Doctoral Dissertation Research: Bureaucratic Subcultures

关于非洲治理或发展失败的报道经常被归咎于国家能力低下或腐败。过去200年的理论和经验证据表明，官僚主义是提高国家能力、改善集体主义倾向和减少腐败的最有效手段。发展性国家研究关注欠发达国家的社会经济发展，发现官僚作风是经济增长的绝对必要因素。然而，尽管人们普遍对非洲国家缺乏治理能力感到着迷，但人们对新国家官僚作风的起源知之甚少。大规模官僚主义的起源仍然不清楚，因为以前的学术无法从分析上区分导致官僚主义本身的条件和导致在已经官僚体系内保持一致的条件。本文以加纳为例，研究了非官僚国家中官僚理性的文化和制度基础。国际和平研究所认为，要了解非洲国家官僚机构的发展，必须将国家视为由许多利基组成的非单一参与者。在非统一的框架内，特定的机构利基可以培育官僚亚文化的发源地，并可以传播到其他机构。根据初步调查结果，假设这些利基市场中的官僚作风是借来的创新，主要是通过专业人员的流动转移的。国际移民和劳动力的逻辑相互作用，构成了哪些部门更有可能接收有官僚经验的返乡移民。这些行为者处于独特的地位，可以使官僚做法适应当地的社会环境。各种组织变量“包括集团在生产链中的自主性、协调性、规模、权威和地位”相互作用，在少数专心致志的行为者中培养官僚主义亚文化，这些行为者随后创造官僚规范和做法并将其制度化。一些变量具有时间依赖效应，例如，高度自治的部门有助于培育一种新生的官僚亚文化，但会阻碍其传播。依靠不同样本的信息者进行病例选择，调查员将从包括对照组在内的12个部门收集文件、访谈和观察数据。这项研究通过1)在团体层面提出新的有效性理论主张，以及2)在团体层面检验既定主张的有效性，从而促进了技术理解。这阐明了通过构成国家机构的行动创造州一级条件的过程。这项工作补充了发展状态历史研究的传统，考察了可以提供更一般化机制的中观水平条件。一种不依赖于行政部门的官僚变革手段，对于理解各州的变革是必要的，这些州的领导层是通过微不足道的妥协获得权力的。这项研究的报告将分发给加纳政府内的参与部委。这篇论文的发现将通过提供关于官僚效率的机构利基的更准确的信息，帮助完善国际捐助者的援助分配。

SES-0728059James MahoneyErin MetzNorthwestern UniversityOften accounts of governance or developmental failures in Africa are blamed on poor state capacity or corruption. Theory and empirical evidence over the last 200 years have observed that bureaucracy is the most effective means of increasing state capacity, improving collectivist orientation, and decreasing corruption. Developmental state research, concerned with the socioeconomic development of less developed countries, has found bureaucracy an absolutely essential element for growth. Yet for all the popular fascination with the lack of governance ability in African states, very little is known about the origins of bureaucracy in new states. The origins of mass bureaucracy remain unclear because previous scholarship has been unable to analytically distinguish conditions that lead to bureaucracy itself from conditions that lead to conformity within an already bureaucratic system. This dissertation research studies the cultural and institutional foundations of bureaucratic rationality within largely non-bureaucratic states, using the case of Ghana. The co-PI argues that to understand the development of bureaucracy in African states, the state must be viewed as a non-unitary actor comprised of many niches. Within a non-unitary framework, particular institutional niches can foster bureaucratic subcultures "origin sites that can spread to other agencies. Based on preliminary findings, it is hypothesized that bureaucracy within these niches is a borrowed innovation, transferred primarily through the circulation of professionals. Logics of international migration and labor interact to structure which sectors are more likely to receive bureaucratically experienced return migrants. Such actors are uniquely positioned to adapt bureaucratic practices to the local social environment. A variety of organizational variables" including autonomy, coordination, scale, authority and position of the group in a production chain" interact to foster a subculture of bureaucracy among a few dedicated actors who then create and institutionalize bureaucratic norms and practices. Some variables have time dependent effects, for example, highly autonomous departments help foster a nascent subculture of bureaucracy, but impede its spread. Relying on a heterogeneous sample of informants for case selection, the investigator will collect documentary, interview, and observational data from twelve departments, including control groups. This study advances technical understanding by 1) developing novel theoretical claims for effectiveness at the group level and 2) testing the validity of established claims at the group level. This illuminates the processes by which state-level conditions are created through the actions of constitutive state agencies. This work complements the tradition of historical research of developmental states by examining meso-level conditions that can provide more generalizable mechanisms. A means of bureaucratic change not dependent on the executive is necessary for understanding change in states whose leadership is empowered through tenuous compromises. Reports of this study will be distributed to participating ministries within the Ghanaian state. The findings of this dissertation will help refine aid distribution of international donors by providing more precise information on institutional niches of bureaucratic effectiveness.