Politics versus Professionalism

The Effect of Institutional Structure on Democratic Decision Making in a Contested Policy Arena

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6295033
AutoresCarolyn Bourdeaux (Georgia State University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2007
Volumen18
Número3
Páginas349-373
Fecha de publicación2007-06-29
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Public Administration Research and Theory (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1053-1858 • E-ISSN: 1477-9803
EditorialOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/jopart/mum010
OpenAlexW2035398130
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas25
Referencias citadas9

Public administrators have long wrestled with the problem of bringing professional policy knowledge or technical expertise to bear on decision making in a contentious policy arena. A common solution addresses political conflict by developing institutions that buffer decision making from the regular influence of elected official. This article compares the effects of politically buffered decision making relative to politically influenced decision making by drawing on case studies of county efforts to site and develop landfills and incinerators in New York State. Some of these counties created a special district government known as a “public authority” in an effort to remove the “politics from decision making.” Others used their regular line agencies. The cases show that the public authority siting processes were less likely to accommodate political concerns and more likely to focus on research-based policy or technical criteria. However, this professional focus then made them vulnerable to political conflict and likely contributed to the high failure rate of the public authority projects. In contrast, the more successful line agency processes, influenced by elected officials' political concerns, tended to arbitrage away political conflict at the expense of professional or technical considerations—but these processes were more likely to succeed. One case provides a possible middle ground. Rather than arbitraging away points of conflict, the administrators aggressively pushed decision making back into the political process, making elected officials choose the policy options. This process required elected official leadership, education, and commitment and resulted in decisions that were professionally and technically informed as well as resilient to political conflict

Agency (philosophy · Democracy · Government (linguistics · Political science · Politics · Public policy · Public relations · Social science · Sociology · State (computer science · Evaluation and Performance Assessment · Policy Transfer and Learning · Public Policy and Administration Research · Law · Public Administration