Administrative Culture: Socialization and Bureaucratic
Behavior
I. Persons of the Week: Osborne and Gabler
Armstrong
and
II. Golden Oldies
III. Literary Map
IV. The Grand Synthesis
V.
The Concept of political and Administrative
Culture- A mixture of elite and mass culture
1. Three components of Culture:
a. Values
b. Beliefs
c. Emotions
2. Thesis- These can predict political behavior
3. Culture limits the action of citizens and
administrators, channels demands and excludes
certain possible policy options
4. The Concept:
a. People are tied to a unique web of historical
experiences
b. Assumption: From the general culture one
can extract out the salient aspects of that
culture that relate to political behavior and
administrative traditions
c. Organizational Culture is a sub-set of
broader cultural assumptions
d. In looking for evidence of a political or an
administrative culture we are looking for a set
of representative values for the people of that
society
1.
Many cultures: regional,
administrative, ethnic, professional,
etc. including hierarchy of values
2. These are effected by historical
origin, race, gender, education,
region, etc.
d. Three dimensions of Culture:
1. Cognitive Dimension- What people
know.
a. The set of historical and cultural
information to which any native of
the society is automatically tuned in
b.
All
societies
have
their
peculiarities which are part of their
political culture
2. The Evaluative Dimension- Not the is
but the what ought to be
a. What is good and bad
b.
U.S.- Military service good,
welfare cheaters bad
3.
The Emotive Dimension- The
emotional attachment that people have to
their political system
a. Symbolism and myth, anthems
and flags
b. Provides the strength of values
c. Nationalism- “My country right
or wrong”
VI. Socialization
1. Process by which political attitudes are
formed and maintained
2.
Acquisition of values, beliefs, and
knowledge about the political system on both
the individual and community level
3. Cultural transmission across generationsthe introduction of new generations to the
beliefs and values of the old
4. Can be a conscious or an unconscious
effort- as to how attitudes towards policy are
formed
a. Issue of Cultural EngineeringIdeological and explicit
=Revolutionary and
Developmental Societies
=Ideological and explicit
b. U.S. and Western Europe- mostly
indirect (Instrumental and implicit)
=often hidden within a pragmatic,
fairly loose value system
5. Socialization: Mass vs. elite (vs.
Organizational) socialization
a. Primary- Most important: occurs
within the family
b. Secondary- Everything else before
adulthood, school, peers, national
and regional- it is here that cultural
engineering occurs
c.
TertiaryProfessional
and
OrganizationalBegins
with
University. Issue how specialization
of bureaucratic elites is related to
socialization and education
6.
Things Learned:
evaluative or emotional
May be cognitive,
a.
Vague Patriotic image- eg. U.S.
paternal- President as "super-friend" and
father image (shattered by Watergate and
post-Watergate- See Woodward Book
Shadows)
b. Societal and community definitions
c. Personal identification with
government
Discussion:
John
Administrative Elite
Armstrong-
The
European
 Asynchronous Comparison
 Status, Role Theory and
Counter-Roles
 Socialization
and
the
Diffusion of Development
Doctrines
 The Prefect as Territorial
Administrator and role in
Development Intervention.
VII. Assumption: Political, Administrative Culture and
Socialization have a major impact on organizational
behavior.
VIII. Values and Motivation
1. Theory X vs. Theory Y
2. Maslov’s Hierarchy: Basic needs, social
needs and ego needs
3.
Application of Theories of Motivation
outside the U.S. Case Study (China, Korea,
South Africa and Brazil)
4. The Special problem of Collapsed states.