Administrative styles and the limits of administrative reform: a neo-institutional analysis of administrative culture.

Howlett, Michael

Abstract: Students of organizational behaviour have always been concerned with understanding the manner in which complex organizations--including systems of public administration--tend to create distinctive organizational cultures and the impact these cultures have on their activities and outputs, including their prospects for reform. Recently, neo-institutional accounts of social and political life have provided a new entry point to the analysis of administrative cultures and administrative reform. For neo-institutionalists, the institutional structure of an organization creates a distinct pattern of constraints and incentives for state and societal actors that define and structure actors' interests and channel their behaviour. The interaction of these actors generates a particular administrative logic and process, of "culture." However, since institutional structures vary, a neo-institutional perspective suggests that there will be many different kinds of relatively long-lasting patterns of administrative behaviour, each pattern being defined by the particular set of formal and informal institutions, rules, norms, traditions and values, and many different factors affecting the construction and deconstruction of each pattern. Following this neo-institutional logic, this article develops a multilevel, "nested" model of administrative styles and applies it to patterns of convergence and divergence in administrative reform in many jurisdictions over the past several decades.

Sommaire: Les etudiants en comportement organisationnel ont toujours ete soucieux de comprendre la maniere dont les organismes complexes--y compris les systemes d'administration publique--ont tendance a creer des cultures organisationnelles particulieres et l'impact qu'ont ces cultures sur leurs activites et resultats, y compris leurs perspectives de reformes. Recemment, les compres rendus neo-institutionnels de la vie sociale et politique ont fourni une nouvelle ouverture a l'analyse des cultures et de la reforme administratives. Pour les neo-institutionnalistes, la structure institutionnelle d'un organisme cree un modele distinct de contraintes et d'encouragements pour les acteurs de la societe et de l'Etat qui definissent et structurent les interets des acteurs et canalisent leur comportement. L'interaction de ces acteurs genere une logique et un processus administratifs particuliers, que l'on appelle << culture >>. Cependant, comme les structures institutionnelles varient, une perspective neo-institutionnelle laisse entendre qu'il y aura de nombreuses sortes de modeles de comportement administratif relativement durables: chaque modele est defini par l'ensemble particulier d'institutions, de regles, de normes, de traditions et de valeurs formelles et informelles qui le composent, ainsi que de nombreux differents facteurs influant sur la construction et la deconstruction de chaque modele. En suivant cette logique neo-institutionnelle, le present article elabore un modele de styles administratifs a differents niveaux et l'applique aux modeles de convergence et de divergence en reforme administrative dans de nombreuses juridictions au cours des dernieres decennies.

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Public administration in comparative perspective--understanding late 20th-century reform efforts

Many jurisdictions throughout the world have over the past several decades seen many efforts at administrative reform. (1) These efforts appear to be linked, in that reforms have occurred in many countries at about the same time and with generally similar content. As the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Public Management Committee (PUMA) put it in their 1995 summary document "Governance in Transition," "OECD countries' reform strategies have many points in common. They are aimed at both improving performance of the public sector and re-defining its role in the economy. Key reform thrusts are: a greater focus on results and increased value for money, devolution of authority and enhanced flexibility, strengthened accountability and control, a client- and service-orientation, strengthened capacity for developing strategy and policy, introducing competition and other market elements and changed relationships with other levels of government." (2)

The Public Management Committee argued that, taken together, these elements constituted a "paradigm shift" in administrative thinking. However, it also noted that "there is no single model for reform," and "differences among countries can be seen in emphasis and take-up of particular reforms: Certainly countries differ at the level of individual reforms. They place different emphasis on different aspects and implement reforms at varying speeds. The rate of take-up of reforms shows considerable variation among countries: not all countries are reforming the areas described.... [L]ikewise, there are several important divergences in reform objectives. Some countries, for example, have set a reduction in the size of the public sector as a specific objective, while others put more stress on improving its performance and strengthening its role." (3) That, administrative reforms have not been identical, nor have they always addressed the same aspects of administrative structure and performance. The same initiatives have not always succeeded in different jurisdictions, nor have their implementation always yielded the same results. (4) While bodies like the OECD are still willing to argue that "clear patterns of change" have emerged, they have also been forced to concede that considerable divergences exist in the methods, practices and outcomes of reform efforts in different countries.

