Autonomy in Action
Bureaucratic Competition Among Functional Rivals in Denver Water Politics
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4074032 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Brian A Ellison (Missouri State University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1995 |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue | 1-2 |
| Pages | 25-48 |
| Publication date | 1995-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Review of Policy Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1541-132X • E-ISSN: 1541-1338 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1541-1338.1995.tb00620.x |
| OpenAlex | W2109437871 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 18 |
Ascribing motivation to bureaucratic behavior has been a longstanding problem in public policy scholarship. Most examinations of bureaucratic motivation explore two competing theories. Some contend that government managers are primarily motivated by the quest for more resources, widely known as aggrandizement. Others assert that government managers are preoccupied with organizational maintenance and the desire for autonomy. Scholars look for evidence of agency competition in situations where functional rivalry exists as a means of examining these theories. Recently, Kunioka and Rothenberg (1993) concluded that government managers in the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service were more concerned with agency autonomy than with aggrandizement because they did not show competitive inclinations. This article seeks to demonstrate that government managers in autonomous agencies reveal competitive behaviors when core tasks are threatened. It also presents an analytical framework based on three overt behaviors that can be used to examine autonomy in action. The analytical framework is applied to the Denver Water Board's behavior in the context of Colorado water politics
Autonomy · Bureaucracy · Economics · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Rivalry · Scholarship · Social science · Sociology · Law · Local Government Finance and Decentralization · Policy Transfer and Learning · Public Administration · Public Policy and Administration Research · Ecology
The Impact of International Trade and Environmental Agreements on National Environmental Law and Regulation
People, Politics, Participation, and Place
Interorganizational coordination in oil spill emergency response
Federal and State Public Forest Administration in the New Millennium
The Sky’s no Limit
New Thinking about Water Management
Inside Bureaucracy
Cadillac Desert
Muddy Waters
The Politics of Bureaucratic Competition
A Conceptual Framework for Analyzing Bureaucratic Politics and Autonomy
Can Organizations Change? Environmental Protection, Citizen Participation, and the Corps of Engineers
The investigators
The Investigators
Denver's Mayor Speer
The Queen City
Bureaucracy and Representative Government
The New Federalism Game
Empires in the Sun
The Last Water Hole in the West
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,24 |
| Citation span | 2001 - 2025 (25) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |