Political Science 290F – Syllabus

Political Science 290F
Organizational Dynamics:  Theories of Delegation and Bureaucratic Discretion
Spring 2006

Instructor:  Ethan Scheiner
http://psfaculty.ucdavis.edu/scheiner/
1264 Social Science & Humanities Building
escheiner@ucdavis.edu
Phone (530) 754-8176
Fax (530) 752-8666
Office Hours:  Tuesday 4-5pm, Thursday 1-2pm

Course Webpage:  http://psfaculty.ucdavis.edu/scheiner/Courses/Org_Dynamics/Course_Page.htm

Required Texts:

  • Brehm, John and Scott Gates.  1997.  Working, Shirking, and Sabotage:  Bureaucratic Response to a Democratic Republic. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
  • Huber, John D., and Charles R. Shipan.  2002.  Deliberate Discretion?  The Institutional Foundations of Bureaucratic Autonomy.  New York:  Cambridge University Press.
  • Wilson, James Q.  1989.  Bureaucracy:  What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It.  New York:  Basic Books, Inc.
  • Coursepack at Navin’s Copy Shop (231 Third St.)
  • Also, much of the reading will be on JSTOR.

Assignments:

  • Each seminar participant will write a total of 2 critical reviews (5-8 pages each) of weekly reading assignments.  I will discuss these more in class on the first day, but (1) we will determine on the first day of class who will cover each week’s readings and (2) these really are intended to be critical analyses, as if you were preparing a critical literature review for the theoretical chapter of a dissertation.  More information on these papers is available at the end of the syllabus.
  • Each seminar participant will present in class one of their papers (no more than 15 minutes).  Part of academic graduate training is professional preparation.  The idea behind the in class presentation is to gain experience doing exactly the sort of thing you would be doing if you were a discussant for a panel at a conference.  We will determine on the first day of class who will present on what day.
    • These presentations should be your own critical discussion of the material.
    • They should not be merely a set of discussion questions for the class.
    • They should be done in a professional manner, not using phrases like, “In my paper, I talked about X, Y, and Z.”
  • One person each week will be assigned to discuss the paper(s) written by class participants that week.  (See the end of the syllabus for more on this assignment.)
  • Each class participant will give a roughly 5 minute presentation during the “Summary” week, in which they discuss the *way* in which the summaries are put together.
  • Participants will have the option of either writing a “research” paper or a timed take-home final.
    • In general, the take-home final is the better option for people:  It is pretty good preparation for the organizations-related question on the department’s comparative exam.
    • However, you are very welcome to do a research paper.  It may work as preparation for what you ultimately wish to write your dissertation on or, as it was for me, it may lay the groundwork for future work that you do.
    • I would like to talk to each of you individually by the end of April about what you are planning to do (whether paper or final, and, if paper, what the topic will be).

Course Summary:
This course is designed to give graduate (and very advanced undergraduate) students an introduction to contemporary applications of organizational theory to political science.

The first set of readings will focus on some of the classics in the field.  However, unfortunately, the constraints of the short ten week quarter force us to turn almost immediately to much more recent work.

Political science applications of organizational theory offer analyses from a number of different directions, most especially the role of formal organizations (bureaucracies being the most obvious) in shaping political life.  At the same time, the literature also gives substantial attention to informal organizations and the role of norms and routines in organizations.

This course will give some attention to work within these traditions, but ultimately focuses on what is perhaps the most directly relevant direction within the organizational theory tradition in contemporary political science:  delegation.

Politicians are elected to represent “the people,” but, because of the complicated nature of policy making, politicians must inevitably delegate substantial discretion to (unelected) bureaucrats, who have greater time and expertise to focus on specific issues and implement policy.  A central issue for elected representatives who seek to delegate is how to maintain a fair amount of control over the work that is done by the bureaucracy.

This course therefore focuses on considering the features that help bring about greater political control of bureaucrats and those that offer greater bureaucratic discretion (or autonomy).