This finding requires analysis. (5) As this wave of reforms first occurred in western Europe and the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s, the distinct tendency was to assume a greater trend towards convergence than is presently acknowledged and to attribute this to the triumph of ideological factors such as neo-liberalism, first in the most advanced industrial countries, then spreading through international institutions to the less developed ones. (6) Central to this argument was the assertion that neo-liberal preferences for small states and enhanced markets were codified in a new administrative paradigm, the "new public management" (NPM), that contained a series of prescriptions for administration--privatization, contracting-out, downsizing and regulatory reform--whose successful implementation was the subject of the administrative reforms of the period in question. (7)

In many countries, these kinds of reforms are still often attributed to, or blamed on, the notions in NPM thinking, (8) but the role of administrative ideas is only one of a possible set of factors explaining such changes, (9) and there are serious questions as to the coherency of NPM theory and hence its ability to drive administrative change. That is, multiple efforts at reform in different countries, the patchy record of success and failure, and the contradictory efforts to adopt more stringent financial controls on government while expanding the opportunities for citizen participation in administrative deliberations and activities all militate against the early, somewhat mechanistic, view of the links between globalization, NPM theory and administrative reform. (11)

The diverse responses to NPM initiatives, coupled with doubts about the coherence of this potential administrative paradigm itself, suggest that the phenomenon of administrative reforms in the 1980s and 1990s is not well understood and that additional theoretical and conceptual work remains to be done for this important era of administrative history. (12) A re-examination of the theory and concepts developed in the study of comparative public administration is helpful in this regard and helps to establish a research agenda, with some promise in moving beyond NPM-inspired analyses. (13)

Public administration theory and the concept of an administrative style: promising and problematic aspects for analysing public-service reforms

Part of the blame for the difficulties encountered by analysts in many countries attempting to understand administrative re-structuring in the 1980-2000 period must be placed at the feet of poor theories and constructs in the field of comparative public administration. (14) As Guy Peters noted in his 1988 review of the field, "Having recognized the importance of comparison for the development of our thinking about public administration, we now come to the awful truth that the comparative study of public administration is perhaps the least well developed aspect of the study of comparative politics and government despite the long and honorable history of the field." (15)

As Peters and others acknowledged, writings in the field in the 1960s and 1970s were sometimes excellent empirically but were often idiosyncratic theoretically and failed to develop a set of systematically linked concepts generating a body of accepted principles of administrative behaviour. However, over the past decade, students of comparative public administration have generated a more useful set of concepts for analysing administrative developments.

An important step in this direction was the development of the notion of an "administrative style," that is, a more or less consistent and long-term set of institutionalized patterns of politico-administrative relationships, norms and procedures. The concept of an administrative style is useful in analysing administrative reform, for several reasons. First, it sets out the background against which reforms occur, providing a useful aggregate unit for describing the basic characteristics of an administrative system. And, second, in so doing it simultaneously provides a standard or benchmark against which the degree of change in such systems can be assessed, as reforms alter aspects of previously existing administrative styles.

The general idea of such styles is not new, of course. There are clear links not only to the foundational studies of bureaucracy and bureaucratization developed by Max Weber and others in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (16) but also to the first wave of comparative administrative studies carried out after the Second World War that focused on the identification and elaboration of national administrative cultures. (17) The concept of such styles re-emerged in the late 1990s in the works of, among others, Christoph Knill and Hans A.G.M. Bekke and their colleagues and has proven to be of some use in helping to understand, for example, the difficulties encountered by the European Union adopting EU-wide administrative initiatives. (18) Both Knill and Bekke have suggested the critical importance of this concept in assessing the role played by existing administrative systems in affecting public-policy processes and outcomes, including efforts to reshape the administration itself.

