit at which it is most efficiently produced. Refuse collection appears to be ver y efficient on a ver y large scale, while policing can be argued to be more efficient for smaller units. Unless ver y complex systems with multiple single- purpose governments are to be created, no single- size government will be most efficient for all ser vices. That complex array of single- purpose governments has actually been evolving in some countries, in response to demands for greater efficiency, to privatization, and to fiscal strains on

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local governments. For example, during the past several decades the United States added over 400 special- purpose governments per year (Foster, 1997). Similarly, the breakup of large metropolitan governments in Britain has produced a number of authorities providing a single ser vice, especially in transportation. In Belgium, France, and numerous other countries intercommunal associations continue to be formed as a means of addressing the need for certain ser vices that cannot be ful- filled by the communes themselves. Leaving aside economics, as the size of the unit increases, there may be a decrease in satisfaction with the ser vices. This is perhaps a function of the per- ceived cost of government in relation to the ser vices actually provided. On the other hand, as Fesler (1949) points out, as the size of government increases, so does the perception of its remoteness, and consequently so does the alienation of the population. This alienation is one of the causes of a somewhat contradictor y trend: the increase in neighborhood government and organization in large cities. These neighborhood organizations may be general purpose units functioning within the context of city government, or they may be special- purpose organizations created for the “coproduction” of a ser vice, for example, “neighborhood watch” programs for crime prevention. In either case, they help to create an enhanced feeling of participation and citizen efficacy. Thus the argument can be made for the retention of small and “inefficient” administrative divisions, even in the face of demands for greater efficiencies and increased ser vices.

Organization by Process

Government can be organized by process, or by the communality of the processes employed by the members of the organization and the communality of their pro- fessional skills, rather than by purpose of the organization. Taken to an extreme this principle might mean, for example, that all accounting or purchasing activities for government would be concentrated in single agencies, or that all engineers or lawyers would be concentrated in bureaus of engineering or law, and their ser vices provided to other agencies as required. Line and staff. The above examples may appear inefficient – and they prob- ably are – but such options do exist for the organization of government. They can be justified as a means of concentrating skilled individuals, as a means of imposing relatively uniform professional practices across the public sector and as a means of streamlining the operations of other organizations. The most common process dis- tinction in the literature on public administration is between “line” and “staff ” agen- cies. Line agencies are those that directly deliver ser vices to the public, while staff agencies are responsible for coordinating the line agencies and providing central ser vices needed by all of government. Initially, the concept of staff was reser ved for personal advisors to an execu- tive – the Richelieus, Mazarins, and Oxenstiernas – that directly advise the execu- tive. As the tasks of the political executive have broadened, however, so has the definition of staff. Executives have found that their own staffs expanded to the point where they could no longer be personally supervised, and differentiated organizations performing staff functions have been developed. For example, the Executive Office

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of the President in the United States, currently employing nearly 4,000 people, is perhaps the largest public sector staff organization in the world. However, the expansion of the Executive Office has been mirrored in the expansion of similar offices in a number of countries (see Dahlström et al., 2013; Eymeri- Douzanes et al., 2014). For example, the Office of the Prime Minister in Britain has expanded from a few dozen employees to over 300 people, and the Bundeskanzlersamt (the Office of the Chancellor) in Germany now employs over 500 people (Busse and Hoffman, 2010; Fleischer, 2011). These organizations have also grown substantially in Latin American countries (Alessandro et al., 2014). We have been employing the term “staff functions” rather facilely. Just what are the functions that a staff person or agency is expected to undertake? Person- nel from line or operating agencies might be tempted to say that their principal function is to prevent those actually providing a public ser vice from having access to the executive. This is hardly their real function, but it points to a potential con- flict between staff and line agencies. The ostensible purpose of staff agencies is to do those things that line agencies have neither the time, the power, nor the competence to do. Perhaps the most important of these tasks is coordinating the programs of line agencies. Line agencies, having a limited scope and consequently narrow perspectives on the tasks of government, are not really able to coordinate their own programs effectively. In fact, their incentives – if we assume that agency growth is a prime bureaucratic goal – are to attempt to spread their ser vices into policy areas already occupied by other agencies and thereby to provide, if not duplicate ser vices, at least competing ser vices. Thus, the chief executive and his/ her staff (interpreted as either personal staff or staff agencies) must inter vene to prevent unnecessar y duplication. The “central agencies” of government are primarily responsible for controlling duplication and enforcing coordination in government (Campbell and Szablowski, 1979). These agencies include the central financial and budgetar y organizations, such as the Office of Management and Budget in the United States or the Treasur y in the United Kingdom. They also include central personnel organizations, such as the Office of Personnel Management in the United States or the Civil Ser vice Com- mission in Canada. Planning is also an important aspect of coordination and budg- eting. Line agencies tend to be so heavily involved in their ongoing work that they frequently lack the time for nonessential things such as planning what to do in the future, and any sort of comprehensive planning may involve a wider viewpoint than that of a single agency. Planning agencies tend to be directly attached to the execu- tive and to provide a broader over view of the future. The planning that is done in these agencies may be for government programs themselves, or may be planning for the economy and society that will require the inter vention of the public sector. And although planning is largely out of fashion in the industrialized democracies it remains important in socialist and less- developed regimes. Several differences appear in the use of staff agencies. Peter Self (1973) pro- vided an interesting discussion of staff functions in the United States and Great Britain that largely remains valid. He notes that staff functions typically have not been institutionalized in Britain as they have in the United States, in part as a func- tion of the differences in the forms of government. Specifically, in British Cabinet government, problems of coordination are in the main horizontal rather than

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vertical, with a number of (allegedly) equal departments competing for funds and programs. Since the heads of these departments are all members of the Cabinet, the problem of coordination becomes one of imposing collective decision, rather than analysis and coordination by executive decree. Further, rather than being performed by an isolated presidential agency such as the Office of Management and Budget, most coordination in Britain is done by one of the departments – the Treasur y – whose leader is among the members of the Cabinet. As Self and others have pointed out, such a system of coordination could not work in an administrative system less homogeneous and less well integrated than that of Britain. The past several decades have produced important changes, with the growth of the Prime Minister’s Office and a larger staff at No. 10, and a major effort at coordination – termed “joined- up government” (Pollitt, 2005) but in comparison to most other governments the central coordination apparatus in British government remains subtle. Attempts to achieve coordination have included creating ver y large depart- ments; any potentially duplicating or competitive ser vices can be included within a single department and is coordinated by a single minister (Peters, 2015). Likewise, there have been attempts to impose “overlords,” or superministries, on existing cabinet structures to ensure effective policy control, notably Homeland Security in the United States and Employment and Social Development Canada. In prac- tice, as the size of the ministries increases, the old administrative proverb of “span of control” is increasingly violated, so that in practice one might actually get less coordination, or at least the need for more extensive staff work within the depart- ment. Despite the managerial problems that they may create, larger ministries are in vogue at the beginning of the twenty- first centur y. This pattern is especially obvious for social ser vice departments that have become integrated with health and/or labor ministries to provide more comprehensive ser vices to their clients. The management of these large departments is being facilitated by the availability of information technologies that enable a senior official to monitor operations and communicate with subordinates with much greater ease than in the past. Further, fewer ministries also tends to mean fewer ministers so that decision making in cabinet, as well as prime ministerial leadership, can be facilitated. The reduction in the number of ministries is, to some extent, being supplemented by the creation of more junior ministers, or deputy prime ministers, with portfolios that are explicitly to produce greater coordination across a range of programs. The junior ministers are often given responsibility for groups that require ser vices and consideration from a variety of ministries, e.g., women, families, and immigrants. These developments reflect that it has now become clearer to governments that one of their most difficult tasks is to manage horizontally across the range of their activities. We have at several points intimated the existence of conflict between line and staff agencies. Conflicts are almost inherent in this system of organization. The line agencies tend to regard the other side as ivor y tower planners far removed from the day- to-day problems of program administration but still able to sell themselves as experts with more access to decision making than the operating agencies. The staff agencies are also identified as formidable obstacles to organizational growth. On the other side of the conflict, staff agencies often become highly suspicious of

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the motives of line agencies in resisting attempts to coordinate and “rationalize” public ser vices, and may resent the ability of the line agencies to mobilize politi- cal support for their programs outside the bureaucracy. Staff may come to regard the line agencies as spendthrifts, raiders on the public purse, and captives of the special interests that they ser ve. Thus, one of the inherent limitations that organi- zation by process, especially in terms of line and staff, may have is the tendency for intra- organizational conflict and resistance to coordination and streamlining of ser vices. These tensions among line and staff are as old as government, but have been accentuated by the increased emphasis on management and efficiency. The potential conflict between line and staff may occur not only at the level of the whole government, but also within individual departments. Just as national executives require staff ser vices to perform functions that their operating agen- cies cannot do, executives of the operating agencies have the same need. At the departmental level, these staff ser vices are also concerned with coordination of programs and activities. If, as noted above, ministerial departments are tending to become larger, then the needs for coordination and control within the department may become as great as those among departments. One of the more notable examples of staff ser vices within a department is the ministerial cabinet in France and Belgium. Each minister in the French gov- ernment has the opportunity to appoint a cabinet consisting of a dozen or more members to provide a variety of staff ser vices such as policy advice, press relations, control of potentially recalcitrant civil ser vants, communications, and planning. Although appointments to these cabinets are ostensibly at the will of the minister, in practice they involve extensive political considerations in addition to concerns over the quality and political reliability of the staff work produced (Rouban, 1998). Espe- cially important in terms of the actual direction of policy is the job of the conseil- leur technique, who ser ves as a political appointee linking the formal bureaucratic organization of the ministr y to the politically appointed cabinet. The use of minis- terial cabinets is even more extensive in Belgium, to the point that they have been termed “counter- administrations” (see Pelgrims, 2005). The divisions of Belgian society along several dimensions make it desirable to employ cabinets staffed by people known to be reliable, as opposed to civil ser vants who may be highly politi- cized and consequently may not be politically loyal to the minister. Again, some contrast with British and American practice may be in order. One might argue for the need for the ministerial cabinets in large part because of the relative inability or unwillingness of French and Belgian ministers to rely on their civil ser vants. This, in turn, necessitates the use of political appointees to drive the control of the minister farther down into the organization than would other wise be possible and provides more of a check on the execution of ministerial directives within the organization. In the United States, the existence of several layers of political appointees between the cabinet officer and the upper echelons of the career civil ser vice is one type of “staff ” organization, although the appointees may actually hold positions in “line” agencies to ensure political control over pre- sumably independent- minded civil ser vants. The opportunities for political control have been extended, as the Senior Executive Ser vice has been opened to political appointments. The Reagan administration took full advantage of its opportunities to employ loyalists in what formerly had been career civil ser vice positions (Benda

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and Levine, 1988), and subsequent presidents have also utilized their personnel powers in an attempt to control government (Light, 1996; Peters, 2008). Britain and some Commonwealth systems such as Canada are unusual in the apparent willingness of political ministers to accept advice from career civil ser v- ants, and the willingness of the ministers to allow those civil ser vants to control most day- to-day business within the ministr y. Even here, however, analogues of the cabinet system may be tried. For example, the Mulroney government in Canada created the post of Chief of Staff within each department, allowing the minister to make political appointments that mirrored the career civil ser vice structure at the top of the ministr y. The Blair government in Britain also added some political advisors to the public payroll at the ministerial level, and the Cameron government extended the practice (Shaw and Eichbaum, 2014). One interesting variant of organization by staff and line, or more generally organization by process, occurs in Sweden and Finland and increasingly in other political systems (Pierre and Ehn, 2000). Here the two usual functions of the public bureaucracy – development and the execution of public policy – are organization- ally divided into two separate organizations. First, the ministries are charged with the development of public policy. The ministries are small, and their work is con- fined to staff type work – planning, coordination, and program development. The actual execution of public programs is left to a set of administrative boards, or agen- cies which are independent of the ministries, although linked through the budget- ar y process and a number of other ways, and perform “line” functions of actually implementing programs. Although the distinction between functions is clearest in Sweden, to some extent all contemporar y governments are developing such distinctions. First, coun- tries such as the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and the Netherlands are develop- ing agency structures similar to those of Sweden, and then agencies became one of the most per vasive features of administrative reform in the 1980s and 1990s (see Bouckaert and Peters, 2004). More generally, the separation of politics and admin- istration is being achieved through privatizing implementation of many public activities, and using “third-party” mechanisms of ser vice deliver y. In essence, gov- ernment organizations continue to perform the staff work while private or quasi- public organizations perform the line functions. The use of cabinets and the politicization of the upper echelons of govern- ment point to the extent to which organization by line and staff corresponds to the old adage (see above) about the separation of politics and administration. Staff functions can be equated with the political functions of advocating programs and formulating policy, and assuring that the independent civil ser vants do what their political masters intended. Line functions are more normally associated with the execution of policy in a rather routine fashion. As we have pointed out – and will deal with more extensively later – the dichotomy between politics and administra- tion is largely a false one, but it is important to note the extent to which it has been incorporated into public administration. The corps. Another possibility for organization by process is organization by corps or by some other internally homogeneous administrative bodies. The corps system is best developed in France but has been copied by other countries, especially those derived from a French or Napoleonic administrative tradition

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(Wunder, 1995). The concept of the corps is a body of administrators with similar educational backgrounds and similar professional skills. Each of the grands corps is, in theor y, specialized by function; in practice they have a per vasive influence on French administration and have adopted somewhat broader roles. Suleiman (1974, 118–21) noted that it was virtually obligator y to have a member of the Inspection des Finances as a member of a ministerial cabinet or for directeur, if for no other reason than to have ready access for appeal and consultation on the budget. The Socialists have been less dependent upon that one Inspection than previous governments, but it remains a powerful component of French administration. Members of the other corps are also included in a number of cabinets. In Spain the cuerpos also tend to dominate a particular ministr y, although again some of the more influential have a per vasive impact in government (Alba, 2001). These corps are specialized by function but together provide a high level of leadership within the public ser vice, which might be lacking without the corps structure and the esprit de corps that such a system engenders. Moreover, the isola- tion of the grands corps from a number of the usual administrative pressures, their prestige, and their individual intellectual and managerial capabilities allow them to enforce standards of uniformity throughout the administration, so that this form of organization by function contributes to the maintenance of centralized government in France. Several functions have been found to be amenable to organization by corps or process. Engineering has been one, and any number of countries have spe- cialized engineering corps within their national civil ser vices or militaries, for example, the Army Corps of Engineers in the United States. If we look at admin- istration broadly, the militar y officer corps and the diplomatic ser vices could be considered as specialized corps, and as rather obvious cases of organization by function or process. Also, as with the Inspectorate of Finances in France, financial inspectors are frequently organized as a separate branch of administration, to ensure their impar tiality in auditing public accounts. This precaution goes so far, in the United States, as to isolate them almost entirely from the rest of the public ser vice (in the General Accounting Office). Other inspectorates in government, such as HM Inspectors of Schools in Britain or Inspectors General in the United States, also benefit from separation from the remainder of the public bureauc- racy (Kempf, 2015). Thus, we can say that those functions that can benefit from being organized by process tend to be those that require: (1) technical training or highly professional skills; (2) a high degree of internal commitment and esprit de corps; or (3) impar tiality and isolation from other por tions of the bureaucracy and from political pressures. With the erosion of many ex ante controls over bureauc- racy, as a result of the reform processes, governments are turning more often to inspectorates as means of providing ef fective and independent ex post controls (Hood et al., 2004). Multiple advocacy. Another possible implication of organization by process is that an organization may build in competing visions of policy and with that mul- tiple advocacy. For example, the Federal Trade Commission in the United States is organized with economists and lawyers in different divisions of the Commission (Eisner, 1991). Before the FTC can act, these two divisions must discuss the case and reconcile their competing professional and theoretical visions of antimonopoly

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legislation. Further, of the two antitrust organizations in the federal government, the FTC is more dominated by economists while the antitrust division of the Depart- ment of Justice is more controlled by lawyers. The organization by process may appear redundant but it does prevent organizations from developing excessively narrow standard operating procedures. It has the potential of correcting policy and implementation errors before they occur. Summar y. In summar y, organization by process can make some useful dis- tinctions between the tasks of various civil ser vants and agencies, but as a general organizing principle it appears to be unwieldy. Even in its limited form, it tends to engender political conflicts between those who (at least from their own perspec- tive) do the work of the civil ser vice, and those who “merely” plan, coordinate, and control. Likewise, organization by corps as a special example of organization by process can engender similar political conflicts and rivalries directed against an elite group with broadly defined competencies who appear all too ubiquitous in the exercise of their tasks, and all too close to those who are responsible for making decisions. Thus, as will be said again, the organization of the public ser vice is a problem not only for the administrative scientist, but for the politician as well. Both must attempt to provide smooth and efficient government, and both must tr y to protect their own interests through organizational devices.

Organization by Clientele

The third possible basis for organization is the clientele ser ved by the organiza- tion. Clientele groups who are presumed to have special needs or whose lifestyles, industries, or other characteristics are considered sufficiently distinctive may justify a separate organization for them and their interests. There have been two appar- ent reasons for developing clientele- based organizations: (1) to be able to provide better ser vices for a special set of clients (especially those with political clout), such as veterans, urban dwellers, and farmers; or (2) conversely, at once to assist and to control segments of the population lacking such political clout, such as Native Americans and foreign workers. The important fact about both of the justifications for clientele groups is that they result in an organization that can become an obvious avenue of political influ- ence by the clientele. That is, organization by clientele, even when undertaken for the purpose of regulation, generally results in more direct group influence on administration than might be found in other forms of organization. The reasons for this are perhaps obvious; they will be developed more in Chapter 6, discussing the politics of administration. But we should point out here that in client- based organizations, a process of exchange and mutuality almost inherently results. The clientele group needs the access to government decision making provided by the public organization, and the agency in turn requires popular support from its clien- tele in political conflicts. Further, those public organizations may owe their exist- ence to the activities of particular clientele groups and must, therefore, cater to the demands of those groups more than by others in the “public interest.” Perhaps the most impor tant manifestation of this tendency toward co- optation and symbiosis between clientele and administration occurs in so- called

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independent regulator y boards. The underlying conception of these boards, as they are constituted in the United States and used increasingly in other political systems, is that they should ser ve as administrative qua judicial bodies control- ling the activities of some por tion of the economy or society. The boards are made independent to prevent excessive par tisan influence from being exer ted over their decisions. They are intended to regulate in the public interest and without regard for political considerations. No matter how commendable the idea of independence may be in theor y, they are almost certainly doomed to failure in practice. Many of the activities that these boards were intended to regulate are among the most sensitive and societally important, including transportation, energy, and communication. But, by being isolated from political demands in their tasks of regulating these industries, the boards are isolated from political support as well. They essentially lack any strong and direct connection with the executive and cannot, therefore, easily appeal for assistance in financing, staffing, and general support for their regulator y func- tions. Any such executive interference might be regarded as antithetical to the depoliticized and nonpartisan conception of these boards. Thus, the independent regulator y boards must seek other sources of political support, with the most likely source being the ver y interests they were designed to regulate. The point of this argument, then, is that organization by clientele may rapidly change into organiza- tion for clientele. The “capture” idea concerning regulator y commissions has come under substantial intellectual attack. It is argued, for example, that institutions can be designed to prevent a single industr y from exercising undue influence. The fundamental point that regulators often do develop special relationships with the regulated industr y remains intact (Spiller and Tommais, 2006). Organization on the basis of clientele may also be implemented at the sub- departmental level and may have many of the same consequences at that level. At this level, however, the consequences will be primarily intra- organizational conflict, rather than through isolation and subversion of the public purpose. As a department or agency develops bureaus devoted to assisting or even regulating a particular client group, those bureaus frequently become captives of that group and become spokesmen for them in policy- related matters. Like the organization of departments by client, the subdepartmental agencies may also need political support for political conflicts. Their clientele can provide such support, but the price of that support is favorable treatment or regulation. It is often difficult to distinguish client- based organizations from area- based organizations. Many of the same problems of organizations being captured arise with either basis of organization. Two interesting and counter vailing examples of the interaction of organizations with client groups are those of the forest rangers and the engineering corps. In these examples, local communities, or, more specifically, local business interests, operate as clients. In the case of the United States Forest Ser vice, the organization attempts to counteract possible local influences on regulation (Kaufman, 1967). One task of a forest ranger is to regulate the use of national forests for commercial purposes such as lumber- ing and grazing. The Forest Ser vice uses as a general guideline that no ranger should remain in the same community for more than two years. This policy is to prevent him from becoming too closely integrated into the local community and

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therefore too sympathetic to pleas from local businessmen for excessive use of the forests. An alternative example is provided by civil engineering corps in both France and the United States – and probably elsewhere. These organizations generate a significant portion of their political support by integrating themselves into local communities and, at times, providing special treatment for the localities. Providing these ser vices to local communities produces a huge reser voir of political support should the executive or legislature seek to curtail the autonomy of the corps. The first of these examples shows an attempt to prevent clientele organization from subverting the formal goals of the organization; the second shows a use of client organization to enable the agency to succeed in its political conflicts (albeit perhaps at the expense of a broader public interest). Ever ything else being equal, organization by client is likely to become more common in the future. Part of the reform agenda of many governments during the 1980s and 1990s has been greater concern for the role and rights of clients as the “consumers” of government ser vices (OECD, 1987; Vidler and Clarke, 2005). This shift in the focus of management will mean that even organizations that are not organized primarily around clientele may have to organize at a subdepartmental level to ensure that they are responsive to their clients. This change in structure may, in turn, build in some of the same problems of capture by the clientele and conflicts with overall public sector goals that are encountered with organizations built around their clients. Further, and somewhat paradoxically, it will generate more general problems of democratic accountability (Peters, 2000). Using clientele groups as the foundation for organizing the public sector enhances the capacity of government to provide a full range of ser vices to groups such as children and the elderly who require a broad range of ser vices (Peters, 2015). And politically this form of organization can be used to recognize the impor- tance of groups who might other wise be marginalized in the society and the gov- ernment. Organization by clientele is at times difficult to avoid. There are powerful political pressures to organize government to benefit certain groups in society, and there is a certain logic to such organization when the needs of a clientele are distinc- tive. On the other hand, this form of organization has a number of possible dangers. It is difficult for the agency organized in this manner to remain detached from its clientele and to be able to administer programs objectively and in the “public inter- est.” They may trade their politically powerful connections to one group for separa- tion from, and often conflict with, the remainder of government.

Organization by Purpose

The final possibility for organizing administration is the principal purpose, or goal, of the organization. This mode of organization is not always clearly distinguish- able from the others already discussed. For example, is a Ministr y of Agriculture organized on the basis of its major purpose – the promotion of agriculture – or is it organized around a readymade clientele group – farmers – or is organized by area – rural parts of the countr y? Organization by purpose, perhaps more than the other

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criteria mentioned, highlights the lack of exclusiveness of this set of categories of studying government structure. In some ways most government organizations have some aspects of all four principles. Organization by purpose does, however, raise some important issues in public administration. The first is, where do organizational goals and purposes come from? Presumably, the legislation establishing an organization will specify the tasks to be performed by that organization. In most cases, however, these tasks are put forth in only the barest outline, allowing substantial latitude for future elaboration and interpretation. In theor y, the elaboration of these organizational goals will be primarily a political process involving the imposition of externally developed goals by politically selected leaders. However, given the barriers facing those political masters, the impact of external leaders on organizational goals is less than would be thought by listening to the formal discussions of the roles of civil ser vants and politicians. If the goals of public organizations are not determined by their political leaders as usually thought, where do they come from? The most obvious answer is that they are generated internally. If that is true, we come to one of the most commonly noted pathologies of formal organizations: the displacement of goals (Merton, 1940). There is a tendency in organizations gradually and almost imperceptibly to shift from what might be called public goals to what may be termed private goals. Even though the organization was established to fulfill some need in society, over time organizational survival and possibly organizational development may supersede that societal goal. Anthony Downs (1967, 98–9) discusses this process in terms of the tendencies of individuals within organizations to shift from zealot to conserver roles. When young, organization members seek to achieve societal goals through their actions in the public service, but over time, because of a natural aging process, the growth of per- sonal responsibilities, and perhaps cynicism about the possibility of social change, they become less interested in producing change but more interested in personal gain and security. Their major goals in office become: (1) to continue the existence of the agency; (2) possibly to expand its role and budget; and (3) finally to do something for the society. Similarly, L. B. Mohr (1973) identifies a difference between transi- tive goals of organizations and reflexive goals. Transitive goals are those directed at some outside target group, such as a clientele, while the reflexive goals are those directed at internal maintenance. Even when there are attempts to create measure- able goals for an organization, the organization may attempt to shift these in its own favor (Bohte and Meier, 2000). Even if we do not accept the cynical view that after some (unspecified) point in their existence agencies become self- ser ving, we must understand that over time the goals pursued by an agency generally come to mean what the incum- bents of the roles want them to mean. In other words, government organizations develop cultures and ideologies concerning the tasks that lie before them and the means of completing those tasks. Fur ther, by controlling selection, sociali- zation, and, to some degree, retention of their members, organizations tend to preser ve this ideology even when confronted with new members (Schein, 2003). The organizational conception of goals and the means of achieving those goals are often functions of the period of political and organizational socialization of the incumbents to the leadership positions within the organization. For example, most

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social ser vice agencies in the United States were developed or expanded dramati- cally during the New Deal era. The basic philosophy of social improvement at the time was to throw money at the problem, and to some extent to impose middle- class values on clients of the agency. These organizations were not par ticularly receptive to innovative or client- centered approaches to social problems, and so new organizations had to be created outside the existing framework to take new initiatives in social policy. The existing organizational cultures led to the creation of new organizations, such as the Office of Economic Opportunity in President Johnson’s War on Poverty with a (then) ver y different means of addressing the problems of poverty; there is a more recent analog in the “social exclusion” units of the Blair government in the United Kingdom. Similarly, social ser vice organizations all over the world now have to face the (attempted) imposition, by the political system, of new goals about lower- cost ser vice, privatization, and self- reliance. Fulfilling these new goals may also require some restructuring and the creation of new organizations. In France, the need to produce rapid action outside the structure of existing organizations produced the administrations de mission, which are given a ver y specific mission, and often a specific lifetime as well (Timsit, 1987, 98–110). The problems of organi- zations being locked in time and committed to a particular manner of doing things is not confined to domestic agencies. For example, the foreign offices of many Western nations are still ver y heavily influenced by a “Munich mentality,” which dictates that any attempt at compromise with an enemy is a sign of weakness and a prelude to further threats and demands. A final example of differences in goals held by an organization and those which others expect it to hold is found in many Third World countries that inherited essentially elitist and conser vative civil ser vices from their former colonial masters. These civil ser vices frequently have not been organized or staffed to undertake the massive programs of social and economic development expected of them, and some were even hostile to these programs ideologically. Thus, there have been fre- quent expressions of hostility from the political leaders of these countries toward these seemingly recalcitrant civil ser vants who were impeding programs of rapid social change. Similar problems arose in Eastern European countries who inher- ited much of their civil ser vice from the days of the Soviet bloc (Goetz, 2001). The major point to be made in this discussion of goal setting is that the purpose of a public agency is not necessarily the one outlined in the enabling legislation or in official policy statements. Setting goals is a political process, and often it is an intra- organizational political process hidden from public scrutiny and public control. Following the question of origin of goals is the question of what the agency does when it runs out of things to do. There are a number of rather amusing exam- ples of agencies that have long outlived their stated purposes and have become essentially sinecures for the remaining employees. Our concern is not with blatant inefficiency and redundancy, but rather with the problem of the succession of goals in an organization. That is, how can an agency shift its principal concerns and orientations from one objective to another? Given the discussion above, we must first assume that this would be a difficult task, but we do know that organizations undergo such shifts in order to sur vive. There are a number of examples of this type of goal succession in private organizations; two commonly cited examples are

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the March of Dimes and the YMCA (Zald, 1970). The examples from public organi- zations are perhaps less clear, but they exist. One of the most common in European nations of late has been the transformation of agencies formerly concerned with the management of colonial territories into offices of overseas development and aid to underdeveloped countries. While these agencies are still dealing with essentially the same clienteles geographically, their goals, operations, and politics have been greatly changed. Similarly, the end of the Cold War has forced the militar y in many countries to reconceptualize its mission and take on tasks such as “peacekeeping,” involving retraining and restructuring. We can see that agencies can and do shift goals, but it requires some strong impetus to do so, with the loss or decline of agency support – both from the budgetar y process and the public – being the most important impetus in public organizations. The discussion of organization by purpose has focused on agencies that have, or at least hope to have, a stable mission and a long and healthy life. We should remember, however, that governments sometimes attempt to deal with a mission with short- term, temporar y organizations. This is true whether the purpose is to provide a particular type of ser vice or to coordinate the programs already being provided by other, more permanent organizations. While the conventional wisdom is that temporar y public organizations are permanent, we should still investigate the use of short- term approaches to solving problems. One form of organization of this type is a function of the need to coordinate activity in a policy area in which a number of existing organizations have some role without assigning any one of those organizations a preeminent role. The creation of the posts of “Drug Czar” and “AIDS Czar” in the United States is an example of this strategy (Vaughn and Villalobos, 2015). It is, to some extent, like creating a central agency but differs in two respects. First, these are hoped to be temporar y institutions that will cease to exist once the problem is “solved.” Second, these offices deal with a single issue and a narrow range of organizations rather than attempting to coordinate policies and spending across government. Indeed, these organizations often become advocates for the policy area as well as referees among contending organizations, rather than alloca- tors of scarce resources (money, personnel, authority) among organizations. Another organizational device for solving the coordination problem in a par- ticular policy area is to create interministerial or interdepartmental committees. One of the most elaborate structures of this type exists in France, which has com- mittees existing at three levels (civil ser vants, ministerial, and presidential) to cope with conflicts and overlaps (Fournier, 1987). Rather than employing a single “czar” that can utilize authority to impose that coordination, the coordination in this model results from bargaining and the exchange of information. A similar pattern can be found in the Scandinavian countries that utilize large advisor y committees for ministries. These committees generally include representatives of other ministries that have some interests and activities in the policy area, and provide a means for the affected parties to coordinate their activities.

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Summary

We have discussed four broad methods of organizing government and public administration. As was noted, the lines between these categories are not always clear. What is clear is that none of them offers the perfect solution to the problem of organizing public ser vices, and each has its advantages and disadvantages. The decisions to use one or another should be dependent upon two factors. One is the nature of the ser vice to be delivered. Some ser vices, such as police and fire protec- tion, require dispersion by area, while others work ver y well with a highly central- ized structure. Some ser vices, such as accounting, appear to function better when all the experts are concentrated, while others function better when expertise is dis- persed. The architect of the public ser vice must be clear that he or she understands the nature of the ser vice to be provided by any organization being created. The second factor that must be understood is the nature of the political system in which our architect is functioning. For example, a political system that is deeply divided by language or race or other primordial sentiment will – ever ything else being equal – function better with as many functions as possible organized by area or client. On the other hand, a society that values expertise and control will – again, ever ything else being equal – function better with as many organizations as possible organized by purpose. The nature of public organizations must conform not only to the wishes of organizational theorists, but also to the political realities of the nation.

Internal Organization

To this point we have been largely examining the problems of organizing the public ser vice at the national level, with some attention to problems within agencies that are analogous to those at a more macroscopic level of analysis. We turn now to a brief discussion of internal organization and management, particularly problems of hierarchical control and communication within public sector agencies. Hierarchical control, or the chain of command, and the associated need to communicate information and decisions form a central core of the study of formal organizations. Those who draw neat, pyramidal organization charts assume that the individuals on the top of the hierarchy are responsible for making decisions and that their decisions are binding for all members of the organization. Likewise, it is assumed that it is the task of subordinates to communicate all relevant information upward, so that the right decisions can be made by those at the top. Unfortunately for those who would like to see organizations function this way, such orderly man- agement of organizations is rarely encountered in practice. In fact, many argue that the best way to understand organizations is not as a system of hierarchy but as a system of cooperation and bargaining (see Follett, 1937). In such an approach to organizations, all levels of the organization are seen as having resources and power. Consequently, management increasingly involves building coalitions, within and across organizations, rather than issuing commands. The nonhierarchical approach to organizations may be especially applicable to the public sector. In the first place, public sector organizations lack clear definitions

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of success or failure; they have no analogue of profit in the business world. Manag- ers, therefore, can be less certain about the orders that should be given and the rel- ative effectiveness of employees. Performance management has helped to clarify success and failure in public organizations but it remains less clearly defined than in the private sector (see Bouckaert and Halligan, 2008). Also, the employees of most public sector organizations are still permanent – or almost permanent – civil ser vants. This makes it difficult to employ many of the threats and incentives that would be available in private sector organizations. Third, because of their public nature, government organizations must consider not only their workers but also their clients when coalitions are being built. Thus, they must be especially sensi- tive to the needs of those clients as well as of the lower- echelon workers who have regular contact with the clients. Finally, because of the mixture of political and civil ser vice personnel in most public organizations, there are often differences in the long- term commitments of individuals to the organization, different motivations, and different perceptions of the time in which change should be brought about. All these factors make the effective management of public organizations a particularly tr ying task. The major purpose of hierarchical control is to create uniformity of an action by subordinates within the organization. One of the hallmarks and presumed benefits of bureaucratic organization is the elimination of personal discretion and caprice from the decisions taken by the organization. Such uniformity and predict- ability may be especially important for public organizations because they must be sure that clients are treated fairly and that their rights are respected. Unfortunately for those attempting to manage organizations, individuals like discretion and power, not so much to be able to deal capriciously with their clients as to have the opportu- nity to exercise some personal initiative. Further, they enjoy being able to establish personal relationships – for example, those not strictly governed by the rules of the organization – with both superiors and subordinates. Many formal organizations tend to deny these opportunities to their members, with any number of adverse consequences both for individuals and for goal attainment within the organization. Leaving aside the consequences for individuals, let us look at the consequences for the organization. One of the most important consequences of hierarchy is the isolation of strata within the organization. Superior–subordinate relationships tend to become rigidified, with diminished opportunity for other than formal communication across strata. Each stratum becomes socially isolated from others, and each tends to develop its own norms of compliance with the directives of superiors. These norms are rarely in violation of the formal norms of the organization; in fact, there is a tendency to comply ritualistically with rules and directives while possibly subvert- ing the real purposes of the organization. Thus, complaints about bureaucratic red tape and inefficiency may largely result from the need of lower echelons to protect themselves from their superiors by complying with the letter of regulations and refusing to take any personal initiative outside those regulations that might subject them later to punishment. Their compliance is real, but, paradoxically, by comply- ing with the rules they may reduce the effectiveness and efficiency of the organiza- tion. This is another aspect of goal displacement, in that the rules become an end in themselves rather than a means to accomplish the goals of the agency. While, to

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some extent a universal phenomenon, strata isolation and formalistic compliance do appear to be especially characteristic of some cultures, especially those that do not like face- to-face authority relationships. Associated with the isolation of strata is a tendency for organizations to foster the development of redundant channels of communication that can be beneficial to an organization (Landau, 1969; Bendor, 1985). Redundancy was a tactic adopted by Franklin Roosevelt as president to prevent the existing bureaus from sabotaging or delaying his New Deal programs. The existence of dual hierarchies in Soviet administrative practice was perhaps an extreme version of redundancy intended to ensure that there is a check on information and performance at all stages of the administrative process. With the end of Communist Party rule a hierarchy loyal to the president replaced that of the party and the redundant party and govern- ment hierarchies. To some degree the existence of ministerial cabinets in France and Belgium, and the Executive Office of the President in the United States, are further uses of redundant structures to check on the performance of administra- tion. Downs (1967) further mentions the possibility of building in overlapping and redundant structures as a means of ensuring the flow of relatively unbiased infor- mation within organizations. Likewise, Niskanen (1971; but see Blais and Dion, 1991) and others – adopting an economic approach to the study of public bureauc- racy – have argued that redundancy and competition could improve the efficiency of government and reduce its total cost. Interestingly, all these schemes involve the construction of organizations quite at odds with those that might be advocated by traditional students of management and public administration, for whom unity of command and the lack of overlapping functions were seen as two of the prime elements of proper organization.

Variations in Internal Organization

The problems of internal organization are general, and we should expect varia- tion by both nation- state and the characteristics of the particular policy area being administered. Differences occur between those two broad categories of Western and non- Western systems, or developed and underdeveloped countries. Despite their own variations, Western cultures are more likely to accept impersonality, hier- archy, and bureaucracy than are non- Western cultures. Thus, we might expect the dysfunctions of bureaucracy to appear more in non- Western cultures if attempts were made to enforce such a system. Attempts to depersonalize administration and policy through rules and procedures have been shown in a number of instances to be rather ineffective in achieving policy ends in those systems. The formal struc- tures of most bureaucracies in the non- Western world do conform quite closely with those of Western administration, in part as a function of colonial inheritance and in part because of the need to comply with certain formalities in order to receive aid from developed nations and international organizations (Nef, 2011). However, the actual operations of these structures tend to be quite different from the form, with nonbureaucratic criteria still tending to supersede the rules, procedures, and hierarchy of the formal structure. Some of the bureaucratic dysfunctions related to communication may be overcome by a reliance on communalism and

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nonbureaucratic criteria in recruitment, as may, in fact, some problems of rigid- ity with clients. What is given up is the entire justification for having bureaucratic structure in the first place; namely, a high level of uniform behavior and client treatment. Such behavior is not, however, highly valued in many Third World countries and actually may be regarded as being as immoral as Westerners might regard graft or nepotism. Western nations appear to show substantial variation in their prospects for effective bureaucracy. These were discussed above in the dis- cussion of the “administrative cultures” of these countries. What is important is the extent to which cultural differences tend to ease or exacerbate dysfunction in bureaucracy. One of the tendencies noted by Crozier (1964, 136) in discussing these problems is the influence of general conceptions of authority and equality on the bureaucratic structure of organizations. For example, he noted that, perhaps as a function of generalized patterns of deference and acceptance of authority, the organizational structure of British ships tended to be substantially less complex and less dependent upon impersonal rules than those of American ships. American crewmen, apparently socialized in more individualistic mores, were less willing to accept the personal authority of a superior, and formalized rules had to be devised to take the personal element out of rule enforcement. At the other end of the spec- trum, societies in which authority is both accepted and revered, and where those in authoritative positions tend to view their roles somewhat paternalistically, can func- tion with simple organizational structures and a relative absence of bureaucratic rules and still obtain high levels of uniformity in behavior. In their study of mana- gerial attitudes cross- nationally, Haire et al. (1966) found that there were several distinct blocs of Western nations in terms of their conceptions of the management role: Nordic, Anglo- American, and Latin- European. The differences among these groups were rather subtle but pointed to important differences in attitudes toward managerial practice and authority even among Western nations. More recently, Hofstede (2001) identified distinct groups of countries on the basis of their manage- rial cultures. Differences between types of organizations also depend on the tasks they are intended to perform. This is a major argument of contingency theory as an approach to understanding organizations in both the public and the private sectors. Unfortunately, however, such work as has been done in the public sector has found relatively little relationship between the variables usually used in this approach and the structuring or performance of public organizations. On the other hand, Amitai Etzioni (1967) provided one useful set of broad cat- egories. He classifies organizations according to the type of power that the organi- zation seeks to use over its members and the type of compliance of the members. Etzioni classifies power as either coercive, remunerative, or normative. The compli- ance of organizational members may be alienative, calculative, or moral. Although there may be mixed organizations, the three model types of organizations in this typology are coercive–alienative, remunerative–calculative, and normative–moral. Rather obviously, a normative–moral organization such as a church or even a highly committed public bureau is able to do its job effectively with a simpler organiza- tional structure, fewer impersonal rules, and less dysfunctional activity than would other types of organization. On the other hand, such an organization would have more difficulty in modifying its goals and retaining its personnel than would an organization relying on remunerative power. Some public organizations of all three

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types exist, and managers, although they may not conceptualize it in exactly these terms, have to know how to employ the appropriate incentives with each type of organization. Other schemes for classifying organizations depend more on the nature of the ser vices they provide. Blau and Scott (1962) used a classification of organiza- tions based upon the criterion of cui bono, or who benefits. Most public organiza- tions fall into their categor y of commonweal organizations, in that the public at large is the prime beneficiar y. Other public organizations would be ser vice organ- izations in that the prime beneficiaries are the clients; for example, social ser vice agencies. Again we can see that the dynamics of organizations whose intention it is to provide a ser vice to the public at large, generally free and with no exclusions, will have dif ferent organizational problems than an organization whose intention is to ser ve only a limited number of individuals, on the basis of the par ticular needs of those individuals. Moreover, the clients (consumers of ser vices) for the commonweal organization tend to be considerably less dependent upon those organizations than clients of ser vice agents, so that, for ser vice organizations, most conflicts emerge with the political representatives of the public at large over expense and responsibility. One successful attempt to analyze organizations using some aspects of the contingency approach can be found in the work of Perrow (1970), along with that of Thompson and Tuden (1959). This scheme attempts to relate the characteristics of the problem of policy area to the type of decision making that is likely to occur. Although both schemes (see Figure 4.1) were intended to have universal applica- bility, they also have relevance to problems of public administrative agencies. In Thompson and Tuden’s scheme, the same variations in the agreement on ends and agreement on means occur among public agencies as they do more generally.

Preferences

Agreement

Disagreement

Perception of Causation

Agreement

Programmed Decisions

(public health)

Pragmatic (comprehensive

education reform)

Disagreement

Bargaining (incomes policy)

Inspiration (research and development)

Figure 4.1 Typology of Policy Problems for Administration Sources: derived from James D. Thompson and Arthur Tuden, “Strategy, Structure, and Process of Organizational Decision,” in Comparative Studies in Administration (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Administrative Science Center, 1959); Charles Perrow, Organizational Analysis (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1970, pp. 80–91).

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The examples in Figure 4.1 may not be universally agreed upon, but do point out that there is such variation, and further that it will have consequences for public organizations. Likewise, the Perrow scheme, based largely on the characteristics of technology and raw materials, also has examples from public organizations. The assumption is that organizations dealing with a stable (or stabilized) raw material, such as prisons, will have a vastly different type of organizational structure than will those dealing with essentially unknown materials, such as research and develop- ment agencies. Of course, characteristics of the individuals likely to be employed in such agencies and the tasks set out for them will also have an impact, but it does appear useful to examine the correspondence between organizations and the raw materials – most commonly human – with which they must deal.

Reorganization

To this point we have been discussing administrative structure in a largely static manner; we have been looking at a still photograph. Unfortunately – both for ana- lysts and for many people in government – such stability is rarely achieved, and in fact there is a great deal of change and reorganization in government structure. It may be more accurate to look at a moving picture. In fact, it appears that when governments have little else to do, or when they feel themselves impotent to make any real changes, they settle for reorganization (Miewald and Steinman, 1984). By doing so, at least they can appear to have done something and they can tell their critics that some changes are being implemented to solve the problems. This is not to deny that reorganization can make a difference, just as the structure of govern- ment itself makes some difference in performance. Organizational change is not, however, the panacea that some politicians and some students of public administra- tion believe that it is. The 1980s was a decade of ver y intense organizational activity in govern- ment, driven in large part by the ideas of the New Public Management. One of the most common forms of activity was the division of large cabinet departments into a number of smaller, quasi- independent organizations. These go under the title of agencies (United Kingdom), special operating agencies (Canada), and a variety of other names. At its most extreme in New Zealand, this form of organization leaves a ver y small center for government and places most operations in quasi- independent agencies or “corporations” (Boston, 1991). These new organizational forms move the implementation structures of these governments in the direc- tion of the Swedish model. The impact of these reforms has been to grant greater autonomy to organizations involved in implementation and often to expose them to pressures for accountability through the market rather than through conventional political means. Many of the efforts at reform during the 1980s and early 1990s were more procedural than structural, as reflected in Chapter 9. There has been a greater emphasis on public management, as opposed to traditional civil ser vice values, as the means of directing action within organizations. Even in countries such as France and the Scandinavian countries with well- respected public ser vices there were large- scale movements to “modernize” and “renew” the public ser vice. In

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addition to the decentralization to agencies and similar subdepartmental bodies, there have been a number of structural reforms of civil ser vice systems (Van der Meer et al., 2015). In particular, the idea of the Senior Executive Ser vice contained in President Carter’s Civil Ser vice Reform Act was transplanted to a number of other countries (Bhatta, 2001). In general, these reforms have created a cadre of senior executives that can be deployed within the public sector to address impor- tant managerial problems. As important as the changes in the industrialized democracies have been, those occurring in the formerly communist countries of Eastern Europe are even more dramatic (Goetz, 2001). These changes have involved not only eliminating the ideological character of the communist regime but attempting to catch up with decades of managerial and organizational changes that have occurred in Western countries. This is all being done in the context of broader social, economic, and political change, and in the context of relative economic scarcity. This is a formida- ble task, and it is still too early to comment on the success or failure of the efforts. They do, however, constitute interesting laboratories for understanding processes of administrative change. Although the ideas of the New Public Management were powerful at one stage of administrative reform, weaknesses in these reforms also emerged, and there have been a number of attempts to redress some of the new problems in administration. In particular, the decentralization and deconcentration of govern- ment resulting from the New Public Management recipe for reform has been countered by some recentralization of government (see Dahlström et al., 2013). In addition, New Public Management reforms tended to denigrate the role of the career public ser vice, and later reforms have placed the career ser vice in a more central position in governing. We cannot hope to review the vast literature on government reorganization in all countries in the world in this one section, nor perhaps in several large books (Caiden, 1991b; Olsen and Peters, 1996). We will, however, make several principal points about administrative reorganization and change in its comparative context. The first of these points is that change in government is more common than many people believe. One school of thought argues that government organizations border on the immortal: once they are created they never go away and rarely change. This school of thought is ver y popular among the general public – especially those gen- erally critical of government – and has been championed by some academics as well (Kaufman, 1976; Nystrom and Starbuck, 1981, xv–xvi). This characterization of immortality and immutability, however, does not appear to be accurate; change is ver y common in government organizations. In one study of government organizations in the United States, we found almost 2,000 organizational changes in the federal government between 1933 and 1986 (Peters and Hogwood, 1988). Some of these changes were terminations, some were forma- tions of entirely new organizations, but most were changes of existing organiza- tions and groups of organizations. Similar patterns were found for organizations in the United Kingdom and in more tentative analyses of Swedish and French govern- ments. Thus, if we look at government at a sufficient distance, it appears to be a constant – for example, the United States has added only ten cabinet departments since the first cabinet was formed – but if we look more carefully, the picture of

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stability is rapidly replaced by one of reorganization and change and, therefore, we need to understand organizational change better than we do. A second point to be made about reorganization is that it matters, but not too much. Reorganization is sometimes denigrated as simply being an exercise in shuffling boxes on organization charts. This may be the case, but simply changing the location of an organization may determine how it operates and how it makes public policy. For example, the Coast Guard in the United States has been located in a number of cabinet departments in its 200-year histor y; most recently it was moved from the Department of the Treasur y to the Department of Transportation. This movement means that, ever ything else being equal, it will now receive more memos about boat safety and fewer about smuggling. Thus, reorganization may have a subtle but nonetheless real impact on the pattern of policy that emerges from a government organization. On the other hand, reorganization for efficiency may be, as one scholar and practitioner argued, a “will o’ the wisp” (Salamon, 1982). From the perspective of efficiency, all forms of organization may be equally good or bad. That is, broad factors, such as whether or not it is public and its particular organizational culture, will typically have a greater impact on efficiency than will the particular form of organization selected. In fact, the major efficiency benefit from reorganization appears to derive simply from doing it; the shakeup of an organization in the reor- ganization process may be as beneficial as any particular organizational format that could be chosen. Even drastic organizational changes, such as privatization, may have only ephemeral efficiency benefits. These findings about reorganization have not, of course, prevented politicians, practitioners, and academics from expending a great deal of time and energy in discussing and advocating specific reorganiza- tions. It is simply too appealing and apparently too obvious a thing to do to stop simply because it may have few demonstrable effects. The final point to be made about government reorganization is that it is mani- festly a political exercise. It is easy, if one believes that efficiency gains really are possible, or if one believes in the proverbs of good administration discussed above, to think that reorganization is primarily a managerial or administrative activity. Structural changes in government, however, are better considered as an exercise in which political benefits are created. Some, or perhaps even most, of these ben- efits may be symbolic. Reorganization activity is an indication that government is addressing a problem and that it has some real concern about the citizens impacted by the problem. On the other hand, some of the political benefits may be real. Reor- ganization of government in a multiethnic society, for example, may give a group that considered itself oppressed by a dominant culture greater representation in decision making and perhaps the ability to manage a portion of its own affairs. Even when there are no ethnic sensibilities involved, reorganization may give greater power to some groups. For example, the almost continuous reorganization of the trade and industr y function in the United Kingdom variously advantaged different groups concerned with different economic development and regional issues in that countr y (Hogwood, 1988). In summar y, governments continue to attempt to get their organizational structure right, but may be doomed to failure. There may be no right structure, only structures that are more or less satisfactor y. Reorganization is still, however,

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a valuable activity in government. It is valuable in part because it may be able to shape policy outcomes in ways desired, if the flow of communications and influence is altered. It is also valuable as a political recognition of the importance of some issues and of some elements of the society. So long as the real benefits are under- stood, along with the symbolic values, government reorganization need not be the waste of time it is sometimes considered to be.

Summary

This chapter has provided a brief over view of the complex topic of the structure of public organizations. As such, it has been largely an introduction to the problems and questions that arise, rather than a set of definitive answers to those questions. Nevertheless, it should be clear that the design and redesign of public administra- tion is more than a technical exercise. There are a number of rather broad ques- tions concerning the nature of the establishment as a whole that must be answered by political leaders or constitution writers rather than by the civil ser vice. These answers may, in turn, greatly influence the overall effectiveness of the public estab- lishment as well as the satisfaction of the public with that establishment. Beyond these questions, there are any number of problems with the internal organization of agencies and with the managing of an ongoing public enterprise. These must be considered in the light of the particular nation in question and the characteristics of the task involved. The basic task of organizational analysis, however, is to design organizations that enable their officials to have at least the possibility of providing effective ser vices to the population. No organization chart or diagram of responsibilities can ensure this, so the task of the manager is largely to make it possible and perhaps even probable. The ultimate success or failure of the agency will remain with the individuals who inhabit it.

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C h a p t e r 5

The Politics of Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy and Interest Groups 168 Social Movements and the Bureaucracy 190 Bureaucracy and Political Parties 191

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The preceding chapters were, in essence, the foundation for this and the follow- ing three chapters. We have discussed the relationship of public administration to its environment by elaborating the social and economic surroundings of adminis- tration, the cultural milieu in which administration functions, attempts of public administration to recruit personnel from that environment, and the patterns of organizational structure within the bureaucracy. In this chapter we begin to examine the relationship of politics to the conduct of public administration and to the policy decisions made by administrators. It is sometimes appealing to think about public administration as just management, but this would be misleading. The interaction of administration with both formal and informal political actors in society has a pro- found impact on the behavior of administrators and on their decisions. The extent of this influence, and the manner in which it is exerted, are the subjects of this chapter and those that follow. Perhaps the best place to begin this discussion is by again noting the sur vival of the ancient proverb of public life that politics and administration are separate enterprises and that such a separation is valid both in the analysis of public insti- tutions as well as in the actual conduct of public business (see Wilson, 1887; in contrast see Appleby, 1949; Svara, 2006). Although any number of authors have attempted to lay this proverb to rest, it has displayed amazing resilience and reap- pears in any number of settings in any number of political systems). We must, therefore, assume that this proverb, if not entirely or even partially valid from an analytic perspective, ser ves some purpose for administrators and politicians. What does the artificial separation of these two activities assume to do that makes the sur vival of this “useful fiction” so desirable for both sets of actors? For public administrators, this presumed separation of administration and pol- itics allows them to engage in politics (organizational rather than partisan) without being held accountable politically for the outcomes of their actions. Further, they can engage in policy making – presumably using technical or legal criteria for their decisions – without the interference of political actors who might other wise recog- nize political or ideological influences on policies and make demands upon them to modify those policies (Rose, 1987; see also Page and Jenkins, 2005). Thus, the actions of administrators may be regarded by politicians, the public, and even by themselves as the result of the simple application of rational, legal, or technical cri- teria to questions of policy. This apparent professional detachment may make oth- er wise unacceptable decisions more palatable to the public (Handler, 1996). This appearance of rational and technical decision making is heightened when, as in the Anglo- American democracies, great efforts are made to make the civil ser vice politically neutral. The separation of politics and administration also allows politicians some latitude that they might other wise lack. In essence, the separation of these two types of institutional choices facilitates the difficult decisions of modern govern- ment being made by individuals who will not have to face the public at a subsequent election. Thus, it may allow politics to shape, or at least influence, an important decision that will be announced by a “nonpolitical” institution that will not be held publicly accountable. Further, the conception that political and technical decision making can be separated in public life has allowed political reformers to remove many important public decisions as far as possible from “politics” – meaning in

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their conceptions largely corrupt machine politics and other pejorative aspects of political life. This separation results in many important governmental functions being transferred from partisan political control to independent agencies, bureau- cracies, and technocratic elites (Mannheim, 1946). It is obviously assumed that the administrators who make decisions in these settings are, in fact, insulated from political pressures and are able to make deci- sions pro bono publico because of that insulation. As we will show, however, the arti- ficial separation of the political and administrative functions, instead of removing decisions from political influence, may actually subject them to different and more invidious types of political influences. These influences are believed to be more invidious because, having already been defined out of existence, they are difficult for the public to identify and even more difficult to control. Further, the capacity of the bureaucracy to make binding rules for society may be hidden to all but the most astute members of society, given the relatively arcane procedures used (Baldwin, 1994; Ker win, 2012). Having still not completely exorcized the demon of the separation of politics and administration, we are now at least in a position to understand why the actors in the policy process may be willing to accept that doctrine and why scholars may come to believe them. Thus, although scholars may discount the politics/ administration dichotomy in the abstract, when they confront the realities of how the actors perceive their roles, they must accept at least the psychological reality of the separation. We will, therefore, discuss the political environment of admin- istrative decision making, as well as the political influences on those decisions. In so doing, it is useful to distinguish several dimensions of the political activity of administrators. The first of these dimensions is labeled “internal–external,” or perhaps more appropriately “policy–sur vival.” On one end of this dimension is political activity within the agency which seeks to take a variety of inputs from pressure groups, partisans, the political executive, and any number of other sources and develop a policy. On the other end of the continuum are political activities directed toward maintaining and expanding the organization – purposive and reflexive goals in Mohr’s (1982) terminology. These two forms of politics are rarely so neatly sepa- rated in real life, and pursuing one may contribute to accomplishing other goals. However, we can usefully distinguish the two forms of politics for analytic purposes and discuss the types of influences likely to be brought and the major loci of politi- cal conflict for each. The second dimension of administrative politics is formality. Administrators interact both with other governmental officials (legislators, the political execu- tive, other administrators, representatives of subnational governments) and with unofficial political actors (largely the representatives of pressure groups). Again, these interactions are not always clearly separable, for officials often carr y with them a continuing commitment to the cause of par ticular interests, and pressure groups may function in quasi- official capacities. However, it is useful to make such a distinction for analytic reasons because the style of the interaction, its legitimacy, and its probable influences on policy will var y considerably as a func- tion of the type of actor involved as well as a function of the type of agency activity involved.

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The two dimensions of political activity by public administration, along with examples of each categor y of activity, are presented in Figure 5.1. We show four categories based upon a cross- classification of the two dimensions. Thus, we will be looking at administrative politicized actions that have a characteristic of being both formal and informal, and directed more toward policy formation or sur vival. Our example of internal (policy)–formal administrative politics is the relationship between an upper- echelon civil ser vant and the cabinet minister he or she is des- ignated to ser ve (see Rouban, 2007; Elgie, 2011). Ministers, who are charged with extensive political chores in addition to managing a large and complex bureaucratic organization, cannot be reasonably expected to have a sufficient grasp of the issues involved or of the information available for many policy decisions; such decisions will, therefore, be produced through either consultation with, or delegation to, their senior administrative officials. Consequently, interactions between ministers and civil ser vants are a dominant feature of the policy- making process and must be better understood in order for the analyst to predict the outcomes of the policy process in contemporar y political systems. Some progress has been made in for- mulating models to assist in that understanding, but substantial refinement and conceptualization are still required (Peters, 1987; Savoie, 1999). External–formal administrative politics are perhaps best identified in two ways. The first is the process of public budgeting, in which administrative agen- cies have to seek their continued and expanded funding from other institutions of government. A number of authors note that this is perhaps the most crucial locus of administrative politics because of its pivotal role in the future programs of the agency (Wanna et al., 2003; Bastida and Benito, 2007). It is certainly a political activity that is the focus of an enormous amount of effort on the part of the agen- cies and one that has received considerable attention in the popular and scholarly literature. Budgeting involves the mobilization of considerable political support for the agency, if it expects to be successful in obtaining its desired funding, and con- sequently is an activity that will involve considerable informal politics – lobbying by both interest groups and the agency itself – as well. This is true even as govern- ments attempt to enhance the rationality of the budget process and make better economic decisions (see Chapter 7).

Formal

Informal

Formality

Internal

Administrator/ Minister

Relationship

Administrative Lobbying

External

Budgeting: Accountability

Clientele Support

Figure 5.1 Types of Bureaucratic Politics

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The second important type of external–formal politics is the politics of public accountability through which other formal public bodies may seek to curb the autonomy of the public bureaucracy. Any number of institutions in the public sector have some responsibility for seeing that the public bureaucracy does not abuse its discretion and acts in accordance with the laws that established its organizations and the laws that it administers. Given the importance of both of these types of “external–formal” politics in contemporar y politics, they will be discussed in chap- ters (7 and 8) of their own. Internal–informal administrative politics is probably best characterized by the relationship of pressure groups and administration in the formation of policy. In virtually all political systems, attempts are made by interest (or pressure) groups to influence public decisions. The openness of public administration to group influ- ences, and the relative success of groups in obtaining the policies they seek, are again a function of a number of institutional, political, and cultural factors that require further discussion and elaboration. However, except in the most totalitarian society, there is generally considerable opportunity for group action and for group influence on the process of policy formulation in bureaucracy. Finally, external–informal administrative politics is best characterized by relationships between interest groups, the public at large, and public bureaucrats attempting to develop support for their programs and for the continued success of the agency in the budgetar y process (see Goodsell, 2011). Those bureaucrats have several means of tr ying to influence even the inattentive public, including advertis- ing and the promotion of a positive image among the public. The armed forces in a number of countries, for example, advertise attempting to boost recruitment, and agencies hold countless press conferences to demonstrate their contribution to the society. As noted above, this type of political activity is inextricably bound to the ability of pressure groups to influence policy and the ability of agencies to sur vive in a competitive environment. With some general picture of the scope and variety of administrative politics in mind, we begin our more intensive discussion of the politics of administration by examining the informal side of these interactions – that is, the relationship between administration and pressure groups, political parties, and other unofficial political groups who seek to influence the course of public policy or whom the administra- tors rely upon in justifying their future programs and funding. Our discussion of the relationships of political parties to administration is substantially briefer than that of pressure groups, in large part because the major influence of party is mani- fested through official mechanisms, when members of the party occupy positions of government and attempt to impose their views on the bureaucracy. Since, almost by definition, political parties are motivated principally by the opportunity to hold public office rather than the opportunity to influence policy through other activities, it makes more sense to examine the official rather than the unofficial side of par- tisan activities. The major exception to that generalization would be small parties that have little or no chance of holding office and hence function in many ways as interest groups.

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Bureaucracy and Interest Groups

The conflict between the demands of interest groups and the role of bureaucracy in decision making is, in most societies, one of the most basic in government. On the one hand there is an institution of government, representing the authority of the state, impar tiality, and within the Rechtstaat tradition of Germany even a judicial temperament. On the other side of the conflict are groups that, by their ver y nature, represent only narrow interests seeking some preferential treatment from government. This division of the role of the state and the role of interests is perceived dif ferently in dif ferent political cultures. The conflict may not be as intense in Nor way as in, say, France, and may not be so intense in either of those as in many less- developed societies. Interestingly, however, the conflict between bureaucracy and interest groups has been sufficiently ameliorated in most socie- ties so that the two sets of organizations are able not only to co- exist but even to cooperate ef fectively (see Page and Wright, 2007). Fur ther, it is especially inter- esting that societies that have had among the most positive conceptions of the public bureaucracy – Germany, the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian countries – have been much more successful in accommodating the role of pressure groups into policy making than have political systems that have a less exalted concep- tion of their civil ser vants (see Sotriopolous, 2004). In fact, a relatively positive evaluation of the civil ser vice may be required to allow the civil ser vants sufficient latitude to bargain ef fectively with pressure groups and to make accommodations to their demands. Given the apparent conflict in the roles of these two sets of political actors and institutions, how are they able to cooperate so well, and so often in making policy? In the first place, the stereotypical descriptions of the policy roles of these two sets of actors obscure some of the reality of their interaction. The civil ser vice rarely speaks or acts as a unified entity. Rather, it is divided into numerous organizations, each with its own narrow policy interests that often correspond to the interests of pressure groups. Thus, agencies within the bureaucracy, especially a public bureaucracy as decentralized as that of the United States or the Scandinavian coun- tries, may have a great deal in common with the interest groups concerned with the same policy issues, and they may be natural allies in fighting for policies (Seidman, 1998). Furthermore, pressure groups in most Western democracies have found that acting in a less blatantly self- interested manner in politics may produce greater policy benefits for them and their members in the long run. Thus, cooperation and accepting limits in the short run may pay long- term benefits. The links between interest groups and the bureaucracy may have been enhanced by the creation of numerous autonomous and quasi- autonomous organi- zations to perform public functions. These “agencies” have been part of the stand- ard prescriptions of the New Public Management and they now appear in most of the countries of the world (Pollitt and Talbot, 2004). These organizations are often cut off from political support from ministers and other political leaders and, there- fore, are happy to have support from interest groups in the policy area, even if they are regulator y organizations designed to regulate those interests. Thus, creating greater autonomy for public agencies may have exacerbated the familiar problem of agency capture by interests (Carpenter and Moss, 2014).