The class should be useful for people in any subfield.  I am officially a comparativist, but much of the literature from the class comes from the American politics tradition.  However, there is a growing set of comparativists working in this area as well.  People working in IR may have an interest insofar as much of a given country’s decision making is ultimately bound up in the decisions made by individuals working within groups under particular types of constraints and incentives.  And much of the work in the organizational theory tradition is clearly a direct descendant of classical and modern political theory.

The organizational theory literature is vast, so much so that this course is able to touch only a limited number of topics within it.  I strongly encourage seminar participants to consider other organizational theory lines that are not covered in the course in their final seminar papers.

Class Dates, Topics, and Reading

April 4:  Introduction and Course Set Up

April 11:  Flex Day – If class is held on 4/4, there will be no class on 4/11. 

April 18:  Summaries of the Literature, How to Write a Critical Literature Review, and How to do a Presentation
Each class participants will give a brief presentation discussing the below material for this day:

Meier, Kenneth J., and George A. Krause.  2003.  “The Scientific Study of Bureaucracy:  An Overview.”  In George A. Krause and Kenneth J. Meier (eds.), Politics, Policy, and Organizations:  Frontiers in the Scientific Study of Bureaucracy.  Ann Arbor:  University of Michigan Press.

Brehm, John and Scott Gates.  1997.  Working, Shirking, and Sabotage:  Bureaucratic Response to a Democratic Republic. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Chapter 1.

Niskanen, William A.  2001.  “Bureaucracy.”  In William F. Shughart II and Laura Razzolini (eds.), The Elgar Companion to Public Choice, pp. 258-270.  Cheltenham, UK & Northampton, MA, USA:  Edward Elgar.

Chang, Kelly H., Rui J.P. de Figueiredo, Jr., and Bary R. Weingast.  2001.  Rational choice theories of bureaucratic control and performance.”  In William F. Shughart II and Laura Razzolini (eds.), The Elgar Companion to Public Choice, pp. 271-292.  Cheltenham, UK & Northampton, MA, USA:  Edward Elgar.

April 25:  “Classics” in Decision Making and Bureaucracy  
Lipsky, Michael.  1980.  “Street-Level Bureaucracy:  The Critical Role of Street-Level Bureaucrats.”  Pp. 401-408 in Shafritz and Hyde, Classics of Public Administration.

Lindblom, Charles.  1959.  “The Science of Muddling Through,’” Public Administration Review 19: 79-88.  JSTOR

Cyert, Richard M., and James G. March.  1959.  “A Behavioral Theory of Organizational Objectives.”  In Shafritz and Ott, pp. 138-148.

March, James G., Michael D. Cohen, and Johan P. Olsen.  1972. “A Garbage Can Model of Individual Choice.”  Administrative Science Quarterly 17: 1-25.  JSTOR

Bender, Jonathan, and Terry M. Moe.  1985.  “An Adaptive Model of Bureaucratic Politics.”  American Political Science Review 79:755-774.  JSTOR

 

The following reading fits less neatly into the above group, but it is a good reading to get you thinking about politics as different from other types of management:

Allison, Graham T.  1980. “Public and Private Management: Are They Fundamentally Alike in All Unimportant Respects?”  Pp. 383-400 in Shafritz and Hyde, Classics of  Public Administration.

May 2:  Bureaucrats, Delegation and Principal-Agent Models
Niskanen, William A., Jr. 1971.  Bureaucracy and Representative Government.  Chicago:  Aldine-Atherton, Inc., pp. 3-42.
Kiewiet, D. Roderick, and Mathew D. McCubbins.  1991.  The Logic of Delegation:  Congressional Parties and the Appropriations Process.  Chicago:  Chicago University Press.  Ch1-2, 10 (pp. 1-38, 231-237).

