Bureaucratic dynamics : the role of bureaucracy in a democracy / B. Dan Wood, Richard W. Waterman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wood, B. Dan.

Contributor:

Waterman, Richard W.

Series:

Transforming American politics

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Bureaucracy--United States.

Bureaucracy.

United States.

Democracy--United States.

Democracy.

Physical Description:

xvi, 190 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Boulder : Westview Press, 1994.

Summary:

The authors of this volume seek to dispel two powerful "myths of the bureaucracy" -- the belief that the federal bureaucracy is unresponsive to government and the belief that democracy itself is imperiled by an out-of-control bureaucratic process. Wood and Waterman contend that the process is in fact a highly dynamic and democratic one. Offering readable case studies and well-paired figures and tables (presented in both technical and nontechnical fashion), Bureaucratic Dynamics uses principal-agent theory to explain how the public policy system works. High-profile cases of eight federal agencies from the EPA to the FDA and discussions of major legislation such as the Clean Air Act help the authors provide a new perspective on the overall bureaucratic process for students and professionals of the bureaucracy, public policy, administration, and government regulation.

Contents:

1 Toward a More Dynamic Conception of Bureaucracy 1

Popular Perceptions of Bureaucratic Adaptation 2

Legitimacy, the Constitution, and Bureaucratic Adaptation 5

2 Scholarly Thinking and Research on the Bureaucracy 13

Normative Controversies over Politics and the Bureaucracy 13

Empirical Controversies over Politics and the Bureaucracy 18

The Principal-Agent Model 22

3 The Dynamics of Political Control of the Bureaucracy 27

Theories of Political Control 28

Past Research 29

Methods and Data 31

Studies in Political Control 71

4 The Dynamics of Political-Bureaucratic Adaptation 77

Past Research 78

An Adaptive Model of Politics and the Bureaucracy 79

Data, Measurement, and Hypotheses 83

Four Models of Political-Bureaucratic Adaptation 88

5 A Bottom-Up Perspective on Political-Bureaucratic Adaptation 103

The Sources of Bureaucratic Power 104

Expertise, Exogenous Events, Issue Salience, and Nonrecursive Political-Bureaucratic Adaptation 107

Constituency, Vitality, and Leadership in Political-Bureaucratic Adaptation 115

6 Promoting Bureaucratic Accountability: a Two-Way Street 129

Information and Oversight 130

Agency Theory 132

Policy Monitoring 136

7 Bureaucratic Democracy and its Dysfunctions 141

On the Legitimacy of Bureaucracy in a Democracy 142

On the Roles of Political Principals 145

How Well Is Bureaucratic Democracy Working? 150.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 157-175) and index.

ISBN:

0813318467

0813318475

OCLC:

30068042