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Second, conflict between interest groups and the bureaucracy is minimized, as both sets of actors need each other to be successful. Administrators need the political support and influence of pressure groups in their external relationships with other political institutions, and they also need the information supplied by pres- sure groups for making and defending policies. Likewise, the pressure groups need access to the political process and influence over the decisions that are taken. This mutual need, given the fragmentation of decision making in modern governments, is the basic dynamic explaining the frequent cooperation between public bureauc- racies and pressure groups (see Duran, 2000 on cooptation). We are now left with the more formidable task of describing how the two partners in this exchange inter- act, and what the effects are of differing patterns of interaction. We can classify the interactions between pressure groups and bureaucracies into four basic types. This classification, along with the presumed characteristics and effects of each type, are illustrated in Table 5.1. This classificator y scheme places the interaction between bureaucrats and pressure groups into four broad categories, constituting an informal continuum from situations in which pressure group influence on policy is regarded as illegitimate to cases where it is regarded as legitimate and necessar y. These four categories are themselves rather broad and may contain substantial variation, but it is still useful to use such a scheme to begin to understand the broad differences in relationships between these actors. Associated with each of these patterns of interaction are categories describing the manner in which the relationship is carried on and its impact on policy.

Legitimate Interactions

The first categor y of interactions between bureaucrats and pressure group actions is labeled “legitimate.” This label denotes that in some political systems, not only are pressure groups an accepted fact of political life, but they are also legally and officially involved in the process of making and administering public policy. Indeed, in this conception of government the involvement of interest groups with the public sector is not only legitimate, it is virtually necessar y. The major examples of this type are found in Germany, the Low Countries, and Scandinavia, but a number of other countries, e.g., Canada, have adopted legitimate roles for pressure groups in more limited forms. Corporatism and public administration. One variant of the legitimate relationship between interest groups and government has been described as

Table 5.1 Types of Interaction Between Pressure Groups and Bureaucracy

Characteristics

Types Scope Influence Style Impact

legitimate Broad Great Bargaining redistribution/Self-regulation Clientela Narrow Moderate Symbiosis Self-regulation/Distribution Parantela Narrow Moderate Kinship regulation/Distribution Illegitimate Variable None/Great confrontation None/redistribution

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“corporatism” or “neo- corporatism” (Schmitter, 1974; Wiarda, 2000). This is actu- ally a rather extreme version of the legitimate relationship in that it tends to restrict the number of interest groups involved in the policy process and, to some extent, to incorporate that limited number into the state apparatus rather directly. Phillipe Schmitter (1974, 93) defines corporatism as an arrangement characterized by a “limited number of singular, compulsor y, non- competitive, hierarchically ordered and functionally differentiated” groups that are given a virtual license to represent their particular area of competence. He further differentiates societal corporatism, in which the private associations dominate the state in policy making, from state corporatism, in which the state is the dominant actor. This definition of corporatist arrangements implies a monopolistic relationship of interest groups in a particular policy area and sanctioning of this relationship by some state organization. The strict conception of corporatism involves three actors – business, labor, and the government – bargaining over economic policy. Although a few political systems continue to use such a narrow version of these legitimate interactions, more open and extensive forms of interaction are now more common. For example, corporate pluralism in the Scandinavian countries (Rokkan, 1966; Olsen, 1975) expands the number of opportunities for groups to become involved in making policy. The various instruments for involving interest groups (see below) tend to permit almost all groups who want to be involved to have some influence over policy. As initially formulated, none of these approaches to the relationship between interest groups and government had ver y much to say concerning the relation- ship of groups and the public bureaucracy. The major policy area discussed by the theorists of corporatism was the setting of national economic policy, as in “Harpsund Democracy” in Sweden or Konzr tier te Aktion in the Federal Republic of Germany. These meetings of the major peak organizations of labor and man- agement with the government involved negotiations about the future course of wages, prices, and profits. This was “high politics,” directly involving top gov- ernment officials, rather than the more mundane politics of policy making by bureaucracy. But corporatism does have some relevance for this more ordinar y type of policy making. One of the major effects, similar to those that will be pointed out for the clientela relationships between interest groups and the bureaucracy, is to restrict the advice and ideas coming into the bureaucracy. In the (arguably) corporatist arrangements between government and interest groups in Japan, for example, labor has been excluded, while business groups and agricultural domi- nate (Pempel, 1979). If the strict corporatist definitions put forth by Schmitter do indeed apply, then there will be a one- on-one relationship between interest group and agency. In such an arrangement, only the position of the official interest groups will be heard through this channel (see Binderkrantz, 2005). Similarly, this relation- ship will likely produce even greater incoherence in government than might exist other wise. If agriculture groups are talking to agriculture officials (be they political or administrative), labor groups to labor officials, and so on, then governmental pri- orities and decision making will become highly fragmented. A corporatist arrange- ment would not be without benefits, however; as a friendly interest group can assist in legitimating decisions and in implementing them for an agency.

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Corporatist arrangements for making and then delivering public policy have taken on additional importance as governments have come under increased pres- sure to adopt alternative mechanisms for ser vice deliver y. With “government by proxy” or the “hollow state” or “the enabling state” being more important, ser v- ices may be delivered by interest groups, by other not- for-profit organizations, or through private sector methods, such as contracting (Salamon, 1982; Milward, 1996). Governments have been quite active in seeking the involvement of interest groups and in promoting partnerships between the public and the private sector that can both deliver a ser vice and provide legitimacy for the policy (Kettl, 1993; Pierre, 1999). At the extreme, “Private Interest Governments” permits an interest group to operate in the name of the State, and to make and implement policies in its own interest (Streek, 1987). The legitimating function has become especially important as public trust and confidence in government declines. In general, corporatism may be of limited importance for understanding how government manages its relationships with interest groups. The entire pattern of relationships appears to be under threat now, as the fiscal pressures that almost all developed economies confront have made interest groups less cooperative with government and less willing to be co- opted (but see Schmitter, 1989; Gerlich, 1992). In addition, even at its high point, corporatism describes only a relatively small portion of the activities of interest groups – even those accorded some legitimate rights of participation in government – as they deal with government. Finally, for some of the more well- developed corporatist systems in Western Europe, the move- ment into the European Union means breaking up some of the cozy relationships that have existed at home (Kassim, 1994).

Networks and Communities

Most forms of corporatism imply some limitation on the number of groups involved in interactions with government. Corporate pluralism is something of an excep- tion to that generalization, and several more recently developed conceptualizations about the relationship of interest groups with government, as well as among public organizations themselves, provide greater latitude for interest groups to influence government. There is now an extensive body of literature focusing on “policy com- munities” and “policy networks” as rather loose aggregations of groups involved in a policy area and having (in general) legitimate interactions with the public sector (Petersson, 1989b; Sörenson and Torfing, 2007). The basic concept behind network theory is that every policy area is populated by a large number of interest groups, and perhaps other social and market actors. Each of these actors is attempting to have its own views of policy adopted as law, and works with other groups to press their views. They do this through making contacts with legislatures and the bureaucratic agencies responsible for the policy. They also interact with other interest groups that have similar orientations to the policy in ques- tion in order to create coalitions to further those interests. These “networks” are also populated by other government organizations that have conflicting and comple- mentary interests in the policy. As well as influencing the formulation stage, these networks also implement policies, much as in corporatist arrangements.

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The scholars who work in this field have engaged in a number of debates over the different meanings of “networks” versus “communities,” and even over different types of communities – policy versus epistemic (Atkinson and Coleman, 1989; Zito, 2001). I will not attempt to go ver y far into that debate here, but will point out that “network” tends to be a more neutral term, implying only that groups interact. The term “community,” on the other hand, tends to imply that there is some sharing of common orientations to the policy area. For example, an epistemic or interpretative community relies on a shared vision of the policy problem and a relatively common scientific and professional basis for working with that problem. The increasing importance of the European Community for public policy pro- vides an especially interesting example of networks, given that there are at times markedly different perspectives on policy among the now 27 member countries (Dunlop, 2010). The European case may be, however, merely a special case of the growing importance of international actors in domestic policy, with the interna- tional “regimes” surrounding policies having domestic impacts (Meny, 1989). This network literature has performed a number of important ser vices for students of politics. Most importantly it has pointed out that even though govern- ments may at times attempt to limit the number of groups involved in a policy area, that is difficult to do in a democratic political system, even when the more impor- tant groups also attempt to limit participation to preser ve their own oligopolistic position. There will always be groups with the resources to participate in some way, even if only illegitimately. This does not mean that the outcome of these interac- tions can be predicted (Christensen and Egeberg, 1993) but only that there is an enhanced capacity to predict who will be involved, and to describe the interactions patterns. Another virtue of the network approach is that it focuses attention on inter- actions between government agencies and other actors – other government organizations, politicians, and private interest groups (Torfing et al., 2011). These interactions are important whether or not they occur within the context of formal- ized committees or other advisor y structures. There is an increasing body of evi- dence about who talks with whom in the process of deciding about public policy. For example, the “power projects” in the Scandinavian countries have mapped patterns of interaction between departments and agencies and other important actors in their environments (Petersson, 1989a). Research in other European countries also has provided good maps of the linkages between the public and private sectors. The empirical nature of this research approach enables us to compare interest group influence over policy in a way that other approaches might not. For example, in general we would expect interactions in less- developed countries to contain a higher percentage of contacts from institutional groups and other government departments than would be true in more developed systems. Likewise, there could be differences among policy areas in the number, variety, and type of interactions. For example, a complex policy area such as health care may have a wider range of interactions than would a somewhat simpler policy area such as agriculture or defense (Freeman, 1985; Bovens et al., 2000). For example, in the Swedish power project data mentioned above, the defense department had on average many fewer contacts than did other departments, with environment and energy having a ver y high level of interaction (Petersson, 1989a).

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A final positive aspect of the network literature is that it does not necessarily assume cooperation and agreement on policy as appears implied in the corporatist literature. If groups are to be official in the corporatist world they appear to have to accept much of the existing policy framework. In a network or community world, on the other hand, conflict is permitted and even expected. Sabatier (1988), for example, argues that policy change should be understood through the conflicts of several “advocacy coalitions” constructed around different interpretations of the policy issues and problem solutions. In this view several networks often are involved in a political struggle to control any issue. This appears a more realistic view of most issues than does the more consensual one almost inherent in corporat- ist models. Despite its analytic vir tues, the network literature also has some problems as a means of understanding the way in which interest groups influence policy (Jordan, 1990; Dowding, 1995). The most impor tant of these problems is the indeterminacy of a network. The approach argues, quite rightly, that groups may be interested in making policy, but does relatively little to explain how one view wins and another loses in political struggles over policy. Networks lack formal rules for reaching decisions, and hence may find it difficult to make decisions in the face of conflicts, in contrast to formal political institutions that have rules such as majority voting. The simpler corporatist and clientelistic approaches are much better at predicting, although not always accurately. Fur ther, given that networks must be created and managed, the real prediction of success may be that government organizations will dominate, rather than the interests coming from the society. For example, even strong advocates of network approaches have argued that in many cases “meta- governing” by dominant state actors such as ministries of finance will still be necessar y (O’Toole, 2007; Sörenson and Torfing, 2007). Just like corporatism, network theor y also raises some important questions about democracy, and the relationship of these largely self- governing networks to other forms of political control. Democracy is always a question for bureaucracy, and the link of agencies to social actors is often considered a means of overcom- ing that problem. Indeed, many reforms in the public sector since the 1980s have sought to strengthen the power of social partners over the public sector to improve popular control. On the other hand, however, if networks are not truly inclusive, they become means of using public power for the benefit of a limited number of actors, without the safeguards that representative democracies attempt to institu- tionalize (Considine, 2001).

Patterns of Legitimate Interaction

The means of interaction between bureaucracy and social actors described below, although they are involved to some extent in corporatist and network arrange- ments, are more generic and affect a much wider range of behavior in the public sector. These modes of connecting state and society may be found in corporatism but may also be found in other systems that do not have such highly formalized patterns of interaction.

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Required consultation. The required consultation mechanism for legitimat- ing pressure group involvement in policy making is, as the name implies, the result of a variety of rules that require administrative bodies preparing new regulations to consult with the relevant pressure groups for their opinions and to solicit advice and information from them. In some cases this is done in the preparation of legisla- tion to be sent to a legislative body for enactment; in other cases required consul- tations are used for regulations that the administrative body can issue as a result of delegated legislative authority. In either case, required consultation permits an interest group direct access to the making of administrative policies. One method of ensuring group input is through the use of remiss petitions as in Sweden and Nor way. In both these countries, when policy modifications are being considered, the administrative agencies are required to ask for remisser from interest groups. These documents state the views of the group as well as some of the information that the group considers relevant to the issue. Originally the device was used only for pressure groups directly af fected by the regulations (for example, agricultural groups af fected by new regulations from an agricul- tural marketing board). More recently, the system has been extended to include vir tually any organized group that wishes to submit an opinion although there are still power dif ferentials among the groups (Micheletti, 1988). While such a system provides no guarantee that the advice of the group will be heeded, it does ensure access to relevant decision makers. Fur ther, since it is customar y for the remisser to accompany any proposed legislation, the system also provides some assurance that those who must finally pass legislation are informed of interest group opinion. In Germany, public agencies seeking to write new legislation or regulations are required by law to seek advice from interested pressure groups, although the array of pressure groups consulted is not generally so wide as in the Scandinavian countries. The European Union has developed its own mechanisms for ensuring par- ticipation. The most familiar of these mechanisms is the “comitology” process requiring consultation in the design of implementation (Blom- Hansen, 2010). The implementation of major framework legislation also requires consultation with national political actors, and stakeholders in the society. Other methods of required consultation employ more personal approaches. Most notable in this regard is the use of advisor y committees, especially in Scan- dinavian administrations (Christensen and Egeberg, 1997). These committees provide a forum for the interest group to present their evidence and to make a case for their particular views in an open forum. Interestingly, however, most repre- sentatives on these committees do not consider their role as that of an advocate of a particular position, but rather as more that of a technical expert and manager (see Kvavik, 1970). This role conception is obviously useful in facilitating compromise in those committees on even difficult questions of policy. Further, the presence of all affected interests in the committee requires openness and permits analysis of evidence from all parties in a manner that can facilitate compromise. The use of committees is perhaps especially important for making major policy inter ventions. Sweden and Nor way use royal commissions composed of political and administrative experts, along with experts from interest groups, to propose major policy change. Analogous organizations were used in the United

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Kingdom and Commonwealth countries, although these are now used less com- monly. But these mechanisms continue to be used in the Scandinavian countries including Denmark (Christensen et al., 2010). The use of advisor y bodies is not confined to the Scandinavian countries and, in fact, is a relatively common feature of administrative life around the world. In Germany, interest groups are represented on advisor y boards for the ministries as a matter of legal right. France had some 3,700 in the 1960s, with more being added continually, and one more recent estimate put the number at 15,000. The biennial report on advisor y committees in the United States lists several thousand and, although their relationships to government are less formalized, many also exist in the United Kingdom (Office of the Federal Register, 2013). Also the “comitology” of the European Union involves a vast array of advisor y committees for making and administering policy, permitting both national governments and organized interest to have some influence over those decisions (Christensen and Piattoni, 2003). What distinguishes the use of advisor y committees in northern European countries is the official sanction given to the role of the groups in the process of making policy. These political systems recognize pressure groups as an integral part of the decision- making process and, therefore, give them some of the same status accorded to other official participants in the policy process (see Blom- Hansen, 2000). In Germany this situation may be viewed as a continuation of some of the traditional corporate conceptions of the state, but in all systems this type of influence provides an important alternative to the usual liberal means of represen- tation through elections and legislatures (von Beyme, 1993). Moreover, with the rapid growth of administrative policy making, it may soon surpass the liberal means in its impact on public policy. Implementation. The second major form of legitimate interest group involvement in administration is the use of the groups as agents of implementa- tion for public policies. Interest groups ser ve as quasi- official arms of the political system in implementing some programs about which they are assumed to have expert knowledge and skills. Again, this means of group involvement is particularly apparent in Scandinavia and also frequently occurs in the Low Countries (Van den Bulck, 1992). One of the most common areas in which administration of this type occurs is agriculture, where either commodity groups or local farmers’ organiza- tions administer regulations, acreage allotments, or contractual relationships with the government. In Denmark the implementation of many portions of the labor law is left to the groups most affected by the law, through networks involving a range of groups. Similarly, in the Netherlands a large, but declining, portion of that countr y’s complex system of economic and agricultural regulation has been administered by boards composed largely of interest group representatives charged with the “self- policing” of a particular industr y in order to maintain the delicate economic balance within the countr y (van Schendelen and Jackson 1987; Behagel and Arts, 2014). Even in societies in which interest groups do not normally have much legitimacy, the United States and Singapore for example, they are used to implement programs that involve substantial expertise, and substantial legitimacy with the individuals involved. In all of these cases of implementation aided by interest groups, govern- ment essentially allows the groups to engage in activities in the name of the public,

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with only indirect “political” control over their actions. They tend to be somewhat restrained by having competing interests represented on the same administrative boards, but this is obviously a manner in which interest groups can have a direct impact on the shape of public policy. In most European societies this role is well institutionalized although the theoretical separation of state and society in most Anglo- American systems makes these implementation structures more suspect. Again, we should point out the degree to which the need of governments to implement their policies in a cheaper or less obtrusive manner has given increased importance to the legitimate role of interest groups as implementing agents (Salamon, 1981, 2001). In such interactions the state, of course, must be willing to trade some of its authority for ease of implementation, and possibly even greater legitimacy among those who will consume the ser vice. In some instances, such a tradeoff might have been resisted, but fiscal and popular pressures at the begin- ning of the twenty- first centur y are sufficient to make it extremely palatable. In the language of state theor y, states must become weaker and less autonomous as they become increasingly enmeshed with, and dependent upon, private interests (Atkin- son and Coleman, 1989; Saward, 1990; Pierre and Peters, 2001). For governments the use of interest groups as implementors represents a significant principal- agent problem. That is, government delegates a good deal of authority to private actors which have incentives to maximize their own benefits, whether in terms of material benefits or control over policy. Therefore, official actors in the public sector – often components of the bureaucracy – must develop some means of imposing control over the private sector actors operating in the name of the State. This is true whether these actors are working on contract to provide a ser vice or are granted powers to administer a program, e.g., professional licensing, in the name of the public. Contracts and monitoring are the most common forms of control, but these often are not able to determine if the agent is indeed complying adequately with the wish of the formal authority. Although we usually think about the impact on government organizations, inter- est groups also lose some autonomy when they become a part of the apparatus of state policy making and implementation. They run the risk of becoming co- opted by gov- ernment, with maintaining their relationship to government becoming as important a goal as changing policy. The maintenance of the loyalty and commitment of inter- est group leaders to the wishes of the rank-and-file members is an enduring problem in voluntary organizations. It is especially pronounced when leadership roles involve regular participation in important negotiations over policy, and frequent contacts with government officials. The danger is that interest groups become too much a part of the system of government to represent their members’ wishes adequately. Institutional groups. Institutional pressure groups appear to constitute a special class of legitimate pressure groups. By definition, these groups are impor- tant social or political institutions that are seeking to influence public policy. Some rather obvious examples are the church, the army, and the public bureaucracy itself. Local governments, even in unitar y regimes, may also act as institutional groups, and often are among the most successful organizations in getting what they want from government. Institutional groups, like all interest groups, seek to obtain benefits for themselves or their members, and their actions are legitimated through the prestige of the institution, or perhaps the threat of extreme actions in

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the case of the army in some societies. Therefore, these groups often are able to achieve their goals, even when other forms of interest groups may be excluded. Even in countries that tend toward legitimate interactions between interest groups and the bureaucracy, institutional interest groups may actually be better conceptualized as a special class of clientele group, in that they have legitimate access when a number of competing groups may not, and they tend to seek more particularized special- interest outputs than tends to be true in legitimate pres- sure group systems. This access is often particularly evident for local government organizations that lobby for support from the central government, whether as a group or for their own particular community (Rhodes, 1988). In many developing countries the militar y (and to some extent also the bureaucracy) is a special case of the powerful institutional interest group, lobbying, or threatening, in order to get what it wants from a relatively weak government. As is noted in Figure 5.1, which characterizes the interactions of administra- tors and pressure groups, the scope of interaction between the two in “legitimate” situations tends to be quite broad. A single pressure group may be consulted on a variety of policies, and virtually all policy areas may be the subject of inputs from interested parties. Also, the influence of the legitimate groups on policy may be expected to be great relative to other types of interaction patterns. The legitimacy of the groups, their frequency of interaction with administrators, and their official or quasi- official status all make it possible for groups to have an impact that they would not have elsewhere. In part this is a function of not having to expend organi- zational resources simply to gain access, and in part a function of the expert roles adopted by the interest group participants in the process. These perceived roles contribute to the bargaining style of their interactions. When the influence of pressure groups must be more covert, this important bargaining mode of interaction is, of necessity, eliminated through the politics of gaining access, necessitating that few groups rather than many will be involved in any one decision. This characterization does not hold true, of course, in the corpo- ratist arrangements described above, in which there is a one- to-one relationship between pressure group and government. The relationship may not be as particu- larized as in clientela relationships described below, but it lacks the broad bargain- ing style associated with most legitimate patterns of interaction. Finally, the policy consequences of this pattern of interaction between pres- sure groups and administrators are generally confined to two types (phrased in terms of the Lowi (1967) and the Salisbur y and Heinz (1968) typologies, which continue to have substantial relevance for the political examination of public policy): redistribution and self- regulation. That is, in situations in which adminis- trators are capable of imposing the choices made by groups through a bargaining and negotiation process, the decisions taken are likely to take from one group and give to another. This means of bargaining over policy is, however, a relatively safe matter (politically) to adopt redistributive policy, since it ensures the participa- tion of both winners and losers as well as ensuring the application of technical knowledge to the choice. This pattern has been noted in Nor way (Olsen, 1975). In Sweden the inclusion of all competing groups is important for the smooth imple- mentation of policies adopted by pressure group representatives cooperating with the government. Later research, such as that on pension reform in Sweden, also

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pointed to the crucial role that inclusion made in enabling the political system to make difficult decisions (Marier, 2004). In political situations in which the elite may lack the cohesion and consen- sus necessar y to implement a redistributive decision, these legitimate interactions between interest groups and administrators may result in policies of self- regulation. In these cases organizations are generally allowed to manage their own affairs and thereby essentially manage a sector of public policy for the government. One example of this type of policy outcome is in the area of agriculture, where the con- flict within the sector is relatively slight so that there may be little need for directly redistributive decisions, and where some policies – such as the allocation of fishing quotas among boats – may have little effect on other groups. Even in these cases there is potential conflict, for example, between agricultural groups wanting high subsidies and, therefore, high food prices, and labor groups wanting low prices and, therefore, lower subsidies; or agricultural groups may want to use pesticides while environmentalists do not (May and Winter, 1999). The choice between redis- tributive and self- regulative policies may depend on the breadth of groups involved in any one decision as well as the integration of the elites making and enforcing the decisions. In other policy areas, one group may have such a monopoly of informa- tion and expertise that it is given the responsibility of self- regulation on the basis of that expertise. This has been especially true of medical and legal groups in the United States and is a prevalent finding for similar groups in a variety of other politi- cal systems (Immergut, 1990). The economic difficulties which most Western democracies encountered to var ying degrees since the 1970s have had contradictor y effects on legitimate pat- terns of interaction between interest groups and the public bureaucracy. On the one hand, the increasing use of interest groups or other aspects of “third- party government” have relieved some of the administrative burden of government and enhanced the legitimacy of programs. On the other hand, corporatism and other forms of legitimate involvement of pressure groups appear better suited to dividing a growing economic pie in the public sector than to deciding where the cuts must be made. Access is important when there is more to be given out, but becomes almost a burden for interest groups when there is little good news to distribute. For government, however, there is a temptation, when faced with stress and numer- ous conflicting demands, to reduce its involvement with outside groups and make its own decisions. The exact manner in which these contradictor y pressures are manifested in actual decisions depends upon a number of cultural and situational factors, but formalized relationships between government and interest groups are being examined closely (Hermansson et al., 1997). Also, although the patterns are perhaps clearest in Western countries, some of the same changes have been occur- ring in the less- developed countries, especially the increased reliance on the third sector for policy deliver y (Adamolekun, 2007).

Clientela Relationships

The second type of interaction between interest groups and administration is one of the two major types discussed by LaPalombara (1967). A clientela relationship

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is said to exist when an interest group, for whatever reasons, succeeds in becom- ing, in the eyes of a given administrative agency, the natural expression and rep- resentative of a given social sector which, in turn, constitutes the natural target or reference point for the activity of the administrative agency. What that rather long definition implies is that a single interest group becomes the exclusive representa- tive of a sector, and there is a close connection between the one organization and a single agency. This type of interaction is characterized by a perceived legitimacy on the par t of administrators of a single, or very limited number of interest groups rather than a formal statement of the legitimacy of all or vir tually all groups. The conse- quences of this seemingly slight dif ference are, however, quite impor tant. In the first place, the scope of interaction of pressure groups and administration tends to be rather severely constrained. Each agency tends to select a single pressure group as the legitimate representative of its par ticular social sector and to avoid most other groups seeking to present information and advice. Thus, whereas in the “legitimate” arrangement mentioned previously the agency might be able or required to consult a broad range of groups, in a clientela relationship it will enter tain a quite narrow range of information and advice. This narrowing is espe- cially evident when two or more groups seek to organize a single sector of the society but only one is accorded regular access to decision making. This situation tends to skew the sources of information, generally in the direction toward which the administrators tended in the first place. Suleiman (1974) and others have noted that in France – and cer tainly elsewhere – legitimate groups tend to be those whose economic strength is undeniable and whose demands are in general accord with government policy (see also Sheingate, 2003). This pattern appears to persist after substantial modernization of many aspects of French government and administration. The second consequence of this form of interaction is that, while the influ- ence of one group may be increased, the overall influence of pressure groups on public policy will be lessened. Not having legitimacy in any formal sense obviously reduces the acceptability of special- interest influence on policy for the general public, and the ability of the bureaucracy to accept advice is also limited. Further, each pressure group must expand relatively more of its organizational resources on the pursuit of access, so that less is available for the information and influence func- tions. Moreover, in this process of seeking access, any conception of the “public interest” – even as an aggregate of pressure group interests – tends to be lost and replaced with a set of private interests, each represented in government by a single agency. Associated with the above is a need to keep the negotiations and interac- tions of interest groups and administrators private and informal, thereby removing them even further from public scrutiny and accountability. All these characteristics of the scope and manner of interaction indicate that the pressure group universe will tend to be less broadly influential over policies, with virtually any influence that does occur having something of a taint of illegality among the general public. If we remove this taint of illegality from the idea of interactions between inter- est groups and government, it is difficult to distinguish clientela relationships and corporatist arrangements that have developed along sectoral lines, especially in policy sectors such as agriculture, with very close collaboration between government

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and groups in almost every country (Campbell and Peters, 1988). That “taint” is, of course, important in defining the dynamics of the interactions and in influencing the legitimacy of outcomes, but it is a very subtle distinction. Pluralist politics that are often associated with clientela relationships with interest groups tends to contain a presumption that interest groups undermine the public interest – something of a self- fulfilling prophecy. The description of the interactions of interest groups and public administra- tion in clientela politics leads to the characterization of these relationships as sym- biotic. As in biological symbiosis, this relationship implies a mutual dependence of the two participants. The administrative agency depends upon the pressure group for information, advice, prior clearance of policy decisions, and, most important, for political support in its competition with other agencies for the scarce resources within government. The pressure groups, on the other hand, depend upon the agency for access to decision making and ultimately for favorable decisions on certain policy choices. For both sides a clientela relationship ser ves to regularize the political environment and to develop friendships in what might other wise be a hostile political world. This form of pressure group relationship with administration, noted by LaPal- ombara (1967) in Italy, has been used by several authors as a means of describing much of the politics of policy in the United States, and it would seem to be prevalent in a number of other political systems that have strong interest groups but where the interactions of these groups and the government is at the margin of acceptabil- ity (Lowi, 1967). Heclo (1978) argued, however, that this clientelist pattern is now less descriptive of the United States than it once was, and a much broader array of interests have come to be represented in Washington. The increasing inclusive- ness of networks in Washington may appear virtuous on grounds of democracy; it does make the policy- making process substantially less predictable than it had been. On the other hand, the by now standard lament on the impact of “single- issue politics” on American government may lead one to continue to accept the clientelist description. Further, although the United States has been a principal example of clientela politics, it is by no means the only example. Even countries that have more legiti- mate interactions in some areas may find certain sectors, or sometimes a broader array of sectors, behaving in a clientelistic manner. As noted, agriculture often oper- ates in a clientelistic manner, and financial interests have been able to preser ve a privileged position even in countries being governed by left- leaning governments. Likewise, given the plethora of possible groups from which political and admin- istrative actors can choose, the European Union also appears to relate to interest groups by selecting a particular client group through which to channel its influence (Dür, 2008). Finally, the policy consequences of the clientela arrangement produce self- regulative and distributive outcomes. LaPalombara (1967) notes that regulation is one of the defining characteristics of a clientela relationship but goes on to note that the regulative activities undertaken are not necessarily those that would promote the “public interest.” Rather, they are activities that quite directly promote the inter- ests of the regulated, a pattern of regulation referred to as “self- regulation.” Again, this tendency toward self- regulation appears endemic to administrative agencies

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and especially independent regulator y commissions in the United States. Evidence from other political systems, however, is that this phenomenon is not confined to the United States but is a more general feature of industrial societies. In a variety of settings the need for political support is sufficient to necessitate the replace- ment of regulation with clientelism and self- regulation. Administrators may lack the resources and the central political support to enforce programs of regulation in the face of opposition of powerful and well- organized groups, so in essence they must gain support from those groups. However, as with Heclo’s analysis of clientela poli- tics in the United States, there is an interpretation that regulator y capture is less prevalent in the United States than it once was, especially for the “new social regula- tion,” in which the regulator y bodies have jurisdictions that cut across a variety of industries (May, 2002). Further, there is increasing attention to the design of regu- lator y structures that can minimize the chances of capture (Macey, 1992; Howlett et al., 2006). Besides self- regulation, clientela relationships also tend to be associated with distributional outcomes, which may be merely more tangible manifesta- tions of self- regulative programs. In distributional politics, however, instead of being allowed to make its own regulations, a group is granted continuing ben- efits. In Lowi’s (1967, 19) terminology, distributional politics “create privilege, and it is a type of privilege which is par ticularly hard to bear or combat because it is touched with the symbolism of the state.” A fur ther feature of distributional politics is its tendency to accord benefits to all groups accepted as legitimate rather than select some as wor thy and others as less wor thy. The close relation- ship between the interest group and the government agency can ensure that the clients continue to receive something of value from government, and that ques- tions of redistribution and the need for adjustment of the relative benefits are rarely subjects of discussion. Again, if we examine the impact both of a decline in the confidence of pop- ulations in government’s ability to solve society’s problems and of the declining budgetar y resources available to most governments, there are contradictor y impli- cations for clientela relationships. On the one hand, the crisis mentality per vading government when faced with declining legitimacy and less money tends to produce more attempts at central control. Central agencies concerned with budgets and with managing the public sector as a whole attempt to impose their priorities on the policy process, rather than allowing the departments and agencies to work so closely with private interests in shaping policy (Savoie, 1999). No longer are dis- tribution and self- regulation so acceptable as policy outcomes, but government is seen to need to set priorities and make hard decisions among programs. As we will see in Chapter 7, a number of methods have been developed to cope with these problems, but all depend upon the priorities set and the choices made. On the other hand, the fiscal pressures on government, and the crisis of confidence in the system of governing in many countries, may have forced public administration closer to organized interests and, therefore, may have accentuated tendencies to form clientele relationships. If government needs an interest group to implement a policy, or to provide advice and information which government organi- zations themselves are increasingly hard- pressed to produce, then it is difficult for them to impose tighter controls on the self- regulator y policies that have benefited

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those interests. As was noted above, this may be the means by which clientele rela- tionships lose their taint and become legitimate. Again, how these pressures are played out will depend on cultural and situational factors. The development of clientele politics is heavily influenced by the peculiar politics and economics of public bureaucracies. Despite the arguments that con- sider bureaucracy and bureaucrats as integrated and homogeneous actors, seeking collectively to assume control of the political system (at a minimum), many bureau- cratic systems are highly fragmented institutions. By being so fragmented, they may be forced into competition simply because there is rarely an effective central means of allocating resources according to the merits of programs or the needs of society. This is true even if there are pressures for more priority setting arising from scarcity of resources. Bureaucratic competition for resources can be over- stated ver y easily, as it is in much of the “public choice” literature on bureaucracy, and much of what competition does exist is a function of sincere commitments to programs rather than of a desire to maximize budgets. But fragmentation within the public sector does contribute to the development of clientela politics. The budgetar y process tends to force public bureaucracies to seek public support and make distributive accommodations in order to gain that support. This outcome is further magnified by the division among the other actors in the budget- ar y process and their needs for other types of benefits and accommodations. The clientelism that extends between the pressure group and the administration may extend to a type of clientelism between legislative committees and the administra- tive agencies they are ostensibly overseeing. This situation is, in part, a function of the stability of the actors involved in the process, for example, the United States Congress, but more generally is related to the joint need of administrators and leg- islators to ser ve a constituency. For example, legislators interested in agriculture tend to come from predominantly agricultural districts; any attempt to curtail the activities of an agricultural program would not be well received in their constituen- cies and would thereby threaten their chances for reelection. Institutional interest groups comprise a special group in their relationships with the bureaucracy. In the case of clientele relationships, there are a variety of important patterns of relationship, although these too are under some pressure. In industrialized societies these are local government groups, as well as interest groups within government itself. In less- developed countries, these groups might include the church, the militar y, or the bureaucracy itself. These groups all have claims upon government that are difficult or impossible to deny and, as with other clientela groups, these special claims are pressed for special privileges. Again, we would characterize the effects of clientela politics between the public bureaucracy and interest groups as a tight intermeshing of interest groups, administration, and legislators, all of whom have something to gain by increasing certain types of public expenditures. These interconnections produce patterns of policy similar to those predicted by Salisbur y and Heinz (1968) in such situations: the parceling out of goods and ser vices available through the public budget in a manner that will provide each organized sector with some portion of the benefits. This, in turn, produces a lack of coordination and coherence in the public sector as a whole (Peters, 1998).

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Parantela Relationships

This is the second type of administrative pressure group relationship mentioned by LaPalombara (1967) in his discussion of Italian interest groups. A parantela rela- tionship describes a situation of “kinship” or close fraternal ties between a pres- sure group and the government or the dominant political party. These relationships are generally characteristic of preindustrial societies or of ideological regimes, but our discussion will show them occurring in a number of political systems in which there is a single dominant party or faction. In these cases pressure groups must gain access and legitimacy through their attachment to that particular party rather than through their ability effectively to represent a sector of the society. Parantela relationships between pressure groups and bureaucracies involve an indirect linkage between those actors rather than the direct linkage discussed in the clientela relationship. The important added linkage is the political party – most commonly a hegemonic party – with which the pressure group must develop some feeling of consanguinity. In these cases, the pressure groups obtain their access to administrative decision making through the willingness of the party to intercede on its behalf with the bureaucracy and, therefore, in essence to control bureaucratic policy making. In considering parantela relationships, we must be sure to think of organizations such as think tanks and consulting firms as being relevant interest groups. With ideological parties at the helm of government, there may be a need to ensure that the advice given to them is sufficiently “pure.” Of course, the party itself may wish to provide such advice, but they may also wish to endorse other organizations as providing acceptable ideas and policy advice. There must, therefore, be a domination of policy making by a political party, something that is not usually associated with Western democratic systems but that is still present in those systems. LaPalombara, for example, found relationships of this type existing in Italy with the Christian Democratic Party. In France, the Gaullists during the first part of the Fifth Republic involved themselves directly with the bureaucracy to favor one interest group over another, especially in the area of agriculture (Williams and Harrison, 1972). Likewise, when the Socialists came to power they tended to press policy and the bureaucracy toward closer alliance with a smaller but more leftist agricultural group. While this issue was complicated by many issues internal to agricultural politics in France, the fundamental point of the imposition of party control over administration in order to favor one group is clear. During periods of cohabitation the presidency and the prime minister may be sup- porting different parantela groups (Maligorne, 2002). This type of interaction does occur in Western political systems, but it is more typical of a number of political systems – the former Soviet system, contemporar y China (Liu, 2010), a majority of African single- party states, and many Latin Ameri- can countries – in which one party or coalition is dominant. It is also found where partisan competition may exist but where there has been a tendency for one party to dominate government, for example, Japan. It is also common in more competi- tive political systems in the relationship that exists between organized labor unions and political parties, such as the relationship between the Trades Union Congress and the Labour Party in the United Kingdom, or LO and the Social Democratic Party in Sweden. Further, interest groups may be able to exert an influence over

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the parties by having their members adopted into political party roles such as can- didates for office (on Germany see Müller-Rommel, 1989). Another type of parantela interest group that has frequently existed in demo- cratic societies represents an attempt on the part of government to organize some aspect of society traditionally difficult to organize. For example, in the United States, urban renewal and model cities programs required the development of organizations in the affected neighborhoods that would represent the interests of the residents. Such organizations have rarely been successful in that role and more often have been co- opted by government as a means of social control in the neighborhoods (Gittell, 1980). Also, in several Western European countries, government has taken an active part in organizing consumers’ groups – also traditionally difficult to organize – and these groups have frequently been criticized for becoming co- opted by government. One very clear example of government’s forming organizations to organize diffi- cult segments of the society and using those organizations for its own benefit is the growth of para- political organizations in Singapore (Quah, 1989). The People’s Action Party has formed a large number of organizations that cut across traditional lines in the society and form yet another political base for that party. The effects of parantela relationships tend to be quite per vasive. It is, in fact, one tendency of these political systems that the hegemonic party will seek to impose its control over as much of the society and economy as is possible. One principal means of effecting this is the fostering of parantela relationships in a number of social sectors through the cooptation of existing interest groups or through the cre- ation of new groups directly allied with the party. The above example from France is a case of the party taking the side of an existing interest group in its struggle with other groups seeking to represent the same social interests; and the previous Spanish regime’s organization of the workers into official or semi- official syndicates is an example of a party creating its own interest group structure. In either case, this is an effective means through which the party can extend its scope downward into the society to control the nature of the inputs being generated and regularize the behavior of that social sector in accordance with the dictates of the party. This means of control through organization has been especially common in the former communist countries, challenged only when free organizations such as Solidarity (in Poland) can gain something approaching legitimate status. It also ser ves as a means of checking bureaucratic autonomy within that particular policy area. The above implies that pressure groups involved in a parantela relationship are little more than the pawns of a dominant political party, and such an interpreta- tion would be justifiable in many instances. Weiner (1962, 78), for example, describ- ing the relationship of the Congress Party in India and its affiliated labor union at earlier stages of development of democracy writes:

The Indian National Trade Union Congress – in reality the labor wing of the Congress Party – is organized along these principles of political responsibil- ity and supports the basic program of the present government. Its leaders proudly declare that their demands are in the national interest, not in behalf of sectional interests. Their first loyalties are to the Congress Party, then to the present government, to the nation, and last of all to the workers who belong to the union.

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While the Indian case is illustrative of many parantela relationships, it is by no means an entirely general finding. Even in the case of predemocratic Spain, Ander- son (1970, 130; but see Perez- Diaz, 1994) can write:

the conventional picture of unrepresentativeness and ineffectiveness of the syndicates can be greatly overdrawn. The government and the syndicates did not speak with one voice on public policy. The syndical leaders were expected by the system itself to play the role of militant spokesmen for labor.… In their language and style of militancy many of the syndical leaders were not unlike their counterparts in other Western nations. They were brokers, and they bargained for their clients, though in the last analysis they accepted the judgment of the constituted authorities.

The behavior of militant members of the Trades Union Congress in the United Kingdom with respect to the policies of Labour governments represents the logical extremes of independence of parantela partners (Pencavel, 2004). The pressure groups in these arrangements are frequently capable of exerting substantial influ- ence over the course of public policy, and for many of the same reasons that moti- vate clientela pressure groups. The symbiosis between a hegemonic party and a pressure group is certainly not as important as that between the clientela partners, but it is present. The pressure groups can be expected to have some impact on bureaucratic choice because of their special relationship with the dominant party. Typically in such a case the hegemonic party will have colonized the bureaucracy as well as created its own interest group partners. Further, both the party and the bureaucracy gain the benefit of the specialized knowledge of the group, thereby reducing their own direct costs for policy development and planning. Moreover, the party’s direct costs of social control may be reduced by their developing sub- sidiar y organizations to perform functions that might other wise have to be per- formed centrally. The above-mentioned example of the relationship between the syndicates and the government in Spain is one example of this type of control, as is the relationship between communist parties and their unions in both hegemonic and competitive situations. The numerous party- sponsored organizations in China in all areas of the economy and society are perhaps the epitome of this relationship between party and organizations. The development of parantela organizations may alter the behavior of the hegemonic party and may pluralize (at least slightly) politics within a one- party state. The politics may begin to resemble those of clientela relationships, with greater specificity by policy area. Dittmer (1983) wrote that modernization in communist political systems was associated with the rise of “quasi- interest groups” who prac- tice “cryptopolitics.” Although not autonomous, and unable to command the range of resources available to interest groups in pluralist systems, they were able to exert increasing influence upon policy within the functionally specified fields in which they are assumed to have some professional competence. Such groups do not perceive themselves to be representative of broadly popular constituencies, so this develop- ment is hardly “democratic,” but it is consultative, better informed, and meritocratic. To some degree the policies adopted by the participants in parantela relation- ships are a function of the ideology and program of the hegemonic party and as

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such may var y from programs of the far left to the far right. In general, however, there is a tendency toward distributive programs. This means there is a tendency toward distributing various goods and ser vices among the faithful and directing groups to develop claims on certain public goods and ser vices as the appropriate representatives of certain social sectors. In this sense, the party is acting as some- thing of a “canteen” for its adherents and for official groups by essentially subsidiz- ing their existence in the marketplace of pressure groups – and thereby essentially depriving any competing, or potentially competing, groups (Riggs, 1964). This may be especially important when the dominant political party also has virtually com- plete control over the economic resources of the society and can distribute both political and material rewards. Thus, in some ways, the parantela arrangements closely resemble the corpo- ratist pattern of interest group relationships described above, especially the state corporatist model. Individuals would receive benefits under such an arrangement as a function of their membership in the appropriate corporate entity, rather than as a matter of individual right. Moreover, parantela relationships tend to be anti- thetical to the conception of modern politics about the universalism of the distribu- tion of economic, social, and political benefits. Such benefits – even the most basic political benefits of the rights of organization and participation – are, in parantela systems, most definitely the function of having the proper political affiliations, and the influence that any group may expect to have over the outcomes of the decision- making process will be a function of this consanguinity. A second effect of parantela relationships is also obviously regulative. This is true not only of the attempts of the party to regulate the outputs of the bureaucracy through regulating the advice that it receives, but more broadly to regulate the society as a whole through the use of intermediar y groups. These intermediar y groups not only structure inputs but may also ser ve as means of implementing the programs of the regime. The parantela relationships then ser ve as two- way streets; information – and to a lesser extent power – can flow in both directions. The extent to which power can flow upward is, however, ultimately determined by the willing- ness of the dominant political party to entertain modifications and challenges.

Illegitimate Group Processes

The final categor y of interactions between administrators and pressure groups is labeled “illegitimate.” This term is used to describe a variety of political situations in which the interaction of pressure groups with bureaucracy may be defined as outside the pale of normal political actions, but these interactions occur anyway. This style of interaction may be a function of the nature of the political system as a whole, which may attempt to suppress autonomous groups in society, or it may be a function of the nature of particular groups, which are defined as being illegitimate as representatives of the social sector that they purport to represent. In the first three types of interactions discussed, some or all pressure groups were accepted as legitimate spokesmen for some social sector or another. In the case of the illegiti- mate pressure groups, neither the system as a whole nor individual administrators may be willing to accept the legitimacy of the inputs of some or all interest groups.

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It is rarely the case, however, that a political system will attempt to exclude all inter- est groups. Even the most “totalitarian” can find groups useful and will attempt to form parantela- style organizations. As might be expected, influence from pressure groups of this type is not the normal pattern of policy making. Such influences tend to indicate some rather fun- damental failures of the policy- making system in satisfying demands of one or more sectors of the society. Thus these individuals feel constrained to go outside the bounds of “normal” politics to seek what they want from the political system. We may, therefore, be discussing in large part the behavior of “anomic” pressure groups that attempt to exert influence through protest, demonstrations, and violence. It is not necessar y, however, to confine this discussion to groups using violence as a means of expression, for there are a number of situations in which pressure groups declared as illegitimate in parantela or clientela arrangements may still seek influ- ence and may occasionally exert some influence on policies. The latter instances are rare. Suleiman (1974, 340) notes that in France groups defined as groupes de pression (in contrast to the acceptable “professional” groups) may be received by the administrators but are unlikely to produce the results they desire. The illegitimate groups continue to play the political game by the admin- istrator’s rules and politely present their petitions and remonstrances, often knowing that their probability of success is nearly zero. We may ask why these groups continue in these seemingly irrational behaviors. There is the odd chance that they may actually have an influence. More commonly, however, they persist simply because this is what their members expect them to do. This is the reason the members pay their dues or give their allegiance to the group, and the leaders must carr y out a seemingly pointless exercise. Finally, having attempted to play by the rules of the game, they may make future extraordinar y political activity appear more acceptable. If normal politics cannot work for a group, then they appear more justified in using violent or inflammator y means, even in societies that are usually ver y willing to accommodate the demands of interest groups. This has been true, at least in part, of “social movements” in a number of industrialized countries (Della Porta and Diani, 2005). These groups have not had the permanent organizational structures that would be desirable for continuing cooperation with government, and have tended to eschew such relationships for ideological reasons. Although usually associated with the political left – antinuclear groups, the peace movement, tenants’ organizations, etc. – there also have been social movements on the right. In all cases, they have been willing to use confrontational tactics, if not violence, to attempt to press home their political points. The interaction between illegitimate pressure groups and administration tends to produce high levels of frustration and alienation for those groups. The rather arbitrar y categorization of pressure takes place even in political systems generally receptive – if not partial – to group influences. The level of frustration may be even greater in authoritarian political systems that attempt to suppress – rather than simply ignore – the activities of interest groups declared to be illegiti- mate. For example, the events of the Arab spring involved, at least initially, attempts to suppress the uprisings rather than to negotiate or to accommodate the pressures (Bellin, 2012).

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We can better understand the characterization of the influences of illegiti- mate groups as coming essentially from extralegal activities – through some sort of conflict with the system – and their influence as being at best episodic. Likewise, the impacts of their activities on public policy are extremely difficult to predict, if they occur at all. Despite these limitations, it is important to understand that these influences may occasionally produce important change. The French student movement of May 1968 has been used as an example of virtually ever y political phenomenon known to humankind, but this is one example of an essentially illegiti- mate pressure group having a substantial impact on a regime and on the shape of subsequent public policy. In some African countries accomplishing almost any type of policy change has required the fundamental challenge to the system that can be offered by illegitimate groups (Snow and Manzetti, 1993). Also, the early successes of Solidarity in Poland produced some liberalization in the regime, although the ultimate result was the imposition of martial law. When illegitimate groups are successful, the impacts of their activities tend to be redistributive, if for no other reason than they may force the system to recog- nize a set of demands that it could previously declare as being outside its concern. Most illegitimate pressure groups seek to transform the existing political system and its output distribution in the direction of a redistribution of privilege, be it politi- cal, social, or economic. Some of the most obvious examples would be attempts of minority racial and ethnic groups to have their claims for civil rights and equal treatment accepted when previously they had been excluded from the political process. At the extreme illegitimate groups can institutionalize their role in society and in essence become integral players in governance. For example, in some areas of Mexico the drug cartels remain outlaws for most of the population, but also provide a range of ser vices to the parts of the countr y that they control that are similar to those of a local government (Nagel, 2015).

Patterns of Interaction

In addition, there are other significant differences among these four classes of interactions we have discussed. First, the activities of illegitimate pressure groups are clearly the most distinctive. The other three patterns accord some legitimacy to the activities and influence of one or more groups, so that there are accepted pat- terns of interaction between the groups and the bureaucracy. In the case of illegiti- mate groups, such interactions – at least if they are to have any significant effect on policy outcomes – occur almost by definition only in times of political crisis. Thus, the three more or less legitimate patterns imply a certain stability and institution- alization of influence, whereas the illegitimate pattern implies episodic influence, or no influence at all. Second, the legitimate pattern of interaction is the only one of the four in which there is little or no politics of access. In this arrangement, access exists for virtually any group that seeks it – even for those that almost certainly would be declared illegitimate in other settings. In one well- known example, organized street gangs in Amsterdam have been given a representational role; organization appears

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to be the most crucial variable here. By removing access from politics, such an inter- action pattern may, in fact, make the pluralist’s dream of a self- regulating universe of pressure groups formulating public policy a possibility, if not a reality (Sörenson and Torfing, 2005). As long as access remains scarce and closely regulated, the pos- sibility of finding the “public interest” among a set of conflicting pressure groups is remote. Having legitimate interactions of pressure with administration – and, perhaps more importantly, open interactions of pressure groups with each other in advising the administrators – by no means ensures that such a mystical entity as the “public interest” will emerge, but it is more likely to appear when interests are forced to bargain than when each interest is able to capture its own portion of the administrative structure. This capture tends to convert public policy into private policy. Likewise, unless one considers the hegemonic political party as an accurate representation of the interests of the population, the control of pressure groups and bureaucracy by such a party is also likely to produce distortions of outputs from what would emerge from a bargaining table, especially when many interests may be defined out of existence by the dominant party. To put this in the terms of our original typology of interactions, serious distortions of policy from what would emerge from a simple bargaining process among competing groups are likely to occur when the politics of policy making cannot be removed from the politics of organizational sur vival. We should also note that we have not been able to argue clearly that any particular pattern of interaction characterizes any one nation or another, although the examples tend to point to some important patterns. In the first place, political systems with hegemonic political parties, be they ostensibly democratic or not, tend toward parantela relationships between interest groups and administrators, if for no other reason than that the hegemonic party is able to use these relation- ships as one means of social control and regulation. Second, legitimate interactions tend to be characteristic of the Northern European countries, which have had long histories of the involvement of organized groups in social and political life, and whose leaders have perceived a need to manage potentially divisive conflicts within the society, either ethnic or socioeconomic in origin. Third, clientela arrangements tend to be quite common in any number of societies, especially when there is a frag- mentation of interests and a lack of overall coordinating mechanisms in the political system (for example, a dominant political party or institution), that can regulate the competition among interest groups or among the competing agencies within the bureaucracy; the United States is a major, but by no means the sole, example. Finally, illegitimate interest groups may arise in virtually any setting but tend to be most important in settings where they are least likely, for example, in societies that seek to suppress interest groups or at least a wide variety of interest groups. That is to say, these groups are most important in settings where they ser ve as a fundamental challenge to the regime. This means that their day- to-day interactions with administrators will be unfruitful if they occur at all, but that they may produce substantial transformations of a political system. Just as there is little pattern of interest group–bureaucratic interaction by political system, there is also little pattern by type of interest or policy area. There is some tendency for interest groups that can be clearly defined geographically to be able to establish clientele relationships with administration, perhaps because of

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the ability to mobilize political support more easily. The most obvious example of this pattern is agriculture, which has been notoriously successful in utilizing clien- tele relationships in almost all political systems. Likewise, interest groups that may be vertically integrated with political parties – frequently labor unions with labor parties – may develop parantela relationships, even within the context of competi- tive political systems. Finally, groups that may be regarded as outcasts in normal social affairs, or that are not regarded as having differentiated political viewpoints by the dominant community – racial minorities, students, women – may tend to act through illegitimate relationships with bureaucracies, if they are able to form any relationship at all.

Social Movements and the Bureaucracy

Interest groups represent the majority of social and economic groups in society, but by no means all. Changes in the structure of society and in the issues being confronted by government have spawned a variety of social movements. These groups differ from conventional interest groups in several ways. First, they are often short- lived, created to address a single issue and then disbanded when that issue is resolved or loses saliency. Second, they are more commonly associated with noneconomic issues such as the environment, peace, human rights, etc., than with “bread and butter” eco- nomic issues. Finally, their organization tends to be less stable and institutionalized than is true for most interest groups or political parties. As noted above, social movements tend to function most often as illegitimate interest groups, often refusing on principle to cooperate more directly with gov- ernment. Movements are often created because the existing close collaboration between certain interest groups and the bureaucracy is perceived to exclude other equally important segments of society from being heard. Thus, the members of social movements may perceive most existing interest groups as being in parantela or clientela relationships with government, even when those other groups them- selves believe that the relationships are more open and broadly legitimate. Thus, a good deal of the politics of social movements revolves around defining issues and defining participation (whether with the bureaucracy or more generally) in ways that have not been conventional in the political system. As noted, any individual social movement tends not to persist long in the political life of a countr y. They generally simply disband, but some also become more institutionalized and become interest groups much like others, or even politi- cal parties. The environmental movement is the clearest example of these changes over time. Although some more fundamentalist environmental groups still behave like social movements, the majority have become part of the normal interest group environment of government, especially when there is broad legitimacy of interest group activity. In many European countries these former social movements have become institutionalized as “green” political parties and have become part of the governing coalition, most notably in Germany. For bureaucracies social movements present more difficulties than do most interest groups. While interest groups tend to be committed to continuing influ- ence over the public sector, and continuing organization of their membership,

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social movements are more transient. The social movements therefore are more difficult potential partners in any policy, and may not be willing to bargain. Social movements may be willing to walk away from a negotiation and may be less willing to invest in public action than are groups.

Bureaucracy and Political Parties

In most contemporar y political systems, the direct impact of partisan concerns on bureaucracy has been consciously limited by a number of structural and proce- dural devices. The most important of these, of course, is the institutionalization of the merit system for appointment and retention of administrators so parties can no longer force large- scale changes of administrative personnel when there is a change in governing parties. While some patronage arrangements certainly do exist in all political systems, any widespread use of patronage is generally regarded in Western countries as evidence of corruption and mismanagement. This self- ser ving view is somewhat less easy to justify since the 1980s, as a number of Western countries have begun to politicize their civil ser vices, and to recruit more specialist political advisors for ministers (Peters and Pierre, 2004). A number of non- Western countries, despite the tutelage of their former colo- nial countries, have continued or reinstituted nonmerit systems of appointment to administrative posts – even the most routine and trivial of posts. This has been justified largely on the need for national unity and mobilization in the face of the dif- ficulties of development. This practice is by no means universal in the non- Western world, but a number of one- party regimes tend to recruit their bureaucracies in this fashion. As Kwame Nkrumah (1961, 173) once said in relation to administration in Ghana during the early stages of development:

It is our intention to tighten up the regulations and to wipe out the disloyal ele- ments of the civil service, even if by so doing we suffer some temporary dislo- cation of the service. For disloyal civil servants are no better than saboteurs.

Also, in French- speaking Africa, a number of one- party regimes have attempted to use partisan control to replace “selfish individualism” with “patriotic socialism.” While the language is less colorful there, political leaders in a number of Western democracies have stated their wishes to develop a more “committed” civil ser vice that would follow the wishes of the dominant political party (Rose, 1989). A smaller number of such countries have in fact developed the mechanisms for creating such a politically loyal civil ser vice. As yet, these mechanisms have remained within the bounds of civil ser vice law, if not always within previously prevailing understand- ings. The potential for waste and abuse, and the reinstitutionalization of the spoils system is, however, quite apparent. In this context, we must remember that the politically neutral civil ser vice Anglo- American democracies in particular consider to be normal is really only a centur y old, while the desire for political loyalty is much older and perhaps much stronger. While the increasing politicization of the civil ser vice is one option in the context of an age of “conviction politics,” another option is the diminution of the

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political and policy- making roles of the civil ser vice. If, no matter how loyal and committed they appear, the civil ser vice still has the “taint” of objectivity and neu- trality, then they may not be perceived as being sufficiently trustworthy to make decisions. Again, these doubts would be present even in countries that have become fully accustomed to a civil ser vice with substantial power in policy making. The most obvious example of the utilization of partisan control over the state bureaucracy occurred in the former Soviet Union and other European communist countries, and continues in China and in some authoritarian governments on the right. This control is achieved to a great extent through dual hierarchies – one party and one administrative – used simultaneously to execute policies and to check for the political orthodoxy of personnel. Such a system of duplication appears redundant and ineffi- cient to many Western analysts of organizations, but it is deemed crucial in systems in which political orthodoxy is so important. Similar to some non- Western systems, par- tisan control and the use of the bureaucracy as a mechanism for fundamental social and economic change appear to go hand- in-hand. Where political neutrality is not really acceptable, much less valued, then many of the Western dogmas concerning nonpartisan merit appointment are simply not feasible managing the public sector. We have developed a means of classifying and analyzing the politics of bureaucracy. Beginning with the notion that it is not useful to separate the political from the administrative in either real life or analysis, we have attempted to provide some means of better understanding how administration becomes involved with politics and political actors. This chapter has dealt primarily with administrative involvement with pressure groups, showing the extent to which these two politi- cal actors depend upon each other in their attempts to shape public policy and to sur vive in what might other wise be an extremely hostile political environment. In three of the four patterns of interaction discussed, some type of legitimating relationship was developed so that a stable pattern of interaction between group and bureaucracy could be used in policy formation – the internal aspect of bureau- cratic politics. These relationships could, in turn, directly (through clientelism) or indirectly (through parantela and legitimate interactions) produce some support for the programs and the continued existence of the specific bureaucratic agency involved. These are then two political actors who need each other in order to carr y out their respective purposes in as efficient a manner as possible. Both operate on the fringes of political respectability and need friends in their battles. The sym- biosis that tends to develop between bureaucracy and pressure group is readily explicable in terms of these needs for legitimation and support. The major question that remains is whether this symbiotic relationship is to be accepted – as with the legitimate groups – or forced further into the gray areas of politics. We turn now to bureaucratic politics, more directly concerned with power and policy than access. These are the politics arising from the public bureaucracy dealing with other formal institutions of government. Each of these institutional actors has access to the arenas of political conflict, and their positions in those arenas are more secure than that of the bureaucracy. Here, then, the bureaucracy must engage in substantially different types of political behaviors, both to preser ve its autonomy as an organization and to have an impact on public policy. In some way the role of the bureaucracy becomes that of gaining access to legitimate political power, just as the interest groups had to do when dealing with it.

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C h a p t e r 6

The Bureaucracy and Political Institutions

Bureaucratic Government 195 Strategies in Bureaucratic Politics 209 Summary 225

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The previous chapter discussed the political relationship of bureaucracy to “infor- mal” political actors such as pressure groups and political parties. We now turn our attention to the political relationships of the bureaucracy to formal institu- tional actors in government. In these relationships – labeled “formal–internal” and “formal–external” in our typology – the relative legitimacy of the bureaucracy is changed. When dealing with pressure groups, the bureaucracy represents the majesty of the state; when dealing with legislatures, prime ministers, presidents, and the courts, the bureaucracy often appears as an extra- constitutional interloper in the affairs of government. Thus, like the pressure groups in our previous analy- sis, the bureaucracy must either seek to have its actions legitimated formally or be capable of bargaining successfully to gain influence over decisions. It must also bargain for funds to continue its existence and operations. Without carr ying the analogy too far, these options for bureaucracies dealing with political institutions might correspond to the legitimate and clientela options available to pressure groups in their dealings with bureaucracy. The task of the bureaucracy in gaining access to decisions is rarely as taxing as that of the pressure groups; if anything, the tendency has been for the more representative and legitimate political institutions to throw power at the bureauc- racy rather than resist its pleas for influence. These representative institutions are incapable of formally abdicating powers (even if they might want to), but they must bargain to obtain the assistance in policy making and implementation that only the bureaucracy can provide. Bureaucracies have the information and exper tise that contemporar y governments require for ef fective policy making, and often have closer contacts with social actors than do the “political” institu- tions of government. Therefore, the representative institutions must find a means of acquiring that information and legitimacy, even if that means informally abdi- cating their responsibilities. The shifting power relationships between bureaucracies and more represent- ative institutions involves a delicate political process and some attention to public opinion. Most members of the public continue to regard their elected officials as responsible for the conduct of public business, and these officials must therefore continue the form (if not the substance) of policy making as they interact with the public bureaucracy. Both sets of actors in this exchange of power, influence, information, and money have a great deal to lose by handling the policy process poorly, and a political “game” of conflict and compromise results. Most of this game is hidden from the public eye, but it is an essential component of government and, despite its apparent illegitimacy, actually improves the quality of policy decisions in most instances. Two elements must be examined for us to understand the role played by bureaucracy in modern government. The first is an analytical understanding of the requirements for governing, whether that governing is by legitimate political institutions or by the bureaucracy (see Pierre and Peters, 2016). The second is a thorough review of the existing knowledge about the role of bureaucracy in policy making with that analytical picture firmly in mind (Peters, 1992a). We would not expect political institutions to abdicate their rights to bureaucrats, nor do we expect a declaration of bureaucratic government to emanate from the depths of some office building in Foggy Bottom, Whitehall, or Karlavägen. Rather, we are interested in

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the degree to which – given the alleged lack of leadership in traditional institu- tions of government and the difficulties that even skilled leaders have in manag- ing government departments – the bureaucracy is capable of providing needed direction and leadership. This role for the bureaucracy has been largely assumed by theorists of postindustrial society; we now intend to provide some direction in conceptualization, measurement, and analysis.

Bureaucratic Government

What must any group of actors in politics do to effectively govern a countr y? The root word for “government” implies control and steering; can any group really be said to be controlling the large and complex societies and economies of industrial- ized countries? Further, the increasing globalization of economic and social life places an additional constraint on the ability of those in government to govern. This has been true for Third World countries for some years, but it is also increasingly true for industrialized economies. Governments often do not have control over powerful social and economic forces within their own countries, much less over other countries, over international organizations such as the International Mon- etar y Fund or the World Bank, or something as amorphous as the international market (Strange, 1998). The events of the financial crisis beginning in 2008 made it even clearer that governments encounter great difficulties in controlling global markets. Richard Rose (1976c; see also Peters, 1987) has provided a set of criteria that a political party must fulfill if it is to provide government after it has been elected. If these criteria are modified to remove the components that apply strictly to politi- cal parties, they can be restated as follows and applied to any group attempting to govern a society:

1 The group must formulate policy intentions for enactment in office. 2 These intentions must be supported by statements of “not unworkable”

means to the ends. 3 There should be some competition over the allocation of resources. 4 The group should be in sufficient numerical strength in the most important

positions in the regime. 5 Those given office must have the skills necessar y for running a large

bureaucratic organization. 6 High priority must be given to the implementation of goals.

