Public governance
Bas van Gool
- All of the organisations is typically done in the type of hierarchy.
5 principles of modern a bureaucratic organization by Max Weber (1864-1920).
1. Centralisation:
- Decision-making concentrated within one particular location.
2. Hierarchy:
-Super and subordination of services and persons.
3. Formalisation:
- The capturing of actions, decisions and rules in writing (‘’Paperwork’’).
4. Standardisation:
- Routinized (routine) behaviour on the basis of rules.
5. Specialisation:
- Limitation of tasks on the basis of expertise and efficiency.
Some sayings of Wilson:
- The power of modern bureaucracy is fully based on their employees.
- Bureaucracy as an ‘’iron cage’’: It is really hard to get out of a bureaucracy.
Popular view of bureaucracy
Citizens and taxpayers have their own global view of bureaucracy (Negative).
Political views of bureaucracy
Conservative/right wing:
Government is, at best, a necessary evil. Government bureaucracy, which by its very nature
efficient and must therefore be curtailed.
Liberal/left wing:
- Government should play an important role in the governance of society. Public
bureaucracy can be made to do the job. (president Hollande of France.)
- The Weberian (Weber), popular and political views of bureaucracy are all (partly) incorrect.
Bureaucracies often do not actually work according Weberian principles:
- Agencies may fail to apply general rules to specific cases.
- Agencies may resist translating their policies in the form of clear and general
rules
Bureaucracy may actually be quite weak, so not that powerful.
- Legislatures (‘’politicians’’) may strongly influence the functioning of agencies
(Wilson)
Bureautic performance may vary dramatically.
- Police of country a, could do a better job than the police in country b.
Wilson’s book
- An effort to set forth what is generally true about bureaucracy.
- A classic.
- Attack on Weberian popular and political views.
- Description of what government agencies actually do and why they do it.
- Not a management book: it does not teach you how to run a government agency.
- Will teach you how difficult it is to change the behaviour of bureaucracy’s.
- Illustrations from U.S. context: analysis relevant for most public bureaucracies.
- Focus on the people inhabiting the bureaucratic world.
- Bottom- up approach.
Focus on the people inhabiting the bureaucratic world:
- Operators (ch 3-6)
- Managers (Ch. 7-9)
- Executives (Ch. 10-12)
Chapters 1 & 2
- The importance of organisation not the structure but the people):
- Studying the goals, resources, and structures of an agency is not always a very
helpful clue to what it will do.
- Bureaucraties with (roughly) the same goals, resources and structures may produce
dramatically different results.
- 3 examples: armies, prisons, schools.
Example 1: Armies.
- Germans versus French in WW 2, 1940.
- Problem: Killing power of dug-in machine guns and artillery. This is what they had to
overcome.
French response:
- Focus on defense.
- Machine gun squads as basic units.
-Massed firepower.
-Fixed position.
-Detailed mobilization plan.
- Heavy investments in tanks and artillery.
German Response:
- Attack: infiltration warfare
- Squads organized in rifle-section and machine gun section.
- Mission-oriented command system (auftragstaktik).
- Indoctrination with primacy of combat and central importance of initiative (
German soldiers wanted to fight the machine guns)
- Medals for ‘’successful independent action’’ (French soldiers would have
been killed for disobeying an order).
- Off-duty fraternizing of officers with soldiers.
- Regional units (people in Germany with their kamerads from home, and they speak
the same language: willing to sacrifice theirself for their country).
Results: The French were defeated in 6weeks...
(Preparation for the ‘’wrong war’’)
Public Governance (Bureaucracy) 18-09-2015
Centralization, hierarchy, standardization (protcolised), formalization and
Weber: Bureaucracies are powerful things to go against a functioning bureaucracy, more
powerful than politicians. Could function as an iron cage for the people that live in
them.
Right-Wing view: Bureaucracy is dangerous.
Left-Wing view: Bureaucries everything, because the market will destroy citizens, rivers and
skies will be owned by single citizens. Only the strong will survive.
Libertarians; Liberty; equal rights and anti-bureaucracy and anti-government.
Organization is key, two bureaucracies with the same structure van differ heavily.
Indoctrination is powerful but can be dangerous.
The code of the samurai 16th century.
