Governing the Contemporary Administrative State

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Frontmatter

2. Introducing and Theorizing the Administrative State

   1. Frontmatter

   2. 1. An Introduction to the Administrative State

      Jarle Trondal

      Abstract

      State formation has historically been driven by needs to administrate war and taxation and as responses to domestic rivalries, in which bureaucratization and the rise of public governments have been by-products (Ansell & Lindvall, 2021; Grzymala-Busse, 2019; Kelemen & McNamara, 2022; Tilly, 1992). The Administrative State, originally coined by Dwight Waldo (1947) and as revisited within the current volume, emphasizes the central role of public administration in democratic systems of governance (March & Olsen, 1984: 741; Olsen, 2018). Seventy years ago, Dwight Waldo (1952) wrote: ‘If administration is indeed “the core of modern government,” then a theory of democracy in the twentieth century must embrace administration.’ Departing from the invitation and lessons of Waldo, this volume suggests that the contemporary administrative state has transformed its basic role in democracy and that a theory of politics needs to embrace the role of public administration. Responding to recurrent debates about the claimed divorce between political science and public administration (e.g., Kettle, 2022) as well as between theory and practice (e.g., Pollitt, 2000), this book aims to identify two major shifts in the role of the administrative state and ultimately how these feed into politics, as well as outlines a theoretical approach that accounts for dynamics of these shifts in the administrative state. The book argues and demonstrates that organization theory has two distinct contributions: First, it offers a bridge between political science and public administration by arguing that administrative structures fundamentally shape politics and ultimately policy outcomes; second, it offers a bridge between the academic communities and the world of practice by offering a design tool.

   3. 2. Theorizing the Administrative State

      Jarle Trondal

      Abstract

      Modern governments formulate and execute policies with consequences for society (Hupe & Edwards, 2012). Yet, governance takes place within and through bureaucratic structures. These structures provide the resource basis for governments to govern, broadly speaking, and also the foundation of modern political order and civilized political life (Fukuyama, 2014; Kristof, 2016). This chapter applies an organizational approach to account for how bureaucratic structures shape governance of the administrative state. It is argued that bureaucratic structures intervene in governance processes, thereby creating a systematic bias that makes some process characteristics and outputs more likely than others. An emphasis on bureaucratic structure presupposes a theory of organizations that assumes that ways of organizing may affect how organizations and their members think and act (Hammond, 1986; March & Olsen, 1983a, 1983b). Structural factors include bureaucratic structure, demography, culture, and location. In this chapter, however, the role of organizational structure is central to the argument. There are at least two important reasons for this choice: First, some of the most promising research findings are related to this variable. Second, contemporary scholarship lacks a comprehensive analysis of how organizational structures affect governance.

3. Outlooks on the Domestic Administrative State

   1. Frontmatter

   2. 3. Evolving Tensions in Public Governance

      Jarle Trondal

      Abstract

      How do government officials cope with times of turbulence in their everyday decision-making processes and how may robust public governance be explained? This question is pertinent since societal transformations and environmental turbulence evoke concerns about the robustness of public policy and administration (Adam et al., 2021; Christensen & Lægreid, 2009; Pollitt, 2008). Times of turbulence increasingly force governments to reform their organizational systems and routines (OECD, 2021; Weick & Sutcliffe, 2007). Contemporary public administration faces increased calls for change—as illustrated during the COVID-19 pandemic—triggering widespread debates on the legitimate and efficient role of public authority (Alvesson & Spicer, 2019; Ansell et al., 2017; OECD, 2021: 19; Olsen, 2017, 2018; Osborne & Gaebler, 1992; Pollitt, 2011; Rainey & Steinbauer, 1999; Riddervold et al., 2021; Sørensen & Ansell, 2021). This chapter shows that civil servants’ decision-making behavior are profoundly robust—as measured by its long-term stability. The chapter illustrates how stability serves as an enduring feature of public governance and how this is anchored in the organizational architecture of government systems. The argument is empirically probed by a longitudinal research design across half a century.