As noted, these criteria are somewhat modified and condensed versions of those developed for political parties, but the damage done to the original intentions of the analysis does not appear mortal. The basic idea that in order to govern, it is necessar y for individuals with ideas about policy to be able to implement those ideas through the existing structures of government comes through clearly, even in this modified version of the model. Let us now begin to examine these criteria separately in order to assess the importance of each for the role of bureaucracy in governance.

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Policy Intentions: The Agency Ideology

The first criterion for government is one that ordinarily might be regarded as the crucial shortcoming of public bureaucracy as a workable alternative to other forms of government. The bureaucracy has traditionally been regarded in most societies as lacking ideas about what to do with the machiner y of government that it appears to control. However, bureaucratic organizations frequently have their own well- developed ideas about what government should do (Urban, 1982; Page and Jenkins, 2005; Page, 2010). These ideas are not general statements, such as might be found in a political party platform, but rather are confined to the narrow area of expertise of the agency. Another way to think about these ideologies is as analogous to the “organizational cultures” used to explain the behavior of private sector organizations (Kotter and Heskett, 1992; Martin, 2002). To understand these “agency ideologies” better, it is necessar y to differentiate two types of ideologies, here labeled as “soft” and “hard.” The “soft” version of the agency ideology is that the existing program itself is a set of ideas that are favored by the bureaucracy, out of familiarity if for no other reason. Stated more positively, we may regard the ongoing program of an agency to constitute something of an agency ideology. Political executives coming into nominal positions of power over bureaucratic structures have almost invari- ably reported overt or covert resistance by their civil ser vants and the existence of a “departmental view” about policy that limits the effectiveness of any political leader. For example, it has long been argued that the British Foreign Office is pro- Arab in Middle- Eastern politics, and that the Department of Education is in favor of the expansion of the public sector of education even in the face of Conser vative ministers seeking to expand the private sector. Thus, ministers coming into office with views contrar y to those would have difficulty overcoming the biases of his or her “ser vants” (Theakston, 1992). There are few commentators on bureaucracy or executive leadership in industrialized societies who have not commented on the existence of this “soft” version of a bureaucratic ideology, so if we can accept this as a minimalist version of the existence of ideas about policy in a bureaucracy, then clearly such ideas do exist. Politicians have also sought to find means of overturning, or at least coun- teracting the influence of these policy ideas. In one- party or personalized states the influence of the hegemonic leaders will be the major source of policy ideas. In more democratic regimes, there has been a spate of interest in the use of special advisors (Eichbaum and Shaw, 2015) and other politically appointed officials to provide the minister with alternative information and policy ideas. Even in political systems with long histories of depoliticized administration, there have been exten- sive efforts to ensure political control over the ideas being adopted by government (Hustedt and Salomonsen, 2014). The “hard” version of the policy intention criterion is that not only must the bureaucracy be interested in the preser vation of the existing policies of the agency, but it must also be interested in imposing a new set of policy priorities. In part, this is because civil ser vants are, or become, experts in their policy areas and develop ideas about how policy might be done better. For example, Charles Goodsell (2011) talks about a “mission mystique” in which ideas and commitment to those ideas are

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used as political weapons by bureaucratic organizations. Given that, on average, civil ser vants remain in their positions longer than do politicians, theoretically they could, over time, alter policies in the way they saw fit, but the civil ser vants’ concep- tions of good policy are also subject to change over time. Civil ser vants’ policy ideas could change in several ways. First, bureaucrats and bureaucracies are increasingly interconnected via organizational and profes- sional memberships, so what they want in policy may change over time to cor- respond to “best practice” in their profession. Some organizations to which civil ser vants belong may be strictly “bureaucratic,” or concerned entirely with public sector management, while others may be organizations of subject- matter specialists in health, education, sanitar y engineering, and so on. In either case the bureauc- racy may, through its professional contacts, generate challenges to existing policies on the basis of new ideas or the diffusion of policy innovations. Further, as profes- sional contacts across borders grow through the Internet and professional organi- zations, bureaucrats, and professionals have an increasing interest in promoting best practice, or “evidence based policy” (Pawson, 2002). In Western Europe, transnational organizations such as the European Com- munity facilitate such diffusion and the development of bureaucratic policy agendas. These agendas commonly involve mandated or suggested standards of ser vice that usually are generated from within the public bureaucracy rather than from the more political level of governing in these systems (Peters, 1992b). International organizations, such as the United Nations, the International Labor Organization, and the World Bank are also responsible for diffusing ideas about what govern- ments should do, and these ser ve as sources of ideas for public bureaucracies. The day- to-day contacts between national governments and international organizations are a major way in which ideas spread, especially to members of the bureaucracy. And at times these ideas are virtually forced on poorer countries who exchange compliance for loans and grants. Even without diffusion, however, bureaucrats do have new policy ideas. These typically derive from increasing professional qualifications and training of members of the public bureaucracy. Mosher (1969) dates the rise of the “profes- sional state” from the mid- 1950s. This form of state organization is characterized by the dominance of specialized professional knowledge concentrated in bureaucratic agencies. Mosher was speaking primarily of the United States; in other countries – for instance, France – such a form of state organization may have arisen earlier through the corps structures, especially the technical corps such as mining and roads. The professionals in the organizations become the source of new policies within their sphere of competence, having both expert knowledge and some inter- est in the expansion of their agencies. Those bureaucrats interested in changing policies may have to wait a number of years before implementing their ideas, so that sufficient popular and political support can be generated. If a policy window opens (Kingdon, 2003) then the civil ser vants who do have policy ideas are gener- ally ready to seize the opportunity to propose and implement their ideas. Taking either conception of the bureaucratic role in the generation of policy ideas, we would expect significant cross- national differences in the role of bureauc- racy. One source of these differences would be the relative independence of agencies from centralized political control. Thus, in the United States or Sweden,

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where agencies (or styrelsen) have substantial independence and where they must compete directly for funding, we would expect greater policy advocacy than in polit- ical systems with more centralized administrative controls (Thain, 2004). Likewise, the absence of effective political leadership appears to allow greater bureaucratic discretion and policy advocacy than would a more stable and effective political executive. For example, in France during the Third and Fourth Republics, “long- range policies had been the work of officials rather than politicians. … The situa- tion was a by- product of ministerial instability; however undesirable in theor y, it was preferable to no long- range policies at all” (Williams, 1965, 365–6). In coun- tries that must endure long periods between governments as coalitions are being formed, and then have coalition governments composed of many parties – the Netherlands, Denmark, and Belgium are obvious examples – a strong and effective public bureaucracy may be a necessity (Laver and Schofield, 1991; De Winter and Dumont, 2006). Much the same would be true for Third World countries, although here the problems would be general political instability and an absence of an insti- tutionalized and effective political leadership group. By way of contrast, the doctrinal emphasis on ministerial responsibility in the United Kingdom makes even ineffective political leaders powerful in theor y, if not always in practice. When that doctrine is combined with an effective political leader, such as a Churchill or a Thatcher, the capacity for leadership is ver y great indeed. Changes in the style of governance in Britain and other Whitehall regimes has tended to accentuate the power of the prime minister and to “presidentialize” the office (see Heffernan, 2005; Poguntke and Webb, 2007). At the same time, however, the creation of autonomous organizations in the public sector have tended to give managerial, if not necessarily policy- making, powers to civil ser vants (see Yesilk- agit and Van Thiel, 2012). A third factor affecting policy advocacy is the length of time civil servants remain in an agency. We would expect that bureaucratic personnel systems that permit individuals to remain within a single agency or a limited number of agencies during an entire career would experience greater bureaucratic policy advocacy than would administrative systems with more diverse career patterns. Thus, the Scandi- navian countries, in which civil servants are hired directly by agencies or ministries rather than through centralized personnel agencies, or the United States, where careers tend to be within a single department, would be more likely to have strong policy advocacy by bureaucratic agencies than would the United Kingdom, France, or Canada. In those countries the senior civil service will have held a number of different positions, albeit within the context of a grand corps in France. Germany fre- quently provides even greater diversity in careers, by recruiting at least some senior federal officials from state and even local government bureaucracies (Derlien, 1988). In the United States the formation of the Senior Executive Service (SES), with greater movement of these top civil servants among agencies, was intended to make at least a part of the American administrative system more like its European counterparts although the reform has had limited success (Ingraham and Rosenbloom, 1992). The model of the SES has been copied by a number of other countries (Santiso, 2015). Finally, there are definite attitudinal configurations that appear related to policy advocacy by bureaucracy. Aberbach et al. have discussed such attitudinal configurations among their samples of higher civil ser vants from six industrialized

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countries, and related studies have added to that body of information (1981; Huang et al., 2005). A number of less quantitative studies have also discussed cultural and dispositional elements of an active public bureaucracy (see Suleiman, 1984). In some instances there is as much variation within a countr y as there is between countries, but the attitudes that individuals have toward an active role for the civil ser vice will play an important part in determining that role.

The Availability of “Not Unworkable” Means

If politicians are generally considered the masters of policy ideas, then certainly the bureaucracy is considered the master of routine and techniques. Thus, there should be little question about the bureaucracy being able to present feasible means to carr y out a program. In fact, the danger runs the opposite way – what is feas- ible is often translated into policy. Thus, as with Lindblom’s idea of reconstructed preferences, bureaucrats are frequently capable of molding not only techniques but also policies by their definition of what is feasible (Lindblom and Woodhouse, 1993, 24–7). This definition of feasibility is often manifested in what programs are considered to be “implementable,” so the administrative criterion of the ease of implementation may come to dominate ideas of desirable policy based on other criteria (Linder and Peters, 1990). The ability to mold preferences by appeal to the feasibility of programs may make the agency as much a victim of its own procedures as the master. The bureaucracy may wish to be innovative but frequently is limited by a reliance on accepted procedures for a definition of what can – and should – be done. Feasibility may be defined in terms of the ability of the program to be administered through the standard operating procedures of the agency, as was implied with Graham Alli- son’s (Allison and Zelikow, 1999) concept of the organizational process model of policy making. Thus, while agencies may indeed develop feasible mechanisms for implementing a program, these means may, in turn, blind both bureaucrats and pol- iticians to the range of available policy alternatives. As Majone (1975) has pointed out, feasibility is not nearly as constraining as it is sometimes thought to be, and the creative administrator or policy maker can make programs appear feasible that might not at first appear to be so. The impact of feasibility and standard operating procedures can be seen in the area of industrial policy. The governments of the United States, Western Europe, and other industrialized countries are all involved in some form of indus- trial policy. To a great extent the differences appear to be differences of what are considered feasible programs. In the United States, programs of regulation, tax subsidy, and limited direct subsidies are the common approaches (Salamon and Lund, 1989). In the majority of European countries – even those with conser vative governments – the common approach may be to nationalize industries or for other forms of direct government involvement in the economy. There has been substan- tial privatization in most European countries but there is still much greater public ownership remaining than in the United States. In Japan the involvement of govern- ment directly in the financing of industrial ventures and its active involvement with industr y is considered possible and desirable (Kernell, 1991).

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Bureaucracies may clearly have procedures to implement any program they may wish to, but, rather than being an undivided asset, this may at times be a liability. Agencies may be able to implement a weak conception of program advo- cacy as mentioned above but may be impeded in making any substantial changes in programs because of accepted procedures and methodologies. Their agenda may be defined by how they are accustomed to doing business rather than by what they would like to do. There is a tension, therefore, between the role of the bureaucracy as advocates of innovation in policies and their role as conser vers of procedures. These constraints of “bounded rationality” are expressed well in the “garbage can model” in which goals may be defined by what is possible, rather than having means always following predetermined ends (Cohen et al., 1972; also Brunsson, 1989). The role of bureaucracies as conser vers of procedures is a variable, as is their role as policy advocate. It varies in part as a function of tradition and culture, but it is also related to more specific political and structural features. One of these is the legalistic emphasis given to public administration in some countries. If the self- definition of governing and administration is inclined toward judicial activity, then formal procedures will almost inevitably come to dominate. A second important aspect is the extent to which there are external pressures for control that would make administrators war y of actions unjustifiable as part of the usual procedures. In all democratic – and some nondemocratic – countries, there have been growing pressures for increased accountability of the public bureaucracy, in part coming through the influence of international donors such as the World Bank (Woods and Narlikar, 2001). With such pressures, there is a natural tendency for civil ser vants to retreat behind a wall of procedures for protection, with a consequent loss of inno- vation and flexibility. As with so many situations dealing with public administration, there is an obvious tradeoff between two important attributes here, and no firm basis upon which to make a decision.

Competition Among Agencies

One criterion for governance usually associated with democratic and partisan gov- ernment is competition among contenders for office. Bureaucrats already have office and are unlikely to lose it. What they do not have is money. Thus, while the currency of partisan competition is votes, the currency of bureaucratic competition is currency. The competition for budgets among agencies may provide many of the same benefits at an organizational level that partisan competition is assumed to provide in democratic politics. Just as partisan competition is presumed to allow voters to choose among alternative governments, which in turn are supposed to be related to alternative policies, bureaucratic competition allows political and administrative personnel to choose more directly among alternative policies. This competition is frequently conducted without the direct involvement of elected offi- cials, as agencies compete for funding or compete for control over policy areas. For example, should drug control be defined as a health issue, an education issue, or a law enforcement issue? The agency that wins this competition will receive addi- tional funding and prestige (Payan, 2006).

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An entire chapter will be devoted to the budgetar y process, but here we emphasize the strictly competitive and policy- choice aspects of the budgetar y process. There is substantial disagreement among analysts of bureaucracy as to both the nature and efficacy of this competition among agencies. Some argue that the conflict is intense and per vasive, with the principal intention being to maximize the agency’s budget, the Niskanen (1971) view discussed in Chapter 1. Others have argued that the competition is less frequent and more restrained, seeking to preser ve a “fair share” for the agency and even seeking cooperation in dividing the available budget pie (Goodin, 1975). Some scholars argue, in fact, that agencies frequently avoid conflict and agency growth if that growth may threaten their basic purpose and perhaps expose weaknesses in their existing programs (Holden, 1966). In addition, Downs (1967) among others has argued that competition among bureaucracies, just as with industries in the model of the free market economy, is a positive force encouraging policy innovation and also ser ving as a check on bureaucratic autonomy. In any of the above conceptions, however, competition among agencies does have a place as a means of allocating resources among competing policies and thus allowing some organizations to flourish and some to languish or, less frequently, to die (Frumkin and Galaski- wicz, 2004). No matter what the stakes of bureaucratic competition may be, such competi- tion will occur to a different degree in different bureaucratic systems. The struc- ture of some governments – for example, the decentralized systems of the United States or Sweden – allow more latitude for bureaucratic competition and bargaining over budgets than is true in more centrally managed systems (Peters, 1991b; Blais and Dion, 1991). In a growing number of countries the existence of a large number of agencies with relatively little coordination except through the budgetar y process – and the ability of those agencies to argue directly for their own appropriations and to mobilize political support – makes competition an important part of the lives of the agencies. This means that these agencies will be more capable of providing an alternative source of governing – at least within a single policy area – than will agencies more constrained by central political and administrative control (James, 2006). Thus, bureaucratic competition appears to go hand- in-hand with the “hard” conception of policy advocacy, if for no other reason than that policy ideas provide one means by which the competition is conducted. The nature of bureaucratic competition has two principal effects on politics and government. First, it may in part account for some of the massive growth of the size of government – as reflected in public spending – over the past several decades (Miller and Moe, 1983; Dunleavy, 1985). Old programs become institutionalized as commitments of governments – and entitlements for citizens – and the need to compete for increased funding produces new programs and new policies from the agencies (Kristensen, 1980). Some authors have argued exactly the opposite – that, in fact, competition among agencies would decrease the size of government, but that analysis seems severely to underestimate both the persistence of agencies and their ability to limit the scope of competition to areas outside their “heartlands” (Downs, 1967). It does appear that competition for funding and for new policy initia- tives is related to an expansion of public expenditure. The cause may not be entirely the desires of the bureaucracy, however, as politicians may also favor the expansion

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of government because it provides them with more benefits to distribute among constituents and thus a better chance for reelection. The second major effect of bureaucratic competition is that it limits the inter- nal consistency or coherence of governments. The bureaucracy does not act as an integrated tool of the public instrument, but rather as a set of subgovernments, each ser ving a clientele group crucial in the political game of sur vival (Seidman, 1998). Depending upon whether one adopts a more rigid “iron triangle” conception or the more flexible “issue network” perspective, such subgovernments are either immutable and totally self- centered or merely an important aspect of the profes- sionalization and specialization of government (Jordan, 1981). With these highly competitive agencies there may be bureaucratic governments, but no bureaucratic government. Again, the reassertion of conser vative political ideas, combined with economic problems, has changed the dynamic of expenditure growth. Central agencies such as the Office of Management and Budget in the United States, or the Ministr y of Finance in many countries, now have greater (but by no means total) control over agenda setting and attempt to restrict levels of expenditure (Wanna et al., 2003).

The Incumbency of Positions

Another necessar y condition for the ability of a bureaucracy to provide an alterna- tive source of governance is that officials must occupy the most important positions in policy making, and further, they must be in sufficient numbers to be able to make their decisions effective. The bureaucracy clearly satisfies the quantitative aspect of this criterion, even though it is never certain that those in the lower echelons of the bureaucracy will always comply with the directives of their superiors. However, the bureaucracy may not be able to fulfill the qualitative aspect. Politicians have been thought to be in the most important positions for policy making, and bureau- crats only in a position to implement decisions. There are two points, however, that qualify the traditional assumption. First, the contact of the bureaucracy with the environment of the organization, as well as the concentration of technical expertise in the lower echelons of organizations, tends to give bureaucracies a substantial control over information and expertise crucial for policy making. Victor Thompson’s analysis (1961) of the separation of expertise and authority in modern organizations is most important here, and the ability to control information is a major influence over policy in the hands of the bureaucrat. Further, to the extent to which information is passed through the bureaucratic hierarchy, it is selectively distorted. Thus, although there may be enough people in the bureaucracy – and perhaps a few extra – there may still be an important gap between those making decisions located at the top and those with the information needed for making those decisions at the bottom. Political institutions have been attempting to break the monopoly on infor- mation that the bureaucracy appears to hold by creating their own independent sources. These “counter- bureaucracies” are most numerous in the United States – for example, the agencies of the Executive Office of the President, the Congres- sional Budget Office, and the ever growing committee staffs of Congress – but

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they also exist in a number of other political systems (see Wanna et al., 2003). Some have sought to provide this information through ministerial cabinets (Thuil- lier, 1982) while others have established research offices in government or have strengthened the Prime Minister’s office – for example, the expansion of the Bun- deskanzlersamt in Germany (Fleischer, 2011). Still other governments have tried unsuccessfully to use their political parties as instruments for policy research. Despite these efforts, the bureaucracy retains a central role in the development and dissemination of policy- relevant information and thereby retains a powerful position in policy making. A second factor vital to assessing the relative importance of bureaucratic and political positions in policy making is the weight assigned to implementation in defining policy. As has already been pointed out, it can be easily argued that “policy” is what happens, rather than what is stated in legislation. Some have argued, in fact, that policy should be defined by the lower echelons of the bureaucracy, given that they have greater knowledge about the objective conditions which government policy is meant to address (Elmore, 1979). Many public programs allow a substan- tial degree of latitude for the implementers of a policy, such as in police work or in defining the eligibility of applicants for social programs, and the lower echelons of the bureaucracy may be as important as those in the nominal policy- making posi- tions in defining the realities of a policy (Smith, 2004). Finally, it should be emphasized again that the bureaucracy retains one principal advantage in a struggle over power and policy – it is simply so numer- ous. The sheer immensity of the task of controlling a large, complex, and knowl- edgeable public bureaucracy possessing substantial political suppor t may defeat all but the hardiest politician. Even in the United States, where presidents have a ver y large number of political appointees compared with most other countries, the size of the bureaucracy and its relationship to impor tant political forces make it difficult to control (Maranto, 2004; Lewis, 2012). As one presidential aide said: “Ever ybody believes in democracy until they come to the White House,” meaning that presidents would like to have more control over government than they some- times have. In summar y, bureaucrats may occupy the most important positions in gov- ernment simply because they occupy the most positions. In addition, they occupy positions that involve both the direct deliver y of ser vices to the public, and the definition of what the programs really signify for their clients. This connection with the clients may mean that they will disagree with the political leadership of their organization, except perhaps on the crucial question of whether the organization should sur vive. Their ability to loosen up some of the fetters of political control, given their numbers and their expertise, may have some of the same results men- tioned for competition among agencies. There is an increased ability for agencies and their personnel to go their own ways, with ever- increasing incoherence among government programs.

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The Possession of Managerial Skills

Political leaders frequently lack the managerial skills necessar y to manage a large, complex organization such as a government department. It is assumed that the bureaucrats who occupy these organizations permanently do have those skills, if for no other reason than they appear to keep the organizations running on a day- to-day basis. So, just as they frequently find themselves boarding a policy train that has a great deal of momentum, politicians coming on board their departments find that the organizations of which they are nominally in charge tend to run on their own with little direction from above. When compared to some absolute scale, rather than to the abilities of politi- cians, the skills of bureaucrats are not so over whelming. In fact, many of the stand- ard complaints about bureaucracy, and more specifically about public bureaucracy, concern their internal managerial dysfunctions. Discussions of “red tape,” dis- placement of goals, and general chronic inefficiency have filled the literature on bureaucracy (Kaufman, 1972; but see Du Gay, 2000). Therefore, we must be con- cerned whether these internal problems are sufficiently great to limit the ability of bureaucracy to provide effective governance when conventional political institu- tions have proven themselves ineffective. The “publicness” of the public bureaucracy and the lack of measurable outputs both contribute to the difficulties of managing public organizations. Being public, these organizations must be more concerned about the adherence to laws, norms, procedures, and so on than private organizations. They must be transparent and therefore managers are “managing in a goldfish bowl.” They are responsible for public money and act in the name of the people, and they must therefore be held accountable to the people. Accountability, in turn, may force the bureaucrat to protect himself or herself against possible complaints, with the only protection being in the strict or even rigid adherence to rules and procedures (Crozier, 1964). This protection is as important when dealing with superiors as it is when dealing with clients, and policy dealership from the top of the organization may be thwarted by bureaucratic rigidities and pro- cedures within the organization. The need for individual public ser vants to protect themselves will in part depend upon the legalism of the administrative system and the degree of risk- aversion in the system. The best conceived policy innovation will fail if the administrators implementing it are more concerned with their own protec- tion than the success of the program. These general problems of control are exaggerated by the absence of measurable outputs for most public organizations. The major means of evaluat- ing success in a public bureaucracy generally has been consumption rather than production (Cave et al., 1990). That is, the standard measure of success has been a larger budget rather than more ser vices actually delivered to the public. There- fore, lacking a single measure such as profit, which would allow an assessment of effectiveness, public sector managers have been forced to use rules, regulations, and hierarchical control more than would be true for other types of managers. The assessment of performance in the public sector has shifted away from inputs toward outputs (see Chapter 9) and with that change (and many others in the public sector) managerial skills have become more significant in the public sector.

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The managerial freedom implied by those reforms have, however, also created many problems for government, and in large part for reasons of creating, or recre- ating, accountability some of the older input controls have been reinstated. The internal managerial dysfunctions that beset public bureaucracy are the accumulation of many factors. Some are purely organizational dysfunctions that appear endemic to large structures, while others appear related to cross- cultural differences in conceptions of authority and hierarchical control. Many of the dys- functions are universal but are particularly apparent in some settings. For example, societies with a resistance to the imposition of impersonal authority are more likely to experience bureaucratic dysfunctions than others more accepting of authority, as has been indicated in a number of “failed states” (Mentan, 2004). Likewise, and somewhat paradoxically, the greater the extent to which individual public ser vants are likely to suffer punishment as a result of an improper action, the more likely bureaucratic dysfunctions will be; the individual public ser vant will retreat behind a wall of rules, regulations, and delays for protection. Finally, it has become a truism to say that, in the management of modern gov- ernments, there is an increasing interdependence of the public and private sectors. Not only does policy have to descend from above, but it must be cleared from below (see Heritier, 2007). This places bureaucrats in a strategic position to link the public and private sectors, but it also makes their jobs more difficult. Not only must there be compliance within the public organization, but there must also be compliance in the society, with many more built- in “clearance points” (Pressman and Wildavsky, 1974). With a larger number of independent decisions that must be made when implement- ing a program, that program naturally will be more difficult and will increase the probability of bureaucratic delay and failure. These managerial problems are accen- tuated as government utilizes more mechanisms, such as “third- party government” and privatization, that involve the private sector more directly in the delivery of public services. While these techniques are sometimes sold as panaceas for the problems of government, they may actually create rather than solve problems (Gazley, 2008).

A High Priority Given to Implementation of Policy

Some of the problems of internal management within public organizations have already been discussed. There are also numerous problems with communication that inhibit the flow of information upward and internal rigidities that block the smooth flow of authority downward (Stinchcombe, 1990). The sixth criterion for government is directly concerned with the translation of decisions made at the top of the organization into effective actions in the field. As has been noted, the “real” policy of a government is the policy as implemented, rather than the statements of legislatures, political executives, and others. A number of studies have documented the variety of pressures on field workers that may limit their ability to take the program passed by the legislature and put it into effect as planned. This concern with lower- echelon administrators complying with the law as written may appear to conflict with our earlier concern about flexibility and the exercise of discretion. However, that concern with “red tape” focused on compliance with the procedures of the organization rather than with the substance of the policy.

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A significant portion of this failure of implementation can be explained by political rather than organizational factors. As an administrator finds himself or herself farther and farther from the center of organizational power, there is a loss of political support and policy reinforcement. The administrator becomes more subject to political pressures from outside the organization, if for no other reason than that these pressures are more relevant and immediate than those from the home office. Kaufman’s now- classic study of the US Forest Ser vice (1967) is a case in point of local pressures on a field officer. Pressman and Wildavsky (1974)’s study of implementation illustrates this problem in an intergovernmental context, as do the problems of ensuring compliance in the decentralized administrative structure of Germany. Even the French préfet (now officially entitled the “Commissioner of the Republic”) must negotiate and attempt to co- opt local forces in order to govern his or her territor y successfully (Meny, 1984). Even in a (seemingly) centralized countr y such as France, the need to implement policy in a local setting places a great deal of power in the hands of local politicians and even the local populace (see also Gremion, 1976; Epstein, 2000). The necessity of mobilizing political support for policy, and its attendant need to bargain away some policy intentions of central government, may be fundamen- tal to the political process when one is attempting to put legislation into effect. However, it is the one area of the policy process about which we still have perhaps the least reliable information (Winter, 2004). One school of thought about imple- mentation, argues that the only way to understand what happens in government is to understand how the ver y lowest echelons of government work, how they interact with each other, and how they interact with citizens (Hanf, 1993). If this is the case, then governance by bureaucracy is at once more important and more difficult. It is important because it will define what happens. It is difficult because it is extremely difficult to obtain coordination and control in such a decentralized environment. Given the relative lack of information about the implementation process – a weakness that is being remedied rapidly – it is difficult to make reasonable hypothe- ses about the sources of variation in effective implementation. One obvious hypoth- esis is that, in highly decentralized administrative systems, such as in Germany, there will be greater problems in ensuring implementation than in more centralized systems. Likewise, the degree of sectionalism and local autonomy would be related to failures of implementation, as would the abilities of political leaders with strong sectional bases to place pressures on the bureaucracy for special considerations for their areas (Lancaster and Patterson, 1990). Several studies in implementation in Third World countries have emphasized the importance of local power relation- ships and patron–client relationships in limiting effective policy implementation (Grindle and Thomas, 1989; Niento Morales et al., 2015). Also, the degree of verti- cal separation of the client- contact levels from the center of the organization may make it more likely – and more necessar y – that lower- echelon workers bargain with local and client interests. Finally, the lack of political support for an organiza- tion, as with some independent regulator y commissions in the United States, may make it crucial for organizations to develop operative policies somewhat different from those intended in their enabling legislation (Calvert et al., 1989). In addition to the political pull of clients and geographical interests, there are other factors within public bureaucracies that limit ef fective implementation.

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These organizational factors have been documented in a number of studies (see Hood, 1976). More impor tant, as is outlined above in the discussion of agency ideologies, organizations may have goals of their own and consequently may not accept the goals of their nominal political superiors. Opposition to the policies of politicians is rarely over t, as this might violate the formal relationships between elective and permanent officials in government. More commonly, bureaucrats defeat politicians by obfuscation, delay, and the use of rules, regulations, and pro- cedures. Politicians, being shor t- term occupants of their positions, rarely under- stand either the procedural mechanisms or the substance of policy as well as their nominal ser vants and, consequently, are frequently at the mercy of those civil ser vants. This is par ticularly so when the policy in question falls among several depar tments so it is the result of the countless meetings and telephone calls among officials from the depar tments involved. An inter- organizational network exists in government, both among depar tments and among levels of government, and an individual needs substantial length of ser vice in order to learn the network and how to get what he or she wants out of it. Civil ser vants have that longevity, whereas politicians rarely do. We should not count politicians out of the power equation too readily. They have developed a number of mechanisms to attempt to restore their control over the structures and policies of government, increasingly considered to be domi- nated by bureaucracy. We have already mentioned the use of ministerial cabinets in France and Belgium, and the creation of other institutions for policy advice in other countries. There is also an increasing use of political appointees in positions in which they were previously infrequent. Even in the United Kingdom, which has had a long histor y of a politically neutral civil ser vice, the Thatcher government made numerous appointments in senior civil ser vice posts that appear political, in addition to the appointment of some manifestly political advisors in the Treasur y (Sausman and Locke, 2004). And subsequent governments in the United Kingdom have continued the practice of more political appointments. In countries such as Germany, where a civil ser vice career and political commitment have not been seen as so incompatible, the use of political appointments has become more obvious and more important than in the past (Fleischer, 2011). Leaders in many newly demo- cratizing countries also have found that having control over their civil ser vice is important for achieving their political purposes (Meyer- Sahling, 2006). Implementation is a central problem in contemporar y political systems. Breakdowns of implementation represent a fundamental failure of those systems to translate political ideas into effective action. Bureaucracies are a central component of this failure, although usually not from malice but more from the rigidities built into their structures, or from their members’ sincere beliefs in the policies already being pursued or regarded as preferable. While implementation is important for governance, it is not the only problem. At times there may be a tendency to design a program for ease of implementation without asking whether that is really how government should undertake to “solve” a particular policy problem (see Linder and Peters, 1987). As in the earlier discussion about the domination of procedures over substance in public bureaucracies, implementation considerations can come to dominate real policy considerations, and governments may do what they think they can do rather than what they should do or even want to do. Certainly the true

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meaning of a policy is the actual policy that is implemented rather than what is written on an official piece of paper. However, there is little point in having a policy implemented if it is the wrong policy in the first place. Thus, we cannot blame policy failure only on the implementation of a program but should attribute it also to more fundamental problems with the conceptualization and design of the program itself.

Summary

We have been exploring the question of the ability of bureaucracy to provide gov- ernment with a set of coherent policy intentions and the implementation of those intentions in contemporar y political systems. The conclusion is that, although bureaucracy may be able to go some distance in providing such leadership, it is also thwarted by many of the same problems that limit politicians seeking to exer- cise governance. Those whose primar y concern is democratic politics and popular control of government may welcome this analysis initially but upon reflection may be chastened. This analysis indicates that there are difficulties in public manage- ment and government that are more basic than the short- term political and eco- nomic forces cited as the causes of most contemporar y problems. One term for the ver y fundamental problems which contemporar y govern- ments face in governing is “overload.” This term, though coined in the 1970s, con- tinues to have substantial relevance for governments today (Crozier et al., 1972; Peters, 1993). These problems arise from a loss of confidence by citizens, the decline of obedience and quiescence by citizens, the inability to provide meaning- ful new benefits, and – last but certainly not least – the ver y machiner y of govern- ment itself. The sheer bulk and inertia of bureaucracy, combined with its needs for external political support from clientele groups, tend to fragment control and divert attention from problems of governance to problems of organizational sur vival. The political life and, to some extent, the values of bureaucratic agencies are tied up in questions of organizational sur vival. Thus, government by bureaucracy is a problem. Bureaucracy may be capable of supplying government, but unlike political parties that supply by “directionless consensus,” government supplied by bureaucracy may be government by “noncon- sensual directions.” The government supplied will go in many directions, depend- ent upon the agency and its relationship to its clientele. For the same reason it will be nonconsensual and incoherent government. There would be no integrat- ing ideology or philosophy, only a set of specific ideologies about specific policy problems. These ideologies, rather than integrating the activities of government, tend to fragment government and render it a set of competing, or at least not coop- erating, fiefdoms. Even (relatively) popular leaders, such as Ronald Reagan, Mar- garet Thatcher, and Angela Merkel, with long periods in office, find it difficult to overcome these deep- seated centrifugal forces in government. This centrifugal ten- dency is all the more pronounced in poorly integrated governments, e.g., that of the European Community or those of less- developed countries (Levy, 2006).

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Strategies in Bureaucratic Politics

Even if we can agree that government by bureaucracy, meaning by an integrated and purposive civil ser vice elite, is not a likely occurrence, this does not mean that the struggle over power and influence on public policy between elective officials and permanent officials will not continue (Carroll, 1990). In this struggle, each side has important weapons and important stratagems at their disposal. This section will discuss some of these weapons and how they may be employed. The first and perhaps most important resources of the bureaucracy are infor- mation and expertise. To the extent that government has information at its disposal, this information is concentrated in bureaucratic agencies. Accompanying that information is the technical expertise to understand and interpret it. This relative monopoly of information can be translated into power in several ways. The most blatant is the argument that since they (the agency) know more about the subject, they should be given control over it. In other words, they are likely to do a better job (technically) of making policy in a certain issue area than would the relatively ignorant political executive and legislature. If that argument fails, as it often does, and the politicians are sufficiently audacious to attempt to make policy themselves, then the major source of information for formulating those policies will still be the bureaucracy (Brans et al., 2006). This means that the bureaucracy is in a situation in which it can at least implicitly trade information for influence over policy, and indeed information may be produced selectively to make one type of decision a virtual inevitability. In the same vein, Bartlett (1973; Greffe, 2005) has referred to legislatures “subsidizing” bureaus in order to get information about their opera- tions, that is, trading information for money. A second power at the disposal of the bureaucracy is the power of decision. Despite the usual claims of red tape and inefficiency in bureaucracy (especially public bureaucracy), compared with many political institutions – especially legis- lative institutions – they generally appear to be a model of efficiency. Having few procedural rules concerning free discussion, voting, and the like, bureaucracies are in a position to act more rapidly than legislatures on many issues. There are, of course, some procedural safeguards and delays for would- be bureaucratic rulemak- ers – for example, the Administrative Procedures Act in the United States – but rela- tively speaking, the bureaucracy can act quickly (Br yner, 1987). In part because of the capacity of bureaucratic organizations to make decisions quickly, and to utilize technical information more readily than do legislatures, there has been a continu- ing trend to delegate authority to them (Schoenbrod, 1993; Huber, 2000). Also, bureaucratic agencies do not have to be as sensitive to the political pressures that may be coming from constituents in making their decisions. Political executives may share the advantage of rapid decision making in situations where they are independent of the legislature, as, for example, authoritarian leaders, or the French or American presidencies within a range of action, but they are more commonly bound in democratic systems by a reliance on legislative action and approval. Third, just as political institutions have their political supporters so do bureau- cratic institutions. In the previous chapter we discussed the relationship between bureaucracy and interest groups. In two of the four types of interactions there is a definite political linkage between an interest group and an agency. The bureaucracy

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has the capacity to mobilize these political supporters in making claims for funding or for policy autonomy. The political support of other political institutions tends to be less policy- specific than that of agencies, and the agency can consequently mobilize a more interested and vocal group of supporters on an issue than would be likely for any legislative group that sought to oppose it. This relative mobiliza- tion capacity is especially evident given the difficulties of decision making within the legislature. This issue- specific political support can be of special importance because of the fragmented nature of decision making in many legislative bodies, with committees or other specialized bodies having a substantial influence over policy and funding. The agency is able to mobilize support before the appropri- ate committee, which may not have the interest or latitude to consider alternative uses for funds, and can develop the case that indeed there is a large demand for the agency’s ser vices. The bargain struck with the client group, allowing access and influence, is generally consummated in front of a legislative committee in the United States, or in ministerial advisor y bodies in parliamentar y democracies. Having discussed the political powers of the bureaucracy, we now proceed to discuss the advantages they have by being apolitical. This may appear to be a contradiction, but it is an important means of understanding how bureaucracies are able to compete successfully for influence and power in decision making. Bureauc- racies have the advantage of being formally divorced from partisan politics. Civil ser vants do not have to stand for election, are not faced with constituency pres- sures or pressures for conformity from their own party, and have been effectively neutered politically in many societies. This isolation from partisan politics allows them to argue that not only are they expert in what they do, but also that their deci- sions will not be affected by the need to placate voters. This partisan impartiality goes hand- in-hand with the expertise of the bureaucracy to make a strong argu- ment that their decisions will be superior on technical grounds to those that would be taken by political institutions. If for no other reason, the longer time horizon of the bureaucracy and their willingness to make long- term plans may produce supe- rior decisions. As was already mentioned, bureaucracies develop agency ideologies as a means of justifying their actions. These ideologies are important weapons in the struggle over influence, as they tend to be imper vious to the argument and evi- dence of outside “nonexperts” and to be self- ser ving for the agency. One of the classic examples of such an agency ideology is the doctrine of strategic bombing held by the United States Air Force. This doctrine, stated simply, is that the best means (if not the only means) of bringing an enemy to its knees is through strategi- cally bombing its means of war production. This is alleged to have brought about the demise of Germany and Japan in World War II, and these cases are cited as proof of the doctrine. Such evidence as does exist on the effects of the bombing, however, indicates that if anything, production of war material increased during the bombing rather than decreased (Wilensky, 1977). The Air Force – for obvious reasons – persists in its claim that bombing is the answer to the problems of war. Even with so- called “smart” munitions the record of bombing during the Gulf War was filled with failures to hit key targets (e.g., the SCUD missiles) but did not deter the continued articulation of the ideology of strategic bombing to at least the time of the attacks on ISIS.

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There are a number of other examples of the rigid adherence of militar y bureaucracies to ideologies of this sort, but some of the same behavior can be found in social and economic bureaucracies as well. Even though most social agencies at least pay lip ser vice to the idea that most social problems are multi- dimensional, they tend to see them and act on them largely in terms of their own expertise, to tr y to capture clients rather than sending them on to seek other types of help, and to argue for increased funding in terms of the ability to solve social problems through their particular program. The numerous problems of agency coordination in social ser vices are one indication of the reliance on agency ideologies about policy and solutions to those problems (Bardach, 1998; Peters, 2015). To return to the central point of this discussion of bureaucratic ideologies, we can see that the existence of such an ideology is important for the success of the agency in dealing with political institutions (Goodsell, 2011; Miller, 2012). Political actors rarely have a ready reply to such policy- specific ideologies. They labor under a number of disadvantages in competing with the bureaucrats, not the least of which is a frequent lack of any specific policy ideas. Many political leaders, when put into a ministerial or cabinet role, simply do not have the background in the policy area to contribute much in the way of policy direction, and the demands of the job often prevent them from developing such a direction. The civil ser vants who work within the department – even the generalists at relatively high levels – rarely have such difficulties and are quite capable of providing a direction for the department’s program. Finally, the bureaucracy has the advantages of permanence and stability. It is difficult to fire a civil ser vant and may even be difficult to have one transferred. Civil ser vants can always adopt a strategy of waiting and delay. Ministers may come and go, but the basic work of civil ser vants does not change, simply because the minis- ters rarely have time to learn what has to be changed or to put such a program into effect. In addition, the longer time perspective of the permanent civil ser vice allows them to favor solutions to problems that may take a long time to come to fruition but that may ultimately solve a problem. Politicians, however, have to offer a “quick fix” before the next election.

The Resources of Political Institutions

Perhaps the ultimate weapon at the disposal of political institutions is their legiti- macy. Associated with legitimacy is the formal and constitutional authority to do the things that government is intended to do. Few constitutions even mention bureauc- racies, much less vest any formal powers of decision making in them. Therefore, whether by delegation, funding, or acquiescence, bureaucratic actions must be legitimated by constitutionally prescribed actors. More often than not this legitima- tion comes through inaction and acquiescence rather than through formal action, but it still involves a transfer of authority. Almost as important as the formal power and authority to perform tasks is the wherewithal to do them: money. The second major power held by political insti- tutions, then, is the power of the purse. In order to sur vive, prosper, and grow, agen- cies require money and must be able to influence political institutions to provide

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them with it. The budgetar y process – or the politics of sur vival, as we referred to it earlier – is one of the crucial points of interaction in bureaucratic politics. The bureaucracy seeks money and the autonomy to spend it, while the political institu- tions seek control of their funds and also seek to ensure accountability as to how it will be spent. The importance of the budget for both sets of actors has led to the development of a number of techniques on both sides to attempt to counteract the powers of the other. Third, and certainly related to the first two items, is something that we might call latitude, or autonomy for the agency. In general, agencies seek to acquire as much latitude as they can (Carpenter, 2010). This refers primarily to latitude to make policy; they might seek a blanket grant of authority in an area of policy. It may also refer to budgeting; they might seek some latitude in the way in which funds may be spent. Given the volume of business and the complexity of modern govern- ment, bureaucracies are likely to be given greater latitude for action. On the other hand, the power to grant such latitude is a powerful weapon for political institutions and can be used to gain concessions of information, or compliance on other issues. It is the constitutional mandate of political institutions to control policies and their implementation. Moreover, they must be responsible politically for what happens to the countr y, and they want to control policy if they are to be held responsible for it. Thus, in addition to bargaining over money, agencies and political institutions must also bargain over the degree of autonomy to be granted, the responsibility for funds and accounting, and the procedures for delegating authority. The powers of political institutions mentioned to this point are largely formal and legal. These institutions have substantial resources as well, if for no other reason than they are, to some degree, representative of the public. It may be argued exactly how representative legislatures or political executives may be (Olson and Franks, 1993) along several dimensions, but they are generally the most representative institutions available. As such they are able to mobilize political strength through their relationship to the public, political par ties, and interest groups. The public will rarely rise up as a mass in righteous anger, but the politicians are quite capable of making it seem that way. By any number of means – investigation, publicity, electoral campaigns, speeches, debates – the political institutions may be capable of pitting the “people” against the bureau- crats. Given the careers and insulation of public bureaucracy, there is little the people are capable of doing even in their aroused state, but the bureaucracy can ignore public opinion for only so long. Moreover, the arousal of public opinion may make it considerably easier for the political institutions to employ the formal powers at their disposal.

Bureaucratic Ploys

Having discussed the weapons available to both sides in the struggle over policy and money, we proceed to the dynamic means through which those powers can be exercised. This of necessity will be only a partial listing of all the ploys available but it still should provide an idea of the ways in which both bureaucrats and political leaders play the game of politics within formal organizations.

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We begin with a set of devices, stratagems, and structures that greatly assist the bureaucracy in achieving its ends of control over policy and stable if not expand- ing budgetar y commitments. In most cases these ploys are related to the ability of the bureaucracy to mobilize information and expertise, and secondarily to the ability to mobilize bias in the form of pressure group support for programs. These ploys largely involve removing policy from consideration by political officials and placing it in the hands of presumably neutral, expert, and objective administrators. As admirable as this may sound in theor y – at least to those who advocate “rational” policy making in government – it represents a movement away from the ability of elected or even selected leaders to control government and supply the quality and quantity of goods and ser vices demanded by the public. Planning. The first and perhaps most important of the strategies of expand- ing bureaucratic influence is public planning. This device began as a means of con- trolling the economy but has been extended to a variety of social and economic spheres such as land use, transportation, urban areas, and even social ser vices (Hill, 1992; Flynn, 1993). Even in the 1990s, where government planning received a bad name among most of the public, it was still a powerful weapon for the bureauc- racy to shape policy. The need and justification for planning is obvious from a number of perspec- tives. In the first place, planning involves the systematic application of knowledge to important areas of human concern and allows some long- range manipulation of the state of the economy and society. Likewise, it can make the nature of the economy more amenable to the desires of the public and, by removing many decisions from the marketplace, allow for investment in areas that, while socially desirable, may not be particularly profitable in a private market. By removing, at least to some extent, macroeconomic policy from the political agenda the device may success- fully defuse many important political conflicts, especially where politics is heavily influenced by segmental disputes within the society. Thus, the tendency toward adopting planning as a means of making long- range policy tends to remove some aspect of public policy from the partisanship and divisiveness of politics, and trans- port it to the rarefied atmosphere of “rational” decision making. It should be clear that planning is an important weapon for the bureaucratic politician. It places the regulation of the national economy or some other aspect of national policy in his or her hands. If planning is accepted as the “proper” means of making policy for the nation, then the proper policy becomes the one that the planners advocate, and the burden of proof falls on those who advocate anything else. This may be especially true of policy areas other than the economy where the effects of the policy decisions are not as apparent to the public through such factors as inflation and unemployment, and where the requirement of capital investment means that the effects will be years in the future. But planning is also capable of influencing other policy areas such as social policy (Mehmet, 2015). A second item in favor of planning through the bureaucracy, especially eco- nomic planning, is that it is difficult for the average layperson – or politician – to understand. Most contemporar y economic planning is done through such devices as mathematically sophisticated econometric models processed by computer and dependent upon large quantities of economic theor y. Few members of the political community have the skills, or are willing to invest the time required to acquire

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the skills, to understand fully the reasoning behind these planning methods or the assumptions on which they are built. The politicians are at the mercy of the plan- ners, and some political systems have gone even farther in having the plan go into effect unless actively blocked by the political institutions. A third item favoring the bureaucracy and the planners is the integration of the plan. Almost by definition, planning offers something of an integrated and comprehensive view of some aspect of social or economic life and an integrated set of policies for achieving certain ends in that policy area. Therefore, any attempt by political institutions to modify the plan can be opposed as upsetting the whole plan. As Andrew Shonfield (1965, 235) put it:

If parliament is to play an effective part in the business of national planning – and if it does not the outlook for the future of democracy is bleak – then members of parliament will also have to recognize some theoretical as well as practical limitations on the exercise of their collective sovereignty. These theoretical limitations apply to the whole procedure of introducing a parlia- mentar y amendment to a set of planning proposals, whose merit is their intellectual coherence and self- consistency. If any significant element in them is changed, the whole structure must be adapted to accommodate the alteration.

He goes on to argue that such adaptability is crucial on the part of the planners, but the presence of an integrated plan makes it difficult for any political organiza- tion to make the types of alterations and modifications at which they are perhaps most adept. The burden of proof would again appear to fall on those who want to change the plan rather than those who want to accept it. This was written during the heyday of planning but may be even more true as governments must make comprehensive plans about the environment, health care, and a variety of other complex policy areas. Following from the above, it is difficult for political institutions to attack the efficacy of the planning process as a means of allocating resources. Certainly some plans are more successful than others, but with the exception of a few societies that approach being totally planned, there are always sufficient areas of independence so that plan failures can be blamed on those nonplanned sectors of the economy, or on oil prices, or on drought. This not only can be used as a means to argue for more public control of the marketplace, but also prevents the public and its representa- tives from measuring bureaucratic or planning output in the same way they might measure the output of other governmental programs, such as garbage collection or water supply. Planning is, thus, one of the public goods mentioned previously that often defy accurate pricing. In this discussion we should be careful not to assume that planners and the rest of the bureaucratic establishment are necessarily homogeneous. In many cases, in fact, there is significant friction between the traditional bureaucracy and planning agencies that exist outside that conventional framework. As with the conflict between line and staff, the presence of planning agencies threatens line agencies, and planning tends to direct resources away from the pet projects of line agencies. However, the planning process must be seen as directing political control

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and authority away from “political” institutions and toward bureaucratic (especially when each agency or department does its own planning) or technocratic agencies. Planning constitutes a major weapon in the hands of the bureaucracy, both at agency and societal levels. It provides a technical means of reinforcing and quanti- fying the positions of the bureaucracy and at the same time removes many impor- tant and sensitive matters from the hands of partisan decision makers. Planners can argue that their decisions will be objectively superior to those reached by par- tisan institutions, that they can impose a longer time perspective on the problem than the politicians, and that they can prevent special- interest considerations from determining policy. Despite these to- some-degree commendable attributes of plan- ning, the major effect that we must be concerned about in this context is removing those decisions from the hands of politically responsible officials and placing them into the hands of the bureaucratic elites. This shift may be seen by a large portion of public opinion as undemocratic. It may be seen by those on the political right, who had greater political influence in the 1980s, as removing public decisions even further from influence by their favorite solution for social problems, the market. Budgeting. An entire chapter is devoted to the role of budgeting in the life of public agencies, but some points should be made here briefly, since budgeting is such an important weapon for both bureaucrats and politicians. On the bureau- cratic side, a number of highly sophisticated and technical approaches to allocating resources have been useful in mystifying the budget process. These techniques, in turn, placed the more amateur political leaders at something of a disadvan- tage. Approaches to budgeting, such as PPBS (Planning- Programming-Budgeting System, or simply program budgeting), ZBB (Zero- Base Budgeting), RCB (the French version of program budgeting), and volume budgeting in Britain (the PESC system), were undertaken with the admirable intention of improving the objective quality of public decisions and of relating budgeting more directly to the final prod- ucts of public programs. Interestingly, if anything, these reformed systems of budg- eting were designed to break the stranglehold of the bureaucracy on the budget through incrementalism. Their effect, however, appears to have been actually to strengthen the position of the agency in relationship to parliaments or political executives. Many of these budget mechanisms were discredited shortly after their introduction, but keep reappearing in other manifestations in the same or other countries. In particular, the emphasis on measurement within program budgeting has made a major return in performance budgeting (see Chapter 7). In the first place, program budgeting requires considerably more informa- tion about the activities of the agencies than is required for traditional line- item budgeting. Where is that information to come from? Clearly it must come from the agencies themselves. Assuming that the agencies do not directly lie about the operations of their agencies, this informational role still gives them a sub- stantial impact over the outcomes of budgeting. Program budgeting requires a considerable investment of time and money to be ef fective, so programs as well as agencies are selected for more intensive analysis in any one year. Frequently, centralized budget agencies – if they exist – lack sufficient staf f to scrutinize the activities of agencies fully or to collect independent information. The bureaucracy may, therefore, not be ef fectively restrained by this device in its search for secure funding.

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A second point is that program budgeting, although it requires priority setting at the ver y highest levels of government, forces some decentralization of control within the bureaucracy. One effect of the programming process is to allow each bureau chief considerably more latitude than would be allowed under a line- item budget. Instead of funds being allocated for items such as personnel, equipment, and the like, they would be allocated for doing a job. The bureau chief would be allowed latitude in how he used the funds. For example, if he found that he could build roads more cheaply by using less sophisticated machiner y and more hand labor, a bureau chief would be able to do so. While this may, and should, have the effect of producing better policy outputs at a lower or equal cost, the political effect is to make it more difficult to impose central control on the operations of the bureaus and agencies, although priorities will be determined centrally. Third, few political bodies are likely to be willing or able to invest the time and money required to undertake their own detailed program review of agencies. They rarely have the staff to compete with those of the agencies, so the competition for control becomes a conflict between a “computer and slide rule.” Even if legislatures or political executives were to respond favorably to the imposition of such manage- ment techniques – and the evidence is largely that they have not – they might still be at a severe disadvantage in attempting to understand and alter the outputs of program budgeting by the agencies and centralized budgeting agencies. Related to both planning and program budgeting is what we might call “tech- nical budgeting.” By this we refer to a tendency to assign the budgetar y function to a special body having highly developed technical skills and little if any political responsibility. Another variant of budgeting with some of the same implications is a tendency to develop middle- range budgetar y forecasting, with projected budgets made for five- to-seven- year periods. The formulation of the national budget in Nor way has been one of the best examples of technical budgeting. The budget is still largely formulated by a group of civil ser vants and technicians using a quite complex model of the Nor wegian economy. These “technocrats” develop a draft budget that is then scrutinized by a select committee of civil ser vants and the gov- ernment, is reformulated, and is finally passed by the parliament. The fiscal crisis affecting governments since at least 2009 produced some changes in budgeting away from more technical styles attempting to promote rational decision making toward blunter methods simply designed to constrain spending. The age of austerity in the public sector (Vaughn- Whitehead, 2013) has led to substantial budget change but has in turn tended to reduce the impact of the bureaucracy overspending. Advisor y bodies. Another useful device for the bureaucracy in gaining control over policy areas is the use of advisor y bodies or committees in the formu- lation of policy. We have previously discussed bodies of this type that are attached to ministries, but they are also useful for understanding the influence of admin- istration on policy. It is, in fact, in part because of the pressure group connection that these bodies can become so successful in assisting bureaucratic power. In the societies where the use of advisor y bodies is so important in making policy – prin- cipally Scandinavia and the Low Countries – the imprimatur of pressure groups is important in legitimating policy. Since these advisor y boards are attached to the ministries and thereby interact largely with civil ser vants, there is the possibility of

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substantial reciprocal influence over policy. Further, many of the members of the advisor y bodies are themselves members of the civil ser vice. In France, although the numerical membership of civil ser vants in ministerial advisor y boards is gen- erally not large, they tend to hold the more important positions of chairman and rapporteur, so what the committee advises is at least interpreted by the civil ser vice before dissemination. In Japan the civil ser vice ser ves as the staff for the numerous advisor y committees (shingikai) and is often accused of manipulating the content of their recommendations (Schwartz, 1993). Thus the civil ser vice can be expected to have a significant influence over the findings of ministerial advisor y boards, and these boards often have a crucial role in determining the final outcome of policy. Board or committee findings tend to have the approval of both pressure groups and the civil ser vice, have substantial informational backing, and, therefore, become quite difficult for anyone to oppose politically. Thus, the vertical integration of many pressure groups into the minis- tries, and the general ability of the ministries to dominate one policy area, make the formulation of much public policy in practice – if not officially – the product of negotiation between representatives of pressure groups and the civil ser vice. One Swedish official report (SOU, 1993, 166) for example, argued that:

Many agencies have been built and have developed their identity on differ- ent sectors of the welfare state. Contacts between these agencies and their sector’s interest groups are often intimate. Therefore, agencies and special- ized departments have often functioned as embassies of these special interest groups.

A second type of advisor y committee tends to be independent of any particular ministr y, although it may be working on a problem clearly identified with the con- cerns of the ministr y. We have already discussed bodies, such as royal commis- sions, presidential task forces, and the like when discussing pressure group impact on policy. These advisor y bodies tend to have substantial bureaucratic input as well and, if anything, the influence of the bureaucracy has been increasing in recent years. This growing influence has been partly a function of the growing technical expertise of the bureaucracy in a variety of policy areas and partly a recognition of the need to obtain cooperation from the civil ser vice if a program is to be effective once adopted. It should be obvious that, no matter who benefits directly by using advisor y bodies, it is not the political actors who will be ultimately held responsible for their actions and policies. These political actors gain in the short term by having a sensi- tive issue defused, but in the long term, the likely effects are to increase bureau- cratic influence over the policy. Further, the issues likely to be sent to commissions of this type are the truly sensitive ones that cannot be resolved easily by political actors. Thus, if we are willing to admit that most routine decisions are determined largely administratively and now we see that many extremely broad and sensitive decisions are increasingly influenced by bureaucracy, the roles of the political insti- tutions are diminished rather dramatically. They do not have the time or staff to handle most routine decisions, and they lack the consensus to handle most major decisions, so they are left with the task of setting broad policy guidelines on issues

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where there is already some consensus. This may be an extreme statement, but the evidence to this point in the analysis would seem to support it. The listing of the various ploys and strategies available to the bureaucracy and, in fact, often unwittingly placed in their hands, gives some idea of the way in which their expertise, internal organization, and position in the structures of gov- ernment can be translated into effective political power. The devices listed above have relied largely on the expertise and information available to the bureaucracy and, consequently, have assumed the lack of same on the part of the political insti- tutions. In the next section we look at the ways in which the political institutions have sought to counterattack against growing bureaucratic influence on policy.

Politicians’ Ploys

Given the imposing list of formal powers that the political institutions have been said to have, it may seem strange that they would need to search out new means of asserting their power and their control over policy and the budget. However, the skills and expertise of the bureaucracy (at least in relative terms) and the largely antiquated structure of many political institutions have made such a search necessar y. Legislatures may be good at deliberation but are often poor at making decisions, and political executives often lack the skills necessar y to manage large public organizations. Special budgetar y institutions. One of the first things that the political institutions must seek to recover from the potentially dominant civil ser vice is some effective control over the public budget. In order for them to do so, several forms of specialized budgetar y institutions have been devised (see Good, 2007). The idea of these bodies is to develop an expert institution responsible directly to the political executive rather than being loyal primarily to the bureaucracy. Most budgeting systems require a review of agency requests by other civil ser vants in a ministr y of finance, treasur y, or some other similar body, but few provide for an office so directly responsible to a political actor or institution. It is expected that the existence of such a body will allow the executive to be able to have an independent watchdog on expenditures and to have a policy staff directly concerned with expen- ditures and policy. A vigorous bureaucratic agency such as the British Treasur y or the Swedish Ministr y of Finance may be able to provide something of the same type of control, but the linkage to the chief political executive may not always be so clear. This lack of linkage will often result in deliberations between civil ser vants over policy rather than the imposition of executive guidelines. Unfortunately, little is actually known about the ability of these budget organi- zations to control expenditures effectively either in the aggregate or in an allocative sense. Although the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) may be far from totally successful in imposing its (and the President’s) will on the budgetar y process in the United States, it is at a distinct advantage compared with the task allotted to many chief executives in seeking to control their budgets. As has been noted, most countries use essentially a bureaucratic agency as a means of per- forming the budget- examining functions – the Treasur y in Britain and the Ministr y

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of Finance in most countries. Despite their connections with political power, they remain essentially civil ser vice organizations and, as such, may not willingly accept the goals of an executive attempting to improve his political future. In addition, many parliamentar y political systems tend to be apprehensive about a prime minis- ter attempting to control the budget from his office rather than through the collec- tivity of the cabinet, so that the internal negotiations over the budget may become so difficult that bureaucratic domination is inevitable. Even in Germany where the Chancellor is in a stronger position than most parliamentar y executives, the use of his position to impose priorities in budgeting is not well received, and much of the power devolves to the Ministr y of Finance. In fact, the Minister of Finance is given a special position in the cabinet that makes it difficult for his decisions, and those of his department, to be overturned. Thus, although independent executive budget- ing agencies may be far from a perfect solution to controlling public expenditure and the powers of the bureaucracy, they are probably a better solution than has been found in many political systems. Legislatures have also begun to evolve a number of specialized institutions for dealing with the problem of budgeting. The development of the Congressional Budget Office in the US Congress, and its rather large and well- qualified staff, is one example of a legislature attempting to regain control over levels of public expenditure and economic policy (Wolfson, 2003). In this case, the conflict is obvi- ously with both the bureaucracy and the presidency. In Britain there have been successful attempts to revive the Public Accounts Committee as a policy, as well as a financial instrument of parliament. In addition, the Treasur y and Civil Ser vice Select Committee provides another legislative institution to monitor the financial activities of the executive. The financial crisis beginning in 2008 has generated a spate of new inde- pendent and parliamentar y institutions monitoring budgets and public spending. The Office of Budget Responsibility in the United Kingdom was among the first, followed by similar organizations in Austria, Australia, Belgium, Georgia, and Hungar y among others (Alesina and Giavazzi, 2013). These offices are designed to provide autonomous evaluation of the spending plans of governments and report on their implications. Organizational differentiation. The formation of organizations and com- mittees such as those noted above is a part of a general tendency toward organiza- tional differentiation that is manifesting itself in many political institutions seeking to control public expenditure and policy. In order to be able to counteract the spe- cialization and differentiation of the bureaucracy, executives and legislatures have adopted some similar organizational tactics. In general, there has been a growth of the organization within the office of the chief executive, even in countries such as Britain, where the individual power of the chief executive tends to be restricted by a number of conventions. For example, the personal staff of the Prime Minister in No. 10 Downing Street has now increased to over almost 200 people – small in comparison to the Executive Office of the President of the United States but large in historical terms (Burch and Holliday, 2004). The tendency to develop and dif- ferentiate organizations has been especially apparent in single- party states faced with either opposition or a lack of enthusiasm in the bureaucracy. This situation has forced political leaders in those countries to develop their own means of monitoring

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the implementation of programs or actually implementing them through their own executive organizations. The ability of many public organizations to differentiate is often limited by law, so the institutions will be at a severe disadvantage in attempting to compete with the bureaucracy. For example, in France, the National Assembly is constitutionally limited to six committees, which in turn greatly limits their ability to compete with a highly developed bureaucracy and political executive. Further, Congressional actions have limited the ability of the American President to reorganize his office and expand its staff. Again, some limitation of the differentiation, undertaken for political reasons, will have the effect of limited ability to manage effectively. Counterstaffs. One extremely important means which political leaders can employ in attempting to control the powers of the bureaucracy is the development of their own staffs and independent sources of information. These enable them to remove the bureaucratic bias in the information received. These independent sources of information may be institutionalized, as in the Executive Office of the President of the United States and the Office of the Chancellor (Bundeskanzler- samt) in Germany or they may be the more casual use of outside consultants. In either case, the stratagem involved is to break the monopoly that the bureaucracy has had on expertise. It also enables the political leader to break the stranglehold that the bureaucracy often has on the initiation of policy. The use of counterstaffs varies rather markedly across political systems and policy areas. In the first place, there must be a source of counter- information, and until recently this has not existed in policy areas such as atomic energy, space tech- nology, or defense. Also, in most underdeveloped countries, the available scientific and technical ability of the countr y tends to be concentrated in the public bureauc- racy so there may simply be no other source of internal information. It is also more likely that counterstaffs and information – often by the ton – will be available on highly politicized issues, those that involve well- developed professional organiza- tions and those in which pressure groups have a direct interest. However, most of these issues are ones on which the average politician is also likely to have informa- tion or a strong ideological commitment; consequently, much of this information may be redundant. A principal reason for the use of counterstaffs is the problem of segmenta- tion and politicization in the society. In the first place, there may be conflict or, at a minimum, distrust between a minister who belongs to one social or ethnic group in the society – for example, Catholic, francophone, or Ibo – and a civil ser vant of a competing group. Politics itself may ser ve to generate segmental conflicts, and fre- quently political leaders of newer countries cannot trust their civil ser vants, many of whom may be expatriates or were trained under the colonial regime. If those civil ser vants who are indigenous to the countr y in question are from a different group of the society the level of trust may be no higher. Even in more developed political systems, many incoming political leaders feel that they cannot trust the advice of civil ser vants left over from the previous cabinet. This is especially true for ministers from leftist political par ties, who tend to regard the civil ser vice – perhaps properly – as a conser vative institu- tion. This is not to say that civil ser vants would purposely obstruct or sabotage a program – there is little evidence of that – but rather that perhaps unwittingly

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their implementation of programs and their granting of proper advice would not be as energetic as it might be. The second form of politicization that affects the use of existing staffs by political leaders is the level of institutional politicization or the perceived conflict between different political institutions for control of policy in government. For example, in the United States one of the major reasons for the development of large executive staffs by the President, and also for the large staffs in Congress, is the perception that these two branches of government are in conflict over the control of the policy- making machiner y. With the increased partisanship in both institu- tions these institutional battles have become more intense and more destructive. The less well- institutionalized presidential systems of Latin America are prone to more severe institutional conflicts of this type, with each attempting to increase its policy- making capacities (Perez- Linan, 2005). In the bicephalous executive of France, there can be conflicts between the President and the Prime Minister, with the need for creating a set of institutions to coordinate their activities (Fournier, 1987; Cole and Drake, 2000). In countries with long histories of strong bureaucratic control of policy, or at least perceived bureaucratic control of policy, there is a similar percep- tion of conflict with the bureaucracy. So, in France and Belgium, ministerial cabinets constitute a staf f loyal to the minister, designed in par t to combat the influence of the depar tmental bureaucracy (Walgrave et al., 2004). On the other hand, a society that is more integrated politically in both segmental and institu- tional terms, such as Britain, will tend to develop fewer staf f personnel directly accountable to politicians, although the increased politicization of all countries has led to more political staf f being appointed. The norms that the civil ser vice is sufficiently trustwor thy and sufficiently devoid of any ideological dispositions allow politicians to accept their advice even after long periods in opposition. While there is little objective evidence of the impar tiality of those civil ser v- ants, Britain is perhaps less well ser ved in policy terms because of this belief. Although in comparison with most politicians, civil ser vants are exper ts, com- pared with the policy staf fs developed in other countries, the British may remain “talented amateurs”; ver y talented but still amateur. The Thatcher government, however, attempted to counter both a perceived amateurishness and an even more strongly perceived ideological bias in the civil ser vice by hiring more per- sonal staf fs and floating ideas for reform that could include cabinets similar to those found in France and Belgium (Gaf fney, 1991). Managerialism. Another ploy that was used in the 1980s to strengthen the role of political officials and institutions was managerialism (see Chapter 10). That is, politicians have increasingly sought to make their civil ser vants managers rather than policy advisors and certainly not policy makers. This conception of the role of the civil ser vice is associated particularly with governments of the political right, with the most pronounced changes occurring in Britain and other Westminster systems (Aucoin, 1990; Pollitt, 1990). Even some governments of the Left, e.g., France with a program of “modernization” and “gestion,” have stressed a manage- ment role for their civil ser vants. The World Bank and other international donor agencies have also forced managerialism on the governments of Third World coun- tries (Manning, 2001).

