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1
Q

The need for theories of Public Administration

Frederickson, Smith, Larimer, and Licari 2012

A

It is argued that civilization requires the elemental features of PA. The features (Weber) include 1) Formal authority with claims to obedience 2) universally applicable laws/rules 3) specific spheres of individual competence including task differentiation, specialization, expertise and/or professionalization 4) organization of people into groups based upon specialization 5) coordination by hierarchy 6) continuity through rules and records 7) organizations distinct from the persons holding office 8) the development of particular and specific organizational technologies.

2
Q

The need for theories of Public Administration

Frederickson, Smith, Larimer, and Licari 2012

A

PA theories provide greater conceptual clarity and theoretical reliability in the treatment of PA. The validity or usefulness of a theory is in its ability to describe, explain, and predict. PA researchers must do their best to provide reliable theory to make democratic government as effective as possible.

3
Q

Theories of Political Control of Bureaucracy

Frederickson, Smith, Larimer, and Licari 2012

A

Control of bureaucracy theory is associated with matters of compliance or responsiveness. Assumption that there is a politics-administration dichotomy. “Does the bureaucracy comply with the law or with the preferences of lawmaker or elected executives?” This theory helps to make distinctions between actions that are either administrative or political. The council-manager form of gov’t is uniquely suited to this theory.

4
Q

Theory of Bureacratic Capture

Frederickson, Smith, Larimer, and Licari 2012

A

Largely focused on the federal government, and particularly to studies of the regulatory process and the independent regulatory commissions. Another slant on this theory includes policy actors such as interest groups, congressional committees, and government agencies (i.e. policy subsystems).

5
Q

Agency Theory

Frederickson, Smith, Larimer, and Licari 2012

A

Principle-Agent theory, or simply Agency Theory. The main assumption is that bureaucracies are either out of control, or are at least very difficult to control. A meta-analyis by Wood and Waterman (1994) found Agency Theory: 1. Bureaucratic responsiveness to political control is the norm rather than the exception. 2. Political control mechanisms are important especially presidential appointments, congressional appropriations power, hearings, and congressional staff effectiveness. 3. Organization matters. Agencies in executive or cabinet departments are more responsive, whereas independent agencies are less so. 4. Presidential statements and statements of senior congressional leaders are influential.

6
Q

Theories of Bureaucratic Politics

Frederickson, Smith, Larimer, and Licari 2012

A

These theories seek to explain the policymaking role of administration and bureaucracy. Such theories generally reject the politics-administration dichotomy. Waldo (1948) argued that efficiency and democracy were compatible and the work of government could be neatly divided into separate realms of decision and execution. Also, Waldo argued that administrative scholarship was itself driven by a particular philosophy of politics. Early scholarship sought to address political cronyism and graft.

7
Q

Theories of Bureaucratic Politics

Frederickson, Smith, Larimer, and Licari 2012

A

Graham Allison (1971) created a theory to explain why the US and Soviet Union governments did what they did during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Model 1: proposes that gov’t decisions can be understood by viewing them as the product of a single actor in strategic pursuit of his own self interest. Model 1: argues that numerous actors are involved in decision making, and decision making processes are highly structured through SOPs. Model 3: the “bureaucratic politics paradigm” explains government actions as the product of bargaining and compromise among the various organizational elements of the executive branch.

8
Q

Theories of Bureaucratic Politics

Frederickson, Smith, Larimer, and Licari 2012

A

Two key organizational dimensions to bureaucratic politics theory. The first, behavior, attempts to explain why bureaucrats do what they do. The second, institutional structure and distribution of power, is to understand how bureaucracy’s formal lines of authority, its relationship to other institutions, and the programs/policies placed within its jurisdiction all combine to determine the relative political influence of a broad range of political actors.

9
Q

Theories of Bureaucratic Politics

Frederickson, Smith, Larimer, and Licari 2012

A

For PA, Networks are interdependent actors, groups, organizations, that share goals, interests, resources, or values. Laurence O’ Toole (1997) argued networked administration is not only common, but increasingly important for five reasons: 1. Wicked policy problems. 2. Political demands for limited gov’t, but without reductions in demands for action, give rise to networks that include non-state actors through contracting. 3. The need for bureaucracy to be responsive to the public naturally leads to the inclusion of citizen and industry in decision making. 4. As sophisticated program evaluations have revealed indirect or second order effects of policies, implementation networks have been established to reflect those relationships. 5. Many mandates have multiple layers that essentially require networked program management.