Michigan’s response: Respected inmates and incarcerated citizens. Not too many rules,
freedom of movement, a lot of freedom. Opportunity to enrol in a program. Results: Low
guard morale, little meaningful work or education, disorder and violence.
Texas response: Order “control model”, minute regulation of prison liefe by detailed
schedule. Guards are address as “boss” or “sir”, no grouping allowed and rewards for
obedience an punishment for illigal activities. Result was excellent.
Organization matters a lot!!
Successful bureaucracies cope well with three organizational issues.
1. Definition of critical tasks
2. Mobilization of widespread endorsement for critical task
Acquisition of reasonable degree of autonomy (freedom).
Chapter 3: Circumstances
1. Imperatives of the situation.
- Doing what the situation requires.
- Example: Patrol officers (pp 37-38) –‘’handle the situation’’ and ‘’take charge’’.
- Important in case of
- Involuntary clients. (inmates.).
- Operators working in low-visibility (outside the visibility of your superior
circumstances).
- Examples: Police, hospitals, schoolteacher -> ACT ON CIRCUMSTANCES!
2. Expectation of peers (other people).
- Example: Soldiers fight when their peers expect the mto fight (and vice versa).
- Making peer expectations serve organizational needs is difficult.
- Requires group formation, and therefore, time (Form a group).
Important in case of: Dangerous working conditions for operators (If your sergeant goes, you
will follow). Example: Miners, undercover agents, combat soldiers.
Chapter 4: Beliefs
Operators’ beliefs (attitudes) are usually less important than circumstances in shaping their
organizational behaviour. (PP 51-54).
- Example: Racist white police officers do not disproportionally arrest black suspects.
(P 53).
Importance of beliefs (attitudes) varies with the looseness of operator’s task (role)
definition. (The more freedom you have, the more important belief will be)
- Tightly defined task > Low importance of attitudes for operator behaviour. Example: it
doesn’t really matter what a postman believes, but he has to do his job.
- Loosely defined task > (Relatively) high importance of attitudes for operators behaviour.
Example: Lawyers, scientists, engineers, diplomats, judges.
4 types of beliefs may be important
1. Prior job experiences.
Example: CIA (pp 56-58). > Original task: ‘’coordination’’.
- Coordination, planning, evaluation, and dissemination of intelligence.
- Influx of OSS ( office of strategic services) veterans of world war 2.
- OSS: wartime agency which ran spies and conducted covert operations between enemy
lines.
- New task: ‘’act’’. Because there were more people with war experience.
Explanation: Strong influence of prior job experiences of OSS veterans.
2. Professional norms.
Professional: Member of a prestigious occupational group based on specialized formal
education aid acceptance of a code of a proper conduct. (Pp 60).
- Doctors, lawyers, engineers.
- Example: National highway traffic of Safety administration (NHTSA) (PP-61)
- Goal: Reduce death and injury on the highways.
- Several possible tasks:
1. Improve drivers skill and habits.
2. Enhance road design.
3. Eliminate car defects.
- All of these above are to make sure that the cars are safer and to improve crashworthiness.
- Explanation: Engineers dominate agency.
3. Political ideology.
- Generally not very important.
- But agency membership may shape political beliefs of operators.
The type of agency where you work in, may determine your beliefs.
Example of importance of political ideology
- Office of civil rights (PP 66).
Goal: Preventing discrimination with regard to race, colour sex, handicap or national
origin in government funded programs or activities.
Selected tasks: Implementation of anti-discrimination measures in government funded and
unfunded programs and activities.
- Fighting discrimination and indications of discrimination.
Explanation: Government is dominated by civil rights.
4. Bureaucratic personality
Logic of work in a bureaucratic organization promotes:
- Focus on means (Rules, regulations, procedures) rather than ends.
If a lecturer won’t attend the ‘exam ceremony’’ because it is not in the rules.
So the boss stresses them with the end of the organization, and the employee
only thinks about means.
- Risk averse behaviour.
The Rule
- Agencies with general, vague, or inconsistent goals that cannot easily be translated intro
concrete tasks for operators.
Example: US department of State (Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
- Goal: ‘’Promote the long-range security and well-being of the United States’’
If persons are very rule oriented, they often tend to forget what the rule is for. (Blue
personal).
Chapter 5: Interests
Once there is an interest you start to behave differently then if you don’t have an interest
for a certain case.
