- The Oxford Handbook of Classics In Public Policy and Administration
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Contributors
- What Makes a Classic?: Identifying and Revisiting the Classics of Public Policy and Administration
- Herbert A. Simon, Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization
- David B. Truman, The Governmental Process: Political Interests and Public Opinion
- Robert K. Merton et al., A Reader in Bureaucracy
- Harold D. Lasswell, The Decision Process: Seven Categories of Functional Analysis
- C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite
- Charles E. Lindblom, “The Science of Muddling Through”
- Thomas R. Dye, Politics, Economics and the Public: Policy Outcomes in the American States
- Herbert Kaufman, The Forest Ranger: A Study in Administrative Behavior
- E. E. Schattschneider, The Semi-Sovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America
- V. O. Key, Jr., Public Opinion and American Democracy
- Michel Crozier, The Bureaucratic Phenomenon
- Theodore J. Lowi, “American Business, Public Policy, Case Studies and Political Theory”
- Aaron Wildavsky, The Politics of the Budgetary Process
- Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups
- Theodore J. Lowi, The End of Liberalism: The Second Republic of the United States
- Jack L. Walker, “The Diffusion of Innovations among the American States”
- Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States
- Graham T. Allison, The Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis
- George J. Stigler, “The Theory of Economic Regulation”
- Michael D. Cohen, James G. March, and Johan P. Olsen, “A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice”
- Anthony Downs, “Up and Down with Ecology: The ‘Issue-Attention’ Cycle”
- Carol H. Weiss, Evaluation Research: Methods for Studying Programs and Policies
- Jeffrey L. Pressman and Aaron B. Wildavsky, Implementation
- Oliver E. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications
- Hugh Heclo, “Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment”
- Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Service
- Richard Rose, Do Parties Make a Difference?
- John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies
- Mathew D. McCubbins and Thomas Schwartz, “Congressional Oversight Overlooked: Police Patrols versus Fire Alarms”
- Terry M. Moe, “The New Economics of Organization”
- Mathew D. McCubbins, Roger G. Noll, and Barry R. Weingast, “Administrative Procedures as Instruments of Political Control”
- Paul A. Sabatier, “An Advocacy Coalition Framework of Policy Change and the Role of Policy-Oriented Learning Therein”
- Fritz W. Scharpf, “The Joint-Decision Trap: Lessons from German Federalism and European Integration”
- James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why they Do it
- Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action
- Christopher Hood, “A Public Management for All Seasons?”
- Ian Ayres and John Braithwaite, Responsive Regulation: Transcending the Deregulation Debate
- Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones, Agendas and Instability in American Politics
- Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community: Empirical Foundations, Causal Mechanisms, and Policy Implications
- Peter A. Hall and David Soskice, Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
This chapter examines Michel Crozier’s The Bureaucratic Phenomenon, an in-depth study of public administration in France in which he challenged the view that overemphasizes the formal and rational organizational structure of bureaucracy. Crozier developed a relational theory of power and a systematic program that explored bureaucracy as an “organizational system.” The chapter considers the ways in which The Bureaucratic Phenomenon represents a classic in public policy and administration and other disciplines such as sociology, organization theory, and political science. It also discusses the evolution of citations from the first half of the 1980s and The Bureaucratic Phenomenon’s increasing prominence in research in the fields of organization and management studies. Finally, it analyzes Crozier’s intellectual background, his central arguments in The Bureaucratic Phenomenon, and the book’s contribution to contemporary research on bureaucracy.
Keywords: Michel Crozier, The Bureaucratic Phenomenon, public administration, France, bureaucracy, power, public policy, sociology, organization theory, political science
Philippe Bezes is CNRS Research Professor (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) at the Centre d’Études et de Recherches de Sciences Administratives et Politiques (CERSA, Paris, France). His academic interests are administrative reforms and bureaucracies, state restructuring, comparative public administration, institutional change, and public policy. He recently published Réinventer l’Etat: Les réformes de l’administration française (1962–2008) (Presses Universitaires de France, 2009) and is preparing a co-edited volume Public Administration Reforms in Europe: The View from the Top (with Steven van de Walle, Gerhard Hammerschmid, Rhys Andrews; Edward Elgar, forthcoming).
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- The Oxford Handbook of Classics In Public Policy and Administration
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Contributors
- What Makes a Classic?: Identifying and Revisiting the Classics of Public Policy and Administration
- Herbert A. Simon, Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization
- David B. Truman, The Governmental Process: Political Interests and Public Opinion
- Robert K. Merton et al., A Reader in Bureaucracy
- Harold D. Lasswell, The Decision Process: Seven Categories of Functional Analysis
- C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite
- Charles E. Lindblom, “The Science of Muddling Through”
- Thomas R. Dye, Politics, Economics and the Public: Policy Outcomes in the American States
- Herbert Kaufman, The Forest Ranger: A Study in Administrative Behavior
- E. E. Schattschneider, The Semi-Sovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America
- V. O. Key, Jr., Public Opinion and American Democracy
- Michel Crozier, The Bureaucratic Phenomenon
- Theodore J. Lowi, “American Business, Public Policy, Case Studies and Political Theory”
- Aaron Wildavsky, The Politics of the Budgetary Process
- Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups
- Theodore J. Lowi, The End of Liberalism: The Second Republic of the United States
- Jack L. Walker, “The Diffusion of Innovations among the American States”
- Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States
- Graham T. Allison, The Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis
- George J. Stigler, “The Theory of Economic Regulation”
- Michael D. Cohen, James G. March, and Johan P. Olsen, “A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice”
- Anthony Downs, “Up and Down with Ecology: The ‘Issue-Attention’ Cycle”
- Carol H. Weiss, Evaluation Research: Methods for Studying Programs and Policies
- Jeffrey L. Pressman and Aaron B. Wildavsky, Implementation
- Oliver E. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications
- Hugh Heclo, “Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment”
- Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Service
- Richard Rose, Do Parties Make a Difference?
- John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies
- Mathew D. McCubbins and Thomas Schwartz, “Congressional Oversight Overlooked: Police Patrols versus Fire Alarms”
- Terry M. Moe, “The New Economics of Organization”
- Mathew D. McCubbins, Roger G. Noll, and Barry R. Weingast, “Administrative Procedures as Instruments of Political Control”
- Paul A. Sabatier, “An Advocacy Coalition Framework of Policy Change and the Role of Policy-Oriented Learning Therein”
- Fritz W. Scharpf, “The Joint-Decision Trap: Lessons from German Federalism and European Integration”
- James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why they Do it
- Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action
- Christopher Hood, “A Public Management for All Seasons?”
- Ian Ayres and John Braithwaite, Responsive Regulation: Transcending the Deregulation Debate
- Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones, Agendas and Instability in American Politics
- Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community: Empirical Foundations, Causal Mechanisms, and Policy Implications
- Peter A. Hall and David Soskice, Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage
- Index