Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Instituições, Trabalho E Pessoas, Paulo Ferreira Da Cunha

Paulo Ferreira da Cunha

Os especialistas em doenças terminais sabem que ninguém tem saudades, quando abandona a vida, do trabalho que não fez. Tem saudades sim do tempo que não passou com familiares e amigos. A sociedade contemporânea, e algumas instituições "totais" estão a potenciar até ao expoente demencial a exploração e a despersonalização dos trabalhadores, designadamente proletarizando técnicos superiores e técnicos pensantes que, sem ócio criativo, deixarão de criar. É uma crise civilizacional, nada menos.

Emergence And Persistence Of Inefficient States, Daron Acemoglu, Davide Ticchi, Andrea Vindigni

Andrea Vindigni

We present a theory of the emergence and persistence of inefficient states based on patronage politics. The society consists of rich and poor individuals. The rich are initially in power, but expect to transition to democracy, which will choose redistributive policies. Taxation requires the employment of bureaucrats. By choosing an inefficient state structure, the rich may use patronage and capture democratic politics, so reducing the amount of redistribution in democracy. Moreover, the inefficient state creates its own constituency and tends to persist over time. Intuitively, an inefficient state structure creates more rents for bureaucrats than would an efficient one. When …

Black Tuesday And Graying The Legitimacy Line For Governmental Intervention: When Tomorrow Is Just A Future Yesterday, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Black Tuesday in October 1929 marked a major crisis in American history. As we face current economic woes, it is appropriate to recall not only the event but also reflect on how it altered the legal landscape and the change it precipitated in the acceptance of governmental intervention into the marketplace. Perceived or real crises can cause us to dance between free markets and regulatory power. Much like the events of 1929, current financial concerns have led to new, unprecedented governmental intervention into the private sector. This Article seeks caution, on the basis of history, arguing that fear and crisis …

An Implementable Institutional Reform That Transfers Control Of Government Spending Levels From Politicians To Voters, Philip E. Graves

PHILIP E GRAVES

Elected representatives have little incentive to pursue the interests of those electing them once they are elected. This well-known principle-agent problem leads, in a variety of theories of government, to non-optimally large levels of government expenditure. An implication is that budgetary rules are seen as necessary to constrain politicians' tax and spending behavior. Popular among such constraints are various Balanced Budget Amendment proposals. These approaches, however, are shown here to have serious limitations, including failure to address the central concern of spending level. An alternative approach is advanced here that relies on a Coase-like mechanism that transfers control of government …

The Death Of The American Trial, Robert P. Burns

Faculty Working Papers

This short essay is a summary of my assessment of the meaning of the "vanishing trial" phenomenon. It addresses the obvious question: "So what?" It first briefly reviews the evidence of the trial's decline. It then sets out the steps necessary to understand the political and social signficance of our vastly reducing the trial's importance among our modes of social ordering. The essay serves as the Introduction to a book, The Death of the American Trial, soon to be published by the University of Chicago Press.

Financial Control Of A Competitive Economy Without Randomness, Ioannis Karatzas, Martin Shubik, William D. Sudderth

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

The monetary and fiscal control of a simple economy without outside randomness is studied here from the micro-economic basis of a strategic market game. The government’s bureaucracy is treated as a public good that provides services at a cost. A conventional public good is also considered.

Helping Hand Or Grabbing Hand? State Bureaucracy And Privatization Effectiveness, J. David Brown, John S. Earle, Scott G. Gehlbach

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Why have economic reforms aimed at reducing the role of the state been successful in some cases but not others? Are reform failures the consequence of leviathan states that hinder private economic activity, or of weak states unable to implement policies effectively and provide a supportive institutional environment? We explore these questions in a study of privatization in postcommunist Russia. Taking advantage of large regional variation in the size of public administrations, and employing a multilevel re-search design that controls for pre-privatization selection in the estimation of regional privatization effects, we examine the relationship between state bureaucracy and the impact …