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It is difficult to deny that management in the public sector is a difficult task and one which can occupy the time and energy of senior civil ser vants. Further, the demands for greater economy and efficiency in government have placed even more pressure on civil ser vants to manage their organizations as effectively as possible. Despite those factors, the pressures for managerialism often have been motivated more by the desire to reduce the influence of civil ser vants over policy than to enhance their capacity to manage effectively. The strategy has been to separate policy and administration as much as possible and to ensure that politically reliable people are in control of public policy. Managerialism provides another check on the power of the public bureauc- racy by using performance contracts and other merit- related instruments to moti- vate and punish senior managers in government. Whereas civil ser vice systems typically have protected public employees from dismissal in other than extreme circumstances, performance contracts often make dismissal rather easier. These mechanisms generally go no further down the hierarchies than middle manage- ment, and depend upon the capacity of super visors (presumably often politicians) to measure performance, but they do constitute yet another check on the power and permanence of the bureaucracy (Heinrich, 2002). Customer- driven government. Another of the trends affecting govern- ment in the 1990s was the premise that government exists to ser ve the “customer” and that the functioning of agencies should reflect that fundamental value. The goal of civil ser vants in such a system is to satisfy that segment of the public identified as their “customers.” This is clearly a premise drawn from the private sector, along with a good deal of the emphasis on managerialism. Ser ving the customer tends to drive power in bureaucracies downward to the echelons that have direct contact with the customers and who must make the ser vice decisions about them. The usual role of top management in defining rules for the deliver y of ser vice and the behavior of personnel is devalued in this version of government. It is hard to argue that government should not ser ve its citizens well. However, as well as reducing the policy- making powers of top civil ser vants in setting policy, this ploy on the part of politicians may have some per verse consequences. The most important is that, to some degree, it alters the role of the citizen to that of a consumer with a more limited set of rights and obligations vis- à-vis the state. Further, it is not always clear who is the customer of a particular agency. Is the cus- tomer of a customs bureau the traveler (and potential smuggler) or is it the public at large who seek protection and fair tax collection? Are not citizens as taxpayers the owners of their public ser vices as well as the customers, and thus have a variety of (often conflicting) roles to play? The implications of this changing focus for gov- ernance have yet to be explored fully, but some of these implications appear to set back the relationship of the citizen with his or her government. Control of staff. One principal weapon available to the civil ser vice in any attempt to gain control over policy is its permanence. Politicians come and go; the bureaucracy remains. This not only presents several long- term strategies to admin- istrators who are not pleased with the current political “master,” but it also presents those political masters with some quite difficult problems of controlling their civil ser vants. Counterstaffs are one solution to this problem, but there may also be solutions within the context of the civil ser vice and personnel policy.

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The most obvious means of allowing political control over the civil ser vants is enabling politicians to select their own, at least those who will be their immediate subordinates and, more importantly, their policy advisors. This can provide some of the advantages of the counterstaff without involving its redundancy and dual lines of authority. Given the limitations of most civil ser vice systems, this means that the choice must come from the available civil ser vants, but some systems, such as France or Spain, allow the minister to select among the available personnel for his directeurs. In Germany, the minister may be given quite a wide scope for choice and may be able to retire (at least temporarily) senior civil ser vants who occupy posts that he or she wants to fill (Derlien, 1991). The system in the United States is similar in its effect, but the immediate subordinates of political executives are political appointees rather than civil ser vants. They are, therefore, not protected by any statutor y guarantees of tenure and can be shuffled at will. Thus, in the United States, political appointees fill policy- advisor y and managerial posts that are filled by senior civil ser vants in other democratic political systems, allowing consider- ably more direct political super vision of implementation and more directly partisan policy advice (Heclo, 1978; Maranto, 2005). Even in the United Kingdom, where the civil ser vice has been largely independent of political control, the government became more deeply involved in the selection and placement of senior personnel, most importantly top Treasur y officials (Sausman and Locke, 2004; Thain, 2004). Many Latin American countries have yet to fully institutionalize norms of civil ser vice impartiality and tenure, so any changes in the government may also occasion changes in the civil ser vice (Ruffing- Hilliard, 1991; Nef, 2011). These may occur primarily at the upper echelons of the civil ser vice, so the routine tasks of government continue to be performed much as they always have been, but this system does allow some flexibility for political leaders seeking advice from civil ser vants. It is, of course, roundly condemned by advocates of “proper” public per- sonnel procedures and may affect the behavior of bureaucrats who want to remain in office regardless of the regime. However, for a political situation in which the policy differences among parties are likely to be great, maintaining some flexibil- ity in personnel is crucial for managing the senior civil ser vice. Further, we must remember that the effects of party change are not so different from those found in a number of European or North American countries that presumably have fully developed civil ser vice systems. The party. Another powerful weapon at the disposal of some political leaders is the existence of a strong political party or movement that can be used to ensure the compliance and control of the civil ser vice. This mechanism was available most notably in the former communist countries and remains so in single- party states in the Third World. In these situations the existence of the party and its associ- ated ideology perform a dual ser vice in controlling policy initiatives by the public bureaucracy. First, the party provides definite ideological and policy guidance which an astute civil ser vant can either internalize or at least follow in making and advising on policy. Since the inception of an ideological regime is usually associated with a significant reshuffling of the civil ser vice, most of those placed in positions of authority are likely to have internalized the ideology. However, even in cases in which the existing civil ser vice continues – often from lack of available alternative personnel – the ideology provides them with ready guidance in what to propose

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and implement. Again, we must remember that dominant political parties may play something of the same role in democratic political systems, as does the Social Dem- ocratic Party in Sweden or the Christian Democratic Party in Italy. The second means through which the existence of a strong ideological party assists the ability of politicians to reduce bureaucratic initiative and dominance of policy making is that it can provide a check on performance and usually a means of correcting unsuitable performance. In such political systems, the party tends to be more involved in ever yday life than in most democratic political systems, to check more thoroughly on bureaucratic actions and to be more resentful of bureaucratic domination of policy than even in democratic systems. Thus, for example, in the People’s Republic of China the communist party and ideology ser ve as a means of guiding and correcting bureaucratic policy, either through direct action or through self- criticism (Jiaqi, 1992). In the former Soviet Union and Eastern European coun- tries, although it was difficult at times to distinguish political from administrative personnel, the dual hierarchy of party and bureaucracy ser ved as a mutual check on policy formulation at each level of government. This does not necessarily mean that policy making in the Soviet Union was any less bureaucratic than elsewhere, to the extent that bureaucratic policies are those divorced from control by market forces or public opinion. It does imply, however, that the bureaucracy that did make public policy that was more sensitive to political cues than other bureaucracies. With the political structures shadowing public organizations, bureaucracies will be more willing to comply with the political demands and their ideology. Thus, although the policies that ensue may be divorced from direct control by popular opinion, they may paradoxically be more responsive to some political forces than are policies made in democratic systems. The conflict between “Red” and “Expert” may not always be resolved in favor of “Red,” but the divergence is rarely as great as occurs in less ideological regimes (Zhang, 1992). The militar y. The militar y may constitute a special case of party or ideo- logical governments. It is a special case largely because of the militar y’s greater willingness to employ physical coercion to obtain its ends, among them the submis- sion of the bureaucracy to the demands of politicians – in this case militar y politi- cians. In addition to an ideology and a set of coordinating principles – or, at times, instead of them – the militar y may just have guns. It does not follow, however, that militar y governments must always employ force to gain their ends when dealing with the bureaucracy. In the many cases in which the militar y and the bureaucracy are primarily conser vative forces, they often willingly coalesce against forces of the political left or even against more moderate reformers (Alagappa, 2001). This pattern has been more common in Latin America, whereas the pattern of the mili- tar y representing modernizing ideals in opposition to a conser vative bureaucracy – frequently with a number of members and practices inherited from colonial days – has been, and remains, somewhat more common in Africa and in Asia (Haque, 1997).

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Summary

This chapter has been primarily concerned with the extent to which bureaucracies have come to play significant, if not dominant, roles in governing. Have modern societies come to the point where a new elite structure based on information, tech- nical expertise, position, and policy ideas has come to determine who gets what, when, where, and why? Our answer to this question is ambiguous and would depend in part on whether one thought in terms of an integrated bureaucratic elite producing poli- cies, having common values, and essentially conspiring to remove authority from more responsible political decision makers, or whether one thought in terms of a number of independent policy elites whose powers are confined to one specific policy area and who were frequently in conflict with other similarly placed elites. If we wish to speak about an integrated bureaucratic power elite – as some rather apprehensively have – running a nation from a computer- equipped ivor y tower, then we believe that no such creature actually exists, and Rose’s characterization of government emerging by “directionless consensus” may be appropriate (Rose, 1976a). On the other hand, if we wish to talk about a cartel of bureaucratic elites, each responsible for a particular area and functioning with a virtual monopoly over information in that area, then there does seem to be some verisimilitude in the idea of “bureaucratic government.” However, as was pointed out, this would be govern- ment by “nonconsensual directions.” One of the characteristics of contemporar y government may be its increasing incoherence and the associated lack of true gov- ernance. The conclusion that emerges from this analysis is that the public bureauc- racy is in quite a strong position vis- à-vis other potential policy- making institutions. It has the expertise, the time, the stability, and the techniques required to be an effective policy maker in a modern age. What is required, however, is legitimacy and popular control. The legitimacy can perhaps be gained in part through effec- tiveness, and if largely bureaucratic processes of decision making are capable of producing results valued by the population, then the institutions are likely to be accepted as appropriate decision makers. They may lack formal legitimacy, but in terms of having operational legitimacy, they may become the appropriate collective allocators of values. The question of popular control is perhaps more difficult. This has two pos- sible interpretations. The first is the ability of the public to make its preferences known to the bureaucracy, through some as yet unspecified means, and to have the bureaucracy make decisions consistent with those expressed preferences. If we extend the arguments presented in this chapter, then the general public must be seen as being in an even more difficult position in dealing with the bureaucracy than the political elite. The second possible meaning of popular control is the ability of the citizens to obtain redress of grievances for certain administrative actions that violate the rights – economic or civil – of individuals. This is more of an ex post facto control, for which a number of procedural devices have been developed and which have met with a variety of successes and failures. These problems of popular and democratic control will be addressed in Chapter 8, where we will concentrate more on the application of broad policies, determined in the manner we have discussed

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here, to individual cases, and the remedies available when they are applied unfairly. However, before turning to that topic, we will discuss the budgetar y process as another example of policy making within bureaucratic structures and perhaps the principal arena in which conflicts between political and bureaucratic elites are resolved.

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C h a p t e r 7

The Politics of the Budgetary Process

Basic Questions 228 Incrementalism in the Budgetary Process 234 Alternatives to Incrementalism 238 Efficient Allocation 239 Reactions to Stress 245 General Problems of Budgeting 252 Summary 257

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The budgetar y process is part of the political process that affects the public bureaucracy the most. Clearly, if an administrative agency is to accomplish any or all of its mandated tasks it requires an adequate supply of money. In addition to the instrumental need for money, there is a more affective reason for desiring budgetar y success. Success in getting money is one means for agencies to demonstrate their political influence, and their importance to the remainder of the political system. On the other side of the green baize table, the budgetar y process may be the arena in which political officials demonstrate their power and their concern for the average taxpayer by limiting the amount of money allocated to the public sector, and especially to the less popular programs of government. With increasing pressures on government both to provide ser vices and to contain or reduce its costs, the budgetar y process has become a crucial political battleground. It influences not only the prospects of each single governmental agency, but also the prospects of elected officials, the prospects of many citizens for a high quality of life, and perhaps the success of the entire economy.

Basic Questions

When the process of budgeting is considered cross- nationally, there are several basic questions that should be addressed. These questions arise in any political system, but the manner in which they are answered, or indeed can be answered, will var y according to a number of political, social, and economic characteristics of individual nations. Also, since each countr y in the world is facing many of the same budget constraints, the world can ser ve as a useful laborator y for understanding the possibilities of controlling public expenditure through innovative mechanisms and procedures. We must, however, be careful in assuming that lessons learned in one countr y can easily be transported to another political or social system.

Macro- allocation

At its most fundamental budgeting is the allocation of resources, and the first form of allocation that must be considered is the allocation between the public and private sectors of the economy. Government must decide just how much it is willing – and able – to tax its citizens in order to provide benefits through public expenditure. In industrialized countries these decisions produce public sectors (measured in terms of tax revenues) that range from over 55 percent of Gross Domestic Product (Finland) to 29 percent (Switzerland). Despite the importance of this decision for economic management and the nature of public programs, several factors limit the ability of governments to make definitive decisions about the “size” of government, and that limitation must be recognized when attempting to understand how governments decide to spend money. The first problem a government encounters when attempting to control the size of its public sector is that public expenditure is not as easy to control as is assumed by many critics of government. For example, as of 2015 over 84 percent of US federal expenditures were considered uncontrollable in any one budget year. The programs that comprise the $1.2 trillion in expenditure are primarily entitlement

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programs such as social security, Medicare, and unemployment compensation, for which expenditure levels are determined as much by demographics and economic conditions as by policy decisions. Interest on the public debt is also an uncontrollable expenditure; it must be paid lest investors lose confidence in the economic system of the United States. The majority of other industrialized countries would have even higher propor tions of uncontrollable expenditures than does the United States, given the larger scale of social programs and smaller defense budgets. An official (Ericksson, 1983) of the Swedish government once argued that only 2 percent of the budget was not af fected to some degree by automatic changes, and a more recent estimate for Finland revealed approximately the same lack of latitude (Meklin et al., 2000). Just as the numerator of the fraction determining the relative size of the public sector may not be controllable, so too the denominator is not readily controllable. Governments have taken upon themselves the control of the economy since at least the end of World War II, but despite the successes in the 1950s and 1960s, governments now appear less capable of producing sustained economic growth. The best thought- out budgetary allocations and calculations can be overturned by fluctuations in the economy. Governments invest a good deal of time and effort in forecasting the future state of their economies but often fail miserably. This failure results in part from the time span over which the estimates must be made – the budgetary process is often initiated 18 months prior to the beginning of budget implementation – and also results from the still- inadequate knowledge of economic dynamics in industrialized economies (Jonung and Larch, 2006). The problems are great enough for the more affluent countries but even more pressing for poorer countries (Caiden, 1991b; Danninger et al., 2002). Governments also have an interest in presenting optimistic forecasts to their citizens. Doing this not only allows them to appear to be managing the economy successfully (at least until the real figures appear), but also allows them to spend more without increasing the apparent budget deficit. Some idea of the magnitude of error that can creep into forecasts is presented in Table 7.1. This table makes

Table 7.1 Accuracy in Predicting Economic Growth

United States Sweden

Predicted Actual Predicted Actual

2015 2.8 2.6 1.8 1.6 2014 2.7 2.4 1.7 1.4 2013 2.4 2.1 2.0 1.7 2012 2.0 1.7 2.0 1.9 2011 2.6 2.5 1.6 1.4 2010 −1.6 −2.8 1.3 1.2 2005 3.0 2.7 3.5 2.9 2000 4.1 4.1 4.4 4.3

Sources: Ministry of finance, The Swedish Budget (Stockholm: Almanna forlaget, annual); office of Management and Budget, Budget of the United States Government (Washington, dc: uS Government Printing office, annual); Bureau of the census, Statistical Abstract of the United States (Washington, dc: uS Government Printing office, annual).

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it clear that although there are forecasting errors, some of the difference between forecasts and reality are systematic. Another factor limiting the efficiency of macro- allocations is the simple fact that there is almost invariably more than one level of government involved in deciding how much the public sector will spend. This is especially true of federal political systems in which subnational governments have substantial fiscal autonomy. State governments in the United States, for example, make their revenue and expenditure decisions almost entirely independently from the federal government, with the major impact of federal expenditure priorities caused by the stimulative effects of matching grants. Several central governments in federal systems have found this degree of fiscal autonomy unacceptable and have developed mechanisms to better coordinate spending at all levels of government, but in an era of increasing multi- level governance fiscal control is more difficult (see Fossati and Panella, 1999). The economic crisis beginning in 2008 and the impact on countries such as Greece makes this point all too obvious. Finally, for the majority of actors involved in the budgetar y process, the ratio of public expenditure to available economic resources is not the primar y consideration in making the budget. For spending agencies, whether they are managing “uncontrollable” programs or not, the primar y consideration is their own success, or what they can extract from the central pool of resources (Christensen, 1992). In behavioral terms, this means that spending agencies will tend to coalesce to oppose attempts at controlling expenditures by finance ministers and/or the chief political executive. If their collective success in extracting resources means that the ratio of expenditures to GNP would increase, that would be someone else’s problem, and it is always the other agency’s program that should be reduced or terminated. This problem is not confined to participants in government. Not only do those participants in the budgetar y process think in terms of what they can extract from the process, but most citizens do as well. Citizens tend to have schizophrenic views of the public budget: they oppose taxes but want more public expenditures, especially expenditures that benefit them directly (Burstein, 2003). In such a political environment it is difficult for any politician, even if he or she really wanted to, to limit expenditures, especially for programs supported by powerful clientele groups. In fact, those politicians generally have more to gain by spending than they do by limiting expenditures.

Micro- allocation

The last point concerning macro- allocation brings us to the stage of budgetar y process, called here micro- allocation. In this stage, choices must be made among the huge number of competing programs in government, each one considering itself especially worthy and each one competing with all other programs for limited total funding. The separation of these decisions from the macro- allocation decisions may be artificial, since the constraints imposed upon funding any particular agency are, at least in part, a function of the desire of those controlling the economic management of government to restrain total expenditures. When there is room for less expenditure, compared with previous levels of expenditure and levels of

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inflation, then programs with the fewest uncontrollable elements will be the targets for disproportionate cuts. Micro- allocation makes up most of the politics of budgeting. It is at this level that the priorities of individual political leaders interact to produce the allocation of resources within government. Despite the enormity of the task of assembling the public budget in any modern public sector, there is a tendency to consider budgeting as a rational process that produces an allocation of resources that matches the policy preferences of the public, or at least the preferences of their elected officials (but see Self, 1995). But there are a number of barriers preventing the process from reaching its goal of such an optimal allocation. One of the principal factors threatening the rationality of the allocation is the disaggregation of the budgetar y process into isolated segments. Frequently, separate committees or sections of budgetar y review organizations perform the major analyses and make the major decisions about budget. For example, in the United States the most important decisions about the budget in Congress are made in subcommittees of the appropriations committee, and each of these subcommittees tends to have its own perception of national priorities. In Canada, the “envelope” system of budgeting placed considerable power in the dozen or so priorities committees which allocate funds among competing programs within their area and whose decisions tend to dominate the final determination of expenditures. Similarly, in Sweden, the allocation of funds among the boards (styrelsen) under a ministr y is a process that allocates predetermined blocks of expenditures rather than comparing marginal values of expenditure across the range of functions. At even more of an extreme, the Danish coalition government assembles a budget from a series of negotiations and deals in the individual ministries, with each deal possibly supported in parliament by different political parties (Green- Pedersen, 2001). While the financial crisis has forced greater scrutiny of expenditures, the process remains ver y decentralized. It is only in a financial ministr y preparing an overall budget statement or in the government’s cabinet meeting, where the entire budget is (at least in theor y) open to determination, that any detailed considerations of competing priorities can be made. Even in those settings, however, the outcome may be determined by the deliberations of staffs, or by the personality of a few dominant members of the cabinet, so that the systematic confrontation of all the alternative utilizations of public funds will not occur (Good, 2007). Contemplating the entirety of a budget running into billions of dollars may be too much for any set of political leaders, especially given the many other claims on their time. A second crucial factor affecting the range of consideration of budgetar y alternatives, and pushing toward incremental outcomes, is the status quo. The sheer magnitude of the budget in a modern government makes it difficult for legislatures – or even an expert budgetar y analysis organization such as the Office of Management and Budget or a ministr y of finance – to make an extensive analysis of the many possible patterns of expenditures. As a consequence, there is a tendency to accept the previous year’s allocation as a given and to examine primarily changes from that allocation. This incremental result was explicitly once written into the French budgetar y process, where items in the services votes were accepted unless there is an explicit challenge and only new items (mesures

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nouvelles) are given detailed scrutiny. There is also a tendency to regard not only the existing distribution of expenditure, but also the rate of increase in spending as acceptable. Evidence exists that agencies tend to have the same rates of increase in their allocations from year to year. This rate of increase is not the same across agencies – in some instances there might be significant differences – but for each agency there is an accepted rate of increase on top of the accepted base, which allows the budget to increase predictably from year to year. Many innovations in the budgetar y process have been advanced for the explicit purpose of rectifying the incrementalism in budgeting.

Competing Bureaucracies

The above discussion of the process of allocating spending authority has already indicated another important feature of the budgetar y process: budgeting, more than any other area of the policy process, forces a conflict between central staff agencies and line agencies. Schick (1986) discusses these conflicts in terms of the opposing demands of “claimants” and “conser vers.” Central agencies, such as the Office of Management and Budget in the United States, HM Treasur y in the United Kingdom, or the Ministr y of Finance in most countries, are the conser vers. They have the task of preparing the budget and in the process develop a proprietar y interest in protecting the public purse. But these agencies, despite their centrality and close relationship with the chief executive, may be “ganged up” against by the claimants – the spending agencies. Spending agencies may be especially effective in cabinet governments, where the spending ministers and the financial ministers must sit together in the same body making budgetar y decisions, and the financial minister may be supported only by the prime minister, if that. Again, although we might like budget decisions to be made rationally, the decisions between competing bureaucracies over the budget are inherently political, and each side has several important weapons. The central agencies and their ministers have the advantage of being closely connected with the chief executive and frequently ministers of finance are in essence deputy prime ministers. This association with political authority makes it more difficult for spending agencies to oppose any decisions made; in fact, central agencies may be able to make some decisions by fiat, or, as in the case of Germany, special circumstances may be required in cabinet to overrule decisions of the Finance Minister. Similarly, ministers of finance may be able unilaterally not to spend money or fill positions if financial circumstances require greater frugality (Ahonen and Tammelin, 1993). In addition, financial agencies are specialized and can devote their full energies to budget issues, whereas spending agencies and their ministers have numerous other responsibilities and, although the budget is significant to them, it is but one consideration. On the other hand, spending agencies have a political advantage in that they provide ser vices directly to citizens and consequently have constituencies that support them in their quest for more money. Also, the constituencies of the agencies are constituents of elective officials and, consequently, the agencies can appeal over the head of the central financial agencies, and perhaps even the chief executive.

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Finally, the administrative agencies control information and are capable of deceiving the central budget makers about the true cost of producing their ser vices. Central agencies may be in the position of trading money for information so that they can manage the national economy better. Thus, here the macro- management role of central financial agencies may interfere with their micro- management role. The relative success of the two bureaucracies will depend upon situational factors as well as their own relative political powers. One obvious factor is economics. Times of economic insecurity advantage the central financial managers in their quest for budgetar y restraint. This power is enhanced when external financial agents such as the International Monetar y Fund, or foreign banks threatening to call in loans, are involved. Budgetar y decisions of many less- developed countries often are dependent upon decisions by those international organizations. The IMF and other international agents, including private actors, are increasingly important even in highly developed economies. On the other hand, the perception of specific needs for expenditures, such as a perceived need to increase spending on economic infrastructure or health, tend to favor the spending agency in question. Few spending ministers are willing to sacrifice their own expenditures in order to finance another minister’s expansion, and consequently if one ministr y is able to gain extra funding for a special need, it is likely that the total spending may increase. For most of the member states of the European Union the fiscal control power of central agencies has been enhanced by the constraints imposed by the Maastricht Treaty and the Economic and Monetar y Union (Freitag, 2001). Members of the Euro currency area are required to maintain a budget deficit less than 3 percent of Gross Domestic Product. This constraint has strengthened the hand of central budget managers in countries such as Belgium and Italy that had long histories of deficits, although major economies such as Germany and France have chosen to ignore the budget constraints when domestic conditions have required. Finally, the introduction of any of a number of innovations in budgeting may provide financial agencies with a variety of weapons – one of them is the complexity and obscurity of the method itself – that can be used to exercise control of spending ministries. For example, innovations such as performance budgeting and an increased emphasis on evaluation allow central agencies to impose a new set of criteria to control spending agencies (see Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2010). The power of these instruments may frequently be overstated, however; technique is a complement to politics, not a substitute for it.

The Importance of Resources

One important factor affecting a countr y’s style of budgeting is the economic climate within which the budget is constructed. Aaron Wildavsky argued that two economic factors are crucial in determining the style of budgeting: wealth and predictability (Wildavsky, 1986, 14–20). Wealth is self- explanator y, but the concept of predictability may require some explanation. We have already discussed the difficulties that even wealthy, industrialized countries have in predicting their revenues and expenditures. These difficulties are even greater for Third World

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countries whose economies are subject to huge fluctuations resulting from weather, changes in the international economy, and internal political and economic changes. The chief executive of an industrialized countr y may have his or her calculations altered by changes in the international environment but those changes can completely destroy the calculations of leaders in less- affluent countries. In Wildavsky’s analysis of the impact of the environment on budgetar y behavior, affluent nations with cer tain revenues and expenditures should have incremental budgeting. This is indicative of a stable political process where government can fund its commitments with little need to make difficult choices among competing expenditure priorities. On the other hand, poor countries with uncer tain revenues will engage in repetitive budgeting and will, of necessity, construct a succession of budgets during a fiscal year in order to adjust to changing conditions. Political systems that are relatively poor but that can predict their revenues accurately for a year will engage in “revenue budgeting.” They will spend what they can collect – no more and no less – but lack the type of predictable, incremental patterns of change that would characterize more affluent political systems. Finally, wealthy but uncer tain budgetar y systems will alternate between incremental and repetitive budgeting as a reflection of political instability, or their administrative incapacities will lead them to supplemental budgeting. In this latter form of budgeting, the basic budget document will remain in force, but supplements will be added throughout the fiscal year as the revenue and expenditure figures become clarified. When Wildavsky originally presented this argument, it was assumed that industrialized countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, would have incremental budgetar y processes. However, within one year of the publication of this book, economic conditions had forced the United Kingdom to issue three budgets in a single year, thus following the pattern of a poor and uncertain countr y. The United States also began to engage in repetitive and supplemental budgeting to an extent unheard of prior to the economic difficulties that began in the mid- 1970s. This pattern became especially pronounced in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with the entire annual spending plan being passed several months after the official beginning of the fiscal year in the form of a resolution rather than appropriations acts, and supplemental appropriations becoming an increasingly important element of total federal spending. The uncertainties of war and terrorism have made budgeting in the United States even less predictable in the early twenty- first centur y, as has the continuing ideological deadlock in Congress.

Incrementalism in the Budgetary Process

The Wildavsky typology hypothesizes that incrementalism is peculiar to the budgetar y environment of relatively few affluent countries. However, despite the special conditions under which incrementalism is argued to arise, it has become a prevailing description of the budgetar y process for all countries. Even in countries clearly beyond the range of incrementalist nations in the Wildavsky typology, there are pressures for incrementalism in the preparation of budgets that may override the relative poverty or unpredictability of a budgetar y environment. The budgetar y

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process itself appears to push toward incrementalist outcomes, even in economic environments that appear to call for “rational decrementalism” (Tarschys, 1985; Schick, 2009). This section will discuss some of the pressures toward incrementalism in budgeting, to be followed by two sections discussing the variety of mechanisms by which political systems attempt to manage those pressures, with the goal of outcomes more objectively suited to changing social and economic conditions.

The Nature of Incrementalism

Incrementalism is both a descriptive and a prescriptive concept. Descriptively, it refers to obser ved patterns of change in budgets and other outcomes of the policy process in which those outputs increase in a stable and predictable fashion. For example, in a major empirical work on incrementalism, Davis et al. (1966) analyzed changes in the appropriations of a number of federal agencies in the United States. They found that the majority of the changes in appropriations could be described as a simple linear function of the preceding year’s expenditures. There was a pronounced tendency in the data examined by these three scholars for Congress to appropriate the same percentage increases in an agency’s budget year after year. Although there were significant differences in the percentage increases provided to different agencies, for each agency the increase tended to be stable. In short, this legislative body (as well as many others that have been studied) tends to allocate money on the basis of simple, stable decision rules. Prescriptively, this stability and predictability in decisions is regarded positively by incrementalists. It makes planning simpler for agencies and reduces decision- making costs in the legislature. Legislatures are able to minimize decision- making costs and concentrate on exceptional cases rather than ordinar y decisions. More importantly, it is argued that attempts at more comprehensive (synoptic) decision making would not necessarily produce better decisions, because of the absence of information about the future and because of inadequate understanding of social and economic problems addressed through the budget. In addition, major departures from the budgetar y status quo may be irreversible without extreme expense. Therefore, incrementalists argue that the most rational approach to budgeting is to make relatively minor departures from the status quo, monitor the effects of those new policies, and then adjust the policies in future decision making. If decision makers do anything else they run the risk of major mistakes, although incrementalism itself may perpetuate small mistakes (see Good, 1982).

Critiques of Incrementalism

Critiques of incrementalism have also been directed at both its descriptive and prescriptive features. The degree of incrementalism found in budgets appears to be a function of the level of aggregation at which the researcher looks: the larger the program or organization, the more incremental the outcomes appear. There is a great deal of variation in the levels of program appropriations, as some are initiated and others are terminated (Natchez and Bupp, 1973). Critics also point out that

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the incrementalist approach may be adequate to explain or describe changes in the majority of programs for the majority of years but provides no mechanism for explaining changes in those percentage increases across time, nor for explaining differences in the percentage increases allotted each year to different agencies. Indeed, in their later work, Davis et al. (1974) pointed to the importance of events that upset the stability of incremental decision- making systems, events analogous to punctuations in historical institutionalist theor y (Pierson, 2000). Prescriptively, it has been argued that the incrementalist approach to decision making tends to institutionalize the status quo and to curtail more creative thinking about possible uses of scarce resources. This is especially true during a period in which “decrementalism” is more appropriate than incrementalism. That is, the approach to cutting budgets that has most often been used is to apply the same percentage cut across the board to all programs. The result may be insignificant to a large program but be effective termination for a small program (Hogwood and Peters, 1983). This is not incrementalism per se but has the same logic – minimizing decision costs – that characterizes incrementalism. In addition, critics point out that incremental decisions are not necessarily reversible, as a program expansion may well add clients who will expect continued benefits. In fact, the more often incremental adjustments are made in a program, the more probable it is that the program will continue, as each small change constitutes a vote of confidence in the fundamental validity of the program.

Pressures Toward Incrementalism

Two fundamental factors in the budgetar y process tend to work in favor of incremental outcomes. The first is the sheer magnitude of the process itself. The typical public budget in industrialized countries involves making decisions that allocate between one- third and one- half of the total goods and ser vices in the economy. In the United States, where the federal budget is “only” 23 percent of Gross National Product, it still involves allocating approximately $2.7 trillion among hundreds of programs. In addition, the decisions to spend all of this money must be made in a relatively short time period under substantial political pressure. Consequently, there is a tendency to accept the existing distribution of expenditures as a given and, therefore, to concentrate time and attention on the relatively few deviations from existing patterns. The French budgetar y process institutionalizes this distinction with mesures nouvelles receiving extensive scrutiny while services votes receive almost none. The budgetar y process at the federal level in the United States, through its use of the Current Ser vices Budget, also informally uses this distinction. Congress can see just how much it will need to spend to maintain a constant level of ser vices and then build on that “base.” Thus, since there is not the time and the analytic staff to completely rework the budget each year, legislators tend to accept the existing budget and to employ ver y simple rules of thumb when making deviations from that pattern, such as the stability of the constant percentage changes. The massive size of the public budget results in what has been called the “law of triviality.” The size of the budget is now so great that the average member of a

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legislature charged with using the power of the purse to control the executive really cannot comprehend the amount of money being spent. Therefore, the average legislator will concentrate time and effort on items of a magnitude he or she can comprehend – for example, a few thousand dollars or pounds or francs to hire an additional staff person – and will allow expenditures of millions or billions to be approved with little or no consideration. So long as the percentage changes appear reasonable, the legislature is likely to approve the spending proposals. The second feature of the budgetar y process that helps to produce incremental solutions is the sequential and repetitive nature of budgeting. A new budget must be created each year, or sometimes even more often. Consequently, both administrators and legislators tend to assume that errors made in one year can be corrected in subsequent years. Further, the actors involved in making the budget – bureaucrats, legislators, and analysts – tend to retain their positions for long periods. This is especially true where, unlike in the United States, a change in government involves ver y few changes in those responsible for constructing the budget, or where a central agency with a permanent and expert staff tends to dominate the budgetar y process as does, for example, the Treasur y in the United Kingdom (Heclo and Wildavsky, 1974). The long tenure in office of the principal actors in budgeting results in their having the opportunity to develop an accommodation among themselves and to shape the budget in the manner they find acceptable. Therefore, all they must do on an annual basis is to make marginal adjustments from the accepted pattern. Any actor wishing to make any significant departure from existing patterns has strong incentives to adopt cautious strategies. They should be aware that they are involved in a long- term “game” and that slow adjustments are far more probable than sudden shifts in budgetar y priorities. Further, all actors must play the “confidence game” and gain the trust and respect of others involved in the budgetar y process to be effective in getting what they want. This cautious and conser vative behavior in budgeting produces considerable frustration for those who come into political office with new ideas and priorities and expect to generate change in the budget overnight. In addition to the ver y fundamental factors tending to push toward incremental results in the budgetar y process, some more technical factors tend to have the same impact. One is that many public expenditures are now indexed, or automatically adjusted for inflation (Weaver, 1988). This procedure is especially common for social programs such as social security, but in some countries public sector wages and salaries have also been indexed. When there are legal commitments to keep expenditures in line with increases in prices, or wages with those in the private sector, government loses a great deal of its control over expenditures. Given that the thresholds at which taxes are levied are also indexed, governments do not receive any automatic increases in revenue that would help fund those expenditures.

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Politics and Incrementalism

Although there may be strong pressures toward incrementalism in the budgetar y process, there are some political pressures that may produce real change. The most important of these is a change in the partisan control of government. This is most likely when there is a major change in government, such as a revolution from the right or left, that installs a new ideological regime. It can, and does, occur with less extreme changes in partisan control. For example, Bunce (1981) finds that a change in leadership in government does have a significant impact on the priorities expressed in the public budget. This is true even for communist countries, where leadership changes while the party in control remains the same. A second but less obvious political influence on budgetar y change is a consequence of politicians’ need in democratic governments to be perceived to be doing something to benefit their constituents. Simply keeping the existing constellation of programs operating well may be insufficient to present that image. Although clients of existing programs want their old programs maintained, many politicians find it advantageous to associate themselves with new and innovative approaches to public problems. While new programs may merely nibble at the edges of the expenditures governed by the incremental dynamic, the felt need for adopting them is a force for change and some reallocation of budgetar y priorities. The incremental model of budgeting can describe funding for the continuing programs of government, but there are a number of programs that are not continuing. For example, capital projects are budgeted simply for completing the project, although incremental operating budgets may be generated by that new project, e.g., a hospital or a school. Also, perhaps especially in the United States, special one- time funding may be made available for projects on an “earmarked” basis to benefit certain constituencies.

Alternatives to Incrementalism

The wealthy, predictable world so conducive to the development of incremental budgeting no longer exists for many industrialized countries – and never existed for most other countries. In response to fiscal pressures in virtually all political systems in the 1970s and 1980s, politicians and administrators devised a number of mechanisms intended to break the grip of incremental solutions on resource allocation in the public sector. These solutions demonstrate the creativity of politicians and civil ser vants when faced with genuine problems, but they have had var ying degrees of success. Apparently none of the approaches has, however, altered the fundamental pattern of slow, evolutionar y growth in expenditures characteristic of budgetar y incrementalism. It is not just the “fiscal crisis” that produces an interest in alternative budgeting mechanisms (but see Kickert, 2012). Even during periods of affluence, several more “rational” approaches to budgeting have been advocated, primarily because of their appeal to human rationality and their potential for breaking the incremental cycle. The simple, and apparently irrational, decision rules involved in incrementalism have been an affront to those who believe that there must be better

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ways of making decisions in government, and even when resources are plentiful, there is no need to waste them. Government should, it is argued, get the most “bang for the buck” and should allocate resources so that a Pigovian optimum is obtained (Pigou, 1928). That is, the budget should be adjusted so that the marginal utility of the last dollar spent for each of the numerous functions of government is equal. Of course, in the real world such an optimal allocation of resources would almost certainly be unknowable and unattainable, but critics argue that the public sector should still aspire to reach that “perfect” allocation. The following discussion considers budgetar y mechanisms developed to produce more efficient allocation, as well as those developed as specific responses to contemporar y fiscal problems. In some instances this distinction is artificial, but it may be useful in understanding how governments have attempted to respond to a basic problem in governance: deciding how to decide what is important. First we discuss several of the more general methods advanced for enhancing rationality in budgeting. These methods have been popular principally in the United States but then have been exported to other countries. Several methods have been developed outside the United States as responses to particular problems arising from the governance of that countr y. These have not been exported as frequently, but have found some uses outside the one countr y.

Efficient Allocation

The first set of alternatives to incrementalism discussed here are attempts to find a more efficient alternative to the familiar incremental outcomes in budgeting. All of them require government officials to engage in some form of analysis of spending alternatives and comparison of the benefits created by different types of expenditure. While we as detached analysts may welcome such inter ventions into the budget process, many of the participants do not. Analysis may upset delicate political balances and may also expose the political compromises involved in programs to greater public scrutiny. Therefore, it is not surprising that most of these “rational” strategies for budget reform have produced less than their advocates had expected. Much of the discussion below will appear ver y historical. And it is. But I have kept these examples in the book for two reasons. First, they reflect the range of ingenuity that governments have applied to attempt to improve the budgeting process, albeit generally without success. Second, in more recent years there has been somewhat less innovation, as governments have been forced to confront stark realities of economic downturns and the need to find some sort of short- term solution to the enduring problem.

Program Budgeting

Perhaps the most famous alternative to traditional budgeting is program budgeting or PPBS (Planning, Programming, Budgeting System), as it was practiced in the United States. Although commonly associated with the Defense Department

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under Robert McNamara, PPBS actually came to Washington during World War II and was introduced into several domestic agencies, notably the Department of Agriculture (Novick, 1967). This approach to budgeting has since been exported to several countries. For example, program budgeting has been one of several stages of budgetar y reform in Canada, and France developed a system of program budgeting entitled Rationalisation des Choix Budgetaires (RCB) (Bravo, 1972). Also the United Nations adopted the concept of program budgeting as the most appropriate means for Third World countries to manage their scarce economic resources and to link the public budget with developmental goals. Therefore, for a period of time, some of the countries of the world least capable of meeting the data and analytic requirements of PPBS were expected to meet those standards in order to receive aid from the United Nations. Program budgeting is based upon a systems concept of policy and government. In contrast to the usual organizational or programmatic basis of budgeting, program budgeting assumes that organizations are not sacrosanct or independent, but rather that all programs are interconnected and that there may be many means for attaining the same broad goals. PPBS attempts to identify the goals of government and how those goals can be best achieved. Program budgeting also depends heavily upon policy analysis and data in order to attempt to derive optimal solutions to budgetar y problems. It requires that all the actors involved in budgeting identify alternative courses of action, along with the financial implications of those alternative courses, and justify the selection of one program over the others. This approach to budgeting is obviously just as much a system of budgeting for wealthy countries as is incrementalism. It requires an abundance of information and analytic ability, as well as some predictability of the revenues and expenditures of government. Program budgeting is also a budgeting system for relatively centralized and elite- dominated political systems. It is almost inherently centralizing, as it requires the identification of goals at a ver y high level and the central authority to implement program- based decisions (Wildavsky, 1978). Thus, a political system such as that of the United States, which is highly decentralized and depends upon the goal setting of relatively autonomous administrative agencies, is not likely to find program budgeting ver y compatible. On the other hand, a more centralized political system such as France or even Sweden might find the PPB system compatible (Sandal, 1993). Similarly the importance of the legislature in the political system affects the acceptability of program budgeting. Program budgeting, because it allocates resources to programs rather than to the line items so conducive to legislative control, tends not to be favored by legislatures. Also, strong legislatures like to be able to allocate resources to their favorite organizations and to protect those organizations during budgetar y battles. Program budgeting does not lend itself to that degree of legislative involvement, but interestingly, in political systems dominated by a strong executive, such as Fifth Republic France, program budgeting may make the criteria for allocation more subject to legislative scrutiny than they might other wise have been (Ducros, 1976). This is, in large part, because it makes the choices being made more apparent than they might other wise be using more conventional forms of budgeting. Different policy areas also appear more amenable to program budgeting than others. Defense has been the policy area to which program budgeting has most

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commonly been applied. Defense may appear more suitable simply because of the absence of any means of verifying the validity of the data and scenarios used in the budget requests – short of actually going to war. The sophistication of the methods used in these forecasts and the absence of alternative information make it difficult for outsiders to question the results. On the other hand, areas such as social policy, which are more commonly understood and in which value assumptions are more apparent, are likely to produce obvious budget conflicts and greater involvement of legislative and nongovernmental actors. Consequently, the technocratic and centralized decision making associated with program budgeting is less appealing in these areas. Program budgeting has made something of a minor comeback in the early 1990s. In some of the more managerialist- oriented industrialized countries, e.g., Australia, the systems concept and the analysis of alternative uses of funds has been appealing to managerialists (Halligan, 2001). Also, although it has rarely persisted as the central mechanism for resource allocation in governments, program budgeting has sur vived as a planning device in many countries, and can be linked to some of the concepts of strategic management in vogue in the early twenty- first centur y. It appears that the process of identifying goals, and the interactions among dif ferent categories of public expenditure, is a ver y useful way of understanding government. It is, however, too divorced from the political realities of most governments to be used as the central budgeting mechanism in any but the most technocratic political system, or a technocratic policy area within a political system. Program budgeting has all the vir tues of rationality but, even when market values have come to permeate the public sector, the method still does not conform to the political realities that dominate government.

Zero- Base Budgeting

A second form of “rational” budgeting, which has been confined almost exclusively to the United States, is Zero- Base Budgeting (ZBB). Incremental budgeting, either explicitly or implicitly, assumes that there is a budgetar y base – the previous years of appropriation – that is guaranteed, and that there is only a question of how much of an increment will be given. As pointed out above, however, this appears to be true at the level of the department or agency but not true of individual programs. Even if not entirely true, it is a common perception about budgeting, and ZBB was designed to solve this perceived problem (Phyrr, 1977). The most fundamental idea behind ZBB is that the agencies should have to justify their entire budget from the ground up each year. This is somewhat impractical, given the magnitude of the task for any national government budget, and therefore, ZBB forces each budget unit to develop contingencies for several possible levels of funding. The most basic level of appropriations is the “sur vival package,” which is the minimal level of funding needed for the organization to sur vive and to provide for its minimum ser vices. Agencies are also asked what they would do in the face of 5 or 10 percent cuts in their budgets, and what they would require to maintain their current levels of ser vice provision. Finally, decision

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packages reflecting various alternative packages of new programs are presented as the priorities of the organizations for expanding their programs. The Canadian government at one time used a system called “A, B, and X” to get at the same range of alternatives (Premchand, 1983, 335). The decision packages are reviewed at successive levels in each organization to develop a set of “consolidated decision packages,” reflecting the priorities of the executive department along with those of its various components. This form of budgeting does not contain the complicated and threatening assumptions of programs dominating organizations. It therefore may be more suitable for less- developed countries than the more complex program budgeting system (Yoingco and Guevera, 1984, 107). ZBB does, however, have a number of problems that limit its political acceptability. Obviously, organizations do not like outsiders to know what the minimum amount of funding they need to sur vive really is. Also if there is an assumption that the sur vival level of funding for an organization is open to ver y fundamental challenges each year, political conflicts are perpetuated and old disputes opened annually (Wildavsky, 1978). This may be especially threatening to programs, such as some social programs, that lack broad popular support or a well- organized constituency group to defend them. Finally, legislatures and many citizens tend to think in terms of percentage increases, rather than in terms of “packages,” so that the zero- based approach to budgeting may be difficult to “sell” politically.

Management by Objectives

Although it is not strictly a budgeting system, Management by Objectives (MBO) does have implications for public expenditure and should be discussed briefly in this context (Rose, 1976a). Like ZBB, MBO is a transplant from the private sector. Also like ZBB, the concept behind MBO is deceptively simple and almost common sense. The basic concept behind MBO is that managers should establish clear objectives and develop plans for attaining those objectives, and individuals in the organization should be rewarded on the basis of their attainment of objectives. In the public sector, these seemingly simple ideas have some ver y serious complications for both managers and the recipients of the programs. One of the political complications is that MBO can be ver y centralizing. A common feature of government is that there may be as many objectives as there are organizations, and if any agreed- upon list of objectives is to be envisaged, it must be conceived by central political (or possibly administrative) officials (Rose, 1976b). As with program budgeting, this centralization of the process of goal determination did not conform to the usual patterns of American government, with its tradition of highly decentralized goal formulation. The Nixon administration was the primar y advocate of MBO at the federal level in the United States; these centralizing tendencies may have been exacerbated by some of the individuals involved in that administration, but it is likely that similar problems would arise under any president. If government is to determine the priorities it will seek to attain, the central officials must be ver y heavily involved and ultimately determine these objectives.

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A second problem that besets MBO, PPBS, or any system attempting to install “rational” policy analysis in government is that operational indicators of the attainment of objectives must be developed in order for the connected system of performance evaluation to be effective. This problem now particularly besets performance budgeting (see below). Many of the actions that government takes are taken through the public sector (as opposed to the private sector) simply because they involve vague, ill- defined, possibly contradictor y and unmeasurable consequences. At best we can develop measures of the activities of government organizations, but in reality those activities may be inversely related to the attainment of the real objectives of government. For example, we can measure the number of people receiving welfare payments, but the ultimate purpose of the social ser vice system is to make its recipients self- sufficient. Like Program Budgeting MBO has been making something of a comeback. In particular, the Nor wegian government has implemented an ambitious program of management based on program objectives. Indeed, a good deal of the managerialist emphasis of the New Public Management could be considered within the context of MBO (Veggeland, 2014). Thus, while MBO is an admirable idea that few would oppose at the theoretical level, it runs counter to many of the established practices of government. Perhaps most important, MBO forces decisions upward toward the chief executive and the top administrators. It forces those individuals to determine the goals of government, while government is composed of many organizations and individuals with conflicting objectives. Thus the goals espoused may tend to be either so bland as to be meaningless or simply not accepted by many who may be charged with their implementation. This is especially true of countries with highly decentralized political systems, such as the United States or Canada, but may also be true of systems that are nominally more centralized.

The Public Expenditure Survey

In the United Kingdom, although there were certainly some elements of crisis management involved, the Public Expenditure Sur vey Committee (PESC) system was designed during the 1960s and 1970s to make better expenditure decisions about the allocation of public expenditures, regardless of the degree of fiscal restraint required (Clarke, 1978). PESC had five processes that it was intended to perform in the management of public expenditure. The first was planning. One of the common shortcomings of the budgetar y process is its failure to take into account the long- term implications of an expenditure decision made in one year. A program may be small at its inception, but if it has the ability to accept clients at its discretion, or if there is an open- ended entitlement, the program may grow ver y quickly to have a substantial level of expenditure. PESC involved forecasts of expenditure requirements for all programs, as well as medium- term forecasts of the balance of public expenditure with the rest of the economy. PESC also involved allocation among the competing purposes of government. Suggestions for this allocation were by the committee, but obviously had to be validated by the Treasur y and the Cabinet. As with any “rational” approach to

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policy making, however, the results of the PESC exercise carr y substantial weight. The PESC system was also charged with executing the budget. Another common problem in budgeting is ensuring that actual expenditures match the projected expenditures. This is a legal problem of ensuring that all expenditures are made legally, but it is also an important economic problem for a modern government that attempts to use the budget as a central mechanism for economic control. If expenditures are above or below the levels projected, there may be serious economic repercussions. The PESC system also involved evaluation of public expenditures. As with program budgeting, this system included an attempt to assess the cost effectiveness of public expenditure and to propose alternative means of reaching policy goals. Until the demise of the Programme Analysis and Review (PAR) system, PESC was supplemented in these efforts by the more extensive policy- analytic capabilities of PAR (Gray and Jenkins, 1982). Later the remnants of PESC were supplemented by the selective review exercises of the Efficiency Unit (the Rayner Scrutinies). More recently the vestiges of the system can be seen in accrual budgeting. Finally, PESC was involved with accounting for the expenditures made by government. This function is an after- the-fact control on expenditure, whereas the control functions of PESC mentioned above constituted more continuous monitoring of expenditure levels throughout the year. The postaudit is a long- standing function in government, but continuous control has become more important as the size of the public budget has increased and the importance of that budget for the national economy has increased proportionately.

Bulk Budgeting

New Zealand was perhaps the first countr y to experiment extensively with what it then called “bulk budgeting” (Pallot, 1991). The concept is quite simple. Instead of an organization receiving funds in the conventional input categories such as personnel or equipment, they are allocated a lump sum of money and told to get on with their job. It is assumed that managers will utilize the input categories for the preparation of their budget requests, but after the funds are allocated, the manager will be free to do anything legal with them in order to achieve the goals of the organization. This budgeting system is assumed to permit program managers greater flexibility in achieving their goals, and especially in responding to changing circumstances. Once a spending figure is determined, managers are charged with delivering the ser vice and are then evaluated by the results. In many ways, this form of budgeting resembles PPBS, but without all the intellectual apparatus and without the implicit threats to the sur vival of organizations. Implementing bulk budgeting successfully requires several conditions not always present in government. One necessar y factor is a good information system that will allow managers to judge performance and effects of their choice of instruments to achieve goals (Linder and Peters, 1989). It also requires an effective and professional auditing organization to ensure that the money really is spent properly and perhaps to provide – as does the General Accounting Office in the United States or Riksrevisionsverket – some independent advice on the efficiency

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and effectiveness of public programs (Pierre and De Fine Licht, 2017). Bulk budgeting also requires some flexibility both with staff ceilings, a means by which the growth of government has been controlled in difficult economic times, and in pay to provide incentives for managers to use their flexibility to the utmost. As we have already seen, just as legislatures want to control budgets through line items, they want to control the civil ser vice through both personnel ceilings and standard pay schedules. However, despite these difficulties and caveats, bulk budgeting offers an interesting opportunity to allow public sector managers to manage and then to be judged by the success of their efforts. The concept of bulk budgeting is now being spread widely, although now more commonly under the rubric of “frame” or “framework” budgeting (Schick, 2000). Frame budgeting is one component of a general shift toward focusing managerial attention on the outputs rather than the inputs of government. The most recent thrust of management reform in the public sector has been an emphasis on performance, the measurement of goal attainment, and linking performance with budgets and with individual pay (OECD, 2007). If public managers are provided the latitude to make more of their own decisions about the use of funds, then it becomes more feasible to judge their performance in reaching goals agreed upon with their political or administrative superiors.

Reactions to Stress

We have already mentioned in passing some of the changes implemented across the years in the Public Expenditure Sur vey in Britain as the result of changing economic fortunes. The cycle of changes in PESC constitutes but one of many reactions to the fiscal stress in Western political economies that have been manifested through the budgetar y process. We will first discuss the several changes in PESC and then go on to other alternative methods for allocating resources – through both the macro- and the micro- budgetar y processes – that have been developed in response to real and perceived fiscal stress. Of course, for many of the poorer countries of the world the fiscal stress was never absent, and somewhat greater stress in the richer countries appeared rather manageable to those less- affluent regimes.

Cash Limits

In the PESC program expenditure forecasts were made in terms of constant pounds (although the base for calculation was modified frequently). That is, PESC allocated resources according to the volume of ser vices to be provided rather than according to the costs of those ser vices in the current monetar y units. In an inflationar y period, this meant that the cost of ser vices in terms of the pounds or pence that the average citizens were paying as taxes might increase ver y rapidly, whereas the value in constant terms might not increase at all. The system made control by parliament difficult since the calculations were in the form of “funny money,” and additionally there was little constraint on the administrators, who never quite knew how much they could – or should – spend until long after the time had passed.

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Because of both the political and the administrative difficulties arising from this form of volume budgeting, cash limits were imposed in April 1976. These imposed an absolute expenditure limit in current pounds on approximately 75 percent of public expenditure. The limits applied only to year one of the five- year PESC exercise, but since that is the most important year – the year’s budget actually being executed – it represents the domination of control over planning in response to the increasing financial crisis of British government. Associated with the introduction of cash limits was the use of the contingency reser ve in public expenditure as a means of short- term control rather than as a general “honey pot” that anyone who overspent could dip into. Interestingly, after the introduction of cash limits, there was a tendency for government organizations to underspend and, indeed, to underspend significantly. While fiscal conser vatives may regard that as a positive outcome, those attempting to manage the public budget in order to manage the economy – not to mention the possible beneficiaries of the expenditures – did not regard the outcome so positively. The difficulties associated with underspending and cash limits have produced some interest in greater flexibility for public managers in dealing with money left in their accounts at the end of the year. In almost all public fiscal systems this money must revert to the general treasur y rather than being retained by the agency that was sufficiently frugal to save it. Cash limits ser ved as a useful stop- gap measure for the British government to gain control over public expenditure. The same instrument has been adopted in some version in most other developed countries, and in several less- developed countries, for the same reason (Schick, 1986). They are, however, a ver y blunt instrument, especially for governments with large entitlement programs. Cash limits have the further effect of pointing out to a public that may not have understood the complexity of contemporar y budgeting with more sophisticated techniques for making allocations, such as PESC or PPBS, the usual mechanisms of budgetar y control are actually more difficult to implement. This makes the familiar (and largely false) analogy between household budgets and central government budgeting more appealing to the public.

Envelope Budgeting

Another approach to the problems posed by economic deceleration during the 1970s and early 1980s was the system of envelope budgeting developed in Canada (McCaffrey, 1984; Good, 2013). This approach to budgeting depends upon two levels of allocation. At the first level budget resources were allocated among 11 “envelopes,” or policy areas, such as defense and social affairs. These envelopes were allocated their total resources in part on the basis of tradition and in part on the basis of priorities developed by the Cabinet and by the Treasur y Board Secretariat and the Ministr y of Finance. Within each of these envelopes the ministers concerned would meet to allocate the scarce resources. Because there is a fixed amount of money allocated to each “envelope,” increases in one program would have to be offset by reductions in others. The affected ministers and their deputies (civil ser vants rather than politicians) are handed the difficult task of making the allocations within the envelope. Their decisions are still subject

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to review and confirmation by the plenar y cabinet and by the parliament but, in general, sur vive as the final allocation of resources. Envelope budgeting is an interesting approach to the problem of allocating scarce resources, first proposed by the short- lived Clark government in 1979. The political leaders of this Progressive Conser vative government sought a means to impose greater fiscal discipline on the component ministries. This “scrap and build” approach to controlling public expenditures is not confined to Canada. For example, as a part of its COPE system (Committee of Officials on Public Expenditure), since 1980, departments in New Zealand requesting new programs have been required to specify how they can achieve commensurate savings from others of their programs. There may still be room for new programs, but some attempt must be made to create room by cutting back on old programs. This approach differs from that in Canada by keeping the consideration strictly on a departmental basis, with the tradeoffs between different agencies being achieved by COPE and by the Treasur y, but it again places politicians in the position of balancing the importance of new and old programs. Although less formalized, a similar system has been adopted in Australia, and budgeting with a “scrap and build” philosophy has been common in Japanese government. Finally, the Budget Enforcement Act in the United States, adopted in 1990, requires a “pay- as-you go” (usually referred to simply as PAYGO) approach to new programs, finding savings or new revenues before a new spending program is adopted (Steurle and Penner, 2004). This system of budgeting is ver y good at forcing ministries and civil ser vants within the various policy areas to make decisions about their collective priorities. What it does not do so well, however, is to make the initial allocative decisions about how much is to be devoted to each of the major portfolios. This must still be done by a means not dissimilar to the manner in which budgets have always been made. The method does, however, provide some means of addressing real scarcity in ways that “spread the pain” that are perhaps most acceptable to the parties involved.

Structural Budget Margin

Although macro- budgeting is a logical first step in preparing the budget, the final budget figures frequently reflect the aggregation of decisions about individual programs. The use of the structural budget margin is a mechanism for institutionalizing macro- control over the amount of public expenditure, and for attempting to institutionalize some balance between the two sectors. Further, this budgeting system is based upon medium- or long- term trends in the growth of the economy and, therefore, should minimize the short- term political considerations that have tended to motivate a great deal of budgetar y decision making. Structural budgeting begins with a calculation of the effects of economic growth and inflation on government receipts. Because of the progressive tax structure of industrialized countries, either inflation or real growth will produce a greater proportion of government revenue relative to the private sector. This “fiscal dividend” is then available for either tax reductions or expenditure increases. As this system functioned in the Netherlands in the 1970s and 1980s, the plan was

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to keep the public sector at approximately the same size (relative to the private sector) as it had been when the program was initiated. As it was practiced, structural budgeting in the Netherlands bore a strong resemblance to the concept advanced by the Brookings Institution in the United States called the “full employment budget” (De Long, 1996). The Brookings concept was to calculate what the budget – in terms of both receipts and expenditures – would be if the economy were operating at full employment. Naturally, if it were operating at less than full employment, tax receipts would fall and expenditures for a variety of social programs would increase. This would create a “full employment deficit,” which under this approach to budgeting would be justifiable as a means of bringing the economy back to full employment. However, any deficit beyond that level would not be economically justifiable but might be the product of politicians attempting to purchase votes through programs paid for not from taxes but rather through borrowing. Germany has employed similar thinking in its annual calculation of a “cyclically neutral” budget to be used for planning purposes (Sturm, 1985). More recently, the idea of the structural budget has been adopted by a number of other countries (Rodriguez et al., 2007). Structural budgeting is, to some extent, a decision about making decisions. It establishes the limits on bargaining within the budgetar y process by defining maximum appropriate total increase. As such, the mechanism is particularly suited to the nature of Dutch politics. The degree of partisan fragmentation and the linkage of interest groups to ministries make an attempt to develop budget control from the bottom up rather difficult. By imposing at least a tacit ceiling on expenditures (based on the amount of money available without any increases in taxes, and perhaps after some tax reductions), this method cannot eliminate difficult political decisions about the competing uses of resources, but it can limit the macro- level outcomes in a manner perceived to foster greater economic growth. It also makes the consideration of these issues less short- term decisions made primarily on political grounds and more decisions based upon long- term economic growth and development. Further, a depoliticized budget commission was organized to advise the Dutch government on procedural and substantive adjustments to the budget process. These mechanisms all arguably make budgetar y decisions more technocratic and reduce partisan political control over a crucial element of public policy. The structural budget margin also illustrates the interdependence of budgeting and other aspects of economic policy. Given that a major component of the total costs of government is the wage bill of its employees (approximately 30 percent of the budget in the Netherlands in 1979 when the program was implemented), a policy of limiting the expansion of the budget could not work effectively without some coordination with wage and price policy. If this coordination is achieved, government can maintain the relative purchasing power of its employees at the same time as it attempts to control total public expenditure.

