PUBLIK

TEORI
ADMINISTRASIPRIM
ER

Publik
Teori
AdministrasiPrimer

EDISI KETIGA

H. George Frederickson
Universitas Kansas

Kevin B. Smith
Universitas Nebraska

Christopher W. Larimer
Universitas Northern Iowa

Michael J. Licari
Universitas Negeri Indiana
 Anggota Perseus Books Group
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Library of Congress Katalogisasi-dalam-Data Publikasi Frederickson, H.

George.
Dasar teori administrasi publik / H. George Frederickson [dan lain-lain] .— Edisi ketiga.
halaman cm
Berisi indeks dan referensi bibliografi.
ISBN 978-0-8133-4966-4 (sampul tipis) —ISBN 978-0-8 133-4991-6 (e-book) 1.
Administrasi publik — Amerika Serikat. I. Frederickson, H. George. II. Judul. JF1351.F734
2012
351.73 — dc23
2015005760
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Daftar Isi
 Kata Pengantar ix

Bab 1 Pendahuluan: Kemungkinan Teori 1 Mengapa Kita

Membutuhkan Teori dalam Administrasi Publik? 1 Kegunaan Teori 4
ApakahAdministrasi Publik yang Berguna dan Dapat
TeoriDiandalkan Mungkin? 8
Beberapa Teori KontemporerPublik
Administrasi11
Catatan 13

Bab 2 Teori Kontrol Politik Birokrasi 14

Pendahuluan: Apa Teori Kontrol
Birokrasi? 14
Perbedaan Politik dan Administrasi 17 Apakah
Birokrasi Di Luar Kendali? 24
Teori Keagenan 35
Kesimpulan 38
Ringkasan 39

Bab 3 Teori Politik Birokrasi 41

Pendahuluan: Apa TeoriBirokrasi
Politik? 41
Teori Administratif sebagai Teori Politik 43
Paradigma Politik Birokrasi Allison 47
Politik, Kekuasaan, dan Organisasi 50

v
vi Isi

Jaringan dan Politik Birokrasi 56

Birokrasi Perwakilan 59
Kesimpulan 64
Ringkasan 65

Bab 4 Teori Kelembagaan Publik 66 Teori

Kelembagaan 67
Th e Ide Dasar 70
Dari Organisasi ke Lembaga 72
 Hirarki 75
Alternatif untuk Hirarki 78 Membandingkan
Bentuk Kelembagaan 79
Sistem Keandalan Tinggi 81 Sistem Keandalan
Rendah dan Peningkatannya 82
Fragmentasi Sistem 84
Kaleng Sampah dan Pencarian Sewa 85
Difusi Inovasi 88
Kesimpulan 93
Ringkasan 94

Bab 5 Teori Manajemen Publik 95

Pendahuluan: Perkembangan dalamPublik
ManajemenTeori 95 Teori
Manajemen Tradisional Maju 99
Kepemimpinan sebagai Manajemen Publik 115
Mengelola dengan Kontrak 119
Tata Kelola 124
Kesimpulan 125
Ringkasan 127

Bab 6 Teori Postmodern 129

Humanisme Organisasi dan Postpositivism 129
Perspektif Postmodern di P Administrasi137
PublikMencari TeoriPublik Postmodern
Administrasi147
Daftar Isi vii

Kesimpulan 164
Ringkasan 165
Catatan 166

Bab 7 Teori Keputusan 167

Pendahuluan 167
Evolusi Keputusan Teori 171
Meninjau Logika Konsekuensi 176
Rasionalitas Keputusan Terikat dan Logika
Kesesuaian 182
Kesimpulan 191
Ringkasan 194
 Catatan 195

Bab 8 Teori Pilihan Rasional dan Perilaku Irasional 196

Pendahuluan: Apa Teori Pilihan Rasional? 196
Birokrat yang Rasional dan Memaksimalkan Diri 199
Kepercayaan dan Birokrat yang Irasional 204
Warga yang Memaksimalkan Diri Sendiri danTiebout
Hipotesis206
Pilihan Rasional sebagai Ortodoksi Baru 212
Kesimpulan 217
Ringkasan 221
Catatan 221

Bab 9 Teori Pemerintahan 222

Pendahuluan: Publik Kebutuhan Administrasi untuk
Teori Tata Kelola 222
Model Tata225
Kelola BaruTata Kelola sebagai Manajemen Publik Baru 229 Tata
Kelola sebagai Kerangka Pemersatu untukPublik
Administrasi? 235
Teori Tata Kelola Kolaboratif 242
Kesimpulan 245
Ringkasan 248
viii Daftar Isi

Bab 10 Kesimpulan: Masa Depan yang Cerah untuk

Teori? 249 Teori Pengendalian Politik Birokrasi
250
Teori Politik Birokrasi 253 Teori
Kelembagaan Publik 256 Teori
Manajemen Publik 257 Teori
Postmodern 259 Teori Keputusan
260
Teori Pilihan Rasional dan Perilaku Irasional 262
Teori Tata Kelola 265
Teori dalam 268 Administrasi Publik

Referensi 271
Indeks 299
Kata Pengantar
edisi pertama Buku Dasar Teori Administrasi Publik berusaha untuk mengatasi
masalah yang dihadapi cepat atau lambat oleh semua siswa, cendekiawan, dan
praktisi administrasi publik. Untuk memahami apa yang kita pelajari atau
praktikkan, kita memerlukan beberapa struktur atau kerangka kerja untuk
memahami keputusan, hasil, sebab, dan sejenisnya; dengan kata lain, kita
membutuhkan teori. Masalah besar di bidang administrasi publik bukanlah karena
kita kekurangan teori; masalahnya adalah salah satu
yakin daripada defi cit. Tantangan besarnya adalah menyusun, mensintesis, dan
memahami berbagai perspektif teoretis dan empiris. Edisi pertama dari primer
secara eksplisit ditujukan untuk memenuhi tantangan itu.
Sejak diterbitkan pada tahun 2003, Buku Dasar Teori Administrasi Publik
telah diadopsi oleh sejumlah instruktur, dikutip dalam ratusan artikel ilmiah, dan
berfungsi sebagai survei lapangan yang komprehensif bagi ribuan siswa dan
akademisi. Meski terus menjadi acuan standar dan teks, kejadian di samping dan di
luar akademi meninggalkan edisi pertama semakin ketinggalan jaman. Ada banyak
perkembangan dan kontribusi baru dalam teori administrasi publik sejak
diterbitkan; perubahan dalam pemerintahan dan praktek manajemen telah
menciptakan tuntutan baru untuk jenis teori yang berbeda; dan beberapa konsep
dan model yang diliput secara luas dalam edisi aslinya, dan bahkan dalam edisi
kedua yang diterbitkan hanya tiga tahun yang lalu, telah disahkan atau digantikan
oleh karya berikutnya. Seperti yang kita diskusikan lebih luas dari pada edisi
sebelumnya, sifat cepat berubah dari bagaimana barang publik disampaikan
memaksa perubahan dramatis pada teori administrasi publik.
Edisi ketiga dari Primer ini mempertahankan fokus tematik asli dan
organisasi umum tetapi diperbarui secara ekstensif untuk menyertakan arahan dan
perkembangan terbaru. Ini termasuk munculnya pelaporan sebagai sarana untuk
meminta pertanggungjawaban biro (lihat Bab 2), evolusi berkelanjutan dari
"keadaan hampa" atau "birokrasi bayangan" dan munculnya teori jaringan (lihat
Bab 5), psikologi baru / penelitian perilaku biologis dengan implikasi besar untuk
teori keputusan dan, terutama, pilihan rasional (lihat Bab 7 dan 8). Baru pada edisi
ketiga adalah diskusi yang lebih luas tentang kerja emosional dan psikologi
kognitif dalam kaitannya dengan teori postmodern dan teori keputusan. Tata
kelola
kolaboratif

ix
x Kata pengantar

sepenuhnya membentuk kembali gagasan tentang kerangka kohesif penyampaian

layanan publik karena organisasi publik dan swasta, di dalam negeri dan
internasional, semakin dan perlu saling terkait. Seperti yang kami catat dalam edisi
ini, kemajuan semacam itu menimbulkan pertanyaan serius tentang legitimasi dan
akuntabilitas yang
baru mulai dibedah oleh para sarjana. Kontribusi penelitian baru yang bernilai
lebih dari selusin tahun dijalin ke dalam semua bab, beberapa di antaranya telah
mengubah kesimpulan kami tentang kesehatan dan
ketahanan beberapa kerangka konseptual populer (lihat Bab 10).
Banyak yang pantas berterima kasih karena telah memungkinkan edisi ketiga
ini. Kami menghargai Ada Fung, editor kami di Westview, atas kerja kerasnya,
keyakinannya pada proyek ini, dan kesabarannya untuk membuahkan hasil. Kami
juga mengapresiasi upaya Tigstu Woldeyohanns, yang sebagai asisten peneliti
Chris Larimer, berkontribusi dengan mengorganisir, berdiskusi, dan menganalisis
penelitian baru di lapangan. Kami juga memiliki daftar hutang yang panjang
kepada banyak orang lain yang kontribusinya melalui tiga edisi tidak boleh
diabaikan. Ini termasuk Ken Meier, Leisha DeHart-Davis, dan Tom Catlaw.
Kami berterima kasih kepada rekan-rekan kami di Departemen Administrasi
Publik Universitas Kansas, Departemen Ilmu Politik di Universitas Nebraska, dan
Departemen Ilmu Politik di Universitas Northern Iowa untuk lingkungan yang
mendukung dan mendukung untuk bekerja. Kami berterima kasih kepada Dwight
Waldo atas inspirasinya. Di atas segalanya, kami berterima kasih kepada pasangan
kami, Mary Freder ickson, Kelly Smith, Danielle Larimer, dan Kirsten Licari,
atas dukungan mereka yang teguh dan penuh kasih.

1
Pendahuluan: Kemungkinan Teori

Mengapa Kita Membutuhkan Teori dalam Administrasi

Publik?
Semua peristiwa besar manusia dalam sejarah mungkin dicapai oleh apa yang
sekarang kita sebut administrasi publik.organisasi dan manajemen Praktik dalam
pengaturan kolektif atau publik sudah pasti setua peradaban, dan perubahan
signifikan dalam praktik tersebut cenderung menyertai pergeseran historis
dalamberskala massa
organisasi dan operasi sosial.1 Misalnya, transisi dari masyarakat feodal ke negara-
bangsa yang diperluas dimungkinkan oleh sentralisasi kebijakan, di satu sisi, dan
desentralisasi implementasi kebijakan, di sisi lain (Tout 1937; Ellul 1955; Chrimes
1952). Era kolonial akan digambarkan dengan cara yang sama, tetapi dalam skala
dunia (Gladden 1972). Ada
perbandingan yang sangat baik antara pendekatan Inggris, Perancis, Portugis,
Belanda, dan Belgia dengan isu sentralisasi dan desentralisasi kolonial,
manajemen pengadilan, dan organisasi serta manajemen angkatan laut dan tentara
(Gladden 1972, 323-333). Penelitian arkeologi yang ekstensif menunjukkan bahwa
peradaban Armenia awal dibangun di atas bentuk administrasi yang agak rumit
(Von Hagen 1962; Prescott 1908; Mason 1957; Morley 1956). Di Tiongkok,
Dinasti Sung (960– 1279 M)
“mempertahankan secara substansial sistem pemerintahan dan administrasi
Tiongkok tradisional. Kaisar, yang tertinggi, dinasihati dan dibantu oleh Dewan
Negara yang anggotanya, bervariasi dari lima hingga sembilan, mengawasi
secara terpisah beberapa organ Administrasi, yang dikelompokkan di bawah (1)
Sekretariat-Kanselir, (2) ) Komisi Keuangan, dan (3) Biro Urusan Militer
”(Gladden 1972, 191; Yutang 1947; Loewe
1966; Balazs 1964; Weber 1947).
Dalam contoh-contoh ini dan banyak contoh lainnya, ciri-ciri elemen dari
administrasi publik meresap ke dalam perkembangan sosial; memang, dikatakan
bahwa peradaban membutuhkan fitur elemen dari administrasi publik (Waldo
1946, 1956; Wil davsky 1987; Douglas dan Wildavsky 1982). Mengikuti Max
Weber, fitur elemen dari administrasi publik meliputi (1)
beberapa dasar otoritas formal dengan

1
2 1: Pendahuluan: Kemungkinan Teori yang

mengklaim kepatuhan; (2) hukum dan aturan yang dibuat dengan sengaja, yang
berlaku untuk semua; (3) lingkup spesifik kompetensi individu, yang meliputi
pembedaan tugas, spesialisasi, keahlian, dan / atau profesionalisasi; (4)
pengorganisasian orang ke dalam kelompok atau kategori menurut spesialisasi; (5)
koordinasi berdasarkan hierarki; (6) kesinambungan melalui aturan dan catatan; (7)
organisasi berbeda dari orang-orang yang memegang posisi atau kantor di
dalamnya; dan (8) pengembangan teknologi organisasi tertentu dan spesifik
(Weber 1952). Hampir semua pertimbangan zaman besar sejarah manusia telah
menemukan blok bangunan organisasi dan manajemen (Gladden 1972). The
praktek administrasi publik, maka, setua peradaban dan penting untuk
perkembangan peradaban.
Meskipun praktik administrasi publik sudah sangat tua, studi formal
administrasi publik dan elaborasi teori administrasi publik masih sangat baru.
Sebagai hal akademis dan intelektual yang sadar-diri atau sadar-diri
— kumpulan pengetahuan, bidang praktik profesional,akademis
subjek, bentuk politik, konstruksi sosial realitas — administrasi publik masih
muda. Jika diukur dari Federalis, administrasi publik berusia lebih dari 225 tahun,
lebih dari 22 dekade, lebih dari 7 generasi. Jika diukur dari publikasi esai pendiri
Woodrow Wilson (1887/1941), administrasi publik berusia lebih dari 125 tahun,
lebih dari 12 dekade, lebih dari 3 generasi. Sebagai kumpulan konsep,
ide,ulangterpisah dan sadar diri
bentuk, kursus dan gelar yang, dan jawaban yang diakui untuk masalah publik,
administrasi publik adalah orang dewasa muda.
Dalam deskripsi ensiklopedisnya tentang apa yang kita ketahui tentang
administrasi publik, James Q. Wilson mengklaim memiliki sedikit minat dalam
teori dan mengungkapkan pendapat bahwa teori memiliki sedikit untuk
menawarkan pemahaman tentang birokrasi:

Saya berharap buku ini dapat dituangkan dalam cara yang membuktikan, atau
setidaknya mengilustrasikan, teori perilaku birokrasi
 yang sederhana, elegan, dan komprehensif. Saya menjadi sangat meragukan
bahwa apapun yang pantas disebut "teori organisasi" akan pernah ada. Teori-
teori itu akan ada, tetapi biasanya akan begitu abstrak atau umum sehingga
tidak banyak dijelaskan. Penjelasan yang menarik akan ada, beberapa bahkan
didukung dengan fakta, tetapi ini akan menjadi wawasan parsial, terikat tempat
dan waktu. Banyak sarjana tidak setuju dengan saya. Lebih banyak kekuatan
untuk mereka. (1989, xi-xii)

Jika pemahaman kontemporer administrasi publik hanyalah penghitungan fakta

yang berasal dari penelitian - membiarkan fakta berbicara sendiri - dapatkah teori
administrasi publik dianggap serius?
Salah satu tujuan buku ini adalah menjawab pertanyaan ini dengan pasti ya.
Terlepas dari penyangkalan Wilson, teori adalah dasar dari pemahaman
administrasi publik. Memang, dalam banyak hal, karya Wilson sendiri merupakan
kontribusi teo retikal yang sangat penting.
Tidak ada ahli teori yang lebih pintar dari pada sarjana yang mengaku tidak
memiliki teori. Sederhananya untuk menyusun fakta, mendeskripsikan temuan
penelitian, dan tidak mengklaim teori
Why Do We Need Th eory in Public Administration? 3

mungkin tampak aman. Tetapi teori semacam itu akan memandu pemilihan fakta
mana yang akan disajikan, bagaimana mengurutkan fakta-fakta itu, dan bagaimana
menafsirkannya. Semua teori memiliki kelemahan, dan menyangkal teori saat
melakukan teori memiliki keuntungan besar karena tidak harus mempertahankan
kelemahan tersebut. Menyangkal teori sambil mengerjakan teori juga memiliki
keuntungan lain. Ini membantu untuk menghindari stereotip, katakanlah,
ahli teori keputusan atau ahli teori pilihan rasional. Untuk mengklaim sebagai
atheoretical rok uji kebenaran-dalam-label. Tanpa mengakui teori atau
mengungkapkan minat pada teori, sarjana dapat mencoba untuk menghindari label
dan stereotip. Ini semua adalah alasan kuat untuk menghindari kotak dan kategori
teoretis; tetapi alasan ini tidak mengurangi sentralitas teori di semua administrasi
publik.
Bisakah teori menjadi penting dalam suatu bidang sebagai diterapkan, praktis,
dan interdisipliner sebagai administrasi publik? Buku ini menjawab pertanyaan ini
dengan pertanyaan lain ya. Kami percaya itu adalah bukti dengan sendirinya
bahwa ada kebutuhan untuk kejelasan konseptual dan keandalan teoritis yang
lebih besar dalam penanganan administrasi publik. Dalam bidang terapan, selalu
menggoda untuk kembali pada akal sehat dan kebijaksanaan sebagai cukup untuk
melaksanakan tugas kebijakan publik. Sebenarnya, akal sehat dan kebijaksanaan
diperlukan untuk menjalankan kebijakan yang efektif, tetapi itu tidak mencukupi,
terutama ketika akal sehat dan kebijaksanaan tidak didefinisikan dengan baik atau
tidak didefinisikan sama sekali. Berpikir dalam juga membantu, tetapi tidak
cukup. Kepastian yang berasal dari pemikiran mendalam satu generasi sering kali
merupakan pedoman yang buruk bagi generasi penerus.
Misalnya, saat ini diterima hampir secara universal bahwa birokrasi publik
 lambat, tidak praktis, melayani diri sendiri, dan tidak efisien — akal sehat atau
kebijaksanaan di zaman kita. Kami bertindak berdasarkan akal sehat itu dengan
deregulasi, perampingan, kontrak keluar, privatisasi, mendorong pengambilan
risiko birokrasi dan inovasi, dan melonggarkan kontrol atas pembelian dan
penawaran pemerintah. Pada tahun 1930-an, ketika Amerika Serikat berada dalam
depresi ekonomi yang parah, pengertian umum yang berlawanan terjadi.
Berdasarkan bahwa akal sehat, kita bergantung pada pemerintah terpusat untuk
memecahkan masalah umum. Kami sekarang dengan cepat menjauh dari
ketergantungan pada pemerintah terpusat, dan akal sehat dan kebijaksanaan
konvensional tampaknya memandu tren ini.
Dalam lima tahun terakhir, administrasi publik telah mengembangkan pola
penyelidikan yang lebih sistematis tentang substansi perilaku organisasi publik,
manajemen publik, dan implementasi kebijakan publik. Pekerjaan ini telah
berkontribusi pada peningkatan keandalan dalam memahami administrasi publik.
Pekerjaan
organisasi publik telah diperiksa dengan bentuk analisis konseptual, metodologis,
dan teoritis yang ditingkatkan. Bentuk-bentuk analisis ini berusaha untuk
menciptakan tepi pengetahuan yang dapat dilacak kembali, kumulatif, dan,
setidaknya pada tingkat tertentu, dapat direplikasi. Bentuk- bentuk analisis ini
bercita-cita menjadi saintifik, menggunakan kata “scientifi c” di sini berarti
semacam rasionalitas formal di mana wawasan dan penemuan satu generasi
membentuk dasar untuk penyelidikan generasi berikutnya. Pengetahuan, kemudian,
menjadi kolektif dan kumulatif. Ini tidak berarti bahwa dunia sosial, di mana
administrasi publik menjadi bagiannya, dapat menerima penerapan ilmiah formal
seperti halnya dunia fisik. Bukan itu. Tapi ini untuk menyarankan bahwa seni dan
sains
4 1: Pendahuluan: Kemungkinan Teori

administrasi publik harus seperti itu — seni dan sains. Ilmu dan seni administrasi
kebijakan dapat didefinisikan, dijelaskan, dapat direplikasi, dan kumulatif. Tujuan
lebih lanjut dari buku ini adalah untuk menjelaskan secara rinci beberapa teori dan
pendekatan analitik yang berkontribusi pada apa yang kita ketahui tentang
administrasi publik. Kami juga bertujuan untuk menggambarkan bidang teori
administrasi publik yang terbelakang. Jika kita dapat menerima bahwa setiap
pendekatan terhadap subjek administrasi publik dipandu, setidaknya dalam
beberapa cara yang belum sempurna, oleh teori atau kumpulan teori,
pertanyaannya adalah: Teori atau pendekatan mana yang paling menjanjikan,
paling berpengaruh?
Manakah yang paling penting saat ini dan kemungkinan besar akan menjadi yang
paling penting di masa mendatang? Fenomena apa dalam administrasi publik dan
pemerintahan yang belum dijelaskan atau dijelaskan secara memadai? Satu bidang
khusus yang membutuhkan studi lebih dalam adalah “birokrasi bayangan” —
jaringan luas perusahaan swasta dan nirlaba yang ada untuk melaksanakan
program publik. Tujuan dari buku ini adalah untuk menjabarkan deskripsi rinci
dari teori-teori kunci yang dipilih penulis dalam administrasi publik kontemporer
dengan harapan dapat meningkatkan keandalan pengetahuan dan pemahaman kita
tentang
administrasi publik.
Tidak ada klaim yang dibuat di sini hanya untuk satu teori administrasi publik.
Karena bidang tersebut bersifat interdisipliner dan terapan, satu teori yang
diturunkan dari disiplin yang berkontribusi, seperti model pasar dari ekonomi,
mungkin dalam formatif dan berguna. Tetapi banyak administrasi publik tidak
dapat dijelaskan, dijelaskan, atau dipertanggungjawabkan dengan menggunakan
model pasar. Masing- masing teori lain yang dijelaskan dalam buku ini
menginformasikan pemahaman kita tentang administrasi publik dan kebijakan
publik. Tidak ada teori yang berdiri sendiri yang mampu menjelaskan
kompleksitas bidang tersebut. Secara bersama-sama, bagaimanapun, teori secara
signifikan berkontribusi pada apa yang kita ketahui dan pahami tentang
administrasi publik.

