Plan for Today: Organizational Process and Bureaucratic Politics

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Plan for TodayOrganizational Process and
Bureaucratic Politics

1. Finish introducing decisionmaking approaches.
2. Principles and case examples of
3. Organizational process theory.
4. Bureaucratic politics theory.

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Decisionmaking ApproachesOrganizational Process
and Bureaucratic Politics
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Decisionmaking ApproachesLimits to Rationality

• Personality disorders decisionmakers may be
  nuts!!
• E.g. Saddam Hussein as an egomaniac. George W.
  Bush as beholden to father or evangelical
  fanatic.

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Decisionmaking ApproachesLimits to Rationality

• Human cognition is limited.
• Human beings imperfect and biased in processing
  information.
• Examples
• Prospect theory people hate losses more than
  like gains.
• Jervis People overestimate extent to which
  others actions are a response to them.

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Decisionmaking ApproachesLimits to Rationality

• Huge complexity of decisions parceled out to
  complex organizations.
• Organizations act according to preset
  repertoires.
• Organizations occupied by ambitious individuals.

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Decisionmaking ApproachesTwo Branches of Theory

1. Organizational process theory. Focuses on the
   processes at work through standard operating
   procedures in government and even weapons
   systems.
2. Bureaucratic politics. Focuses on the clash among
   bureaucratic actors with conflicting interests.

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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).

(Models II III are decisionmaking approaches)
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Organizational Process TheorySetting in Context

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

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Organizational Process TheorySetting in Context

• 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)

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

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Organizational Process TheoryHow 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.

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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
LINEAR COMPLEX
TIGHTLY COUPLED Steel mill Nuclear power plant Nuclear weapons systems
LOOSELY COUPLED Department of Motor Vehicles Revenue Canada Universities
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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)

1. Ontology leaders of organizations within
   government are key actors, because occupy
   critical positions.
2. 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.

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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.

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Bureaucratic Clash over Iraq
vs
Ideologues oil interests?
Dept. of State diplomatic doves Military
only invade if can win
Dept. of Defense Civilians gung ho hawks
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Personal Biases in Model III(Dick Cheney and
Iraqi Oil)