Comprehensive Exams Flashcards
Wilson 1887 – The Study of Administration
Pendleton Act inspires writing. Need to mirror private sector advances and place hard block between politics and administration. Efficiency is key and god. There exists a “science” of administration. Administration should not be worried with who shall make the law and what shall that law be, they should only be concerned with how to administer the law with “enlightenment, equity, speed and without friction.” “It is getting harder to run a constitution than to frame one.” Constitution and its values key to Wilson, but American bureacracy was not working to these values and missions. Mechanics and concepts can be brought in from the French and Germans, but they have to be thoroughly “Americanized.” By focusing on administration, the difficult task of interpreting public will is removed from hands of administrators.
Taylor 1912/1947 – Scientific Management
Through the scientific method, we can find most effective forms of management. Need to replace :rule of thumb” of the workers with these investigates methods. This means you codify the practices done by workers, but administration also needs to work to develop the personnel and recognize 90% of problems lies with themselves. This means Taylorism wants a harmony between they two, but coaches alone do not win games.
Guy and Newman 2004 – Women’s Jobs, Men’s Jobs: Sex Segregation and Emotional Labor
Root of emotional labor, coined originally by Arlie Hochschild. Emotional labor is a “invisible yet expected component of job performance.” Weber and Taylor’s understandings of technical skills fails to understand emotional intelligence. Case workers special example as they must “care” for their clients, reflecting external need for emotional skills. All of this labor is under-described and underrepresented in job descriptions. Formal job descriptions underachieve. Structural elements of organizations also treat workers as “interchangeable.” Market value and worth plays into gender pay differences, as the traditional home after urbanization and industrialization is seen as “have from dehumanization of the workplace.” Nurturing (Emotions) seen at home then has to be left at home. Emotional Labor centrally goes unnoticed. Ability to suppress emotion is its own skill.
McGregor 1957 – The Human Side of Enterprise
Theory X – workers are dumb, lazy and have no motivation. Managerial control alone can improve situation.
Theory Y – Fundamental shift, sees workers as wanting to expand effort; this is natural among all people. Pushes back against previous notion work must be motivated through coercion. People will self motivate and direct bahavior under right conditions that do not threaten punishment. Workers then take on responsibility and act on internal ingenuity rather than stifling under rigid formal structures. Aligning worker goals with their organzaition results in success. Salary and position not only motivators, self direction possible with correct buy in mechanisms. Less limitng assumptions about human nature must be adopted.
Lipsky 2010 – Street-Level Bureacracy: Dilemmas of the Individual on Public Service
Attention to the discretion street level workers of public service have. Policies govern expectations of administrators, but cannot capture what is put into action by state employees working with populations. Controversy also centers on public servants and may have deep face to face contact eth public. They also have deep impacts on the populations they serve too, and often deal with most vulnerable. This discretion in many cases can award or deny services. Many workers make decisions on the spot, with decisions being “redistributive as well as allocative.” This can challenge the notion bureaucracy is detached and impersonal. When administered badly though, street level workers become protest focus. They play critical role in regulating conflict. We need to not just understand these workers, but society as a whole.
Krislov 1974 – Representative Bureaucracy
If major task of governance is to gain support for policies, it is crucial to understand the relationship between those delivering policy and the target population of the policy. One of the oldest methods to secure support for policy is to draw wide segment of society into the government in order to “merchandise” policy. Talks about colonial history and military history of European systems. Not having military coercion means buy-in is necessary. Representation is necessary to solve issues of legitimacy and authority. This used to be only mass representation but as power and status of bureaucracy has changed so too has the need to address discrimination. Inclusion of marginalized peoples as face of agencies one way to alleviate the issue. Need to reject monism and adopt pluralist understanding of society and culture. Race eclipsing class in importance.
Roosevelt 1990 – From Affirmative Action to Affirming Diversity
Affirmative action based off of assumptions that are no longer as true as they were. The US economy is no longer an unchanging institution with enough space for everyone, and while entry level positions have no trouble being filled by women and minorities the issue is in the matriculation to higher roles in organizations. The issue is less about barriers to employment and more about productivity while hiring diverse, well trained and educated employees. Coercion is no longer required at the recruitment stage. Managers now need to learn to manage more diverse workforce. The org is an engine with higher octane fuel, but the engine needs to be rebuilt. Melting pot metaphor is flawed as it cooks all uniqueness out of minorities. People outside of Europe are harder to “melt down” and do not want to be melted down.
Ewo 2013 – Managing and Valuing Diversity: Challenges to Public Managers in the 21st Century
Diversity has helped public sector, but now we need organizational congruence between mission and valuation of diversity. Sensitivity trainings are only so helpful unless organization in question question recognizes and shifts assumptions rooted in traditional mentalities. Diverse workers bring diverse perspective, knowledge and attitudes that can hep quality of services provided. Multiculturalism must be taught and fostered as much as technical competence. We’re all alike must be abandoned in favor of were each unique and that the source of our greatness. This realization must come from the top down.
Follett 1926 – The Giving of Orders
Believing in science of administration, there are key elements that can help managers deliver orders effectively. Three linked elements from psychology 1. It is necessary to build up certain attitudes, 2. The worker can release these attitudes 3. Managers can augment the response as it is being carried out/released. Managers must sell their product (the building of attitudes) for employees to then purchase the product (release old attitudes). This must also not be done in a way that alienated the individual from previously held beliefs as to avoid regret or future sales would be more difficult. Managers are often angry because employees wouldn’t perform a task but often thay could not. Training and attention is necessary. The place and manner in which the order is given could be the most crucial. The more one is bossed the more activites will take place in bossing pattern. Instead of giving orders, both sides should agree to take orders from the situation. You need to depersonalize the giving of orders to where “laws” can be applied.