   3. 4. Public Administration Sustainability and Its Organizational Basis

      Jarle Trondal

      Abstract

      Whereas a vast body of scholarly literature suggests that public sector organizations are profoundly unstable in the long run (e.g., Ansell & Torfing, 2014; Ansell & Trondal, 2017), few studies offer longitudinal data. Following Chap. 3, this chapter also shows how public governance processes are profoundly sustainable. Whereas most studies of public governance rely on cross-sectional datasets, this chapter benefits from a novel dataset that spans 40 years and is thus able to probe the sustainability of public governance by using a longer timeframe. Theoretically, it is argued that public governance profoundly rests on its organizational fabric. The chapter thus adds to an organizational approach to public governance studies. These twin contributions are important since times of administrative reform and turbulence increasingly question the sustainability of public sector organizations and reliable public service delivery (e.g., Alvesson & Spicer, 2019; Ansell et al., 2017; Olsen, 2017, 2018).

   4. 5. Agency Governance in Integrated Administrative Systems

      Jarle Trondal

      Abstract

      What do public organizations do when subjected to conflicting influences on how to maneuver? What do government officials do when embedded in what Woodrow Wilson (1887: 221) described as ‘systems within systems’? This chapter conceptually outlines two possible responses and illustrate these with a large-N dataset on national government agencies embedded in two politico-administrative systems: The central administration of a unitary state and the administrative system of a quasi-federal order—the EU. When agency officials are thus subject to dual stimuli and influences, the question is how they are likely to respond. The relevance of the question is abundant since government agencies increasingly maneuver in situations where state sovereignty is under persistent stress (Ansell et al., 2017: 1; Easton, 1965; Gunnell, 2011; Miller, 1971). Mutual dependence, international cooperation, and delegation to nonelected bodies challenge nation states’ capacity to make democratically accountable decisions. These developments have spurred vibrant scholarly debate on the quality and conditions of political sovereignty (e.g., Dahl, 2000; Olsen, 2018; Rosenau, 1990). Much less understood, however, is the shifting role of government agencies and what role public administration plays in making sovereignty resilient (Egeberg & Trondal, 2015). As the public administration of states serves as core capacities for state building, the role of public agencies is key to understanding sustained state sovereignty (Genschel & Jachtenfuchs, 2014: 10). Putting public administration center stage in the study of democratic governance, Dwight Waldo (1952) emphasized the semi-autonomous role of public administration. Since Waldo, government agencies have become essential opportunity structures in advanced democracies (Orren & Skowronek, 2017; Vibert, 2007). Their tasks range from collecting and analyzing information, coordinating, and regulating. Organizationally, government agencies represent a vertical fragmentation of the polity and a supply of administrative capacities to solve regulatory challenges. They are thus organizational compromises between a need for political steering and requisite professional autonomy and technical regulation. Government agencies are organized at arm’s length from their parent ministries, ensuring agencies to operate relatively insulted from political steering but at the same time organizationally exposed to ‘capture’ from EU-level institutions and processes (Egeberg & Trondal, 2017).

   5. 6. Restructuring Public Governance in Integrated Administrative Systems

      Jarle Trondal

      Abstract

      Government ministries and agencies serve as vital components of the core executive of states and play a fundamental role in the democratic governing of modern societies (Dunleavy & Rhodes, 1990; Orren & Skowronek, 2017; Vibert, 2007). In recent decades, however, architecture of government has sustained significant transformation, notably by embedding government institutions and governing processes of EU member states in multilevel federal structures (Wilson, 1887: 221). In effect, government civil servants carry out a ‘double-hatted’ role in the multilevel executive order of the EU (EMEO) (Egeberg, 2006; Trondal, 2010). Serving as key actors in implementing and enforcing EU rules, government officials personalize the EMEO by working in national ministries and agencies while also partaking in European administrative networks, dealing with EU agencies and the Commission and implementing EU rules on national ground. Facing choice-architectures that are multiple, overlapping, and sometimes incompatible, it is crucial to study the way civil servants cope with potentially conflicting demands (Ansell et al., 2017: 1; Easton, 1965; Gunnell, 2011; Miller, 1971; van Dorp and ’t Hart 2019). Departing from the observations of Chap. 5, this chapter takes the analysis a step further by asking, if being part of an integrated multilevel administrative system can create systematic biases by mobilizing actors’ discretionary attention toward certain problems and solutions, structuring patterns of conflict and cooperation in certain ways, and enabling coordination and steering along certain dimensions rather than others? Complex choice-architectures may challenge conventional wisdom concerning the conditions for public governance in situations where events, demands, and support interact and change in highly variable, inconsistent, unexpected, or unpredictable ways (Ansell & Trondal, 2018; Rosenau, 1990). The chapter examines what choices government officials make when subject to contending influences and conflictual premises on how to maneuver, and tests how such choices are organizationally contingent. Parallel to Chap. 5, this chapter shows that being embedded in multiple institutional structures mobilizes pragmatist compound behavior among government officials characterized by compromises and abilities to navigate conflicting concerns in this multilevel structure. The study theoretically argues that primary and secondary organizational structures shape actors’ behavior in complex ways, but that secondary structures are far less significant.