While useful, there are several problems in current uses of this concept. Two of the most important, discussed in some detail below, are the following:

1. the relationship between structure and behaviour in an administrative style, or the question of the appropriate unit of analysis to use in developing and applying the concepts (19); and

2. the question of the appropriate level of analysis to which these concepts can be applied. (20)

Units of analysis: institutional arrangements and their effects on administrative behaviour

The concept of an administrative style needs to be unpacked to be of use in the study of administrative systems and their reform. This is because the term refers to two separate but intertwined units of analysis, one structural and the other behavioural. Thus, while the concept of an administrative style refers to the behaviour of administrative agents, it has a heavily structural or institutional component, since it is assumed that these agents are not free-floating and unencumbered but rather operate within an institutional context that at least in part determines their behaviour.

In this sense, the notion of an administrative style can be situated within the confines of a neo-institutional approach to the study of social and political life. While the exact contours of neo-institutionalism are an item of some disagreement across disciplines, with different variations existing within political science, economics and (historical) sociology, (21) these approaches share the common ideas that rules, norms and symbols affect political behaviour, that the organization of governmental institutions affect what the state does, and that unique patterns of historical development constrain future choices. (22) Institutions, therefore, are defined to include not only formal organizations such as bureaucratic hierarchies and market-like exchange networks but also legal and cultural codes and rules that affect the calculations by individuals and groups of their optimal strategies and courses of action. (23)

These assumptions focus this approach on the effects of structure on social actors and, as James March and Johan Olsen put it, "They deemphasize the dependence of the polity on society in favor of an interdependence between relatively autonomous social and political institutions; they deemphasize the simple primacy of micro processes and efficient histories in favor of relatively complex processes and historical inefficiency; they deemphasize metaphors of choice and allocate outcomes in favor of other logics of action and the centrality of meaning and symbolic action." (24)

Hence, the neo-institutional argument is not that institutions cause an action but rather that they affect actions by shaping actors' interpretation of problems and possible solutions, by both constraining and facilitating the choice of solutions and by affecting the way and extent to which they can be implemented. (25) While individuals, groups, classes and states have their specific interests, they pursue them in the context of existing formal organizations and rules and norms that shape expectations and affect the possibilities of their realization.

In the political realm, institutions are significant because they "constitute and legitimize individual and collective political actors and provide them with consistent behavioural rules, conceptions of reality, standards of assessment, affective ties, and endowments, and thereby with a capacity for purposeful action." (26) In an administrative context, as Morten Egeberg has noted, "Formal organization provides an administrative milieu that focuses a decision-maker's attention on certain problems and solutions, while others are excluded from consideration. The structure thus constrains choices, but at the same time creates and increases action capacity in certain directions. The organizational context surrounding individuals thus serves to simplify decisions that might otherwise have been complex and incomprehensible." (27)

Thus, as many observers have noted, the structure of administrative organizations affects politico-administrative decision-making by facilitating the interpretation and reconstruction of diverse situations into existing "frames," making them amenable to standardized decision-making processes such as the establishment of standard operating procedures, bureaucratic routines, or operational codes. (28) And the existence of institutionalized rules of behaviour affect calculations of actors' interests and self-interests by defining the nature of the "win-sets" that exist in given decisional circumstances, as well as the "action channels" these decisions will follow. (29)

Ultimately, structure and behaviour are joined together in a distinct administrative style, a typical way of doing business that is both institutionally and psychologically rooted. (30) Together, these have an impact on the ideas that actors hold, as well as their assessments of what is feasible in a given situation. (31) The link between structure and behaviour means, among other things, that such styles will be relatively long-lasting, quasi-permanent arrangements establishing a trajectory of activity that is very difficult to change, an inference that is congruent with the neo-institutional idea of path dependency, whereby decisions are seen as layered upon each other, so that earlier decisions affect later ones and act as a further constraint on decision-makers' freedom of action. (32)