- Government agencies risk ‘’capture’’ by outside interest groups -> ‘’Capture’’ : What people
in an agency do depends often on what other people outside the agency wants you to do.
- Outside interest groups may be structured in several ways and the tasks of operators are
variously shaped by these external structures.
1. One dominant interest group flavouring the agency’s goals:
- Client politics > Most of the benefits oof the agency’s program go to some single, small
interest. And most of the costs are borne by a large number of people (Tax payers). Because
the costs are spread thinly or hidden taxpayers have no incentive to oppose the agency’s
functioning or programs.
Example: Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) P76.
- Goal: Protecting infant civil aviation industry by reducing ‘’Destructive competition’’
( protecting American Airplane building companies against companies like Fokker vs the
American protecting Boeing).
- Client agencies.
- Almost impossible to avoid ‘’capture’’.
- Example: ‘’Traditional’’ policing in rural India . The chief tells you who you can arrest
and what you have to do.
2. One dominant interest group hostile to the agency’s goals.
- Entrepreneurial politics:
- Costs of the agency’s program are heavily concentrated on some industry, profession or
locality.
- Benefits are spread over many people (Environment/Highway safety)
- Affected group will strongly oppose agency functioning and programs
Example: ‘’Environmental agency’s are heavily against heavy industry.’’ Or the National
highway Traffic Safety Administration. (NHTSA) P77.
A car company wants to make cars as cheap as possible, and sell them for profit.
So the NHTSA will demand that the car quality has to be improved, to increase safety on the
highway. Which the car company won’t like.
- Entrepreneurial agencies:
- High risk of capture by affected group.
- Example: Food and drug administration (FDA), p.80.
3. Several interests groups in conflict over the agency’s goals.
- Interest group politics.
- High benefits for winners. <- the winner of the control of the agency.
- High costs for losers. <- the loser of the control of the agency.
- Strong incentive for rival interest groups to press their claims.
Example: Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA),p. 78. <- That people who
work stay in a safe environment. But companies won’t be happy with this, cause if they have
to implement F.E. a sports program to fight against obesities, it costs money.
- Interest group agencies.
- Risk becoming billiard balls of rival interest groups and politicians
- Example: Occupational Safety and Health administration (OSHA),P.81
- Shifting focuses: ‘’Regulation’’ versus ‘’costs of regulation’’.
- For many organizations it is very difficult to tell what the certain operators are doing.
However organizations like the US Postal service is clear what they do.
4. No important interest group
- Majoritarian politics: Maybe small benefits and costs. Nobody is really gaining and nobody
is really suffering a lot. Nobody is really avoiding the agency and nobody is really benefitting.
- Majoritarian agencies: Can determine their own course of action.
Example: Antitrust Division, p. 83: Demand-driven case-by-case approach.
Summing up:
- Client agencies and entrepreneurial agencies, especially risk capture.
Chapter 6. Culture
- Organizational culture:
- A patterned way of thinking about the central tasks of and human relationships within an
organization. ‘’things are different in all places’’.
Example: security uncounsciousness in the US embassy in Moscow (pp 90-91).
- The goal of the maker of the embassy was to have the best people with the highest
certificate to build their embassy. They just didn’t care about the safety and the KGB officers
in the building.
- Organizations may have several cultures.
- Organizational cultures have benefits and costs.
The benefits of organizational culture: Mission driven organizations -> One machine.
- Organizations with a culture that is widely shared and warmly endorsed by operators and
managers. -> People know what to do and want to do it well.
- Confers feeling of special worth to organization members.
- Provides a basis for recruitment and agency socialization.
- Economizes an individual incentives (you wouldn’t care for more money).
The costs of organizationalculture.
- If people believe in a mission, they will automatically not be interested in parts that are
not part of the mission.
-Example: CIA (PP101-103).
- Dominance of ‘’black’’ (clandestine) side over ‘’white’’ side.
- Neglect of: Counter-intelligence and defector management.
- Conflicts amongs competing organizational culture.
Example: US Air Force
Chapter 7. Constraints for a manager (limits/beperkingen)
- A public manager (government) can not simply spends what he wants, organizes as they
please and determine the goals as you see them fit.
Very often there are external factors who decide the choices (legislatures, courts, politicians,
interest groups) and not the managers.