McCubbins, Mathew D. and Thomas Schwartz.  1984. “Congressional Oversight Overlooked: Police Patrols vs. Fire Alarms,” American Journal of Political Science 28: 165-179.  JSTOR

McCubbins, Mathew D., Roger G. Noll, and Barry R. Weingast.  1987.  “Administrative Procedures as Instruments of Political Control.”   Journal of Law Economics and Organization 3:  243-277.  [USE JSTOR THROUGH MELVYL.]

May 9:  No class, but please read

  • Wilson, James Q.  1989.  Bureaucracy:  What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It.  New York:  Basic Books, Inc.  Chapters 1-9 (pp. 1-175).

May 16:  Bureaucratic Discretion and Autonomy (I)?

  • Moe, Terry M.  1984.  “The New Economics of Organization,” American Journal of Political Science 28: 739-777.  JSTOR
  • Brehm, John and Scott Gates.  1997.  Working, Shirking, and Sabotage:  Bureaucratic Response to a Democratic Republic.  Ann Arbor:  University of Michigan Press. Chapters 2-3, 9-10 (pp. 25-74, 173-202).
  • Epstein, David, and Sharyn O’Halloran.  1999.  Delegating Powers:  A Transaction Cost Politics Approach to Policy Making under Separate Powers.  New York:  Cambridge University Press.  Chapters 3-4, 9, and Afterward (pp. 34-85, 232-244).

May 23:  Information and Uncertainty

  • Moe, Terry M.  1990. “The Politics of Structural Choice:  Toward a Theory of Public Bureaucracy.”  Pp. 116-153 in Oliver E. Williamson (ed.), Organization Theory:  From Chester Barnard to the Present and Beyond.  New York:  Oxford University Press.
  • Moe, Terry M.  1990. “Political Institutions:  The Neglected Side of the Story.”  Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 6: 213-53.  [USE JSTOR THROUGH MELVYL.]
  • de Figueiredo, Rui J. P., Jr. 2000.  “Electoral Competition, Political Uncertainty, and Policy Insulation.” American Political Science Review 96: 321-333.  JSTOR
  • de Figueiredo, Rui J. P., Jr., Pablo T. Spiller, and Santiago Urbiztondo.  1999.  “An Informational Perspective on Administrative Procedures.” Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 15:  283-305.
  • Vanden Bergh, Richard G., and Rui J. P. de Figueiredo, Jr.  Forthcoming.  “Political Uncertainty and Administrative Procedures.” In Barry Burden (ed.), Uncertainty in American Politics. Cambridge University Press.  http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/rui/uncert4.pdf

May 30:  Bureaucratic Discretion and Autonomy (II)?

  • Carpenter, Daniel P.  2001.  The Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy:  Reputations, Networks, and Policy Innovation in Executive Agencies, 1862-1928.  Princeton:  Princeton University Press.  Chapters 1 and Conclusion (pp. 14-36, 353-367, and notes on pp. 371-381, 457).
  • Kato, Junko.  1994.  The Problem of Bureaucratic Rationality:  Tax Politics in Japan.  Princeton:  Princeton University Press.  Introduction and Chapter 1 (pp. 3-43).
  • Kato, Junko.  2002.  “Politicians, Bureaucrats, and Interest Groups in Japan:  Transformation from One-Party Predominance to Not?”  Pp. 314-328 in Gerhard Loewenberg, Peverill Squire, and D. Roderick Kiewiet (eds.), Legislatures:  Comparative Perspectives on Representative Assemblies.  Ann Arbor:  University of Michigan Press.chapters

June 6:  An Exemplar of Really Good Social Science Work

  • Huber, John D., and Charles R. Shipan.  2002.  Deliberate Discretion?  The Institutional Foundations of Bureaucratic Autonomy.  New York:  Cambridge University Press.

Work I considered assigning, but ran out of space and did not do so:

Various

  • Downs, Anthony.  Inside Bureaucracy.  Boston:  Little, Brown, and Company.  Especially chapters 8-9 (pp. 79-111).
  • Pierson, Paul.  2000.  “Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics.”  American Political Science Review 94:251-267.