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Efficiency

Ever yone talks about efficiency in government but, as the resources that were once readily available became increasingly scarce, some people in government have begun to do something about it. Efficiency in any strict sense of the term is probably not possible in the public sector, given that it is difficult if not impossible to measure and assign a meaningful value to the output of many government programs (Carter et al., 1992). On the other hand, procedures can be introduced that force government managers to consider better, and perhaps cheaper, approaches to doing what they do. One ver y simple means of making managers think about promoting efficiency is to give them less money and tell them to do what they had planned to do previously. In an unsophisticated version, this is the across- the-board cut so familiar to students of government cutbacks, and called the “cheese slicer” by Swedish budgeters (Ericksson, 1983). The Swedish concept that is now practiced, called more formally the “main alternative,” is a more sophisticated answer to the problem. Swedish budgeting is designed to take into account effects of inflation in making allocations among programs; it begins as a version of volume budgeting. Once inflation is included in the expenditure forecast, however, the “main alternative” is to reduce the resultant figure by 2 percent. The idea is simple. Even the public sector, where productivity gains may be difficult to bring about, should be able to increase efficiency by this modest figure. In fairness, the Swedish government simply does not require the managers to come up with ideas on their own for productivity gains; several government organizations have been established to assist in that task, such as the internal consulting organization – Statskontor – and the state audit agency – Riksrevisionsverket – that advises on efficiency as well as on the legality of expenditures. The Danish government has a ver y similar program, but has permitted the negotiation of spending and efficiency targets between the ministries and the Ministr y of Finance. In the trial efforts, the targets sometimes surpassed the simple 2 percent used in most Swedish cases (Ministr y of Finance, 1999). A similar system is in place in Irish government (Hardiman and Mulreany, 1991). A more sophisticated approach to improving efficiency in government, one first popularized in Britain, has been called the Financial Management Initiative (FMI). The concept behind this innovation in the public sector is drawn directly from business; managers in the civil ser vice must think about their organizations as “cost centers” (the idea of “profit center” might be rather farfetched in government). When managers accept this concept, they can begin to look at what they are producing and the costs of producing each unit, as well as at an overall corporate strategy. The task then becomes to reduce the cost of production of each unit. In so doing, they could systematically consider options involving using the private sector. In short, the FMI involves systematic application of management information to the consideration of the costs of government, with an aim of generating strategies that improve the efficiency of ser vice production. When stated simply, the goals of FMI appear quite benign. In practice, however, many critics believe that they are anything but a simple examination of the functioning of government ser vices. First, this initiative was developed in the

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context of substantial “civil ser vice bashing” by the Thatcher government, and was interpreted by critics as just another mechanism for denigrating government and extolling the private sector (Savoie, 1994). A second associated factor is that the FMI makes senior civil ser vants managers rather than policy advisors. This is another denigration of the role of the civil ser vice and may make the career less attractive to the high- quality applicants needed to maintain its high standards (Peters, 1986). A final and more technical point is, as noted above, that measuring output and efficiency in the public ser vice is difficult or impossible; the FMI may simply involve quantifying the unquantifiable and potentially making spurious judgments about public management. All these points having been raised, however, the Thatcher government was committed to the FMI and the managerial and efficiency values that characterized it. The Major and the Blair governments continued much of the same emphasis on managerialism in the public sector, although FMI per se had been largely abandoned. Australia had its own version of FMI called the Financial Management Improvement Programme (FMIP). It also sought to disaggregate government into a series of cost centers and to permit the managers to make decisions about how best to achieve desired results with the funds allocated. This approach and the quite similar program called Increased Ministerial Authority and Accountability (IMAA) in Canada fall into the general categor y of “deregulating government” by moving an increasing number of budgetar y, purchasing, and personnel decisions downward to ministries and removing controls imposed by central agencies. To the extent that controls remain in place, they will be negotiated between the Treasur y Board Secretariat (Canada) or the Department of Finance (Australia) and the individual ministr y.

Outside Evaluations

The FMI involves importing management ideas from the private sector to attempt to make government work better. Another group of efficiency exercises has involved actually importing individuals from the private sector or using management experts within the public sector. As with the FMI, the idea has been to make government function more like a business and to use business executives as advisors. The largest exercise of this sort was the President’s Private Sector Sur vey of Cost Control – called the Grace Commission after its chairman, Peter Grace. Several thousand private sector executives were brought to Washington for a period of months to examine all the operations of government and produced 2,478 recommendations about how government could save money. While many of the recommendations have been deemed unfeasible by experts in government management, and many ignored the political realities of government, this endeavor may still have produced significant cost savings. Most state governments in the United States have undertaken similar exercises and have produced relatively more significant savings. Government in the United States is more open to outsiders than is government in most countries, and hence it is easier to use groups such as the Grace Commission to develop efficiency recommendations. When government is more closed, as

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in the United Kingdom, other means must be found to achieve the same end. In Britain, Sir Derek Rayner (now Lord Rayner) was brought into government from the Marks and Spencer department store chain and asked to conduct reviews of specific management issues (Warner, 1984). He was given a small staff of young, “high- flyer” civil ser vants to assist him in this task, and each “Rayner Scrutiny” was given a short time to complete an evaluation and to make its recommendations. Implementation of those recommendations was then monitored by the Efficiency Unit attached to the Cabinet Office. While the results of this program have not been ever ything that might have been expected, especially by those who regard the private sector as the best exemplar for the public sector, some clear managerial improvements have resulted. The United States and the United Kingdom are by no means the only countries that have sought to interject some private sector management techniques into government, or that have sought to review government policy. The Canadian government utilized a process similar to the Grace Commission – the Nielsen Commission – to recommend spending reductions. This differed from Grace, however, in that it was composed half of career public servants and half of outsiders (Wilson, 1988). In Sweden a systematic review of government programs was undertaken as even Social Democrats argued that the public sector had become too large. The reconsideration of the size of government continued under a conservative government, and continued after the Social Democrats returned (Lindbeck et al., 1993). That rethinking of government accelerated under a conservative government in the early 1990s. In the Netherlands a “reconsideration” process forces a number of items of government policy, and a significant share of the budget, to be considered and justified each year. All the instruments of budgeting and financial control we have been discussing are incomplete and imperfect. These investigations, however, do represent another weapon at the disposal of those in government – civil servants and politicians alike – who want to exercise greater control over public expenditure. We have discussed a number of innovations in the latter part of 1980s and 1990s as being reactions to stress, but we can also see some elements of an attempt to impose rational solutions on the budgetar y process. The FMI and its analogs in the Commonwealth countries have a number of elements of rationalism rather central to their operation. It assumes, for example, that the output of the public sector can be measured rather unambiguously and that clear corporate management strategies would exert the control required to attain that efficiency. These methods further assume that budgetar y decisions should be based on those levels of output. These methods depend more upon local, organizational solutions to the efficiency problem rather than the global solutions contained within methodologies such as program budgeting. As noted, even methods such as program budgeting have been making something of a comeback. In Australia the budget reforms of the 1980s included a version of program budgeting as a means of conferring greater flexibility on managers. This version of program budgeting was adopted in the context of constraint on the budget rather than in the context of governmental expansion as had been the case in the 1960s. The intention, however, was to permit bureau managers to make better decisions than could be made centrally, rather than simply to reduce the total level of public expenditure.

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There has also been a strong return to performance criteria and attempts to link organizational performance with budget decisions. For example, the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA in the language of Washington), requires the development of performance plans and indicators by all agencies, followed by assessment of their attainment of those goals; the General Accounting Office is used as the principal scorekeeper in this process (Radin, 1998, 2006). Although removing politics from budgeting is almost impossible, the strategy of GPRA is to make the process driven as much by performance criteria as possible, and to make the process “rational” and automatic.

General Problems of Budgeting

The above are examples of a wide range of innovations that have been undertaken in response to the “fiscal crisis” of Western governments and economies. Many of the same problems are endemic in less- developed countries but differ in not being a change from a more affluent past. These examples illustrate, however, the types of problem that must be addressed, as there is a perception that government spending has grown out of control. These methods are all to some degree perceived as short- term responses to short- term problems, although they may be reflective of more long- term considerations. There are, however, several other problems that have not been addressed in these programs, and these are problems that any government will have to face when deciding how much to spend and how to spend it.

Intergovernmental Budget Control

A problem that is especially important in federal countries is the coordination of expenditure policies across levels of government. Even in unitar y governments, the subnational levels may have sufficient control over their own expenditures to prevent the development of a coordinated fiscal policy. The importance of coordination arises from the utilization of budget as a means of regulating the economy, requiring that the central government obtain the overall balance of revenues and expenditures, not just on its own accounts. If the central government should choose to adopt an expansionar y policy and reduce taxes, the effects of that decision may be nullified by the actions of subnational governments increasing taxes. For example, some of the impacts of the Kennedy administration’s tax cut in 1963 were mitigated by increases in state and local taxes in the same and subsequent years. In the United Kingdom, a unitar y regime, local authorities have at times opposed both the general nature of the government budget and its particulars, as has the Scottish government after devolution. They have sometimes spent more or less than was desired by the central government, in part through their ability to raise revenues via local property taxes – the rates. Germany has developed a more sophisticated mechanism for dealing with the problem of intergovernmental fiscal control. During “normal” years, state (Land) and local governments can decide how much they want to tax and spend (although Land and federal revenues are closely linked). However, there are

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provisions whereby the federal government can impose its wishes on Land use of economic instruments such as tax rate changes, government credit provisions, and the use of contingency funds, if there is a declared economic crisis. The invocation of these provisions would not direct the state governments on how to spend their money and could only indirectly affect total expenditures. But this mechanism does provide greater opportunity for fiscal policy coordination, especially when combined with the consultative bodies of the economic council and the Financial Planning Council. This coordinated approach to financial management should improve the ability of the central government in a federal system to produce the types of economic outcomes it desires – a conclusion reinforced by the success of Germany’s economy relative to that of other industrialized countries for much of the postwar period. Other federal governments, such as Austria, Canada, and Australia, have provisions for consultations on economic stabilization, but none has developed the degree of fiscal coordination present in Germany.

Annual Budgets

Another classic problem with budgeting is that it has a ver y short time horizon, especially in a modern world of large- scale capital investments, long development times for technical and scientific programs, and a need to control possible fiscal expansion over a period of time. The traditional pattern of budgeting was to produce an annual statement of revenue and expenditure and to have some accounting of deficit or surplus at the end of the year. This was a ver y comprehensible form of budgeting and it allowed legislatures to maintain a close check on spending by the executive. Reforms are now pushing for longer- term budgets. At a minimum budgets now have rolling two- or three- year projections with the oppor tunity for decision makers to revise their predictions year after year. In par ticular this pattern is good at detecting programs that may have small expenditures in an initial year but which may then have rapid growth in subsequent years as entitlements are created and information about the program is disseminated. Of course, there is no reason to expect the advocates of these programs to be totally honest about their implications, or even perhaps to be aware of their implications, but a longer- term analysis may at least cause some of the par ticipants in the process to think about the implications. Some countries are now taking multi- year budgeting more seriously. The Finnish government, for example, had been doing multi- year rolling budgets for approximately a decade but, in the year 2000, used a harder ceiling on spending in the multi- year frame. In addition, these ceilings will now have to be approved by the legislature. The idea behind involving the legislature is to commit the legislature to these figures so that there will be no question after the fact that this spending plan was not adequately reviewed. Further, by making these figures a matter of confidence, the government is able to have its program adopted with a great deal of political strength behind it, something especially important in a multi- party coalition government such as Finland.

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Capital Budgeting

Most government budgeting is discussed in terms of the operating budget, but governmental decisions concerning the allocation of capital resources in the society are equally important (Sbragia, 2000). The problem of allocating capital is especially pronounced when there are a large number of nationalized industries that depend upon the government for their capital requirements. Making capital decisions presents a number of significant questions to government. The most important question is whether the available capital stock of the countr y could best be utilized in the public or the private sector. This is, to some degree, the same choice imposed when the operating budget is constructed, but capital budgeting may have even greater long- term implications for the society. First, decisions to build in the public sector will create a “stock” of certain types of goods that will influence future policy making and limit future choices. For example, decisions by previous British governments to build a ver y large stock of public housing posed a policy problem for the Thatcher government, which was committed to more privatized provision of housing. Also, using resources to build and buy capital goods in the public sector means that fewer will be purchased in the private sector, with the possibility of a subsequent slowdown in economic growth. Finally, there has been a tendency to use public capital funds, especially when speaking of nationalized industries, to bail out losers rather than to subsidize winners. That is, given the political importance of nationalized industries as providers of employment, any government will be under pressure to allocate capital to existing organizations already providing identifiable jobs to identifiable workers, rather than attempting to allocate the same funds to subsidize the development of new growth industries. In a similar fashion, even where parliamentar y bodies exercise strong control over expenditures, they are, on average, less reluctant to spend on capital – especially for their own district – than they are on operating items. Capital expenditures create identifiable monuments for the legislators, who can thereby demonstrate to their constituents that they have been effective legislators. But finally, if legislators do wish to build monuments to themselves, they may be better advised to build statues rather than hospitals, schools, or defense establishments. Statues require only an occasional cleaning, while all the other forms of public capital investment involve ongoing maintenance and operating expenditures that soon surpass the initial capital costs. It is difficult to discuss and evaluate the various forms of allocation developed for capital funds. Many different approaches have been adopted, few of which fit into neat theoretical niches, but several general points should be raised. One is that capital budgeting is frequently conducted in a highly deceptive fashion, although it is unclear who is fooling whom. That is, it is a common practice to allocate to nationalized industries, or other ailing industries, capital loans, although almost ever yone with any understanding of the situation knows that these loans will never be repaid. It is simply more palatable to give a loan through the visible budget (and loans may, in fact, not be shown in the budget) and then later to write that debt off at a future, less visible moment. Likewise, some capital allocations can be made without the government directly spending a penny, as when governments guarantee private loans to industr y. Unless the firm fails to make its loan payments,

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this practice does not involve any direct expenditure from government but merely requires a signature that will back the loan with the taxing power of government. But the resources are diverted into the firm – for example, Lockheed or Chr ysler in the United States – although those loans would not be economically justifiable in the private sector without the guarantees from the public sector. The final point to be made about capital budgeting is that it is the least incremental form of budgeting. Capital expenditures constitute the easiest type of expenditure to avoid, since they involve few, if any, ongoing commitments to individuals. There may be situations in which a previous capital expenditure requires some additional expenditures in order to lend it productivity but even if those expenditures are not made, there will merely be a loss of potential benefits rather than the removal of benefits from an individual. Therefore, when governments are in a period of forced retrenchment, capital expenditures are among the first items to be cut. Doing this may be “penny- wise and pound- foolish,” for capital expenditures are often related in the short term to operating savings in the long term, as in the installation of newer and less labor- intensive machiner y or the construction of newer, energy- efficient buildings. Further, if capital budgeting is done on an annual basis, there is the danger of beginning projects that will not be completed if a budget cut is needed, wasting money as well as real resources.

Coordination of Taxation and Expenditures

Another problem that besets politicians and administrators making budgets is the coordination of taxation and expenditures. These two elements of the public budget are closely interconnected; depending upon the perspective, available revenues stimulate expenditures, or the pressures from increased expenditure demands require increased revenues. In either case, it is difficult to know how much to spend without knowing how much revenue will accrue, and it is difficult to tax without knowing the amount of spending intended. Despite the close connection of these two elements of the public budget, decisions are frequently made by quite independent processes, with the obvious possibilities of discrepancies. This occurrence is less likely in a countr y with a parliamentar y government, which is able to exercise relatively close control over policies through the cabinet, than would be true in a presidential regime with greater legislative power. However, even in a parliamentar y regime, the revenue bills and expenditure bills are often voted upon at different times and may be developed by different institutions. For historical reasons, or as the result of organizational politics and a desire to concentrate expertise, institutions charged with developing expenditure plans may be separated from those charged with developing revenue proposals. This system may make good organizational sense but appears to make little sense if a balanced budget is a desired end of the process. The effects of the institutional separation of taxation and expenditure decisions, as well as their psychological separation in the minds of many citizens and political decision makers, produces a tendency toward unbalanced budgets (Cuzan, 1981). In the 44 years from 1950 to 1993 the US government passed 40 unbalanced budgets, although this was mostly in a time of substantial economic growth. The

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United States was not alone: during that same time period the government of the United Kingdom passed 42 unbalanced budgets and Italy and Ireland had a deficit in ever y year. Even the fiscally prudent government of Germany passed unbalanced budgets for 30 years (Smith, 1992). Thus, it need not be economic crises that create fiscal deficits in government; the ver y nature of the decision- making process that separates revenue and expenditure decisions may contribute to that outcome. This is compounded by the political fact that it is much more acceptable to spend money on constituents than it is to tax them. If the process of coordinating taxation and expenditure is difficult in affluent, industrialized countries, it is even more difficult in the Third World. The ability to predict either component of the budget balance is ver y limited, and the combination of errors in both predictions makes budgeting a process of vague estimations and frequent adjustments. It also means that these countries must first attempt to shift their revenue sources toward those that may be less buoyant in times of economic growth but have the of fsetting advantage of being more predictable in the event of adverse economic shifts. It may also mean that these countries will become increasingly dependent upon the loans and grants of multinational financial institutions: the International Monetar y Fund, the World Bank, the Inter- American Development Bank, and the like. When there is a budget surplus, there will be great political pressures to spend it, given the generally poor state of the economic and social conditions of less- developed countries. And when there is a deficit, there are few places to turn for suppor t other than the international bodies.

Off- budget Operations

A final general problem with the budgetar y process is that not all that government does is actually included in the principal budget document and calculations of most countries. Further, “off- budget” activity appears to be an increasing proportion of government activity in many countries. There are a number of forms of off- budget activity. One application is keeping certain types of funds – both revenue and expenditure – separate and running them independently of the rest of government. Social security in a number of countries is managed in this manner, with payroll taxes being earmarked for pensions, health care, and similar purposes, and the entire system operating almost as if it were a private insurance company, as legally pension systems and health care are in many countries (Patashnik, 2000). At the next level of insulation from the budgetar y process are financial instruments such as loans which, if we assume they will be repaid, over time are not a real expenditure and escape inclusion in the budget in many countries (Wildavsky, 1985). If they are included, it is sometimes only as a ceiling on the lending authority rather than as a part of the general appropriations process. There are also policy instruments, such as insurance and loan guarantees, which involve little or no expenditure of funds in the short run but may entail ver y large contingent liabilities, future costs against which government may not be adequately protected. Finally, there are benefits given through the tax system – so- called tax expenditures

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or, less politely, “loopholes” – whereby government shifts real economic resources in the society without making expenditure decisions. There are ver y good reasons, both political and administrative, for the large increases in the use of off- budget operations by government. First, politically, off- budget operations have become the means through which government can provide goods and ser vices to their citizens while minimizing the apparent financial costs to the public. Thus, when government is being pressed by citizens to be both a ser vice provider and to keep its costs down, these off- budget operations allow political leaders to do the seemingly impossible. Likewise, through the utilization of policy instruments such as tax expenditures, government provides incentives for action but most of the actual expenditure remains private. Second, it may be important to isolate certain types of funds either to protect their sources of revenue from potential raids or to preser ve the convenient fiction that they are not really a part of government. Social security is the obvious example of this type of activity; it is convenient for citizens to believe that they are making contributions to an insurance fund rather than paying a tax directly to government. Finally, some operations of government, such as its insurance activities, may well be conceived of as separate, quasi- business activities. These activities may be better managed if they are removed from the center of political conflicts, as expressed through the public budget, and are managed as if they were truly in the private sector. Maintaining adequate financial and policy control over off- budget spending programs is difficult and, at times, impossible. Some off- budget activities, such as tax expenditures, cannot be limited in the usual way that spending can but rather depend upon the behaviors of individual citizens responding to the available incentives, and may be influenced by factors such as changes in prices or interest rates. Other policy instruments, such as insurance, depend upon the weather (crop insurance or flood insurance) or on the international marketplace to determine how much government will have to spend. The net expenditure for loans may depend upon the honesty, or even good memor y, of those who received them. In short, if government is attempting to control total public expenditure as a means of controlling the economy, there are a number of commonly used instruments of government that can undermine that goal.

Summary

The public budget has always been a principal concern for government. It is at once a plan of what government hopes to do in its economy and society and an expression of political power. If anything, the importance of the public budget has been enhanced in the 1980s and 1990s, as a result of a more conservative political atmosphere in many countries and a desire to limit the size of government taxation and expenditure. Its importance has also been a function of the failure of many countries to align taxation and expenditure, with large government deficits as a major result. Finally, general economic problems in most countries have made the flow of funds into the public treasury less certain than in the past. Any contemporary political leader must be very concerned with what is happening with the public budget.

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Although seemingly powerful, that political leader will have a difficult time controlling his or her budget. First, there is not even a clear and universally accepted definition of what is included in a budget or what a deficit is (Kettl, 1992). Second, the forces of incrementalism and uncontrollable expenditures make the exercise of discretion and control difficult. Third, many decisions about how much will be spent are not in the hands of government officials but in the hands of private citizens and private organizations. Finally, political pressures to spend more are always present, while ver y few pressures are present to tell a political leader to tax more. Major forces for spending more are the organizations within government. As we have looked at the dynamics of public administration, we have seen that the budget process must be a central focus of attention for government organizations. It determines whether they will sur vive or not and, if they do sur vive, at what level and with what flexibility. There are also psychological and prestige elements associated with the budgetar y process that may surpass the importance of minor differences in appropriations from year to year, or from agency to agency. Success in the budgetar y process is a means of tabulating the winners and losers in political struggles, and budgetar y outcomes may indicate tides in the interests and priorities of government. Budgets have become even more crucial as citizens in a number of countries have begun to question the desirability of many components of public expenditure, and to question particularly the desirability of paying taxes to finance those expenditures. A number of procedural and institutional changes have been made to respond to these concerns. All have been well intentioned, but the common evaluation appears to be that if there is not a real commitment to control expenditure, then the procedures are useless. If there is such a commitment, then the procedures may be redundant. Institutions and procedures are certainly important but cannot substitute for the determination and abilities of the inhabitants of the structures of government.

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C h a p t e r 8

The Politics of Administrative Accountability

Basic Concepts 260 Dimensions of Responsibility 262 Instruments of Accountability 266 The Limits of Control 292 Summary 298

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We have documented the growth of public administration and the increasing influ- ence of administrative agencies on public policy. These developments make the perennial political problem of the control of administration more important than ever. This problem may be phrased in terms such as “control,” “accountability,” or “responsibility,” but the basic problem is the same: How do political leaders and the general public persuade, cajole, or force administrative agencies, and individual administrators, to perform their tasks in an effective and responsive manner? This problem is as old as government itself, but the increased prominence of organiza- tions implementing policies has made these questions more central. As important as that control question is, there is the even more fundamental problem of whether public administrators always should follow the wishes of the public, when those wishes may be inimical to the long- range interests of the society or violate the civil liberties of other members of society. On the one hand, political leaders expect their civil ser vants to follow the orders given to them and to exercise little discretion. On the other hand, civil ser vants are expected to make their own ethical and constitutional judgments and to resist following directions that are inap- propriate (Deputy Ministers Task Force, 1999; Chapman, 2000). These are difficult judgments for the ordinar y civil ser vants and involves their taking risks if they should choose to oppose the directions of their superiors. There have been two broad schools of thought in political science regarding accountability. The first, associated with Carl Friedrich, has assumed that control was attainable through “an inward sense of personal obligation.” The second school, associated with Herman Finer, assumed that personal obligation was not enough, and some external forces must be employed in order to enforce respon- sible behavior. The first approach to the problem assumes that civil ser vants have ethical values and professional standards that will guide them in the performance of their tasks. The second view assumes that these values are not sufficient, that there must be a means of identifying and punishing behavior not in accordance with stated law and legislative intent. There should probably also be ways of rewarding ver y meritorious behavior by a civil ser vant.

Basic Concepts

This chapter is entitled “accountability” but this is only one of several important concepts that come into play in the control of the public sector. There are three fundamental aspects of the process of regulating the behavior of the public ser vice and the remainder of the public sector (Hood et al., 2004). These three terms are often used interchangeably, but have rather different meanings. Indeed, the three terms are, in some instances, contradictor y, so that doing well on one dimension may mean doing poorly on another.

Accountability

Accountability is used as the title of this chapter and is perhaps the most commonly used term for the general problem of exercising control over the bureaucracy (Day

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and Klein, 1987). In its simplest form accountability means the requirement of a public organization (or perhaps an individual) to render an account to some other independent organization and to explain its actions. This requirement can be as uncomplicated as having to present an annual report, or it may be as politically charged as a minister fighting for his or her political life in question time in parlia- ment. Further, the accounting may be financial or administrative, or about the policy decisions that were made. Accountability, therefore, depends upon some external organization, usually one with political legitimacy, to assess what the bureaucracy has done and to evaluate it. Responsibility is a rather different concept. As well as having to account to outsiders, bureaucracies also have to follow their own internal compasses based on ethical standards and their training as part of the public ser vice. In addition, civil ser vants must be obedient to the law, both to general laws about how to administer public policies and more specific laws defining their programs (Br yner, 1987). The civil ser vants must then make some decisions of their own about the legality and the appropriateness of their behavior. These decisions may, in turn, bring them into conflict with their nominal political masters and result in resignations or perhaps “whistle- blowing” (see below). Responsiveness is the third concept that constitutes a dimension of this broad discussion of controlling bureaucratic discretion. The idea of responsive- ness is that government, and individual civil ser vants, should respond to the needs and demands of the public – especially clients of programs (Montpetit, 2011). Responsiveness is, therefore, a clearly democratic ideal, but also presents problems for administrators. One problem is that, by responding to demands of clients, individual administrators may, in fact, be expected to act against not only the wishes of their political masters, but also his or her own conscience. Fur ther, identifying the clientele of a program is not always uncomplicated, and the inter- ests of the more amorphous public in their role as taxpayer and voter may be ignored by concentrating attention on the immediate clientele of the program. Again, maximizing per formance on one dimension of control may harm attaining other means of controlling discretion.

Ethics and Control

This chapter dwells heavily on methods of enforcing accountability and responsi- bility, largely because governments spend so much energy implementing those methods. However, throughout the discussion it must be remembered that civil ser vants are probably no better or worse ethically than individuals working in the private sector. The major difference is that civil ser vants work for government, and in democratic governments it is assumed that they work at least indirectly for all citizens. Even in liberal democracies the state has a number of presumptive claims on individuals (such as arrest, taxation, and conscription) that threaten abuse by the agents of the state. Thus, accountability questions are more acute in public agencies. This is not because of the individuals employed and their lack of respons- ibility, but because of the nature of the jobs, the nature of the tasks performed by government, and the legitimate authority that is exercised by government.

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Another factor that produces problems of control and responsibility is the vast growth of administrative involvement in governing. Not only do public admin- istrators execute the laws, but they consciously also make laws and even adjudicate laws. Much of the legislation currently coming out of legislatures is actually ena- bling legislation for the bureaucracy. This legislation establishes broad outlines of policy but requires the bureaucracy to issue regulations to fill in the details (Ker win, 2012). As Eisner (1991, 6) wrote about economic policy making in the United States:

As the frontiers of state regulation have expanded elected officials have accepted the responsibility for making policy in a host of highly complex issue areas. Legislators lack the expertise necessar y to make the reasoned and technically competent judgments regarding the details of policy, nor can they anticipate the problems that emerge during implementation.

If it were not for this passing on of responsibility, legislatures would be even more overburdened than they already are. In the same way, more adjudication is carried on in administrative tribunals than in the regular courts in almost all countries (Hogwood, 1982, 217; Pei, 1997). Although conducted by administrators, and often conducted informally, these adju- dications have the same impact on the individuals as if heard in a regular court, and there may not be appeals (Edley, 1990). Thus, the problems of controlling admin- istration have grown from controlling the execution of policy to the more complex tasks of also controlling policy formulation and adjudication. It is, however, difficult if not impossible to separate these portions of administrative activity, since, to a degree, implementation and adjudication define policy.

Dimensions of Responsibility

In a discussion of controlling the discretion of bureaucracy, the basic dualism with which the person in the street – not to mention politicians and academic commenta- tors – regards bureaucracy is apparent. On the one hand, bureaucracy is charac- terized as a leviathan, a monolithic and virtually uncontrollable force eating away at personal liberties and economic resources. On the other hand, bureaucracy is a fool: a fragmented set of individuals so bound with red tape and rule books that they do not know what they are doing at any one time, sending television sets to people who lack electricity and doing research on the optimal shape of toilet seats. These extremely contradictor y viewpoints about bureaucracy co- exist in the thoughts and writings of the same commentators. Leaving those inconsistencies aside, it is also important to note the extent to which these two perspectives on the problem of bureaucracy in modern government point to different problems and different requirements for accountability and control. On a more personal level, there is also a dualism in reactions to bureaucracy, although this is rarely expressed by the same individuals. On the one hand, there are frequent complaints about bureaucracy and bureaucrats operating ultra vires, beyond the scope of their authority. Complaints about police brutality, the behavior

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of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms in the disaster at the Branch Dav- idian complex in Texas, Swedish tax collectors breaking into homes, and Danish welfare workers removing children from their parents are all complaints about bureaucracy operating in an apparently illegal or arbitrar y manner. In this view, bureaucrats go beyond the scope of their prescribed authority and act on the basis of personal values and “initiative.” On the other hand, we frequently hear complaints from clients of public agen- cies concerning excessive adherence to rules and procedures by public employees. In these cases the clients – most commonly clients of social ser vice agencies – believe that they are denied the type of assistance they need, or indeed deser ve, because of strict adherence to procedures (see Smith, 2004). This is the case of adherence to rules with a vengeance, so much so that the initial intention of the program may be lost. These two forms of maladministration are reflected in one British minister’s list of bureaucratic errors: “bias, neglect, inattention, delay, incompetence, ineptitude, per versity, turpitude, arbitrariness and so on” (Cross- man, 1966). Similarly, Gerald Caiden (1991) developed a list of over 150 terms used to describe the failures of administration – bureaupathologies – that are all too familiar to students of government as well as to ordinar y citizens. The first two types of perceived problems with bureaucracy, the leviathan and the fool, are essentially institutional problems, describing the activities of the bureaucracy as an entity. The second set of problems is more commonly associated with the behavior of individuals occupying positions within the hierarchy – usually at the bottom rungs. These problems involve the use of excessive power or the evasion of legal constraints or, conversely, the failure to go outside normal channels in seeking information, advice, or coordination. Four types of perceived problems of administrative accountability can be conceptualized as the product of the interac- tion of two dimensions of control. One is the personal or institutional level at which the problem occurs, and the second is the degree of activity of the administrator in question (overactive or underactive). These two dimensions and the resulting four types of problems are shown in Figure 8.1.

Actor

Excessive

Too Little

Action

Institution

NSA Surveillance

Red Tape

Individual

Police Brutality

“Buck-passing”

Figure 8.1 Typology of Perceived Difficulties with Bureaucracy

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Other than being an intellectual exercise, the cross- classification of these two dimensions of administrative complaints enables us to conceptualize better the poli- tics of administrative accountability. On one dimension – the institutional versus individual – the politics are those of the institutional conflict of the bureaucracy with other political institutions such as the legislature or the executive, as opposed to the politics of influencing the behavior of individual administrators who inter- act with clients. Institutional control may involve large- scale political conflict, often quite intense, while individual control may involve only altering the attitudes or behavior of one individual. Obviously, different solutions are needed for the two problems. However, individual problems have the capacity of escalating to insti- tutional crises, as illustrated by the relationship between the actions of individual policemen and major urban unrest in the United States and other countries (but see Anechiarico and Jacobs, 1996). On the other dimension of accountability, the difference in politics appears to be the difference between institutionalizing and enforcing controls versus the politics of relaxing existing regulations. These actions are again somewhat contra- dictor y but both involve getting administrators to do what the public, the clients, and the political leaders want them to do. The former involves political action in writing legislation and, perhaps more importantly, political will in enforcing exist- ing regulations. It also involves the willingness by individual citizens to invest time and possibly money to combat what they consider to be injustices resulting from the administrative process. Loosening institutional rules or procedures that control the behavior of civil ser vants is a more difficult process. To some degree this control involves the legis- lation of broad discretionar y powers for administrators, an action that clashes with a prevailing concern for accountability and control. It also clashes with constitu- tional doctrines about the responsibility of political actors for government policy. The need for greater flexibility is now evident in a number of policy areas. One proposed solution to “regulator y unreasonableness” is to permit greater latitude for individual inspectors to make decisions. Countries that permit discretion have been more successful in obtaining compliance with environmental policy than have those such as the United States that limit discretion (Vogel, 1986). Likewise, the problems of the homeless in the United States (and to some degree in other coun- tries) result in part from arcane and contradictor y rules controlling decisions of welfare bureaucracies. While many analysts consider greater flexibility and discre- tion a solution to many administrative problems, this solution encounters strong political opposition from those who want more control over the bureaucracy. Another dimension of loosening the bonds of red tape is more personal and involves training administrators to better understand their clients. Some change may come within the individual administrator – and within the agency’s culture. This involves an increased willingness to take personal responsibility for actions and a willingness to use rules for the benefit of the client rather than the protec- tion of the civil ser vant. Each of these changes, especially the latter, is more easily said than done. The rules and procedures of an organization provide a great deal of security to its members, and those civil ser vants may be reluctant to abandon that security. This is especially the case when the general governmental climate in many countries is skeptical of the bureaucracy and eager to seize on evidence

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of its incompetence and wrong-doing. The movement to make government more friendly to its “customers” may help improve treatment of clients, but there is often a long way to go to improve the opinion that many clients have of the agencies that presumably exist to ser ve them. Another factor that must be taken into account in this prologue to the study of administrative accountability is that much of the problem is a function of that often- mentioned desire to separate administration from politics (Svara, 2006). Most Western societies, and nations following their examples, have sought to separate the tenure of most administrators from political control. When there was a spoils system – not necessarily the “good old days” – many contemporar y problems of administrative accountability simply did not arise. An administrator remained in office at the pleasure of a political official, and if the public ser vant did not do what was expected, he or she was out of the job. This system did not ensure any more accountability to the public, and its obvious difficulties have been well documented (Ingraham, 1995). Few people would seriously advocate returning to a patronage system of allo- cating public jobs, but it is important to remember that the choice of a merit system for public management has a number of latent consequences for administrative accountability (Peters, 2015). The most important of these is that job security may reduce the responsiveness of public employees. The goods and ser vices produced by public ser vice are not marketed, or if they are it is often as monopolies. Failure to make a profit or break even is not associated with the termination of public employment, so there is little to make the civil ser vant responsive to the wishes of markets, politicians, or the public. The above discussion should not be taken to imply that public employees are inferior ethically, or that they have chosen their jobs only to make a secure living. Rather, it is to imply that the structure of incentives within most civil ser vice systems places greater emphasis on job security than on performance or on public responsiveness. Thus, in insulating civil ser vants from political pressures, civil ser vice systems may insulate civil ser vice from virtually all pressures, and gener- ate significant problems of accountability and control. Managerialism in the public ser vice (see Chapter 9) is attempting to provide administrative leaders more control over their employees, but civil ser vice laws still provide substantial protection. There is, of course, a great deal of variation in the ability of political leaders to influence appointments of officials under them. In the United States there is a relatively large, and growing, number of appointees who come and go with changes in administrations and who help make the executive departments more politically accountable (Maranto, 2005). Likewise in Sweden and Germany, political leaders have considerable discretion in selecting their own senior civil ser vants, and may be able to dismiss sitting civil ser vants (Schröter, 2001). Political leaders in France, Spain, and Belgium can exert some control over appointments to top civil ser vice posts in their ministries, and they also appoint cabinets of politically loyal individu- als to assist in managing the ministr y. These countries may be contrasted with the United Kingdom where, until ver y recently, political leaders exercised little choice over the civil ser vants who ser ved them. Mrs. Thatcher chose to be more active in the selection of senior officials and, in general, sought to mold the civil ser vice to match her image of

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what government should be, a tendency continued and perhaps even accentuated by the Labour government (Hennessy, 1990, 635–40). The changes in the United Kingdom mirror general tendencies in developed countries for the civil ser vice to be viewed more politically (Peters and Pierre, 2004; Eichbaum and Shaw, 2010). This development may be, in many ways, a positive one in that it may make the lines of responsibility and accountability in government clearer than in the past. Developing countries tend to rely more on patronage appointments than do most governments in the industrialized democracies. There are fewer good jobs in the private economy for people with education than there are in the industrialized democracies so government positions are more important economically, and are also more important in creating patrimonial political loyalties (Ozelak, 1986). In addition, many of these regimes are not competitive democracies so that political reliability is more important, and the concept of civil ser vice neutrality is not well institutionalized. This politicized pattern of employment is often called “corrupt” by Western analysts but generally is not regarded so negatively within the countries, and may be important for the preser vation of regimes. With some idea of the dimensions of administrative accountability and control now in mind, we should examine the instruments available for enforcing accountability. The instruments available to each actor seeking to exercise control over the bureaucracy will be described and an attempt made to evaluate the rela- tive effectiveness of these instruments within different national and organizational contexts. These instruments and their effectiveness will be linked back to the basic dimensions of accountability and the particular types of control over the problems already outlined.

Instruments of Accountability

The list of procedures, institutions, and actors that have been devised to attempt to control administration is by now extremely long, and equally varied. We cannot hope to discuss each method in this chapter, not even in a single book. There- fore, we shall concentrate on those instruments that appear to promise the great- est effectiveness, either to us as administrative analysts or to significant portions of public opinion. The one common thread that binds these solutions is that they depend upon implementation by someone, and this is the weak link in the chain of control. Most of the methods to be discussed could be effective, but all rely on human implementation. This runs the risk of creating an infinite regress of control. If we establish an institution or individual responsible for overseeing operations in the public bureaucracy, who will, in turn, oversee the operations of that oversight body, phrased more elegantly in the Latin aphorism: Quis custodies ipsos custodi- ents? It is important, therefore, to seek out mechanisms of control that depend less upon the goodwill or skills of those implementing them. This point is linked with William Gormley’s (1989) characterization of “muscles and prayers” as the means of enforcing bureaucratic accountability. He argued that there were two basic strategies for accountability. “Muscles” involve the use of power of some sort, power meaning here the use of legal and political means to attempt to force proper conduct, and/or to punish malfeasance. “Prayers,” on the

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other hand, involve developing either instruments for moral suasion of public ser v- ants, or sets of positive incentives for them to behave properly. Gormley tends to believe that prayers ultimately will be more effective, given that they depend more upon reinforcing the generally ethical and public interest values of most people in the public sector. Gormley’s dichotomy for enforcing accountability can be expanded to dis- tinguish further the mechanisms available for controlling modern governments. Christopher Hood and his collaborators (2004) have discussed control through four mechanisms: hierarchy, competition, mutualism, and contrived randomness. Most mechanisms for accountability discussed below rely on authority and hierarchical power to make members of the bureaucracy conform to law and public expecta- tions. A number of institutions can exercise that authority, but the fundamental instrument involved is their formal position and the ability to use legal constraints. Despite the importance of hierarchy the other three forms of control are increasingly important. First, competition among public ser vice providers – whether public or privatized – is used for control. For example, “league tables” about the performance of schools or hospitals can be used to activate citizens and place pressure on those organizations for better ser vice (Salmi and Saroyan, 2007). Mutualism relies on individual civil ser vants watching each other, through mecha- nisms as simple as policemen patrolling in pairs or multiple signatures on docu- ments. Finally, randomness – whether of appointments or auditing – prevents civil ser vants from being able to predict when their work may be reviewed, and hence there is continuing pressure to perform appropriately and well.

Organizational Methods

The simplest means of policing public administration is to allow civil ser vants to police themselves. One way of doing this is that suggested by Friedrich – relying on the internalized values of the civil ser vants – and we shall return to that option later. At this point I am interested in using collegial or legal sanctions within the organization to gain compliance. Thus, while each individual in the organization may not accept the ethical standards proposed by Friedrich, are there still means by which the organization itself can control those employees? Although ostensi- bly the simplest method of control this method may, in fact, involve the highest political costs simply because of the internal strife that it may create within an organization. Also, it may open the agency to fur ther attacks from other political institutions. An organization that publicly airs its own internal problems makes it that much easier for legislatures or the political executive to reduce its budget or impose other sanctions. Publicity. Although it may be considered a method in itself, publicity is one organizational means of controlling the bureaucracy. It tends to be particu- larly useful in dealing with individual actions, both those going beyond and exces- sively adhering to rules. The characterization of this method as organizational may strike the reader as a bit odd, but the point is that publicity itself carries little or no direct sanction. Rather, the mechanism depends largely upon the organization to correct any errors brought to light. It may do so either in order to do its public

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duty or merely to avoid further embarrassment. If the organization itself does not respond to a problem once it is openly identified, then executive, legislative, or legal methods can come into play. However, it is easier, cheaper, and quicker for the organization to respond. Doing so reduces the external control on the organization and may preser ve some autonomy for future action. If an organization establishes the reputation of dealing with its own problems, it is much more capable of resist- ing external political or legal pressures. Transparency has become one of the central criteria for performance and accountability in the public sector (Christensen and Laegreid, 2002; but see Erkkilä, 2013). In addition to the emphasis on transparency coming from interna- tional organizations such as the World Bank, the international nongovernmental organization Transparency International (TI) monitors the corruption and the openness of governments. Each year, TI publishes its corruption indices which to some extent monitor the openness of governments as overt corruption. Also, Freedom House, another nongovernmental organization, publishes an assessment of freedom of the press which can ser ve as a surrogate measure for the openness of government. Perhaps the administrative system most notable for using publicity as a control device is Sweden. Swedish public officials have been described as working within a “goldfish bowl,” in that their actions are almost entirely open to public inspection. Whenever an official reaches a decision, this decision must be justi- fied in writing, and the written justification is recorded as a part of the file made available to the citizen(s) upon request. In addition, many forms collected by the government that in most societies would be regarded as confidential – such as income tax returns – are public in Sweden. This system is intended to make the administrative system and the political system as a whole more responsive to the people for the simple reason that if people know what decisions have been reached and why, they are better able to understand and contest them. In addition, openness to the press enables even greater dissemination of information. This openness also must have a deterrent effect on administrators; they will not do anything that cannot be well justified. Of course, there are means of circumventing this publicity. An officer in each ministr y decides which materials are private or confidential, and although there is an appeal to the decision, in most cases it is final. Likewise, sensitive information may be sent through private com- munication rather than through public channels. Finally, the press is frequently criticized for being insufficiently interested in pursuing matters that appear in the files; the overload of information actually may make it less utilized. Despite these problems, the system appears to be a step in the right direction for advocates of more public control over the public bureaucracy. Sweden is the most publicized of several systems relying upon information for control, but a number of democratic political systems have now moved in the same direction. For example, Nor way and Finland have adopted systems of publi- city quite similar to that in Sweden. In the United States the excesses of Watergate and an increasing distrust of government have led to the passage of the Freedom of Information Act at the federal level, along with similar acts in most states. There are also a number of “sunshine laws” at state and local government levels allowing public access to records and to meetings of administrative bodies, especially those

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functioning in a quasi- legislative or quasi- judicial manner (Warren, 2004). Canadian administrative procedures have also been modified to go from British- style secrecy to much more open access for citizens. Open government is usually discussed in terms of citizens’ access to infor- mation after decisions are reached. This is important as a means of knowing what was decided, by whom and why, but it can do little about altering the manner in which policy is actually made. Another aspect of open government is opening up the decision- making process to citizens while the decisions are being made. At the extreme, advocates of deliberative democracy (Bohman, 2001) have sought to develop mechanisms that provide citizens opportunities to shape policy in ver y direct ways. While deliberative democracy has been primarily the province of politi- cal philosophy rather than practical administration, these ideas do appeal to citizens who want greater influence over policy. Given a lack of a need to run for office and to represent constituencies, the bureaucracy may be a more desirable locus for these types of activities than would be legislatures. Even at a less extreme level, the public can be involved in making policy. This can be done in a number of ways. A ver y basic mechanism is the public hearing. A number of federal programs in the United States, for example, require public hearings before government can take action (Lando, 2003). This requirement is present for many environmental programs, some urban programs, and the decen- nial review of the Social Security Program. In addition, state and local governments require hearings on a number of issues, most commonly local zoning changes. Similar local government controls over zoning and land use exist in most industrial- ized societies. One tenet of open government is that decisions that affect citizens in ver y identifiable ways, such as those on land use, should be subject to some comment by the public prior to action. In addition to direct contact between citizens and government in a public hearing, there are other means of allowing citizen participation in administrative decisions. This possibility is exemplified in the Administrative Procedures Act of 1946 and the procedures it stipulates for writing regulations in the federal bureauc- racy. Before a federal agency in the United States can issue a regulation (second- ar y legislation), it must publish in the Federal Register a statement of its intent to do so, and a draft regulation, and then allow several months for interested citizens and groups to comment on the proposal. The comments received become a part of the record, and the decision finally reached about the regulation should bear some resemblance to the comments received by the agency. Some programs have even more stringent requirements for formal meetings analogous to court proceedings (Robinson, 1991). This openness to citizens makes the process of issuing second- ar y legislation through the bureaucracy in many ways more democratic than the writing of primar y legislation by Congress. The government of the day can also use information to hold its bureaucracy accountable for performance, as well as for malfeasance, often employing implicit competition among organizations. Governments now increasingly require schools systems and hospitals and other parts of the system that have large numbers of relatively autonomous organizations to publish “league tables” to show the public the relative performance of those organizations. If parents see that their children’s school is one of the poorly performing ones, they are likely to put pressure on the

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teachers and administration to bring it up to standard. This method of accountabil- ity implies an aware and active group of “consumers” of the ser vice, and hence may be useful for some population groups but not for others. Publicity and open government, like many other aspects of administrative responsibility and accountability, are not wholly positive values. While public access to relevant information about administration is certainly important, working in a goldfish bowl can rarely be as efficient as working in private. Further, such openness tends to expose the activities of administrators to political pressures that might not be felt directly in a more closed system. The contrast with Great Britain comes to mind almost immediately. The tradition of British administration has been that of almost total secrecy and privacy for administrators. Although the press is placing pressure on this secrecy, as far as most of the public know – especially for policy decisions and advice – bureaucrats generally remain “faceless” (Thomas, 2015). Secrecy has been adopted quite simply to ensure that administrators as public ser vants will be isolated from short- term political pressures and be free to make decisions in what they consider to be the “public interest.” Court decisions concerning the publication of several diaries and other similar memoirs, the insti- tutionalization of a parliamentar y ombudsman (see below), the select committee system, leaks from individual civil ser vants, and continuing public pressure have opened even this closed system, but it remains more private than most. Certain values can be maximized by a closed system of administration, just as certain ben- efits can be gained in a ver y open system. It is simply a matter of choice for the public and for political elites of what type of system they want, and what form of administrative system will conform best to the political culture and other institu- tions in government. Although governments may be under pressure for increased openness, espe- cially to the media, there is also evidence that governments have become much more interested in controlling the media (Thomas, 2012). This is certainly true for the political components of government, but public administration also has been affected by the “mediatization” of government (Schillemans and Pierre, 2016). The capacity to “spin” information and to manage information (Hood, 2011) may make increased openness a double- edged sword for those seeking to control the public sector. Internal discipline. Internal discipline within public organizations is another potentially effective means of controlling administration without resorting to the imposition of external political control. It is, therefore, a relatively “cheap” means of control in terms of time and institutional energy. On the other hand, it assumes that there is someone in a responsible position within the hierarchy who has values closer to those assumed to be held by the public than the values of erring subordinates, or even erring superiors. Given our conception of the average public administrator as probably no better or no worse than the average citizen, the probabilities of finding such a person in the hierarchy are good. However, there are a number of impediments to any person within an organization exercising authority over subordinates guilty of anything other than the most obvious malfeasance in office. First, the punishments available within conventional civil ser vice systems are not particularly strong, especially if the person involved is not a “climber” seeking

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advancement (Downs, 1967). The problems of using internal sanctions are espe- cially apparent when the individual whom the superior would like to censure is guilty only of being overzealous in applying the rules rather than of circumventing rules. Further, application of existing organizational control mechanisms requires long and often complex administrative hearings, with the scales often weighted in favor of the civil servant (Meininger and Gazier, 1988). Police review boards, for example, gener- ally include mostly other police officers who, despite their intentions of maintaining the integrity of the force, also well understand the problems of the individual police officer faced with a dangerous or compromising situation. Unionization of public employees – both industrial and nonindustrial – adds to the difficulties of implement- ing internal controls. Civil service systems themselves require complex procedures to impose the sanctions that do exist; one official in an American agency, for example, abandoned attempting to discipline an employee because it would have taken up the rest of his time in office. Thus, sanctions that can be readily employed tend to be rather weak, and those with teeth are difficult to implement. There are powerful organizational reasons for not enforcing organizational censures against employees. As noted earlier, bureaucratic politics play a major role for many public administrators and their agencies. They must compete for money, employees, and legislative time with other agencies, and there is no quicker way to reduce their potential success in this conflict over resources than to have a scandal. Although the agency can attempt to make the best of it by saying they were “cleaning their own house,” the scandal may reduce trust and create considerable difficulty for the agency at the next budget time (Wildavsky, 1986). In a period of tight public funds, firing an employee may mean that a replacement cannot be hired and the organization loses the position. Further, administrators (one hopes) want to get things done and, consequently, do not want to employ time and energy pros- ecuting their own colleagues. Also, senior officials are usually rated on their ability to reach goals rather than on internal discipline in their organization. Of course, legal and moral constraints must be taken into account, but success in program management is generally more important than most other facets of the job – at least in an era of managerialism in the public sector. Another factor favoring nonenforcement of administrative regulations within an agency is that it is frequently necessar y to circumvent regulations in order to achieve the stated goals of the organization. In countries that have had major politi- cal scandals, this reasoning may sound dubious to many readers, but there are situ- ations in which administrative rules and regulations are impediments to providing a ser vice or getting a job done (see Nef, 2011). Blau and Scott (1962) provides a now-classic example of FBI agents who had to engage in an explicit violation of the rules requiring reporting an attempted bribe in order to perform their jobs well. Air traffic controllers regularly handle more airplanes per hour than they are supposed to by contract – if they did not, air travel would be even more awkward than it now is. Many rules associated with granting of social ser vices make it more difficult for the clients of public agencies to receive aid, and regulations must frequently be ignored by agency employees attempting to assist a client. The difficulty with this justification is, however, that it requires each employee to decide what the real goals of the organization are. This practice is at best suspect, and it may become quite dangerous in a democratic regime.

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Finally, we must remember that the civil ser vice constitutes a career, just as does working in any other organization or profession. Therefore, there is a certain amount of camaraderie and esprit de corps, which makes strict adherence to internal discipline more difficult. Despite formal lines of authority, informal organizations link individuals who are formally superior and subordinate as equals, thus making imposing discipline difficult. Where the civil ser vice is regarded as highly differen- tiated from the rest of society (France or Japan perhaps), or within segments of the public bureaucracy that are themselves internally integrated (the police or the mili- tar y), there is an unwillingness to bring discredit upon the ser vice, so many inter- nal indiscretions may not be exposed. Even in less- differentiated positions there may be a feeling that one should not criticize one’s fellow civil ser vants unduly, if for no other reason than the tables may be turned in the future. Whistle- blowing is a special case of internal controls on bureaucratic abuse (Johnson, 2003). This term refers to individuals exposing what they consider wrong- doing in their own agency, especially when that wrong- doing is by their superiors. One early and famous case of whistle- blowing was the accountant in the Depart- ment of Defense who exposed massive cost overruns on the C- 5A airplane. This led to a great deal of embarrassment for the Department of Defense and the firing of the accountant. Since then greater protection for whistle- blowers has been built into the American federal bureaucracy, including inspectors general who ser ve as officials in each department to whom such abuses can be reported with little fear of reprisal (Light, 1993; Power, 2003). Further, the federal False Claims Act provides individual whistle- blowers with a strong financial incentive (up to one- quarter of recovered funds from fraud) to report wrong- doers to the Justice Department. The United States is not the only countr y that has begun to support whistle- blowers. Countries such as Sweden that have ver y open public sectors assume that information should be available, and may not require separate protections. Most other countries, however, have been less supportive of whistle- blowers and some, such as the United Kingdom, have often dismissed and prosecuted officials who take it upon themselves to expose what they consider to be improper actions in government, largely because those actions violate the strong norms of confidenti- ality. Certainly ideological or authoritarian regimes do not provide support for any civil ser vant exposing malfeasance by the regime, but pressure from international nongovernmental organizations such as Transparency International has helped to spread this instrument of accountability (Leiken, 1996). Internal administrative controls over bureaucracy depend not only on institu- tions and procedures, but also on the willingness of senior officials to employ those procedures. For internal discipline within an organization, both the procedures and the willingness to use them may be absent. The absence of will is rarely a function of collusion or rampant immorality, but commonly is due to the politics of bureau- cratic agencies and their need to sur vive in a potentially hostile political environ- ment. Likewise, the methods available for internal discipline are at best awkward and cumbersome, and at worst unworkable. There are an increasing number of ways of using carrots for motivation – merit pay, for example – but the few sticks available are difficult to employ.

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The Market and Other External Controls

Changes in the public sector and the increasing influence of private sector mech anisms have introduced another means for controlling administration. For example, rather than using accounting or budgetar y controls to influence spending for a ser vice, government can put the ser vice out for competitive bids to limit the amount spent. Even without a formal market, quasi- markets can be created within the public ser vice to provide some market testing and contestability (Hula, 1994). For example, the National Health Ser vice in Britain, and health ser vices in other countries, have separated purchasing ser vices through Regional Health Councils and budget- holding general practitioners from ser vice provision through hospitals (Appleby, 1990). One virtue of market controls of bureaucracy is that they function relatively automatically, without a need for another public institution to determine the pro- priety of decisions: if decision makers follow proper economic logic they will find a way to provide ser vices at the least possible cost. If markets are effective, there is less need to worr y about legal standards and organizational interests of persons exercising oversight on the public bureaucracy. The problem with this approach, on the other hand, is that it tends to be effective only for monitoring efficiency. Effi- ciency is certainly an important value but it is by no means the only one. Further, if a public program maximizes economic efficiency, it may minimize other impor- tant values such as ser vice to clients and thoroughness in investigating complaints. Controlling the public sector is generally a matter of balancing numerous values, but relying on the market permits attention to only a single, rather limited, set of signals about government performance.

Group and Public Pressures

Another means of exercising control over administration without resorting to formal conflicts between institutions is through pressure group activity and public opinion. We have already discussed some aspects of the relationship between pres- sure groups and the bureaucracy, with the conclusion that pressure groups fre- quently are the source of administrative failure to operate in the “public interest” (see Lowi, 1967). Can these same pressure groups also function as a check on administration? First, although pressure groups may not, in fact, ser ve the public interest broadly defined, they do certainly ser ve their clientele, and it is frequently that clientele that is most affected by agency activities. Thus, by informing their members of the activities of the agency, they can exercise some effective popular control. Of course, the end result of this process is frequently legislation or admin- istrative action favoring the special interest, but even this constitutes some respons- iveness by the agency. Second, one important political development in recent years has been the organization of so- called public interest pressure groups, organized and functioning much as any other pressure group but ostensibly representing no special interest. In the United States this movement first manifested itself through Common Cause and the consumer movement, while nongovernmental organizations in a number

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of countries have fulfilled the same function (Ho, 2001). Publicity and publication of complaints against government are the weapons most frequently employed by these organizations, but they have lobbied both legislators and administrative agencies. Finally, in the American context these organizations have been reason- ably successful in court, while in the European nations the creation of a number of ministries and boards for consumer affairs has tended to absorb many complaints without resort to judicial means. Third, closely related to the development of consumer groups has been the formation of so- called “action groups” or Burgerinitiateven in continental European countries. These are typically single- issue groups that develop to protest a single decision or policy and then dissolve after their success or their frustration by gov- ernment. These groups are commonly oriented toward decisions taken by political officials but also concern themselves with bureaucratic decisions. Action groups have become increasingly institutionalized as the change of environmental groups into Green political parties in a number of European countries indicates (Poguntke, 1992). Although most of these groups have been on the “libertarian left” – ecology, antinuclear, peace, etc. – there also are a number on the right, e.g., taxpayers’ organizations. The refugee crisis of 2014 and after has generated a number of groups concerned with immigration – some favoring more asylum seekers and others opposing. Another especially interesting aspect of using interest groups as a check on the public bureaucracy has been governments fostering organizations, almost to the point of creating their own opposition. During the War on Poverty in the United States, the doctrine of “maximum feasible participation” was meant to allow com- munity residents affected by these social programs to have some input into making and implementing the policies (but see Moynihan, 1978). The idea of this and sub- sequent participator y initiatives has been to allow residents to gain political skills and, simultaneously, to prevent programs from becoming excessively bureaucra- tized and bound in red tape. In Britain one reorganization of the National Health Ser vice included development of Community Health Councils designed to prevent domination of the ser vice by specialist physicians, and to permit greater considera- tion of community wishes (Klein, 1983). These and their successors were strong opponents to the Conser vative’s cuts in the National Health Ser vice and continue to press the Labour government for expansion. In many developing countries under- going political mobilization and social change, village councils and other local organizations have been developed, again with the intention of providing local input and checking bureaucratic excesses. In all these cases, governments have actively fostered organizations that ser ve as oppositions to the bureaucracy, an interesting if not always entirely successful approach to administrative accountability. Another development facilitating interest group control over administration has been the growth of client organizations for public ser vices that previously have been more autonomous, e.g., the Welfare Rights Organization in the United States. These groups have existed for some time for middle- and upper- class ser vices such as education, but a more interesting development is growth of organizations of lower- status recipients of social benefits. These clients had once been regarded by the community, and even by themselves, as having the right to express nothing but gratitude for benefits. Now they are increasingly vocal in their demands for

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improved benefits and improved treatment by administrators. The increasing politi- cal mobilization of the elderly – “gray power” – has become effective in pressur- ing government for increased pensions and improved administration of pension programs. These organizations clearly do not represent the broader public inter- est, but can be effective in placing pressure for improving social administration. At the extreme, groups of social ser vice clients may even assume the management of the social ser vice. Self- management has, for example, become important in public housing projects. This pattern of involving clients is especially apparent in Northern European countries with their strong participator y cultures and with less stigma about being in public programs. Involvement in self- management projects has, in turn, become the basis for developing other social ser vice projects, the pri- vatization of some ser vices to be owned and run by their recipients, and general “empowerment” of groups who had been excluded from effective participation in the political process (Sörenson, 1997). A variant of empowering client groups for self- management is developing parental management in education. For example, in Chicago dissatisfaction with local schools produced a movement to permit parent committees to control the schools (Cullen et al., 2005). Also, in the United Kingdom, the Education Reform Act of 1988 permits schools to opt out of local education authority control in favor of management by parents. Again, Northern Europe and especially Denmark give parents a great deal of power over local schools. Similarly creation of “trust hospi- tals” allows greater involvement of employees and management committees and reduces some constraints imposed by the hierarchical structure of the National Health Ser vice. Despite the obvious success of some groups it is difficult to be ver y sanguine about their utility as a general solution to problems of administrative control. Their effectiveness is limited by the same factors that limit the effectiveness of pressure groups more generally, mainly that they must function through second and third parties to have their demands realized. Further, despite short- term successes, social groups that could benefit most by client organizations of this type have few of the political and organizational skills required for continued success. Finally, consumer groups may, in the long run, prove to be little different from other types of pressure groups. They may represent a special interest or, more appropriately, a particular approach to consumer problems, perhaps requiring yet another set of controls to control the controllers.