Postal Economics In Developing Countries: Posts, Infrastructure Of The 21st Century?, Jose Anson, Joelle Toledano, Laia Bosch, Justin Caron

Jose Anson, PhD

This book analyzes the challenges faced by the postal infrastructure in many developing countries at the dawn of the 21st century. On the one hand, market fragmentation, lack of regulatory framework, wrong pricing strategies and bureaucracy in a "just-in-time" world constitute the major hurdles to the development of economically viable and sustainable postal networks. On the other hand, the capillarity of these networks has shown a real comparative advantage in achieving financial inclusion of the less better-off, or facilitating access to export markets for micro, small and medium-size enterprises. The book provides advanced analysis in these areas, and concludes with …

Administrative Law Judge Decision Making In A Political Environment, 1991 - 2007, Cole Donovan Taratoot

Political Science Dissertations

Unelected bureaucrats make a broad range of important policy decisions raising concerns of accountability in a democratic society. Many classics in the literature highlight the need to understand agency decisions at stages prior to the final vote by agency appointees, but few studies of the bureaucracy do so. To this point, scholars have treated the issue of shirking as one where laziness and inefficiency are the driving forces. However, it is more realistic to expect that shirking comes in the form of ideological resistance by administrators. I develop a theory that the independence afforded to the bureaucracy is functionally comparable …

Academic Libraries As Feminine And Feminist Models Of Organization., Marie F. Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Because academic libraries are primarily staffed by women and are relatively autonomous entities in colleges and universities, they offer a unique model of workplace gendering and feminism. This qualitative, ethnographic study examined 3 small college libraries in 3 regions of the United States and explored issues of bureaucracy and gendering in these libraries. Feminist challenges to bureaucracy emerged in the areas of hierarchy, division of labor, competition and collaboration, decision-making, and communication. Feminine practice in the libraries reflected private sphere attitudes toward work (values of community, emotionality, and caring) and an affirmation of feminine roles in the workplace. The organizational …

Worker Participation In Diverse Settings: Does The Form Affect The Outcome, And If So, Who Benefits?, Rosemary Batt, Eileen Applebaum

Rosemary Batt

[Excerpt] This paper utilizes extensive surveys of workers in three occupational groups (network craft workers, semi-skilled office workers, and semi-skilled machine operators) in two very different industries (telecommunications and apparel)i to examine the outcomes of workplace innovations. Our central . question has two parts. First, what are the outcomes of off-line employee participation programs versus on-line work reorganization experiments? Second, who benefits from which type of innovation: employees, employers, or both? To answer these questions, we consider the effects of off-line versus on-line innovations on workers' satisfaction with their jobs, on their commitment to the companies they work for, and …

The Rhetoric And Reality Of Regulatory Reform, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

In January 2007, President George W. Bush stirred up widespread controversy by issuing amendments to an executive order on regulatory review adopted initially by President Clinton. The Bush amendments variously require agencies to issue written regulatory problem statements, assign gate-keeping responsibilities to Regulatory Policy Officers within each agency, and undertake analytic reviews before adopting certain kinds of guidance documents. Both legal scholars and policy advocates charge that the Bush amendments place significant new burdens on administrative agencies and will delay the issuance of important new regulatory policies. This paper challenges the rhetorical claims of obstructionism that have emerged in response …

Much Ado About Nothing?, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

Policy scholars and decision makers should be careful before concluding that President Bush's recent Executive Order 13422 will result in "paralysis by analysis." That lament has been heard about other changes to rule making procedures over the last seven decades, yet steady increases in the cost and volume of federal regulations during that time period clearly indicate that paralysis has yet to set in. Administrative procedures are embedded within a complex web of politics, institutions, and organizational behavior. Within that web, procedures are but one factor influencing government agencies.