Downs 1967 – The Life Cycle of Bureaus
4 ways in which bureaus can be created. They can come together around a charismatic leader. They can fufill a specific designed function (like New Deal programs). They can split from existing orgs (like air force from Army). Finaly individuals can come together in support of a policy organizing in a large nonmarket way because of dedication to an idea. Critical to inception and life of organizations are zealots whether this is a single zealot with a following or zealots splitting off. New org may not have zealots vut leadership will develop self-interest helping an org grow. Failure rarely happens in early stages thanks to inertia, but leaders need to look for veins of support once initial support fades. Survival mechanisms need to be developed as zealots are more focused on self interest over social function of org. This machinery needs to initiate a “routinization of charisma.” Challenges often are exogenous. Ageing does carry negative impacts. Zealots leave and machinery grows more and more complex. Workforces and leadership age as well. Orgs that pass survival threshold though rarely disappear.
Merton 1940 – Bureaucratic Structure and Personality
The chief merit of bureaucracy from in the Weberian sense is technical efficiency. Premiums placed on speed, control and precision offers “optimal returns on input.” Technical knowledge helps with predictably minimizing time needed to address certain issues. This however can be considerably threatened when unpredictable situations arise. Likens bureaucrats to chickens, same bell that trains them to feed sends them to their doom. Training and rigid predictability of bureaucracy may be unable to address issues at hand. Adherence to rules and structures becomes an end into of itself. Bureaucrats in the Weberian sense are timid, conservative, and often adhere to “technicism.” These bureaucrats are often alike and pose a threat to democracy through group think. These bureaucrats are also supposed to be impersonal. Interacting with government services also does not offer choice like private sector, also posing threat to democratic system.
Schmidt 1993 – Grout: Alternative Kinds of Knowledge and why they are Ignored.
Uses 1976 Teton River Damn Failure as main example. Bureau of Rec was tasked with building a damn, collapsed and caused 2 billion in damages. Scientific compartmentalization of knowledge is never enough. Individual bureaucrats “feel” for the job can’t be recreated through training. 4 types of knowledge in this case: 1. “feel for the hole” 2. Intimate knowledge 3. Passive/critical knowledge 4. “feel for the whole.” Pumpers who put concrete and grout into holes needed to “feel the hole” because there were too many variables to create exact science. Next workers on the dan with intimate knowledge needed to know what was natural and typical of changes to see where deviation from the norm was occurring. The passive knowledge of those workers was more critical than those back in Denver at regional offices. Lead engineers did not know as much as those with boots on the ground. Finally, “feel for the whole” brings together all individuals knowledge of dam construction that builds concept of whole. Workers constituted “artistic” understanding because there was too many variables for bureaucratic structure to comprehend. Challenges capacity of Talyorist managerial administration.
Allison 1980 – Public and Private Management
Conflation of public and private management has roots in Wilsonian view of administration. Key difference between the two is the judgement levied on managers when mistakes and failures happen. Public managers are judged far harsher. Uses head of EPA vs CEO of American Motors for example. Reoccurring theme is constitutional differences. Private management is weighed by decisions of single individual, public managers though are bound by constitution to the executive, the legislature and the courts. As noted in the federalists concentration of power in a single entity is a threat. By separating powers, ambition can be made to counteract ambition. Is wary of mapping any lessons from private sector onto public like the 80-20 rule. Knowledge of how to solve problems in the public sector should come from the public sector.
Weick 1969 – The Processes of Organizing
Utilizes Campbell (1965) concept of evolution to outline how organizations come to change. Five principles drive this process 1. The processes of variation, selection and retention are necessary for evolution 2. Variation in behavior and “mutations” are haphazard 3. The process of variation and retention are opposed 4. It is unnecessary to use concepts like “planning” to explain the course of evolution 5. Moderate rates of mutation are necessary and an advantage. Three notions of evolution – variation, selection and retention. Variation comes with ideas that need to be challenged, planned variation is weaker than “haphazard variation not being bound to “wisdom that has already been achieved.” Selection comes when variation is chosen by one r more mechanisms like leadership, relational, socially organized adoptions or rational/planned selections. It is important to avoid circular logic, the selection must be explained outside of the selection itself. Retention means more than just the storage of a trait, it also means codification of the variation that itself changes over time.
Bevir, Rhodes and Weller 2003 – Traditions of Governance: Interpreting the Changing Role of the Public Sector
Cites problematic reforms of 80s and 90s that lead to failures of New Public Management. NPM loosely understood as focus on management in lieu of policy, utilizing quasi-markets, and fixation on cost cutting and competition. Economic crashes of 90’s brought about budget deficits. The “new right” and distaste of bog government redrew boundaries of state. Increase in globalization led to more regulations and pressure for new administrations. There was also an underlying antagonism between what government did and what it was supposed to do. International pressures also pushed NPM. Information technologies also catalyzed this push. The development and analysis of NPM led to institutionally oriented mindset. While positivism has been rejected by a number of scholars, many of its underlying assumptions remain in place. Political scientists tend to “reduce beliefs and meanings to intervening variables. In understanding institutions as concrete makes it impossible to consider the constructions and inner conflicts of actors in question.
