Inside Bureaucracy

by Anthony Downs

Bureaus are among the most important institutions in every part of the world. Not only do they provide employment for a very significant fraction of the world's population, but they also make critical decisions that shape the economic, educational, political, social, moral, and even religious lives of nearly everyone on earth. This book develops a useful theory of bureaucratic decision making. The theory will enable analysts to predict at least some aspects of bureau behavior accurately, and to incorporate bureaus into a more generalized theory of social decision making--particularly one relevant to democracies. It would be impossible to solve all the problems involved in this immense and complex field; however, this book will solve many, and create a framework upon which solutions to still more may be built by other theorists.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics

292 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1987

Reviews

[Steven Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice think piece by the eminent social scientist, Anthony Downs. There are a large number of intriguing ideas here, not aleways tied together. For instance, he adopts the concept of territoriality from the study of animal behavior and applies it to jousting among government agencies, as they "turf." Another intriguing idea is the life cycle of agencies, assessing how they change over time--from their origins onward.

A thought provoking work indeed!

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Old-school rational-actor political economic analysis of how bureaucracies (defined as a large organization primarily staffed by full-time workers who are primarily hired through some assessment basis, and whose outputs are generally not evaluated through the market mechanism) make decisions. The typologies of actors within bureaus are probably too broad and imprecise to be especially analytically useful, but I think the general points about the differing information possessed by members of a bureau and their accordingly varying motivations and objectives are very important. The chapters on (formal and informal) internal communication (and efforts to overcome or circumvent communication barriers), and the challenge of generating new information or alternative policies were probably the most interesting. The point about “non-monetary pricing”, by which bureaus impose costs in order to ration the goods or services they produce when they are barred from charging, was also quite insightful. Entirely theory-based, but still a useful framework in thinking about how organizations operate, and very crisply written and argued.

[Bryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

a classic