Institution Of Bureaucracy And The Conflict In South Asia, Huma Baqai

Business Review

The role of bureaucracies is vitally important in the conflict-cooperation balance. Bureaucrats by definition are implementers of policy. This implementation also sometimes graduates to initiation of policies; therefore, it would be appropriate to say that although they are implementers, they also perform a variety of other functions which enhances their role and importance in the functions of the states, particularly bureaucratic states.

Peeling An Apple: Police Discretion From An Officer's Perspective In Terms Of A Definition, Education, And The Process Of Routinization, Andrew Evan Beech

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

This study of police discretion contrasts realworld application to academia and has found that an understanding of police discretion is fundamentally different between the two. From focus group methodology with six special agents in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a group dynamic emerged where five of the six participants associated police discretion with the peeling of an apple. The use of this analogy and metaphor in association to the discussion of police discretion uniquely frames the processes of professionalization and bureaucratization, thus alluding to Weber's theory of bureaucracy. It appears that professionalism within law enforcement structure(s) is flawed through a …

Exercising Control At Sports Rehab Network, Mark Mensch, Barry Armandi, Herbert Sherman

Organization Management Journal

This is a field-based disguised case describing how an entrepreneur who develops a successful rehabilitation business now must operate within the confines of a bureaucratic hospital setting. The CEO of the hospital who had ordered him not to seek any new ventures given the hospital’s cash flow problems was stymieing his entrepreneurial orientation. The case has a difficulty level appropriate for a junior level course in small business management and entrepreneurship. The case is designed to be taught in one class period (may vary from sixty minutes to one hundred minutes depending upon the course structure and the instructional approach …

Exercising Control At Sports Rehab Network, Mark Mensch, Barry Armandi, Herbert Sherman

Organization Management Journal

This is a field-based disguised case describing how an entrepreneur who develops a successful rehabilitation business now must operate within the confines of a bureaucratic hospital setting. The CEO of the hospital who had ordered him not to seek any new ventures given the hospital’s cash flow problems was stymieing his entrepreneurial orientation. The case has a difficulty level appropriate for a junior level course in small business management and entrepreneurship. The case is designed to be taught in one class period (may vary from sixty minutes to one hundred minutes depending upon the course structure and the instructional approach …

After The Moon: A Study Of Governmental Agency Decline And Nasa, Wendy Noel Whitman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The concept of decline has variously been applied to businesses, organizations, groups, and government (Levine 1978; Lorange and Nelson 1987; Whetten 1980). The term decline has also been used to describe various government agencies such as NASA. It is the theory put forth presently that decline in its traditional form in the literature does not apply to government agencies. Decline has been previously characterized as a time of decreasing or restricted resources, conflict, a decrease in innovativeness, a decrease in organizational size, a decrease in income or profits, and an organization's inability to adapt (Cameron, Whetten, and Kim; Weitzel and …

Fiat Money And The Natural Scale Of Government, Martin Shubik, Eric Smith

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

The competitive market structure of a decentralized economy is converted into a self-policing system treating the bureaucracy and enforcement of the legal system endogenously. In particular we consider money systems as constructs to make agents’ economic strategies predictable from knowledge of their preferences and endowments, and thus to support coordinated resource production and distribution from independent decision making. Diverse rule systems can accomplish this, and we construct minimal strategic market games representing government-issued fiat money and ideal commodity money as two cases. We endogenize the provision of money and rules for its use as productive activities within the society, and …

Managerial Reforms Within The United States Government, Jacqueline Michelle Townsend

Theses Digitization Project

This research project examines Presidential and Congressional attempts to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the United States government. It describes prior reform efforts and then focuses on President George W. Bush's management agenda.

