The simple analytics of slack-maximizing bureaucracy

Using a utility-based graphical model of bureaucratic choice, this paper develops four empirical predictions from the theory of slack-maximizing bureaucracy. These predictions are compared to those resulting from the Niskanen budget-maximizing model of bureaucracy. Slack-maximizing and budget-maximizing bureaucracies are similar in their response to changes in cost and in their generation of flypaper effects, but they differ in their responses to matching and lump-sum grants.     

The technocratic tendencies of economists in government bureaucracy

Economists are by many accounts the most influential group of experts in contemporary political decision-making. While the literature on the power of economists mostly focuses on the policy ideas of economic experts, some recent studies suggest that economists also hold particular technocratic ideas about the policy process. The article systematically tests this argument. Focusing on economists within government bureaucracy, the study is based on a quantitative analysis of a large-scale survey of Norwegian ministerial civil servants. It finds that economists are more likely to hold technocratic role perceptions than officials with other educational backgrounds only if they work in the finance ministry or in higher administrative grades. The findings contribute to scholarship on the political sway of economists and to debates about technocracy and the technocratic views of civil servants.     

论官僚制的反功能

自韦伯提出理性官僚制的概念以来,许多学者对官僚制提出了批评,其中有一些学者提出了官僚制的反功能问题,认为官僚制不仅仅存在正功能,而且会产生反功能问题,如效率低下、繁文缛节、保守主义等等.更有学者在官僚制反功能的基础上,提出来官僚制病理学研究的问题.本文首先检视了官僚制的反功能及官僚制病理学研究.其次在此基础上,尝试性地分析了官僚制的反功能及病理学研究对我国行政改革的启示.     

The White House as a Black Box: Oral History and the Problem of Evidence in Presidential Studies

Scholars who study the American presidency usually have to rely on indirect evidence for understanding the internal operations of the 'black box' that is a contemporaneous White House. Most of the direct evidence about White House behavior becomes available only after a president has left office, when confidential communications are opened to the public by the presidential libraries. In recent years, however, such direct evidence has become increasingly inaccessible, because of changes in the record-keeping habits of senior executive branch officials and because of the politics of archival release. This article explores the nature and extent of these problems, and how elite oral history interviewing can compensate for them. It further examines the strengths and weaknesses of oral history as a means of learning about the usually hidden workings of the American presidency.