Kegunaan Teori
Pertimbangkan arena kebijakan ini: Dengan kekuatan destruktif dari angin topan,
tornado, banjir, tsunami, dan kebakaran hutan, sifat kritis dari administrasi publik
terbukti dengan sendirinya. Apakah administrasi publik dalam bentuk pencegahan
dan sistem manajemen bencana (Korps Insinyur Angkatan Darat, Badan Pengelola
Darurat Federal,
Dinas Kehutanan, Penjaga Pantai) melakukan yang terbaik dengan “masalah
jahat” (Rittel dan Webber 1973)? Akankah kepemimpinan publik yang lebih baik
dan manajemen membantu (Kettl 2007)? Seberapa berharga dan efisiennya
perencanaan ketika bencana alam sangat jarang terjadi di satu lokasi? Bagaimana
koordinasi yang lebih baik dengan organisasi nirlaba dan amal, seperti Palang
Merah, dapat membantu?
Akankah peraturan yang lebih ketat tentang di mana dan bagaimana orang dapat
membangun rumah dan bisnis membantu? Seberapa besar tanggung jawab
lembaga pemerintah untuk menyelamatkan orang-orang yang mengabaikan
perintah evakuasi? Di manakah keseimbangan antara efektivitas program
pemerintah dan biayanya?
Kegunaan Teori 5

Sebelum kita dapat secara serius mempertimbangkan kebijakan publik dan

masalah administrasi publik ini, keandalan pemahaman tertentu akan membantu.
Bagaimana kita memahami masalah dan mengurutkan fakta? Bagaimana
pemahaman kita, yang diperoleh, memandu kebijakan dan tindakan? Tema yang
ditetapkan dalam bab-bab selanjutnya dari buku ini berjanji untuk meningkatkan
pemahaman kita tentang administrasi publik dan menyarankan, oleh karena itu,
bagaimana hal itu dapat diperkuat. Ketika teori yang baik didasarkan pada
pengetahuan yang dapat diandalkan dan dapat direplikasi, tidak ada yang lebih
praktis. Apa teori terbaik atau campuran teori untuk menginformasikan keputusan
kebijakan dan implementasi kebijakan kita
dalam kejahatan dan pelanggaran hukum? Apa yang lebih praktis daripada jawaban
atas pertanyaan itu? Jawaban ini akan sangat berguna dan praktis jika teori atau
teori tersebut didasarkan pada pengamatan peristiwa tertentu
dan pada pengamatan dan akumulasi pola, pengalaman, dan kejadian yang, jika
digabungkan, menyarankan cara untuk memperbaiki masalah.
Bagaimana teori bisa berguna? Validitas atau kegunaan suatu teori bergantung
pada kemampuannya untuk mendeskripsikan, menjelaskan, dan memprediksi.
Sebuah teori, agar berguna, harus secara akurat mendeskripsikan atau
menggambarkan peristiwa atau fenomena dunia nyata. Kebanyakan teori
melakukan ini pada tingkat abstraksi tertentu. Fenomena administrasi publik yang
paling penting adalah kompleks, dan oleh karena itu deskripsi adalah representasi
fenomena yang abstrak. Semua deskripsi mengharuskan analis memutuskan
elemen mana dalam fenomena kompleks yang akan ditekankan. Semua deskripsi
adalah distorsi realitas dan relatif terhadap keadaan yang berlaku pada saat
deskripsi tersebut. Deskripsi sering kali seperti foto diam atau serangkaian foto
diam — dan sering kali foto kabur pada saat itu. Deskripsi kurang sering seperti
rekaman video. Dengan cara yang sama bahwa fotografi gerak merupakan
kemajuan dalam fotografi still
, teknologi deskriptif kita dalam administrasi publik masih merupakan foto diam
yang relatif primitif.
Karena keterbatasan deskripsi, teori yang berguna akan menjelaskan
fenomena yang dijelaskan. Penjelasan dapat menjelaskan distorsi realitas yang
diketahui yang tertanam dalam deskripsi. Penjelasan juga dapat menjelaskan
mengapa analis melihat beberapa faktor dalam suatu peristiwa atau fenomena lebih
penting daripada yang lain. Penjelasan menanyakan apa yang terjadi atau apa yang
sedang terjadi, tetapi bahkan deskripsi terbaik tentang apa yang sedang terjadi
mungkin gagal menjawab pertanyaan yang sama pentingnya: Mengapa ini terjadi,
atau mengapa ini terjadi? Penjelasan mungkin tidak mempertajam foto kabur dari
suatu deskripsi tetapi, seperti yang ditunjukkan Ansel Adams dengan foto diam
hitam-putihnya, ada perbedaan penting antara melihat gambar dan memahami
gambar. Dalam administrasi publik, fitur teori deskriptif membantu kita melihat;
fitur penjelasan teori membantu kita memahami.
Jika teori membantu kita untuk melihat dan memahami fenomena
administrasi publik, haruskah teori membantu kita untuk memprediksi? Iya.
Pertimbangkan teori perubahan siklus Herbert Kaufman (1969) dari administrasi
publik yang berbasis profesional dan kompeten secara netral menjadi administrasi
publik yang responsif secara politik dan partisan. Teori Kaufman mengandung sifat
prediktif yang kuat. Meskipun
6 1: Pendahuluan: Kemungkinan Teori

kurang spesifik untuk administrasi publik, teori Albert Hirschman (1982) tentang
perubahan dalam dunia sosial dan politik adalah serupa dan sama berguna.
Kecenderungannya adalah mengharapkan terlalu banyak prediksi dalam teori.
Karena administrasi publik praktis dan diterapkan, beberapa mencari teori yang,
jika diikuti, akan mencapai hasil yang dapat diprediksi. Prediksi harus ditafsirkan
sebagian besar untuk memperhitungkan pola, probabilitas, dan kemungkinan hasil,
bukan hasil spesifik yang mengalir tak terelakkan dari penerapan teori tertentu.
Ketika prediksi didefinisikan secara longgar untuk memperhitungkan berbagai
situasi dari waktu ke
waktu, kapasitasnya bisa sangat mengesankan. Harapan akan deskripsi, penjelasan,
dan prediksi dari teori dalam administrasi publik menempatkan buku ini agak
kokoh dalam tradisi positivis; namun, diakui dan dipahami bahwa tidak semua
peristiwa mengikuti pola yang dapat diperkirakan. Ada keacakan dan kekacauan,
terutama di tingkat mikro atau dalam satu peristiwa atau sekelompok kecil
peristiwa. Tetapi dalam banyak cara, kita setiap hari melihat, mengenali,
memahami, dan bertaruh pada pola perilaku kolektif manusia yang dapat
diprediksi. Pola tingkat makro yang luas dari perilaku individu dan kolektif dalam
administrasi publik dapat dilihat, dijelaskan dengan keandalan yang cukup, dan
dipahami pada tingkat yang memungkinkan prediksi yang dapat diandalkan. Karya
Aaron Wildavsky (1984) tentang penganggaran adalah ilustrasi. Deskripsi Michael
Cohen dan James G. March (1986) tentang universitas sebagai organisasi adalah
contoh lain. Rasionalitas terbatas Herbert Simon sangat bersifat prediktif
(1947/1997).
Dalam teori administrasi publik, masalah presisi versus umum adalah penting.
Kota yang lebih presisi dan spesifik dalam deskripsi dan penjelasan fenomena
administrasi publik selalu dibeli dengan harga generalisasi. Semakin sebuah teori
itu tepat atau, seperti yang saat ini populer untuk dikatakan, bergantung, semakin
besar kekuatan untuk menjelaskan pola peristiwa yang luas, dan oleh karena itu
untuk memprediksi berbagai fenomena serupa, berkurang. Masalahnya adalah
bahwa teori besar, teori menyeluruh, biasanya dibuat begitu umum dengan
penyederhanaan dan asumsi yang membuatnya tidak dapat menjelaskan apa pun
kecuali kejadian yang paling nyata. Teori sistem muncul di benak; begitu pula
aplikasi ekonomi pasar yang disederhanakan untuk administrasi publik. Kekayaan,
tekstur, dan substansi peristiwa dan fenomena bisa hilang dalam teori besar.
Sebaliknya, teori yang tepat bisa begitu kaya dan kontekstual sehingga kehilangan
potensi generalisasi. Karena penggunaan studi kasus kontemporer, contoh praktik
terbaik, dan analisis tunggal kebijakan tertentu menggambarkan kelemahan teori
yang tepat dalam mendukung generalisasi, buku ini akan membahas delapan ories
yang memiliki kualitas presisi dan kekayaan empiris serta kualitas generalisasi. .
Adalah tepat untuk beralih sekarang ke apa yang dimaksud di sini dengan teori
karena kata itu berlaku untuk administrasi publik. Pada tingkat yang longgar dan
hampir kasual, teori hanyalah sebuah orientasi, kerangka kerja, teknik, atau
pendekatan. Misalnya, tanpa mengacu pada teori tertentu, seseorang mungkin
menulis bahwa ada teori (atau ada teori) siklus hidup dalam organisasi. Atau orang
mungkin menyebut pendapat pribadi sebagai teori. Teori tidak digunakan di sini
dalam bentuk santai ini.
Eory Th, dilebih
Penggunaan eTh Th eory 7

makna formal istilah, memiliki tiga arti sebagai berikut. Pertama, dalam ilmu
alam dan fisika, teori berarti pengujian yang ketat atas teorema atau hipotesis
prediktif menggunakan data yang dapat diamati dan dapat dibandingkan. Hipotesis
ini, setelah diuji dan diverifikasi, membentuk dasar teori, pernyataan, atau
representasi realitas. Teori dalam ilmu alam atau fisika dapat mengklaim akurasi
yang cukup besar dalam
merepresentasikan realitas karena klasifikasi tatanan di dunia fisik sudah maju,
begitu pula kemampuan untuk mengenali dan mengukur fenomena alam. Teori,
yang diturunkan, seringkali berfungsi sebagai panduan yang sangat andal untuk
bertindak. Dalam dunia sosial, di mana administrasi publik menjadi bagiannya,
masalah mengenali pola, merancang kategori, dan mengukur serta
membandingkan fenomena jauh lebih besar. Oleh karena itu, tujuan teori dalam
administrasi publik berbeda (dan, beberapa orang akan mengatakan, lebih
rendah).
Kedua, teori dalam ilmu sosial dan administrasi publik berarti penataan materi
faktual (sejarah, peristiwa, kasus, cerita, ukuran opini, observasi) untuk menyajikan
bukti melalui definisi, konsep, dan meta phors yang mendorong pemahaman. Yang
pasti, pemahaman ini, setidaknya sebagian, subjektif, karena dikonstruksi oleh ahli
teori. Teori ini didasarkan pada pengamatan yang ketat dan intuitif terhadap
perilaku sosial, perilaku organisasi, dinamika kelembagaan, sistem dan perilaku
politik, pola komunikasi, dan budaya. Kami akan berargumen di sini bahwa teori
yang berasal dari pengamatan semacam itu adalah dasar dari semua tindakan
dalam administrasi publik. Sebagian besar tindakan ini tidak secara formal dan
eksplisit diakui sebagai didorong oleh teori tertentu. Keputusan dan tindakan
administrasi publik, bagaimanapun, didasarkan pada asumsi mendasar tentang
perilaku sosial, pola kerja sama manusia, insentif untuk tindakan, dan sejenisnya.
Karena itu, salah satu tugas utama teori dalam administrasi publik adalah membuat
eksplisit dan menggambarkan asumsi yang memandu tindakan dan
mengembangkan kategori, konsep, definisi, dan metafora yang mendorong
pemahaman tentang asumsi tersebut.
Ketiga, dalam administrasi publik arti teori adalah normatif — teori tentang apa
yang seharusnya. Teori-teori ini menjadi jembatan antara administrasi publik,
ilmu politik, dan filsafat. Dwight Waldo (1946) mengajarkan kepada kita bahwa
semua teori administrasi publik juga teori politik. Praktik administrasi publik
adalah dunia yang sibuk dan tidak rapi di mana biaya dan keuntungan, yang
semuanya tidak berbasis alam dan usaha, dialokasikan di antara warga negara
melalui kewenangan negara. Teori administrasi publik memandu alokasi otoritatif
barang publik. Sekali lagi, tugas ahli teori sering menemukan teori yang
menjelaskan atau menggambarkan keteraturan yang dapat diamati dalam perilaku
dan untuk mengevaluasi implikasi normatif dari perilaku tersebut. Seringkali
benar bahwa ahli teori administrasi publik menggunakan campuran dari definisi
teori kedua dan ketiga.
Makna teori dalam administrasi publik lebih dari sekedar pertanyaan tentang
seberapa ketat pengukuran dan seberapa tepat pengamatannya. Teori
diklasifikasikan menurut bentuk, derajat, atau sifat penjabarannya. Sebagai contoh,
beberapa ory hanya menyajikan pertanyaan metodologis, seperti debat tentang apa
yang disebut
8 1: Pendahuluan: Kemungkinan Teori

penelitian praktik terbaik (Overman dan Boyd 1994). Teori lain menggunakan
deduksi dan sintesis temuan penelitian dalam mengembangkan hipotesis untuk
memandu penelitian di masa depan. Tiebout Ini dan banyak teori pilihan rasional
adalah contoh yang baik dari
teori semacam ini. Menurut survei artikel di jurnal administrasi publik terkemuka,
ini adalah bentuk presentasi teori yang paling umum di lapangan (Cleary 1992;
Adams dan White 1994; Forrester dan Watson 1994; White dan Adams 1994).
Teori lain berasal dari pengujian lapangan spesifik dari hipotesis atau kelompok
hipotesis tertentu. Uji empiris Tiebout Ini adalah contoh yang baik dari bentuk
elaborasi ini (Lowery, Lyons, dan De
Hoog 1992; Lyons dan Lowery 1989). Teori juga dapat bervariasi berdasarkan
ruang lingkup, beberapa ory menjadi luas dan dianggap untuk menjelaskan,
katakanlah, semua organisasi publik, dan teori lain yang sempit untuk menjelaskan,
katakanlah, organisasi penegakan hukum.
Lebih jauh, teori dalam administrasi publik dapat berbeda tergantung pada apakah
subjek umumnya bersifat organisasi, operasional, manajerial, atau secara umum
spesifik kebijakan.
Akhirnya, dalam administrasi publik ada ujian khusus teori — seberapa
berguna itu? Karena tes ini, tingkat ketelitian dan ketelitian pengukuran dan tingkat
elaborasi dalam suatu teori mungkin kurang penting daripada pertanyaan
kegunaan. Teori yang baik atau berguna mengasumsikan untuk mengatur dan
mengklasifikasikan data sedemikian rupa untuk menyaring fakta dan kemudian
fokus hanya pada yang paling penting. Tes kegunaan teori sering kali merupakan
kriterianya dalam memilih dan mengklasifikasikan fakta, dan jika ini akurat, teori
tersebut akan meningkatkan pemahaman, memandu penelitian, dan menjelaskan,
menjelaskan, dan memprediksi dengan kuat.

ApakahPublik Berguna dan Andal

Mungkin Teori Administrasi?
Pada tahun 1960-an, pada saat yang disebut revolusi perilaku dalam ilmu politik,
pada dasarnya ada dua posisi mengenai prospek teori berbasis empiris yang ketat
atau kumpulan teori untuk menjelaskan perilaku politik. Meskipun perilaku
politik tidak persis sama dengan administrasi publik, paralelnya, terutama yang
berkaitan dengan perkembangan teori, kuat.
Dalam administrasi publik, ada, dan beberapa orang akan mengatakan, pada
dasarnya masih ada dua posisi yang sama mengenai teori berbasis empiris.
Kedua posisi ini adalah klasik, atau tradisional, dan ilmiah, atau perilaku. Inti
dari posisi tradisional adalah bahwa administrasi publik melibatkan tujuan dan
otoritas dengan cara yang tidak dilakukan oleh ilmu fisik. Dalam dunia sosial, fakta
dapat diukur, tetapi bersifat sementara. Lebih jauh, dalam masalah tujuan kolektif
manusia, kebijaksanaan, intuisi, dan penilaian sangat penting, tetapi sulit untuk
diukur dan diklasifikasikan. Oleh karena itu, banyak elemen
administrasi publik pada dasarnya subjektif.
Posisi tradisional juga berpendapat bahwa para pendukung posisi perilaku,
sejauh mereka membatasi diri pada analisis hal-hal yang dapat
dilakukan? 9
diverifikasi dengan teknik pengukuran yang dikenal, menyangkal beberapa alat
paling penting yang saat ini tersedia untuk memahami substansi administrasi
publik. Dengan menyangkal pentingnya tebakan intuitif, penilaian, dan
kebijaksanaan, ahli teori yang bekerja secara eksklusif dari perspektif ilmiah dan
perilaku dapat membuat diri mereka jauh dari semua yang penting dalam
administrasi publik. Argumen ini sangat kuat jika menyangkut masalah etika dan
moralitas dalam kebijakan dan manajemen publik. Tradisionalis berpendapat
bahwa dengan menjadi lebih ilmiah, administrasi publik menghindari pertanyaan
besar tentang benar dan salah. Model yang rapi dari ahli teori perilaku, menurut
mereka, dapat memberikan suasana otoritas yang spesifik untuk pekerjaan
semacam itu.
Sebaliknya, argumen behavioris mengambil posisi positivis bahwa perilaku
manusia kolektif menunjukkan urutan yang cukup untuk membenarkan pencarian
yang ketat, pengukuran, klasifikasi, dan penggambaran urutan itu. Hal ini dapat
dilakukan baik dengan memisahkan fakta dari nilai — positivisme logis — dan
berteori tentang fakta atau dengan secara eksplisit menangani implikasi nilai dari
teori yang diturunkan secara faktual. Posisi behavioris mengklaim bahwa
menyederhanakan model berdasarkan asumsi eksplisit meningkatkan
pengembangan eksperimen dan temuan yang dapat diandalkan. Selain itu, jika ada
ketidaksepakatan mengenai asumsi para ahli teori, teori dalam jangka panjang akan
lebih baik untuk itu. Adapun masalah etika, moralitas, kebijaksanaan, dan konsep
fuzzy lainnya, posisi behavioris adalah bahwa variabel-variabel tersebut tidak
berada di luar jangkauan teori yang diturunkan secara empiris.
Weber (1952) adalah seorang ilmuwan sosial dalam tradisi positivis yang
berpendapat bahwa perilaku manusia, terutama perilaku birokrasi, menunjukkan
pola yang dapat diamati dan dijelaskan yang dapat diverifikasi secara ilmiah.
Namun ia juga mengemukakan bahwa realitas sosial tersusun dari gagasan dan
keyakinan para pelaku sosial. Oleh karena itu, tugas ilmu sosial harus menjadi
penafsiran tindakan dalam pengertian
subyektif. Saat ini, teori ilmu sosial interpretatif yang berkembang sepenuhnya
(Weber 1952; Winch 1995) berpendapat bahwa dalam konteks sosial manusia
bertindak secara sengaja sesuai dengan ide dan keyakinan bersama dan makna
bersama yang terkait dengan ide dan keyakinan tersebut. Argumen ini telah
berkembang menjadi pandangan yang didukung secara luas bahwa realitas
dikonstruksi secara sosial; memang, lebih lanjut disarankan bahwa adalah berguna
untuk memikirkan organisasi sebagai makna atau pemahaman bersama (Weick
1979). Ilmu sosial interpretatif dapat mencakup interpretasi masa lalu (tory),
interpretasi peristiwa (studi kasus), dan interpretasi keputusan dan tindakan oleh
observasi partisipan.
Beberapa berpendapat bahwa ilmu sosial interpretatif dan positivis, atau
perilaku, ilmu sosial kompetitif dan tidak dapat didamaikan (Winch 1995). Tapi ini
adalah pandangan kami, dan perspektif dominan dalam teori sosial kontemporer
(MacIntyre 1984), bahwa ada teori yang menggambarkan keteraturan yang diamati
secara empiris di dunia sosial serta interpretasi dari keteraturan tersebut.
 Saat ini, posisi tradisional dan perilaku dalam administrasi publik dalam
banyak hal telah direkonsiliasi. Kedua posisi pada dasarnya benar karena mereka
mengakui pentingnya observasi dan kategorisasi dan inti
10 1: Pendahuluan: Kemungkinan

tempat teori sebagai sarana yang tepat untuk mengekspresikan realitas dan
memandu tindakan. Teori administrasi publik yang berasal dari analisis sejarah,
studi kelembagaan, dan filsafat sekarang dipahami sebagai teori administrasi
publik yang berasal dari analisis statistik dan model matematika. Fenomena fuzzy,
seperti kepemimpinan dan "prinsip-prinsip administrasi publik," sekarang menjadi
subyek analisis empiris dan pembangunan teori (Behn 1991; Hood dan Jackson
1991).
Rekonsiliasi administrasi publik tradisional dan perilaku mencerminkan
perspektif ini: “Sains bukanlah pengganti wawasan, dan ketelitian metodologis
bukanlah pengganti kebijaksanaan. Penelitian yang hanya ketat mungkin saja
kasar, mekanis, sepele, dan sedikit nilai teoritis atau kebijakan. Namun,. . . dengan
tidak adanya analisis yang ketat dan terkontrol bahkan data yang paling
operasional pun memiliki nilai yang kecil ”(Singer 1966, 15).
Bahkan dengan rekonsiliasi ini, pembangunan teori dalam administrasi publik
dipengaruhi oleh selera dan mode. Selalu ada hukum instrumen: Ketika ahli teori
memiliki palu metodologis atau konseptual, segala sesuatu mulai terlihat seperti
paku. Di sekolah kebijakan, metode kasus telah mengambil beberapa aspek palu;
model pasar dan kesimpulan matematis yang diturunkan telah diterapkan pada
banyak paku akhir-akhir ini. Namun demikian, terlepas dari contoh ekses ologis
dan teoritis metode, teori administrasi publik tidak pernah lebih sehat daripada saat
ini.
Dari posisi tradisionalis dan behavioralis tiga puluh tahun yang lalu,
administrasi publik telah berkembang menjadi bidang yang menikmati kekayaan
teoretis yang cukup besar. Sebuah teori dominan tunggal, hegemoni intelektual,
akan memiskinkan bidang tersebut. Sebaliknya, ada beberapa teori yang kuat dan
penting dan banyak
ahli teori penting, sebuah kondisi sebelum bidang diterapkan dan
interdisipliner sebagai administrasi publik.
Akhirnya, kita sampai pada kegunaan atau tujuan yang teori dalam administrasi
publik dapat diletakkan. Ada banyak sekali contoh administrasi publik yang
diterapkan untuk tujuan yang kurang baik; sistem penganggaran-perencanaan-
program yang dirancang untuk membuat seolah-olah Amerika Serikat
memenangkan perang di Vietnam muncul di benaknya. Kemauan bidang untuk
merangkul dan merasionalisasi manajemen pemotongan tanpa berterus terang
tentang penurunan kapasitas organisasi yang diakibatkan adalah contoh lain.
Kapasitas prediksi kami terbatas, dan bahkan ketika kami dapat memprediksi,
prediksi terkadang bertentangan dengan kebijaksanaan administrasi publik saat itu.
Misalnya, apa yang akan kita prediksi tentang efek jangka panjang dari gagasan
yang saat ini populer untuk mengurangi peraturan pembelian dan penawaran
pemerintah? Prediksi yang masuk akal adalah bahwa pengurangan regulasi yang
berlebihan akan meningkatkan efisiensi. Tetapi terlalu banyak deregulasi di bidang
ini dalam jangka panjang hampir pasti
akan menghasilkan korupsi yang lebih besar. Korupsi, setelah semuanya, yang
menyebabkan banyak peraturan diadopsi sejak awal (Frederickson 1999a).
Beberapa Teori Administrasi Publik Kontemporer 11

Meskipun kita tidak dapat mengontrol penggunaan teori administrasi publik,

administrator publik sering dapat mempengaruhi penggunaan teori. Ini harus
menjadi tujuan beasiswa administrasi publik yang baik untuk mempersenjatai
administrasi publik dengan teori yang paling andal yang tersedia. Biologi tidak bisa
mengendalikan kedokteran, dan fisika tidak bisa mengendalikan teknik. Tetapi
pengobatan modern tidak akan berarti banyak tanpa penelitian dan teori biologi,
dan teknik sangat bergantung pada fisika untuk teorinya. Peneliti dan pembangun
teori dalam administrasi publik harus memenuhi tantangan terakhir dan paling sulit
untuk teori administrasi publik: Mereka harus melakukan yang terbaik untuk
memberikan teori yang dapat diandalkan, selalu dengan harapan bahwa pejabat
publik akan menggunakan teori itu untuk membuat pemerintahan yang demokratis
seefektif mungkin. Albert Einstein pernah ditanya, "Mengapa ketika pikiran
manusia telah membentang sejauh untuk menemukan struktur atom kita tidak dapat
menemukan cara politik untuk menjaga atom agar tidak menghancurkan kita?" Dia
menjawab, “Ini sederhana, teman, itu karena politik lebih sulit daripada fisika”
(Herz 1962, 214n). Meskipun politik lebih sulit daripada fisika, politik dalam
beberapa tahun terakhir telah berhasil, sejauh ini, untuk menjaga agar energi atom
tidak menghancurkan kita; memang, energi atom dalam banyak hal telah menjadi
anugerah bagi umat manusia. Pertanyaannya adalah apakah politik dapat terus
membelokkan energi atom untuk tujuan yang layak meskipun pembengkokan
semacam itu sulit.
Selama teori administrasi publik juga teori politik, penerapan teori administrasi
publik selalu sulit, terutama dalam konteks pemerintahan yang demokratis. Teori
administrasi publik semakin canggih dan dapat diandalkan, dan dengan demikian
memegang janji untuk terus memberikan kontribusi penting bagi efektivitas
pemerintahan demokratis sehari-hari.

