What Motivates Bureaucrats?: Politics and Administration During the Reagan Years

by Marissa Martino Golden

Overview

"Every once in a while somebody has to get the bureaucracy by the neck and shake it loose and say, 'Stop doing what you're doing.'" —Ronald Reagan

How did senior career civil servants react to Ronald Reagan's attempt to redirect policy and increase presidential control over the bureaucracy? What issues molded their reactions? What motivates civil servants in general? How should they be managed and how do they affect federal policies? To answer these questions, Marissa Martino Golden offers us a glimpse into the world of our federal agencies.

What Motivates Bureaucrats? tells the story of a group of upper-level career civil servants in the Reagan administration at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, the Food and Nutrition Service, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The book reveals that most career civil servants were usually responsive to executive direction—even with a president attempting to turn agency policy 180 degrees from its past orientation.

By delving deeply into the particular details of Reagan's intervention into the affairs of upper-level career civil servants, Golden also fulfills her broader mission of improving our understanding of bureaucratic behavior in general, explaining why the bureaucracy is controllable and highlighting the limits of that control.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231106979
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	11/01/2000
Series:	Power, Conflict, and Democracy: American Politics Into the 21st Century
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Marissa Martino Golden is assistant professor of political science at Bryn Mawr College. She received the Leonard D. White Award from the American Political Science Association for the work upon which this book is based.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
1. Bureaucratic Responsiveness and the Administrative Presidency
2. A Framework for Analysis
3. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: Car Nuts and Caution
4. The Food and Nutrition Service: Limited Opportunity, Limited Resistance
5. The Civil Rights Division: Lawyers Who Love to Argue
6. The Environmental Protection Agency: A Tale of Two Reagan Administrations
7. Lessons from the Reagan Years
Postscript: Looking to the Future
Appendix A. Sample Interview Schedule
Appendix B. Sample Federal Employee Questionnaire
Notes
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

A conceptually sophisticated and thoroughly researched book that adds substantially to our knowledge of the character and the determinants of administrative responsiveness. . . . I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in the role played by bureaucracy in American government.

Political Science Quarterly

Taking as a case study senior career bureaucrats at the US Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies when the Reagan administration subverted their goals and gutted their budgets during the 1980s, Golden (Bryn Mawr College) examines how government workers both respond to and resist pressure from politicians. She considers the actions of political principals, historical legacies of agencies, and the personal attitudes and beliefs of civil servants in shaping behavior. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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