Political Methods of Control

If the methods of publicity, organization, and internal discipline within the organi- zation do not prove effective in controlling administration – as, indeed, they may not – then a second level of control will be required. This control is through politi- cal institutions. The logic is that political institutions rightly regard themselves as the representatives of the people, even when not directly elected. They rightly regard themselves as the source of the delegated powers that the bureaucracy currently exercises and as having the right to withdraw those powers if they are abused (see Huber and Shipan, 2002). The conflict between political institutions

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and the bureaucracy over policy has already been discussed (Chapter 6). Many of the points made there apply here as well. Rather than arguing over the ability of the two sets of institutions to control policy in a broad sense, here we examine their respective abilities to control decisions in specific cases, even if only ex post facto. Many powers of the several institutions are similar, but it is necessar y to examine the ways in which those powers can be brought to bear on specific cases of admin- istration or maladministration. The legislature. Legislative institutions have, in recent years, become more prominent in the battles over administrative control. This return to promi- nence is in par t because the growing concerns of voters have been translated into action by their elected representatives. Fur ther, the sheer volume of administra- tive work now being per formed means that there is more need for the legislature to exercise oversight. The increasing volume of administrative rulings having the force of law and issued by powers delegated from the legislature focus greater attention on the need for oversight. The legislature must attempt to keep track of these rulings, even if it is not always possible to control their content. Finally, executive dominance in policy making has left harassing administration one of the few remaining ways in which individual legislators can acquire wide publicity and national stature. 1. Ministerial responsibility. The most fundamental mechanism through which legislatures exercise control over the bureaucracy in parliamentar y gov- ernments is through the doctrine of ministerial responsibility (Marshall, 1995). In parliamentar y regimes the conventions are typically that a minister is responsible to parliament for what occurs within his or her ministr y. Thus, in principle, he or she is required to answer for the behavior of public ser vants within the ministr y whether or not that public ser vant was following ministerial orders or simply exer- cising legitimate discretion. Some of the mechanisms of legislative control dis- cussed below, e.g., question time, help to implement this concept of responsibility, but in parliamentar y governments accountability should be understood within this fundamental constitutional context. Ministerial responsibility has become a convenient myth (Sutherland, 1992). Ministers are increasingly reluctant to have their political futures jeopardized by the mistakes of lower- echelon civil ser vants. They, therefore, must answer parlia- mentar y questions about problems that are identified but have become more than willing to deflect public attention onto the civil ser vants thought to be culpable. The traditional principle (especially in Westminster systems) that civil ser vants would remain anonymous while the minister would take public responsibility for errors has become honored more in the breach than in the obser vance (Clegg et al., 2011). The notion of parliamentar y responsibility has relatively little meaning in presidential regimes such as the United States. In these systems, found mostly in Latin American and African regimes, ministers or their equivalents are not answer- able in the legislature as they would be in a parliamentar y regime. The fusion of powers in a parliamentar y regime means that embarrassment in the legislative arena may also mean the end of the minister’s effectiveness and hold on office. There are still a number of means by which the legislature can exercise its over- sight but the separation of powers inherent in a presidential regime does make

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that sort of control more difficult. Further, the institutional competition found in a presidential regime tends to make the exercise of legislative control an even more contentious issue. 2. Funding. Funding is a principal means through which the legislature can exert control over administration. Some problems of exercising policy control through funding have already been discussed at length. However, although the power of the purse may be a blunt instrument in exercising policy control, it may be successful in dealing with a recalcitrant administrator or agency. Although we might hope that legislatures had something better to do with their collective time, the instances of committees and even whole legislatures spending substantial amounts of time on small problems of individual agencies, and even individual administra- tors, are legion. This “law of triviality” holds that legislators deal with small portions of the budget because they can understand those parts, but allow huge expendi- tures to be passed with only cursor y examination (Korft, 1984). Further, it is often the trivial details that excite constituents, and legislators focusing on those details are seen to be doing something for their voters. Legislative involvement in the budget, sometimes discussed as “meddling,” is especially impor tant in the United States. Few other political systems permit their legislature the freedom in budgeting to enable them to delve into the finan- cial and administrative details of agencies. At the subnational level, again within the United States, legislative involvement in administration via the budget is more evident, to the point of removing people from office simply by refusing to appropriate money for the positions they occupy. The punishment for (real or per- ceived) improper administration is rarely so direct, but it does frequently occur by reducing the appropriations for the whole agency. These powers over budget- ing give the American Congress and state legislatures significant controls over agencies that have been largely for feited in parliamentar y systems with stronger par ty discipline. Even in parliamentar y regimes, however, legislatures do attempt to exer- cise some control over the budget and thereby over the executive branch and its bureaucracy. In many cases this control is reduced to reviewing what has happened rather than any active involvement in the formulation of spending priorities (Lienert, 2005). In others, however, the controls are more real and prospective. More impor- tantly, legislatures appear to be attempting to reassert their historical powers over the public purse strings and have been developing the analytical capabilities which are central to any attempt at real influence (see Wanna et al., 2003). Another aspect of the power of the purse in checking administration, the ability to pass private legislation to compensate individuals for administrative actions, is much blunter. Most political systems provide means of passing “private bills” to afford such com- pensation, but these stipulate no penalties for offending civil ser vants and require political leverage for citizens who want a grievance redressed. Further, this power can be abused and become a personal political resource for powerful legislators. The control of legislatures over administration through funding is potentially a vital and powerful force, but as with many legislative weapons, it is difficult to employ effectively. By their ver y nature, legislative bodies are cumbersome, and detailed consideration of administrative actions occurs primarily in sensational or highly politicized cases. This is true even in legislatures such as the US Congress

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that pride themselves on the ability to use the budget for control. Also, the increas- ing importance of macroeconomic policy means that substantial budget control has passed from legislatures to executives and central banks, and these nonmajoritar- ian institutions are designed to prevent political control (Majone, 2001). Budgets have become too important (economically and politically) to allow legislatures to use them to punish the wicked and reward their friends. 3. Investigation. Probably the most frequently cited power of the legisla- ture to control administration is their power to conduct investigations. Investiga- tions range from simple questions in legislative sessions to full- scale committee investigations to the institutionalization of an officer to investigate on behalf of the legislature. All these devices rely, in par t, upon publicity to right a wrong, but they can also be useful in writing new legislation and correcting defects in old legislation. The simplest form of legislative investigation is the parliamentar y question period. In virtually all parliamentar y systems there is some means for legislators to ask questions of government ministers. While these may be about policy deci- sions made by the minister, they may also pertain to administration within the ministr y. This is especially true of Westminster systems in which the minister is considered responsible politically (at least by convention) for all that goes on within the ministr y, even down to the behavior of lowly clerks. Question time can extract information, embarrass the government, and alert an “attentive public” to current administrative problems. Other than producing broader political debate on the topic, however, it rarely goes further. While in rare instances issues raised in question time can produce moves to dismiss a member of the government, or perhaps even the entire government, this is rare. Rather, parliamentar y questions depend upon the government actions, the administrators themselves, and perhaps the public, to produce real change. Within the American context, the most common form of legislative investiga- tion is through congressional committees, generally operating through hearings (Aberbach, 1990). The functional specialization of congressional committees and the further specialization into subcommittees, special committees, and select com- mittees provide an extensive and well- qualified array of investigative bodies. This investigative role in Congress came into greatest prominence during the McCa- rthy period in the early 1950s, and more recently was prominent in investigations over the “arms for hostages” deal with Iran, various scandals within the Clinton administration, and the attack on the US Embassy in Benghazi, to name but a few. While these hearings made headlines, they are overshadowed in volume by a large number of ongoing investigations into virtually ever y policy area of the federal government. The ostensible purpose of these investigations is legislation, but in practice both airing information and close examination of their conduct affect the behavior of the public bureaucracy. Although the committee system of Congress and its investigations in the United States are the extreme example, similar methods exist in other political systems. Germany has an extensive array of legislative committees specialized along functional lines and exercising oversight of the administration (Saalfeld, 1990). There is also a functionally specialized committee system in the Riksdag in Sweden, including the unusual right of the committee on the constitution to review

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minutes of cabinet meetings. The United Kingdom and Australia have strength- ened a series of select committees of parliament, which roughly mirror the organi- zation of the executive branch and are the closest things to legislative oversight that this system of government possesses (Keating, 2003). The mere existence of legislative committees does not, however, mean that they will be effective in over- sight. There is a well- developed committee system in the Storting in Nor way, but the low prestige of the oversight committees and the relative lack of interest in their work make them largely ineffective. Further, parliamentar y committees that exist without staff or other supports for their work, as they do in some countries, are not likely to be able to invade the complex policy- making world of the public bureauc- racy. In Europe, however, the increased powers over European rule-making given to national parliaments has shifted more attention to legislative committees (Chris- tiansen et al., 2014). We could go on enumerating slight differences in committee and investiga- tor y arrangements in parliaments, but the basic point is that legislatures investi- gate, they tend to do so through committees, and the investigations are generally related to exercising oversight within a specific policy field. These committees and their investigations generally comprise a most effective legislative means of influ- encing the conduct of administration. The relationship between the committee and the administrative agency tends to be ongoing, so the agency has a great deal to gain in the long run by cooperation. Further, the committees tend to be expert, especially where members can and often do remain on the same committee for a long time. Nevertheless, there is a danger of the committee and the agency becom- ing too friendly, much in the way described in the relationship between agencies and pressure groups. The final method of legislative investigation might be discussed as a separate topic, given the interest expressed in it. This is the institution of the ombudsman or its equivalent (Rowat, 1985). Although often presented as a magical cure for what ails administration, this method of control generally relies upon the legislature for implementation. Although there are variations among countries, the powers of the ombudsman generally do not include the ability to issue binding judgments on administrators or to order restitution for an aggrieved citizen. In general, the ombudsman can investigate, negotiate with civil ser vants, report to the legislature, or perhaps introduce legislation. The legislature is then expected to carr y the case onward if a reason for further action is found. Most commonly, this involves simply providing some redress for the citizen, but several systems allow the ombudsman to introduce general suggestions for procedures to prevent future problems. The ombudsman system is most commonly associated with the Scandinavian countries, but some version of the system has been adopted in (among other coun- tries) the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Israel, Japan, India, Peru, Ghana, and in modified forms in Poland and the former Soviet Union (Ayeni, 1992; Gregor y, 2005). Germany and Sweden have a specialized ombudsman to deal with militar y affairs, commonly complaints of enlisted personnel against officers. Canada has gone even further with a number of “specialized ombudsmen” – Prison Ombuds- man, a Transportation Ombudsman, a Commissioner of Official Languages, a Human Rights Commissioner, and a Privacy Commissioner. A number of coun- tries have also institutionalized officers to protect citizens against centralized data

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collection (Bennett, 1992). In addition, many US states, provinces in Canada, and states in Australia have similar protections. Also a number of African countries have specialized officers to defend the rights and safety of children (Sedletzki, 2012), and subnational governments in numerous other countries have adopted some form or another of the ombudsmen. Even France, with a tradition of a powerful and autonomous civil ser vice, institu- tionalized the office of “mediator” in 1972 to help protect citizens from that power- ful bureaucracy (Masclet, 1986). The systems may all be referred to as “ombudsmen,” but variations among the role of that official are substantial. One major difference is the ability to act independently or not, with some officers such as the Parliamentar y Commissioner in the United Kingdom requiring a request from a Member of Parliament before initiating action. Another variation is the ability of the officer to initiate legislation or not, with the Finnish ombudsman among others having the ability to introduce legislation as a matter of right. Finally, some countries extend the system to cover prisoners and soldiers, and others confine it to civil administration, with the former thereby protecting some of the more vulnerable “clients” in the public sector. The ombudsman system is difficult to evaluate. On the one hand, it provides a tribune for citizens, with the advantage of being both inside and outside govern- ment. Being inside, or more properly being an officially sanctioned gadfly, allows the ombudsman access and requires that his or her findings be taken seriously. On the other hand, being outside government makes the office appear to most people as one in which they have an advocate free of most bureaucratic connections who will, therefore, freely speak for the “people.” At the same time that the office is sym- bolically well placed, its success requires a number of steps to be completed. Citi- zens who may be most in need of help are most unlikely to be aware of the office. Success also depends upon the willingness of the legislature to follow through on the ombudsman’s suggestions. This willingness is, in part, dependent upon the stature of the individual holding the office, the degree of institutionalization of the office, and legislative procedures in handling suggestions from the ombudsman. It may also depend upon the type of results sought, whether compensation for individuals or punishment for administrators. The former may be easy to obtain, since sums of money sought are frequently small or the privileges rather minor. Actions against individual administrators may be more difficult, may have destruc- tive effects on civil ser vice morale, and may, in fact, accentuate problems of rigidity within the bureaucracy. Thus this system may be useful in redressing personal grievances but less successful as a means of producing significant procedural or policy changes. 4. Constituency service. The fourth major means through which the legisla- ture can influence conduct of the civil ser vice is what Americans call “constituency ser vice.” In Ireland the same behavior has been referred to as “going around perse- cuting civil ser vants” (Chubb, 1992, 142). The idea is that the average citizen often feels powerless in the face of bureaucracy and looks for some means of influenc- ing that bureaucracy. One handy device is the elected representative; citizens put this person in office, and citizens should therefore be able to get some assistance from their representative. Thus, many legislators are expected to spend significant portions of their time solving problems that their constituents encounter with the

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civil ser vice. Perhaps the constituent did not get a pension check on time, or a grant for a local government project is not paid. The legislator can become directly involved in attempting to find out what has happened, to get the problem corrected as quickly as possible. In addition to providing ser vice to individual constituents, legislators can also provide ser vices to the geographical area they represent, and often become ambas- sadors for subnational governments as much as they are national law makers. This role is ver y evident in the United States but is common elsewhere as well. For example, in France and Belgium the cumul des mandats has produced national poli- ticians who remain elected local officials. Their national office allows them to exert pressure on the public bureaucracy to provide benefits for their own locality and enables them to short- circuit much of the Parisian or Brussels bureaucracy (Knapp, 1991). Even in party systems with strong party discipline the need to protect the interest of the constituency may permit defection from the party line (Norton and Wood, 1990). In practice, many legislators find constituency ser vice to be a significant portion of their workload, and an activity that is highly visible to constituents and is ver y favorably regarded by those constituents (see Fiorina, 1987). This activity may be a useful means of control, but it is often also inefficient. It concentrates on particular cases, and the legislature may not have time to develop legisla- tion covering more general problems of malfeasance by civil ser vants or poorly designed programs. It also exhausts much of the credit that legislators may have with bureaucrats, by “persecuting” them over relatively petty issues. It is generally highly regarded as a method of control by recipients of its benefits but it may, in the long run, perpetuate problems of control rather than solve them. 5. Reviewing secondary legislation. In addition to exercising general over- sight over bureaucracy, legislatures may also review secondar y legislation – “regu- lations” in the language of American government, or “statutor y instruments” in Britain – issued by the bureaucracy (Baldwin, 1994; Ker win, 2012). In all demo- cratic countries, the bureaucracy (acting in the name of the minister) is given sub- stantial power to issue binding rules, provided those rules conform to the will of the legislature as expressed in law. The problem for the legislature is to monitor the huge amount of secondar y legislation made by the bureaucracy, and to nullify decisions they believe subvert the intentions of the legislature (see Schoenbrod, 1994). One means of ensuring legislative knowledge of the rule- making activities of the bureaucracy is to require reporting of especially sensitive regulations to the legislature. The US Congress, for example, instituted a “legislative veto” which required reporting to Congress, and an opportunity for a veto by Congress, of certain regulations. This procedure was declared unconstitutional, but continues to be used in modified forms, and other countries have developed analogous pro- cedures. To be effective, however, this review of secondar y legislation requires a substantial staff even to review the regulations that were reported. Even though few countries have gone to the lengths of the United States in ensuring legislative control, most do have review mechanisms. This is done typi- cally through parliamentar y committees – for example, a standing committee on statutory instruments in the British House of Commons. Of course, merely reviewing

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what the bureaucracy has done is not sufficient for real control. That, however, requires the involvement of the government of the day, and that government may have been responsible for issuing regulations that some in the parliament find objectionable. The control of secondar y legislation then becomes a more strictly political issue rather than a question of preser ving the prerogatives of the legisla- ture and the integrity of the law. 6. Postaudit. The final legislative power over administration to be discussed here is the postaudit of government accounts (Rist, 1989). The legislature have powers in the appropriations process and may also exercise an oversight function after the funds have been spent. In virtually all political systems the postaudit func- tion is a legislative function. In the United States the General Accounting Office is a creature of the Congress, responsible for reporting to the Congress on the improper expenditure of public money by administrative agencies. The vast major- ity of auditing agencies, such as the Bundesrechnungshof in Germany and the Italian Corte dei Conti, report to the legislature. The Cour des Comptes in France is a major exception to this generalization, linked to the civil ser vice through recruitment and staffing, and to the President of the Republic by its formal organization (La Documentation Française, 1998). The postaudit function in the United Kingdom was becoming increasingly dominated by the Treasur y rather than by parliament but the creation of the National Audit Office in 1983, and the more vigorous role of select committees, have to some extent returned the function to parliament. In addition, the Audit Commission was established to audit the accounts of local authorities in England and Wales. The concept of the postaudit is quite simple. The legislature appropriates money for specific purposes, and it must therefore be certain that the executive spends the money as appropriated. In some political systems this function is jus- tified by the concept of the separation of powers, while in others it is simply to ensure that the public treasur y is protected from undue demands. In either case, actual spending is compared with authorized expenditure, and any discrepancies are noted. Depending on the system in question, individual ministers or civil ser v- ants can be held personally responsible for any differences. The postaudit system for legislative control of public spending through the bureaucracy made a great deal of sense when bookkeeping in government was a bit like your grandfather’s old ledger in the desk upstairs. It is still a valuable means of checking on what has happened, but less so as the finances of government become more complex, both in terms of the variety of items purchased and the complexity of financial arrangements. Government programs can no longer be readily calcu- lated on the basis of annual appropriations; building a dam or an aircraft carrier simply takes much too long, so funds appropriated in any one year may be kept “in the pipeline” and quite legally spent some years later. Also, the exact purposes for which the funds were originally allocated may have become obsolete or the cost of performing a function become (remarkably) cheaper, so that some of the funds in the pipeline may become discretionar y. In addition to money that may be remaining in the budget pipeline, there is a great deal of public money flowing through private pipelines as well, and with the increase in third- party government, there have come substantial increases in problems of financial accountability. Some of these problems involve simply the

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ability to track the flow of funds through complex routes to their final destination. Also, to attempt to provide public institutions greater flexibility a number of funding schemes – trust funds, public corporations, trading funds, and the like – have been developed by governments. The flexibility created makes tracking and controlling the funds that much more difficult. Some of the problems may be more conceptual, involving differences in accounting and in accountability standards in the public and private sectors. That is, as the public sector becomes more dominated by private sector management ideas then the somewhat less- accountable standards of the private sector may pen- etrate the public sector. This change, however, may to some extent be counteracted by the increasing openness of the public sector and its accounts to media and public scrutiny. An even grayer area of control is the increasing interest in efficiency, or “value for money” auditing (Henkel, 1991; Pollitt, 2005). Instead of being concerned solely with the legality of expenditures, auditing organizations such as the General Accountability Office have become increasingly interested in the efficiency with which outputs are produced. Similarly, the new National Audit Office in Britain is exploring the possibilities of “value for money” auditing in addition to tradi- tional financial accounting. The idea of performance auditing and its linkage to the general questions of performance management have now become common prac- tice in public administration. However, as well intentioned as these efforts are, the fundamental problems of defining outputs – and even inputs – make the measure- ment of efficiency in government a ver y difficult problem. The shift from input budgeting to output budgeting, through bulk and frame budgeting, also exacerbated problems of enforcing fiscal accountability. Money is no longer doled out with predefined spending purposes, so that determining if the money was spent appropriately depends upon being able to discern if the outputs promised were actually delivered. Modern government finance makes the job of the auditor difficult, and makes the legislative job in understanding the findings of the auditor equally difficult. Except in cases of clear misappropriation, the legisla- ture must deal with a number of gray areas of law and policy, making control that much more difficult. 7. Summary. The instruments of administrative control available to legis- latures, while important, suffer from many of the difficulties mentioned in our dis- cussion of the relative strengths of legislatures and bureaucracies in making public policy. These powers depend upon the concerted action of the legislature, which is not always forthcoming. Further, even if there is that action, it is more likely to be removed in time from the actual commission or omission of the offending adminis- trative action. Likewise, it is increasingly difficult for legislatures to keep pace with the quantity of work required of modern governments, and so delegated legisla- tive powers of the administrative agencies are even more crucial to effective gov- ernment. Finally, the political power base of legislators is not generally enhanced by performing the time- consuming, painstaking, and generally dull job of keeping track of agencies and their actions. The influence of partisan loyalty on decisions might prevent full exercise of oversight. Except for the occasional case that gen- erates publicity and political hay, much of this oversight work is unlikely to aid a legislator’s career either with constituents or his or her own party.

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There are, however, two major sources of legislative strength in exercising control of bureaucracy. The major source is legislative norms – possessed to some degree by committees in the American Congress and the German Bundestag – which value highly keeping track of the bureaucracy (Ellwein and Hesse, 1987, 266ff.). These norms are difficult to enforce and do little for the legislator who is standing for reelection, but they are crucial to effective control. Second, as policy- making powers pass to bureaucrats and to the political executive, the legislature’s role may become increasingly that of watchdog. More time and energy may be available for the job of pursuing problems and persecuting the perpetrators. In fact, given the increasing technical complexity of policy in industrialized countries, this may be the most efficient means of the legislature having an effective voice in public policy. The executive. An examination of the organization chart of government would make one believe that the political executive is in the best position to control the performance of the public bureaucracy. The lines of authority and control are all right there on the organizational chart; all that is required is the willingness to exercise that authority. Or so it appears if we look solely at the formal structures. In practice, enforcing executive authority over the bureaucracy is substantially more difficult. Civil ser vice systems and other aspects of public personnel management frequently prevent political executives from obtaining the ser vice and advice of the administrators that they might most like to employ. This problem is confounded by the feeling of many legislative bodies – perhaps quite accurate – that the best way of controlling an executive is to control executive latitude in leading the bureaucracy. Thus, the ability of the executive to control the bureaucracy – which frequently operates as a separate branch of government – is seriously curtailed. Further, just as managers of an organization may not want to expose any problems within their own organization, political executives may be loath to correct – and thereby expose – malfeasance in their government. In cabinet governments the political executive is, in theor y, responsible for ever ything that happens in a department, so politically it may not be advisable to raise questions of possible wrong- doing. In the absence of the ability of the executive to hire, promote, move, and fire whomever he or she wants, a number of less- overt controls come into play. Some of those controls operating through the budgetar y process have already been men- tioned, although more drastic executive fiscal powers such as impoundment may be used to place controls on the bureaucracy. These controls in many ways may constitute a set of blunt instruments when the precision of a scalpel is needed, and consequently cannot be readily employed. They offer little if any means of dealing with recalcitrant individuals or just plain rigidity in administration. 1. Personnel powers. Powers of the executive in dealing with the bureauc- racy var y across political systems. The major variations appear in the ability to appoint and remove officials, the ability to move employees between agencies and on and off personal staffs, and the ability to use executive authority to reorganize government. Some variations have already been noted in the ability to appoint. The ability of an American President to appoint about 4,000 people in the executive branch, to remove most of them without Senate approval, and to appoint his own personal staff, are important powers even if restrained by customs and procedural checks (Maranto, 2005). It becomes especially significant when compared with

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the British Prime Minister, who has relatively few appointment powers and whose ministers have limited powers over the permanent secretar y and other civil ser v- ants who ser ve them. Although the Thatcher government went to some lengths to increase its appointment powers, they remain meager when contrasted with the ability of the French, Belgian, and German ministers to select their own chef du direction or its equivalent. Attempts have been made, however, to politicize more fully appointments in British government. Likewise, many less- developed countries – especially in Latin America – have the form without the substance of civil ser vice arrangements, so that a new government has a wide choice of senior civil ser vants and advisors. Totalitarian or authoritarian systems have more extensive controls over personnel; those who may be considered politically unreliable can be easily removed, demoted, or reappointed. 2. Investigation. The executive also has the ability to conduct investigations of administrative activities. These investigations may be initiated by legislative action, as when a question in parliament is sufficiently embarrassing to provoke an executive response. Investigations are commonly done internally, and in fact many executive departments have their own divisions associated with continuous inspection and review. The militar y is perhaps most notable in this regard, with institutions such as inspectors general ser ving as an internal check on the adminis- tration and efficiency of the ser vices. The civilian government of the United States has now adopted the concept of the inspector general as an internal watchdog on the management of the executive branch. Likewise, the use of inspectorates is a quite common feature of the administrative system of France and of administrative systems derivative from the French tradition (Rouban, 2010). These inspectorates have been largely financial, but more recently have been expanded to other areas such as social ser vices to emphasize their importance. In other countries inspectorates may be established for some especially signif- icant functions, such as HM Inspectors of Schools in the United Kingdom. Indeed, one response to administrative reform in the United Kingdom has been to create a number of new inspectorates to monitor the actions of government and to recom- mend means of correcting both particular and general wrongs (Hood, 1998). The United Kingdom has not been alone in the greater use of inspectorates to attempt to gain more information about public ser vice deliver y. While the work of public sector inspectorates is not entirely investigative, it certainly does involve substan- tial snooping into proper administration of the laws, especially financial laws. Finally, many political executives, meaning here mainly ministers in parlia- mentar y systems, may initiate their own investigations of problems and procedures simply because they are concerned about the functioning of their department. However, just as was true for agencies, there are strong incentives for a “spending minister” to keep irregularities in administration ver y quiet indeed. Investigations of administration may also be initiated by higher executives, such as presidents and prime ministers, and frequently involve broad examinations of administration. In the United States, the Brownlow Commission, the two Hoover Commissions, and the Gore Commission are examples of executive initiatives directed at thorough reviews of the structures and procedures of administration (Arnold, 1998). In the United Kingdom, commissions such as Fulton and Plowden also involved extensive investigations of basic structures and procedures of administration, and advocated

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sweeping reforms, as did the Glasco Commission, the Lambert Commission, and, more recently, the Macdonald Commission in Canada. Other investigative initia- tives by the executive branch into the work of public administration may be less general, and tend to be initiated by scandal or crisis. Even in societies with long histories of respect for the bureaucracy and of good administration, major scandals frequently generate large- scale investigations of administration. 3. Reorganization. One important power granted to executives is the power to reorganize government. This power is not totally executive; legislatures many times have equal or coordinate powers. While the legislature may help to change the shape of the organization chart and then go away to see what happens, the executive gets the opportunity to work with the new structure. Thus an activist executive such as Franklin Roosevelt or Margaret Thatcher was able to effect extensive reorganizations and use those reorganizations for his/her own purposes (Schlesinger, 1959, 521–7). At other times, governments cannot adequately antici- pate the results of reorganization efforts, as has been true of the more reforms of the 1980s and 1990s associated with the New Public Management (Christensen and Laegreid, 2007). Reorganization can be used to place a mortmain on the activities of future executives and can, therefore, control administration for some time in the future. Reorganizations – if that is not too weak a word – such as nationalization of industr y make it difficult for any future executives to reverse the economic policies of an earlier administration. It is simply too difficult to nationalize and reprivatize indus- tr y after ever y election, so once done, nationalization tends to persist. Likewise, when activities of government are “hived off ” and depoliticized, by being placed in quasi- autonomous bodies such as “quangos,” it becomes difficult for subsequent executives to alter their structure without appearing excessively partisan in hand- ling public policy. Although such depoliticized bodies are less accountable than are organizations within government, many citizens appear to like them. The depoli- ticized bodies give the appearance of businesslike efficiency and of being above the political fray in government, and with this public appeal of the organizational form, “hiving off ” may actually be “blanketing in.” Reorganization may also be important for establishing executive control. Many subnational governments, and some national governments, have gone to great lengths to depoliticize, hive off, and judicialize important political decisions. The existence of numerous appointive commissions, boards, institutes, and other groups, many of which are self- perpetuating or have sufficiently long tenures of office to prevent a political executive from having much real control over their composition, severely dilutes the ability of an executive to exert control. He or she becomes, much as Neustadt’s president, a bargainer but not a commander (see Kerbel, 1993). The justifications for independent bodies are well known, but the latent consequences must also be considered. As executives have come to be blamed, if not praised, for virtually everything that occurs within their governments, they want to be able to control what actually does happen and, consequently, would want to bring as many functions as possible under their purview. Doing this does not ensure their success in exercising control, but it does give them a structural base with which to try. Even when agencies are controlled by the executive, reorganization can be used to make them conform more with the executive’s program, as moving of the functions of the

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previously independent Office of Economic Opportunity under more conventional departments illustrates. Again, there is no guarantee of success, but only of an improved opportunity to influence agency behavior. Although there may be many good practical reasons for reorganizing, we must remember that this activity may also be symbolic. There may be instances in which no effective action is possible so that reorganization allows executives to be seen to be doing something. Also, there may be instances where, because of the power of client groups or the legislature, effective control over an agency in govern- ment is not possible. Reorganization in that case may demonstrate the power of the chief executive and his or her political supporters, and perhaps gain greater compli- ance. Further, by altering authority patterns and communication flows, reorganiza- tion may change the direction of policy, even if it does not improve the efficiency of the organizations delivering the policy (Egeberg, 2004). 4. Fiscal powers. The executive may seek to control administration through its fiscal powers. In most political systems the budget is an executive function and an executive document. Legislatures are certainly involved in the final determina- tion, but in a parliamentar y system this role is frequently little more than a rubber stamp. Legislature often lack the staff and the time to review the budget thoroughly, as well as the power to alter individual items. Thus, the executive has the opportu- nity to reward friends and punish enemies in a tangible fashion. This power may be exercised through government grants to the constituencies of friendly politicians, or tax concessions to friendly interest groups. The actual impact of many fiscal powers of the executive may be more limited. First, these powers are not often sensitive or flexible. It is difficult to punish one administrator, or at times even one agency, through the budget. Doing so might involve reduction or elimination of appropriations of a larger administrative unit, which may be exactly the policy area in which the executive wanted more, rather than less, activity. Further, even if the fiscal powers of executives were more sensi- tive, the political base of an agency may be such that an executive could not realisti- cally afford to cut appropriations. Powers such as the line- item veto, given to the governors of many American states and proposed for the President, would help strengthen the fiscal powers of the executive. With that power, the selection of cuts can be much more precise and some real impact on specific policies and adminis- trators can be obtained. An executive is also limited in the ability to control many actors in the budg- etar y process. A Prime Minister in Britain, for example, may find it somewhat dif- ficult to control the actions of the Treasur y, just as it is difficult for other executives to control the actions of economic and fiscal planners or central banks (but see Savoie, 1999). In general, ministers of finance and their counterparts have gained substantial institutional powers over the budget, so it may be difficult or impos- sible for a chief executive to inter vene in the process personally, especially when inter vention is seen to be politically motivated. In Germany, for example, a special majority of the Cabinet is required to override a decision of the Minister of Finance (Helms, 2003). Further, the expertise of financial ministries may make political involvement unwise. The chief executive may certainly have political influence over the actions of the finance minister, but frequently that cannot be translated into control of the budget, so the ability of a chief executive to use the fiscal powers will

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depend upon his or her ability to command the loyalty and obedience of the finan- cial officer. One fiscal power given to the President of the United States, but only implied in most other political systems, is impoundment. Under the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 a President’s power to reduce the appropria- tions of Congress is limited. If the President wishes to cancel an appropriation – a recision – he must obtain agreement of both houses of Congress within 45 days or the appropriation is continued. However, if the President only wants to delay an expenditure – a deferral – then unless one house of Congress disapproved, the wishes of the President would be implemented. These powers over expenditures, even with the possibility of congressional veto, give the President substantial inde- pendent control over expenditures and over the priorities of government. These powers are somewhat irrelevant in a parliamentar y regime in which the executive is derived from the legislature and where there is party discipline within the par- liament. Even there, however, an executive might wish to be sure of the ability to control the execution of the budget. 5. Ministerial advisors and cabinets. In some political systems ministers appear ver y lonely when they must deal with their civil ser vants. In some coun- tries, especially Britain and the systems derivative of the Westminster tradition, ministers have little help in office. Even in a large department of government there may be only five or six political appointees (a Minister, several junior ministers, and a Parliamentar y Private Secretar y). Likewise in Germany, the creation of the post of Parliamentar y State Secretar y as a kind of junior minister generated a significant political debate as to why the minister would need someone like this when he or she had a competent and loyal civil ser vice. Other political systems allow ministers to appoint groups of advisors – called cabinets in France and some other countries – and to put these officials on the public payroll. Even in Westminster systems there is a growing use of, or interest in, personal advisors and the functional equivalents of cabinets to assist ministers (Eichbaum and Shaw, 2010). No matter how competent and loyal a civil ser vice may be, a minister may still feel that he or she needs help of the sort that a civil ser vant cannot, and perhaps should not, provide. The minister may want this advice in part to have an independ- ent source in a system that relies heavily on the civil ser vice for such input (Hajer, 2003). This is a control over the input side of the civil ser vice’s role in a modern democracy, and it is an important one. Policy making in modern democracies tends to be driven out of executive departments, whether directly through issuing secondar y legislation or through writing the primar y legislation for parliaments. Therefore, it is helpful for a minister to have advisors that he or she can count on for advice that is of the same stripe politically, and which will have political as well as technical dimensions. The use of ministerial cabinets is also useful on the output side of gov- ernment. A limited number of ministers are not able to control the widespread implementation activities occurring within a depar tment. A ministerial cabinet of a dozen or so members cer tainly cannot monitor and control all activities within a depar tment either, but they have a better chance than the few ministers. Fur ther, if the people recruited to a cabinet are selected for their skills and training, e.g., in management or finance, rather than just for political reliability, then political

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leaders have the oppor tunity to enhance their chances to make the depar tment work as they want it to. Chief executives are a special case of the need to provide some additional advice and support for political executives (Peters et al., 2000). They often require assistance not only in controlling the bureaucracy but in controlling and coordinat- ing the rest of their own government. As a part of the process of controlling the bureaucracy, chief executives have created their own bureaucracies that mirror and monitor the rest of government. The members of organizations are generally personally loyal to the executive so that they will supply the advice and the help in implementation that the chief executive needs. 6. Summary. The executive powers in dealing with the bureaucracy, despite the formal position in government, are somewhat constrained. Just as with internal discipline within administration, many tactics that would be useful in enforcing accountability would involve some political risk to the executive. Fur ther, many reforms in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries removed many of the options available to executives in controlling their organizations. Thus, the executive is left with a number of powers, but these are blunted by difficulty in distinguishing between whole agencies, individual administrators, and even ef fects on clients. Executives remain in a strong position to negotiate with the bureaucracy for compliance on policy and on procedure but rarely are in a posi- tion to command obedience. The judiciar y. The final institutional checks on bureaucratic power are through the legal system. We have already noted that the bureaucracy is a major formulator of policy and a major adjudicator of claims against government. It is crucial, therefore, that there are some legal restraints on the exercise of those powers. Virtually all political systems provide a means of citizens challenging the administrative actions as well as policy choices made by government through administration. Even the European Community, often criticized as having a remote and uncontrolled bureaucracy, can be made to answer in the courts (Hill, 1992). There are, however, important variations in the extent and nature of judicial powers over bureaucracy, which become important for an understanding of judicial control of administration. The first major difference among Western and Western- derivative systems of law is between those systems having a separate system of administrative courts and those relying on the regular courts to process administrative cases. This dif- ference is not entirely clear- cut, however. Even legal systems using regular courts for administrative matters (such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and many former British colonies) have numerous administrative hearings conducted in separate administrative tribunals within administrative organizations themselves (Lens, 2007; Caranta and Gerbrandy, 2011). These, in volume terms at least, greatly surpass the number of cases in the regular courts. Further, these systems tend to have separate bodies of administrative law, dealing with such matters as proper administrative procedure, the rights and duties of administrators, and the like, even if the cases are adjudicated in the regular courts. Finally, even in countries using the regular courts, there may be some special courts that handle purely adminis- trative matters, especially taxation. These three caveats aside, there is a difference between countries such as the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Nor way, which

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use regular courts, and France, Germany, and Sweden (among others), which use administrative courts to handle administrative matters. To reach the regular courts, a case must generally have some relevance as a matter of general law – in the United States it may frequently involve a constitutional question or denial of guaranteed rights such as due process or equal protection. This limitation simply makes it more difficult to bring administrative cases than would be true in systems that are more used to dealing with strictly administrative malfeasance. The general format of administrative courts is illustrated by France, with a series of administrative courts roughly paralleling the organization of the regular courts. These end in the sections de contineaux of the Conseil d’État (Dreyfus and d’Arcy, 1987). The individuals ser ving as judges in these courts are gener- ally former administrators or at least trained as administrators at the École Nation- ale d’Administration (ENA). As such, they bring special knowledge to their roles as adjudicators, which raises the problem of their being potentially partial to an administrator involved in a conflict. These courts have the right both to quash administrative actions and to provide redress for individuals harmed by administra- tive actions – this redress may at times be recovered from the offending administra- tor. They can also punish the offending civil ser vant, even to the point of having the individual dismissed from ser vice. While legal protections available in administrative law are certainly impor- tant, they also present significant difficulties for the average citizen seeking relief from what he or she considers an improper administrative act. The proceedings are legal, even in systems having separate administrative courts and, therefore, involve specialized knowledge of procedure and form, which only a lawyer can provide. Thus, the expense of acquiring a lawyer – even if compensated later, as it is in some systems if the citizen wins the case – can be an impediment to the citizen. Like- wise, the need to have a justifiable complaint against the administrator, as opposed to simply a complaint about rudeness or delay that did not produce economic or personal harm, limits the law as a device for control of mundane but still irritating aspects of maladministration. Finally, administrative law operates as a check largely after the fact. It can generally only redress harm or quash actions; only rarely can it command the administrators, or their organizations, to perform actions. As a result, it remains a negative check on bureaucracy. Thus, despite the general importance of the exist- ence of administrative law as a control on administration, the check is limited by the complexity of most procedures, the slowness of proceedings (the Conseil d’Etat currently has a backlog of several years), and the negative nature of the remedies available.

Normative Restraints

The final means of enforcing administrative accountability – that advocated by Frie- drich (1940) – is control by ethics and norms (Dobel, 2005). By this we mean the development of mechanisms within the bureaucracy and within individual bureau- crats that ser ve to shape administration “in the public interest.” This is certainly the cheapest form of control obtainable, and in the end the most efficient in that

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it can prevent grievances rather than merely correcting them ex post facto. Even if the institutional mechanisms for control outlined were more effective than we tend to think they are, the lack of commitment to public ser vice – or, more properly, an active commitment to private ser vice – could prevent them from working just through the sheer magnitude of the problem. And if such a commitment to the public ser vice were generally held – as indeed we believe it is – the need to employ institutional mechanisms would be rather slight, and any of them could do the job. The current state of administrative practice would appear to approximate more closely the latter situation than the former one of rampant bureaucratic mal- feasance, even given the number of complaints that arise against bureaucracy. If we examine the volume of complaints relative to the number of decisions and actions taken, it seems that, on average, most civil ser vice systems do a decent job. The major complaints about illegal or immoral activity in government are laid at the feet of the political officials, not the career civil ser vants, although we still need institu- tional mechanisms for the deviant cases. It should be pointed out that all administrative systems need not have – nor do they have – the same values about accountability of public officials. Some empirical studies have investigated the degree of value congruence, with var ying findings. The variance appears greatest in developing countries, where the civil ser vants may have accepted Western ideas of responsibility but many citizens perceive government ver y dif ferently (Nakamura and Koike, 1992). The ideas of universalism and equality, prized so highly in Western societies and forming the basis of many complaints against bureaucracy, find fewer suppor ters in non- Western countries. In fact, an administrator employing those values would encounter some of the same difficulties as would an administrator in Western countries making decisions primarily on the basis of clan membership or race. In other words, the problems of accountability var y, as do the cultures of adminis- tration, the basic consideration being that administrators do what is expected of them by citizens. Other than singing songs of praise to good administrative values, what can be done to promote accountability through normative constraints? In the short run, perhaps ver y little. As noted, most political systems have a well- established concep- tion of bureaucracy, and in most systems this conception is not generally positive (but see Du Gay, 2000; Goodsell, 2004). Despite many managerial improvements that image appears to be becoming even less favorable. Thus, the projection of good administrative values usually cannot come from the larger society, so it must be generated internally. This is relatively easy to do among the elite branches of the civil ser vice, those which have strong esprit de corps, a feeling of responsibility for the guidance of society, and favored positions within that society. It is consider- ably more difficult among ordinar y public employees, who have little to distinguish themselves from private employees upon whom demands of public ser vice and loyalty are not made. Again, we do not think that those who opt for public ser vice are any better or worse than those who opt for private employment; the major dif- ferences are the demands and expectations of the job. If an employee of a private firm does not give the customer satisfaction, there is recourse to future consumer behavior. If a public employee fails to provide satisfaction, it may literally become a federal case.

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The vast improvements in public salaries and benefits, condemned on many accounts, may also serve a useful function in terms of internalized controls in bureaucracy. The higher salary levels make the public service a safe and rewarding place of employment, and they also provide some tangible reward for the demands of the office. Higher salaries may also recruit more people of great talent to the public service, people who would have been deterred previously by the relatively low com- pensation. The causal factor in some increases in public sector salaries – unionization of public employees – may play a valuable role in raising morale and standards in the public service. Unions can make the job of the civil servant more of a profession, just as higher salaries attract more qualified people. This is especially important in socie- ties such as the United States or Australia, where the civil service has not been highly regarded and has not enjoyed the high status it commands in Western Europe or Canada. One possible side effect, however, is to make the public service too much of a profession and thereby further isolate it from society at large. Again, however, there are some contrary trends. Both the increased politicization of the public service, and opening civil service jobs in more countries to outsiders to ensure political commit- ment, will tend to make the public service more closely linked to the society. The public service may more closely reflect value changes in the mass public as winners in elections are able to bring more of their supporters into government. Normative control, then, is the ultimate control on bureaucracy. It is inex- pensive, is reliable, and operates before the grievance rather than simply provid- ing punishment or compensation after wards. Most societies are indeed fortunate that they have such high levels of this form of control already in operation, so that the institutional mechanisms outlined above have to be employed relatively infre- quently. Even with the number of control institutions that have been developed, it would probably be impossible to have control without the internalized values of most public employees.

The Limits of Control

Aside from the average, garden- variety problems of administrative accountability and control, there are a number of more specialized problems and considerations that also deser ve attention. In these cases, the conventional mechanisms for public control and accountability are strained to their limits and are often exceeded. As significant as these problems are, they are no longer unusual and, hence, require some extensive thought and even reconceptualization if the organizations involved are to be brought into conformity with conventional thinking about responsible bureaucracy. The numerous innovations that governments and their employees have undertaken to cope with changing economic and political demands have gen- erated a new and difficult set of control problems.

The Professions

One commonly mentioned problem straining administrative control is the existence of professional employees within the public bureaucracy. Almost by definition, a

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professional has the type of internalized value structure that was advocated earlier as the ultimate control on civil ser vants. These professional value structures, which are promulgated, inculcated, and policed by the profession itself, place the interest of the client above that of the practitioner, and prescribe strict propriety in dealing with the interests and privacy of the client (Abbott, 1988). The problem is that these values often conflict with the values of the organization for which the profession- als work. A common case is the scientist who works for a government research office. One norm of the scientific profession is free flow of information and ideas. That free flow of ideas, if doing work for the government on secret materials, just would not be tolerated. In the same manner, a physician employed by a public agency continues to believe in his or her primar y responsibility to the patient, a belief that conflicts with record- keeping demands or requirements of standard treatment in a public organization (Fountain, 2001). The list of similar conflicts could be extended, but the basic point is made. Professionals may have values that conflict fundamentally with the requirements of their public jobs. The public sector needs to employ professionals, so some accommodation of values must be made, perhaps on both sides. This is, however, one instance in which normal procedures of control and accountability may simply not be applicable. A special case of the problem of controlling professionals arises when the public ser vice itself is conceptualized as a profession. As more and more schools of public ser vice emerge in the United States, there is a tendency for the graduates of those schools to think of themselves as professionals, much as would graduates in law or social work, and to have internalized value systems that are like those of the other professionals. In other countries, as in France with its ENA, this professional- ism is of longer standing. The difficulty this presents from a control perspective is that the professional self- concept may make civil ser vants even more resistant to control by the “amateurs” in political office. By training and by concern for the client or the “public interest,” the civil ser vant may believe that he or she knows best.

Autonomous and Semi- autonomous Agencies

Governments now use a wide variety of autonomous and quasi- autonomous organi- zations to deliver public ser vices. We pointed out above that the creation of agen- cies, quangos, and a host of other such organizations has been justified on the basis of economic efficiency (see Pollitt et al., 2004). As was true for public corporations in the past, the dominant assumption is that these less- directly controlled organi- zations will be able to make decisions on the basis of economic and performance criteria, rather than on the basis of political considerations. These organizations, on the other hand, present new problems of accountability. Public corporations appear to present fewest problems of control: after all, they have a statement of profit or loss (usually the latter), so that one can see at a glance just how well they are managed. In practice it is not that easy. First, making a profit is only one goal, and perhaps not a ver y important goal, for a public corpora- tion. If the activity is profitable and profit is all we care about, the industr y should be private. In the case of public transportation, the goals of providing cheap and

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rapid transportation, reducing the numbers of automobiles on the roads, spread- ing out peak hours of traffic, redevelopment of declining areas, and so on, may conflict with the profit goal. Thus, evaluating management of a public corporation may involve considerably more than simply looking at the balance sheet at the end of the year. There is almost invariably a difficulty in controlling public organizations that have been “hived off ” from direct political control. One common governance arrangement for such organizations is to have an independent or semi- independent board of directors, thus removing them from direct lines of executive authority (Bouckaert et al., 2000). While conventional lines of authority are no panacea for the problems of control, they at least provide a connection with political author- ity. An agency or public corporation is meant to be independent of such control, presumably so that it can make more independent, managerial judgments about its direction. This leaves the organization in the position of being a political entity with only limited connection with political leadership and guidance (see Feigenbaum, 1985). It is perhaps as awkward a position for the managers as it is for the public. It is also an awkward position for political leaders who may be held accountable for actions over which they have little or no control. This problem of the accountability of public corporations is an especially important one for developing countries, where those organizations are central to the strategy of economic development. They may also offer many of the best posi- tions for public employees in these relatively poor countries. This, then, presents political leaders with the need to balance political and technical criteria in the appointment of officials (Ross Schneider, 1991). There have been some major suc- cesses for nationalized industries in Latin America (PEMEX in Mexico and Petroles de Venezuela, SA in Venezuela) and many in the Newly Industrializing Countries of Asia, but political rather than economic criteria have dominated management of these enterprises.

Contracts and Third- party Government

The difficulties encountered with nationalized industries, both economically and managerially, have encouraged many countries to privatize many of those indus- tries. In general, nationalized industries and direct ser vice provision have been replaced with a variety of contractual and third- party mechanisms that involve an interaction of the public and private sectors. Those changes in ser vice deliver y mechanisms may be desirable from an economic perspective, but they present their own administrative challenges, especially control and accountability, and require some substantial rethinking of the instruments through which government delivers its ser vices. Government by contract often presents a difficult control problem for politi- cal officials (Stewart, 1993; Milward, 1994). So long as the personnel implementing a program are within the public sector, a certain amount of hierarchical control can be exercised over them. Likewise, the values of public sector employees are likely to be more consonant with the “public interest” than are those of private sector employees, especially ones working for a “for profit” organization. Further,

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implementation through the public sector may ultimately be more direct than the development of a complex contractual or partnership arrangement. It, therefore, ever ything else being equal, will be easier to monitor. The difficulties in monitoring government contracts appear especially preva- lent in the procurement of goods and ser vices from the private sector – particularly in defense procurement. The numerous horror stories of defense procurement in the United States can be matched in other countries, although the scale of the defense establishment in the US may make the scale of apparent mismanagement appear extreme (Schinasi, 2006). Defense procurement is difficult because it is largely prospective, asking contractors to develop new weapons systems. In addi- tion, there are a limited number of possible suppliers for large systems such as airplanes. Government also has an interest in keeping those few large contractors in business so that it will have the weapons it needs in the future, and spare parts for existing weapons, so that many of the bargains that are struck are “sweetheart deals.” The above are not excuses for the “fraud, waste and abuse” that sometimes occurs in defense contracting but they do point to reasons for difficulties in exercis- ing tight control. It should also be pointed out that most of the problems that arise in govern- ment contracting arise from unethical behavior in the private sector rather than from corruption in the public sector. Certainly government agencies contracting with the private sector should monitor their contracts as well as they can to ensure that the public gets value for money, but that would not be quite the problem that it is if the private sector were living as fastidiously as we expect the public sector to. There is evidence of occasional incompetence on the part of public contract moni- tors, but generally not of corruption or malfeasance.

Unions

In addition to the positive benefits that unions of public employees can have for the public ser vice, some accountability problems are also created. In addition to the protection af forded public employees by civil ser vice regulations, many now have additional protection through unions. Likewise, many industrial employees who were minimally protected by civil ser vice procedures are more fully pro- tected by unions. While these patterns are rather common in modern societies, where individual rights are a central concern in management and in government, they make the job of the public manager much more difficult. There is the proce- dural problem of conforming to both civil ser vice and union regulations on hiring, firing, and transferring employees. In addition, employees must now be dealt with as a bloc, with threats of strikes even against vital ser vices such as police, fire fighting, and sanitation. Unlike most industrial firms, when there is a strike there is no way of doing without those ser vices for more than a shor t period of time, so public managers and political officials are under pressure to find a settle- ment – and frequently must accede to the demands of the unions. Although some jobs may have a ver y low status, e.g., sanitation workers, their impor tance to the community may be such that they will be in a bargaining position comparable to that of physicians in the public ser vice. Therefore, with unionization, the political

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system risks losing control over its budget as well as of its personnel policies (Modell, 2001).

Political Structure

The political structure of the countr y can also present significant difficulties for controlling public administration. Federalism is perhaps the most obvious struc- tural factor inhibiting control of administration. The arrangements of federalism need not be as extreme as those found in Germany or the European Community, which has most programs of the central government administered by the constitu- ent Lander or member states, but even the less extreme versions of the structure require some program implementation by administrators not directly responsible to the policy makers. For example, in the United States, most federal social welfare law is executed by employees of state and local governments, as is most federal educa- tion law. This means simply that the control of the federal government is reduced; this level is left primarily with the rather blunt power of withdrawing federal money from the program. Control was weakened more by Reagan’s “New Federalism,” in which previous categorical programs were converted into block grants, with increased difficulty in monitoring the use of federal money. With money being pro- vided in a block, it is difficult to monitor what proportion is used for which ser vices, and the states are, therefore, able to impose some of their own priorities in the federal program. While this relocation of priority setting is one intention of the program, and it may make political sense, it poses difficulties in financial account- ability and control. A variant of structure that also inhibits control of administration is the separa- tion of policy- making and implementing agencies, as has existed in Sweden for a number of years and is being copied by numerous other countries such as Britain, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Latvia (Pollitt and Talbot, 2004). In this scheme ministries are held responsible for formulating policy, while boards are responsible for executing those policies. Again, there is a separation that can only make it more difficult to control what actually happens with a policy rather than simply what the policy is on paper. A variant of separating policy and administration is the increasing dependence of government on nongovernmental actors to deliver public ser vices. An increasing share of public programs is implemented by individuals not directly in government, or certainly not employees of the level of government that funds the program. We have noted the financial accountability problems created by the flow of funds among levels of government, and these problems are even greater when something less tangible than money, like authority or responsibility, must be audited. The prob- lems increase further when the actors involved are not sub national governments but not- for-profit institutions, businesses, or interest groups. Some attempts have been made to devise accountability structures for con- temporar y ser vice deliver y systems involving large numbers of nongovernment, or lower- level government, organizations. Building accountability for these complex deliver y arrangements involves substituting a variety of instruments for some of the controls that had been exercised from above. While those alternatives are

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effective in involving a number of actors in and out of government – often including the public – they tend to lack the capacity to enforce.

Culture

We have already outlined variations in culture affecting the success or failure of bureaucratic means of policy execution. We should perhaps remember those vari- ations now in regard to control of administration. The basic point is that some politi- cal systems and cultures lack normative commitment to public morality and proper administration so important for controlling administration. Many, in fact, regard the Western model of bureaucracy alien and almost immoral. Having a bureaucrat’s job may not be evidence of a public trust or responsibility, but rather an opportun- ity for the individual and the family. It is the individual who fails to provide hand- somely for the family, rather than the individual who does, who will be regarded as immoral in such cultural settings. While Western (or non- traditional) values have certainly spread, they are still not universal, so we must be cognizant when speak- ing of administrative control of the ver y different cultural settings in which the problem may occur. Even within Western countries, there are important cultural changes that can influence the manner in which administration is conducted and resultant problems of administrative control. At least since the 1960s, more individualist, less hierar- chical, political cultures have been emerging. This cultural pattern represents a problem for many conventional methods of control, since it makes accepting hier- archy, and presumably of authoritative commands within the organization, less certain. On the other hand, there has been some reassertion of traditional ethical values that may make normative controls which are, as we have already argued, central to effective enforcement of responsibility, all the more influential in deci- sions made by individual public ser vants.

Nonadministration

Nonadministration, just like nonpolicy, is difficult to control. It is more difficult to control something that does not happen than to compensate for tasks that have been done improperly or unfairly. In other words, it is much harder to get the bureaucracy to do something that it should than it is to stop it doing something it should not. There are few positive checks to force individuals or agencies to make decisions, while there are numerous procedures for stopping them, or for obtaining compensation for improper decisions. Even the political executive, who is presumed to be able to command action from the bureaucracy, may not be able to command in practice, but may only bargain with the myriad of actors, all of whom are somewhat involved in executing policy. Even a president, concerned about the presence of missiles in Cuba or urban problems in Oakland, or a minister of educa- tion concerned about educational reform, cannot command action. The bureau- cracy apparently has its own ways of doing things, which means that things will not necessarily be done when government executives want them done. If presidents

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and prime ministers have these problems, what about the average citizens? The answer is that, first, we must rely on general acceptance of the ideas of “good gov- ernment” by most people in the public ser vice, and second, we must be willing to go to the trouble of using the available political methods when those internal norms do not work. As New Public Management has shifted from pursuing the slogan of “let the managers manage” to implementing one of “make the managers manage” some of the issues of nonadministration become easier to address. In particular, the increased use of performance management (see Chapter 10) has provided more effective means of identifying and controlling the failure of individuals and organizations to perform their assigned tasks. Organizations may be given greater latitude in how they pursue their policy goals, but they certainly will be expected to pursue them.

Summary

Control of public administration, even in the currently enlarged state of govern- ment and bureaucracy, seems to depend on two rather personal characteristics of people. The first is civil ser vants’ internalized sense of their proper role. This sense of civic responsibility, duty, or even honor may var y across cultures, even within the narrow range of Western governments, but basic ideas of responsiveness to demands, responsibility to political leaders, and accountability are found in virtu- ally all systems. They may not always be put into effect, but the values are generally understood. Most civil ser vants appear to accept these values and generally tr y to put them into operation. If it were not for this widespread acceptance of values, all the institutional mechanisms of control outlined here would be buried in the sheer volume of maladministration. The second component of a properly functioning system of administra- tive accountability is the population ser ved by the civil ser vice. Most methods of accountability depend upon individuals or groups pressing demands before the mechanism goes into operation. Thus, responsibility and accountability imply a pair of actors – there must be someone to be responsible to. Even institutional mechanism such as legislatures are ineffective if politicians find that the public does not care. There is little or no incentive to expend energy and time and there is no means of ensuring proper administration for an apathetic, cynical population. If we return to the several dimensions of accountability and control at the beginning of this discussion, we can see that the two are well covered by the accountability mechanisms we have outlined. First, there are a number of checks on bureaucratic institutions but rather fewer checks on individuals, in large part because of their insulation by the organization. It is often difficult for political insti- tutions to deal with individuals without dealing with an entire organization. Thus, in order for the wheels of government to continue turning, many personal actions may yet go unpunished. Likewise, there are any number of procedures for dealing with sins of commission but relatively few for dealing with sins of omission, or simply excessive rigidity. In many cases “nonadministrators” are technically correct in terms of the rule book but manage to undermine the intent of programs by their adherence to the letter of the law.

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It is clear from earlier chapters that the role of public bureaucracy in making public policy is increasing. Therefore questions of accountability and control become more crucial. Social and political trends appear to make control both easier and more difficult for future generations of citizens and politicians. On the one hand, the spread of mass education and the mass media makes it easier for the population to become informed about the actions of bureaucracy. Legal changes in the requirements for publicity in several countries are making information more widely available. Mass education may also mean that the public bureaucracy will be drawn from a broader spectrum of the population and, therefore, have both greater empathy with the problems of citizens and a better understanding of the public’s conception of bureaucracy. Finally, recent events in a number of countries – Belgium, Japan, Germany, and Italy are examples – have led their populations to be concerned about government and to be more willing to question the activities of public officials. If such healthy skepticism does not develop into cynicism and a rejection of the political system as immoral and essentially unjust, then it can help to promote effective popular control over bureaucratic behavior. At the same time, there are several developments promoting greater adminis- trative insulation from control. In addition to the increasing size of bureaucracy and the complexity of the tasks it undertakes, a number of public programs, such as social security in the United States and many other countries, have become “sacred cows” that few politicians have the fortitude to attack. As popular programs age and their clientele and their procedures become institutionalized, they may become at once inefficient and unassailable. In addition, a number of personnel practices in the public ser vice tend to insulate the bureaucracy further. In particular, the growth of public employee unions may limit the ability of managers to control per- sonnel. Finally, there appears to be a tendency to “hive off ” and depoliticize public ser vices. This is in part a reaction to the popular revulsion over politics already mentioned, due to both the increasing involvement in ser vices with some market characteristics, and as a means of cutting costs. In any case, depoliticization is, in most instances, simply a formula for bureaucratic power.

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C h a p t e r 9

Administrative Reform

Ideas for Reform 302 Specific Reforms 310 The Politics of Administrative Reform 316 Summary 320

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One of the many paradoxes in public administration is that, during an era in which much of the public considers government irrelevant and almost inherently inef- ficient (see Chapter 2), their elective leaders have continued to spend an immense amount of time and energy reforming public administration. For the most part the goals of these reforms are the same as those expressed in the Gore Report (National Performance Review) in the United States: to make government work better and cost less (see Hood and Dixon, 2015). The definition of “working better” may differ across governments, and even across components of the same government. The basic point, however, is that if government is to be able to overcome the discontent and distrust of its citizens, it must find ways to become more efficient and effective in the processes of making and implementing policy. At the same time, however, there are also pressures for government to become more responsive to the public and to be more transparent in the way in which it makes decisions. The goals of making government more efficient and effective are worthy in this period or any other, and there have been many attempts to achieve them. Some reforms have been sweeping changes, such as those implemented in the postcom- munist systems in Eastern Europe, as well as in many democratizing countries in the Third World. Other reforms have been more incremental, with many govern- ments in the First World making relatively minor changes in the way they adminis- ter policies (see Kickert, 2005). It is almost impossible, however, to find a political system that has not seriously examined its public administration and imposed some manner of change, whether comprehensive or more sweeping (Khan, 1999). There are differences in the extent of change, and in the style of change being adopted, but there almost certainly has been change. This chapter will consider the reform of public bureaucracies in a compara- tive perspective. We will do this by first discussing the ideas that have motivated reform during the past several decades, rather than by taking the question on a countr y by countr y, or even a policy area by area, basis. We will also look at the dif fusion of relatively common ideas about change, and discuss what factors cause many countries to adopt reforms that appear, at least on the sur face, to be of little relevance to the objective political and economic conditions being addressed. Indeed, we will question the efficacy of reform in many settings, and point to alternative strategies.

Ideas for Reform

To some extent the word “reform” itself has a positive connotation so that simply promising to reform may be sufficient politically to motivate change. What dis- tinguished reform in the 1980s and 1990s, and reform going for ward into the twenty- first centur y, is that there are concepts and ideas that have informed and justified the changes. In some cases these ideas are used ver y explicitly to guide the reform, as when Margaret Thatcher used the ideas of the economist William Niskanen to justify her campaign for reform of the British civil ser vice (Hen- nessy, 1987). In most cases, however, the ideas are more implicit, although they can often be discerned through anything more than a cursor y reading of reform documents.

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As well as being a set of ideas guiding reform, these ideas are not necessarily compatible, so that embarking on reforms motivated by one set of ideas may mean that adopting other types of changes, appealing though the other set of reforms may appear, will be counterproductive. For example, many countries in Africa and Asia have implemented market- based reforms with few positive results (Booth and Cammack, 2013). Thus, the would- be reformer must be ver y careful about the intel- lectual provenance of any reforms adopted, as well as about their compatibility with the political and administrative institutions being reformed. A wide range of politi- cal and administrative leaders appear to favor change in the public sector, and to be interested in promoting administrative reform, but in practice it is more difficult than simply developing a political consensus for change. In this instance we should perhaps reverse the old adage and ask: “That is fine in practice but will it work in theor y?”

