What Motivates Bureaucrats?

Politics and Administration during the Reagan Years
Erscheinungsjahr 2000
ISBN: 978-0-231-10697-9
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 320 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 222 mm, Gewicht: 354 g

Reihe: Power, Conflict, and Democracy: American Politics Into the 21st Century

"Every once in a while somebody has to get the bureaucracy by the neck and shake it loose and say, 'Stop doing what you're doing.'" Ronald Reagan

How did senior career civil servants react to Ronald Reagan's attempt to redirect policy and increase presidential control over the bureaucracy? What issues molded their reactions? What motivates civil servants in general? How should they be managed and how do they affect federal policies? To answer these questions, Marissa Martino Golden offers us a glimpse into the world of our federal agencies.

What Motivates Bureaucrats? tells the story of a group of upper-level career civil servants in the Reagan administration at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, the Food and Nutrition Service, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The book reveals that most career civil servants were usually responsive to executive direction even with a president attempting to turn agency policy 180 degrees from its past orientation.

By delving deeply into the particular details of Reagan's intervention into the affairs of upper-level career civil servants, Golden also fulfills her broader mission of improving our understanding of bureaucratic behavior in general, explaining why the bureaucracy is controllable and highlighting the limits of that control.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Golden, Marissa Martino

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sozialphilosophie, Politische Philosophie
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Zentralregierung
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments1. Bureaucratic Responsiveness and the Administrative Presidency2. A Framework for Analysis3. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: Car Nuts and Caution4. The Food and Nutrition Service: Limited Opportunity, Limited Resistance5. The Civil Rights Division: Lawyers Who Love to Argue6. The Environmental Protection Agency: A Tale of Two Reagan Administrations7. Lessons from the Reagan YearsPostscript: Looking to the FutureAppendix A. Sample Interview ScheduleAppendix B. Sample Federal Employee QuestionnaireNotesReferencesIndex

Über Autor(innen)

Marissa Martino Golden is assistant professor of political science at Bryn Mawr College. She received the Leonard D. White Award from the American Political Science Association for the work upon which this book is based.