Testing the Information-Energy Model

Abstract

The information-energy model is a theory which purports to explain changes in bureaucratic development for developing nations in terms of changes in ecological variables. This research note attempts to test the validity of the model and to assess its explanatory power through aggregate data analysis and cross-national causal modeling techniques. The results indicate that though ecological variables account for some variation in bureaucratic development, the overall explanatory power of the model is not what was initially hypothesized. Of all the paths in the causal model leading to bureaucratic development, the direct linkage between information and bureaucratic development is the strongest.The relation between bureaucratic development and ecological variables is a topic which has generated a considerable amount of inquiry and theoretical speculation within the field of comparative administration. Rarely, however, have data been systematically introduced in order to operationalize and test the numerous schemas proposed by scholars and armchair theorists examining this relationship (Sigelman, 1972). Hence, most schemas relating ecological variables to bureaucratic development remain merely paper theories.