Bureaucratic Discretion

  • Moe, Terry M.  “Control and Feedback in Economic Regulation:  The Case of the NLRB.”  American Political Science Review 79: 1094-1116.
  • Wood, B. Dan, and Richard W. Waterman.  1994.  Bureaucratic Dynamics:  The Role of Bureaucracy in a Democracy.  Boulder:  Westview Press.
  • Wood, B. Dan, and Richard W. Waterman.  1991.  “The Dynamics of Political Control of the Bureaucracy.”  American Political Science Review 85:801-828.
  • Wood, B. Dan, and Richard W. Waterman.  1991.  “The Dynamics of Political-Bureaucratic Adaptation.”  American Journal of Political Science 37:1-39.

Classics

  • Taylor, Frederick Winslow.  1916.  “Principles of Scientific Management.”  Appears in Jay M. Shafritz and J. Steven Ott (eds.), Classics of Organization Theory, 4th Edition.  Orlando, FL:  Harcourt, Brace, and Company.  Pp. 66-79.
  • Follett, Mary Parker.  1926.  “The Giving of Orders.”  Appears in Jay M. Shafritz and J. Steven Ott (eds.), Classics of Organization Theory, 4th Edition.  Orlando, FL:  Harcourt, Brace, and Company.  Pp. 156-62.
  • Barnard, Chester, I.  1938.  “The Economy of Incentives.”  Appears in Jay M. Shafritz and J. Steven Ott (eds.), Classics of Organization Theory, 4th Edition.  Orlando, FL:  Harcourt, Brace, and Company.  Pp. 101-111.
  • Selznick, Philip.  1948. “Foundations of the Theory of Organization,” American Sociological Review 13: 25-35.
  • Herbert Simon.  1946.  “The Proverbs of Administration.” In Shafritz and Ott, pp. 112-126.
  • Fayol, Henri.  1916.  “General Principles of Management.”  In Shafritz and Ott, pp. 52-65.
  • Gulick, Luther.  1937.  “Notes on Theory of Organization.”  In Shafritz and Ott, pp. 86-95.
  • March, James C., and Herbert A. Simon.  1958.  Organizations.  New York:  John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

Comparative

  • Ramseyer, J. Mark, and Frances McCall Rosenbluth.  1993.  Japan’s Political Marketplace.  Cambridge:  Harvard University Press.   Chapter 6.
  • Silberman, Bernard S.  1993.  Cages of Reason:  The Rise of the Rational State in France, Japan, the United States, and Great Britain.  Chicago:  University of Chicago Press.

Delegation in Presidential and Parliamentary Systems

  • Huber, John.  2000.  “Delegation to Civil Servants in Parliamentary Democracies,” European Journal of Political Research 37: 397-413.
  • Moe, Terry, and Michael Caldwell.  1994.  “The Institutional Foundations of Democratic Government: a Comparison of Presidential and Parliamentary Systems.” Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 150: 171-195.
  • Moreno, Erika, Brian F. Crisp, and Matthew Soberg Shugart.  2003.  “The Accountability Deficit in Latin America.”  Pp. 79-131 in Scott Mainwaring and Christopher Welna (eds.), Democratic Accountability in Latin America.  Oxford:  Oxford University Press.
  • Strom, Kaare.  2000.  “Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies,” European Journal of Political Research 37: 261-289.