10
Q

Theories of Bureaucratic Politics

Frederickson, Smith, Larimer, and Licari 2012

A

A theory of representative bureaucracy holds that a bureaucracy reflecting the diversity of the community it serves is more likely to respond to the interests of all groups in policy making decisions. This theory rejects the politics-administration dichotomy. It begins with the assumption that there are good reasons for public agencies to be organized the way they are, and that these undemocratic agencies exercise considerable political power. Lipsky’s (1980) SLB is an example. Non-elected officials protected by civil service mechanisms wield political power. A further development is the inclusion of symbolic representation where there is shared identification, experience, or characteristics.

11
Q

Public Institutional Theory

Frederickson, Smith, Larimer, and Licari 2012

A

The two essential parts to the modern study of public organizations 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 coupligs and linkages, now generally comprehended by network theory or governance theory.

12
Q

Public Institutional Theory

Frederickson, Smith, Larimer, and Licari 2012

A

Institutionalism in New PA 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 PA. It argues the salience of collective action as a basis for understanding political and social institutions, including formal political and bureaucratic organizations. Institutional theory is the critical intersection at which the vantages of the disciplines meet in their attention to complex organizations. It captures and comprehends scholarship on coproduction, multiple stakeholders, public-private partnerships, privitization and contracting, the fuzzy relationships between public and private organizations.

13
Q

Public Institutional Theory

Frederickson, Smith, Larimer, and Licari 2012

A

March and Olsen (1995) assert instiutionalists work from a few key ideas: 1) Institutions are understood to be a formal bounded framework of rules, roles, and identities. 2) with the formal frameworks, preferences are inconsistent, changing and at least partly endogenous, formed within political institutions. 3) Institutional theory emphasizes the logic of appropriateness based on institutional structures, roles, and identities. 4) the logic of appropriateness is based on marched patterns of roles, rules, practices, and structures on the one hand, and a situation on the other (Burns and Flam 1987). 5) one group of institutional theorists give importance to the idea of community and the common good. 6) another group work from the rational choice perspective tend to use deductive assumption-based models and computer simulations (Moe and Shorts 2001). 7) others tend to focus on order, and particularly structures that impose order.

14
Q

Organizational Theory

Frederickson, Smith, Larimer, and Licari 2012

A

Organization Theory is the body of knowledge to which scholars turn to understand the structures and relationships between structures and outcomes. The term “institution” is used to include public organizations that stand in a special relationship to the people they serve. Richard Scott (1985) defines institutions as “cognitive, normative, and regulatory structures and activities that provide stability and meaning to social behavior. Institutions are transported by various carriers - cultures, structures, routines - and they operate at multiple levels of jurisdiction.” PA embodies the constitutional and legal basis of authority and power.

15
Q

Hierarchy

Fredrickson, Smith, Larimer, and Licari 2012

A

A well functioning hierarchy structures people in a way that meets these organizational needs: to add value to work moving through the organization; to identify and fix accountability at each stage; to place people of necessary competence at each organizational level; and to build a general consensus and acceptance of the unequal segmentation of work and the necessity for it (Jaques 1990). If uncertainty is the dominant contextual problem for institutions, interdependence is the primary internal problem.

16
Q

High Reliability Systems

A
  1. Physical technologies are tightly couples. 2. This tight coupling is characterized by fixed and relatively rigid SOPs. 3. Humans operating at any point in the production process require extensive technological training and constant retraining. 4. Such systems are generally funded to a level that will guarantee high efficiency. 5. Such systems are highly redundant. 6. These systems are highly networked. 7. These systems are composed of governmental, non-governmental, and commercial organizations. 8. When the systems are working properly, error reporting is encouraged and not punished. 9. Such systems are hierarchical.
17
Q

Tiebout Thesis and Fragmentation Theory

A

Multiple small jurisdictions in a metropolitan area aid marketlike individual choice, competition, and public service efficiency both in separate jurisdicstion and in entire metropolitan areas (Tiebout 1956). Fragmentation theory used the individual or family choices as measures of rational preferences and institutional effectiveness. Lowery criticizes this thesis. Lowery contends racial and income segregation will be greater in fragmented settings. It results in a spatial mismatch in which the poor and minorities are isolated in jurisdiction with limited fiscal capacity. And, consolidated systems are more likely to have policies that minimize sorting by race and income and maximize redistribution and general economic growth.