Beberapa Teori Kontemporer Administrasi Publik

Bukan tujuan buku ini untuk menggambarkan pandangan yang mencakup semua
tentang realitas administrasi publik atau bahkan untuk menyajikan survei teori yang
komprehensif tentang subjek. Bab-bab berikutnya menyajikan teori atau keluarga
teori tertentu yang, menurut penilaian penulis, telah memberikan kontribusi yang
signifikan terhadap tubuh pengetahuan dalam administrasi publik, memiliki potensi
untuk memberikan kontribusi tersebut, atau memiliki nilai heuristik yang penting.
Pemilihan teori menghilangkan beberapa bidang teoritis penting (teori permainan,
hukum administrasi, teori etika). Meskipun demikian, ini mencakup berbagai
macam teori administrasi publik yang cukup luas untuk menerangi kemungkinan
dan batasan teori kontemporer di lapangan.
Pemilihan teori dan model bab berikut, sub teori, konsep, temuan
 penelitian, dan ahli teori individu termasuk dalam setiap teori atau keluarga teori
dapat menimbulkan ketidaksepakatan, bahkan ketidaksepakatan tajam.
Pelayanan publik bukanlah bidang yang rapi, dan tidak ada empat
ahli teori yang akan membereskannya
12 1: Pendahuluan: Kemungkinan Teori

dengan cara yang sama. Para penulis hanya dapat berharap bahwa pengaturan
pengetahuan dan teori administrasi publik mereka akan merangsang perdebatan
dan penyempurnaan selanjutnya dari kategori teoritis. Seringkali sulit untuk
menempatkan karya ahli teori tertentu dalam bab-bab tertentu. Misalnya, ahli teori
jaringan modern, seperti H. Brinton Milward dan Laurence O'Toole, mungkin tidak
setuju dengan dimasukkannya teori jaringan sebagai bagian dari badan umum teori
politik birokrasi dan lebih memilih untuk menganggap teori jaringan cukup penting
untuk mendapatkan keuntungan. perawatan terpisah dan berdiri sendiri. Ini juga
akan menjadi bukti bahwa teori jaringan dapat dengan mudah dikelompokkan
dengan teori pemerintahan seperti dengan teori politik birokrasi, dan kita
membahas implikasinya di Bab 9. Di sini, jelas ada bidang tumpang tindih dan
duplikasi antara dan di antara delapan bidang teoritis kami telah memilih.
Meskipun kami mencoba untuk menunjukkan yang paling penting, tumpang tindih
dan duplikasi adalah bagian dari poin yang jauh lebih besar. Setiap teori, atau
kelompok teori, berhubungan dengan ketujuh teori lainnya. Hubungan inilah yang
membuat administrasi publik menjadi bidang, badan pengetahuan yang terpisah
dari kesadaran diri. Bagian dari melakukan teori adalah memisahkan subjek dan
memeriksa bagian-bagiannya secara mendetail; tetapi bagian yang sama
pentingnya dalam melakukan teori adalah menyatukan kembali.
Bab 2 membahas teori kontrol politik atas birokrasi. Sejak awal lapangan, debat
mendasar telah mempertanyakan kisaran kebijaksanaan yang tepat untuk birokrat
dalam pemerintahan demokratis. Penelitian kontemporer tentang subjek ini telah
berkontribusi pada perkembangan teori kontrol politik. Bab
3 memperlakukan subjek birokrasi sebagai teori politik birokrasi, sebuah badan
teori yang hidup dan populer yang secara khusus mencerminkan kontribusi dan
pengaruh ilmu politik. Bab 4 membahas masalah rumah di mana administrasi
publik terjadi, struktur organisasi formal dan informal organisasi. Selama empat
puluh tahun terakhir, kumpulan teori ini telah berubah secara dramatis — dari teori
organisasi menjadi teori kelembagaan. Bab 5 mengubah analisis dari rumah
administrasi publik menjadi manajemen pekerjaan di rumah tersebut. Teori
manajemen adalah sebuah badan kerja yang tidak hanya agak tua, seperti dalam
manajemen ilmiah, tetapi juga sangat baru, seperti dalam teori kepemimpinan
kontemporer dan Total Quality Management, atau sedang dikembangkan, seperti
dalam deskripsi terbaru tentang birokrasi bayangan dan keadaan hampa.
Pentingnya perkembangan dalam teori jaringan dibahas di sini, dengan
implikasinya bagi tata kelola ditinjau pada Bab 9. Bab 6 adalah diskusi tentang
teori administrasi publik postpositivis dan postmodern.
Tubuh teori ini paling dipengaruhi oleh sosiologi kontemporer dan oleh tren dalam
filsafat. Dari teori-teori yang dibahas di sini, teori postmodern adalah
yang paling normatif. Bab 7 adalah pertimbangan teori keputusan dan tindakan.
Tubuh teori ini adalah jembatan utama ke bidang lain yang serupa, seperti
perencanaan, administrasi bisnis, dan penelitian operasi. Bab 8 adalah pengobatan
teori pilihan rasional, sebuah perspektif berpengaruh pada administrasi publik
terutama mencerminkan kolonisasi ilmu sosial dan administrasi publik oleh
ekonomi. Bab 9 mengambil perspektif teoritis terbaru dalam administrasi publik:
pemerintahan, termasuk
Catatan 13

tren menuju pelubangan negara. Delapan bab menguraikan detail penting dari
masing-masing teori ini, menunjukkan bahwa masing-masing merupakan bagian
penting dari administrasi publik. Bab terakhir menyatukan bagian-bagian ini dan
mencoba untuk menggambarkan dan memahami teori administrasi publik secara
keseluruhan.

Catatan
1. "publik" dalam administrasi publik didefinisikan secara luas di sini. “Publik”
digunakan dalam arti pra-pemerintahnya untuk memasukkan pemerintah dan
organisasi nirlaba, nirlaba, nonpemerintah, parastatal, dan organisasi lain yang
memiliki tujuan publik yang jelas selain dari yang umumnya dipahami sebagai
perdagangan atau bisnis. Lihat Frederickson 1997b.

2
Teori Penguasaan Politik Birokrasi

Pendahuluan: Apa Teori Penguasaan Birokrasi?

Teori pengendalian birokrasi merupakan suatu pendekatan terhadap administrasi
publik yang ory khususnya terkait dengan hal-hal kepatuhan atau daya tanggap.
Pertanyaan ini adalah inti dari teori kontrol-birokrasi: Apakah birokrasi mematuhi
hukum atau dengan preferensi anggota parlemen atau eksekutif terpilih? Untuk
menjawab pertanyaan ini, ahli teori kontrol-birokrasi menerima beberapa bentuk
dikotomi politik-administrasi (atau kebijakan-administrasi). Terkadang dikotomi
dijelaskan dan diterima secara eksplisit; di lain waktu itu hanya dijumlahkan.
Tetapi logika teori kontrol-politik-birokrasi sulit, jika bukan tidak mungkin, tanpa
mengasumsikan perbedaan yang signifikan antara fenomena politik dan
administrasi dalam pemerintahan yang demokratis.
Dikotomi politik-administrasi menelusuri asal-usul administrasi publik modern.
Ketika dokumen pendirian Amerika dirumuskan, dikotominya
adalah pemisahan kekuasaan legislatif dan eksekutif, dengan Alex ander Hamilton
memperdebatkan presiden yang energik yang mampu mengendalikan operasi
pemerintahan sehari-hari dan Thomas Jeff erson memperdebatkan untuk terpilih.
badan legislatif menjalankan kendali langsung dan berat atas presiden (Rohr 1986;
Kettl 1993a). Di tingkat negara bagian dan lokal pemerintah Amerika, dikotomi
politik-administrasi juga dimainkan melalui kekuatan legislatif (dewan kota) dan
eksekutif (walikota). Semua negara bagian memiliki pemisahan struktur kekuasaan,
dan
hingga abad kedua puluh, begitu pula hampir semua kota.
Di semua tingkat federalisme Amerika, pemisahan kekuasaan diubah oleh
munculnya pegawai negeri sipil permanen dan profesional yang ditunjuk
berdasarkan prestasi. Ketika pegawai negeri berada pada tahap awal, Woodrow
Wilson (1887/1941) menetapkan versi dikotomi yang paling formal dan kaku
dengan berargumen dalam esai mani tentang administrasi publik modern bahwa
politik tidak boleh ikut campur dalam
administrasi dan administrasi tidak boleh ikut campur dalam politik. Dikotomi
diterima secara luas dalam administrasi publik Amerika sampai pertengahan
1900-an, ketika

14
Pendahuluan: Apa Teori Pengendalian Birokrasi? 15

Dwight Waldo (1946) dan Herbert Simon (1947/1997) menantang dikotomi,

masing-masing karena alasan yang berbeda. Bagi Waldo, semua tindakan
administratif bersifat politis pada tingkat fundamental. Bagi Simon, sulit secara
empiris untuk memisahkan politik dari administrasi, dan sebaliknya. Jadi, dari
tahun 1950-an hingga 1970-an, hikmah yang diterima adalah bahwa tidak ada
dikotomi. Kemudian pada 1980-an, dikotomi muncul kembali dan sekarang hidup
dan sehat serta ditemukan dalam teori
kendali-birokrasi.
Arti penting dari teori kontrol-birokrasi adalah bahwa ia menyediakan analisis
administrasi publik dengan membuat perbedaan antara tindakan atau tindakan
politik dan administratif dan / atau antara aktor politik dan administrasi. Perbedaan
ini sangat berguna secara analitis karena menyediakan penguraian variabel
berdasarkan politik (biasanya variabel independen) dan administrasi (biasanya
variabel dependen).
Kemudian, kita sampai pada asumsi penting kedua dalam teori kendali- birokrasi:
Dalam pemerintahan sendiri yang demokratis, pejabat terpilih, termasuk legislator
dan eksekutif (presiden, gubernur, walikota), harus mengontrol keputusan dan
tindakan yang ditunjuk ( biasanya pegawai negeri sipil) pejabat. Dalam ilmu
politik Amerika, bentuk dan karakter kontrol politik atas birokrasi adalah
perdebatan lama tentang apa yang seharusnya menjadi kisaran kebijaksanaan yang
tepat yang diberikan birokrasi dan birokrat (Finer 1941; Friedrich 1940). Di zaman
modern, debat ini paling baik dicirikan, di satu sisi, oleh argumen Th eodore Lowi
(1979) bahwa kita membutuhkan demokrasi yuridis di mana undang-undang dan
peraturan begitu tepat dan sangat membatasi sehingga mereka menolak
 keleluasaan birokrasi dalam menjalankannya. keluar dari hukum dan, di sisi lain,
argumen Charles Goodsell (1983) bahwa kebijaksanaan biro yang luas sangat
penting untuk mencapai pemenuhan hukum yang efektif dan manusiawi. Donald
Kettl menangkap perbedaan ini dengan baik dan menempatkannya dalam konteks
historis:

Pendekatan yang berbeda untuk mempelajari administrasi biasanya berasal dari

salah satu dari dua tradisi yang saling bertentangan dalam politik Amerika —
dan setiap tradisi mengarah pada perspektif yang sangat berbeda tentang peran
administrasi dalam kebencian demokrasi Amerika. Beberapa mahasiswa
administrasi datang ke subjek dengan kecenderungan Hamiltonian fundamental.
Seperti Alexander Hamilton, mereka mencari negara yang kuat dengan aparat
administratif yang kuat. Mahasiswa administrasi lainnya, bagaimanapun, pada
dasarnya adalah orang Madison. Seperti Madison, mereka melihat dalam
keseimbangan kekuatan yang halus perlindungan terbaik terhadap tirani.
Persaingan kepentingan politik, dalam pandangan mereka, mengurangi risiko
birokrasi dapat menyalahgunakan kebebasan individu. (1993a, 407)

Teori kendali-birokrasi menarik secara mendalam dari sumur Madisonian dari

ketidakpercayaan kekuasaan administratif. Banyak ahli teori kontrol- birokrasi
berasal dari bagian ilmu politik Amerika yang pada dasarnya adalah orang
Madison.ekonomi dan teori ekonomi telah menjajah ilmu
politik dan cenderung juga ke
16 Kabut2: Teori Kontrol Politik Birokrasi

menjadi Madisonian. Sebagai perbandingan, administrasi publik tradisional dan

sadar diri, dengan penekanannya pada manajemen, keahlian, dan profesionalisme,
cenderung agak Hamiltonian dalam pemeran dan perspektif (Kettl 1993a).
Mendaftar beberapa judul buku kontemporer dalam administrasi publik
adalah salah satu cara menarik untuk menggambarkan popularitas modern teori
kontrol-birokrasi:

Pengendalian Birokrasi oleh Judith Gruber (1987)

Memegang Pertanggungjawaban Birokrasi Pemerintah oleh Bernard
Rosen (1989) Menjinakkan Birokrasi oleh William Gormley ( 1989)
Birokrasi: Apa yang Dilakukan Instansi Pemerintah dan Mengapa
Mereka Melakukannya oleh James Q. Wilson (1989)
Menghadapi Birokrasi: Hidup dan Mati di Badan Publik oleh Gerald
Garvey (1992)
Melanggar Birokrasi Kasar oleh Michael Barzelay (1992)
Pengendalian Birokrasi: Kendala Kelembagaan dalam Teori dan Praktek
oleh William West (1995)
Administrasi Publik: Menyeimbangkan Kekuatan dan Akuntabilitas oleh
Jerome McKin ney dan Lawrence Howard (1998)
 Birokrasi dan Pemerintahan Sendiri: Mempertimbangkan Kembali Peran
Administrasi Publik dalam Politik Amerika oleh Brian J.Cook (2014)

Ada sedikit pertanyaan bahwa birokrasi dan isu-isu tentang pengendalian

birokrasi saat ini sedang tral ke administrasi publik modern ory. Karena dikotomi
politik-administrasi merupakan asumsi utama dalam teori pengendalian-birokrasi,
maka bagian selanjutnya menjelaskan dan menjelaskan logika pengendalian
birokrasi dengan menggunakan dikotomi tersebut. Ini diikuti dengan upaya untuk
menjawab pertanyaan teoritis dan empiris apakah birokrasi dan birokrat responsif
terhadap majikan yang mereka pilih. Apakah mereka "di luar kendali"? Ini akan
diikuti dengan pertimbangan dari pendekatan principal-agent untuk teori control-
of- birokrasi.

GAMBAR 2.1 Representasi tradisional dari perbedaan antara

politik dan administrasi

SASARAN BERARTI
KEBIJAKAN ADMINISTRASI

Perbedaan Antara Politik dan Administrasi 17

GAMBAR 2.2 Representasi yang valid secara empiris dari

perbedaan antara politik dan administrasi

SASARAN BERARTI

KEBIJAKAN

ADMINISTRASI

Perbedaan Antara Politik dan Administrasi

Representasi sederhana dari perbedaan antara kebijakan dan administrasi,
mengikuti James Q. Wilson (1887/1989) dan Frank Goodnow (1900), akan terlihat
seperti Gambar 2.1.
 Representasi dari perbedaan antara kebijakan dan administrasi menimbulkan
pertanyaan tentang tingkat presisi, kota yang spesifik, dan detail dalam kebijakan
di satu sisi, dan tingkat kebijaksanaan dalam administrasi di sisi lain. Di era
reformasi dan dekade awal administrasi publik, mungkin diasumsikan bahwa
administrasi memerlukan berbagai keleluasaan yang membuka pintu bagi keahlian
teknis dan efisiensi administrasi. Dan selanjutnya diasumsikan bahwa garis antara
kebijakan / politik dan administrasi adalah "firewall fi." Kritik empiris atas
perbedaan antara kebijakan dan administrasi dapat
direpresentasikan seperti yang ditunjukkan pada Gambar 2.2.
Secara empiris, model ini lebih mendekati akurat, buktinya adalah bahwa bu
reaukrat sering terlibat dalam penetapan agenda kebijakan dan pembuatan
kebijakan (Kingdon 1995; Bardach 1977) dan bahwa pejabat terpilih sering
terlibat dalam apa yang biasanya akan digambarkan sebagai manajemen. atau
administrasi (Gilmour dan Halley 1994).
Model ini memang menunjukkan dengan jelas bahwa secara umum terdapat
kontrol politik atas birokrasi. Tetapi ini juga menunjukkan bahwa kontrol ini
terbatas dan berkelanjutan dan mungkin terdapat kontrol birokrasi atas kebijakan
sebanyak kontrol politik atas administrasi. Model umum seperti itu melayani
tujuan yang berguna dari teori yang mewakili secara grafis, tetapi seperti semua
model (verbal, matematika, grafik), model ini tidak menjelaskan atau menjelaskan
detail atau nuansa dalam pola tertentu dari interaksi politik-birokrasi. Banyak studi
individu tentang implementasi kebijakan dan kontrol birokrasi memberikan rincian
seperti itu (Gilmour dan Halley 1994).
18 2: Teori Kontrol Politik Birokrasi

Salah satu kemajuan teoritis yang paling menarik dalam teori kontrol-
birokrasi berasal dari studi tentang bentuk dewan manajer pemerintah kota. Sudah
lama ada premis dalam pemerintahan dewan-manajer bahwa ada dan harus ada
perbedaan yang jelas antara dewan kota yang dipilih secara populer dan tanggung
jawabnya untuk menetapkan hukum dan kebijakan, di satu sisi, dan peran manajer
kota yang profesional. dewan mempekerjakan untuk memimpin birokrasi dan
melaksanakan kebijakan, di sisi lain. Karena firewall konseptual antara politik dan
administrasi, secara teori bentuk pemerintah daerah ini mendekati dikotomi tipe
ideal yang digambarkan pada Gambar 2.1; ini pasti lebih dekat dengan tipe ideal
itu daripada bentuk lain dari pemerintah lokal Amerika, pemerintah negara bagian,
atau pemerintah nasional. Bentuk dewan-manajer pemerintah daerah juga sangat
berguna untuk dipelajari karena kesederhanaannya yang relatif: Pejabat atau
politisi terpilih semuanya dalam satu badan, dewan, dan birokrat serta teknisi
semuanya bekerja untuk manajer, yang adalah seorang profesional daripada
seorang politisi. Semua bentuk lain dari pemerintahan Amerika telah memilih
legislator (dewan kota, komisi kabupaten, badan legislatif negara bagian, badan
legislatif federal) dan seorang eksekutif terpilih. Birokrasi dalam bentuk-bentuk
ini, setidaknya secara implikasinya, memiliki dua master atau kepala politik —
legislatif dan eksekutif. Bentuk pemerintahan dewan-manajer, kemudian, karena
kesederhanaannya yang relatif, secara ideal cocok untuk studi teori kontrol
 birokrasi.
James H. Svara (1994) telah membuat studi ekstensif tentang kota-kota yang
menggunakan bentuk dewan-manajer dan hubungan antara dewan kota terpilih
dan manajer kota profesional. Penelitiannya menunjukkan bahwa ada empat
model hubungan antara pejabat terpilih dan administrator (Gambar 2.3).
Di setiap gambar, garis tebal menandai batas antara bidang pejabat terpilih dan
pejabat yang ditunjuk. Semua ruang di atas garis berat adalah tanggung
jawab pejabat terpilih; di bawah garis, tanggung jawab
administrator.
Model dikotomi administrasi-kebijakan yang ditunjukkan pada Gambar 2.3a
mirip dengan Gambar 2.1 dan merepresentasikan tradisi reformasi kotapraja dan
bentuk klasik dewan-manajer pemerintahan lokal. Ini juga cukup menggambarkan
teori awal Wilson dan Goodnow serta positivisme logis dari Herbert Simon dan
perbedaannya antara fakta (administrasi) dan nilai (kebijakan). Masalahnya adalah
bahwa model tersebut tidak memiliki jaminan empiris yang kuat dan konsisten
bahkan dalam studi tentang pemerintahan dewan-manajer, di mana orang akan
berharap untuk menemukan ruang lingkup antara politik dan administrasi.
Model "campuran dalam kebijakan" Svara yang ditunjukkan pada Gambar 2.3b
mewakili pengaruh behavioris David Easton (1965), Robert Dahl (1947), Wallace
Sayre (1958), dan lainnya yang mendefinisikan politik dan administrasi sebagai
distribusi nilai, biaya, dan manfaat. Politisi dan birokrat sama-sama berpartisipasi
dalam proses distribusi ini, dan di dalamnya para administrator memiliki peluang
yang luas untuk “menetapkan proposal yang memprakarsai kebijakan,
melaksanakan kebijaksanaan, menulis anggaran, dan menghalangi pemberian
layanan — dan melalui implementasi mereka membentuk kebijakan yang
dirumuskan oleh pejabat terpilih cials ”(Svara
1994, 5). Busur atas dari garis lengkung
Perbedaan Antara Politik dan Administrasi 19

GAMBAR 2.3 Empat model hubungan antara politik

dan administrasi
3a.
Kebijakan-Administrasi
Dikotomi 3b.
Campuran dalam Kebijakan
KEBIJAKAN KEBIJAKAN

BIROKRASI BIROKRASI
 3c. 3d.
Campuran Administrasi Terpilih Resmi-Administrator Sebagai Co-Setara dalam
Kebijakan

KEBIJAKAN
merupakan hamparan luas kekuasaan birokrasi di pembuatanKEBIJAKAN
kebijakan, atau,
menempatkan cara lain, tidak adanya kontrol politik dalam birokrasi. Bagian
bawah dari garis lengkung menunjukkan masuknya politik ke dalam berbagai
urusan terbatas administrasi, suatu bentuk kontrol atas birokrasi terutama yang
terkait dengan penyampaian layanan tertentu, membiarkan pembelian tertentu atau
kontrak konstruksi modal, atau pembuatan dari pengangkatan administratif
tertentu. Campuran dalam model kebijakan pemerintah dewan-manajer memiliki
BIROKRASI
perang empiris yang cukup besar dan cukup mewakili pola umumBIROKRASI
kontrol birokrasi
dalam
pengaturan kota manajer dewan klasik (Frederickson, Johnson, dan Wood 2004).
Gambar 2.3c dijelaskan oleh Svara sebagai model "campuran dalam administrasi"
dan pada dasarnya menggambarkan kebalikan dari campuran dalam model
kebijakan yang ditunjukkan pada
20 2: Teori Pengendalian Politik Birokrasi

