What Do Bureaucrats Like Doing? Bureaucratic Preferences in Response to Institutional Reform

摘要

How do bureaucrats respond to administrative reform in relation to their overall administrative goals? The authors, Francesca Gains and Peter John of the University of Manchester, test the bureau-shaping thesis-that bureaucrats' preferences for certain kinds of roles and tasks motivate their support for bureau reform. Drawing on attitudinal and behavioral data from a survey of local government officials in England, the findings underscore how different kinds of bureaucrats with varying interests and motivations sort themselves into job types. Their preferences drive support for reform that, in turn, broadly strengthens the executive structure of English local government. The authors offer a more nuanced portrayal of bureaucratic preferences in line with the bureau-shaping model. A key conclusion: political principals need improved empirical awareness of bureaucratic preferences when undertaking new public institutional reforms.