18
Q

Garbage Cans and Rent Seeking

A

Public problems in the garbage can seek solutions at the same time, public institutions may be attracted to particular problems. (Kingdon 1995). Rents are the description of a market having multiple institutions and the differences between their total costs and their total incomes. These rents can be thought of as a surplus in a completely efficient public sector. Pareto optimal efficiency is understood as the allocation of public goods so that at least one person is made better off without everyone else being made worse off.

19
Q

Diffusion of Innovation (aka Reform)

A
  1. There is an association between the presence of a perceived crisis and the propensity to adopt change (Rogers 1995; Strange and Soule 1998). 2. The compatibility between the purposes of a change or reform and the dominant values in a social system is important. 3. Spatial proximity is important. 4. The mass media play a crucial role in amplifying and editing the diffusion of collective action (Strang and Soule 1998). 5. Change agents are often carriers of change, the agents of diffusion. 6. Closely associated with the media and with diffusion change agents is the matter of fashion setting. 7. Both individuals and institutions tend to change so as to acquire prestige, status and social standing.
20
Q

Group Theory

A

Group theory has to do with contrasting approaches to managerial control. In group theory, the effective group will develop shared goals and values, norms of behavior, customs and traditions (Shaw 1981).

21
Q

Role Theory

A

In role theory, each office or position is understood to be relational; that is, each office is defined in its relationship to others and to the organizational as a whole, and often to the organization’s purposes.

22
Q

Communication Theory

A

Communication theory is a mix of cybernetics, linguistics, and social psychology. The language of communications theory includes: inputs, throughputs, outputs, feedback loops, entropy, and homeostasis.Communication theorists often anthropomorphize organizations such as organizational guessing, organizational memory, organizational consciousness, organizational culture, organizational will, and especially organizational learning.

23
Q

New Public Management

A

Doctrines/Traditional/Contemporary: SCALE - large, centralized/small decentralized; SERVICE PROVISION - direct gov’t service/ contract out; SPECIALIZATION - by characteristic of work/by characteristics of clientele; CONTROL - by professional practice standards/by competition; DISCRETION - by laws and regulations/ by deregulation and risk taking; EMPLOYMENT - by merit, affirmative action/Same; LEADERSHIP - based on neutral competence and professional expertise/ based on entrepeneurial advocating; PURPOSE - to carry out the law and manage orderly institutions/to facilitate change, to create public value.

24
Q

Meier and O’Toole’s evaluation of ten proverbs of NPM

A
  1. Contracting out is to get rid of problems. 2. Lean and delayered organizations are vulnerable to external stress. 3. Good management is not necessarily good for everyone (inequitable good provision). 4. Organizations that are stable can perform well and adapt to changes in their environment, and managerial flexibility is not a necessary component of change. 5. Organizations are not at the mercy of their political environments. 6. Change oriented managers are not necessarily better than conservative ones. Change oriented management works best only when the political environment is stable. Conservative management is better during political instability. 7. Skilled management can overcome some of the failures of political actors. 8. Managers can make some difference, not all. 9. There is not necessarily a pattern to follow that will produce good managers. 10. Good managers do not necessarily have to choose between competing goals.
25
Q

Managing by Contract

A

Contracting and privatization works best when 1) what needs to be done can be clearly and precisely described for purposes of contract negotiation and compliance. 2) desired outcomes can readily and easily be measured or identified 3) penalties are imposed for noncompliance with the contract 4) contractors may be discontinued or changed (Donahue 1989).