The Market

The dominant idea for changes adopted during the past two decades has been the market. The assumption is that the public sector would be more efficient and effec- tive if it were more like the private sector. William Niskanen (1971), the economist whose ideas were so favored by Mrs. Thatcher, argued famously that bureau man- agers within government were aggressive entrepreneurs who attempt to maximize their own utilities. Those bureau chiefs pursue their personal goals in the public sector by increasing the size of their agency and its budget. The monopoly charac- ter of those bureaus, and the asymmetr y of information in favor of the bureaucracy, has enabled bureaus to disguise the true costs of production for their goods and ser vices. This control of information enabled them to extract larger than necessar y budgets from their “sponsors,” the legislature. The dominant diagnosis of what is wrong with government in the market approach is that most government ser vices are monopolies, hence their managers have few incentives to become more efficient or to reveal its costs of production. Those monopolies range from ser vices that are clearly public and perhaps never will be subject to real competition – defense and provision of social benefits for the population – through ser vices such as the post office that historically have been public but could easily be subjected to private competition. At the other extreme are ser vices that, in many societies, are in the private sector but in the public sector in other countries – for example, airlines or telecommunications. Most government ser vices fall between those two extremes, with some potential for being subjected to competition but also with some characteristics that argue for their remaining in the public sector and provided as a public monopoly. For example, the postal ser vice has long been a public sector activity but its traditional monopoly is now eroded by courier companies, private messengers, not to mention electronic com- munications. In the extreme cases, introducing market- based reforms has meant privatiz- ing activities that had been under the direct ownership and control of the public sector. In the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, privatization has meant a massive selloff of industries, although in many cases finding buyers

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for the outmoded industrial plants left from the Soviet era has proved quite difficult (Rosenbaum et al., 2000). A similar level of selling off public assets has occurred in some Third World countries, as they encounter pressures from international organ- izations to adjust their economies to greater market involvement (Rhodes, 2006). Most West European countries have also implemented extensive selloffs of public enterprises, although the manner in which those privatizations have been imple- mented has varied substantially (Wright, 2000). Somewhat paradoxically, privatiza- tions in Western Europe have often involved less complete divestment than those in the former communist systems. In many cases governments have maintained some level of involvement in their former enterprises, if only a “golden share” that gives them some voting rights on the management board. In addition to selling off publicly owned corporations and returning those industries to the control of private sector managers, governments have also sought to implement market ideals by separating the implementation of policy from its formulation. Also, the implementation structures are being broken down so that, when possible, each organization becomes responsible for implementing only a single program. The logic of this disaggregation of responsibility for implemen- tation is that the presence of a number of functions within a single organization results in those activities cross- subsidizing each other. If the activities are sepa- rated, sponsors can tell more easily the costs of each and make better decisions about their funding and better assess their efficiency. In addition to the structural changes in the public sector, the introduction of market reforms has meant using market ideas to change the operations of govern- ment itself. This can be seen perhaps most clearly in the management of public sector personnel. We have discussed the nature of civil ser vice systems in an earlier chapter, but although these personnel systems represent the triumph of one style of good government, they also remove the employees from the same pressures and incentives found for employees in the private sector. So, for example, the traditional pay system based upon grading of positions and seniority is being replaced with “pay for performance” and other private sector techniques (Marsden, 2004). Simi- larly, public sector positions are no longer the preser ve of career public ser vice but rather are now open to more overt competition, and positions in government are advertised much as private jobs would be. Even when governments cannot divest themselves of firms and ser vices, they have been finding ways of introducing market thinking into policy making. The market has been introduced in part through the concept of internal markets, or attempting to make people within the public sector act as if they actually were in a competitive situation. For example, the National Health Ser vice in the United Kingdom, and health programs in some other countries as well, have made a split between “purchasers” and “providers.” For example, in health care, a regional health authority may be the purchaser and hospitals the providers. Hospitals may then prepare bids for the “business” of the health authority in a number of dif- ferent areas, e.g., varieties of surger y. This may be only a facsimile of a market, given that there is a limited opportunity to enter and all the money involved is tax money. This arrangement, however, may still be able to instill some sense of com- petition into making policy. As well as making policy through internal markets, the market model also advocates allowing the public to make more of their own choices

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about public policy. Given the basic indictment of public monopolies inherent in the market model, policies that permit individual citizens to decide what ser vices they want from government are logically central to the market reforms. The voucher is one example of a policy of that sort (Steurle and Twombly, 2002). The concept of the voucher is that, instead of providing a public ser vice such as education as a monopoly, government may provide consumers with a voucher which they can use to choose among a number of alternative providers. For example, government may continue to provide education but parents would be able to use their vouchers for the local public school, another public school, or for a variety of private sector providers. Thus, the citizen becomes a real consumer making choices, providing, of course, that these private opportunities actually exist. The voucher also has obvious disadvantages for the public bureaucracy. The shift to private sector provision of ser vices means that there is less need for public employees. It is not surprising, therefore, that public sector unions tend to oppose this reform, often disguising self- interest in terms of the interests of the clients. Further, there may be some potential problems for clients and even for the private sector if the voucher becomes a standard means of delivering public ser vices. For the clients, there are major information demands – knowing what the options are and evaluating them is not easy for most citizens. Likewise, the citizen in the role of taxpayer may find that he or she is paying for two school systems or for two housing sectors, both operating at a suboptimal level. The market also offers a somewhat different answer to the classic adminis- trative problem of accountability than does the conventional pattern of operation in this field (see Chapter 8). As well as Niskanen’s ideas about monopoly and maxi- mization, another strand of academic thinking in the market approach to reform is the principal- agent model (Horn, 1995; Le Grande, 2003). In this view organizations can be seen as a series of relationships between principals and agents, the latter assumed to be acting on the commands of the former. The difference between this view and conventional thinking about hierarchy is that agents are assumed to be self- interested and will attempt to “shirk” – get paid for compliance while simulta- neously pursuing their own goals. Therefore, contracts can be seen as a means of attempting to control shirking, and as the principal means of ensuring the account- ability of public organizations. The idea of using the market and competition is the most successful in the current round of reforms, but they are certainly not universally accepted and there are numerous strong critiques of its dominance (March and Olsen, 1995; Self, 1995). Perhaps the most important critique of the market model is normative, arguing that government is not the same as the private sector, so that any attempt to substitute competition and to permit (or encourage) different outcomes for citizens, threatens the values of equality that have been central to the public sector. Further, ser v- ices such as health care may be too important to tamper with and create artificial markets that often appear to replace medical personnel with accountants to manage the complex interactions within them. Even if the deliver y of ser vices is not the same as in the public sector, might not management be the same? Empirically it is not clear that market incentives always work in the public sector, and civil ser vants may be interested in promoting values other than money in their jobs, something that is not recognized readily

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by the market model (Moore, 1995). Further, normatively it is not clear that the public is best ser ved by public employees who are motivated primarily by financial rewards. Many public programs may actually ser ve the public better if they are inefficient and if they absorb a great deal of personnel time and energy. Further, the old- fashioned values of ser vice and commitment to the public interest may well produce a better set of public programs than a commitment to personal profit.

Participation

The market model is obviously based on economic perspectives. The second model of reform – participation – is a much more political model. The diagnosis of the problems of the public sector here is that government is excessively hierarchical. It is thought that there is a need for participation, in the first instance, within the organizations themselves. The assumption of the participator y reformers is that government organizations would work better if the members of those structures were provided the opportunity to be intimately involved with the decisions of their organizations. Further, advocates of the participator y model would also provide these employees with more opportunities to make decisions on their own. Like the market, the participatory model is actually an old management idea, going back at least to the “human relations” approach to organizations (Argyris, 1964). These ideas of participation in organizations are, in turn, based on even more basic assumptions about human nature. In particular, the participatory model assumes that individuals are interested in their jobs and, given the opportunity, will do the best job possible. Although employees certainly want to be paid a decent wage, money is not the only means of motivating people to do their job well – involvement in decisions and having an interesting job are potentially even more important. The creation of values and commitment among employees is particularly important in the public sector, and public employees (especially at the top of the organizational pyra- mids) are often strongly motivated by sincere commitments to the programs they are implementing, as well as to the general concept of public service (see Chapter 3). Many senior civil servants may, in fact, be insulted that their political masters assume that they are interested primarily in the financial rewards of the job. As well as fostering the involvement of public employees, the participator y approach to reforming the public sector also emphasizes greater involvement of clients, and of the public more generally, in the design and implementation of the programs. The assumption of these reforms is that the public is also interested in exerting some control over the public sector and are willing to invest time and energy in doing so. It is difficult for the public to have such influence in the conven- tional bureaucratic structures of government so that reforms are then required to produce those opportunities for participation. These can range from simple voting in referenda through public hearings and discussions to the actual management of public programs by their clients. One of the major recommendations that the participator y approach to reform makes about structure is to reduce the hierarchy within government organizations. For example, the National Performance Review (the Gore Commission) in the United States has attempted to reduce the number of hierarchical levels from top

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to bottom in federal agencies and in this process also to remove layers of control over lower- echelon workers. Although justified by the ideology of participation and empowerment, this structural change is made possible in large part by the devel- opment of information technologies that enable senior managers to monitor and control those lower- echelon workers with much less immediate super vision (see Peters and Pierre, 2000). While flattening organizations does not foster per se more internal participation, concepts such as “reinvention” and Total Quality Manage- ment do place a premium on the role of employees and their ideas about how to run the organizations. The quality movement is but one of many attempts to use participative mech- anisms as a way to involve workers, and also as a means for managing those same workers. On the one hand these devices can be a crucial means of both involving the workers and bringing for ward their ideas to improve the performance of the organization. On the other hand, the mechanisms of the quality movement have the potential for manipulating those same workers. It may offer them only the sem- blance of participation in return for their acquiescence in, or active support for, the programs of the agency. Further, managers may not really understand the extent to which the participation they are offering is less than genuine and may believe that they are indeed being open and participator y. Participation is being extended to making policy as well as implementation. Again, this participation is usually argued to include both the clients of the program as well as the program’s employees. If lower echelons are “empowered” (Heeks, 1999) to make more of their own decisions and can exercise greater discretion, then they clearly must become more important in making policy. In addition, mech- anisms such as TQM and the reinvention process functioning as a central com- ponent of the National Performance Review in the United States all assume that lower- level employees of the agency will be more closely involved in shaping policy than in the traditional government bureaucracy. Empowering clients is being achieved in a number of ways. The market model advocated choice for citizens and clients, and the participation model does the same, although the forms of choice are rather different. In the market model that choice is to be achieved through an economic mechanism, while in the par- ticipator y approach that choice is to be achieved through more political means. For example, in education, rather than relying on a voucher and the opportunity to purchase the ser vice, the participation model assumes that the parents will have to participate in committees or boards that may manage the school directly. In Denmark, for example, most local schools are in essence managed by the parents and teachers, albeit within the guidelines of national educational authorities. This is a more time- consuming approach to choice, and one that depends upon collective choice, not just an individual’s decision about how to spend the voucher. The idea of the “citizen’s charter” is another way of permitting citizens, in their role as clients, to participate more in the deliver y of ser vices. The charter is basically a form of enforcing accountability, but enumerating a set of quality standards that a citizen has a right to expect, and then using those to empower the citizens against the bureaucracy. While the redress of grievances implied by the charters is only ex post facto, complaints can be used as a means of guiding man- agers in efforts to improve ser vices, and in rewarding and punishing employees.

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This idea first came to wide- scale notice in the United Kingdom, but has now been spread to a large number of countries, including the United States, France, New Zealand, and Argentina. The market model has its problems, and the same is true for the participa- tor y approach to reforming the public sector. We have already noted that partici- pation may be inauthentic, with the result that clients or employees may believe they can shape policy when, in fact, they cannot. This may be true for legal as well as managerial reasons. In addition, attempts to empower both clients and lower- echelon employees may produce conflict between these groups that have, in many cases, contradictor y interests in the program (Peters and Pierre, 2000). Further, the clients of the program and the general public may also have different interests, especially as clients tend to want programs expanded and the general public often wants to contain programs and the associated taxation.

Deregulation

Another strand of thinking about the reform of the public sector argues that what is wrong with government is that the people in the public sector are constrained by rules and regulations that prevent them from doing their jobs efficiently and effec- tively. These rules represent the outcomes of previous rounds of reform, but now have (at least in the eyes of these reformers) become dysfunctional. For example, creating civil ser vice systems in many countries was a long and arduous politi- cal process, requiring overcoming political leaders who wanted to continue to use public office as a means of rewarding their political allies (Kopecky et al., 2012). As important as the civil ser vice has been in creating probity in public office, it is now felt by many reformers to be an impediment to good management (Horner, 1994). A public sector manager usually cannot hire, fire, and compensate employees as he or she would like. Likewise, purchasing regulations were adopted in order to ensure that political and administrative officials did not use government contracts to enrich their friends and political supporters. These rules now appear to prevent government from getting the cheapest prices for goods, and also slow the procure- ment process. The obvious solution for a problem of too many rules is to eliminate some of those rules, and this is indeed the course of the reforms being implemented in many countries. For example, in the United States the rules that had guided recruitment and retention of public employees through the civil ser vice are now deemphasized and organizations are allowed substantial freedom in the personnel process. Likewise, managers are now free to purchase goods and ser vices up to a ver y high price without having to go through a competitive bidding process, provid- ing they can justify the choices made. The budget process is also being deregulated in many countries, with “bulk” or “frame” budgeting replacing traditional line- item budgeting. This increase in managerial freedom is designed to “let the managers manage,” one of the phrases often used as a justification for administrative reforms of this type. Managers in this reforming view of government are also more than just man- agers; they are also, to some extent, policy makers. The assumption is that they

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know as much, and probably more, about what should be done in their policy area as politicians and, therefore, should be permitted to function as policy entrepre- neurs in their own right. The hero in the deregulator y conception of reforming government is the public manager. He or she is presumed to be capable of manag- ing well, and also should be an expert in the policy being administered. This is a substantial range of expectations for the manager, but perhaps little more than conventionally ministers have been expected to be able to do (Brewer and Selden, 2000). Indeed, the public manager has a distinct advantage in not having to run for office and, therefore, not having that range of political responsibilities that can be extremely time-consuming. Further, the manager is freed from having to think (at least ver y much) about the electoral consequences of decisions and, therefore, may be able to press for the technically correct, rather than the popular, decisions. Given the emphasis on the role of the manager in deregulator y reforms, it should be no surprise that these officials should also be the central focus of accountability in this version of public sector reform. In a deregulated government, ministers might become less responsible for the day- to-day actions of their ministr y than they have been, at least in the conventional Westminster model of ministerial responsibility. Also, the focus of accountability might be expected to shift toward the average performance of a government organization rather than exceptional events that can be used to embarrass the minister and the government of the day. Thus, accountability itself becomes more managerial rather than political in the managerial model of governing that is emerging in some societies.

Flexible Government

A final, and perhaps less fully developed, approach to administrative reform can be termed “flexible government” (Chisholm, 1988). The problem with govern- ment identified in this approach to reform is that their organizations are exces- sively stable so that they institutionalize patterns of governing that may have been functional at one time but which are not capable of responding to changes in the socioeconomic environment. Further, the stable and rather tightly defined tasks assigned to ministries in governments make coordination of ser vices around new problems more difficult than it might be in a less- institutionalized system of govern- ing (Peters, 2015). Creating flexible government is an intriguing challenge for conventional gov- ernment structures. The political and budgetar y incentives of government have been for organizations to capture emerging problems and identify them as their own policy “property.” Likewise, interest groups that may motivate the policy process also tend to have narrow definitions of issues and problems and may not like the flexibility implied by a more responsive and coordinated government. Politicians and citizens may also be skeptical about more adaptable government arrangements given that a flexible system may make monitoring and enforcing accountability in government even more difficult than in conventional structures where those tasks are already difficult enough. In addition, a government that is too streamlined and too coordinated may not be able to cope with a policy- making environment that is increasingly fluid and

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unpredictable. Somewhat paradoxically a more fragmented system, even when highly institutionalized and seemingly inflexible, may be able to cope with a chang- ing environment more readily than can a highly coordinated system. That coping may not produce the coherence and policy integration that some critics of govern- ment might prefer, but there will be a capacity to respond and make policy.

Summary

Administrative reform is now informed by a number of ideas about how govern- ment should and could work, as well as about the failings of what had been the conventional model of government and administration. Each of the several models of change discussed above has a certain amount of validity, and has clear implica- tions. The problem with implementing those ideas is that many implementers have been less clear about, and dedicated to, the concepts and their implications than have the academic and political advocates of change. That is, many implementers of reform have assumed that they could simply choose among a set of structural and procedural changes that appear to have worked elsewhere and then make them work in whatever combination they chose. I would argue, however, that many of these ideas and programs are incompat- ible, and picking one reform may preclude implementing others effectively. This rather random borrowing of ideas and programs has been the pattern in the past, but it appears less viable with the current set of reforms. This difference from the past is, in large part, because of the stronger ideological and even intellectual content of the contemporar y reforms. For example, the underlying importance of individualism in the market model may be incompatible with the more collective view in the participator y model. Likewise, the market model is, to some extent, incompatible with the emphasis on management and activity in the deregulator y model of change.

Specific Reforms

The above discussion contained some examples of change in government over the past several decades, but may have appeared rather abstract in places. We will now proceed to discuss some of the specific reform initiatives that have been imple- mented during that same time period. We do not have the space or time here to detail all the numerous types of reform and to assess their success in all the set- tings in which they have been implemented. Therefore, we will concentrate on some of the principal types of change, especially those that have been implemented in more than one countr y.

Agencies and Deconcentration

One of the principal structural reforms that has been implemented has been to break up integrated ministerial departments of government, such as those that

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have characterized the United Kingdom. The ministerial structures made policy as well as implementing it, and had a relatively clear and common hierarchy from top to bottom. The model that has been widely favored to replace that style of organ- izing has been termed the “agency model,” meaning that implementation activi- ties were to be moved into relatively autonomous agencies while the policy- making activities remained within a small cabinet department. Further, the employees of the agencies may (albeit not necessarily) cease to be civil ser vants in the conven- tional sense, especially the employees toward the apex of the agencies. The logic of the agency system is to deconcentrate the role of government as an implementer and to permit those agencies to do the job in a more business- like manner. The assumption is that if an agency has only the single function to perform, and is held closely accountable for performing that activity, it will do the job better than if the same activity is buried within a large multipurpose organiza- tion. Further, separating some activities from the ministries may make those activi- ties more subject to competition from private organizations or perhaps from other parts of the public sector. For example, some information technology agencies have been created with no stable budget; they are expected to earn their money from contracts with the other agencies. Those other agencies can, of course, take their business elsewhere (other agencies or the private sector) if the ser vice is superior or the costs are lower. The most famous example of using the agency model has been “Next Steps” in the United Kingdom (James, 2003). Since this project was initiated more than a decade ago, approximately 75 percent of central government employment in the UK has been moved into agencies. These organizations are headed by chief executives on fixed- term contracts, rather than conventional career civil ser vants, and those executives are subject to being removed prior to the end of their contracts if their performance is not satisfactor y. Although less extensive, this pattern has been tried in other countries. For example, Canada has created a limited number of “special operating agencies” and some of the Australian and New Zealand reforms have a strong commitment to the agency model. Japan also adopted a limited form of the agency model (Yamamoto, 2004). In other cases the change went in something of the opposite direction, with formerly nationalized industries being converted into agency structures in Finland. Interestingly, at the same time that many governments have been break- ing up their integrated ministr y structures and forming agencies, other govern- ments have been creating some versions of those structures. This has been true of Sweden, among others, that had ser ved as the principal prototype for the agency model adopted in the United Kingdom. Sweden is retaining the basic agency form that it has had for centuries but, at the same time, is attempting to tie those agencies more closely to the ministries and to more closely link their decision making and their patterns of policy to the priorities of the government (Pierre, 2004). Also, in Denmark some ministries (notably education) have gone back and forth between agencies and more centralized structures, although the agency model has not been as firmly institutionalized in Denmark as in Sweden.

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Personnel Management

As noted above, one of the major manifestations of reform has been in the area of man- aging public sector personnel. This is perhaps natural since personnel costs make up the bulk of the operating costs of government. In addition, some reforms have had as central components attempts to address the complaints that personnel have about working in government. On the other hand, some reforms also address complaints that citizens have about the ways in which they are treated by government employ- ees; as we have been stressing throughout this book, the public bureaucracy is the principal point of contact between government and its citizens so that, if this relation- ship can be improved the confidence and trust of the public may be enhanced. Although there is no shortage of interest in reforming personnel manage- ment, there is certainly no common approach to achieving this end. As already noted, implementing programs of pay for performance and performance man- agement more generally are crucial elements of the market approach to reform. Their assumption is that making rewards more competitive will make the employ- ees perform better. The deregulators want to remove many of the controls now constraining top management, but appear less concerned with measuring and rewarding the performance of the lower echelons of government. The managerial- ist approach assumes that effective management will take care of any problems arising in that echelon of government structures. The participator y reformers have been more concerned with employees at the bottom of organizations, appearing to assume that if these employees become effectively involved in their organizations, then those public entities will themselves function more effectively. Thus, public personnel are definitely important in the process of reforming government, but we need to be clear about which personnel are being considered, and what assumptions are being made about the nature of public employees and about how they relate to government. Indeed, some of the assumptions and recom- mendations about public employees are almost directly contradictor y. For example, the market reforms tend to individualize the relationship of the employees to the organization, while the participator y reforms are attempting to build teams and enhance cooperation within those organizations. Unless a clear linkage is made between group performance and individual performance (and rewards) these strat- egies cannot be pursued simultaneously with any realistic expectation of success (Brewer and Selden, 2000). The public sector will always have a significant number of employees. Tech- nological change is reducing the need for employees to perform many of the routine tasks that have been the foundation of public sector employment, but there will still be thousands, if not millions, of people working for government. Given this fact, deciding how best to manage these personnel is crucial for making govern- ment “work better and cost less.” Personnel policies also point to some of the trade- offs that are embedded in reform. That is, placing pressures on the employees to perform through monetar y incentives may not, in fact, create the caring and effec- tive government that many other reforms demand. In this area, as in all others, there are important policy choices to be made, and choosing one horn of a dilemma may preclude other subsequent choices, whereas a more balanced approach may produce more effective overall results.

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As has been true for many of the reforms associated with the New Public Management there has been some pulling back from the extreme versions of the market model for personnel management (Van der Meer et al., 2015). This recant- ing of the values of NPM returns to some older patterns of personnel management. This return to older patterns has been in part a function of the failure of the reforms to product the type of responses expected. Government is far from the hierarchical organization that it once was, but also has returned from the extremely decentral- ized entity that was being sought for some time.

Consumerizing Government

Another of the common strategies for change in the public sector is to attempt to make government more friendly to the “consumer” and to institutionalize ideas about “ser ving the customer” in public ser vices. The consumer notion is perhaps strongest in the market interpretations of the problems of government. If poss- ible, the market model would like to make citizens real consumers and provide them with real options about how to receive the ser vices – education, health care, housing, etc. – that they demand from the public sector. For example, the idea of vouchers and providing citizens with genuine opportunities to choose among pub- licly and privately provided ser vices is an important component of market thinking about the public sector (Steurle and Twombly, 2002). The advocates of a more par ticipator y government also have an interest in ser ving the customer and creating greater choice for citizens in public policies. Not surprisingly, the interpretation of the concept of “ser ving the customer” in the par ticipator y model dif fers from that of the market model. In par ticular, while the market model sees choice in terms of individual consumers making their choices of programs, the par ticipator y model is more interested in how clients and consumers as a group can make choices about the nature of the ser vices they are of fered. Thus, consumerization here means the capacity for citizens to be involved directly in a political and administrative process that make decisions about the ser vices. This notion of consumerization also involves their capacity to make decisions collectively about those ser vices. In some ways the par ticipa- tor y version of the idea is not as clearly a case of consumerization as the market, given that the individual cannot make a choice without convincing others that this choice is the correct one. One major example of these participator y reforms is found in a number of countries that have adopted changes in management of their educational system. There, changes permit parents and teachers together to decide on the nature of the education to be offered on a school- by-school basis, rather than depending on a more centralized school board to make those decisions (Vander Weele, 1994). Similar arrangements are being instituted in housing and other local government ser vices (Sörenson, 1997). These modes of participation have perhaps even more problems of equal capacity to be effective participants that all forms of participation beyond voting have. That is, getting what one wants in a political process involves the ability to speak effectively, organize and persuade others, and, increasingly, also involves more technological skills such as the ability to use the Internet. These

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political skills are not evenly spread across the population but tend to be concen- trated in the more affluent and the better educated. These two rather antithetical versions of the meaning of consumer involve- ment in government do not by any means exhaust the range of possible interpre- tations of the term. For example, one analysis of the consumerization of public ser vice produced some 16 alternative interpretations (Hood et al., 1996). These alternatives were a product of thinking about the level of activity expected of the participants, and the degree to which their participation could affect the nature of the policy in question. In this analysis market and participator y techniques tended to be intermixed, although in general the participator y mechanisms tended to have a somewhat more direct influence over policy than did market- based instruments. When government attempts to apply the consumer idea to its programs, there is a basic question about who the customers are for a program. Identifying the client appears simple for a program such as education or social welfare, or even economic programs. The real client becomes more ambiguous for a program such as prisons. On the one hand the public is the client, expecting to be protected against the illegal activities of the incarcerated. On the other hand, the prisoners have the right to be treated properly and should have some ways to ensure that they are treated properly, even if they are being confined. Likewise, the public has the right to be treated well by tax officials but yet the ultimate clients may be the public as a whole. Thus, any simple idea about ser ving the customer may not take into account the range of customers that must be ser ved, and the possibly compet- ing nature of the ser vices that need to be provided. Despite all the various meanings of consumerization, there is a central nor- mative question that is almost certainly more important for the nature of the public ser vice. This question is whether the public sector is better advised thinking about the public as consumers or as citizens (Alford, 2002b). There are two elements to this question. The first is that thinking about the consumer may only be concerned with the economic and ser vice recipient nature of the public’s involvement with gov- ernment, while that relationship is actually more complex and multidimensional. In addition, focusing on the consumer role tends to under value the role of the citizen with its political basis, and with the political and civil rights that citizenship implies. Thus, an emphasis on consumers may deemphasize the essential public nature of the public sector and tends to assume that all that citizens want is to consume public ser vices, as we will point out below.

Accountability

Finally, all versions of reform are argued to be directed at enhancing the transpar- ency and accountability of the public sector, although the meanings of these terms, and consequently the nature of the reforms themselves, are markedly different in each of the models. Indeed, it could be argued that the net effect of some of reforms is actually to reduce the level of accountability, at least as that term has been con- ventionally understood (see Chapter 8). Some of the ver y features of government that have been the targets of reform, for example the linkage of administration with political authority, have also been crucial to maintaining control over discretion in

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government (Aucoin and Heintzmann, 2000; de Graaf and van der Wal, 2010) and, therefore, to enforcing accountability. The reform ideologies discussed above have somewhat different concep- tions of accountability than do the conventional political mechanisms for exercising control over the bureaucracy. The market model assumes that, ver y much as its advocates do for other problems in government, the creation of competition and the availability of alternatives to conventional monopoly ser vices will be sufficient to control discretion. Further, positive incentives for outstanding performance and the ability to employ sanctions (e.g., dismissal) for poor performance will handle any problems with individual performance in the bureaucracy. In this conception of how to manage government, hierarchical controls and political super vision are more impediments to exercising control than they are necessar y to it. Another element of accountability built into the market perspective is the use of performance targets. The assumption of this approach to accountability is that the creation of measurable indicators and making managers responsible for achieving those targets will make government work better. In some ways this is a superior form of accountability to the “shame and blame” concept of traditional political accountability. The focus on performance is an attempt to measure average performance and use that to assess the competence of organizations and their managers, rather than to identify any embarrassing exceptions to what might be overall adequate or even exceptional performance. On the other hand, however, this approach may make accountability too mechanical and not attuned to the politi- cal as well as the managerial dimensions of what government does. If goals are not reached, is it necessarily the fault of the manager, or is it inadequate funding, or unrealistic expectations? The par ticipator y reforms, again as might be expected, tend to rely upon more populist mechanisms for accountability. In these reforms the dominant assumption is that clients and the public in general should be capable of signaling when they are not satisfied with the ser vices being provided. Similarly, public employees themselves are expected to monitor the per formance of their organi- zations and make recommendations about how to make those organizations per form better. While these ideas are commendable from a democratic perspec- tive, they may also be somewhat naïve. First, many clients of public organizations are often dependent upon the programs for their basic livelihood and may fear making any serious complaints. Fur ther, many programs may not have clients that are so clearly identifiable (see above) so that there will not be the continu- ous monitoring assumed. Finally, too much reliance on the good intentions and professionalism of public employees may leave the public with few protections against malfeasance and incompetence. The deregulator y reformers emphasize the role of the public manager in ensuring accountability. For advocates of this approach, placing responsibility in the hands of capable managers and then assessing the performance of those man- agers is the most effective form of accountability. There is some of the same inter- est in establishing performance targets and using those as a surrogate for other forms of oversight of government. In this way deregulator y reforms are rather similar to some aspects of the market approach. The principal difference is that, rather than the emphasis being spread broadly throughout the public sector, it was

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focused on the manager. In addition, management rather than competition and more decentralized mechanisms are thought to be the central element of achieving accountability. The above discussion of accountability has been directed at issues common in the industrialized democracies. In other countries the accountability issues, and hence some of the motivations for reform, are quite dif ferent. In par ticu- lar, the accountability issues in countries emerging from communist political systems, and most less- developed countries, are concerned with corruption and the improper use of public office for personal gain (de Graaf et al., 2010). Cor- ruption may be difficult to root out in these regimes given the limited respect for the public sector, the ver y low wages paid to employees in many governments, and the dominance of familial and clientelistic ties in society (Tanzi, 2000). The World Bank and other international donors have been placing strong pressures for anticorruption reforms, and some new political leaders also have adopted anti- corruption agenda. Still there is a ver y long way to go before corruption can be eliminated in the public sector. Accountability is a central concern for public administration, no matter how it is structured. The conventional forms of accountability depend upon the use of political institutions or actors. The reformed versions of accountability discussed above rely more on setting performance targets or on the capability of holding managers to account for their actions and those of their organizations. These mechanisms may be effective, but they do tend to keep accountability within the bureaucracy rather than using external actors. Further, these forms of accountabil- ity do not depend upon the internalized values of civil ser vants, or on their accept- ance of law.

The Politics of Administrative Reform

One obvious question, after having been through all the ideas and all the types of reform, was why governments should invest all this time and energy in the pursuit of reform. After all, the previous histor y of reorganization and reform had not been such a success as to create great optimism for the would- be reformer (Laegreid and Roness, 1999). Even when reforms were actually implemented there was little evidence of their producing genuine changes in the performance of government. Indeed, there is more than a little evidence that reforms can create outcomes quite contrar y to those intended by their advocates.

Why Reform?

Reforms have been justified on a number of grounds, ranging from economics and the costs of programs to partisan politics and a search for electoral advantage. Few reforms have a single cause and many represent the confluence of political oppor- tunity, the spread of ideas about reform, and economic crises. Still, we can discuss some of the roots of reform and the ways in which they work through the political process.

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Costs and efficiency. One of the principal justifications for adopting reforms is that government costs too much. This is true for government costs in general, and also true for efficiency, or the cost for producing each unit of output. For example, the large- scale reform process in New Zealand was prompted in part by the country “hitting the wall” in international economics and being faced with finding some means of addressing that problem (Horn, 1995). Likewise, the large- scale reforms in many of the postcommunist systems have been prompted by the need to rebuild their economies and make them competitive in the international market. Going along with the overall economic problems are particular problems of the economics of the public sector and the costs that taxes and public debt place on the economy. The above having been said, there are cases in which real economic prob- lems have produced little or no administrative response – Germany in the 1990s was argued to be a case in point for this type, although that characterization is also disputed (Schröter, 2001). There are also cases in which (relative) economic success stories and governments that are already ver y low cost in comparative terms have been associated with ver y high levels of reform – Australia appears to be a clear case here. Thus, as noted above, economic conditions have to be per- ceived as important, and must be seen in conjunction with a set of ideas that can promise to produce the positive changes desired. The economic crisis beginning in 2008 was, however, the source of major changes in the public sector (see Kickert and Randma- Liiv, 2015). As well as the general drive for greater austerity in the public sector, there was some centralization of administrative functions and drawing back from the dominant decentralization and deconcentration that had characterized the previous two decades in adminis- tration. Ministries regained some control from agencies and financial constraints gave central agencies greater authority. Quality. As well as being expensive, government ser vices are often per- ceived to be of poor quality. This may be a function of the same lack of competi- tion that Niskanen (1971) argued was associated with excessive costs. Lacking any incentives to improve the programs they deliver, government organizations may simply continue to deliver ser vices in any way they want. The public often believe that they are poorly treated by public ser vants and that the programs delivering their ser vices are themselves poorly designed. In some cases those concerns are well justified, and the quality of programs has been allowed to deteriorate. In these cases the costs of public programs may have been the dominant concern, leading to a quality decline. We have already noted that performance measurement and the use of targets is one of the dominant features of contemporar y reforms. The focus on perform- ance is not an entirely new set of ideas; the program budgeting ideas of the 1960s and 1970s also relied on quantifiable measures and linking those indicators with the budgetar y process (see Chapter 7). Although not new ideas, the ideas are now being implemented in a more aggressive manner than in the past, and there is greater emphasis on the quality being delivered to clients. In addition, the customer focus featuring in contemporar y reforms does tend to emphasize that measure of quality and performance as much as more objective forms. The employees. The employees of the public sector also constitute a major reason for reform. This basis of reform may, however, mean different things to

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dif ferent people. One reason for reform is that the employees of the public sector do not have sufficient power and influence over policy, and are demoti- vated by traditional patterns of management in the public sector. As noted above, the par ticipator y reforms provide those employees with more control over their own jobs, as well as a greater role in making decisions about the policies of the organization. The assumption is that these reforms should make public sector jobs more attractive to prospective employees, as well as making their organiza- tions more ef fective. Other critics of the existing role of the public bureaucracy argue that career public employees have excessive influence over policy and that political leaders elected to determine policies are often thwarted by their own bureaucrats. Thus, another approach to reforming the public sector has been to reduce the power of senior public ser vices and to place politicians more clearly in charge of policy. For example, some of the reforms initiated by the Thatcher government in the United Kingdom were designed to reduce the power of the “Sir Humphreys” in the public sector and put politicians more clearly in charge (Hood, 1990). But those reforms have been followed by a reassertion of the power of higher civil ser vants, and the center of government more generally (Dahlström et al., 2013). Structure. One of the most common reasons for reform in the past, and a continuing source of contemporar y changes, is the desire to get the structure of government “right” – this has most commonly been referred to as reorganization. At one time there was an assumption that there was one best way to organize, both individual organizations and the public sector as a whole (but see Simon, 1947). That certainty about the scientific basis of organizational structure has largely vanished, but the desire to change structure to make government perform better remains alive and actively pursued by political and administrative leaders. One of the common patterns of reorganization has been to put similar organizations and activities together. This is a logical approach to thinking about organizing government, permitting some synergy among related activities and perhaps also reducing total administrative costs. The problem is that relatively few government programs have only a single activity or a single purpose. Therefore, most organizations could be allied with several other groups of organizations. For example, the United States Coast Guard has at various times been in the Depart- ment of the Treasur y, the Department of Defense, and currently is in the Depart- ment of Transportation. Another reason for reforming the structure of government is to improve coordination of the numerous activities of the public sector. Government gener- ally works reasonably well vertically, linking interests in society with the agencies and ministries that ser ve and protect those interests; ministries of agriculture are linked with interest groups and also perhaps with relevant committees in the legis- lature. Government is not nearly so good at structuring interactions across policy areas, or at producing coherent goals and programs; those same ministries of agri- culture are rarely made to confront the interests of environmentalists. Therefore, reorganization is sometimes used as a means of attempting to improve coordina- tion and coherence. Changing policy. Lester Salamon (1982) has argued that using reorganiza- tion as a means of changing policy is more likely to be successful than is using it

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in an attempt to produce efficiency. Salamon’s assumption was that by changing the patterns of communication and interaction experienced by an organization, there could be changes in public policy, while any efficiency gains from reform were likely to be short- lived. For example, if we continue the example developed above, moving the Coast Guard from Treasur y to Transportation means that the commandant is likely to receive more memos about marine safety and fewer about interdicting smugglers, although his or her organization will continue to perform both functions. The priorities of the organization would be expected to be changed in response to this change in location within government. The market reformers may have even more fundamental policy goals when pursuing reform. They will want to change as many policies as possible into market- based policies, meaning that the programs will be faced with competition and the participants will have some choices among alternative providers of the ser vice. Likewise, the market reformers may want to institute some form of price mecha- nism where possible as a means of both reducing the tax price of the program and of revealing the real level of public demand for the ser vice. Thus, in the 1980s and 1990s a number of programs that had been “free” began to charge fees to cover all or part of their costs. Transparency and accountability. As we have already mentioned several times, one of several reasons for pressing for reform is a desire to enhance the transparency and accountability of the public sector. These terms are important in managing government and defining its relationship to the remainder of the public sector, but their meaning can be elusive and can also be simply a component of political rhetoric associated with different views of the public sector. The assump- tion of many advocates of reform, while expressing a variety of different ideas about reform, is that the traditional instruments of accountability in the public sector were no longer functioning as they should. Interestingly, one common response to the reform process has been to reas- sert the importance of older styles of accountability and to attempt to revive those forms of control. This has been especially true in some Westminster governments in which the theor y of accountability has virtual constitutional status. It has also been true for some legalistic administrative systems in which it has been felt to be crucial to return to a stricter form of legal accountability and constraint on the actions of civil ser vants. These conser vative reactions to problems of accountability have, however, been largely over whelmed by the desire to create new and more popular forms of imposing the will of the public on the bureaucracy. Politics. Finally, in the process of administrative reform, politics is trumps. Although there may be any number of good objective reasons for reforming, unless there is the political will to change the administrative system there probably will be little change. We have already demonstrated that the public sector is often consid- ered a problem by much of the population. Therefore, it is good politics to assail the bureaucracy in electoral campaigns and to make some attempt to demonstrate that something is being done to control and to devalue the bureaucracy once elected to office. While there is some political gain to be had from castigating the bureaucracy, ironically there may be little to be gained politically from actually investing substan- tial political capital in changing public administration. Even the large- scale reforms

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implemented during the past several decades appear to have been little noticed by the public and, hence, may not have created any substantial electoral advantage for the politicians that pushed for them. The public in many countries appears likely to assume that any changes in the bureaucracy are largely cosmetic, rather than more genuine transformations of the manner in which public ser vices will be delivered. Therefore, politicians often have a short attention span when it comes to reforming the bureaucracy and initial enthusiasm may be followed, once in office, by appar- ent loss of interest in change. The one exception to this generalization is reform in many democratizing regimes in which eliminating corruption and producing a more accountable regime may pay political dividends. Not all politics is partisan, electoral politics. In any government there is also a good deal of organizational politics involved in administrative reform. On the one hand central agencies are often crucial for promoting reform and encouraging (or coercing) other components of the public sector to reform. On the other hand, those organizations are themselves often the most unreformed parts of govern- ment. Thus, there is often a good deal of jostling over just what are the meanings of certain reforms, and how they should be implemented. In all this bureaucratic politics, one of the apparent outcomes has been that power over programs has become more centralized in the hands of central agencies during a period in which decentralization is thought to be a dominant value. This is but one of many para- doxical outcomes in the process of reforming the public sector (Hesse et al., 2003; Hood et al., 2011).

Summary

Administrative reform has been a central activity of governments during the past several decades. It is not, however, an undifferentiated activity, and has assumed several different forms in the different political settings in which it has occurred. Those differences are in some ways related to the different intellectual roots of the reforms. The differences in interpretations may also be related to differences in the political and administrative traditions of the countries within which they are being implemented. Thus, the meanings of reforms are constructed politically and culturally and the same nominal changes in the public sector may in actual practice mean ver y different things. These differences are especially pronounced between the industrialized countries and the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, and then again with the Third World countries. While some of the same reforms being adopted in the wealthier countries are also being implemented in the less- developed countries, their meaning may be different and they may be avoiding, or even exacerbating, problems of accountability and control in these systems. While there are crucial differences in the interpretations of reform ideas in these administrative systems, there are (as we have already noted) also some remarkable similarities in the reforms themselves. Many of the same changes are being implemented in almost all these countries, albeit in different manners and at different speeds, and even for different reasons. The importance for comparative research is that we can use the different outcomes of these common stimuli as means of looking at how different political and administrative systems respond to

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demands change, and respond to the need to interpret a set of policy and manage- ment ideas. The good news is that reforms have been creating a whole new laborator y for understanding public administration around the world. One useful way of under- standing political and administrative processes comparatively is to obser ve the ways in which various countries respond to the common stimuli for change. There have been such common stimuli in the reform process of the past several decades, as ideas about what constitutes good public management have been spread around the world both autonomously and through the action of agents such as interna- tional organizations and consultants. These ideas have been understood differently, and implemented differently, when they have come into contact with the different administrative cultures, so that a common language of change masks much greater complexity and variation.

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C h a p t e r 1 0

The Politics of Public Management

The New Public Management 326 Participatory Government 330 The Second Wave of Managerial Reform 333 Accrual Accounting 340 Strategic Management 341 E- governance 343 The Rest of the World 344 Continuing Reforms 345

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The bulk of this book has tended to use terms such as “public administration” and “bureaucracy” to describe what occurs in the public sector as public policies are implemented, as well as to describe the public employees who perform those tasks and the structures that they inhabit. To many people in government and in academia those terms would appear almost hopelessly outdated. “Public manage- ment” has become the more common phrase in contemporar y parlance to describe this component of the public sector (see O’Toole and Meijer, 2014). The changes that have occurred within the public sector in most countries are, however, a good deal more than semantic. The change in terminology implies a substantial trans- formation in the manner in which the public sector operates, and the way in which scholars and practitioners have come to think about delivering public ser vices. While it is difficult to identify exactly when the shift from public administra- tion to the concept of public management occurred, the phrase “New Public Man- agement” (NPM) has become central to describing and understanding what has been happening in government. Christopher Hood (1991) describes this term, and this practice, as beginning during the 1980s, in par t reflecting the large- scale transformation of the state in most Western countries, motivated by politicians such as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan on the political right. The concern with improving per formance in the public sector has not been the sole preser ve of the right, however, and in some cases such as New Zealand it was driven instead by par ties on the political left (Scott et al., 1990) or in Finland by broad “rainbow” coalitions. The use of the word “new” does indicate that people had talked about man- agement in the public sector previously; in particular, several public commissions in the United States and in Canada had emphasized the need for improving the quality of management in the public sector (Sutherland and Doern, 1985; Arnold, 1998). Further, to many people performing the tasks of running large public organi- zations the distinction between public administration and public management was irrelevant. Both terms meant to them that they had to bring together human, finan- cial, and legal resources in order to deliver some sort of ser vice to the public. Still, by the 1980s and 1990s the emphasis on management was becoming dominant, and “administration” came to be considered an old- fashioned concern with formal organization and law rather than emphasizing efficiency and performance. Using the concept of the “New Public Management” to describe what has been happening in the public sector also implies that there is a single pattern of behavior that can be described in this manner. In reality, however, a variety of administra- tive changes have been implemented in the public sector. The dominant pattern of change in government reflects movements toward a market- based public sector, and this pattern has become the conventional interpretation of NPM. The market- based models of NPM assume a generic style of management, with their advocates considering that running public and private sector organizations are virtually iden- tical tasks. Further, the model tended to assume that public sector employees were involved in their organizations primarily for financial reasons rather than for either a sense of public ser vice or the desire to be involved in a (in some societies at least) highly prestigious occupation. Other changes in public management have been motivated more by a par- ticipator y style of change – “liberation management” in Paul Light’s terminology –

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stressing the importance of involving members of the lower echelons of the public organizations in decision making within those organizations. This participator y style also seeks to involve clients and even the general public more directly in the public sector. Further, other forms of reform in the public sector stress the need to reduce the level of domination of government by formal rules, and to replace those formal restraints on managers with greater discretion. That discretion is intended to enable public managers to exercise their talents and to produce more effective and efficient public ser vices through management. All of these reforms of public management have stressed the capacity to make government per form its fundamental tasks better, and following from the initial round of change, whether more managerialist or more par ticipator y, has come an increased emphasis on per formance management in the public sector. Per formance management implies the use of formal means for measuring how well individuals and organizations are doing their jobs (Bouckaer t and Peters, 2004). Those measurements are, in turn, to be related to the rewards that the individuals and organizations receive through the budget process. If, in the words of the National Per formance Review (Gore Commission) in the United States, government is supposed to “work better and cost less,” then we will have a better chance of knowing how well it is working and perhaps also know how much it costs to produce the goods and ser vices that are being generated through the public sector. Also, the phrase “New Public Management” implies that there was an old public management, and indeed there was. This approach to managing in the public sector is often referred to as “scientific management,” and had its heyday during the 1930s and 1940s. In the United States the publication of the Brownlow Report in 1939, with its principles of management derived from scholars such as Gulick and Ur wick (1936). In Britain and other countries analogous academic and official reports emphasized the existence of principles that could enable the public (or private) manager to run an organization effectively and efficiently (see Self, 1973). These principles subsequently were questioned and largely debunked by decision- making approaches to management (Simon, 1947), but the old public management did influence behavior in public organizations for decades. This chapter will discuss the alternative models of administrative reform, and the role of these reforms in shaping management, within the public sector. This discussion will reflect two waves of change, as implied above. The first wave imple- mented changes in the managerial and participator y styles mentioned above, and produced often quite fundamental changes in governing. Those changes in turn created a new set of managerial problems for the public sector so that one change was soon followed by an additional set of changes. The second wave has tended to focus more on the performance of public organizations, as well as on finding ways to bring the political leaders who had to some extent been devalued during the initial changes back into the center of governing. Although in this chapter I will focus primarily on the way in which public ser vices are delivered and the way in which people working for government are hired, fired, and motivated to perform their tasks, it is important to understand that the New Public Management is more than just a set of ideas about the bureaucracy. Rather, NPM is also to some extent a set of ideas about how government as a whole

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should operate. These ideas involve transforming how citizens relate to govern- ment, as well as the ways in which political officials interact with the administrative personnel of government. Both of these dimensions are especially important for the management of the public sector in a democracy. Thus, to some extent a theor y of public management is a theor y of governance, and directs our attention at the ways in which altering any one aspect of the public sector may have significant consequences for the remainder of the system.

The New Public Management

What has come to be known as the New Public Management did not emerge from any single theor y or statement of how to run the public sector better, but rather emerged from different strands of thinking about governing. What these ideas and approaches all shared was a sense that something was wrong in government, espe- cially within the public bureaucracy, and had to be changed. The various scholars and practical reformers involved in the process differed, however, in what they considered the root cause of the problems in the public sector and therefore dif- fered in what the most effective solutions for the problems of the public sector were likely to be. Some of the ideas discussed here are identical to those discussed above with respect to administrative reform. In this chapter, however, we will focus attention on the impact of these ideas on the manner in which personnel and programs within the public sector are managed. For example, the emphasis in this chapter will be on performance management and the manner in which various techniques for meas- uring and reporting performance can be used to motivate employees and provide government with guidance for changing its programs. In addition, the managerial- ism of initial reforms produced the need to find instruments to coordinate public programs and to make government reform in a more coherent manner. Markets and managerialism. The dominant approach to reforming public management has been based on market principles and the ideas of generic manage- ment. The heartland of this pattern of reform has been the Anglo- American democ- racies, with New Zealand usually being described as the prime example (Boston, 1996). These ideas have also been adopted with substantial vigor in some of the Nordic countries, especially Finland (Christensen and Laegreid, 2007). Whereas public administration had been considered by most people in and out of the public sector to be something substantially different from business management, the managerialist strain of thinking about the public sector argues that “management is management,” although Graham Allison famously argued that “public and private management were alike in all unimportant respects.” The assumption guiding generic management is that the same principles that can motivate employees to do their jobs efficiently in business organizations will also motivate individuals to do their jobs well in the public sector. This view of management takes the private sector as the model of good management and seeks to extend the use of those ideas into government. In more general terms generic management has argued that government organizations may not have to provide many of the ser vices that they have in the

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past, and that many of these activities can be provided more efficiently by private organizations. Some of those private organizations may be for profit and others not- for-profit, but either can perform better in many situations than can government organizations. In the now famous words of Osborne and Gaebler (1991) govern- ments should “steer and not row.” The argument is that government is better at setting general direction for the society than it is in actually implementing those ideas and, therefore, privatizing many operations should produce a more effective government, that delivers ser vices at a lower cost to the taxpayer. This potential for private involvement may be as true for social policy as well as the economic activities of government, and social policy deliver y now often involves numerous voluntar y organizations. These organizations are often more effective in delivering social ser vices because they can be less “bureaucratic” than public organizations. That relative informality is valuable when dealing with clients on the margins of society who fear formal authority. As immigrants, and many illegal immigrants, have become an increasingly important component of the social ser vice population, for example these new clients are generally less threatened by voluntar y or even market- based organizations than they are by purely public sector ser vice deliverers. One of the most fundamental principles advocated by the managerialist approaches to the public sector is “let the managers manage.” The assumption behind that argument is that if government is able to recruit or retain high-quality managers, and if those managers are given the latitude to direct operations within their own organizations, then the public sector will perform better than it would if it remained dominated by political considerations and traditional bureaucratic admin- istration. As managerialism has moved on, the emphasis has become “making the managers manage,” and using a number of instruments to apply pressure on man- agers to make them and their organizations perform better. In organizational terms, when government cannot, for whatever reasons (see Thynne, 2005) transfer the ser vice deliver y functions to the private sector the usual choice proposed by the New Public Management has been to create autonomous public, or quasi- public, organizations to provide these ser vices (see Bouckaert and Peters, 2004). As noted in Chapter 4 some countries such as Sweden have used the model of “agencies” for centuries as a means of delivering public ser vices. These organizations remain within the public sector but are to some extent independent of direct ministerial control, and are empowered to make most decisions about implementing their programs on their own. As well as creating the autonomy for ser vice deliver y this pattern of organizing the public sector also tends to have each agency providing a single ser vice, in contrast to larger, multi- ser vice departments that have been typical for most governments. The concentration on the single ser vice then enables governments to understand better the costs of each ser vice, and also to determine ways of managing those ser vices better. As well as being based on the concept of generic management the manage- rialist strand of thinking within the New Public Management is also based ver y clearly on competition as the best means of ensuring higher quality and lower costs for public ser vices. As I have argued elsewhere (Peters, 2001) the fundamental diagnosis of what is wrong with government in this approach to the public sector is that government ser vices have been monopolies, and therefore the ser vice

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providers have had no incentive to improve their ser vices, and especially no incen- tive to lower their costs (funded through general taxation in most instances). The obvious solution to the problem of monopoly provision has been to create some form of competition. As well as emphasizing competition among organizations, the market approach to public management also stresses competition among individuals as a core value in good management. In traditional patterns of personnel manage- ment in the public sector individuals working for government had no incentive to perform their tasks in the most efficient and effective manner. Traditional civil ser vice systems (see above, pp. 00–0) were more concerned with ensuring perma- nent employment for the staff, and with insulating the civil ser vice from political influences, than they have been with the actual performance of public tasks. The basic logic of the civil ser vice system was that so long as an individual performed at a minimal level then he or she was doing well enough to retain their jobs. Governments have also demanded that their ser vice organizations, and many of their internal activities, “market test” their ser vices, and the costs of those ser v- ices, against the options available from the private sector. For example, rather than necessarily hiring cleaners for public buildings government can put these ser vices out for competitive bids. For example in the United Kingdom, there was a program of “compulsor y competitive tendering” during the Conser vative governments in the 1980s and 1990s (Shaw et al., 1994). The public sector organizations that had been supplying those ser vices could bid for this work also, but they would not nec- essarily win. That practice of requiring bidding lowered some costs, and it also had the effect of forcing all the elements of the public sector to be much more aware of their costs, while without such market competition they did not have to think much about their efficiency. The Blair government replaced that Tor y program with one entitled “Best Value,” that attempted to assess the quality of the ser vices provided relative to their costs, with an underlying comparison to the private sector (Higgins et al., 2004). In addition, if real competition cannot be created for ser vices, then some sur- rogates for markets must be created. One common strategy has been to create internal markets and to use contracts to bring together “purchasers” and “provid- ers” within government itself. For example, in a health ser vice such as the National Health Ser vice in the United Kingdom (and later in a number of other health care systems) the purchasers are area health authorities who need to provide ser vices to their citizens, while the providers are hospitals. The hospitals, instead of simply working on a budget and providing ser vices to all who appear, must bid on various parts of the total health ser vice market. As is assumed for real markets that can be created for ser vices, the assumption of the advocates of internal markets is that these quasi- markets can enhance the efficiency of ser vices. Ideas of promoting excellence in public organizations have been associated with the ideas of market testing and developing greater efficiency in the public sector. Total Quality Management was introduced in the first Bush administration in the United States, with similar ideas promoted in the Antipodes, in the United Kingdom, and then spreading across the remainder of Europe. The pursuit of quality at the initial stages often focused on the potential competition between public and private providers. The Conser vative governments of Thatcher and Major required

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“compulsor y competitive tendering,” and local governments had to accept bids from the private sector for many of their functions that had been performed by public ser vants. Those public employees could also compete for the contracts, and often were successful, but there had to be competition. While the ideas of generic management may appear logical at first glance, there are a number of significant questions about this approach to public manage- ment. First, we know that especially for people in the higher ranks of government the evidence (see Chapter 3) is that people do not go to work for government because of the financial incentives, yet financial incentives are manipulated as the principal means of motivation within this form of management. Further, although changes in civil ser vice systems have made the range of possible rewards for indi- viduals greater, there are still not the possibilities for governments to use extremely high levels of reward to attract the “best and brightest” when these rewards are compared to those available in the private sector. The other problem in personnel management that the generic approach raises for government is that it tends to devalue the career public ser vice. The idea of a cadre of public administrators who remain in office while politicians come and go has been a mainstay of the public sector for some time. These civil ser vants were able to ensure some continuity in policy and also had the expertise to help more amateur politicians make and implement policy. The civil ser vice also has tended to embody the ideas of ser vice, although the stereotypes often have been of arrogant and indolent “Sir Humphreys” who ser ve themselves more than they ser ve the public, or their nominal political masters. As well as the problems involved in motivating and managing public employ- ees, the generic approach to public management presents some more general problems for the organization of the public sector. In particular, the emphasis on privatizing ser vices and downsizing the public ser vice deliver y capacity of govern- ment makes governments dependent on actors beyond their direct control. Thus, a reform designed to improve the quality of ser vice deliver y may, in fact, lead to poorer, or certainly more variable, ser vices. In some ways variability may be desir- able, if one believes that citizens should have rights to choose what they receive from government and how they receive those ser vices. One of the principal justi- fications of the market model has been that it enhanced the capacity of citizens to make their own choices about public ser vices, and that this will improve both the efficiency of government and the involvement of citizens. On the other hand, gov- ernments also deliver ser vices that citizens may have the right to expect by virtue of their citizenship and for those ser vices equality should be a real concern. Further, there are real questions whether contracting improves the quality of the ser vices being provided. The idea of parceling out a good deal of work in the public sector to contractors conflicts with another style of contemporar y man- agement – building strong teams within organizations as a means of motivating workers. Contractors who do not really belong to the larger organizational team may be less likely to provide the quality ser vices needed. For example, some critics have argued that the problems of cleanliness that National Health Ser vice hospitals in Britain have faced are in no small part a function contracting out the work to firms that are not primarily in the health care sector and who therefore are less likely to be motivated by the ethos of medical care.

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Advocating contracting and other forms of private sector management also implies that these instruments are suitable for the socioeconomic and cultural contexts in which they are being applied. To be able to utilize contracting there must be firms willing and able to provide the ser vices required, an assumption that does not appear to be supported in many countries with poorly developed private sectors. Thus, for many less- developed countries the public sector may continue to be a source of modernization, unless and until private sector organizations are better developed and become capable of offering the needed ser vices more effec- tively. Further, in many societies the private sector may not have the legitimacy of the public sector in delivering important public ser vices. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the demands for accountability and public ser vice make working in government fundamentally different from working in the private sector. Indeed, being a manager in the public sector is substantially more difficult than is managing in the private sector (Allison, 1986), given those demands and the transparency with which decisions must be made. Working in government is “managing in a goldfish bowl,” and also implies managing without the latitude for dealing with personnel and finances that a manager would have in the private sector. Despite those constraints, managers in the public sector tend to be paid substantially less than if they worked for a private sector organization and enjoy substantially less public respect (see Chapter 3). The dominant emphasis on efficiency in the public sector embedded within the market approach is manifested in a variety of other ways. One of the more common of these mechanisms has been developing improved means for delivering ser vices to the public. For example, “one stop shops” have become common means for delivering a range of ser vices that once required citizens to go to a number of different offices, often repeating the same information on numerous forms. This ser vice deliver y improvement has been implemented for the social ser v- ices, enabling citizens to get a range of ser vices from a single office – for example Centrepoint in Australia (Halligan, 2004). The same method also has been imple- mented for regulator y policies, enabling businesses to get all the licenses required for opening with a single stop, or perhaps even a single form. In summar y, the market approach to governing and the use of a concept of generic management has been the dominant approach to improving public manage- ment. This approach is based on a number of ver y fundamental assumptions about the way in which government works, or can be made to work. These assumptions have been adopted with substantial conviction by administrative reformers, and to some extent have been successful in improving the quality of public sector perform- ance. It would be difficult to argue that government does not work more effectively in most industrial democracies in 2005 than it did in 1985, or even 1995. But those improvements in efficiency have been purchased at some cost to other important values in government, such as accountability and organizational memor y.

Participatory Government

The major alternative to the market- based approach to managing the public sector has been a more participator y concept of governing. Whereas the market- based

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approach assumes that the root of most of the problems in government is the monopoly that the public sector holds over many goods and ser vices, advocates of this approach to governing argue that the principal problem is hierarchy. The typical government organization has been structured as a hierarchy, with the employees at the bottom having limited control over policy, or even over how they do their jobs. Likewise, the relationship between governments and their clients has tended to be hierarchical, especially for clients of social ser vices who are in a dependent rela- tionship with the public sector and the civil ser vants administering programs. The idea of making government more participator y is hardly new. The basic concept of democracy is that what happens in government should be determined by the citizens. Further, since at least the 1930s organizational theorists have been arguing that more involvement by employees will in the end be associated with greater productivity by the workers (see Roethlisberger and Dickson, 1939; Argyris, 1964). Involvement gives the employees some stake in the organization, and also enables them to use some of their own knowledge about the ser vices being administered and about the clients to make the programs work better. We have known for some time that street- level bureaucrats are crucial for the success of social ser vices (Lipsky, 1971; Meyers and Nielsen, 2012) as well as regulator y (Bardach and Kagan, 1982) programs, but the influence of these workers often has been considered illegitimate. For the advocates of more participator y govern- ment this role for the lower echelons of government is now not only legitimate but crucial. The role of citizens as direct participants in the process of formulating and implementing policy has been less legitimated in the literature on public adminis- tration, especially in Anglo- American democracies. Certainly mechanisms such as public hearings and public enquiries have existed for some time, and advisor y com- mittees for agencies have been used for decades in a number of countries (Kvavik, 1970; Barker and Peters, 1993). The mechanisms tend to be episodic, and have their agendas determined by government. The concept of more continuous and autonomous role for actors in civil society is, however, less familiar. Unlike the countries of Northern Europe (see Chapter 3) the role of corporatist links between state and society has never been ver y strong in the Anglo- American systems, but the participator y reforms of the past several decades have moved public adminis- tration in that general direction. The concepts of empowerment (Welch and Wong, 2001) and citizen engage- ment (Goetz and Jenkins, 2001) have been at the center of the participator y reforms of public administration. The idea has been that the clients of public organizations should be empowered to have a greater influence over those programs. Further, government should become more open to the full range of social interests and use networks as mechanisms to legitimate programs, as well as to deliver some pro- grams. While conventional politics has been open to popular influences primarily only at the time of elections, with the elected representatives being insulted from the public between those elections. It should be obvious that management in the public sector from a partici- pator y perspective will be different from that following an NPM perspective. If the lower echelons of the public sector are empowered they are able to make more of their own decisions and, therefore, will not require the level of immediate

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super vision that is found in a traditional administrative system. This reduced need for super vision can reduce the size of the public sector by eliminating a number of middle- management positions. For example, during the Clinton administration in the United States the implementation of the National Performance Review led to a significant reduction in public employment. Similarly, in Canada, the reform process called PS2000 contained a ver y strong participator y element and tended to shift power and resources to lower- level civil ser vants. As well as flattening public organizations management using participatory ideas enables the lower echelons of the organization to have greater influence over policy. Again, in the United States the idea of “reinvention” was a means for the entire organization to consider the programs being administered and the ways in which they could perform their tasks more efficiently and effectively. While still bound by legal sanctions many organizations were able to redesign their programs and find innovative means of achieving public goals. These ideas again are not entirely novel, with ideas such as quality circles having been used in government for some time. What has been different, however, is the extent to which public employees at all levels are becoming involved in managing their own organizations. Whereas in the market model citizens were able to have some policy choice individually by using vouchers or other market mechanisms they are able to influ- ence policy by more collective and political means when there are participator y changes in government. In particular, participator y governments involve citizens and organized social groups in shaping the administration of policies, and often the basic policies themselves. For example, in the Scandinavian countries education, housing, and other social ser vices are often managed by the clients of the pro- grams themselves. Schools are managed by committees of parents and teachers, within the regulations established by educational authorities. Likewise, the man- agement of social housing projects can be heavily influenced by the clients (Sören- son, 1997). Even when not concerned with the management of individual facilities, management in the participator y model of public management has involved more chances for the public to influence decisions and to shape the direction of public policy. The fora created for participation, e.g., public hearings, and the ability of administrators to determine the agenda and scope of participation may be criticized as not being authentic forms of public involvement, but in most cases these have been sincere efforts to enhance the role of the public in shaping administration. Further, the creation of more participator y instruments on the output side of the public sector has added greatly to the capacity of the public to hold organizations directly accountable (see below). The participator y approach to governing is generally conceived as being more democratic, given that citizens have a continuing opportunity to influence government. While those opportunities for participation are important for the participants, they may produce local democracy but also undermine some other aspects of democratic control over policy. For example, the individuals and groups concerned with a policy may be able to influence it for their own benefit, but that may cost taxpayers more money, or may undermine equality across the political system. Again, ensuring that democracy is coupled with responsibility is the con- tinuing challenge for contemporar y government.