Gambar 2.3b. Hubungan yang diwakili di sini menunjukkan penyelidikan

mendalam oleh anggota dewan kota terpilih ke dalam pelaksanaan sehari- hari
pemerintahan. Kedalaman penyelidikan akan tergantung pada sifat masalah dan
ketegasan pejabat terpilih, yang menjadi alasan variasi dalam pemisahan antara
politik dan administrasi. Beberapa orang menggambarkan ini sebagai pengelolaan
kecil dan mengungkapkan keprihatinan atas campur tangan politik dan
kemungkinan kembalinya korupsi politik lokal, yang ingin dibasmi oleh gerakan
reformasi kota (Newland 1994). Yang lain menggambarkan campuran dalam
model pemerintahan sebagai hak prerogatif legislatif yang menegaskan kembali
diri mereka sendiri untuk mengekang ekses birokrasi yang tidak terkendali atau
sebagai semacam respon politik (Bledsoe 1993). Campuran dalam model
administrasi akan menjadi representasi empiris yang akurat dari kota-kota
berbentuk dewan-manajer yang memiliki manajer kota yang lentur dan pasif serta
anggota dewan kota yang dibayar penuh waktu yang tegas dan dipilih oleh distrik.
Gambar 2.3d mengilustrasikan model “pejabat-administrator terpilih
sebagai rekan sederajat”; ini memiliki banyak karakteristik campuran dalam model
kebijakan yang ditunjukkan pada Gambar 2.3b. Bagi Svara, model ini mewakili
Administrasi Publik Baru sebagai layanan (Frederickson 1980; Frederickson
1997b), dokumen Manifesto Blacksburg (Wamsley dan Wolf 1996), dan pendapat
Charles Goodsell (1983) bahwa administrator publik memiliki legitimasi kebijakan
yang melekat dan kewajiban etis untuk melindungi kepentingan mereka yang
kurang terwakili (kadang-kadang disebut keadilan sosial), untuk bertindak sebagai
agen bagi warga negara, dan untuk mengatur urusan kota sesuai dengan hukum,
arahan dewan, dan standar birokrasi efisiensi dan keadilan (Frederickson 1997b ;
Wamsley dan Wolf 1996; Goodsell 1983). Model setara Svara (Gambar 2.3d)
secara akurat menggambarkan kota dengan dewan yang membatasi pekerjaan
mereka untuk menetapkan kebijakan dan menyetujui anggaran tahunan dan dengan
manajer kota yang kuat namun adil bebas untuk melaksanakan kebijakan dan
memberikan layanan sesuai dengan standar efisiensi dan keadilan tanpa melibatkan
dewan. Variasi dalam pemisahan antara politik dan administrasi mewakili fluktuasi
dalam kesediaan dewan untuk memberikan keleluasaan pengelola kota dalam
pelaksanaan, tergantung pada masalah, tetapi juga sejauh mana administrator
memiliki legitimasi dan kewajiban untuk bertindak secara independen. Th e co-
equal model would best represent the absence of control over bureaucracy or the
assumption, commonly found among city managers, that the requirements of
political control are satisfi ed by passing statutes, setting standards, and passing a
budget.
In using these models, Svara found there were empirical problems because “we are
burdened with such imprecise defi nitions of the central concepts that distinc
tions between offi ce and function are diffi cult to make. One cannot
conclude . . . that the only distinction between 'policy' and 'administrative'
decisions is who makes them. It is essential to the task at hand to discriminate
precisely among functions in the governmental process without presuming who
discharges them” (1994, 8). Svara then sets out the four-part model shown here
as Figure 2.4, Pars ing the Dichotomy, which uses four, rather than two,
categories of governmental
Th e Diff erence Between Politics and Administration 21

FIGURE 2.4 Parsing the dichotomy: dimensions of governmental

processes

Illustrative Tasks Council's Sphere Illustrative Tasks for Council for

Administrators

Determine purpose,
scope of services, tax level,
constitutional issues.
Pass ordinances, approve new
projects and pro
grams, ratify budget.
Make implementation
decisions such as site
selection, Missi
handling complaints, and overseeing
administration. on
Suggest management
changes to manager, review
organizational performance in
manager's appraisal.
 Make recommendations on all
decisions, formulate budget,
Policy Management determine service distribution
formulae.

Establish practices and procedures

and make decisions for implement
Administration ing policy.

Advise (what city “can” do may Control the human,

influence what it “should” do), material, and informational resources
analyze conditions and trends. of organization to support policy and
administrative functions.

activity and describes illustrative tasks for political offi cials and bureaucrats in
each category. To this he again sketches the curved line, which best represents the
most commonly found pattern of relationship between politics and administration.

Manager's Sphere
Using the four-part model, he then arrays the fi ndings of his fi eld research in four
separate representations of the four-part model, shown here as Figure 2.5. In the
four boxes in Figure 2.5, the dotted line represents the solid line shown in Figure
2.4. Some cities are best described as having a strong manager, shown in box 2.5a.
Th e most notable fi nding here is that the manager's space for action is greater in
all four functions of government. Th is could be described as the cor
porate, or board of directors, model, in which policy is heavily defi ned by the
manager and the council merely approves or makes legitimate that policy. Th e
council grants the manager and the bureaucracy broad and essentially complete
discretion in the daily aff airs of city government. Th e opposite of this is found in
the council-dominant model set out in box 2.5b, which illustrates a wide space of
council involvement at all four levels. Th is could also be called a coun
cil control-of-bureaucracy model. Th e important point in the strong- manager and
council-dominant models is the across-the-board character of power and
22 2: Th eories of Political Control of Bureaucracy FIGURE 2.5 Derivations

from typical division

5a. 5b.
Strong Manager Council Dominant
Council's Sphere Council's Sphere Mission Mission

Policy
Policy
 Administration Management Administration Management

Manager's Sphere Manager's Sphere

5c. 5d.
Council Incursion Council-Manager Standoff Council's Sphere Council's
Sphere

Mission
Mission

Policy Policy

Administration Administration

Management Management

Manager's Sphere Manager's Sphere

infl uence. Th e council incursion pattern shown in box 2.5c describes a council
that probes more deeply in all areas than in the typical model, yet is not consis
tently assertive in all areas. Th e incursive council makes administrators wary of off
ering any proposals concerning mission and is unpredictable in its reactions to
policy recommendations from staff . It accepts many recommendations but in some
cases undercuts extensive staff preparation and sets off to make its own
Th e Diff erence Between Politics and Administration 23

policy decision. Th e council probes persistently but somewhat haphazardly into

administrative matters and dabbles in management (Svara 1994, 56). Th us the
boundary line is “ragged” in this situation. Box 2.5d illustrates a standoff between
an assertive manager and an equally assertive council.
Each checks and contains the other without the council's taking complete control
or the manager's getting what is believed to be deserved administrative discretion.
Th ese models capture and illustrate some of the rich variation found in man
agerial and bureaucratic responses to political control in council-manager-form
cities. Other research indicates that the structure of council-manager cities is
changing. At one time, most council members in council-manager cities were
elected at-large; now they are elected by district. It used to be, too, that councils
were strictly part-time and made up of usually white, male business leaders; now
council members are increasingly full-time, increasingly paid, are more oft en fe
male, are more oft en persons of color, have staff assigned to them, have working
spaces in city hall, and have access to city vehicles and symbols of real power (Renner
and DeSantis 1993; Bledsoe 1993).
Mayors in council-manager-form cities were once primarily ceremonial, merely
the senior member of the council. Now they are increasingly directly elected as
mayor, are paid, work full-time, have staff , and so forth. Council- manager cities
that have made these structural changes are called “adapted cities” and clearly
have moved toward greater political control of the city bureaucracy (Frederickson,
John
son, and Wood, 2003).
In researching this issue, Greg J. Protasel (1994) found that council-
manager form cities that are now “adapted cities” seldom abandon the council-
manager form. But council-manager cities that are not adapted are more likely to
abandon the model in favor of the strong-mayor model. Th is is, following
Protasel, because of the leadership gap illustrated in Figure
2.6. Th e fi gure, which uses the Svara four-part functional description of
city governmental activities turned on its side,

FIGURE 2.6 Th e Leadership in the Council-Manager Plan

Degree of Activity
Council Responsibility
Leadership Gap
Mission Policy Administration Management

Shared Responsibility

24 2: Th eories of Political Control of Bureaucracy

describes functions that are exclusive to the council or the manager, functions that
are shared, and a gap in leadership. When cities fi ll that gap by adapting, they tend
to retain the council-manager form. When they leave a leadership vac uum or the
manager attempts to fi ll it, more likely abandonment of the council manager form
will be considered.
It is evident from the study of the council-manager form of city government
that the use of policy and administration as units of analysis does illuminate the
theory of public administration. Further, theories addressing the political control of
bureaucracy can easily be tested by using political and administrative variables.
Th is suggests that, although the
simple policy-administration dichotomy is with
out empirical support, a nuanced conception of policy and politics, on the one
hand, and administration, on the other, does account for or explain variations
among organizations or cities as to the degree of political control of bureaucracy,
as well as some of the character or quality of that control or its absence.

Are Bureaucracies Out of Control?

We turn now to the more complex forms of democratic government and to the
theories that purport to explain or account for the roles and behavior of bureau
cracy, particularly as those roles and behavior are or are not controlled by elected
offi cials.
One group of theories concerning the control of bureaucracy could be de
scribed as theories of bureaucratic capture. Th is theory traces primarily to
stud ies of the federal government, particularly to studies of the regulatory process
and the independent regulatory commissions. In one form of this theory, the in
dustries regulated or licensed (airlines, railroads, telephones, etc., at the national
level; electric, gas, and other utilities at the state level; and general retail busi ness
at the local level) come, through time, to heavily infl uence or even to control
their regulators (Huntington 1952).
Under these circumstances, the regulators are sometimes referred to as “having
gone native.” Another version of capture theory is that the bureaucratic process is
dominated by a triumvirate of policy ac tors: an interest group, a congressional
committee charged with the oversight of a particular agency, and a government
agency (Wood and Waterman 1994). Origi nally, this was a variant of theories of
pluralism, commonly known as “iron trian gles” and later as “issue networks”
(Heclo 1978). A third version of capture theory suggests that policy elites control
bureaucracies (Selznick 1949). It is assumed, correctly, that legislatures have
passed enabling legislation that created the regu latory agencies and through the
delegation of rulemaking, and even adjudicatory powers, have given those
bureaucracies wide discretion in regulating entire fi elds of business, such as
transportation or stock markets. Capture theorists argue that the actual functioning
of these agencies was outside of the control of the president (governor, mayor),
and Congress (state legislature, city council). Th erefore, cap ture theorists
sometimes refer to the connections among the
regulated industry,
Are Bureaucracies Out of Control? 25

the regulatory agency, and the relevant legislative committee as “policy subsys
tems” beyond presidential and congressional control.
Th e interesting thing about capture theories is that they suggest that there is
too much political control of bureaucracy rather than not enough. As we will
see, this is an argument almost exactly the opposite of the more common
contempo rary theories that political control of bureaucracy is rather limited.
How do theories of bureaucratic capture hold up empirically? Not
especially well. As Wood and Waterman put it:

Th e deregulation movement of the 1970s challenged one of theory's basic

premises, namely, that the regulatory agencies serve the interests of the reg
ulated clientele, not the public interest. Th e theory could not stand up to the
empirical test.....................................In one industry aft er another,
regulatory agencies aggres sively promoted deregulation. Had the deregulation
movement been confi ned to one or two agencies, it might easily have been
dismissed as a mere exception to a larger rule. But the deregulation movement
was broadly based, involving numerous agencies and regulated industries.
(1994, 19–20)

It could be added that the federal government's experience with deregulation

has, in a general way, been repeated by American state and local governments. If
regulated industries had captured the public agencies charged with regulat ing
them, and this capture had resulted in particular favorable circumstances for those
industries, it would be assumed that the industries, ceteris paribus, would have
fought to retain regulation and that the public agencies held prisoner by them
would have fought to retain regulation. Th at did not happen. What did happen was
the very popular executive and legislative politics of deregulation. It turns out that
the policy subsystems that were presumed to have captured bureaucracies were
permeable, especially to the infl uence of elected offi cials—political principals. As
a result, modern variants on capture theory ac count for such external political infl
uences as described in the work of Hugh Heclo (1978), and John Kingdon (1995).
Th ese newer variants have much soft er assump tions about bureaucratic capture
by interest groups or regulated industries and are much more likely to refl ect
arguments about “overhead democracy” as an approach to the political control of
bureaucracy (eg, Ringquist 1995; Wood 1993). A local government cousin of
theories of bureaucratic capture are theories of client responsiveness. In these
theories, it is assumed that jurisdictions establish such institutions as police
departments, welfare agencies, and schools. Elected po litical leaders set policy
and establish budgets and use some form of merit-based civil service system to
employ the large groups of bureaucrats who must carry out the work—ordinarily
direct service to such clients as schoolchildren, the poor, victims of crime, or those
suspected of violating the law. Ordinarily, those who di rectly serve clients are
professionals or semiprofessionals, such as schoolteachers, social workers, or
police offi cers—all having a distinct client-serving orientation.
26 2: Th eories of Political Control of Bureaucracy

Indeed, the training and education of these professionals put a much greater em
phasis on how to serve client needs than on how to respond to political principals
or policy directives. It is oft en true that these bureaucrats see themselves as pro
fessionals providing a direct service and ordinarily do not see themselves, at least
primarily, as public offi cials or public servants (Gruber 1987). Th ese bureaucrats
greatly value autonomy and
the widest possible range of discretion in responding to client needs (Lipsky 1980;
Gruber 1987). Th ey “work for their clients” more than they “work for the mayor,
the city council, the school board, or the county commission.” It could be said,
then, that these bureaucrats are “captured” by their clients, although there are those
who would caution us against confl ating “cap ture” with client responsiveness in
these situations (Meier 1997). Client responsiveness theory is essentially
traditional public administration theory emphasizing agency eff ectiveness and the
instrumental values of effi ciency, economy, and equity (Frederickson 1997b). To
what extent does this theory have an empirical warrant?
First, the seminal research on client responsiveness theory was done by Mi
chael Lipsky in his classic Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the
Individual in Public Services (1980). Its fi ndings are now a part of the public
administration intellectual furniture:

1. Resources are chronically inadequate.

2. Th e demand for services tends to increase to meet the supply. 3. Goal
expectations for agencies tend to be ambiguous, vague, or confl icting.
4. Performance oriented toward goal achievement tends to be diffi cult, if not
impossible, to measure.
5. Clients are typically nonvoluntary; partly as a result, clients for the most
part do not serve as a primary bureaucratic reference group. 6. Street-level
bureaucrats usually have at least some latitude or discretion in providing their
services.
7. Under conditions of scarce resources and high demand, bureaucrats ration
services.
8. To bring greater predictability to the resource stream, street-level bu
reaucrats husband such worker resources as time and energy.
9. Th ey control clients by the maintenance of distance, autonomy, exper
tise, and symbols, thereby reducing the consequences of uncertainty. 10.
Street-level bureaucrats are oft en alienated from their work and exhibit
forms of psychic withdrawal.
11. Street-level bureaucrats tend to be middle class and to ration their ser
vices based on middle-class values, such as work, thrift , and the
like.

Lipsky's fi ndings seem to indicate that street-level bureaucrats are not so

much captured by their clients as they are faced with daunting social tasks and
limited
Are Bureaucracies Out of Control? 27

resources. In their forms of client responsiveness are they, then, also responsive to
their political and policy masters? Lipsky suggests that unless and until goals are
made clearer and performance measures tied to clearer and more precise goals,
street-level bureaucracy will stay about the same. Th ere is little doubt that the
responsibility for ambiguous, vague, and confl icting goals belongs to elected offi
cials. Th e question, then, is not one of
whether there is or should be greater political control of bureaucracy; the question
is the assumed political direction or policy content in that control. Lipsky's fi
ndings indicate that resource scarcity coupled with vague and confl icting goals
will produce bureaucrats who cope by exercising some form of control over their
work. Does this mean they are out of control? No. Schools, welfare agencies, and
police departments are generally do ing what the law and what public policy call
for—at least to the extent in which that law and policy are clear.
Second, Judith Gruber's (1987) research paints a rather less fl attering picture of
bureaucratic actions and attitudes toward political control. Drawing from James
D. Th ompson's (1967) theory that bureaucrats seek to buff er themselves from
outside forces; from Anthony Downs's (1967) theory that bureaucracies prefer the
status quo and resist change; and from Robert K. Merton's (1957) the
ory that bureaucrats resist change, Gruber, who based her research on interviews in
a mayor-form city in the upper East Coast, fi nds bureaucrats to be self-serving and
resistant to controls. She fi nds that bureaucrats “have a signifi cant latitude of
action, and they like it that way” (1987, 92); “prefer outside actors who have very
little power” (94); do not welcome either city council or mayoral infl uence in
departmental aff airs (92–96); and fi nd citizen infl uence somewhat more
welcome (96).
But these bureaucrats believe in democratic government and in political and
policy control over their work, although they tend to defi ne the legitimate range of
these controls rather narrowly, limiting it to winning elections, passing stat utes,
making policy, and approving budgets.
Bureaucrats tend to be suspicious of elected offi cials who move beyond these
forms of control and attempt to get into what they defi ne as the legitimate role of
administration—which is broadly de fi ned to include a wide range of what
Gruber sees as policy. Th ese public offi cials are insulated from the political aff
airs of the city and tend to take their advice from one another. But, as Lipsky
found, bureaucrats work in a world of constraints— rules and regulations that
proscribe their actions, limited resources, and pressure for services. Finally,
Gruber found bureaucrats to be greatly infl uenced in their actions and opinions
by their professional associations and by the technology of their work and that
they resist political intervention that runs counter to these in fl uences. When this
happens, political or policy intervention, according to these bureaucrats, tends to
be for the political self-interest of elected offi cials.
One could dismiss Gruber as being rather too Jeff ersonian, but she has likely
painted a relatively accurate portrayal of the attitudes of upper-level bureau
crats. But this does not mean that public administrators are out of
control or
28 2: Th eories of Political Control of Bureaucracy

FIGURE 2.7 Political and Administrative Values

Politics Administration

ACTIVITY PLAYERS PIECES CURRENCY

CONVERSATION Power T Knowledge
Y
DYNAMICS
What do you hear? What do you know?
MANAGE
Game Conflict, Compromise, and R Harmony, Cooperation, and
Change Problem solving Continuity
Representatives
Experts
Interests/Symbols
Information, Money,
C People, Things
I

cannot be controlled. It does mean that elected offi cials and upper-level public
administrators oft en hold diff erent values and beliefs about democratic gov
ernment and about organizational eff ectiveness. John Nalbandian (1995), a city
mayor and a professor of public administration, sets out these contrasting val ues
as shown in Figure 2.7.
At the city level, following Nalbandian, Svara, Timothy Bledsoe, and others,
elected offi cials and bureaucrats clearly have diff erent values. Th eir views of
their roles and activities diff er, as do their tools and conversations. Meskipun
mungkin tidak ada dikotomi politik-administrasi literal, ada dikotomi nilai. Elected
offi cials and political analysts might regard the city bureaucracy as out of control.
Tidak. It isn't out of control, but it is infl uenced by values that are, at times, diff
erent from ordinary political values.
Th e evidence indicates that street-level bureaucrats have some discretion in
policy implementation as well as considerable infl uence in policymaking. In re
cent research on schools, Kenneth Meier, Joseph Stewart Jr., and Robert England
compared three hypotheses regarding the direction of policy discretion by public
administrators:

Th e underclass hypothesis contends that political systems are biased in the

dis tribution of policy outputs, that poor and minority residents receive a less
than equal share of city services. Th e elections hypothesis views politics as a
way either to counter the class bias of urban government or to reinforce it. Th e
elections hypothesis suggests that political elites will distribute urban services
to benefi t
Are Bureaucracies Out of Control? 29

their political supporters. Th e bureaucratic decision rules hypothesis . . .

holds that government services are allocated according to rules formulated in the
bu reaucracy. (1991, 156)

Most of the research on urban service delivery tends to reject the underclass
hypothesis and the elections hypothesis and to support the bureaucratic decision
rules hypothesis, and the Lipsky and Gruber fi ndings just described would be
typical of that research. Meier, Stewart, and England, however, found that school
bureaucracies tend to be more
politically responsive than previous research would indicate and that bureaucratic
decision rules are less infl uential than was previously thought; dengan kata lain,
birokrasi sekolah cenderung responsif secara politik.
Th e direction of the political control of bureaucracy was tested in a National
Science Foundation–funded study done by Steven Maynard- Moody, Michael
Musheno, and Marisa Kelly (1995). Th ey were particularly interested in the
decision norms (similar to decision rules) of street-level bureaucrats in ques
tions of justice and fairness. Using a form of story analysis, they tested these
hypotheses:

1. Street-level bureaucrats are more likely to use justice norms to

resolve dilemmas when three organizational conditions are present:

a. Th e street-level bureaucrat feels he or she has the control to re solve

a dilemma,
b. he or she operates in a work culture that encourages the exercise of
discretion by street-level bureaucrats, and
c. budaya kerja lokal mempromosikan visi klien yang sesuai dengan cara
birokrat tingkat jalanan mengidentifikasi dengan klien mereka.