Result: Government managers are driven by constraints on the organization (am I allowed to
do this or not).
Firms: Focus on ‘’bottom line’’ (Making money.
Government agencies: Focus on the ‘’top line’’ Have we dealed with the constraints.
1. Constraints on spending.
- Government agencies get a budget and there are budget rules. You can’t spend it on
something else than the budget is allocated to.
In order to make sure that you get the same budget next year you need to be sure that you
spend all the money that was assigned to you. Furthermore p ublic managers cannot give
bonuses. So the opportunity of motivating your employees is really hard in public agencies.
- Since Wilson wrote his book: Rise of New Public Management
Output budgeting > Pay for the numbers acquired. For example public schools are paid for
the numbers of graduates.
Result: A lot more people will graduate because they get more money per graduate.
2. Constraints on organizing.
2a. Hiring people
- Nepotism -> Hiring family + friends.
Where firms can hire anyone they want public agencies do recruitment largely determined
by outside bodies.
Us agencies:
- The Congress decides the amount of people an agency hires and what they will pay him.
- Office of management and budgets will decide how many people can be hired in each rank.
- Office of Personal Management will select the candidates.
- The Merit System Protection board will manage the demotions and discharge.
- The court will check if the rules are obeyed.
(b) Purchasing
- Firms can choose the best supplier and public agencies are bound by external procedures.
For example if a public agency wants to buy fish they have to advertise that they are looking
for fish and they have to take the lowest bid. (It is difficult to decline bids of companies
which who you worked before because they increased their price).
3. Constraints on goal setting.
- In the Us you need a written notification to make new rules or policies valid.
- Obligation to solicit comments from interested parties.
- Obligation to compensate the costs of groups intervening in agency decision-making.
- Informal obligation to accommodate goals requested by oversight bodies.
There are fewer constraints in Europe than in the United States.
- Constraints: implications for management.
Managers worry more about constraints than about outcomes and managers are confronted
with powerful interveners such as interest groups and cemented by the courts -> Managerial
focus on equity rather than efficiency.
Managers tend to reduce risks by way of SOP’s.
- Standard operating procedures.
- Red tape
- More constraints= more managers.
Chapter 8:
Topic of this chapter:
Issues in the management of people in public agencies:
- The hiring of employees for public agencies tends to be regulated by merit systems (=
deserved systems: you have to be qualified)
- Originally designed to prevent political interference and nepotism
-
•
Rules designed to ensure hiring of the most deserving (“meritorious”) candidates
• - Often: open exams
• Cf. civil service exams in India, PACE in U.S.
Consequence: managers of public agencies cannot usually hire anyone they want.
- Bureaucracies typically comprise of several pay grades, each of which comprises of
several “steps” (if you want to earn more you have to apply to a new (higher) job)
- Implication for managers
o After the last “step”, paying more requires promotion to another grade,
or the creation of a higher graded job
o “This means that managers spend much of their time memorizing verbal
abstractions, honing their skills at drafting flowery memos recommending
promotions, and arguing with position classifiers” (p. 143)
- Bonuses:
 Instrument for rewarding good employee performance
- Problem: evaluating employee performance may be very difficult: its difficult to
explain why someone gets a raise and someone else doesn’t
o e.g. what makes a good policeman?
- Implication for managers:
o They must make hard-to-defend distinctions among many people with
whom they must continue to work
- “ Solution”
o Give small bonuses to many
o “Everybody excellent”
- Dismissal (firing employees):
 Problem for managers:
- Difficult and time-consuming due to protective civil service rules
- US: only 0,2% of public employees is dismissed
- Netherlands: “it takes three years to get rid of someone”

“ Solution”
- Move people to “punishment posts” (make them doing work they don’t like,
either so they improve or give up and leave themselves.)
o Wet posts are positions were you still get paid
o Dry posts are positions were you don’t get paid
- Evaluation:
 Instrument for assessing (beoordelen) employee performance
 Implication for managers
- Employee resistance (they feel like they are branded “ unreliable”)
o Employees tend to prefer promotion on the basis of seniority
(Chapter 9:
- Problem for managers of public agencies:
 How to prevent unwanted operator behavior?
- Shirking (doing as little as possible)
- Subversion (Sabotaging the organization)
 (Material) incentives to enforce compliant behavior are few
 Use of existing incentives is constrained)