Garbage Can

  • Bendor, Jonathan.  1995.  “A Model of Muddling Through.”  American Political Science Review 89:819-40.
  • Bendor, Jonathan, Terry M. Moe, and Kenneth W. Shotts.  2001. “Recycling the Garbage Can:  An Assessment of the Research Program.”  American Political Science Review 95:169-190.
  • Kingdon, John W.  1984.  Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies.  New York:  Harper Collins.
  • March, James, and Johan Olsen.  1986.  “Garbage Can Models of Decision Making in Organizations.”  In March, James G. and Roger Weissinger-Baylon.  1986.  Amibiguity and Command:  Organizational Perspectives on Military Decision Making.  Marshfield, MA:  Pitman.
  • March, James G. and Roger Weissinger-Baylon.  1986.  Amibiguity and Command:  Organizational Perspectives on Military Decision Making.  Marshfield, MA:  Pitman.
  • Olsen, Johan P.  2001.  “Garbage Cans, New Institutionalism, and the Study of Politics.”  American Political Science Review 95:191-198.

Hierarchy

  • Daniel Carpenter.  “Adaptive Signal Processing, Hierarchy, and Budgetary Control in Federal Regulation,” American Political Science Review, 90 (2) (June 1996): 283-302.
  • Miller, Gary.  1992.  Managerial Dilemmas:  The Political Economy of Hierarchy.  New York:  Cambridge University Press.  Especially Intro and Part I (pp. 1-74).
  • Kaufman, Herbert.  1960.  The Forest Ranger:  A Study in Administrative Behavior.  Baltimore:  Johns Hopkins Press.

Information and Uncertainty

  • Bawn, Kathleen. 1995.  “Political Control Versus Expertise: Congressional Choices about Administrative Procedures,” American Political Science Review 89:62-73.
  • Epstein, David, and Sharyn O’Halloran.  1994.  “Administrative Procedures, Information, and Agency Discretion.”  American Journal of Political Science 38: 697-722.
  • Huber, John D. and Arthur Lupia.  2001.  “Cabinet Instability and Delegation in Parliamentary Democracies.” American Journal of Political Science 45(1):18-32.

IR and Military

  • Allison, Graham T.  1971.  Essence of Decision:  Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis.  New York:  Harper Collins.
  • Finnemore, Martha.  1996.  National Interests in International Society.  Ithaca:  Cornell University Press.  Chapters 1 and 2.
  • George, Alexander.  1980.  Presidential Decision Making in Foreign Policy: The Effective Use of Information and Advice.  Boulder: Westview Press.
  • March, James G. and Roger Weissinger-Baylon.  1986.  Amibiguity and Command:  Organizational Perspectives on Military Decision Making.  Marshfield, MA:  Pitman.
  • Posen, Barry R.  1984.  The Sources of Military Doctrine:  France, Britain, and Germany Between the World Wars.  Ithaca:  Cornell University Press.  Especially Chapter 2.
  • Sagan, Scott D.  1994.  “The Perils of Proliferation:  Organization Theory, Deterrence Theory, and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons.”  International Security 18:66-107.
  • Wood, B. Dan, and Jeffrey S. Peake.  1998.  “The Dynamics of Foreign Policy Agenda Setting.”  American Political Science Review 92:173-184.

Organizational Failure

  • Perrow, Charles.  1999.  Normal Accidents:  Living with High-Risk Technologies.  Princeton:  Princeton University Press.  [Especially Chapter 1, “Normal Accident at Three Mile Island.”]
  • Perrow, Charles.  1990.  The AIDS Disaster:  The Failure of Organizations in New York and the Nation.  New Haven:  Yale University Press.

Principal-Agent Models

  • Jensen, Michael C., and William H. Meckling.  1976.  “Theory of the Firm:  Managerial Behavior, Agency Costs and Ownership Structure.”  In Shafritz and Ott, pp. 331-339.
  • Alchian, Armen A., and Harold Demsetz. 1972.  “Production, Information Costs, and Economic Organization.”  American Economic Review 62:777-795.

