Today

1
Todays TopicsOrganizational Process and
Bureaucratic Politics

• Allisons framework (Models 1-3).
• Organizational process theory.
• Bureaucratic politics theory.

2
Organizational Process TheorySetting in Context

• Allison article shows differences among
• Realist or rationalist perspective (Model I)
• Organizational process theory (Model II) and
• Bureaucratic politics (Model III).

3
Organizational Process TheorySetting in Context

• Allisons 3 models
• Model I Rational Policy or Rational Actor Model.
  
• Outcomes of international politics as rational
  choices of unified national governments.
• States completely informed, utility-maximizing
  actors, and react strategically to events.
• Obvious identification with realist and
  neoliberal approaches.

4
Organizational Process TheorySetting in Context

• Allisons 3 models
• Model II Organizational Process.
• Ontology Governments as conglomerate of
  semi-feudal, loosely allied organizations.
• Causal argument Standard operating procedures
  imperfect information ? government organizations
  ? suboptimal or unintended policy outputs.

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Organizational Process Theory How do
Organizations Work? (Allison Model II)

• Primary responsibility for particular areas
  necessarily divided.
• Several organizations within government acting at
  same time, only partially coordinated, to respond
  to problems.

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Organizational Process Theory How do
Organizations Work? (Allison Model II)

• Governments define alternatives through standard
  operating procedures (SOPs).
• Each organization has limited set of SOPs.
• Orgs satisfice use first minimally acceptable
  SOP.
• More complex organization, more it relies on
  SOPs.
• Organizations slow to change SOPs to react to new
  situations.

7
Organizational Process Theory Sagans Depiction
of Organizational Failures

• Theory of normal accidents (Perrow) Errors and
  accidents will be normal occurrence in complex
  and tightly-coupled systems.
• complexity how many interrelated branches of
  activity coming together to create outcome?
• coupling how much time available between steps
  to fix problems?

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Organizational Process Theory Classification of
Organizational Systems/ Processes
9
Organizational Process Theory Classification
of Organizational Systems/ Processes

• Nuclear weapons systems and nuclear war plans are
  examples of complex, tightly-coupled systems.
• E.g. Organizational mistakes during Cuban Missile
  Crisis
• American U2 spy plane lost in Soviet airspace.
• SAC loaded nukes and conducted scheduled missile
  test.

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Bureaucratic Politics (Allison Model III)

• Bureaucratic politics regularized bargaining
  among players positioned hierarchically within
  government.
• Different from organizational process
  perspective not routines or failures of systems.

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Bureaucratic Politics(Allison Model III)

• Ontology leaders of organizations within
  government are key actors, because occupy
  critical positions.
• Causal argument Outcomes result of bargaining
  among competitive actors, rather than outputs
  from limited organizational routines.

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Bureaucratic Politics (Allison Model III)

• Overlap with organizational process theory Each
  department or division will have its own biases
  derived from set of SOPs.
• SOPs structure the game by pre-determining major
  players and how they can enter game.

13
Bureaucratic Politics(Allison Model III)

• Where you stand depends on where you sit.
• Players prefer solutions that serve
  organizations power, regardless of national
  security.
• Air Force air attack.
• State Department diplomatic negotiation.
• Defense Department civilians military action.
• Military officers dont want to enter war they
  might lose if attack, prefer preemptive.

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Bureaucratic Politics(Allison Model III)

• For Allison, bureaucrats act in their
  organizations interests, rather than for
  corporations or interest groups.
• But bureaucrats views coloured by personal
  baggage, outside interests, level of ambition.
• Here lobbyists or past careers can affect them.