Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and why They Do it

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Basic Books, 1989 - 433 pages
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A leading expert explains what government bureaucracies do and why they behave the way they do."Wilson is a remarkably clear thinker. It is unlikely that anyone in the foreseeable future will master so much research about so many agencies at government level."--Tom Peters, "The Washingtonian"

"Wilson is our Weber and this is his "summa ."..a sprightly, irreverent, and profoundly serious inquiry as to how you make a nation work."--Daniel Patrick Moynihan, U.S. Senator

"The synthesis is shrewd and creative. The prose is uncommonly swift. The fresh insights are abundant and compelling."--Martha Derthick, University of Virginia

"A gold mine of interesting, even unique observations about bureaucratic government on all levels."--R. Cort Kirkwood, "Christian Science Monitor"

"Immediately takes its place as the indispensable one-volume guide to American national administration."--Aaron Wildavsky, "Los Angeles Times Book Review"

 

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Bureaucracy: what government agencies do and why they do it

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Wilson (management, UCLA) attempts to explain bureaucratic behavior, beginning with a contrast of similar institutions (armies, prisons, and schools) that have succeeded and failed. He finds that ... Consulter l'avis complet

Table des matières

Armies Prisons Schools
3
Organization Matters
14
Circumstances
31
Beliefs
50
Interests
72
Culture
90
Constraints
113
People
137
Congress
235
Presidents
257
Courts
277
National Differences
295
Problems
315
Rules
333
Markets
346
Bureaucracy and the Public Interest
365

Compliance
154
Turf
179
Strategies
196
Innovation
218
NOTES
379
INDEXES
409
Droits d'auteur

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Expressions et termes fréquents

Fréquemment cités

Page 24 - ... a system of consciously coordinated activities or forces of two or more persons.
Page 204 - 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.
Page 126 - The clause required by paragraph (2) shall be as follows: (A) It is the policy of the United States that small business concerns and small business concerns owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals shall have the maximum practicable opportunity to participate in the performance of contracts let by any Federal agency.
Page 277 - The interference of the courts with the performance of the ordinary duties of the executive departments of the Government, would be productive of nothing but mischief; and we are quite satisfied that such a power was never intended to be given to them.
Page 379 - James G. March and Herbert A. Simon, Organizations (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1958), p. 158; and Herbert A. Simon, The New Science of Management Decision (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1960), p.
Page 268 - The quest for coordination is in many respects the twentieth century equivalent of the medieval search for the philosopher's stone. If only we can find the right formula for coordination, we can reconcile the irreconcilable, harmonize competing and wholly divergent interests, overcome irrationalities in our government structures, and make hard policy choices to which no one will dissent.
Page 264 - Decisions tend to be reviewed and reviewed; and operational delays increase accordingly. As this confusion continues, a curious inversion occurs. Operational matters flow to the top — as central staffs become engrossed in subduing outlying bureaucracies — and policy-making emerges at the bottom.
Page 375 - When results are unknown or equivocal, bureaus will have no incentive to alter those SOPs so as to better achieve their goals, only an incentive to modify them to conform to externally imposed constraints. The SOPs will represent an internally defined equilibrium that reconciles the situational imperatives, professional norms, bureaucratic ideologies, peer-group expectations, and (if present) leadership demands unique to that agency.
Page 33 - Labor shall be to foster, promote, and develop the welfare of the wage earners of the United States, to improve their working conditions, and to advance their opportunities for profitable employment.

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À propos de l'auteur (1989)

James Q. Wilson is James Collins professor of management and public policy at UCLA. Winner of the 1990, James Madison Award of the American Political Science Association, he is also the author ofMoral Sense and Moral Judgement.

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