2. Street-level bureaucrats operating within a local work culture that en

courages the use of discretion will use various coping strategies to ap
proximate just outcomes when their identifi cation with clients is
strong but confl icts with those evident in the local work culture or is
incom patible with available resources.
3. Street-level bureaucrats operating within an environment that discour ages
discretion and that places constraints on their abilities to control a
situation may use coping strategies to meet the demands of their jobs,
but not to orchestrate outcomes compatible with their norms of justice.
Th ey will cope with injustice by ignoring its presence.
4. Street-level bureaucrats working in diff erent organizations within the same
policy area will demonstrate diff erent patterns of resolving justice
dilemmas because of diff erences in local work and identity cultures.
30 2: Th eories of Political Control of Bureaucracy

Th e Maynard-Moody, Musheno, and Kelly argument is that with grants of

adequate discretion, bureaucracies will tend toward fairness and justice. Th is sup
ports the “social equity” normative standards for public administrators argued by
H. George Frederickson (1997b), and refl ects the relationship between politics and
administration refl ected in Figure 2.3d, discussed earlier, which shows the
inherent policy legitimacy and ethical obligation of agencies to act in the interests
of citizens and protect the underrepresented.
Kami kembali ke pertanyaan apakah teori penangkapan, terutama
penangkapan birokrasi oleh kelompok kepentingan atau klien, memiliki jaminan
empiris. Th e an swer is mostly no. In the extent to which laws, regulations, and
budgets support clients and client interests, and bureaucrats carry out those laws
and regulations and serve those clients by using their appropriations, then, capture
theory is sa lient. But this is usually interest groups' and/or clients' capture of
politics, not of bureaucracy. At the national level, where issues of political control
of bureau cracy are far more complicated, the James Q. Wilson (1989) synthesis is
espe cially helpful:

Congress has always micromanaged the federal bureaucracy, but the form of
that micromanagement has changed from seeking favors for political supporters
(there is still a good bit of this) to devising elaborate, detailed rules for bureau
cracy, engaging in close oversight, and demanding information. (242) Agencies
with tasks that are hard to specify and diffi cult to evaluate and that are
imbedded in confl ict-ridden political environments can barely be controlled by
legislatures at all, except by multiplying the procedural constraints that the
agencies are supposed to observe. (250–251)

An interesting illustration of the contingent eff ects of context and task is found
in the research of Terry Moe (1989). He studied such controversial agen cies as the
Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Kelompok kepentingan
bisnis sangat menentang tujuan dan aktivitas birokrasi ini dan tidak malu menekan
Kongres untuk membongkar atau mengubahnya. Congress fi nds the repeal of the
enabling legislation for these agencies to be politically untenable, so it uses a diff
erent approach: “Opposing groups are dedicated to crippling the bureaucracy and
gaining control over its decisions, and they will pressure for fragmented authority,
labyrinthine proce
dures, mechanisms for political intervention, and other structures that subvert the
bureaucracy's performance and open it to attack” (1989, 216). At the state and
national levels, one of the complicating factors in control of- bureaucracy theories
is divided government. In the ordinary theory of public administration, there is the
executive assumption—public administration is part of an executive branch headed
by an elected governor or president.
When the governor or president is in one party and the legislature (or one house of
the
Are Bureaucracies Out of Control? 31

legislature) is controlled by the other party, who is to have control? Dalam teori
administrasi publik ortodoks, serta dalam hampir setiap proposal untuk reformasi,
eksekutif terpilih dipahami berada di puncak hierarki kontrol. Robert Gilmour and
Alexis Halley, based on a careful observation of Congress, several presidents, and
the federal bureaucracy in ten specifi c case studies, suggest that the “co-
management” of bureaucracy is a more apt empirical description. If this is so,
developing an empirically testable control-of-bureaucracy theory is made much
more complex. Th ey suggest
the following:

Th e cases collectively suggest that the term congressional co- management of

pol icy implementation and program execution characterizes the transition
from a congressional reliance on post-audit oversight of executive branch
performance to pre-audit congressional program controls and direct
congressional participa tion with the executive in the full scope of policy and
program development and implementation. Th e cases show a “congressional
co-manager” intervening di rectly in the details of policy development and
management rather than enacting vague, wide-ranging, sweeping statutes to
change fundamental policy directions. Th e cases also suggest that
congressional co-management is as much a result of actions in the executive
branch as it is a result of actions in the legislative branch. (1994, 335)

Based on this observation and on their case studies, they present the following
hypotheses:

Eff ects on Policy and Programs

1. “Congressional intervention has prompted or forced changes in pro gram

priorities, directions, the speed of program implementation, and
the visibility of programs on the executive policy agenda.” (352)
2. “Congressional intervention has had intended eff ects on substantive policy
outcomes and other eff ects that were neither intended nor antic ipated.”
(353)
3. “Congressional intervention has operated to keep both branches fo cused
on narrowly defi ned, short-run programs and has inclined to continue
existing programs while submerging hard questions about alternatives
or large policy issues.” (354)

Eff ects on Congressional Oversight

1. “Th e Congress observed in these ten case studies was not a gadfl y. Once
particular committees, members, and staff s were involved in the de tails
of implementation, they tended to stay involved until the situation
32 2: Th eories of Political Control of Bureaucracy

changed or until safeguards were in place to assure that desired prog ress
would continue.” (355)
2. “Congress has created a new network of agencies, commissions, staff s,
and other entities to conduct oversight functions, thereby supplement
ing some committees and subcommittees in their oversight roles. Con
gress also places great reliance on the investigatory and oversight
roles of its own support agencies.”
 (356)
3. “Th e infl uence, expertise, and commitment of members of Congress and
their staff s were critical to sustaining detailed congressional in
volvement.” (356)

Eff ects on Executive Management

1. “Congressional initiatives both strengthened and burdened the hands of

agency administrators, sometimes one more than the other. Th e bur den came
in the form of the added workload of new requirements and the erosion of the
long-term capacity to manage. Th e strength came in the form of 'an added
stick' in dealing with the Offi ce of Management and Budget and the regulated
community and in forceful incentives to
comply with statutory mandates and to avoid public censure.” (358)
2. “Congressional initiatives changed the structure of governmental ac tivities
and functions. Th is shift is characterized by the creation of an array of
commissions, boards, and specially designated offi ces within and
between both branches.” (358)

Gilmour and Halley (1994) observed five styles of congressional co

management. Th e strategic-leader style is associated with strengthening depart
mental management in directions favored by Congress. Th e reorganization of the
Department of Defense in 1986 is a good example. Th e reorganization was the
result of a desire by Congress to consolidate authority and improve coordination in
the Department of Defense. Th is was accomplished by enhancing the power of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff , among other reforms.
Congress may approach co-management as a consulting partner, where legis
lative authority is unlikely to be unilaterally imposed. Th is is the case when both
Congress and the administration share information and when Congress is more
reactive. Foreign aid is illustrative: Congressional concessions for human rights,
abortion, and the like are built into foreign aid decisions, as are high levels of fi -
nancial support for favored countries, such as Israel.
Kongres dapat mengelola bersama seolah-olah itu adalah seorang pengawas
dengan mengeluarkan mandat termasuk prosedur manajemen, jadwal, dan rincian
lainnya yang biasanya diserahkan kepada administrator publik. In this style,
Congress uses as many control mechanisms as needed, including monitoring and
reporting requirements. An example of this
Are Bureaucracies Out of Control? 33

is the requirement by Congress that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)

move forward, on a strict timetable, to develop rules for the requirement of tran
sponders to aid in avoiding aircraft collisions aft er a midair crash in 1986. In
deed, West and Raso (2012) fi nd that Congress has a prominent role in directing
agencies to make rules, and they argue
that this form of co-management requires further research. At a minimum they
argue that this is so prevalent that accounts of legislative inability to direct the
bureaucracy be tempered.
Congress may be a combative opponent by using a kind of zero-sum logic. In
this model, Congress acts to reduce or eliminate discretion it once granted to the
agency. Gilmour and Halley (1994) argue this will occur primarily when budget
conditions create strong incentives to “take credit' for costs savings, al
though other situations may also lead to an adversarial relationship, particularly
when bureaucracy makes mistakes. Th e recent case of the failure of the Forest
Service–controlled burning program and the problem of untrimmed and over
grown forests near towns is illustrative. Congress is simply bringing back grants of
discretionary authority once held by the Forest Service in order to both punish the
agency and improve forest management.
Akhirnya, Kongres bisa menjadi pengamat pasif. Oft en, Congress becomes pas
sive aft er some sort of congressional intervention in a program. Once Congress
establishes mechanisms to oversee policy implementation, it can adopt a passive
observer style of co-management. One example is nuclear waste policy aft er the
establishment of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. Congress can be less
vigilant as it can rely on these sorts of institutional mechanisms.
Th e evidence for these forms of congressional co-management is compelling.
Taken altogether, they seem to indicate that there are many forms of political
control over bureaucracy at the federal level and that such control is extensive.
Tampaknya birokrasi tidak lepas kendali. If anything, the range of bureaucratic
discretion appears narrow. Gilmour and Halley do a splendid job of detailing the
characteristics of congressional co- management, but they have less to off er those
interested in the eff ects of co-management on the bureaucracy. Gilmour and
Halley do make this point:

Congressional co-management has both improved and blurred the clarity of

executive accountability for results. Increased accountability was docu mented
in the form of new independent entities to check on the performance of the
executive and more frequent or more extensive reporting requirements.
Complicated lines of authority, responsibility, and accountability were more
frequently observed, especially in domestic policy where an emerging congres
sional “para bureaucracy” signifi cantly aff ects interbranch relations and execu
tive capacity.
As a matter of general complaint among some executive branch offi cials
and other observers, Congress's members and their staff s have insinuated
themselves inappropriately and unaccountably into administrative management.
Although
34 2: Th eories of Political Control of Bureaucracy

the anecdotal evidence to support such assertions is enormous, they are not given
much weight by the ten cases investigated for this study.
 (1994, 368)

Th e clearest evidence of how individual bureaucrats respond to the problems

of divided government and co-management is in the splendid research of Marissa
Martino Golden (1992). Using a modifi ed version of Albert O. Hirschman's con
cepts (1970) of bureaucratic exit, voice, and loyalty, she studied bureaucrats in the
Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice and in the National Highway
Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) of the Department of Transpor
tation during the administration of a Republican president, Ronald Reagan, and a
Democratic Congress. It is important to remember that the Reagan administra tion
was particularly antibureaucratic, advocated a strong policy departure from the
status quo, and was in a decided ideological disagreement with congressional
leaders as well as strong policy advocates in the bureaucracy.
Th e assumption that bureaucrats either cooperate or resist, Golden argues, is
too simplistic. She determined that promoting or inhibiting bureaucratic resistance
depended upon the bureaucrat's careerist ideology, the dominant agency profession
(law, engineering), the agency's esprit, the agency's history, and the confi dence of
the careerists. Di Divisi Hak Sipil, dia menemukan ideologi lama yang mendukung
hak-hak ras minoritas dan perempuan, profesi dominan (hukum), dan komitmen
birokrasi yang dalam untuk menegakkan hukum hak-hak sipil. Dalam menghadapi
upaya pemerintahan Reagan untuk membongkar divisi atau memaksanya untuk
tidak menegakkan hukum ini, Golden menemukan penggunaan suara yang meluas
dalam beberapa bentuk: perang memo antara pengacara karir dan pejabat politik,
beberapa penggunaan kebocoran dan sabotase, dan sangat sedikit tindakan
kooperatif. Th ere was a good bit of exit, some of it so- called creative resignation,
to make a point. But exit was not taken lightly, and bu reaucrats carefully weighed
the tradeoff between exit and the consequent loss of voice. Th ere was loyalty,
sometimes mixed with withdrawal or neglect. Oft en voice and loyalty worked
together, namely, the bureaucrat who stays on in part because of the desire to be an
infl uential policy voice.
Di NHTSA, masalahnya adalah kantung udara. Kongres dan NHTSA
menginginkan mereka, tetapi industri mobil dan pemerintahan Reagan tidak. A rule
calling for air bags was in place at the beginning of the Reagan administra tion. Th
e rule was fi rst rescinded, then overruled by the Supreme Court, and then taken
“up” to the level of Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole and out of the hands
of NHTSA. Golden found some use of voice in attempts to infl uence pol icy, but
much less than at the Civil Rights Division. Th ere were some leaks to interest
groups and Congress by career bureaucrats, but virtually no exit. Th ere was a
good bit of loyalty and steady policy implementation following presidential
leadership, as well as a good bit of passive behavior and neglect.
Overall, the bureaucrats in the Civil Rights Division, when compared with
those at NHTSA, were more ideological, shared a common esprit de corps,
tended
Agency Th eory 35
to be in the same profession, and had a long history of court successes. Dan, juga,
mereka umumnya memiliki alternatif karier yang baik. Singkatnya, tanggapan
birokrasi terhadap kontrol politik dalam kondisi pemerintahan yang terpecah
bergantung pada setidaknya faktor-faktor ini.

Agency Th eory
Th is chapter closes with a review of the most popular contemporary theory of
political control of bureaucracy: principal-agent theory or, more simply, agency
theory. Th is new framework has been widely applied to studies in the infl uence of
principals, particularly Congress and the president, and agents, namely, the civil
service. At its base, principal-agent theory seeks to explain how the principal can
motivate the agent to behave in the principal's interest, despite the fact that the
principal cannot completely control or even completely monitor the agent. As used
in the fi eld of public administration, the initial premise of this theory was that
bureaucracies are either out of control or at least very diffi cult to control. Th is
premise is taken primarily from the early economic analyses of bureaucracy by
Gordon Tullock (1965), Anthony Downs (1967), and William Niskanen (1971),
all of whom regarded the bureaucracy as if it were a maximizing or self-seeking
individual or fi rm in a market. In this premise, the bureaucracy hoards informa
tion (information asymmetry), seeks autonomy, and shirks.
Using both empirical fi eld research primarily with quantifi able data and
deductive math modeling, agency theorists have tested the range and form of
legislative and executive control over bureaucracy. Hampir semua penelitian ini
dilakukan pada pemerintah pusat. In their review of the fi ndings, Dan Wood and
Richard Waterman (1994) state that agency theory is explicit in its assumption of
the logic of the politics-administration dichotomy. Th e assump
tion, of course, is that the relationship between elected leaders (principals) and civil
servants or bureaucrats (agents) is hierarchical and could be understood as a series
of contracts or transactions between a buyer of services and a provider of services.
In the public context, the elected “buyer” attempts to shape the ser
vice to his or her preferences by laws, regulations, executive orders, appropri
ations, hearings, and all manner of co-management. Th e bureaucratic “seller” of
services is a mixture of professional education and expertise, responds to laws and
constitutions, and attempts to serve its clients. Teori keagenan adalah cara yang
sangat berguna untuk memahami hubungan antara waktu, politik, dan birokrasi.
Legislator yang ingin memindahkan birokrasi ke posisi favorit mereka
dikendalikan oleh koalisi masa lalu dan undang-undang yang dihasilkan dari
koalisi tersebut. According to Wood and Waterman, “Agency theory posits a
process of interaction between principals and agents that is dynamic, evolving
through time. Th roughout this process, bureaucracies have distinct informa
tional and expertise advantages over politicians. Th ey understand the policy
and the organizational procedures required to implement it. As a result, they
36 2: Th eories of Political Control of Bureaucracy

have both the opportunity and incentive to manipulate politicians and pro cesses
for political gain” (1994, 23). As might be expected, this advantage is increased
when politicians do not have time to develop their own expertise. Nicholson-
Crotty and Miller (2011), for example, fi nd that bureaucratic infl u ence in the
legislative process increases when term limits force turnover in the legislature.
One important mechanism to control bureaucracy, which can perhaps be
called the modern form of accountability, is the use of reporting to hold bureau
cracies accountable for their performance. Th is creates a “distinctly subordinate
and responsive role” for the agents (Dubnick 2005, 386). Th us, performance
and accountability to political principles become tightly linked, and reporting
thus enhances the power of the principal over the agent. Th e move toward the
use of organizational report cards, particularly by the federal government since
2001, is symptomatic of this form of accountability. Organizational report
cards are useful for establishing and maintaining control, as they
provide data about many agents simultaneously and in
standardized formats to principals who are inter ested in assessing performance
(Gormley and Weimer 1999). Th ey also serve to reduce the information
advantage typically enjoyed by bureaucracy over elected offi cials. Th e use of
reporting as a control mechanism became well known when George W. Bush's
administration instituted the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART), which
the Offi ce of Management and Budget used to hold other govern
ment agencies accountable for success. As an example of how the tool was used, poor
PART scores in the Commerce Department resulted in the consolidation of the
Community Development Block Grant program and the Economic Develop ment
Assistance program.
As reporting and program evaluation have increased in sophistication, ten sion
has arisen between principals and agents. William Gormley and Steven Balla
(2008) point out that because performance evaluation is intimately connected to
accountability, agents subject to rigorous reporting expectations may lose the
freedom to use their expertise to be innovative in the way they address the issues
for which they are responsible. In other words, as the principal increases its abil ity
to monitor the agent, it also increases its ability to alter the agent's behavior to be
closer to its preferences. Th is can make it diffi cult for street-level bureaucrats to
provide eff ective service. Th e popular example of this situation is the concern
over how the No Child Left Behind Act would create incentives for teachers to
simply “teach to the test” so that their classes and schools would look good on
standardized federal performance reports.
Although reporting is an important method of controlling bureaucracy, the
observation by Wood and Waterman (1994) that agencies still hold advantages in
the areas of information and expertise still holds. Coupled with the fact that or
ganizational report cards and program evaluation can never provide a full picture
of bureaucratic performance, the principal-agent relationship is still nuanced and
complex (Gormley and Balla 2008; Palumbo 1987).
 Agency Th eory 37

Furthermore, Maynard-Moody and Musheno (2009) reveal that the set of

relationships among citizens, agents, and the state is more complex than previ
ously thought, which makes controlling bureaucracy more diffi cult. Th ese fi nd
ings are consistent with others, who agree that street-level discretion reduces the
chances of control over those street-level workers (Brehm and Gates 1997).
Maynard-Moody and Musheno fi nd, for example, that, although we should ac
knowledge the diffi culties of street-level work and tolerate some discretion in de
cisionmaking, we must not forget that street-level bureaucrats are indeed agents of
the state. Th is creates, they argue, an unresolvable tension between the ex
pectations of principal-agent theory and the relationships between citizens and
street-level agents: should street-level bureaucrats respond directly to citizen
preferences, or should they respond to the preferences of elected offi cials, who
represent the citizenry?
Nevertheless, in their review of fi ndings based on agency theory, Wood and
Waterman (1994) indicate the following:

1. Bureaucratic responsiveness to political control is the norm rather than

the exception. A wide range of contingent factors, such as time, pres
idential and congressional agreement, and many others, infl uence
the degree of bureaucratic responsiveness.
2. Political control mechanisms are important, especially presidential ap
pointments, congressional appropriations power, hearings, and con
gressional staff eff ectiveness.
3. Organization matters. Lembaga di departemen eksekutif atau kabinet lebih
responsif, sedangkan lembaga independen kurang responsif. 4. Presidential
statements are infl uential, as are the statements of senior congressional leaders.

Bagaimana birokrasi menanggapi kontrol politik? In their review of agency

theory research of federal agencies, Wood and Waterman conclude that there are
dynamic bidirectional relationships in which legislators signal preferences to bu
reaucrats and bureaucrats signal preferences to legislators:

Some would argue that such two-way power relations are evidence of political
dysfunction, given that bureaucracies are nonelected institutions. Namun, kami
menyarankan bahwa yang terjadi adalah sebaliknya. It is healthy for
bureaucracy to use its infor mation advantages to better inform principals on
either policy matters or the nature of the bureaucratic process. Lebih jauh,
perlawanan birokrasi terhadap politisi yang terpilih mungkin sebenarnya
terkadang lebih konsisten dengan demokrasi dan preferensi publik daripada
responsivitas birokrasi. Citizens and many groups strongly opposed the de-
regulation of the environment advocated by the Reagan administration, and the
bureaucracy served as a check on presi
 dential power. (1994, 126)
38 2: Th eories of Political Control of Bureaucracy

In carrying out policy, a bureaucracy is caught between past majority polit ical
coalitions and their laws and policies and current majority political coali tions and
their preferences. Th is is further complicated by the co- management
phenomenon; kenyataannya, birokrasi menghadapi banyak kepala sekolah yang
bersaing. In one principal-agent hierarchy, Congress is presumed to control; in
another, the presi dent. Th e combination of time and multiple competing
principles makes bureau cratic adaptiveness essential. Pada intinya, birokrasi
federal telah beradaptasi. Th e speed, direction, and tone of that adaptation are
contingent.
Despite the rather negative rhetoric in some agency theory—such phrases as
“agency deception,” “bureaucratic shirking,” and “agency information hoarding”—
the general fi ndings of this research make useful contributions to public adminis
tration theory.
Dalam mendamaikan teori birokrasi dengan teori demokrasi, birokrasi
terkadang menolak kontrol prinsipal. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
administrator Anne Burford was directly involved in

illegal activities by actually encouraging hazardous waste operators to violate

the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1979. However, the EPA's
resistance to the Reagan administration started much earlier than the . . .
pelanggaran. Th us, as a matter of fact bureaucracies resist change that runs
counter to public or organizational interests whether it contradicts legal man
dates or not.
Th us, bureaucracies perform an integrative function for US democracy. Th
ey blend demands from past democratic coalitions with those from current
democratic coalitions to produce a policy output at a consistent level. (Wood
and Waterman 1994, 145)

Conclusions
Th eories of political control of bureaucracy are central to any sophisticated un
derstanding of public administration. Th ey are abundant in their variety and are
tested using the full range of methodological techniques. Teori seperti itu sudah
setua tulisan Woodrow Wilson dan sama baru dengan teori agensi.
Terus menjadi mode untuk mengatakan bahwa tidak ada dikotomi politik-
administrasi, seolah-olah pernyataan semacam itu menyampaikan wawasan
khusus. As theories of po litical control of bureaucracy indicate, to unbundle
politics and administration is a key to understanding how politics controls
bureaucracy and how bureaucracy infl uences politics and policy. Th erefore, it is
wrongheaded to approach the sub ject of public administration on the assumption
that politics and administration are more or less the same thing. Th e preceding
review indicates that the many and richly varied forms of politics and policy and
the equally varied forms of
public administration can, when put into the same equation, advance the development
of verifi able theory.
Summary 39

Summary
Th eories of political control of the bureaucracy date to Woodrow Wilson's rather
rigid description of a dichotomy, where he argued that politics should not meddle
in administration, and administration should not meddle in politics. Th is nor
mative description held until the mid-1900s, when Waldo argued that all admin
istrative acts were inherently political. At the same time, Simon also challenged
Wilson's description, arguing that politics and administration were so entangled
that the two could not be unbundled.
Th e political features of administration gave rise to questions about control. Th
e concern is that if administration is inherently political, then it must be subject to
democratic inputs. Lowi (1979) argued for policy that created a Wilson-esque
distinction between administration and politics. Goodsell (1983), on the other hand,
argued for fl exibility and bureaucratic discretion in order to best meet the
preferences of citizens. Th ese discussions spawned literature on agency capture as
well as bureaucratic responsiveness.
Th e latest theory of political control of the bureaucracy is principal-agent the ory.
Wood and Waterman (1994) begin with the assumption that the relationship
between elected leaders (the principals) and civil servants (the agents) is hierar
chical and one best understood as a series of transactions.
In other words, over time the principals and agents may have diff erent levels of
infl uence over each other, depending on relative expertise, information,
monitoring, and resources.
Aft er his retirement, Dwight Waldo was interviewed by two of his students,
Brack Brown and Richard J. Stillman Jr. Th e portion of this interview having to do
with the separation of powers and the politics- administration dichotomy is
particularly interesting, given that Waldo, perhaps more than anyone else, con
tributed to the received wisdom that there is no such dichotomy:

Stillman: You've also indicated a similar diffi culty with our understanding of
the separation of powers. Mengapa kemajuan juga lambat di sini? Apakah ada
jalan keluar dari kebingungan yang Anda anggap menjanjikan?

Waldo: I suppose your next question will be, “What is the nature of reality?”
What can I say to this subject in a few minutes? Well, I off er a few
observations that I judge relevant.
First, the separation of powers is there—prominently and, for our
purposes, permanently. Th e complicated scheme of separating and sharing
powers and functions is built into the Constitution, and in more than two
centuries the Con stitution has been built into our national life. We have no
alternative but to work with and/or around the tripartite
 separation.
Second, the politics-administration formula, perspective, approach,
dichotomy—pick your own noun—was an attempt on the part of pub lic
administration to work with and/or around the separation of powers. It
40 2: Th eories of Political Control of Bureaucracy

foundered, by common consent, but for various alleged reasons: It was em

pirically untrue to what happens and is impossible to operationalize; it was
presumptuous if not impious, putting profane hands on a sacred scheme; it
concealed ethical problems and encouraged illegal action. So, formally or os
tensibly, we put the dichotomy aside. But at the same time, it lingers, both as an
idea and as a practice. And I don't judge the lingering as simple inertia, a
cultural lag. Th e twofold schema has too much going for it in logic and useful
ness simply to disappear. We do, commonsensically, decide and execute, set
policy and administer. (1986, 153)

Th eories of political control of bureaucracy are, in sum, among the most em

pirically robust and theoretically elegant in public administration.