   6. 7. Designing the Administrative State

      Jarle Trondal

      Abstract

      Times of turbulence call upon public organizations to adapt, anticipate, reform, and innovate. Public innovation has subsequently climbed to the top of government agendas with ambitions to make public administration flexible and agile (e.g., Ansell & Torfing, 2014: 3). Consequently, there is a growing body of literature on institutional absorptive capacity which tries to identify how institutions and systems respond to surprises, uncertainty, and errors (Hermus et al., 2020; Schulman, 2022). Studies also provide insights on how different institutional conditions enable individuals and organizations to respond to uncertainty (e.g., Castellacci & Natera, 2013). Despite this, organizational factors are seen as a frequent barrier to administrative reform (Cinar et al., 2019; De Vries et al., 2015: 157). By contrast, this chapter argues that organization theory might help to build a theory of meta-governance, which may also serve as a bridge between theory and practice (Selznick, 1996; Stoker, 2013; Trein et al., 2021). An organizational approach to meta-governance serves to link scholarship to the realities of practice, concerned not just with how things are, but how things might be (Gulick, 1937; Meier, 2010: 284). Given certain goals, such as innovation in public organizations, organization designers would be capable of recommending structural solutions. Examining conditions for meta-governance is pertinent since governments experience frequent criticism of existing organizational arrangements and calls for major reforms of the state (Emery & Giauque, 2014; Lodge & Wegrich, 2012; Torfing et al., 2012). Responding to a call to make the design orientation in public administration and policy studies more ‘designerly’ (Hermus et al., 2020: 36), this chapter outlines the contours of an organizational approach to meta-governance (Cinar et al., 2019; De Vries et al., 2015; Goodin, 1996; Lewis et al., 2020; Peters, 2018; Romme & Meijer, 2020).

4. Outlooks on the Multilevel and International Administrative State

   1. Frontmatter

   2. 8. Administrative Sciences and the Multilevel Administrative State

      Jarle Trondal

      Abstract

      The challenge of understanding social and political order is enduring in the social sciences (Elster, 2007; Waldo, 1992) with continuous disputes over ‘the legitimate role of democratic politics in society’ and ‘forms of political association’ (Olsen, 2016: 1–5). This chapter makes a plea for public administration scholarship and organization theory to understand the multilevel administrative state. Government institutions are essential components of contemporary democracies and play fundamental building-blox in the democratic governing of modern societies (Dunleavy & Rhodes, 1990; Orren & Skowronek, 2017; Wilson, 1887: 221). In recent decades, however, architecture of government has faced profound challenges by being increasingly embedded into multilevel federal structures. Yet, political order formation above and beyond the nation state is less studied and still poorly understood (Benz et al., 2021). This chapter discusses administrative integration in the EU and examines implications for political order. Political order consists of a relatively stable arrangement of institutions that are formalized and institutionalized. One implication is that government civil servants carry dual roles in a multilevel executive order that span levels of authority. Serving as key actors in implementing and enforcing EU rules on national ground, government officials personalize multilevel executive orders by working within national ministries and agencies while simultaneously partaking in European administrative networks and interacting with EU agencies and the Commission (Egeberg, 2006; Trondal, 2010). The chapter outlines a conceptual scheme of administrative integration and outlines an organizational theory approach to account for dynamics of administrative (dis)integration.

   3. 9. European Integration and the Administrative State

      Jarle Trondal

      Abstract

      This chapter presents an empirical study that shows the profound and rising role of public administration in the multilevel governing system of the EU. Chapter 8 outlined the structural elements of a European multilevel administrative system (MLA) consisting of strongly interconnected administrative bodies across levels of governance (cf. Bauer & Trondal, 2015). Administrative capacity building by stealth at the EU level is seen as challenging administrative autonomy among member-state governments (e.g., Genschel & Jachtenfuchs, 2014; Trondal, 2010). Studies also suggest how an organizationally heterogeneous EU sends a plethora of differentiated ‘signals’ to the member states, for example, concerning how the Council fuels strong member-state coordination and perceptions of national preferences, whereas the Commission fuels a circumvention of domestic political control and privileges non-majoritarian bodies (e.g., Egeberg et al., 2003; Trondal & Veggeland, 2003). This chapter makes two contributions to this volume:

   4. 10. Incomplete Contracting and Policy Influence

      Jarle Trondal

      Abstract

      This chapter contributes to studies of differentiated European integration, multilevel administrative integration, and the role of government agencies in policy uploading in the EU. European integration has woven EU institutions and processes into the political, administrative, and judicial life of European nation states. This observation led Olsen (1998: 2) to ask ‘what happens to organized political units when they become part of a larger unit?’. Studies show that different forms of integration contribute to differentiated institutional architectures in the EU and varieties of policy adaptation in EU member states and associated ‘third countries’ (Leruth et al., 2022). Whereas formal membership in the EU grants the state full access to EU decision-making processes, associated membership implies partial access without being fully integrated in the cycle of decision-making in the EU. Association agreements and ‘quasi-memberships’ have led to varieties of administrative integration across levels of governance (Trondal & Bauer, 2017). Concomitantly, associated EU members are overly reliant on administrative interaction with the EU administrative system (Egeberg, 2006). Arguably, bureaucratic structures are essential providers of political premises in democratic policymaking (Peters, 2018; Waldo, 1952). This chapter illustrates how administrative participation and integration is likely to affect policy uploading toward EU executive institutions.

   5. 11. The Autonomy of International Public Administration

      Jarle Trondal

      Abstract

      The ambition of this chapter is twofold: The first and most important ambition is to theorize conditions for autonomy of bureaucratic organizations. The chapter argues that the autonomy of bureaucratic organizations is supplied endogenously within these organizations and not merely conditioned by exogenous factors such as member states’ cost-benefit analyses (Lipsky, 1980; Wilson, 1989), domestic politicization (Hooghe et al., 2019), or socialization processes outside bureaucracy (e.g., Hooghe, 2007), to mention a few. One secondary ambition is to offer some empirical illustrations or footnotes on the autonomy among office holders in international bureaucracies.

   6. 12. The Organizational Dimension of Global Governance

      Jarle Trondal

      Abstract

      As outlined in Chap. 1, the rise of executive order through organizational capacity building and bureaucratic autonomization is seen as one key ingredient of state formation (Bartolini, 2005). Order formation above nation-state structures, however, is much less studied and poorly understood. Since the end of World War II, the rise of executive authority of IOs has increased capacity for global problem solving but has also challenged the sovereignty of nation states (Eilstrup-Sangiovanni & Hofmann, 2020; Haas, 1964; Trondal, 2010). Rising incongruence between collective action capacities, existing territorial boundaries, and the domains in which policy solutions are subject to executive authority obfuscate public problem-solving at both the national and the international level (Hooghe & Marks, 2016). As public administration at the international level increasingly serves as a backbone to emerging orders beyond the nation state, scholars have become increasingly interested in understanding the scope autonomy of international bureaucracies (Barnett & Finnemore, 2004; Bauer et al., 2019; Cox & Jacobson, 1973; Fleischer & Reiners, 2021; Haas, 1964; Heady, 1998; Herold et al., 2021; Knill & Bauer, 2016; Marcussen & Trondal, 2011; Ness & Brechin, 1988; Stone & Moloney, 2019; Thorvaldsdottir et al., 2021). The ambition of this chapter is twofold: The first and most important ambition is to theorize conditions for autonomy of bureaucratic organizations. Following the observations of Chap. 11, this chapter argues that the autonomy of bureaucratic organizations is supplied by endogenous organizational properties. One secondary ambition is to offer some minor empirical illustrations on the autonomy among office holders in international bureaucracies of the ‘Global South’ (see below). The chapter poses two research questions: To what extent are international bureaucracies featured by actor-level autonomy? To what extent is actor-level autonomy forged endogenously within international bureaucracies? Theoretically, two mechanisms from organizational studies are shown to matter in this regard: organizational specialization and organizational affiliation.

   7. 13. Conclusion

      Jarle Trondal

      Abstract

      This final chapter aims to do three things: It summarizes the overall contributions of the book and the key findings it offers. Secondly, the chapter reviews comparative advantages of an organizational theory approach to the study of the contemporary administrative state by also outlining complementary theoretical approaches that are readily available. Finally, the chapter looks ahead and outlines two avenues for future studies: one is to take temporality seriously by studying administrative institutions and systems under conditions of turbulence. A second is to break down methodological and theoretical nationalism by studying multilevel governance and the role of international administrative institutions and systems.

5. Backmatter