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The Second Wave of Managerial Reform

The first wave of reform – meaning that associated with the New Public Manage- ment – was directed at increasing the efficiency of government in many adminis- trative systems, and also toward enhancing the capacity of citizens and employees to influence government. While these were certainly important improvements in administration, they were purchased at some cost to other important values in gov- erning. Further, the initial changes in administration generated the capacity for additional change. The traditional system of hierarchical government was effective for some years, but the adoption of many of the ideas of the New Public Manage- ment have led governments to rethink how they can best organize the public sector and motivate the people who work there. If the first wave of managerial reform was designed to let the managers manage, at least one dimension of the emphasis on the second wave has been on making the managers manage. That is, while the first wave tended to assume that managers wanted to make their organizations be more effective, whether for per- sonal gain from their own contracts or simply because they were committed to doing the job well, the emphasis on performance in the second round of reforms has placed increased pressures on managers – and the other members of organi- zations – to perform well and to produce high-quality public ser vices at a good “price.” As well as making the managers manage, the second wave of reform has tended to emphasize the need to manage together. That is, while the first wave was successful in improving management within individual organizations reforms in the subsequent wave were faced with the problem of numerous successful organi- zations that did not cooperate adequately to govern the society in a more coherent and coordinated manner. The first wave had succeeded in fragmenting government even further than it had been, so there was a need to put it back together. Performance management. The first round of reforms focused on enhanc- ing quality in government, but did so primarily through promoting competition, or empowering managers and letting them manage their organizations. As govern- ments became increasingly concerned with quality, and the ability of the public sector to deliver its ser vices in both an efficient and more humane manner, the natural question became: How do we know that government is performing better? Therefore, to be effective as a means of improving ser vices in the public sector, performance management must develop the means for measuring adequately the amount and quality of ser vices that are delivered (see De Bruijn, 2002). Further, in a participator y political environment, measuring performance involves understand- ing the level of public satisfaction with ser vices as well as the objective quality of the ser vices. Experts may agree that a program is performing well, but if citizens do not believe so, then it is difficult to argue that the program is doing what it should. A shift to performance management was a shift from “Let the managers manage” to “Make the managers manage.” While much of the first round of reform was concerned with managerial freedom the subsequent round has emphasized new forms of constraint, although the constraints are now ex post rather than ex ante. That is, the principal concern for controlling managers is how well they produce

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outputs and outcomes expected from their programs, not how much money did they spend or how many personnel hours were absorbed. Performance is a differ- ent type of constraint, but it does place pressure on managers to produce and to justify what they are doing. A concern with measuring performance and measuring the outputs of govern- ment is hardly novel. For example, during the 1960s the implementation of program budgeting (Novick, 1967) and the development of policy evaluation (Freeman et al., 2004) both produced a need for more objective measures of government output and the desire to assess the quality of public programs. Important analytic steps were made at that time in the development of indicators of programs and their performance, and at least some governments invested heavily in policy analysis. For example, most of the social programs adopted as a part of the Great Society in the United States mandated spending at least 10 percent of the total budget for evaluation, and the Dutch government created the Netherlands Scientific Council on Scientific Government. Also, during this period many government accounting offices changed from being simply financial auditors to being more policy analytic and advising government on how best to spend its funds not just on the legality of those expenditures (Leeuw et al., 1994). As important as those earlier achievements in assessing policy perform- ance were, they were limited in comparison to the more recent developments in performance management. The more contemporar y approaches use a variety of means for establishing measures of performance, and devising standards for ade- quate performance. They then attempt to relate those measures to the budgets of the organizations in question, and to use these measures as an alternative form of accountability for the organizations. Rather than focusing on the exceptional errors that any individual or organization can make, and using those errors to score politi- cal points, there has been some shift toward assessing how well organizations are performing on an average basis. The emphasis on performance management has also extended beyond organ- izations, and is used ver y extensively now to assess the performance of individuals working in the public sector. As noted already, the first rounds of change in the public sector attacked the dominance of civil ser vice systems and their assumptions of tenure in office for adequate performance, as well as their uniformity of rewards within single grades of the personnel system. Uniformity and the permanence of the staff have been replaced with attempts to measure individual performance and to punish and reward individuals differentially, depending upon their contributions to the success of the organization. Part of the problem in measuring both individual and organizational perform- ance is that it is difficult to establish the connection between what individuals do in their organizations and the actual performance of their agencies. A good manager, or a good employee at the ver y bottom of the organization, may do their job well, but that may be incapable of overcoming faulty program design, or the poor per- formance of other key actors. Likewise, poor performance by one or more poor actors may be compensated by the quality of the rest of the organization. There- fore, any simple assumptions about performance must be examined carefully. Again, performance management is hardly a new mechanism for manage- ment in the public sector, as governments began limited efforts at differential

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rewards, especially for senior officials, during the 1970s. Interestingly, govern- ments have begun with the top of the organizations, rather than with the bottom. While the workers such as clerks or secretaries performing relatively standardized jobs might appear to be a more appropriate place to begin this program, the ver y top of the civil ser vice – with jobs such as policy advice – was chosen. This reflected in part the need to have this level of the organization committed to the process before lower echelons could be brought into performance management. One of the most important instruments used for the performance manage- ment of individuals are performance contracts (Heinrich and Choi, 2007). When a manager, for example, assumes responsibility for a program he or she will negoti- ate a contract with the superiors specifying objective goals to be achieved within a year or some other time period. At the end of that period the individual is rated on how well those goals were reached, and rewarded or perhaps terminated. In this contracting arrangement the individual involved has some control over the levels of achievement to be demanded, and negotiations are used not only to establish goals but also as a means of better understanding the organization and its collec- tive goals. The contract may also go beyond specific policy objectives to specify changes in the management style implemented within the organization. To make performance management more than a hollow exercise in measure- ment and rhetoric, some consequences must be attached to poor performance, and some rewards attached to good performance. For individual- level performance those consequences can be rather clear – and can range from firing or demotion at one end, to promotions and large financial rewards at the other. This approach to differential rewards for public employees goes against the long- established patterns of uniformity and equality among public employees, but has become an increasingly common way of rewarding and disciplining those employees, and interestingly has become accepted even in countries such as Sweden and Nor way that have strongly egalitarian cultures. Although the basic idea of performance management and differential rewards and punishments for individual employees has become widely accepted, there are a number of alternative approaches to distributing those rewards. The fundamen- tal difference is between systems that provide one- time bonuses and those that change the base pay levels of individuals for a more extended period of time. On the one hand, governments can make a sum of money available each year that can be distributed among individuals who are rated as having performed particularly well during the preceding year. This recognizes performance during the year, but does not create long- term obligations to pay the individual more. On the other hand, focusing on less dramatic contributions on a year- to-year basis by employees may build higher average performance in the organization. One of the interesting, and seemingly per verse, characteristics of pay- for- performance systems is that they tend to be implemented more frequently for higher- level officials than for the lower echelons of government. At first glance one might think that the opposite would be true. The work of senior public officials – advising political leaders, managing large and often complex organizations, and dealing with other organizations and with interest groups – is relatively difficult to measure objectively. On the other hand, the work of lower- level employees is often repetitive and substantially easier to measure. Some of the difference in the

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treatment of these two groups of employees arises from their employment con- ditions with senior officials more commonly now on short- term contracts while lower- echelon employees remain in civil ser vices systems, and additionally often have union protections. Other means also are used to measure individual performance in public organizations. For example, some organizations employ so- called “360” evalua- tions. in which the individual in question is rated by people above, below, and on the same level. How well does this individual perform in working with peers, with sub- ordinates, and with superiors? This can be a rational tool to determine rewards and retention, but it also can be a useful tool for the individual being rated to improve his or her performance. On the other hand, this methodology is ver y subjective and relies on the willingness of the participants to make often difficult judgments of coworkers. At the top of the civil ser vice, where there are rather few employees who will often have to work with each other for years, making those judgments and reporting them can actually jeopardize performance rather than enhance it. Further, subordinates – despite attempts to ensure anonymity – may not feel suf- ficiently secure to make negative statements about their superiors. Although performance management of individuals has obvious benefits for the public sector, there are also a number of questions that must be considered when evaluating the overall consequences of this change. One is the obvious measure- ment question raised above, especially when performance management is applied to top- level officials. How can the evaluators know that he or she is really doing a good job? Other employees in the organization may not like them ver y much, but is that a sign of strong leadership, or is it a fundamental flaw in their performance? Also, what role will politics play in the assessment of top public officials who must work on a regular basis with ministers and political appointees? Will those officials be judged on the basis of political compatibility or on the basis of their capacity to perform their jobs? One of the most vexing problems in the use of performance management is relating individual performance to organizational performance. If an organization performs well, how much of that good performance is a function of the work of the leadership? Or to what extent is the positive outcome more a function of the performance of the rank- and-file members of the organization? There are cases in which organizations that perform well do so despite their management, and others that even extremely skilled leaders would have a difficult time making work well. And even below the top of the organization to what extent should individual employees be rewarded for collective performance as well as individual perform- ance? There may be no right or wrong answers that can hold for all organizations to questions like these. For example, if one of the principal challenges to an organiza- tion is building some sense of common destiny and unity, then it may be appropri- ate to provide more collective rewards. On the other hand, if managers perceive there is a great deal of variance in performance within the organization it may be more appropriate to focus on differential rewards to individuals based on their own performance. Organizational performance. The individual level of performance is cer- tainly important for managing within organizations, but the organizational level may be more important for citizens. First, organizational performance affects citizens as

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taxpayers, given that the more efficient public organizations are, the less money they will require to produce the same ser vices, or conversely the more ser vices they can produce with the same amount of money. Next, as the recipients of ser v- ices, citizens should be better off if the quality of those ser vices is higher. Further, citizens should be better satisfied with government and individual organizations if those ser vices are more efficient and effective. Following from the above, the organizational level of performance has at least three dimensions that should be considered by managers and analysts: efficiency, service quality, and citizen satisfaction (see Bouckaert, 2000). The problem for man- agers and for government more generally is that these three dimensions may not vary together, and in fact often will not. In particular, for many social services in par- ticular, the more efficient a service is, the less likely citizens (at least the clients of the program) are to be satisfied with that service. Citizens may want personal attention and not to be treated as just another client, and that sort of service requires more per- sonnel and more money. Likewise, although experts may identify aspects of service quality they consider important citizens may have very different ideas and, therefore, improved professional service quality may not equal improved citizen satisfaction. While it is difficult to deny that organizational performance is important for government, it is more difficult to measure and to incorporate into the routines of policy making. Measuring efficiency is perhaps the most difficult challenge to gov- ernment, given that to be able to capture the concept of efficiency managers need to be able to measure outputs rather directly, and in terms of dollars and cents, and then relate those to the inputs of money, personnel, and equipment. Although that level of measurement would be nice to achieve, in reality few public programs can be measured so clearly and unequivocally. How, for example, do we measure the value the outputs of defense programs, or economic regulation? Given those constraints, governments typically must employ approximations of efficiency and quality as guides for action. One of the more common forms of approximating efficiency and quality meas- urement in government is to benchmark those ser vices. At its simplest benchmark- ing involves measuring performance of a public organization directly against the performance of other public organizations or programs that are considered compa- rable. In the first instance, a list of comparable organizations has to be established, and then a set of variables that can be used to assess performance can be utilized by the evaluators to determine how well the organization in question is performing its tasks. This comparison can be done at the level of individual organizations – hospitals, schools, universities – or it can be done more broadly for types of public organizations. This use of comparability is a useful substitute for the absence of clear abso- lute standards for most public ser vices. We might want all students to be success- ful, and we certainly want no one to die while in the hospital, but in reality those absolute standards are difficult if not impossible to obtain. So long as the compari- sons are made carefully, and with some consideration of the inherent difficulties of comparing different organizational, or even national settings, then some assess- ment of the performance of a school or a hospital can be made. The assessments become more difficult, however, when less tangible ser vices of government, such as regulation or even defense, are considered.

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There are also other mechanisms for benchmarking organizations. For example, instruments such as the “balanced scorecard” have been developed as methodologies that can be used in a variety of organizations to assess their per- formance, and the performance of their management. In addition to the “balanced scorecard” ISO 9000 has been developed as a means of assessing the performance of organizations. This methodology, like most performance management mecha- nisms, has its roots in the private sector, and the private sector bias is perhaps more evident here than for the others. As performance management has become more sophisticated in the public sector, additional ideas for measurement have been added to the simpler attempts to measure the performance of organizations. One of these ideas has been “value added,” or a systematic attempt to identify not just the performance of the organiza- tion on some absolute or relative scale, but also to judge what the organization actu- ally contributed to that obser ved performance. For example, in education, it is well established that the children of better- educated parents will do better in school, on average, than do children of less well- educated parents. Therefore, a school in a middle- class neighborhood should get no particular credit if its students perform better. Rather, government should attempt to measure the actual contribution of the school to that performance. Assessing performance is difficult enough in any form, but the concept of value- added places an additional burden on the measurement capacity of govern- ment organizations. What would the performance had been had the public organi- zation not been as good, or as bad, as it is? For education we may be able to predict performance on the basis of parental education, or other individual or community attributes, but for many other areas of government that capacity for identifying the sources of performance are not as readily identifiable. For example, social welfare programs do not have anywhere as much of a predictive capacity for success or failure, but a manager will still want to know how well the individual program was performing. In addition to organizational measures of performance that attempt to assess the quantity and quality of outputs by the programs, another approach to coping with performance management is to focus on the evaluation of the clients of a program, or the public as a whole. This approach is democratic and based on market- based ideas such as “ser ving the customer” but also poses some real prob- lems for government. For example, who are the relevant clients? This may be clear for education or for health, but some programs such as tax collection or prisons present more interesting problems. At the level of the individual ser vice facility, benchmarking through “league tables” can be used to provide consumers of those ser vices some guide about the quality of the ser vices they are receiving. These league tables rate all similar facili- ties in an area, and are widely distributed to the public, generally by being pub- lished in newspapers. This process of “naming and shaming” is intended not only to be a means of identifying well- performing and poorly performing organizations, but also as a means of producing action for change. The assumption is that citi- zens will see how good or poor their children’s school is, or what their chances of dying in their local hospital is after different types of surgeries. The assumption is that making this information available to the “customers” of public programs will

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produce political mobilization that will in the end improve the quality of the ser v- ices provided. That assumption may be valid for middle- class citizens but may be less viable for the less- affluent and less- educated citizens who may be most in the need of improved ser vices. While benchmarking and league tables are useful approaches to the problem of operationalizing the performance of public organizations, they also have several weaknesses. The most important of these weaknesses is that it assumes that the benchmarked organizations have the same conditions of production as do the ones to which they are being compared. So, for example, if a school is not performing well, is this a function of the absence of parental support, poor initial preparation of the students, or is it indeed a failure on the part of teachers and administrators? Given the interaction of social and economic variables with the policy decisions of government the validity of benchmarks and league tables must be questioned unless careful analysis is available. A second level of coping with the question of organizational per formance is to develop a set of indicators that can assess the per formance of those organiza- tions and use those indicators to determine on a more absolute basis how well organizations are per forming their tasks (Erkkilä et al., 2016). In many cases the standards that are established in this type of exercise are arbitrar y. For example, any tax program may have an optimal level of evasion possible for taxpayers – there is a point after which it costs more money to detect evasion than can be recovered from the taxes that are lost to government. In the best of all worlds the per formance indicator would be to reach that optimal level of per formance, but since that level is generally unknown, simple surrogate measures have to be developed. Choosing indicators for the performance of a public sector program may be arbitrar y, and it is also often a negotiated process between the control organiza- tion and the organization responsible for delivering a ser vice. Few central agen- cies responsible for implementing performance management programs want to impose measurements on public organizations without some involvement from those organizations. The control agencies in the center of government may have their own ideas about what the appropriate indicators are for the programs, but unless those indicators are “owned” by the functional programs their legitimacy will be limited, and the impacts on performance will also be limited. Without that legitimacy any system of performance management is likely to remain politically contested by the involved organizations, rather than a means of moving manage- ment and ser vice deliver y ahead. The process for choosing indicators to implement the Government Perform- ance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA) in the United States is an important example of how to select the necessar y indicators for a performance management system. Each of the organizations in the federal government was required to propose a set of indicators and a suitable initial level of performance. The US General Account- ability Office, an organization ser ving Congress (see Chapter 5), was then charged with examining those proposed indicators and negotiating with the agency (and to some extent with the Office of Management and Budget) to produce a final list that would ser ve as the basis for assessing performance. Although the USGAO did not accept many of the first drafts of performance indicators, the opportunity to

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produce a list in cooperation with the agencies generated wider acceptance of the process (Radin, 1998, 2006). The GPRA experience, like most other examples of using performance indi- cators, has tended to produce increasingly high levels of performance required to be considered satisfactor y. If, for example, the Social Security Administration had as one of its indicators to reduce the error rate in Supplemental Security Income payments to 10 percent in one year, then they would probably be expected to reduce it to 8 percent the following year (see USGAO, 2010). When challenged about the seemingly low initial requirements for organizations in his performance system, the then director of quality programs in the Hong Kong government noted that this was a conscious strategy. The initial standards were sufficiently low that no organization could refuse to participate in the program, and once they were in the standards could be raised unremittingly year after year. The education program entitled “No Child Left Behind” in the United States (McDonnell, 2005) adopts a more individualistic perspective on the fundamental process of identifying failing organizations in the public sector. This program of the Bush (Junior) administration is a federal inter vention in public education that identifies failing schools, based on the performance of individual students in those schools. If a school fails to meet national standards in reading and mathematics student scores for two consecutive years the parents are permitted to remove their children and to place them in other schools in the district, or perhaps move the chil- dren to other districts with financial support from the school district. This program can be seen as a first step toward providing school vouchers to parents, but also places pressure on schools and school districts to improve their performance. Like all programs of this sort, however, there has been a notable effort for schools to “teach to the test,” rather than to teach more fundamental content. In particular, critics argue that programs based on standardized tests seriously under value skills such as problem solving and writing. In part for these reasons the Obama adminis- tration modified this program extensively, albeit maintaining the general commit- ment to performance.

Accrual Accounting

Another of the important second wave reforms in the public sector has been the shift toward accrual accounting and to some extent accrual budgeting. While account- ing practices may appear to be an arcane subject that would only tally the results of performance, rather than have any real impact on how well government performs its tasks, in reality the manner of accounting can have a major impact (Chan, 2002). The typical means of accounting in the public sector has been on a cash basis, so that money is counted as it comes in through taxes and fees, or is spent on the range of programs that governments deliver to the public. That method of account- ing may have been viable when government was providing a limited range of ser v- ices and had few complex financial relationships to the private sector. As government has become more complex, provides a much wider range of services, and has more of an impact on the economy as a whole, effective public management involves a better understanding of public finances. Accrual accounting

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has been introduced into a number of governments, including longer- range commit- ments and sources of income in public sector accounts. For example, governments have a number of liabilities that extend far into the future – interest on debts, pension obligations, maintenance of public building – and also have capital assets that have an extended life and value (Chan, 2003). Therefore, to understand the nature of the public sector, it is argued, these longer- term commitments and assets need to be included in the balance sheet, just as would be expected of a corporation. This is in marked contrast to the traditional government budgeting that focused on the annual budget, and only to a limited degree on the capital budget. While the changes in government accounting appear to make a good deal of sense and should enable government to make better financial decisions, there are also some problems in shifting to a mode of reckoning public money that is based so much on a private sector model. First, the management and policy implica- tions of some accounting categories may not be the same in the public and private sectors. For example, public debt and private debt may not be the equivalent. Even though public debt has to be ser viced, i.e., interest must be paid to bond holders, there may never be a real day of reckoning as there is for private firms, especially for large countries with viable economies. On the other hand, although some long- term implications of assets and liabilities may not be the same, governments tend to operate more on an annual basis than do many firms. This concern with the annual budget is less for financial management than for accountability reasons, so that any system of public accounts must be able to blend those two demands for management in government. Further, the directions of government may change more rapidly than do those of a firm, so that the longer- term dimension of accrual accounting may not be as meaningful.

Strategic Management

The reforms of the public sector discussed in Chapter 9 have had a number of impacts, both positive and negative, on the public sector. One of the more important negative consequences has been the fragmentation of the public sector and consequent diffi- culties in coordination (Bouckaert et al., 2009). Governments have adopted a number of programs that are attempting to remedy the coordination problem, and some have become rather successful in balancing the demands of decentralized implementa- tion with the need for central steering and control (see Peters, 2004a). In particular, presidents and prime ministers have been developing enhanced capacity to generate coherence among programs and organizations in the public sector. Although achieving greater coordination certainly would be a positive outcome for governments, it is often merely a reaction to problems that already have been created. In addition, coordination often is achieved through the lowest common denominator, so that the coordination that is achieved among programs is simply through avoiding conflicts with one another, rather than creating more positive cooperation among those programs. The real need for governments, and especially for the top leadership in governments, is to move beyond simple nega- tive forms of coordination to more prospective forms of collaboration, and a stra- tegic sense of policy choices that must be made.

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Given the necessity of moving government for ward with a strategic sense of its future policy needs and opportunities, and changing capacity of the public sector, a stronger sense of strategic management has been identified by many governments as a necessity development (see Ferlie, 2004). Although now it often is considered desirable, the search for greater strategic management capacity in government often contradicts the pattern of reform that had been implemented during the past several decades. In particular, the search for strategic management appears to require some return to centralization, and an increasing capacity for the central decision makers (presidents and prime ministers) to provide direction to the machiner y of government as a collective enterprise. As management reforms of the past few decades now move toward greater concern with strategy and fundamental policy choices, the extolling of the central role of manager, and with that the denigration of politicians, must be reversed. Managers and the reforms of the late twentieth centur y did indeed enhance the capacity of programs and organizations in government to deliver their ser vices to clients more efficiently and more effectively. But that enhanced performance was bought by reducing the role of central policy direction and coherence. Politicians in democratic systems sensed the need to reimpose the democratic legitimacy over policy, and governance more generally. Further, politicians have a special role in the need to develop broader strategic concerns about the future of policy. To be successful, strategic management will have to progress beyond the institutional conflicts between politicians and bureaucrats and develop mechanisms for integrating the needs and skills of the two groups. In particular, strategic effec- tive management involves linking the broad system goals that may be developed from the center of government to the more specific goals of the individual agencies. One interesting example or moving toward strategic management is New Zealand that, early in its extensive administrative reforms, developed a issues management system that required the identification of “key results areas” and “strategic results areas.” The former were at the level of the department or program, while the latter were at a broader, even government- wide level. For example, the government’s policy for sustainable development is stated as a system- wide goal, but most of the departments in government have some relationship to making the policy success- ful (see Bianchi and Peters, 2016). The Finnish government has continued its active reform policy also with a form of strategic management and integration of programs. In the early twenty- first centur y the Finnish government adopted a system of “program management” in which each incoming government must identify as a part of its coalition agreement four or five key programs that they will pursue during their time in office. For example, the government that came to office in 2004 decided to focus its atten- tion on employment, entrepreneurship, citizen participation, and the information society. These four programs cut across most of the existing departments in gov- ernment, and required those existing departments to identify what they could con- tribute to the success of those cross- cutting programs (see Peters, 2004a). Although the political government had identified these systemic goals, they have still had to overcome the commitment of individual ministers and their civil ser vants to the particular programs of the individual departments, a typical problem of any move toward greater coordination.

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Although advocating strategic management in the public sector appears to make good sense as a means of coping with the demands of governing, this style of governance also places substantial demands on the public sector. Governments in the industrialized democracies may have the analytic capacity to be able to perform this type of analysis, and to be able to plan in an environment that is relatively pre- dictable. For the less- developed countries, the need for making strategic choices may be even more pressing. These governments have the need to make difficult choices about allocating extremely scarce resources among a huge number of com- peting demands, but may not have either the analytic capacity or the stable environ- ment that could facilitate making those decisions.

E- governance

Finally, management in the public sector is being altered, and may be altered even more fundamentally in the future, by information and communications technology (ICT). As was true for several of the other management changes in government the use of technology has been increasing for decades, but the pace of change has been accelerating over the past several decades. These changes are usually referred to as “e- government,” although that one term contains a range of different formats for using the available technology. Most of the changes brought about by ICT affect the manner in which government and society interact with one another, although some aspects of technology also impact on the internal management of the public sector. A wide range of relationships between government and society are being affected by the introduction of ICT. On the one hand citizens now have means of contacting officials (both political and administrative). On the other hand, informa- tion technology can also be important in ser vice deliver y, and in enabling citizens to manage much of their own policy needs, reducing thereby administrative costs (and public sector employment). Both of these uses of technology are likely to improve citizen satisfaction with government as well as enhancing the actual per- formance of these tasks. When electronic means are used to enhance ser vice provision in the public sector, one of the most important elements has been the capacity of citizens to perform many tasks for themselves. For example, completing many routine forms that might have required a clerk in an office to take the information now can be done online. This ability to use electronic means of dealing with government pro- cedures not only would save money for government but it also allows those forms to be filed any time of the day or night. Citizens can also file their taxes online, and that capacity may make the actual process of paying taxes, not the transfer of money, more palatable. One of the important uses for information technology and e- government is reducing the level of corruption in government. Among its many other virtues e- governance improves the transparency of the operations of government, and this simple access of the public to many internal operations of government may make it more difficult for civil ser vants or politicians to engage in corrupt activity. For example, in both South Korea and Romania (both countries with a substantial histories

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of political corruption) the public procurement system has been put online. With this electronic system both ordinar y citizens and all the firms bidding for contracts can see what the tenders actually were. This visibility of the bids makes it more difficult to award contracts on a preferential basis such as family or political connec- tions. Indeed, one of the most general benefits of e- government is the capacity to make the public sector more transparent so that citizens can obser ve what govern- ment is doing and hold it more accountable.

The Rest of the World

I have been discussing managerialism in the public sector primarily in the context of the affluent, democratic countries of Europe, North America, and the Antipodes. There are as indicated here and in earlier chapters substantial differences among these countries in the ways in which they have interpreted and implemented the “New Public Management.” Those differences are important, but compared to the implementation of these ideas in much of the rest of the world, and indeed the opportunity to attempt to implement them the differences may actually be rather slight. Again, however, I should not attempt to lump the remainder of the world into a single box either, and there are important differences in the extent to which public management has been accepted and been successful outside the OECD “Club.” Assuming the less- affluent countries wanted to implement any or all of the versions of New Public Management mentioned above, they would face a number of important constraints. The most important of those constraints would be the absence of a strong private sector – either for profit or not for profit – that could supplement the work of the public sector. Both the market model and the more par- ticipator y versions of public management discussed above rely upon actors outside the public sector for their success. If there are no firms prepared to do the “rowing” for government then governments will have to do it themselves, and indeed in many less- developed societies the public sector may be more capable than the private sector of performing the tasks. Likewise, the absence of a strong civil society will make the development of a more participator y approach less viable. The additional problem for many of the less- developed countries is that if they were to move toward a more managerial form of administration their links with their societies will not support efficiency but rather may undermine it. Clientelism and neo- patrimonialism (Kobayashi, 2006) are common features of the public sector in many less- developed governments so attempts to involve society will tend only to reinforce the dysfunctions associated with those patterns rather than promoting good governance. Likewise, any attempt at deregulating government internally by permitting greater freedom in personnel or procurement policies would merely be a recipe for reinforcing and funding that clientelism. Of course, we also need to remember that in context these patterns of links between State and society may be considered as functional, or more functional, as managerialism or even traditional Weberian administration. In addition to the problems that may exist in the private sectors in many less- developed countries, the public sectors may have problems of their own. Managing in the style advocated in the New Public Management requires a range of skills that

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are not often found in traditional public administrators. Many of the less- developed countries have maintained the highly legalistic administrative styles they inher- ited from their former colonial rulers, and have used that formality as a means of maintaining power, as well as means of appearing to conform to the values of good administration. While again, when seen from the perspective of outsiders, the for- malism of administration can be a barrier to good governing, it does use the com- petencies available in the civil ser vice and it may be able to provide for legalistic if not highly innovative implementation of programs. Enumerating these problems, however, should not be taken to minimize the capabilities of many public sector actors in less- developed countries. We have already noted (Chapter 2) that public evaluations of the performance of the bureauc- racy in these countries is not as bad as journalistic accounts, or accounts from many international organizations, might have one believe. Indeed, given their con- tacts with the donor community and the continuing pressures for modernization and for reducing corruption these organizations may be among the most efficient in the underdeveloped countries. Further, given some of the pitfalls of manageri- alism already discussed it may be desirable for these administrative systems to continue to build rather old- fashioned bureaucracies and then move toward New Public Management.

Continuing Reforms

The continuing patterns of reform in the public sector, and the increasing emphasis on effective management in government, have fundamentally altered the nature of governing in most industrialized societies. The formal, rational–legal bureaucratic system that was the basis administration in the public sector has been replaced by management systems that in many cases resemble management in the private sector. In other cases the principal emphasis in managerial change has been on democratizing the administrative system and encouraging change through the involvement of citizens and clients, as well as the lower- level employees of the organizations. Those initial changes in the public sector produced the need for subsequent rounds of managerial change in the public sector, especially an increased emphasis on performance. Some of the concern with performance began contemporaneously with the market and participator y approaches to managing in the public sector, and the market model indeed implies a concern with “ser ving the customer.” That initial emphasis on improving ser vice provision led rather naturally to the stronger emphasis on performance now found in many governments. This emphasis on per- formance is found now in many governments in less- developed governments as well as in the more affluent democratic systems (Bresser Pereira, 2004). While the less- affluent systems can have lower expectations about the performance of their governments, they can still use these techniques to improve the ser vices being delivered. In addition to the emphasis on performance in the public sector there is an increasing emphasis on the capacity of government to act in a more coordinated and strategic manner. Achieving coherence and coordination is important, and has

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been one of the perennial concerns in public management (see Seidman, 1998; Christensen et al., 2007), but it is may be only a preliminar y step toward moving government to a more strategic sense of its tasks. That is, the public sector has returned to being concerned with establishing priorities at the center and then using those priorities to guide the behavior of the organizations within the public sector. For public management to achieve its promise for enhancing the govern- ance of societies it will have to enable governments to do more than react to prob- lems. The need therefore is to make government more of a strategic actor that can identify its major goals and align actions across the range of public organizations to achieve those ends. As important as these changes have been, and continue to be, in government, they are almost certainly not the end of reform and the enhancement of the mana- gerialism of organizations in the public sector. Governments do now perform more efficiently than in the past, but there are still efficiency gains possible, perhaps most importantly through information technology. The rather brief discussion of e- governance above represents what may be the tip of an iceberg for means of enhancing the efficiency and responsibility of government through electronic means. Further, the emphasis on efficiency that has been dominant in most gov- ernments for the past several decades will have to be supplemented with increased concerns about democracy and participation, and the capacity of public administra- tion to be a principal locus for democratic action. The other question that must be raised about the reforms of the public sector is the extent to which there is some virtue in returning to the rational- level form of bureaucracy. This is especially true for the less- developed countries, and for coun- tries emerging from decades of control by hegemonic political parties, e.g., the former communist systems. Many of the international donors continue to push the managerialist agenda in these countries and want an immediate adoption of the market- based style of management discussed above. The absence of an institution- alized civil ser vice system and the values of ser vice and probity that go with a well- functioning civil ser vice, however, continue to pose a significant challenge to good governance in those societies that have not had the opportunity to create values of neutrality and personal accountability among their public employees.

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3 7 9

Index

Abbott, A. 293 Aberbach, J.D. 80, 110, 111, 114, 198, 278 Abramson, P. 62 accountability 5, 27, 149, 167, 260–1,

314–16; competitive 269–70; internal discipline 271; organization methods 267–73; publicity 267–8; transparency 268; whistle-blowers 272

Adamolekun, L. 178 administrative culture 34–5, 156;

bureaucratic 35–6; entrepreneurial 35; participator y 37; “sala” 36

administrative law 290 administrative norms 290–2 administrative politics 166 administrative reform 302–20;

consumerism 313–14, 338–9; contracting 329–33; deregulation 308–9; flexibility 309–10; future 345–6; markets 303–6, 326–8; participation 306–8, 330–3; policy change 318–19; politics 316–20; structural change 318

administrative traditions 124 administrative tribunals 262 advisor y committees 174–5 advocacy coalition framework 173 affirmative action 84, 85, 115 Africa 2, 48, 89, 280 agencies 4, 134–5 agency model 311

Agh, A. 40 Ahonen, P. 232 Alagappa, M. 224 Alam, T. 132 Alba, C. 146 Alesina, A. 219 Alessandro, M. 142 Alford, J. 75, 314 Allison, G.T. 41, 199, 326, 330 Almond, G.A. 6, 49, 58, 59, 62 Anderson, C.W. 185 Anechiarico, F. 264 Antoine, D. 88 Appleby, J. 273 Appleby, P. 164 d’Arcy, F. 290 Argyris, C. 306, 331 Arnold, P.E. 285, 324 Arnold, R.D. 348 Arts, B. 175 ascription 50–1 Asia 2 Atkinson, M.M. 172, 176 Aucoin, P. 221, 315 auditing 282–3 Australia 250 authority 71 autonomy 168–9, 293–4 Ayee, J.R.A. 88 Ayeni, V. 279

I n d e x

3 8 0

Baden, J. 11 Baker, R. 49 Baldwin, R. 19, 165, 281 Ban, C. 136 Barberis, P. 111 Bardach, E. 211, 331 bargaining 168 Barker, A. 331 Bartlett, R. 209 Barzelay, M. 52 Bastida, F. 166 Bauer, P. 36 Baumol, W.J. 10 Beaumont, P.B. 84 Beckman, L. 21 Behagel, J.H. 175 Bellah, R.N. 69 Bellin, E. 187 benchmarking 339 Benda, P.M. 144 Bendix, R. 35, 36 Bendor, J. 155 Benito, B. 166 Bennett, C.J. 280 Berg, A.M. 37 Berne, M. 12 Berr y, W.D. 9 Bertelli, A.M. 82 von Beyme, K. 175 Bezes, P. 133 Bhatta, G. 159 Bianchi, C. 342 Binderkrantz, A. 170 Blais, A. 12, 13, 155, 201 Blau, P.M. 157, 271 Bloch-Laine, F. 59 Blom-Hansen, J. 174, 175 Bodiguel, J.-L. 45, 131 Bohman, J. 269 Bohte, J. 150 Booth, D. 303 Boston, J. 24, 158, 326 Bouckaert, G. 3, 145, 154, 233, 294, 325,

327, 337, 341 Bourdieu, P. 85, 111 Bovens, M.A.P. 172 Bradley, L. 34 Brans, M. 96, 104, 209 Brazil 7

Brehm, J. 22, 73 Bresser Pereira, L.C. 345 Brewer, G.A. 309, 312 Brown, C. 65 Brunet, E. 42 Brunsson, N. 200 Br yner, G.C. 209, 261 budgeting: accrual 340–1; bulk budgeting

244–5, 309; capital 254–5; cash limits 245–6; decrementalism 235, 236; efficiency 238–9; envelope 231, 246–7; Financial Management Initiative (United Kingdom) 249–50; forecasting 229–30; full employment budget 248; Grace Commission (United States) 250–1; incrementalism 234–8; indexing 233; innovation 233; intergovernmental budget control 252–3; law of triviality 236–7; macro-level 228; management by objectives 242–3; micro-level 230–2; ministries of finance 233; multi-year 253; off-budget activities 256–7; output 283, 335; Program Analysis Review (United Kingdom) 243–4; program budgeting 239–41; Public Expenditure Sur vey (United Kingdom) 243–4; reform 238–45; revenue-based 234; structural budget margins 247–50; zero-based budgeting 241–2

budgets 181 Bunce, V. 238 Bundeskanzlersamt 142 Bupp, I.C. 235 Burch, M. 219 bureau maximization 155 bureau pathologies 263 bureaucratic competition 232–3 bureaucratic power 64–5 Burstein, P. 230 Busse, V. 142 Butcher, T. 111

Caiden, G.E. 39, 159, 263 Caiden, N. 229 Calvert, R.L. 206 Cammack, D. 302, 303 Campbell, C. 72, 142, 180 Campos, V.P. 99 Canada 72, 246, 286

I n d e x

3 8 1

Caranta, R. 289 career patterns 92–5 Carnevale, D.G. 63 Carpenter, D.P. 168, 212 Carroll, B.W. 209 Carter, N. 249 Cassesse, S. 117 Cave, M. 204 central agencies 72, 127, 137, 142 Chan, J.L. 340, 341 Chapman, R.A. 49, 260 charisma 66, 71 Chevallier, J. 132 China 73–4, 95 Chisholm, D. 309 Choi, Y. 335 Christensen, J.G. 139, 230 Christensen, P.M. 175 Christensen, T. 172, 174, 175, 268, 286,

326, 346 Christiansen, P.M. 175 Christiansen, T. 279 Chubb, B. 280 citizens’ charters 53–4 civic culture 49 civil ser vice reform 159 Clark, P.B. 95 Clarke, J. 149 Clarke, R. 243 Cleaves, P.S. 22 Clegg, S. 276 clientalism 316 clients 298, 308 coercion 54–5, 73 Cohen, M.D. 200 Cole, A. 221 Coleman, W.D. 172, 176 collective action 17 Colonialism 66 comitology 174 common law 38 compliance 156–7 confidence in government 63 Congressional Budget Office (United

States) 137 Connolly, M. 53 Considine, M. 5, 173 consociationalism 56, 58 constituency ser vice 280–1

consultation 174–5 consumers 149 contingency theor y 156 contracting out 294–5 coordination 142–3, 152, 182 coproduction 141 cooptation 147–8, 177–8 coordination 309 corporate pluralism 171 corporatism 169–71 Council of State (France) 290 courts 289–90 Croisat, M. 65 Crossman, R. 263 Crozier, M. 52, 65, 156, 204, 208 Crum, J. 85 Cullen, J. 275 Cultural change 62–3 Cuzan, A.G. 255 Czars 152

Dahlström, C. 135, 142, 159, 318 Dairokuno, K. 93, 95 Dalton, R.J. 62 Damaska, M.R. 38, 139 Danninger, S. 229 Davis, O.A. 235, 236 Day, P. 260 De Bruijn, H. 333 De Fine Licht, J. 245 De Long, J.B. 248 de Winter, L. 69, 198 decentralization 125, 134, 136, 138–9, 159 decolonization 151 deconcentration 310–11 delegation 145, 275 deliberative democracy 55 Della Porta, D. 187 demography 8–9 Denhardt, R.B. 32, 52 Deputy Ministers Task Force (Canada)

260 Derlien, H.-U. 88, 95, 104, 110, 198, 223 dialectic organizations 52 Diani, M. 187 Dickson, W.J. 331 DiIulio, J.J. 10 DiMaggio, P.J. 35 Dion, S. 12, 13, 155, 201

I n d e x

3 8 2

Direction Generale de l’administration et de la Fonction Publique (France) 98

displacement of goals 150 Dittmer, L. 185 Divedi, O.P. 37 Dixon, R. 302 Dobel, J.P. 290 Doern, G.B. 315, 324 Dommett, K. 129 Douglas, M. 37, 50, 51, 53, 55 Dowding, K. 173 Downs, A. 23, 86, 96, 150, 155, 201, 271 Drake, H. 221 Drewr y, G. 111 Dreyfus, F. 290 Dr yzek, J.S. 55 Du Gay, P. 204, 291 Ducros, J.-C. 240 Dumont, P. 69, 198 Dunleavy, P. 13, 201 Dunlop, C.A. 172 Dür, A. 180 Duran, P. 138, 169 DVA (Department of Veterans’ Affairs,

United States) 43, 354

e-government 56, 343–4 Earley, P.C. 74 Eastern Europe 24, 33 Eckstein, H. 32 École Nationale d’Administration 88, 111,

131 eonomic planning 90 Edley, C.F. 262 education, of civil ser vants 87–90 efficiency 160 Egeberg, M. 172, 174, 287 Ehn, P. 145 Eichbaum, C. 145, 196, 266, 288 Eisenstadt, S.N. 14, 38, 40 Eisner, M.A. 146, 262 Elazar, D.J. 50 Eldersveld, S.J. 49, 85 Elgie, R. 166 Elkins, D.J. 33 Ellis, C. 4, 355 Ellwein, T. 284 Elmore, R. 203 Elster, J. 56

empowerment 53, 275, 331 enabling state 171 entitlements 8–9 Epstein, R. 206 Ericksson, B. 229, 249 Erk, J. 139 Erkkilä, T. 268, 339 ethics 261–2 Etzioni, A. 156 Eurocrats 3 European Union 3, 15, 56, 117–18, 140,

172, 233, 298 Evans, P.B. 6, 7, 89 Executive Office of the President (United

States) 142 expertise 55, 72 Eymeri-Douzanes, J.-M. 142

Falkner, G. 140 Farley, C. 4 federalism 125, 296 Feigenbaum, H. 294 Ferlie, E. 342 Ferraresi, F. 117 Fesler, J.S. 141 financial crisis 317 Finer, H. 260 Finer, S. 14 Finland 253, 343 Fiorina, M.P. 20, 281, 355 fiscal crisis 238 fiscal policy 9–10 Fleischer, J. 142, 203, 207 Flynn, R. 213 Follett, M.P. 153 formality 165 Fossati, A. 230 Foster, K.A. 141 Fountain, J. 293 Fournier, J. 152, 221 France 11–12, 56, 65–6, 98, 130–3, 240;

grand corps 131, 145–6 Freedom of Information 269 Freeman, G. 33, 172 Freeman, H.E. 334 Freitag, M. 233 Friedrich, C.J. 260, 267, 290 Frumkin, P. 201 Fukuyama, F. 57

I n d e x

3 8 3

Gaebler, T. 52, 327 Gaffney, J. 221 Gagnon, A.G. 92 Galaskiwicz, J. 201 Garrett, J. 87 Garson, D.G. 56 Gates, S. 22, 73 Gazier, A. 271 Gazley, B. 205 Genieys, W. 94 Gerbrandy, A. 289 Gerlich, P. 171 Germany 2, 124–6, 252–3, 284 Gerth, H.H. 51, 71, 120 Geyer, K. 91 Giavazzi, F. 219 Gibbins, J.R. 32 Giddens, A. 8 Girling, J. 33 Gittell, M. 184 globalization 18 goal change 151–2 Goetz, A.M. 151 Goetz, K. 159, 331 Good, D.A. 218, 231, 235, 246 Goodin, R.E. 201 Goodsell, C.T. 35, 43, 167, 196, 211, 291 Gormley, W.T. 266, 267 Gould, D.J. 39 Government Performance and Results

Act (United States) 137, 252, 339–40 Gow, J. 37 de Graaf, G. 315, 316 Gray, V. 11, 244 Green-Pedersen, C. 231 Greffe, X. 209 Gregor y, R. 24, 279 Gremion, P. 138, 206 Grice, A. 65 Grindle, M.S. 83, 100, 206 group formation 59–60 Guevera, M.M. 242 Gulick, L. 124, 137, 325 Gunther, R. 56 Gyimah-Boadi, E. 65

Hafken, M. 93 Haire, M. 156 Hajer, M. 288

Halligan, J.A. 154, 241, 330 Hamilton, C. 88 Handler, J.F. 164 Hanf, K. 206 Haque, M.S. 224 Hardiman, T.P. 249 Hardin, G. 11 Harrison, L.E. 32 Harrison, M. 183 Hartley, J. 96 Heclo, H. 35, 94, 180, 181, 223, 237 Heeks, R. 307 Heffernan, R. 198 Heinrich, C.J. 222, 335 Heintzmann, R. 315 Heinz, J. 177, 182 Heins, 177 Helms, L. 125, 287 Henkel, M. 283 Hennessy, P. 266, 302 Heritier, A. 205 Hermansson, J. 178 Heskett, J.L. 196 Hesse, J.J. 40, 284, 320 hierarchy 50, 80, 153–4 Higgins, P. 328 Higley, J. 56 Hill, A. 213, 289 HM Treasur y (United Kingdom) 10 Ho, P. 274 Hoffman, H. 142 Hofstede, G. 36, 37, 156 Hogwood, B.W. 14, 27, 129, 159, 160, 236,

262 Holden, M. 201 Holliday, I. 219 Hollifield, J.F. 58 hollow state 171 Hood, C. 13, 50, 104, 105, 146, 207, 260,

267, 270, 285, 302, 314, 318, 320, 324 Horn, M. 305, 317 Horner, C. 308 Hor vath, L. 3 Howlett, M. 181 Huang, T.-Y. 199 Huber, J.D. 209, 275 Hula, R. 273 Hult, K.M. 124 human relations management 306

I n d e x

3 8 4

Hunold, C. 43 Huntington, S.P. 32, 55 Huskey, E. 89 Hustedt, T. 196

ideology 73 Immergut, E.M. 178 implementation 175–6, 304 impoundment (United States) 288 incentives 95–101, 104; material 94, 100;

purposes 95, 96; solidar y 95, 98, 99 incrementalism 231–2 indexation 103 India 49, 89 individualism 37 Inglehart, R. 52, 62 Ingraham, P.W. 75, 100, 136, 198, 265 inspectorates 132, 133, 146, 285–6 interactions of bureaucracy and groups:

clientela 178–82; legitimate 169–78 interest groups 164, 168 internal organization 153–61 International Monetar y Fund 104 interpersonal trust 58 Israel 38–9 issue networks 21 Italy 59, 66, 117

Jabes, J. 99 Jackson, R. 175 Jacobs, J.B. 264 Jacobsen, D.I. 13 Jain, H.C. 84 James, O. 4, 128, 201, 311 Japan 60, 93, 111, 170 Jenkins, B. 14, 65, 164, 196, 244 Jenkins, R. 331 Jiaqi, G. 224 job placement 90–2 Johnson, J. 56, 272 Johnson, R.A. 272 joined-up government 143 Jonung, L. 229 Jordan, A.G. 173, 202

Kagan, R.A. 331 Kassim, H. 171 Katz, E. 38, 40 Kaufman, H. 81, 148, 159, 204

Kearns, K. 59 Keating, M. 279 Kempf, R.J. 146 Kenya 5, 6, 105 Kerbel, M.R. 286 Kernaghan, K. 93, 96 Kernell, S. 199 Ker win, C. 19, 70, 137, 165, 262, 281 Kettl, D.F. 171, 258 Khan, M.M. 302 Kickert, W.J.M. 88, 238, 302, 317 Kim, P.S. 96, 111 Kingdon, J.W. 197 Kinglsey, J.D. 51, 83, 84 Klein, R. 261, 274 Klijn, E.H. 58 Klingner, D.E. 99 Knapp, A. 281 Knight, J. 56 Kobayashi, M. 344 Koh, B.C. 111 Kohl, Helmut 2 König, K. 362 Koike, O. 291 Kooistra, J. 104 Kopecky, P. 83, 308 Koppenjaan, J. 58 Korft, H.K. 277 Kornhauser, W. 59 Kotter, J.P. 196 Koven, S.G. 58 Krislov, S. 14 Kristensen, O.P. 201 Kvavik, R. 174, 331

La Documentation Française 282 Labbe, D. 65 Laegreid, P. 268, 286, 316, 326 Lancaster, T.D. 206 Landau, M. 155 Lando, T. 269 LaPalombara, J. 36, 178, 180, 183 Larch, M. 229 Latin America 2, 24, 33, 99, 276 Laver, M. 198 law 126 lawyers, in bureaucracy 88, 91 Le Grand, J. 305 Le Lidec, P. 133

I n d e x

3 8 5

Lebanon 115 Lechner, N. 66 Lee, H.L. 102 Leeuw, F.L. 334 legalism 126–7 legislative investigations 278–9 legislative veto 281 legislatures 19–20, 276–83 Leiken, R.S. 272 Lemaitre, F. 45 Lens, V. 289 less-developed countries 72, 88–9, 100 Levine, C.H. 145 Levy, R.P. 49, 208 Lewis, D.E. 203 Liberthal, K. 90 Liegl, B. 115 Lienert, I. 277 Light, P.C. 82, 136, 145, 272 Lindbeck, A. 251 Lindblom, C.E. 199 Linder, S.H. 199, 207, 244 line versus staff 141–2 Lipsky, M. 331 Liu, M. 183 loans 4 lobbying 166, 167 local government 132 Locke, R. 207, 223 Lodge, M. 104 Lor win, V.R. 69 Loughlin, J. 3 Lower y, D. 9, 11 Lowi, T.J. 11, 177, 180, 181, 273 Lund, M. 199 Lundquist, L. 104

McCaffrey, J. 246 McDonnell, L.M. 340 Macey, J.R. 181 Mackenzie, G.C. 93 Maheshwari, S.R. 84, 89 Mahler, G. 39 Majone, G. 2, 199, 278 Major, John 2 Maligorne, S. 183 management 70 managerialism 265 Mannheim, K. 165

Manning, N. 221 Manzetti, L. 188 Maor, M. 13 Maranto, R. 94, 203, 223, 265, 284 March, J.G. 305 Marier, P. 178 Marples, E. 21 Marsden, D. 304 Marshall, G. 35, 276 Martin, J.L. 196 Masclet, J.-C. 280 May, P.J. 178, 181 Mayntz, R. 110 Mazzucatto, M. 10 Mehmet, O. 213 Meier, K.J. 41, 150, 324 Meininger, M.-C. 93, 271 Meklin, P. 229 Mentan, T. 205 Meny, Y. 172, 206 merit system 80–1 Merkel, Angela 2, 23 Merton, R.K. 150 metagovernance 173 Metcalfe, B.A. 98 Meyer-Sahling, J.-H. 40, 207 Meyers, M.K. 40, 115, 331 Micheletti, M. 174 van Mierlo, H.J.G.A. 69 Miewald, R. 158 Miller, G.J. 201 Miller, N.T. 211 Mills, C.W. 51, 71, 120 Milward, H.B. 171, 294 ministerial advice 288–9 ministerial cabinets 83, 132, 144, 288 ministerial responsibility 276–7 ministries 16 Modell, S. 296 Moe, T.M. 201 Mohr, L.B. 150, 165 monetar y rewards 74 Montpetit, E. 261 Mookherjee, D. 96 Moore, M.H. 306 morales 206 Mosher, F.C. 197 Moss, D.A. 168 motivation 73

I n d e x

3 8 6

Moynihan, D.P. 94, 274 Mueller, W.C. 115 Müller-Rommel, F. 184 Mulreany, M. 249 multiple advocacy 146–7

Naff, K.C. 85 Nagel, M. 188 Nakamura, A. 93, 95, 291 Narlikar, A. 200 Natchez, P.B. 235 National Health Ser vice (United

Kingdom) 128, 274, 304 National Performance Review (United

States) 72, 302, 307 Nef, G. 155, 223, 271 Neisser, H. 88 Netherlands 175, 247, 251 Nettl, P. 49 networks 136, 171–3 neutral competence 81 New Public Management 92, 158, 324–30 The New Republic 136 new social regulation 181 New Zealand 24, 244, 242 Next Step Agencies 128, 130 Nielsen, V.L. 40, 331 Niento Morales, F. 206 Nigeria 57 Nilsson, L. 140 Niskanen, W. 12, 13, 14, 15, 155, 201, 302,

303, 305, 317 Nkrumah, K. 191 Nordlinger, E. 65 Northern Ireland 57 Norton, P. 281 Nor way 118 Novick, D. 240, 334 Nystrom, P.C. 159

Obama, Barack 21 Obolonsky, A.V. 36 OECD 3, 149, 245 Office of the Federal Register (United

Kingdom) 175 Official Secrets Act (United Kingdom)

270 Oksenberg, M. 90 O’Lear y, J. 84

Olsen, J.P. 159, 170, 177, 305 Olson, D.M. 212 ombudsman 134, 279–80 one stop shops 330 Ongaro, E. 56 open recruitment 94 organization by: area 138–41; clientele

147–9; process 141–7; purpose 149–52 organizational change 159 organizational communication 155 organizational goals 150–1 organizational stratification 154–5 Or well, G. 54 Osborne, D. 52, 327 Ostrom, E. 11 O’Toole, L.J. 41, 173, 324 Ozelak, O. 266

Pagani, L. 98 Page, E.C. 14, 65, 71, 80, 87, 98, 164, 168,

196 Painter, M.A. 124 Pallot, P. 244 Panella, G. 230 pantouflage 92–3, 131 Papastathopoulos, C.D. 111 Pardo, M.C. 83 Parker, R. 34 Parotti, R. 24 Parsons, T. 37, 50 participator y organizations 53, 75 party government 21 Patashnik, E.M. 256 patrimonialism 52 patronage 81, 82, 83, 265, 308 pattern variables 50–1 Patterson, W.D. 206 Pawson, R. 197 pay-for-performance 14, 75, 104, 335–6 Payan, T. 200 Peacock, A.T. 9, 12 Pei, M. 262 Pelgrims, C. 144 Pempel, T.J. 170 Pencavel, J. 185 Penner, R. 247 Perez-Diaz, V. 185 Perez-Linan, A. 221 performance indicators 336–8

I n d e x

3 8 7

performance management 154, 333–40 Perrow, C. 157, 158 Perr y, J.L. 96 personnel management 90–1, 284–5,

312–13 Pestoff, V. 75 Peters, B.G. 13, 14, 21, 25, 27, 37, 38, 43,

53, 81, 82, 83, 96, 102, 105, 124, 136, 143, 145, 149, 159, 166, 176, 180, 182, 191, 194, 195, 197, 199, 201, 207, 208, 211, 236, 244, 250, 265, 266, 289, 307, 308, 309, 325, 327, 331, 341, 342

Petersson, O. 60, 94, 134, 171, 172 petitions 174 Petterson, T. 91 Pfister, T. 130 Phyrr, P. 241 Piattoni, S. 52, 175 Piekalkiewicz, J. 88 Pierre, J. 81, 82, 135, 145, 171, 176, 191,

194, 245, 266, 270, 307, 308, 311 Pierson, P. 54, 236 Pigou, A.C. 239 Pogorel, G. 12 Poguntke, T. 198, 274 Pohl, H. 125 policy communities 171 policy problems 157 policy styles 33 political culture 32, 296 political development 33 political executives 20–2, 284–9 political parties 167 political socialization 32 political trust 57–8 politicization 145, 292 Pollitt, C. 143, 168, 221, 233, 283, 293, 296 populism 41 Powell, G.B. 6, 49 Powell, W.W. 35 Power, M. 272 pragmatism 38 prefect 133, 138 Premchand, A.M. 242 Pressman, J.L. 205, 206 principal agent problem 176 prismatic society 39–40 privatization 2–3, 132, 304 Privy Council Office (Canada) 72

productivity 331 professionalism 76, 292–3 program termination 236 protest parties 25 proverbs of administration 124 public bureaucracy: economic model

12–13; growth 22–3; power 14–15; public evaluation of 42–4

public choice theor y 182 public corporations 294 public enterprises 128–9 public expenditure 5–6 public interest 76, 165 public interest groups 11–12, 273–4 public management 324 public procurement 295, 343–4 public sector pay 101–4 public sector pensions 101 public ser vice motivation 96–7 public versus private employment 86 Putnam, R.D. 57, 58, 59, 80, 85 Pye, L. 50, 56

Quah, J.S.T. 184 quangos 82, 129 Quermonne, J.-L. 42

Radin, B. 137, 252, 340 Randma-Liiv, T. 317 Ratnam, C.S.V. 84 Rauch, J.E. 89 Rawaf, M. 118 Reagan, Ronald 2 Rechtstaat 126 recruitment; 51, 105–20; education

110–14; gender 118–20; representative 115–18; socio-economic background 105–10

red tape 263 Reddy, K.M. 117 Redford, E. 54, 55 reflexive goals 165 regulation 18, 264 regulator y capture 148 Reich, C.A. 8 reinventing government 307, 332 relative price effect 10 reorganization 159–61, 286–7 representative bureaucracy 51, 83–6, 110

I n d e x

3 8 8

responsibility 261, 262–5 responsive competence 81 responsiveness 261 “revolving door” 93, 95 Rhodes, R.A.W. 177 Rhodes, S. 304 Richardson, J.J. 33 Ridley, F.F. 87 Rigby, T.H. 90 Riggs, F.W. 36, 39, 40, 72, 186 Rist, R.C. 282 Robinson, G.O. 269 Robough, R. 104 Rockman, B.A. 114 Rodriguez, J. 248 Roethlisberger, F.J. 331 Rokkan, S. 170 Roness, P.G. 316 Rose, R. 15, 16, 20, 118, 164, 191, 195, 225,

242 Rosenbaum, E.F. 304 Rosenbloom, D. 198 Ross Schneider, B. 294 Rouban, L. 92, 104, 131, 144, 166, 285 Rovik, K.A. 62 Rowat, D.C. 279 Ruffing-Hilliard, K. 223 rule-making 70 Russia 3, 100 Rwanda 57

Saalfeld, T. 278 Sabatier, P.A. 173 Salamon, L.M. 25, 160, 171, 176, 199, 318,

319 Salomonsen, H.H. 196 Salisbur y, R.H. 177, 182 Salmi, J. 267 Samuelsson, K. 134 Sandal, R. 240 Santiso, C. 198 Sarapata, A. 49 Saroyan, A. 267 Sartori, G. 38 Sausman, C. 207, 223 Savoie, D.J. 33, 72, 166, 181, 250, 287 Saward, M. 176 Sbragia, A.M. 254 Scandinavia 2, 10, 58

Schein, E.H. 150 van Schendelen, M.P.C.M. 175 Schick, A. 232, 235, 245, 246 Schillemans, T. 270 Schinasi, K.V. 295 Schlesinger, A.M. 286 Schmitter, P.C. 170, 171 Schoenbrod, D. 209, 281 Schofield, N. 198 Schram, S.F. 19 Schröter, E. 265, 317 Schudknecht, L. 3 Schwartz, F. 217 Scott, G. 324 Scott, W.R. 157, 271 secondar y legislation 281–2 Sedletzki, V. 280 Seidman, H.B. 136, 168, 202 Selden, S.C. 83, 309, 312 select committees (United Kingdom) 279 Self, P. 142, 143, 231, 305, 325 self-management 274 self-regulation 180 Senior Executive Ser vice (United States)

136, 144 separation of politics and administration

164 Serra, G. 43 ser vice quality 317 Sharma, B.A.V. 117 Shaw, K. 328 Shaw, R.H. 82, 145, 196, 266, 288 Sheingate, A.D. 179 Shils, E.A. 37, 50 Shipan, C.R. 275 shirking 305 Shonfield, A. 214 Silberman, B.S. 82 Simeon, R.E.B. 33 Simon, H.A. 71, 124, 318, 325 Singapore 102, 175 size of administrative units 140 Sjoberg, G. 57 Sjölund, M. 135 Skelcher, C. 18, 82, 83, 129 Skiba, R.J. 84 Smith, G. 256 Smith, S.R. 203, 263 Snow, P. 188

I n d e x

3 8 9

social cleavage 51–2 social capital 58–9 social class 120–1 Social Democratic Party 2 social mobility 85, 117 social policy 54 socialization 62 Soderlind, D. 94, 134 Sörensen, E. 21, 53, 58, 171, 173, 189, 275,

313, 332 SOFRES 59 Sotriopolous, D. 168 SOU 217 South Africa 33 South America 66 South Korea 7 Soviet Union 36 Sowa, J.E. 83 special purpose governments 140–1 specialists versus generalists 87, 110, 114 Speer, J. 37 Spiller, P. 148 Stanton, T. 4 Starbuck, W.H. 159 Starke, P. 24 Steinman, M. 158 Stepanyan, V. 3 Steurle, E. 247, 305, 313 Stewart, J. 94, 294 Stinchcombe, A.L. 205 Stoffaes, C. 12 Strange, S. 195 strategic management 341–3 stratification 57 Streck, W. 171 street-level bureaucracy 40–1, 83–4, 115 Sturm, R. 248 Sugimoto, Y. 36 Suleiman, E.N. 111, 146, 179, 187, 199 sunshine laws 268–9 super ministries 143 supreme audit institutions 244–5 Sutherland, S.L. 276, 324 Svara, J.H. 164, 265 Sweden 25, 91, 133–5, 249, 268 Sweden 145 Switzerland 92 symbiosis 179 Szablowski, G. 72, 142

Talbot, C. 168, 296 Tammelin, E. 232 Tang, W.-f. 75, 99 Tanzi, V. 3, 316 Tarschys, D. 235 taxation 3, 4, 255–6 Taylor-Gooby, P. 25, 29 technology 17 Thain, C. 34, 35, 197, 223 Thatcher, Margaret 2 Theakston, K. 196 third sector 59 “Third Way” 2 Thoenig, J.C. 131, 138 Thomas, J.W. 100, 206 Thomas, O.D. 270 Thompson, J.D. 157 Thompson, V. 72, 76, 202 Thuillier, G. 203 Thynne, I. 327 Tilly, C. 59 Timsit, G. 151 Tomkiss, K. 129 Tommais, M. 148 Torfing, J. 21, 58, 171, 172, 173, 189 Torstendahl, R. 89 total quality management 52–3 totalitarianism 55, 187 trade union 60 tragedy of the commons 11 transparency 319, 343 Treib, O. 140 Triandafyllidou, A. 39 Trondal, J. 3 trust in bureaucracy 63–4 trust in government 61–3 Tuden, A. 157 Turgeon, L. 92 Twombly, E.C. 305, 313

uncontrollable expenditures 229, 230 uniformity 139 unions, public sector 103, 135, 295–6 United Kingdom 2, 8, 65, 84, 87–8, 94,

101, 111, 126–30, 234, 237 United States 15, 69, 135–7, 181–2, 278 US Forest Ser vice (United States) 148 Urban, M.E. 196 Ur wick, L.F. 124, 325

I n d e x

3 9 0

USGAO (United States) 340

“value for money” 45, 283 Van de Walle, S. 3 Van den Bulck, J. 175 Van der Meer, F.M. 159, 313 van der Wal, Z. 315 Van Gool, S.M. 83 Van Thiel, S. 4, 198 Van Waarden, F. 33 Vander Weele 313 Vanderbeele, W. 96 Vatter, A. 56 Vaughn, J.S. 152 Vaughan-Whitehead, D. 216 Veggeland, N. 243 Verba, S. 49, 58, 59, 62 Verheijen, T. 2, 49 Verhoest, K. 4 Vernardakia, G. 111 Vidler, E. 149 Vigoda, E. 40 Villalobos, J.D. 152 Vogel, D. 264 Vorsanger, S. 115 Voslenski, M.S. 100 vouchers 305

Wagner, A. 9 Walgrave, S. 221 Wallis, M.A.H. 66 Walsh, K. 94 Wanna, J. 166, 202, 203, 277 Warner, N. 251 Warner, W.L. 111 Warren, M.E. 269 “Washington Consensus” 2, 89 Wattenberg, B. 62 Weaver, R.K. 237 Webb, P. 198 Weber, M. 51, 56, 71, 73, 74, 120, 126 Wechsler, B. 63 Weiner, M. 184

Welch, E.W. 331 welfare state 25 Wessels, B. 56 Whitford, A.B. 110 Wiarda, H. 170 Wildavsky, A. 4, 32, 35, 205, 206, 233, 234,

237, 240, 242, 256, 271 Wilensky, H. 210, 377 Williams, P.M. 183, 198 Wilson, J.Q. 10, 95 Wilson, R.W. 36, 37 Wilson, V.S. 251 Wilson, W.W. 164 Wineman, S. 51 Winter, S. 178, 206 Wiseman, J. 9 Wolcott, C. 124 Wolfson, G.S. 219 Wong, W. 331 Wood, D. 281 Woodhouse, E.J. 199 Woods, N. 200 Worms, J.-P. 138 Wright, M. 35 Wright, V. 24, 59, 168, 304 Wunder, B. 146 Wylie, L.W. 58

Yamamoto, K. 311 Yesilkagit, K. 198 Yoingco, A.Q. 242 Young, K. 128 Yugoslavia 66

Zald, M. 152 Zambia 46–7 Zang, X. 90 Zaring, D.T. 93 Zelikow, P.D. 199 Zhang, B. 224 Zito, A.R. 172 Zussman, D. 99

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
About the Author
1 Public Administration and Governing
2 Political Culture and Public Administration
3 Recruiting Public Personnel
4 Problems of Administrative Structure
5 The Politics of Bureaucracy
6 The Bureaucracy and Political Institutions
7 The Politics of the Budgetary Process
8 The Politics of Administrative Accountability
9 Administrative Reform
10 The Politics of Public Management
Bibliography
Index