3
Th eories of Bureaucratic Politics

Introduction: What Are Th eories of Bureaucratic Politics? Th

eories of bureaucratic politics seek to explain the policymaking role of ad
ministration and bureaucracy. Such frameworks typically reject the politics
administration dichotomy underpinning theories of bureaucratic control, viewing
this division as an analytical convenience that imposes too steep a cost on
theoretical development. Specifi cally, the price of making theory more tracta ble
by separating administration from politics is held to be a willful ignorance of
the central role of bureaucracy within the polity's power structure. Since
bureaucracies and bureaucrats routinely engage in political behavior, the need to
account theoretically for the bureaucracy's political role is justifi ed. Politics is
generically defi ned as the authoritative allocation of values, or the pro cess of
deciding “who gets what, when and how” (Easton 1965; Lasswell 1936).
Numerous studies confi rm that bureaucracies and bureaucrats routinely allocate
values and decide who gets what, that bureaucracies logically engage in “politics
of the fi rst order” (Meier 1993, 7). Th eories of bureaucratic politics therefore be
gin by accepting what has
long been empirically observed; that is, in practice, ad ministration is not a
technical and value-neutral activity separable from politics. Administration is
politics (Waldo 1948).
Accordingly, theories of bureaucratic politics seek to breach the orthodox di vide
between administration and politics and attempt to drag the former into a
systematic accounting with the latter. Th at traditional theoretical frameworks ac
count poorly for bureaucracy's obvious and repeatedly observed political role has
long been recognized. Even scholars traditionally credited with describing and
supporting the politics- administration divide were well aware of the political role
the bureaucracy plays, and the rigidity of the division accepted as their legacy has
been described as a caricature of their arguments. Woodrow Wilson and Frank
Goodnow, who both wrote at a time when public bureaucracies were ripe with
patronage, incompetence, and even outright corruption, were well
aware that

41
42 3: Th eories of Bureaucratic Politics

politics and administration represented a synthesis rather than two neatly separa
ble portions of the public policy enterprise (Lynn 2001). Other prominent public
administration scholars argued during the fi rst half of the twentieth century that
administrative theory had to account for politics, both in recognition of bureau
cracy's real-world role and as a necessary element to building better explanatory
frameworks within the discipline.
Among the most prominent of these was John Gaus (1931). He observed that
federal agencies not only carried out clearly understood directives from Congress
but also independently shaped those directives and exercised discretionary poli
cymaking authority while translating the vague intentions of statutes into
specifi c government actions. Birokrasi jelas memegang kekuasaan politik. Th
is being so, those who sought to understand public agencies could not simply
carve off administration from politics and leave the complexities of the latter to
political theorists. If bureaucracies were helping to determine the will of the
state, they were inescapably political institutions, and Gaus argued that
administrative the ory ignored this fact at its peril. Most famously, in the fi nal
sentence of an essay in Public Administration Review, he threw down an implied
gauntlet to those who would fashion a theory of administration: “A theory of public
administra tion means in our time a theory of politics also” (1950, 168).
Gaus thus succinctly summarized the purpose of theories of bureaucratic politics.
As the broader intellectual history of political theory makes clear, this is a dif fi
cult objective, and for more than half a century students of public administra tion
have had mixed success in meeting Gaus's challenge. Th e issues raised here are
more complex than those at the heart of the theories of bureaucratic control. Th e
goal is not to locate the dividing line between politics and administration because
no such line exists, nor is it to ascertain how bureaucracies can be made
accountable to their democratic masters, although this is a question of some im
portance to theories of bureaucratic
politics. Questions of political power are the central focus:

• To what extent do administrative processes, as opposed to democratic pro

cesses, determine public policy?
• Who controls or infl uences the exercise of bureaucratic power? • What is the
role of bureaucracy in representing and advancing the goals of particular clientele
groups or organized interests?
• To what extent do elective institutions and elected offi cials seek to shape and
control administration as a means to advance their own political interests? • Apa
sumber kekuatan birokrasi?
• How does the important political role of nonelected institutions based in
hierarchy and authority square with the fundamental values of
democracy?

If anything has been learned by the eff orts expended on developing theories of
bureaucratic politics, it is that such questions have no easy answers.
Administrative Th eory as Political Th eory 43

Nevertheless, numerous studies have confi rmed the need for systematic
frameworks accounting for the political role of the bureaucracy. Several re
sponses to this need have provided important insights into the political role of the
bureaucracy, and in doing so, signifi cantly expanded our understanding of public
administration.

Administrative Th eory as Political Th eory

Th e seminal work that justifi ed the need for a theory of bureaucratic politics is
Dwight Waldo's Th e Administrative State (1948). Waldo did not construct a the
ory of bureaucratic politics in this book, but here and in later writings he made two
critical contributions that have supported all subsequent eff orts to do so. First, he
undertook a devastating critique of the extant research literature. He argued that
public administration scholarship revolved around a core set of be liefs that
cumulatively served to constrain theoretical development. Key among these were
the beliefs that effi ciency and democracy were compatible and that the work of
government could be cleanly divided into separate realms of decision and
execution. Th ese beliefs led public administration scholars to champion effi
ciency as the central goal of public agencies, to develop a “science” of
administration to maximize that effi ciency, and to ignore the political ramifi
cations of these beliefs and the prescriptions they implied.
Second, and probably more important, Waldo argued that administrative
scholarship was itself driven by a particular philosophy of politics. A good por tion
of Th e Administrative State is devoted to examining the scholarly public
administration literature through the lens of fi ve key issues in political philos
ophy: (1) the nature of the Good Life, or a vision of what the “good society”
should look like; (2) the criteria of action, or the procedures for determining how
collective decisions should be made; (3) the question
of who should rule; (4) the question of how the powers of the state should be
divided and appor tioned; and (5) the question of centralization versus
decentralization, or the relative merits of a unitary state versus a federal system.
Waldo concluded that public administration scholarship was anchored by well-
developed responses to all of these issues. Like theorists from Machiavelli to Marx,
public administration scholars had a vision of what the “good society” looks like: It
is industrial, urban, and centrally planned; it has no poverty, no cor
ruption, and no extremes of wealth. Science is its ideal, and waste and ineffi
ciency are its enemy. Th ese same scholars also had a clear preference for the
criteria of action: A scientifi c analysis of the facts should decide what should be
done. Public administration orthodoxy espoused particularly fi rm beliefs about
who should rule: “Th e assertion that there is a fi eld of expertise which has, or
should have, a place in and claim upon the exercise of modern governmental
functions—this is a fundamental postulate of the public administration movement”
(1948, 89–90). Technocrats blessed with the requisite competence and expertise
were public
44 3: Th eories of Bureaucratic Politics

administration's equivalents of the Guardians in Plato's Republic. On the par

ticularly American issues of the separation of powers and centralization versus
decentralization, Waldo argued that the preferences of administration scholar ship
were equally clear: Administration scholars were hostile to the tripartite partition of
power in the American system and sought to increase the power of the executive at
the expense of the judiciary and the legislature. Th ey were also in favor of a
centralized state. Th ey placed their faith in the competence of a professional
administrator, who, given the requisite power and authority, could
tackle the obstacles standing before the realization of the good life. If
administration scholarship advanced such a distinct and defi nable political
philosophy (some might say ideology), it raised an immediate and formidable
intellectual obstacle to attempts at conceptually dividing politics and adminis
tration: How could students of administration claim that politics was largely ex
ternal to their interests when their intellectual history revealed such a systematic
value-based philosophy of government? Waldo pointed out that administration is
frequently claimed to be at the core of modern democratic government, and that
this claim helps justify the entire discipline of public administration. If this claim
has merit, it implies that democratic theory must deal with administration, and that
administrative theory must deal with democratic politics. As a practical matter of
explaining the operation and role of administration in government, not to mention
as a point of intellectual honesty, students of administration cannot deal with the
problems of politics by assuming them away.
Waldo argued that administrative scholarship's failure to incorporate poli tics
explicitly into its theoretical development was a product of its early cultural and
intellectual environment. While recognizing the impossibility of cleanly dating the
beginning of public administration scholarship as a self-
conscious body of thought, Waldo took as his starting point such writers as
Woodrow Wilson, Frank Goodnow, and Frederick W. Taylor, namely, infl uential
man agement, administration, and organization theorists who wrote near the turn of
the twentieth century. Th e work of these scholars refl ected not only the dom inant
cultural values of their time but also the contemporary problems in ad ministration
they sought to address. Cultural values led them to accept science as the surest path
to knowledge and commerce as the central activity of society. Th e central
problems they sought to address consisted of an unappetizing stew of ineffi ciency
marinating in political cronyism and seasoned with graft .
One of the outcomes of these contextual forces was that, from the beginning,
students of administration adopted effi ciency as their guiding principle. Th e term
was vaguely defi ned, though “effi cient administration” clearly meant “good ad
ministration.” When administration scholars operationalized the concept, they
mainly seemed to be talking about an input-output ratio, the most output for the
least input being the implied objective (Waldo 1948, 201–202). A “good” decision
or administrative act was thus one that maximized outputs for a given set of inputs.
As Waldo pointed out, this is a concept fundamental to businesses
Administrative Th eory as Political Th eory 45

operating in capitalistic markets, but it is not nearly so important to democratic

government. Equity, consensus, or the satisfaction of particular interests is fre
quently the criterion for action in democratic processes, and none of these crite
ria is necessarily effi cient; indeed, these criteria are oft en inescapably ineffi cient.
Yet, as administration scholars accepted effi ciency as their central principle, they
also accepted democracy—a notoriously ineffi cient basis of organization—as the
central principle of the American political system. Th is presented a problem in
developing administrative theory. Th e formative era of administrative schol
arship, with its focus on the scientifi c method, its guiding principle of effi ciency,
and its position in the shadow of business, meant that it developed in a decidedly
undemocratic context. Not only was democracy not synonymous with effi ciency
and various other business and scientifi c practices incorporated into public ad
ministration orthodoxy, but also it was quite possibly hostile to them (Waldo
1952, 85). How could the principle central to the American political system be
squared with the forces driving the theoretical development of public administra
tion as a discipline?
Waldo argued that the founders of public administration solved the conun drum
by accepting democracy as the guiding principle of the American po litical system,
but keeping it external to their professional interests through the politics-
administration dichotomy. By separating the work of government into two distinct
operations and limiting their attention to the “nonpolitical” element, administration
scholars were free to push for centralized power in the executive branch, to
prescribe hierarchical and authoritarian bureaucracies as the basis for organizing
public agencies, and to call for passing greater responsibilities to the technocrat. As
long as these reforms increased effi ciency in administration, and administration
was kept separate from politics, theoretically the discipline did not have to square
the contradictions these arguments presented to the egalitar ian ideals of
democracy.
As Waldo was careful to point out, the founders of public administration were
not ideologically opposed to democracy. Th ey were progressive reform ers who
embraced the romantic ideal of democracy as the “best” or “proper” form of
government. Th e reality they faced at the time, however, was a public
administration characterized by disorganization, amateurism, and dishonesty.
Nineteenth-century reforms springing from the presidency of Andrew Jackson had
dispersed and factionalized the power of government. Elected offi cials multi
plied, the legislature took precedence over the executive, and government agencies
were staff ed through the spoils system. If administration were the core of govern
ment, the net result of these reforms created a serious problem for democracy in
the United States at the turn of the twentieth century: a public administration shot
through with incompetence, ripe for corruption. For public administration to gain
competency and effi ciency, it would have to cleanse itself of politics and learn the
lessons of science and business. Good administration (and thus good government)
could best be promoted by centralizing and
concentrating power;
46 3: Th eories of Bureaucratic Politics

by running agencies according to sound, scientifi c management principles; by

making technical competence the criterion for civil service employment; and by
shielding these technical experts from whatever winds happened to be stirring the
dust in the political arena.
Waldo thus viewed the political philosophy inherent in public administration
scholarship not as an attempt to usurp democracy, but as a necessary corrective to
save it. As Waldo put it, “Democracy if it were to survive, could not aff ord to
ignore the lessons of centralization, hierarchy, and discipline. Put bluntly, it was
the maxim 'Autocracy during hours is the price of democracy aft er hours'” (1952,
87). Th eoretically, the undemocratic elements of administrative orthodoxy—its
emphasis on effi ciency, hierarchy, and authority—could be seen in the service of
democracy as long as the politics-administration orthodoxy held. An effi cient and
expertly run administrative apparatus insulated from politics and under the
authority of a powerful executive would increase accountability and promote ef
fective, competently run public programs and policies. If things did not work, ev
eryone would know whom to blame and why, and the representative
institutions of democracy could act accordingly.
Th e problem, as numerous scholars have pointed out, was that the politics
administration dichotomy did not hold. As Waldo meticulously detailed in his
literature review, there was ample evidence that bureaucracies pushed some val
ues over others, that bureaucracies acted as power brokers among competing
special interests, and that lawmakers were increasingly reliant on and infl uenced
by the expertise and opinions of administrators. Administrative theory simply
could not ignore these realities and continue to usefully shape the direction of the
discipline. At a
minimum, Waldo argued, the concept of democracy and all its messy implications
had to be brought back into administrative theory. Ad ministrative scholars had to
recognize that their central principle—effi ciency— was not value neutral, and that
its uneasy relationship with democratic principles had to be recognized (Waldo
1952, 90).
Waldo suggested that continued attempts to create a science of adminis tration
would result in theoretical dead ends because “science” was, in eff ect, a code
word for preserving the core principle of effi ciency, a signal for another attempt to
inoculate administration against politics. In an essay in the Amer ican Political
Science Review, Waldo singled out Herbert Simon's argument separating
questions of administration into issues dealing with fact and issues dealing with
values. Simon's enormously infl uential Administrative Behavior (1947/1997)
had essentially demolished the extant research seeking to defi ne and promulgate
the “principles” or “laws” of a science of administration. Yet Simon sought to save
the possibility of that science. He argued that it was con ceivable if it limited its
attention to decisions centered on facts (statements that can be tested to assess
whether they are true or false) as opposed to values (statements that are validated
by human fi at). Decisions of fact were central to the administrative realm, Simon
argued, and could be scientifi cally guided
Allison's Paradigm of Bureaucratic Politics 47

toward the overall goal of effi ciency. Waldo said that Simon was simply recast
ing the problem by substituting a logical division of politics and administration for
an institutional division, and was doing so to preserve the central principle of
orthodox administrative theory, namely, effi ciency.
Effi ciency could not remain the discipline's talisman against politics, Waldo
argued, because administration is political. In Waldo's perspective, effi ciency it
self is a political claim. For example, how does one assess the effi ciency of, say, a
library, or the Department of Defense? If effi ciency is defi ned as an input-output
ratio, one has a choice of inputs and outputs to assess effi ciency in both instances,
although none is the unassailably objective “factual” option. As choosing among
these options unavoidably involves values not just facts, effi ciency can hardly be
value neutral (Stone 2002, 65). If public administration insisted that its orthodox
principles were politically neutral, Waldo argued, it would never be rid of the
theoretical straitjacket it used to restrain itself from the world of politics. Wal
do's argument bought a tart response from Simon (1952b), but even as Simon went
on the off ensive, there were signs that Waldo's point had sunk deep into the
discipline. Published concurrently with Simon's essay was another by an equally
prominent scholar—Peter Drucker (1952)—who wholeheartedly agreed with
Waldo's assessment of the fundamentally political character of large-scale organi
zations, and suggested that, if anything, Waldo had not pushed his arguments far
enough (see Simon 1952a for the complete essay on this point). Waldo argued that
at the heart of the problem with administrative theory is a version of the problem
James Madison struggled with in Federalist No. 10: How do you preserve
individual liberty without destroying the freedoms that make it possible? For
Madison, it was the dilemma of
constructing a government strong enough to protect individual liberty without
making it vulnerable to the forces that would crush the liberties of others for their
own selfi sh interests. For Waldo, “Th e central problem of democratic
administrative theory, as of all democratic theory, is how to reconcile democracy . .
. with the demands of authority” (1952, 102). How do we construct a theory that
accommodates the hierarchical and authoritarian nature of the bureaucracy, the
foundation of the modern adminis trative state and a seemingly necessary
component of contemporary government, with the seemingly contradictory
egalitarian, ineffi cient ideals of democracy? Waldo bestowed this grand and
sweeping question upon the discipline rather than provide its answer, but the
question is surely enough to justify the need to meld administrative theory with
political theory, to motivate the search for a theory of bureaucratic politics.

Allison's Paradigm of Bureaucratic Politics

In the two decades following the publication of Th e Administrative State
(Waldo 1948), an embryonic theory of bureaucratic politics began to emerge from
a series of studies examining decisionmaking in the executive branch. Th e
48 3: Th eories of Bureaucratic Politics

signifi cant claim generated by these studies was that government decisions were
products of bargaining and negotiation among interested political actors. As these
studies focused on the executive branch, the central player in these bar gaining
frameworks was the president. Th e president, however, was argued to have little
unilateral decisionmaking power; he had to accommodate the inter ests of the
various institutional factions in the executive branch. Bureaucracies and
bureaucrats, in short, played high-level politics, and usually played the game very
well.
Th ese studies were discursive rather than explicitly theoretical, but the par
allels between them and the contemporary work on game theory—a highly for
malized and mathematical approach to explaining behavior—are unmistakable. Th
e loose bargaining framework adopted by this research quickly proved a use ful
way to organize empirical research and produced many of the raw materials for a
more comprehensive theory. Th e best- known studies of this early bureau cratic
politics literature include Samuel Huntington's Th e Common Defense (1961),
Warner Schilling's 1962 essay on the politics of national defense, and, most
famously, Richard Neustadt's Presidential Power (1960). Bureaucracies and
executive branch offi cials were not portrayed here as neutral agents of imple
mentation, but as active participants in determining the will of the state. Th ese
studies steadily built a case for a general theory of bureaucratic politics centered on
bargaining games in the executive branch.
Th e fi rst serious comprehensive attempt to produce such a framework was
undertaken by Graham Allison in his book Essence of Decision (1971), and fur
ther refi ned by Allison and Morton Halperin (1972). Allison's immediate focus in
Essence of Decision was explaining why the
governments of the United States and the Soviet Union did what they did during
the Cuban missile crisis. With a nuclear exchange at stake, these were policies of
particular importance, but Alli son was aiming well beyond the confi nes of one
case study. Essentially, he posed a broad question that cut to the heart of
bureaucratic politics: Why do govern ments do what they do? In other words, how
is policy made, and who determines or infl uences it? To provide general answers
to these questions, Allison articu lated three theoretical models.
Th e fi rst was the rational actor model (what Allison termed “Model I,” or the
classical model). Model I proposes that government decisions can be understood by
viewing them as the product of a single actor in strategic pursuit of his own self-
interest. Th e second model is the organizational process paradigm, or Model II,
which argues that numerous actors are involved in decisionmaking, and de
cisionmaking processes are highly structured through standard operating pro
cedures (SOPs). When a problem occurs, Model I assumes that the government will
identify the potential responses to that problem, assesses the consequences of those
actions, and choose the action that maximizes benefi ts and minimizes costs. In
contrast, Model II assumes that the government will rely on organizational routines
instead of a rational cost- benefi t calculus to make that decision. Rather
Allison's Paradigm of Bureaucratic Politics 49

than search for all potential responses, the various components of government will
act according to SOPs that, in eff ect, say, “When X happens, do Y.” Th e seminal
contribution of Allison (1971) and Allison and Halperin (1972) to the bureaucratic
politics literature came in the articulation of an alternative to Models I and II.
Model III, or the bureaucratic politics paradigm, explains government actions as
the product of bargaining and compromise among the various organizational
elements of the executive branch. Allison's model of bu reaucratic politics is
constructed from four basic propositions. (1) Th e exec utive branch is composed
of numerous organizations and individuals having divergent objectives and
agendas. Any given issue will attract the attention and involvement of a set of these
actors, who bring to that issue their divergent in terests and motivations. (2) No
preponderant individual or organization exists; in other words, no one actor in the
executive branch is able to act unilaterally. Th e president might be the most
powerful actor on a given issue, but he will not be the only actor, and his infl uence
will be limited. (3) Th e fi nal decision is a “political resultant”; in other words,
what the government decides to do is the outcome of bargaining and compromise,
the product of a political process.
(4) Th ere is a diff erence between making policy and carrying it out. Once an
action is decided upon, the task of implementing that decision is handed over to
others who must also make decisions about the specifi c actions to take. Th ose
decisions are in turn shaped by the operating procedures and interests of the
implementers (Rosati 1981).
With these as a starting point, a policy analyst's attention is immediately fo
cused on power and politics within and among executive branch bureaucracies.
Within the confi nes of the executive branch, Allison's model
combines and makes little distinction between politics and administration, and
in doing so seems to answer the challenge laid down by Gaus. In studying
bureaucracy, as Allison put it, “the name of the game is politics: bargaining
along regularized circuits among players positioned
hierarchically within the government. Government behavior can thus be
understood . . . as a result of these bargaining games” (1971, 144). Model III sees
the components of the executive branch as semiautonomous orga nizations that do
not act in unison on a series of single strategic issues, but act on a variety of issues
according to their own conceptions of national, organizational, and individual
goals. Instead of making policy and implementation decisions ac cording to
rational self-interest, or according to the dictates of SOPs, government
actors decide on the basis of the “pulling and hauling” that is politics. From its
general premises, Model III systematically goes about explaining spe cifi c
policies by seeking the answers to a few basic questions. (1) Who plays? In other
words, what agencies or individuals have an important stake in a given is sue, and
whose behavior can have an important eff ect on government decisions and actions
concerning that issue? (2) What determines each player's stand? Th is question
stems from Allison's proposition that “where you stand depends on where you sit.”
Diff erent agencies and individuals will have diff erent perceptions
50 3: Th eories of Bureaucratic Politics

of an issue and divergent preferences on what should be done based on their ob

jectives, values, and sense of mission. (3) How are players' stands aggregated to
yield governmental decisions and actions? Once it has been determined who are
involved in a given issue and what their interests and objectives are, the challenge
is to assess how these actors bargain to protect and advance their preferences. Th is
means determining the relative infl uence of the players. Model III assumes that
bargaining is highly structured and that “action channels” or “rules of the game”
shape the process of decisionmaking and distribute power among players (Allison
and Halperin 1972).
Allison's model of bureaucratic politics has had a signifi cant impact on how
bureaucracies are studied. It was not just a series of propositions formulated to
explain one study, but rather a workable theory for understanding the policymak
ing role of bureaucracy. As such, the contribution of Model III to the theoretical
development of public administration scholarship is hard to underestimate. Yet,
although Allison undoubtedly reduced the paucity of theoretical substance in the fi
eld, Model III has had mixed success as a general framework for the study of
bureaucratic politics. Model III is predicated on a series of intuitively appealing
assumptions: Government actions are the product of bargaining among the or
ganizational components of the executive branch, these actors have their own
parochial interests, and their ability to translate those interests into policy is de
termined by their role in decisionmaking. Th ese assumptions logically lead to
testable propositions: Policy outcomes will refl ect the parochial interests involved
in the bargaining game, they also will refl ect
the relative power of the players involved in the game, and the power of the players
will be determined by the “action channels,” or regularized processes, used to
structure decisionmaking. Unfortunately, subsequent scholarship has raised doubts
about the empirical va
lidity of these hypotheses and the conceptual structure that supports them (Rosati
1981; Rhodes 1994; Bendor and Hammond 1992).

