Tradition Be Damned! The Army Corps of Engineers Is Changing

One' element of this anti-bureaucracy tradition is the assumption that established bureaucracies are inherently stagnant social institutions, protective of the status quo. They have been depicted as especially resistant to implementing new policies and procedures, and as lacking the capability to aggressively respond to emerging public interests.2 This conservative view of bureaucracy has largely eclipsed the alternative, that even mature organizations can be vehicles for change, instruments for implementation of new and experimental policies, dynamic in their operations, and willing to innovate and change within. In this post-Watergate era much of the traditional wisdom about bureaucracies has been called into question. For example, bureaucratic insulation from total control by the chief executive, long considered the Achilles' heel of effective administration, has shifted from vice to virtue. We suggest that the assumption that bureaucracies are inherently conservative institutions deserves similar reevaluation. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has consistently been depicted (by journalists, politicians, and academicians) as an eminently conservative, well-entrenched, and seemingly self-satisifed bureaucracy. Against this background, a review of the current state of the Corps provides a surprising view. The Corps is changing. It is actively pursuing new goals and adjusting its operating procedures to keep apace of a changing external environment. * Bureaucratic theory has generally assumed a life cycle to bureaucracies, positing that they become increasingly stagnant and conservative with age. The ability to sense the need for change, and to be able to change, are assumed to be qualities possessed only by young agencies. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has often been characterized as typical of a mature, stagnant bureaucracy both unwilling and unable to change. Yet an examination of the Corps indicates that such change is indeed occurring. This raises questions not only about the continued characterization of the Corps as a conservative agency, but also about the general theoretical assumption that mature bureaucracies are inherently stagnant

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