Bureaucratic Politics and Administrative Reform: Why Politics Matters

Abstract

Bureaucratic politics, Administrative reform, Politics, Administration,

Let's Get Public Administration Right, But in What Sequence?: Lessons from Japan and Singapore

“…Executive dominance pertains to the act of tightening the executive's grip on the bureaucracy. Reforms to bring this change have been observed in countries such as the USA (Kaufman, ), Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan (Painter, ) and the UK (Bowornwathana and Poocharoen, ). These reforms can be justified from the democratic point of view because, unlike bureaucrats, the executive is directly or indirectly elected by the people, depending on the constitutional arrangement, and it is legitimate for him or her to exercise power and influence on behalf of the populace.…”

“…In speaking of administrative traditions, scholars highlight differences in the legal basis of states, in the boundaries between the state and society, in government structures, and in the status and role of civil service (Painter and Peters, ), as well as in the ideas and beliefs bureaucrats have inherited from past experiences regarding the nature of government (Kutsal, ). In the context of representative democracy, scholars also attend to differences in the relationship between non‐elected bureaucrats and politicians (Knill, ; Painter, ; Bowornwathana and Poocharoen, ). In short, the concept of administrative tradition is multi‐faceted.…”

Shifting to hydrological/hydrographic boundaries: a comparative assessment of national policy implementation in the Zerafshan and Ferghana Valleys

“…Olsen (2008), looking at bureaucracies more globally, argues that this distinction "may be hard to uphold". Work on the British relationship between politician and bureaucrat has highlighted the power of the bureaucrat to influence policy making (Bowornwathana & Poocharoen, 2010), and others have even emphasized the preference of bureaucrats to influence decision making over administrative tasks (Dowding & James, 2004;Gains & John, 2010). With the focus on the United States, relationships between politicians and administrators are seen as principal -agent situations (Krause, 1996;Weingast, 1984): the principal (the politician) gives the direction and has the control function; the agent (the bureaucrat in his or her professional capacity) formulates the policy and its implementation.…”

“…Discussion of the influence of the bureaucracy on policy formation as well as implementation puts into question the uniformity of implementation on the lower administrative levels in different administrative units (Caughey et al, 2009). In addition, while this view looks only to the relationship between politician and bureaucrat, the literature highlights that different bureaucracies are in competition (Bowornwathana & Poocharoen, 2010;Wegerich, 2005) and that lower-level bureaucracies pursue political activities that are primarily about the pursuit of identity rather than organizational outcomes (Brower & Abolafia, 1997;Wegerich, 2009), and hence, might influence policy formulation as well as the implementation process.…”

“…There are numerous critiques of the guiding assumptions of principal -agent relationships in policy formulation and implementation, highlighting the influence of the bureaucracy (Caughey, Chatfield, & Cohon, 2009, Olsen, 2008. In addition, the literature highlights the competition between different bureaucracies, as well as the diverse interests of bureaucrats on different levels (Bowornwathana & Poocharoen, 2010;Brower & Abolafia, 1997). Hence, these factors might influence policy formulation as well as the implementation process within one country and might lead to different outcomes.…”