Politics, Power, and Organization

Ironically, one of the implications of other work on bureaucratic politics is that
Allison's Model III was, if anything, too limited in scope rather than too am bitious.
In particular, Allison's framework left important organizational issues
underdeveloped, and, like the majority of the studies the framework sought to
synthesize, it was almost exclusively focused on the executive branch. As some
scholars were to make clear, bureaucratic politics is not confi ned to bargaining
games within the executive branch; it is a fundamental component of a broad
power structure that includes Congress, the courts, organized interest groups, in
tergovernmental relationships, and the public at large. Th e nature and context of
this power structure, and the role and relative infl uence of bureaucracies within it,
are heavily dependent upon organizational issues. How bureaucracies are or
ganized has been persuasively argued to play an important role in determining
Politics, Power, and Organization 51

how power is distributed among various actors within the political system and in
explaining how bureaucracies infl uence policymaking.
Th ere are two key organizational dimensions to bureaucratic politics theory.
Th e fi rst deals with behavior. Th e primary goal here is to explain why
bureaucrats and bureaucracies do what they do. Th e general presumption is that
bureaucra cies pursue important public missions and make numerous policy
decisions, yet have only vague guidance from statutes. If legislatures, the
institutions formally responsible for the goals of public agencies, only partially
account for what bu reaucracies do and why they do it, what explains the rest? Th
e second deals with institutional structure and the distribution of power. Th e
primary goal here is to understand how a bureaucracy's formal lines of authority,
its relationship to other institutions, and the programs and policies placed within
its jurisdiction all combine to determine the relative political infl uence of a broad
range of political actors.
Explanations for the political behavior of bureaucracy and bureaucrats have
deep roots in the organization theory literature. For example, Robert
K. Merton (1957) argued that institutions structured as classic bureaucracies shape
the per sonalities of the people who work for them. A bureaucratic environment,
Merton argued, pressures people to conform to expected patterns of behavior—to
follow rules, to be methodical and detailed. Given these pressures, bureaucracies
will oft en substitute rules for ends, and they will adhere to SOPs even when those
pro cedures
clearly interfere with the organization's main mission. William Whyte Jr. echoed a
similar theme in his work Th e Organization Man (1956). Whyte's research
detailed the willingness of managers in US corporations to adopt the goals of the
organizations they worked for as their own, to subsume their per sonalities into the
larger organizational environment of their employment. Sim ilar arguments about
the pathologies of bureaucratic behavior have resurfaced more recently in such infl
uential works as David Osborne and Ted Gaebler's Reinventing Government
(1992). Here the argument is that conscious eff ort is needed to break away from
the predilection to see rules as ends, and instead shift to an outcomes-oriented
entrepreneurial bureaucracy.
If organizational structure shapes the behavior of particular institutions and the
individuals within them, this has broad implications for those seeking to ex plain
the policymaking role of bureaucracy. If bureaucrats make decisions that
authoritatively allocate values, and organizational environment helps determine
how those decisions are made, then organizational theory holds the potential to
explain a good deal of how and why bureaucracy fulfi lls its political role.
One of the key contributions of organizational behavior scholarship to
bureau cratic politics theory is James Q. Wilson's classic, Bureaucracy: What
Government Agencies Do and Why Th ey Do It (1989). Wilson posed a
similar question to Alli son, though it was more focused toward administrative
matters. Instead of asking why governments do what they do, Wilson asked why
bureaucracies do what they do. Wilson argued that bureaucrats have discretion in
their decisionmaking, and
52 3: Th eories of Bureaucratic Politics

that a complex set of factors determine how that discretion is exercised: “When
bureaucrats are free to choose a course of action their choices will refl ect the full
array of incentives operating on them: some will refl ect the need to manage a
workload; others will refl ect the expectations of workplace peers and
professional colleagues elsewhere; still others may refl ect their own convictions.
And some will refl ect the needs of clients” (1989, 88). Before Wilson's
contribution, numerous scholars had argued that discretion in decisionmaking, in
eff ect, made bureau crats into policymakers, and bureaucracies into political
actors. Wilson's work provided a richly detailed study of how and why this
discretion was exercised to produce government action.
Wilson took a disparate set of examples to develop his argument (he started
with the German army of World War II, prison systems in Michigan and Texas,
and a public school in Atlanta). Some of the agencies were successful, some of
them were not, and the performance of some bureaucracies went from good to bad,
or vice versa. Wilson sought to explain what separated the successful agencies
from the not so successful, and to understand variation in bureau
cratic performance. In pursuit of this objective, he covered so much intellectual
territory that it is diffi cult to provide a meaningful synopsis of the entire work.
Key elements in his analysis, however, should convey some sense of the main
arguments.
 Wilson began with the presumption that the behavior of bureaucrats and
bureaucracies was purposive; that is, it was motivated by some goal or objec tive.
He rejected the argument that the goals driving bureaucratic behavior were wholly,
or even largely, determined by legislatures. Wilson noted that bureau cratic
missions encapsulated in law tend to be vague (the goal of the Department of State,
for example, is to “promote the long-range security and well-being of the nation”).
Fuzzy exhortations to “do the right thing” are politically appealing, but they
provide no hint of the specifi c actions a bureaucracy is expected to un dertake. In
Wilson's terms, these goals do not defi ne “operator tasks,” meaning they do not tell
the frontline workers of a bureaucracy what they should be do ing. Th ese workers,
whom Wilson termed the “operators,” are those whose work actually justifi es the
existence of a given organization—for example, teachers in a school, patrol offi
cers in a law enforcement agency, or soldiers in an army (1989, 33–34).
Because goals are vague (or even contradictory), bureaucracies cannot sim ply
deploy their expertise to determine the best way of achieving the ends of policy.
Something other than the product of the “politics” end of the politics
administration dichotomy must drive the behavior of bureaucrats and bureau
cracies. Apa itu? What determines the behavior of the cop on the beat, the teacher
in the classroom, the private on the front lines? Wilson proposed several potential
answers: situational imperatives (the day-to-day events operators must respond to),
peer expectations, professional values, and ideology. He also argued that rules
could substitute for goals. When
goals are vague, following established
Politics, Power, and Organization 53

procedures and “going by the book” provide operators with a guide to low- risk
behavior. Wilson additionally argued that most large organizations, and cer tainly
many public agencies, have their own particular personality. Th ey have persistent,
patterned ways of thinking about the purposes of the organization and the best
means to achieve those purposes. Combined, these patterns constitute
organizational culture, and they serve to socialize organizational novitiates into the
“way things are done around here” (1989, 91–93). Recent work by Foldy and
Buckley (2009) suggests that we only partially understand how street-level prac
tice might change. Th ey do fi nd, however, that the “way things are done around
here” oft en endures, unless new goals are issued in a clear, coherent fashion, and
that teams of workers are stable.
Wilson was not just interested in identifying the behavioral motivations of
operators; he also identifi ed two other kinds of bureaucrats: managers (peo ple
who coordinate the work of operators to achieve organizational goals) and
executives (people responsible for maintaining their organizations). He also identifi
ed systematic elements to the behavior of each level and how they inter act with
each other. For example, he argued that managers of public agencies have a diff
erent set of constraints upon their behavior than managers in private fi rms. At a
most basic level, managers must have a clear sense of an organiza tion's mission if
they are to coordinate the work of operators toward that end, and executives must
be capable of defending
that mission and of supporting their organization's pursuit of a given objective. In
the public sector, even these most basic elements of administration are complex
because public organiza tions cannot control their broadly defi ned missions, nor
can they unilaterally control other critical elements of management—revenues,
personnel, and the means of production.
Wilson concluded that successful bureaucracies are those in which executives
have created a clear sense of mission, identifi ed the tasks that must be achieved to
fulfi ll that mission, distributed authority within the organization according to those
tasks, and provided subordinates (particularly operators) with enough autonomy to
achieve the task at hand (1989, 365)—a fairly tall order given the complex
environment of public agencies. Wilson's argument suggests that agen
cies given clear objectives and high levels of autonomy are more likely to be suc
cessful in achieving those objectives. Yet, as Wilson acknowledged, it is diffi cult
to see how clear objectives can be routinely manufactured as an end product of a
democratic process. If the administrative arm of government is given greater levels
of autonomy, and if clearer goals are not forthcoming from the democratic
institutions of government, the likely result is the transfer of increasing amounts of
policymaking power to the bureaucracy. In its call for clearer missions and less
centralization in public bureaucracy, Wilson's argument is ultimately prescrip
tive. Reorganization through deregulation, however, turns out to be an extension of
bureaucratic politics rather than a way to channel it toward universally desired
ends. Organization helps determine not only how bureaucracies and bureaucrats
54 3: Th eories of Bureaucratic Politics

behave but also how power and infl uence are distributed among the various ac
tors in the political system.
Government organization, or, more accurately, reorganization, is a subject near
and dear to the discipline of public administration and a perennial feature of
American politics. For virtually the length of the twentieth century, and continu
ing into the twenty-fi rst, critics have argued that the central problem of govern
ment is poor management. In other words, the basic problem with government is
administrative: It is ineff ectively organized and ineffi ciently run. Th e orthodox
response of public administration scholarship to this problem is to impose the
politics- administration dichotomy, and on the administrative side, to organize
government agencies by functional responsibility, put them into a logical hierar
chy with one another, and clearly assign authority and responsibility within these
hierarchies. In various guises through various administrations, such eff orts were
repeatedly made long aft er Waldo, Gaus, and others had pointed out that the con
ceptual foundation that supported such eff orts was untenable. All these eff orts at
reorganization largely failed to meet their objectives when they ran into political
diffi culties.
In recent decades, the orthodox solutions have increasingly been
abandoned for a “new” organizational paradigm that seeks to bring
economy and effi ciency to government by adopting market-oriented
management practices. Th e “reinven tion” movement of the Clinton
administration, for example, sought to eliminate hierarchy, to put “customers” fi
rst, and to prize performance over accountabil ity. Yet the reinvention movement
also ran into political obstacles. Regardless of whether it is an orthodox call for
centralization and reliance on the competence of the technocrat or a less
traditional appeal for decentralization and reliance on market-based processes, the
purported objective is the same: to improve the ef fectiveness and effi ciency of
government through reorganization.
Students of the organizational connections to bureaucratic politics argue that
the reason government reorganization is never far from the public agenda, and the
reason it never achieves its supposed goals, is because the organization of the
government's administrative arm has little to do with economy or effi ciency.
Organization of the government's administrative arm is about power and politics.
One of the most astute proponents of this argument is Harold Seidman, whose
Politics, Position, and Power: Th e Dynamics of Federal Organization was
immedi ately recognized as a landmark in the study of bureaucratic politics when it
was fi rst published in 1970 (it has since gone through several editions). Seidman's
central argument was this: Th e institutional location and environment of a policy
or program and the organizational structure, process, and procedures that govern it
help determine the distribution of power and infl uence within the polity. Th is
includes the distribution of power among executive branch bureaucracies, but also
encompasses the balance of power among the three branches of the federal
government, between the federal government and state and local governments, and
between the government and organized interest groups. As Allison, Richard
Politics, Power, and Organization 55

Neustadt, and others have demonstrated, bureaucratic politics within the execu tive
branch almost certainly aff ected policy. Such scholars as Seidman suggested that
bureaucracies—their organization, staff s, authority, and responsibilities— were
involved in and oft en the focus of much broader and more intense political games.
Seidman supported his argument by examining the well-known organiza tional
eccentricities of the executive branch through a political rather than an ad
ministrative lens. From the perspective of public administration orthodoxy, many
elements of the executive branch are perversely designed. Th ere are overlapping
jurisdictions, unclear lines of authority, programs assigned to agencies with little
regard to the functional priorities of the organization, and agencies built on a
variety of organizational blueprints using a bewildering variety of organizational
processes and procedures. To a public administration analyst steeped in the in
violability of the politics- administration dichotomy and prizing effi ciency as a
guiding principle, this makes little sense.
But it makes perfect sense from a political point of view. For example, fi ve
federal agencies regulate banks, savings and loans, and credit unions. Why the
duplication? Why put up with the consumption of extra resources, the inevitable
turf wars, and the confusion over regulatory authority?
Administrative orthodoxy would call for consolidating regulation of depository
agencies under one federal agency. Yet the banking industry has successfully
resisted all eff orts to achieve such administrative concentration. Mengapa?
Seidman argued that the duplication allows commercial banks to pick their
regulators according to the activity they engage in. Duplication, in short, shift s
power from the regulators to the regu lated, and the banking industry has had
enough infl uence in Congress to keep the “eccentric” administration of banking
regulations. It is not particularly effi cient or eff ective, but it is a politically
desirable (or at least acceptable) way to regulate depository agencies (Seidman
1998, 14).
Looking at federal agencies through a political lens also off ers numerous other
insights into why programs and policies succeed or fail. A key determinant of a
program's success or failure is where it gets assigned. Programs and policies will
be neglected if they are assigned to an agency that considers them peripheral to its
primary mission (a phenomenon also observed by Wilson). Th e National Oce
anic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), for example, considers science its
primary mission. When resources become scarce, the nonscience programs the
NOAA administers (nautical and aeronautical charting, for example) are the fi rst
to suff er (Seidman 1998, 16). Such assignment and organizational issues de
termine not only the success or failure of the program but also the balance of
political power. A program assigned to an executive department will be subject to
diff erent lines of authority and accountability than a program assigned to an
independent agency, a government corporation, or any one of the other bewil
dering variety of organizational arrangements in the federal bureaucracy. Institu
tional type thus helps determine how power and infl uence over a given program
56 3: Th eories of Bureaucratic Politics

are distributed among the executive, the legislature, various organizational com
ponents within each branch, and organized interest groups.
Accordingly, we should expect Congress to be intensely interested in the or
ganizational makeup of the executive branch and deeply involved in questions of
administration. Indeed, Seidman argued that one of the central reasons for the
“eccentric” organizational makeup of the executive branch is the jockeying for
political power among the various elements of the legislative branch. Congressio
nal committees have historically operated as highly autonomous minilegislatures
that routinely struggle for jurisdictional supremacy over policies or programs. In
1966, for example, two agencies were created to administer highway safety: the
National Highway Safety Agency and the National Traffi c Agency. Both agencies
were headed by one appointee. In other words, structurally built into the admin
istration of highway safety programs and policies are duplication, confused lines of
authority, and many other management and organization issues that would tend to
promote ineffi ciency. Th is makes sense if administration is viewed as in exorably
intertwined with politics rather than separable from it. Th e reason for two agencies
rather than one was a simple matter of
intrachamber politics: Two Senate committees wanted to confi rm the agency head,
and the creation of two agencies achieved this purely political goal. Th e
organizational and administra tive “problems” of the executive branch are thus oft
en “nothing but mirror im ages of jurisdictional confl icts within the Congress”
(Seidman 1998, 27).
Th e bureaucracy is politically important not only to the president and to
Congress but also to a broad range of organized interests. Seidman pointed out
that the public bureaucracy has a parallel private bureaucracy— businesses that
perform contract work for the government—heavily invested in the status quo.
Contracting with a private fi rm to perform various public functions has its advan
tages. Private companies, for example, are subject to lower levels of oversight and
accountability, which gives them an operational fl exibility that public agencies
frequently lack. Using private companies also helps reduce the number of civil
servants on the public payroll, an important consideration for presidents dealing
with the size of the public bureaucracy, always a politically sensitive issue. Th e
downside to these arrangements is the loss of accountability and the high resis
tance of private fi rms to changes in the public bureaucracy because their liveli
hoods are dependent upon preserving the status quo (Seidman 1998, 15).

Networks and Bureaucratic Politics

Th is fact that bureaucratic politics extends beyond the bureaucracy itself was
highlighted by Laurence O'Toole (1997b) in his admonition to take networks
seriously. For public administration, networks can be thought of as a set of orga
nizations that are interdependent; that is, they share goals, interests, resources, or
values. Th ese interdependencies tie together not just public bureaucracies within,
between, and among diff ering political jurisdictions, but private and
Networks and Bureaucratic Politics 57

nonprofi t agencies as well, in the process creating new forms of organizational

and management practices that are employed to achieve collective or public ends.
O'Toole (1997a) argued that networked administration is not only com mon, but
also increasingly important, for fi ve main reasons. First, “wicked” policy problems
require the mobilization of a variety of actors, both inside and outside government.
Such problems are the result of multiple causes, and typi cally span more than one
jurisdiction. A single agency will not be able to address these problems without
help, from actors both inside and outside of government and from across levels of
government. Second, political demands for limited government, but without
reductions in demands for action, give rise to networks that include nonstate actors
through contracting. As shown in Chapter 5, the implication of contracting is
something we are only beginning to understand. Th ird, the need for bureaucracy to
be responsive to the public naturally leads to the inclusion of citizen and industry
groups in decisionmaking. Networks may
indeed increase accountability to the public, but, as will be discussed, it is unclear
if they always produce the democratic eff ects we expect. Fourth, as sophisticated
program evaluations have revealed indirect or second- order eff ects of policies,
implementation networks have been established to refl ect those rela
tionships. Fift h, O'Toole (1997b) noted that many mandates have multiple layers
that essentially require program management to become networked. Here, he used
the example of transportation program managers needing to account for the rights
of disabled people.
O'Toole's (1997a) networked bureaucratic world raises important questions
regarding our understanding of bureaucratic politics, governance, and account
ability. Do these networks threaten democracy or enhance it? Should expecta tions
of accountability and oversight be changed as the result of acknowledging that so
many actors are involved in bureaucratic decisions? How do agencies wield
political power in these networks? Some recent research has identifi ed a “dark
side” of networks—that network managers respond to elements of the net work
that are more politically infl uential, and thus the result is that networks may
actually exacerbate already present inequality (O'Toole and Meier 2004). Th is
raises important and disturbing questions about the nature and implications of the
political power in networked administration. Other concerns, as addressed in
Chapter 5, involve the “hollowing out” of the state, where the state's main task is to
arrange networks rather than manage hierarchies, which is the traditional task of
government.
Th e need to understand a networked bureaucracy is obvious, but it is
unclear whether we have made much theoretical headway since the mid- 1990s.
Most literature has focused on how to manage networked systems, rather than on
im plications for politics and governance (O'Toole and Meier 2004). O'Toole and
Meier argue that networks should be treated as political institutions, since their
establishment is oft en for political reasons (to perhaps avoid having to deal di
rectly with a controversial issue) and
always has political implications. Decisions
58 3: Th eories of Bureaucratic Politics

to contract or privatize functions of government are inherently political, as they

involve decisions to shift the locus of state power, and certainly represent choices
to move public resources to other network members, including private compa nies
or not-for-profi t organizations. Yet beyond the call by O'Toole and Meier to focus
on these political implications, the fi eld has not yet produced the necessary work.
Scott Robinson (2006), for example, argues we lack the conceptual tools to
understand the governance implications of diff erent types of networks and how
political context shapes their creation, membership, goals, and outcomes. Given the
explosive growth of networked administration and its poorly understood
implications for public policy and eff ect on democratic values, there can hardly be
a better example of the practical and critical need for theory development, not just
in the realm of bureaucratic politics, but also in the general fi eld of public
administration.
Given the highly political nature of bureaucracy that Seidman, O'Toole,
and others have described, eff orts to make the administrative arm of government
more eff ective and effi cient persistently fail because the real objectives of bureau
cracy have nothing to do with effi ciency and better management practices. Power
is really at stake in reorganization, and this is the reason the president, Congress,
and other political actors take such an intense interest in administration. Reorga
nization has become such a perennial part of politics that it is increasingly pur sued
for its own sake—a political objective with no underlying administrative strategy
whatsoever. During the 1980s, for example, House Republicans proposed
abolishing the Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce, and Housing and
Urban Development. Th e 1996 Republican presidential nominee, Bob Dole, also
campaigned on a promise of eliminating the Internal Revenue Service. Th ese
proposals were largely calculated to make political profi ts from popular negative
stereotypes of the bureaucracy and made no real sense from an administrative point
of view. No one made serious proposals for the wholesale elimination of programs,
no one had a strategic plan to reassign these programs, and no one made any real
argument that the end result would be more eff ective and effi cient government.
Th e whole point seemed to be to attack the administrative infra structure in the
belief that smaller government was better government. Yet if there were to be no
wholesale elimination of public programs, government would not get smaller, just
more confused, and, in all likelihood, increasingly privatized (Seidman 1998, 110).
Such political games with the bureaucracy are not the sole province of Re
publicans. Th e Clinton/Gore administration played a particularly cynical game in
its reinvention eff orts, repeatedly publicizing the shrinking federal payroll. Th e
quarter-million federal positions eliminated by the reinvention movement were
mostly supervisors, personnel specialists, budget analysts, accountants, auditors,
and the like. Th ese people primarily oversaw third- party operations, namely, the
private contractors the government increasingly uses to carry out public programs
and policies. Contract employees who indirectly do the public's
Representative Bureaucracy 59

business vastly outnumber employees in the federal civil service, and reinvention
shrank these numbers not at all. If anything, the cuts in the federal payroll made it
much more diffi cult to hold third-party contractors accountable (Seidman 1998,
112–113).
Neither Wilson's nor Seidman's arguments constitute fully developed theo
retical frameworks, and Wilson (1989, xi) explicitly raised doubts about whether a
comprehensive theory of organizational behavior was even possible. Yet Wil son
and Seidman both provide a series of empirically testable propositions that are
characteristic of theoretical frameworks. From Wilson comes a rich set of
hypotheses, which can be confi rmed by observing bureaucratic behavior, about
everything from professional norms to the substitution of rules for goals. Seid
man's work points analysts toward the high political stakes surrounding organi
zation and administration, and, in doing so, makes sense of the “eccentricities” that
defi ed the expectations of traditional theoretical frameworks. Combined, both
make it
easier to understand why bureaucracies are the way they are, and why they do the
things they do.
Although Seidman's work and Wilson's work are discursive rather than the
oretical, more explicitly theoretical eff orts from organization literature seek to
explain at least some elements of the political behavior bureaucracies indulge in.
John Kingdon's Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (1995), for
example, at tempts to explain why government addresses some problems while
ignoring oth ers. Kingdon's analysis shows that government agencies have an
important role in shaping the public agenda, not so much in determining agenda
priorities but in acting as key members of “policy communities.” Th ese
communities consist of actors who, through their specialized interests in particular
policies and the den sity of their interconnections and common interests, can
decide the fate of policy proposals. A fragmented community (for example, one in
which agencies have confl icting goals on a particular issue) dissipates support for
a policy proposal and severely limits its potential for success (Kingdon, 1995, 116–
144). Although organizational context is shown here to play an important role in
shaping the po litical role of bureaucracy, that role is not the primary focus of the
theory.
Th e bottom line is that organization theory has provided an important lens for
such works as Wilson's and Seidman's, signaled the importance of the growing
phenomenon of networked administration, and in doing so has given ample jus tifi
cation for pursuing comprehensive explanations of the political role of bureau
cracy. As yet, however, organization theory has not provided that comprehensive
explanation.

