The Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy: Reputations, Networks, and Policy Innovation in Executive Agencies, 1862-1928. - Couverture souple

Carpenter, Daniel P.

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0691070105 ISBN 13 : 9780691070100

Editeur : Princeton University Press, 2001

Synopsis

Until now political scientists have devoted little attention to the origins of American bureaucracy and the relationship between bureaucratic and interest group politics. In this pioneering book, Daniel Carpenter contributes to our understanding of institutions by presenting a unified study of bureaucratic autonomy in democratic regimes. He focuses on the emergence of bureaucratic policy innovation in the United States during the Progressive Era, asking why the Post Office Department and the Department of Agriculture became politically independent authors of new policy and why the Interior Department did not. To explain these developments, Carpenter offers a new theory of bureaucratic autonomy grounded in organization theory, rational choice models, and network concepts. According to the author, bureaucracies with unique goals achieve autonomy when their middle-level officials establish reputations among diverse coalitions for effectively providing unique services. These coalitions enable agencies to resist political control and make it costly for politicians to ignore the agencies' ideas.Carpenter assesses his argument through a highly innovative combination of historical narratives, statistical analyses, counterfactuals, and carefully structured policy comparisons. Along the way, he reinterprets the rise of national food and drug regulation, Comstockery and the Progressive anti-vice movement, the emergence of American conservation policy, the ascent of the farm lobby, the creation of postal savings banks and free rural mail delivery, and even the congressional Cannon Revolt of 1910.

A propos du livre

Biographie de l'auteur :

Daniel P. Carpenter is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan. He has also taught at Princeton University and the University of Chicago. This book is based upon his dissertation, which won the 1998 Harold Lasswell Award of the American Political Science Association, and includes a chapter that won the 1995 Herbert Kaufman Award of the APSA.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Princeton University Press
• Date d'édition: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0691070105
• ISBN 13: 9780691070100
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 500