The Politics of Structural Choice: Toward a Theory of Public Bureaucracy
Abstract
Political scientists have long relied on organization theory as their foundation for understanding public bureaucracy. This approach makes good sense, but so far the payoffs have been rather limited. The surface problem is that organization theory, as the creature of sociologists, social psychologists, and, in more recent years, economists, has developed around explanatory concerns having little or nothing to do with government. The more fundamental problem is that political scientists have allowed this to happen by largely abandoning the field of organizations.
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Once an independent agency is created and certain public values are entrusted to it, undoing the delegation decision requires a future political majority.
“Once an independent agency is created and certain public values are entrusted to the agency, it will take a (future) political majority to undo the delegation decision (Moe, 1995).”
From The Guardian State: Strengthening the public service against democratic backsliding (2024) · cites this paper as Moe, 1995
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Political Trust and Trustworthiness
Levi, M., & Stoker, L. (2000) · Annual Review of Political Science · doi:10.1146/annurev.polisci.3.1.475 · Cited by 2,190 · see citing works
The Guardian State: Strengthening the public service against democratic backsliding
Yesilkagit, K., Bauer, M., Peters, B. G., & Pierre, J. (2024) · Public Administration Review · doi:10.1111/puar.13808 · Cited by 112 · see citing works
- Authors
- Moe, T. M.
- Corresponding author
- Moe, Terry M
- Venue
- Organization Theory
- Publisher
- Oxford University PressNew York, NY
- Published
- 1995-05-18
- Pages
- 116-153
- OpenAlex
- W4388147718
- Cited by
- 257
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 24 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 13 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 13
- FWCI
- 51.80
- Type
- book chapter
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Public Administration › Public Policy and Administration Research
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Public Administration and Governance
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Management and Organizational Studies
- Keywords
- state bureaucracy, organizational theory, government organizations
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