Bureaucratic Influence In Congressional Roll-Call Voting, William Blair

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The focus of this dissertation is on one of the many relationships that exist between the bureaucracy and government: decision-making by elected representatives and the political influence of government employees on their decision-making. Specifically, it is with bureaucrats and the degree to which they may utilize political influence to create a disproportionate influence over government policy and decision-making in the United States House of Representatives. I argue that the inherent qualities of bureaucrats suggest that they are significant and influential constituency for representatives. They are an identifiable constituency to representatives, and have the means and opportunity to wield political influence. …

A Grounded Theory Of The Leadership Process In A Large Government Bureaucracy, George K. Kriflik, R. Jones

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper presents a theory of the leadership process within the particular substantive setting of a large government bureaucracy. The study organisation (labelled AGRO) possesses a dominant engineering culture and has a history characterised by non- tumultuous change. The research methodology of orthodox grounded theory was employed. The main concern of the participants was found to be a desire to close the gap between their current work reality and that level they perceived themselves to be capable of achieving. This was resolved through the basic social process of Minimising Attainment Deficit. Leadership aspects of charisma and vision where not evident …

Trends. Personnel Security In An Age Of Terrorism With Global Reach, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This Trends article discusses what an appropriate level of commitment to a security bureaucracy might look like.

Community-Based Targeting Mechanisms For Social Safety Nets: A Critical Review, Jonathan H. Conning, Michael Kevane

Economics

This paper interprets case studies and theory on community involvement in beneficiary selection and benefit delivery for social safety nets. Several considerations should be carefully balanced in assessing the advantages of using community groups as targeting agents. First, gains from utilizing local information and social capital may be eroded by costly rent-seeking. Second, the potential improvement in targeting criteria from incorporating local notions of deprivation must be tempered by the possibility of program capture by local elites, and by the possibility that local preferences are not pro-poor. Third, intended outcomes may be undermined by unforeseen strategic targeting by local communities …

Sharing Public Land Decision Making: The Quincy Library Group Experience [Includes First Three Items From Appendix A], Michael B. Jackson

Challenging Federal Ownership and Management: Public Lands and Public Benefits (October 11-13)

25 pages (includes illustrations).

Contains 1 reference.

Includes first three items from Appendix A.

Access To Capital And Technical Assistance, Richard J. Ward

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article summarizes and analyzes the views of select leaders in business, labor, banking, the government, and academia with regard to the constraints, obstacles, and recommendations to achieve economic growth in Massachusetts. The role of the state government in addressing these issues receives special attention. Access to capital and technical assistance had been regarded by many as the key constraint, particularly during the recession of the early 1990s. The author analyzes inconvenient government systems, bottlenecks, and bureaucracy as throttling the flow of capital to small-business entrepreneurs. The analysis concludes, however, that unless the state cum federal government finds ways to …

Leadership In Asia: Indonesia, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

Suharto's style of leadership in Indonesia changed significantly over the course of his time in office. In its later stages it was marked by a striking self-effacement.

The Labyrinth Of Otherness : An Essay On Authoritarian Acquiescence In Mexico, Mary Elizabeth Scott

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

In this inquiry, the attempt is made first to see Mexico through the eyes of Octavio Paz, who in his essay, The Other Mexico: Critique of the Pyramid, considers the development of modern Mexico from a cultural, historical and political perspective and secondly to interface a universal archetype with the Mexican experience. Regarding the first endeavor, it is Paz’s intention to bring his nation to a better understanding of its own peculiar dilemmas and to indicate changes of attitudes essential for salutary future progress. It is true that as Mexico’s renowned poet, essayist, playwright, editor and diplomat, Paz treats the …

Inter-Bureau Power Relations; A Sociological Analysis Of An Ideal Type Organizational Model, Gerald Wayne Potterf

Dissertations and Theses

The research problem of this thesis is an examination of inter-bureau power relations. A modification of Max Weber’s classical ideal type bureaucracy is the conceptual model to which sociological analysis is made. An empirical examination of the variance between the conceptual model and data collected in the field is analyzed in order to illustrate inter-bureau power relations. The analysis of the conceptual model is based upon three assertions. They are: (1) inter-bureau power relations are based upon coercion and not cooperation; (2) normative standards that are established by the administrators of the bureaucracy are differentially enforced; and (3) goals that …