Writing Critical Essays and Acting as Discussant
POL290F – Scheiner

The Papers

  • Comment in a critical fashion on the reading for a given week.
  • More specifically, this means discussing the central question(s) raised by the readings and discussing the specific readings critically.
    • Most generally, this will mean simply stating that X is the central question that the readings attempt to explain and then demonstrate how they do and do not help address this question.  This is the approach I would generally recommend.
    • However, other approaches are legitimate.  For example, you might introduce a particular empirical case (not discussed specifically by the week’s readings) to which that week’s literature ought to speak and demonstrate how the week’s readings do or do not explain it.  In reality, this approach is much more difficult and I only recommend doing this if you and I first discuss how you would approach it.

Format

  • Be sure to proofread your papers, check for spelling, etc.  Again, much of the point of exercises like these is to become fully professionalized.
  • Papers should be 5-8 pages double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12-point font, 1 inch margins, with all pages numbered, parenthetical citations, and a bibliography.
    • Again, ALL PAGES NUMBERED, please.
  • Please put your name, the date of the class day the work will be discussed, that week’s topic title, my name and the name of the course on a separate title page.

How to turn in

  • Please turn in papers to the whole class by email pol196b-w06@ucdavis.edu by 6pm the day before the assigned class session.  Please don’t turn them in late.  These papers will be part of the assigned reading for each week and will be the foundation for class discussion.  Please label your paper (both the file name and the subject heading):  POL196B – [YOUR NAME], Wk [WHATEVER WEEK # THAT THE PAPER IS ASSIGNED].

Tips/Expectations on the papers

  • Be sure to address the question, what is the reading this week all roughly about?
  • Think of these essays as in many ways like writing the literature review section of your dissertation.  You will need to explain why these articles are important and what is problematic in them (especially for the issue at hand).  The “Summary” reading week should give you a number of tips on this.
  • Make sure to have an introductory paragraph that makes EXPLICIT what you are arguing in the paper.
  • What are the strengths and weaknesses of each of the pieces?  What do each of the articles contribute to our understanding of the issue under consideration and what is problematic about each?
    • However, try to weave the strengths and weaknesses of the different articles into a larger discussion of the topic as a whole.  Your aim here is not simply to list strengths and weaknesses of each article, but rather to discuss them as a group and how their strengths are important to the larger discussion and how their weaknesses detract from it.
    • Especially good to answer the following two questions:
      • How compelling are the readings in terms of their theoretical analysis?
      • How compelling is their use of empirics?
    • If you believe that the authors’ work is not fully compelling for empirical reasons (or you believe that alternative arguments are potentially quite compelling), discuss what sorts of tests would better make their case.
    • Make sure you explain the relevance of your criticisms to the research question and/or a given author’s conclusions.
    • For example, if you criticize an author for examining only a limited number of country cases, would including other cases undermine the author’s argument, or would it merely extend the author’s argument to a different domain?  Or would it have some other effect?  If you think the author should examine other cases, what cases should they have used?  And how would these other cases affect the likely conclusions of the author?
    • It is fine to ignore one or two readings if they really don’t fit with the rest or to give unequal amounts of attention to different readings (but you probably just add a very brief appendix type note that explains this).

“Don’ts”

  • Don’t  just summarize the reading:  This entire department very much frowns on essays that focus on summarization of course reading.  It makes me very unhappy.  You should only be summarizing (a) if it is no more than a sentence or two and (b) the summary should be done only to help explain what is so important or problematic in the work you are discussing.  It should not be done simply for the sake of summary.
  • Don’t focus your discussion on how this raises serious questions about democracy.  The power of bureaucracies constantly raises questions about democracy.  Focusing your arguments on this particular point is simply taking the easy way out.

Acting as Discussant

  • One class participant per week will discuss the paper(s) written by class participants.
  • This presentation should run 5-10 minutes.
  • In your discussion, you should answer the following questions:
    • What is the core argument of the paper?
    • What are the strengths of the paper?
    • Do you believe that the paper examines an important question in the reading?  (Discuss why or why not.)  Is something important missing?
    • How could the paper have been improved?  (Here, you should address the analysis of the course materials and the way in which the paper is written/structured.)
  • After this presentation, we will discuss the discussant’s ideas about the paper.