Political Science 1020E Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: New Public Management, Bureaucracy, Spoils System
4 Oct 2016
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Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Lecture 19 - Bureaucracy and Public Policy
Evolution of Bureaucracy
-Patrimonial Administration:
•Personal Agents of Monarch (extension of the monarch’s will)
•Rooted in Royal Household
•Democratic Pressures (leaders realized their system of government wasn’t able to respond
to wars. Need to have an efficient state that can fight back quickly and efficiently if the
state is to survive)
Weberian Bureaucracy
1. Offices with Assigned Responsibilities
1. Doesn’t matter if you have a space with a door, a cubicle, swinging from a chandelier in
an office building — just need a position with assigned tasks, responsibilities.
2. People get assigned to offices performing specific functions
2. Merit-Based Recruitment, Advancement
1. You’re hired for a specific reason because you have provable skills
3. Division of Labour
1. Specialization - people become very good at their one skill
4. Hierarchy
1. Everybody knows what their position is within the system.
5. Formal Rules
1. Legal rational legitimation. Same set of formal rules operate throughout the entire
system. In contrary to a personalistic-bureaucracy where relationships define the
government, however, these formal rules ensure that everybody is held to the same
standard
Bureaucratic Functions
1. Administration - Yes, but:
•Implementation (bureaucrats are also legislators.
•Agenda Setting and Political Advice
2. Policy Advice - What politicians know matters
3. Articulating Interests - Clientelism too far?
4. Political Stability - even with spoils system?
Variety in Bureaucracy
-Not every bureaucracy is the same:
•French Centralization, Merit Basis
•US Decentralization, Spoils System (sprawling american power, local and state levels,
belief that politicians elected should have bureaucrats to help them)
-Not every bureaucrat is the same:
•Specialists (right people with the right training into particular departments) [french]
•Generalists (people who are good at a lot of things that take lead from experts (specialists)
[british]
•Performance Incentives
Evolution of Bureaucracy
-20th century - Massive growth in:
•Areas of State Activity
•Administrative Capacity
-Late 20th/Early 21st Centuries - New Public Management:
•Contracting Out (government functions - like waste disposal in Toronto)
!1
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Document Summary
Patrimonial administration: personal agents of monarch (extension of the monarch"s will, rooted in royal household, democratic pressures (leaders realized their system of government wasn"t able to respond to wars. Need to have an ef cient state that can ght back quickly and ef ciently if the state is to survive) Same set of formal rules operate throughout the entire system. In contrary to a personalistic-bureaucracy where relationships de ne the government, however, these formal rules ensure that everybody is held to the same standard. Not every bureaucracy is the same: french centralization, merit basis, us decentralization, spoils system (sprawling american power, local and state levels, belief that politicians elected should have bureaucrats to help them) Not every bureaucrat is the same: specialists (right people with the right training into particular departments) [french, generalists (people who are good at a lot of things that take lead from experts (specialists) 20th century - massive growth in: areas of state activity, administrative capacity.