26
Q

Managing by Contract

A

(Kettl 1993). 1. interdependence among government and contractors increases. 2. Boundaries between public and private are blurred, making it difficult to distinguish between public and private. 3. The problem of absorbing uncertainties increases. 4. Buyers and sellers become more highly couples, making their interests indistinguishable. 5. Conflicts of interests on the part of contractors reduce the quality and quantity of information they supply govt. 6. Internal organizational cultures become more important than market incentives. 7. Organizational capacity for learning declines and the likelihood of instability increases.

27
Q

Managing by Contract

A

Dias and Maynard-Moody (2007) show that firm monitoring structures often present in contracts can create conflicts between management and workers, and distort the incentives for behavior on the part of the contractor. Peters (2002) finds that contracting appears to export not only the details of day-to-day government work but also much of the capacity to direct or control policy.

28
Q

Minnowbrook Conference and NPM

A

Core ideas of postmodern PA: 1. Public administrators and public agencies are not and cannot by either neutral or objective. 2. Technology is often dehumanizing. 3. Bureaucratic hierarchy is often ineffective as an organizational strategy. 4. Bureaucracies tend toward goal displacement and survival. 5. Cooperation, consensus, and democratic administration are more likely than the simple exercise of administrative authority to result in organizational effectiveness. 6. Modern concepts of PA must be built on postbehavioral and post-positivist logic - more democratic, more adaptable, more responsive to changing social, economic, and political circumstances (Marini 1971).

29
Q

Postmodern PA

A

Modernism is the pursuit of knowledge through reason, and knowledge thus derived is simply assumed to be factual and therefore true. Postmodernity is characteristic “of a universe where there are no more definitions possible…It has all been done. The extreme limit of these possibilities has been reached…All that remains is to play with the pieces” (Baudrillard). Much of postmodern language has to do with the abuse of gov’t power, including bureaucratic power. Key subjects include colonialism, corporate colonialism, social injustice, gender inequality, and the maldistribution of wealth. Postmodern PA can be understood as dialectic, a return to imagination, a deconstruction of meaning, deterritorialization, and alterity.

30
Q

Decision Theory

A

Decision Theory has evolved into arguably the most mature and fully developed body of empirically informed theory in PA. The two primary bodies of scholarship in PA are 1) in the tradition of Waldo, philosophical, logical, and deductive; and, 2) in the tradition of Simon understood to be the scientific study of PA. Decision Theory: rationality, bounded rationality, irrationality, information (limits, imperfect), attention, risk taking, ambiguity, uncertainty, loose coupling (contracting out due to complex, confusing, inconsistent, and ambiguous environments).

31
Q

Rational Choice Theory

A

Can be simply thought of as neoclassical economics theory applied to the public sector. It views the actions of citizens, politicians, and public servants as analogous to the actions of self-interested producers and consumers (Buchanan 1972). Two key assumptions (Tullock): 1) The average individual is a self-interested utility maximizer; and, 2) only individuals, not collectives, make decisions. It has been used to explain organizational behavior, public service delivery, and a new theoretical orthodoxy as a natural successor to the Wilson/Weberian ideas that have dominated PA. Ostrom have advanced a theoretical paradigm in which cooperation can be achieved in the absence of an external authority or explicitly stated rules or sanctions.

32
Q

Rational Choice as a New Orthodoxy

A

Vincent Ostrom (1973) 1. There is and always will be a dominant center of power in any gov’t system. 2. The more power divided, the more irresponsible and difficult it becomes to control. 3. The structure of the constitution determines the composition of central power. 4. The process of government can be separated into two parts: determining the will of the state (politics) and executing the will of the state (administration). 5. Although politics varies among different gov’ts, all gov’ts share strong structural similarities in administration. 6. “Good” administration is achieved by the proper hierarchical ordering of a professional public service. 7. Perfection of “good” administration is a necessary condition for the advancement of human welfare.

33
Q

Governance as PA

A

Government is becoming less-defined and increasingly merged with other jurisdictions and the private sector. PA is being forced to redefine and reposition itself both in applied practice and as a field of scholarship. Governance is less of a theory and more of an acknowledgement of changing times. NPM and governance, according to Kettl (2000) is predicated on six core issues: 1. Productivity 2. Marketization 3. Service orientation 4. Decentralization. 5. Policy 6. Accountability.