Representative Bureaucracy
Th e theory of representative bureaucracy is perhaps the most explicit attempt to
address the central problem of democratic administrative theory raised by Waldo
(1952, 102): How can a theory that embraces the hierarchical and authoritarian
60 3: Th eories of Bureaucratic Politics

nature of bureaucracy be reconciled with the seemingly contradictory egalitar ian

and ultimately ineffi cient values of democracy? Th e work of such scholars as
Waldo, Allison, Wilson, and Seidman strongly suggests that bureaucracies are
political policymaking institutions. Yet if bureaucracies are powerful policy ac tors
engaged in “politics of the fi rst order,” they are also largely insulated from the
ballot box and only partially held accountable to elected offi cials (Meier 1993, 7;
Mosher 1982). Th is contradiction between bureaucracies making policy and basic
democratic values raises one of the most important challenges for public admin
istration theory: “How does one square a permanent [and, we would add, power
ful] civil service—which neither the people by their vote nor their representatives
by their appointments can readily replace—with the principle of government 'by
the people'?” (Mosher 1982, 7). Any democratic theory of administration, Waldo
suggested, must be capable of answering
this question.
Th e theory of representative bureaucracy focuses on fi nding a way to
legitimate the bureaucracy's political power in the context of democratic values. Th
e central tenet of the theory is that a bureaucracy refl ecting the diversity of the
community it serves is more likely to respond to the interests of all groups in
making policy de
cisions (Krislov 1974; Selden 1997). If bureaucracies are sensitive to such a diver
sity of interests, and these interests are represented in bureaucratic decisions and
behavior, the argument is that bureaucracy itself can be considered a representa
tive institution. If bureaucracy is a representative institution, its long-recognized
political role can be accommodated with such basic democratic values as majority
rule, minority rights, and equal representation. Th is again refl ects the relation
ship between politics and administration refl ected in fi gure 2.3d, which shows
that agencies are inherently legitimate policy actors and have an ethical
responsibility
to act in the interests of citizens and protect the underrepresented. Th e notion of
legitimating bureaucratic power by treating bureaucracy as a representative
institution was formally introduced by J. Donald Kingsley in Representative
Bureaucracy (1944). Kingsley's work, a study of the British public service,
advanced the argument that the civil service should refl ect the character istics of
the ruling social class. To carry out its role eff ectively within the polity, Kingsley
argued, the civil service has to be sympathetic to the concerns and val ues of the
dominant political group. Th ese shared values connect the exercise of
discretionary authority on the part of the bureaucrat to the will of the democratic
state. Although Kingsley coined the term “representative bureaucracy,” the basic
idea he articulates is quite old. In the United States, the spoils system instituted
during the nineteenth century resulted in a civil service that was dominated by
major party loyalists (Meier 1975). Such a bureaucracy can be viewed as an exten
sion of the majority party, and therefore of the preferences expressed at the ballot
box. Such patronage systems, of course, also invite just the sort of problems that
prompted such scholars as Goodnow and Wilson to seek some division between
politics and administration: technical incompetence, favoritism in administrative
decisionmaking, and outright corruption.
Representative Bureaucracy 61

More contemporary advocates of representative bureaucracy reject patronage or

spoils systems as an appropriate model for a representative bureaucracy for exactly
these reasons. Instead, most accept the need for organizational arrange ments as
prescribed by administrative orthodoxy, namely, public agencies based on the
Weberian rational-legal bureaucracy (Selden 1997). In contrast to the spoils
system, the latter is seen as conferring various benefi ts, among them effi ciency,
making merit the basis of public-sector employment, and strengthening the role of
technical expertise in decisionmaking (Meier 1993). Although this means ac
cepting arguments from orthodox administrative theory, advocates of represen
tative bureaucracy reject the notion of a politics-administration dichotomy. Th e
theoretical and empirical lessons from the likes of Gaus, Waldo, Allison, Seidman,
Wilson, and numerous others simply make it
impossible to ignore or assume away the political role of the bureaucracy.
Th e theory of representative bureaucracy thus begins with the assumption that
there are good reasons for public agencies to be organized the way they are (ie,
undemocratically) and that these undemocratic agencies exercise consid erable
political power. As Kenneth Meier puts it, “Th e theory of representative
bureaucracy begins by recognizing the realities of politics. In a complex polity,
such as the United States, not all aspects of policy decisions are resolved in the
'political' branches of government” (1975, 527). Th e basis of bureaucratic power is
assumed to derive from the discretionary decisionmaking authority that, as a
practical matter, has to be granted to them because not all implementation and
enforcement scenarios can be conceived of and accounted for in statutes. Elected
offi cials may have numerous tools at their disposal to restrict bureaucratic power,
but strong forces place practical limits on the use of these tools. Public support of
programs or agency objectives, the information advantage bureaucrats oft en hold
over elected offi cials because of their technical expertise, and simple political ex
pediency all work to limit the constraints placed on bureaucratic power.
Perhaps the best-known argument that individual bureaucrats have an un
avoidable policymaking role is Michael Lipsky's Street-Level Bureaucracy: Di
lemmas of the Individual in Public Services (1980). Lipsky's central premise
is that street-level bureaucrats—policemen, teachers, and the like
—routinely have to make decisions that are not dictated by the mission of the
organizations they work for, or the rules they are supposed to enforce. Street-
level bureaucrats thus make policy as a result of their behavior. For example, no
matter what the law says the speed limit is, in practice it is determined by the
individual traffi c cop. Th e discretion to make such on- the-spot decisions, which
in eff ect are policy de cisions, is going to be considerable, even for bureaucrats
working within a dense tangle of rules designed to guide their behavior. It is
simply a fact of political life that nonelected individuals, protected by civil
service mechanisms and working for hierarchical (even authoritarian)
bureaucracies, wield signifi cant policymaking power in democratic polities.
Given this, a key challenge for administrative theory is to account for this fact in
the context of democratic
values (Selden 1997, 13–26).
62 3: Th eories of Bureaucratic Politics

In meeting this challenge, those who advocate the theory of representative

bureaucracy begin by seeking an answer to the same question posed by Wilson:
Why do bureaucrats do what they do? Specifi cally, the focus is on explaining the
behavior of bureaucrats when they exercise discretionary authority. Generally, it is
assumed that bureaucrats are rational actors in the sense that they pursue self-
interested goals when faced with discretionary choices. Proponents of rep
resentative bureaucracy argue that the goals driving behavior are supplied by the
individual values of the decisionmaker. Th us, “if the administrative apparatus
makes political decisions, and if bureaucracy as a whole has the same values as the
American people as a whole, then the decisions made by the bureaucracy will be
similar to the decisions made if the entire
American public passed on the is
sues. If values are similar, rational decisions made so as to maximize
these values will also be similar” (Meier 1975, 528). Th is suggests that
bureaucratic power can be harnessed to diverse and representative social interests
even though the orthodox organizational arrangements of public administration are
insulated from the basic processes and values of democracy. If the ranks of the
civil service refl ect the diverse interests and values of society, bureaucracy
becomes a repre
sentative “fourth branch of government” with a legitimate basis for
exercising power in a democratic system.
Th e fi rst scholars to formulate and apply the basic arguments of representative
bureaucracy in the United States were David Levitan (1946) and Norton Long
(1952). Long adopted the most extreme stance, arguing that the national legisla
ture, which was heavily tilted toward the upper strata of society, did not
represent a variety of important national interests. Instead, “these interests receive
more eff ective and more responsible representation through administrative
channels” (1952, 808). Long's claim was that the bureaucracy had more of a
democratic character than the legislature because the ranks of the federal civil
service were much more refl ective of the American public. Th at diversity was
refl ected in ad ministrative decisions, even as narrower interests
dominated the decisionmaking of Congress. Th e normative claim was that the
bureaucracy actually made up for the representative defi ciencies of the
legislature.
Although subsequent scholars have generally made less radical normative
claims than Long, the two key questions driving Long's work have remained the
basic focus of work on representative bureaucracy: (1) Do public agencies broadly
represent the interests and values of the American public? (2) Are these interests
and values refl ected in the policy actions of bureaucracy? Th e fi rst of these ques
tions deals with the concept of “passive representation,” or the extent to which the
bureaucracy refl ects the composition of society. Kingsley (1944) suggested that
socioeconomic class should be the basic yardstick for comparing the com position
of the civil service with that of the public.
Kingsley's study, however, was focused on the British civil service. In the United
States, Samuel Krislov (1974) argued that a more appropriate basis of comparison
is race, ethnicity, and sex. Th ese factors are assumed to be a key source of
socialization, and thus of values.
Representative Bureaucracy 63

A large portion of empirical research on representative bureaucracy in the United

States is thus devoted to examining the extent to which bureaucracy refl ects the
basic demographic composition of society. Th e general fi nding of this
research is that minorities and women are proportionally represented in
bureaucracy as a whole but are underrepresented in the upper levels of bureaucratic
hierarchies (Selden 1997, 45).
Th e second question deals with the concept of “active representation,” or the
relationship between passive representation and policy outputs or out
comes. Again, it was Krislov who made the key contribution to shaping schol
arly thought on this issue. He argued that the demographic composition of the
bureaucracy provides only indirect evidence of the representative nature of
bureaucracy. Th e social profi le of any given bureaucrat—race, sex, education,
and so forth—provides only a limited indication of that bureaucrat's ability to
advance the interests of these demographic groups. It is not enough, in other
words, to fi nd that women and minorities are roughly proportionally repre
sented in the ranks of the civil service. Any serious claim that bureaucracy is a
representative institution requires evidence that passive representation trans lates
into active representation, that the more women and minorities join the civil
service, the more the policy outputs of bureaucracies represent the broad
interests of women and minorities.
Considering its importance to the theory of representative bureaucracy, it is
not surprising that there has been a growing body of empirical work on this lat ter
issue. Studies by Kenneth Meier and various colleagues (Meier, Stewart, and
England 1989; Meier and Stewart 1992; Meier, Wrinkle, and Polinard 1999) have
consistently found that minority representation in the civil service is related to
policy outputs that favor the minority group. Th ese studies have exclusively fo
cused on education and the eff ects of minority representation on policy outputs
(the research examined the impact of minority representation in teaching, on
administrative and school board positions concerning school policies, and on
outputs that aff ected minorities). Some research outside education has produced
more mixed results (Hindera 1993a, 1993b; Selden 1997). However, much other
research indicates that the conditions found by Meier and his colleagues do exist
for other agency types as well as for representation for women (Keiser, Wilkins,
Meier, and Holland 2002; Meier and Nicholson-Crotty 2006; Lim 2006; Wilkins
and Keiser 2006). One more recent example is on the enforcement of immigra
tion law (Lewis et al. 2012), where municipal police forces, if granted discretion
by the city council, enforce the law less intensively if the police chief is Hispanic/
Latino.
A further development in the literature is to incorporate the concept of sym bolic
representation, which, unlike active representation, works cognitively on the
public. Th us, when bureaucrats share the identifi cation, experience, and
characteristics of a portion of the public, that audience will perceive the actions of
those bureaucrats as legitimate, even if the bureaucrats are not
purposefully
64 3: Th eories of Bureaucratic Politics

representing that group. Nick Th eobald and Donald Haider-Markel (2009), by

examining citizen attitudes about actions by police offi cers, show that actions by
bureaucrats are more likely to be perceived as legitimate if citizens and bu
reaucrats share demographic characteristics. If this holds across agencies, it sug
gests that citizen attitudes about bureaucrats and policy implementation can be
changed without actions on the part of bureaucrats that are expressly designed to
represent certain groups (active representation). Furthermore, they argue that
methods used by those
studying representative bureaucracy have relied on ag gregate data, which makes
it diffi cult to know if their fi ndings demonstrate active or symbolic
representation. Considering the implications for democratic gover nance, it is
important to clarify this question.
Th e key to representative bureaucracy's attempt to build a bridge between
orthodox public administration theory and democratic theory thus still rests to no
small extent on the ability of future empirical studies to support the theo ry's
central hypothesis that passive representation will lead to active representa tion.
Although the literature has expanded greatly since 2000, the issues raised by Th
eobald and Haider-Markel imply the more individual-level empirical work is
needed.

Conclusions
It is probably fair to say that public administration scholarship has been more
successful in demonstrating the need for theories of bureaucratic politics than in
actually producing those frameworks. It has been more than half a century since
such scholars as Waldo and Gaus exposed the rickety foundations of the politics
administration dichotomy and made a convincing brief that administrative theory
had to share common ground with political theory. Since then, numerous studies
have empirically confi rmed the political role of the bureaucracy. Some of these,
including those of Wilson and Seidman, center on a series of empirically testable
propositions. Even if the works themselves are explicitly discursive, they contain
the basic materials for constructing theory. To date, however, that construction
project remains incomplete.
Does the relative lack of success in producing widely applicable bureaucratic
politics frameworks mean the eff ort to do so should be reassessed? Th e progeni
tors of the bureaucratic politics movement would surely answer no, for the simple
reason that the most important characteristic of public administration is its po litical
nature, and we ignore this at our peril. Long once wrote that “there is no more
forlorn spectacle in the administrative world than an agency and a program
possessed of statutory life, armed with executive orders, sustained in the courts, yet
stricken with paralysis and deprived of power. An object of contempt to its enemies
and of despair to its friends” (1949, 257).
Long's point was that the ability of a public agency to get things done was not
dependent upon the responsibilities and authority granted to it by statute. Th e
Summary 65

decentralized nature of the American system meant a program's success or failure

was tied to the political muscle of the bureaucracy it was entrusted to. As Long
succinctly put it, “Th e lifeblood of administration is power. Its attainment, main
tenance, increase, dissipation, and loss are subjects the practitioner and student can
ill aff ord to neglect” (1949, 257). Long argued that ignoring the political role of
the bureaucracy robs administrative theory
of a crucial connection to the real world and consigns any number of the
prescriptive conclusions of scholarly work to failure.

Summary
Such scholars as Long, Gaus, and Waldo argue that, like it or not, bureaucracy is a
political institution and that any useful theoretical framework has to recognize and
account for this simple fact of political life. Public administration theory, in other
words, must also be political theory. Th eories of bureaucratic politics are
designed with this objective in mind, and pursuit of this goal remains a profi table
activity for students of public administration.
Allison's Model III and the theory of representative bureaucracy represent two
of the better-known and most widely employed bureaucratic politics frame works.
Although it is hard to underestimate Allison's contribution, it clearly falls short of a
generally applicable theoretical framework. Allison's Model III is likely to
continue to fi nd gainful employment in structuring administrative studies, but
evidence has steadily mounted that it is underperforming in practice. Wilson's work
shows that Allison's Model III was perhaps too limited in scope, as it leaves out
organizational issues and ignores the fact that bureaucratic politics exist in a
complex network, far beyond the confi nes of the executive branch.
Although having a considerably older lineage than Model III, the theory of
representative bureaucracy in one sense remains curiously underemployed. Th e
basic model is parsimonious, and its predictive hypotheses are intuitively easy to
grasp. Simply stated, the theory argues that a civil service refl ecting the diverse
interests and values of the community it serves will take those interests into ac
count when exercising its discretionary authority. Th e validity of the theory is tied
to the hypothesis that passive representation will lead to active representation.
Although there are diffi culties in operationalizing such tests, a growing number of
published studies are aimed squarely at empirically assessing this claim. So far,
these have produced mixed and sometimes contradictory results. Since the
literature on representative bureaucracy is also increasing in sophistication, per
haps it represents the most promising theoretical development for
understanding bureaucratic politics.

4
Public Institutional Th eory
Like all complex subjects, public organizations are more easily understood aft er
being unbundled, examined part by part, and reassembled for an assessment of their
whole condition. Th e two essential parts to the modern study of public or
ganizations are

1. the organization and management of contained and bounded public

institutions, now generally comprehended by institutional theory, and 2.
interinstitutional, interjurisdictional, and third-party couplings and linkages,
now generally comprehended by network theory or gover nance theory, the
subject of Chapter 9.

Th is chapter takes up the fi rst of these parts, and in doing so further unbun
dles the subject. It is common to include both management and organization in
considerations of the study of public organizations (Rainey 1997; Denhardt 1993;
Moore 1995; Gortner, Mahler, and Nicholson 1997). Because we believe it useful
to consider the study of administrative behavior and the management of public
organizations as a subject separable from the study of public institutions, we have
uncoupled them and deal with theories of public management in Chapter 5.
In simplifi ed form, institutionalism sees organizations as bounded social con
structs of rules, roles, norms, and the expectations that constrain individual and
group choice and behavior. As a result, institutional theory is remarkably fl exible,
and can be used to understand the implications of variation in organizational
design (centralization or decentralization) and governmental structure (eg, the diff
erence between a mayoral or city manager structure of municipal govern ment).
Institutionalism can also help sort out the apparent disorder of how com plex
policy problems are dealt with (the logic of the “garbage can”). Additionally,
system fragmentation, which has implications for institutional competition and
diff usion of innovation, can be understood with an institutional approach. And of
course, Wilson in Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why
Th ey Do

66
Institutional Th eory 67

It (1989) and March and Olsen in Rediscovering Institutions (1989) form much
of the underpinnings of our understanding of bureaucratic behavior. Th ese various
applications of institutionalism will be explored in this chapter.

Institutional Th eory
Th e golden age of public administration hegemony disintegrated in the 1950s.
In the fi rst decades of the twenty-fi rst century, a New Public Administration he
gemony based on a broadly accepted institutionalism is emerging. Institutional
ism is not a theory in the formal sense; it is instead the framework, the language,
and the set of assumptions that hold and
guide empirical research and theory building in much of public administration. Ini
dimulai dengan argumen tentang arti-penting aksi kolektif sebagai dasar untuk
memahami institusi politik dan sosial, termasuk organisasi politik dan birokrasi
formal. Th is is a challenge to political science, which sees institutions primarily as
the framework for rational individual choice and emphasizes confl icting interests
and competi tion.
Institutions are aff ected by their social, economic, and political context, but they
also powerfully aff ect that context: “Political democracy depends not only on
economic and social contributions but also on the design of political institu tions”
(March and Olsen 1984, 738). Th e importance of the design of institutions on their
behavior and on their political outcomes has been amply demonstrated (Lijphart
1984; Weaver and Rockman 1993).
Th e development of post-Weberian organization theory traces to the 1960s and the
work of James Th ompson, Herbert Simon, James G. March, Anthony Downs,
William Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, Vincent Ostrom, and others. Van tages of
organization theory from sociology, market theory from economics, the ories of
democratic control of bureaucracies from political science, and, perhaps above all,
theories of bounded rationality all mixed, clashed, and combined in the
interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary considerations of complex organizations.
By the 1980s, marked particularly by James March and Johan Olsen's Rediscov
ering Institutions (1989), post-Weberian interdisciplinary organization theory
came to be generally described as institutional theory. Because bureaucracy was
never really lost, claims by March and Olsen to have rediscovered institutions may
have been a bit bold, but these scholars nevertheless made institutional studies dis
tinctive: distinct from organization theory but importantly informed by it; berbeda
dari teori pilihan rasional tetapi yang terpenting diinformasikan olehnya; and
distinct from tra ditional public administration rooted in the reform era but
importantly informed by it. In our time, institutional theory is the critical
intersection at which the van tages of the disciplines meet in their attention to
complex organizations. Insti tutions thus considered include states and other
governmental jurisdictions and subjurisdictions, parliaments, bureaucracies,
shadow and contract bureaucracies, nongovernmental organizations, universities,
and corporations or private compa nies having clear and distinct public purposes.
Th e point is, modern
institutional
68 4: Public Institutional Th eory

theory is not limited to the study of government bureaucracies and as a result has
moved well beyond the traditional study of jurisdictional public administration. Th
e perspective and tone of institutionalism in public administration were set in 1989
with the publication of the foundation documents, James Q. Wilson's
Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why Th ey Do It and
March and Olsen's Rediscovering Institutions. Th ese authors point to the
limitations of economics and market logic as theory that accounts for institutional
behavior, and instead build their theories on the consideration of structure,
particularly hierarchy, and individual and group behavior in institutional contexts;
on the interaction of individuals and organizations and their wider political, social,
and economic
contexts; and on the infl uence of professional and cultural norms on institutional
behavior patterns and institutional longevity and productivity. Much of the leading
scholarship in public administration today fi ts generally into the categories and
concepts set out by Wilson, March, and Olsen. Hari ini kita semua adalah
institusionalis. Mudah untuk mempertahankan klaim ini karena kami menganut
"teori tenda besar institusi". Under the institutional theory big tent are scholars
studying institutions from at least the following conceptual frameworks:

1. Structural theory, including the study of Westminster, presidential, and

hybrid national forms and the associations between those forms and
bureaucratic functioning (Weaver and Rockman 1993; Lijphart 1984;
Peters and Pierre 1998)
2. Organizational design theory, which includes work on centralization,
decentralization, devolution, and other structural variations, all in the
“institutions matter” tradition (Hood and Jackson 1991)
3. Democratic control-of-bureaucracy theory, including accountability
scholarship, principal-agent scholarship, and working, shirking, moral
hazard, rent-seeking, and associated political economy scholarship
(Behn 2000; Romzek and Dubnick 1987; Romzek and Ingraham 2000;
Brehm and Gates 1997; Moe 1980, 1990; March and Olsen 1995)
4. Th e bureaucratic or administrative behavior perspective (as distinct from
the managerial behavior perspe ctive) (March and Simon 1993; March
and Olsen 1989, 1995)
5. Managerial or new public management scholarship, both in the United
States and abroad (Barzelay 1992; Kernaghan, Marson, and Borins
2000)
6. Performance, outcomes, program evaluation, and results perspectives
(Forsythe 2001; Peters 2000; deLeon and deLeon 2002; O'Toole 2000) 7.
Politics of bureaucracy theory (Fesler and Kettl 1996; Aberbach and
Rockman 2000; Meier 1994; Tullock 1965)
8. Privatization, contracting out, and nonprofi t organizations analysis
(Light 1999; Kettl 1993b; Handler 1996; Kelleher and Yackee 2009)
Institutional Th eory 69

9. Institutionalism, working primarily from the political economies and

rational choice perspectives (Eggertsson 1990; Furubotn and Richter
1984, 1993; Downs 1967; Tullock 1965; Moe 1980, 1990; Bendor, Moe,
and Shotts 2001)

Institutional scholars working from these several perspectives use the full
range of social science methodologies as well as assumption-based deductive
modeling. Sejak 1990, beasiswa ini menjadi lebih iteratif, berlapis, dan kumulatif.
Lebih penting lagi, para sarjana yang sekarang bekerja dari satu atau lebih dari
perspektif ini memiliki informasi yang jauh lebih baik daripada di masa lalu
mengenai pekerjaan orang lain yang mempelajari institusi dari perspektif mereka
sendiri dan dari perspektif
orang lain.
Th ere are many splendid examples of cumulative institutional scholarship,
such as the LaPorte et al. seri pada sistem dengan keandalan tinggi; the Milward
and Pro van series on the hollow state and contract regimes; yang Meier et al.
series on pol icy outcomes in education structures; seri oleh Ostroms dan lainnya di
milik bersama; empirical testing of the Tiebout fragmentation thesis; the series on
the diff usion of institutional innovation; dan rangkaian panjang pekerjaan tentang
teori tempat sampah dan karya-karya terbaru tentang topik itu. Th ere are many
other examples, and all are good signs for the development of institutional theory.
In this chapter, we review several of these bodies of work to illustrate the scope
and characteris tics of contemporary institutional theory.
Post-Weberian bureaucratic study is more scientifi c and rigorous, more nu
anced, and much stronger theoretically than ever before. To be sure, there are
institutionalists working from particular perspectives who claim the theoretical
high ground and, in doing so, suggest that those working from other perspectives
have less to contribute to institutional theory or that their perspective is institu
tional theory. And then there are the fads and fashions in perspectives and meth
odology: Academic journals, scholarly presses, and boards of editors attempt to
judge these claims and sort through submitted research manuscripts for the best
scholarship. Begitulah sifat keilmuan dan keilmiahan.
Dalam konteks negara yang terfragmentasi dan disartikulasi, teori kelembagaan
sangat menonjol (Frederickson 1999a). For example, in the so-called hollow state,
with its extended contract and subcontract regimes, the characteristics of loose or
tight interinstitutional coupling are as important as the bureaucratic fea
tures of each of the coupled institutions (Milward and Provan 2000b). Proba bly
many more persons do “public” work by or through contracts than there are
persons in the formal jurisdiction of bureaucracies. Th e institutional structures and
behavior of these “shadow bureaucracies” are at the center of modern insti tutional
theory and could be described as institutional theory's response to the fragmented
and disarticulated state (Light 1999).
Institution theory captures and comprehends the rather long series of schol
arship on coproduction, multiple stakeholders, public-private partnerships, pri
vatization and contracting, and the increasingly fuzzy distinctions between things