No abstract

Studies of the policy process in Australia have focused on particular institutions or decisions rather than on its overarching properties. One such property is the vertical and horizontal ‘axes’ of policy‐making. The former comprises hierarchical relationships whereas the latter comprise relationships of bargaining, negotiation and persuasion. Vertical axes enable governments to take and enforce technically rational decisions in pursuit of consistent goals whereas horizontal axes permit governments to make broadly‐based decisions that have group assent and electoral support. Vertical axes have strengthened in recent years and have brought increased technical rationality and consistency. This has come at a cost of limiting of the scope of political debate and a loss of electoral support for government though.

Do Henry Mintzberg's writings make an enduring, invaluable contribution to our understanding of the contemporary public policy process? Mintzberg argues that organizations display eight structural configurations and corresponding coordinating mechanisms. Such structural configurations are shaped by a variety of contingency factors, especially power and environmental ones. Using Mintzberg's work, eight policy modes, corresponding to structural configurations within government organizations and political systems, are identified and placed on a matrix that comprises two dimensions: standardization and centralization. Six polarities in the policy process arise from this matrix. Mintzberg's work, the paper argues, remains of enduring value because it provides a seminal framework for a richer understanding of the current policy process, by offering a contingency theory of structures and policy modes, as well as by frank acknowledgment of the protean nature of the policy process.

This article explores whether bureaucracy creates alienation, through a case study of the Australian Public Service. By examining the structural determinants of seven job characteristics, it shows that alienation is generated by six features of bureaucracy: its clerical work, control imperative, organizational structures, impersonality, instrumental rationality, and language. The author argues that by de-bureaucratizing and closely aligning individual and organizational goals we can reduce alienation and increase worker productivity. The author concludes that by enabling civil servants to be efficient, equitable, nonpartisan, and accountable, bureaucracy does safeguard liberal democracy, but that in so doing it also generates alienation or “psychic entropy.”

This paper seeks to contribute to the study of organisational culture within the public sector by using Mary Douglas' cultural theory to analyse organisational cultures within the Australian Public Service (APS). It shows that the four cultures that she identifies, namely, hierarchy, individualism, egalitarianism, and fatalism, have been present within the APS. It also shows that these cultures can be explained in terms of variations in the extent of social regulation (grid) and social integration (group), as Douglas predicts in her theory. The article thereby shows that cultural theory is valid and it can contribute to the study of organisational cultures, particularly those within the public sector. It shows that the strength of these four cultures within the APS varies in accordance with organisational rank. Fatalism is strongest at junior and middle levels; individualism is strongest at senior levels whereas hierarchy is strongest at middle levels.