Theory and Inference in the Study of Bureaucracy: Micro- and Neoinstitutionalist Foundations of Choice

In: Journal of public administration research and theory, Band 11, Heft 1, S. 3-27

Abstract

This article focuses on the role of scientific inference in the study of bureaucracy. Its focus, in particular, is on the micro- & neoinstitutional foundations of choice. The context for scientific inference is that offered by King, Keohane, & Verba (KKV) in their book, Designing Social Inquiry. The article notes that KKV essentially stipulates an idea of normal scientific inquiry to allow for the evaluation of competing empirical claims. Two fundamental research programs, those of bounded rationality & rational choice, are assessed for their theoretical & scientific contributions to the study of bureaucracy. The latest turns in the bounded rationality program for organizational behavior have moved to some degree from that program's roots in cognitive psychology to a form of cultural anthropology, while rational choice models have become more sensitized to information costs. Thus, some work originating in the rational choice mode has come to borrow significantly from ideas within the bonded rationality paradigm. Rational choice models also tend to emphasize principal-agent relationships, the most interesting aspects of which, however, are mainly rooted in the peculiarities of American political institutions. Although neoinstitutionalist rational choice theories of bureaucracy have developed a clear & compelling normal science program allowing disputes to be taken out of the realm of theology & into the realms of specification, measurement, & other issues associated with empirical claims, evidence also persists to suggest limits to economic theories of organization & a role for leadership & norms. 67 References. Adapted from the source document.