Levels of analysis: national, sectoral and departmental administrative styles

From a neo-institutional perspective, an administrative style is best thought of as a set of administrative routines and types of behaviour heavily influenced by the rules and structures of the civil-service system in which they are located. Very significant sets of rules and structures include macro-level ones such as the constitutional order establishing and empowering administrators, as well as more meso- and micro-level ones affecting the patterns and methods of recruiting civil servants and the nature of their interactions with each other and with members of the public. Thus, not only are factors such as the nature of the political regime in which a system is located crucial to understanding an administrative style but so too, as Weber noted, are more mundane items such as the open or closed nature of recruitment, the basis of selection as a career or program orientation, the nature of job evaluations and rank and pay considerations, as well as the presence or absence of opportunities for training and development. (33)

Neo-institutional analysis of such rule-based behaviour implies the existence of multiple types of administrative styles, because a style is linked to 1) the different types of recruitment and management practices found in different systems, and 2) the different levels or orders of government involved in an administrative system. As John Zysman has argued, since institutional structures are different, as a consequence, it is to be expected that there will be many different kinds of administrative styles, each style being defined by the set of institutions, rules, traditions and cultures that comprise it. (34)

To a certain extent, as has been recognized by many authors, the two aspects of managerial style and orders of government overlap; that is, most systems are more or less centrally controlled through budgetary and personnel practices that exist on a system-wide level and for which some efforts are made to impose some degree of uniformity on system components. Hence, a key issue faced by the discussion of administrative styles is the appropriate level of analysis to use when employing this term. As Hans Bekke et al. noted in their ground-breaking 1996 work on civil-service systems, "Although our definition refers to the state and the focus of this book is on national systems, it is not our intention to exclude other levels of government. We believe the logic and the analytic approaches can be extended to other government levels.... One basic assumption of this approach is that civil service systems, whether national, subnational, or local, vary across political jurisdictions and that this variation merits study in its own right and for its implications for the management and development of these systems." (35) What are these levels? A brief summary of the literature suggests three critical levels: the macro-, or national; the meso-, or sectoral; and the micro-, or agency level.

The macro-, or national, level

The literature on the macro-, or national, level is the most well-known. Although Weber attempted to identify a common set of structural and behavioural features of modern "monocratic" and traditional "patrimonial" bureaucracies that transcended jurisdictional and temporal boundaries, later scholars insisted his ahistorical "ideal type" construction at best served only as a useful guide to general trends. (36) With few exceptions, students of public administrative systems insisted on the pre-eminence of national systems and their idiosyncracies in identifying actual administrative models in practice. (37)

Although some observers continue to suggest that structural tropes and cultural values transcend national boundaries, this is not the case. Rather, as Francis Castles has observed, distinct national administrative cultures have an impact on national policy outcomes, and nations tend to follow the precepts of the administrative models from which they emerged. (38) Mark Rutgers has argued, however, that this is a complex relationship since "it is important in this context that the concept of the state should not be equated simply with the nation state" but rather with a set of epistemologies and ontologies related to notions of what constitutes good and effective government and that affect all levels of administration in a national system. (39)

What, then, are the main elements of such national systems? At the behavioural or cultural level, as observers from Weber onward have noted, some of the key characteristic that affect administrative behaviour, of course, relate to such phenomena as the level of identity of civil servants with the impersonal order of the state, rather than with more personalized elements of society such as religious, ethnic or tribal groups, and the extent to which administrative office is seen as an avenue for achieving either the public good or personal enrichment. (40) These characteristics vary from country to country (41) and generate the basic model of national administrative culture found in Table 1.

With respect to structure, the key dimensions of state structure relevant to an administrative style identified by students of comparative public administration are the size and pervasiveness of the administration and the means by which it is politically controlled and held accountable. (42) One of the chief determinants of administrative size, of course, is related to the extent to which the administration is involved in economic affairs, as opposed to more traditional social, military or legal ones. (43) As for political control of the administration, only two principal means have ever been used for this: the traditional legislative-executive means, and that of single-party partisan or judicial control. (44) Such analyses lead to the development of overall models of national systems of administration or "civil-service systems," as is found in Table 2.

National administrative styles develop through the interaction of these macro-level structural and behavioural characteristics. (45) Authors such as Robert Kagan and David Vogel in the U.S. and Jeremy Richardson and his colleagues in Europe have identified a distinct set of national styles of administration and policy-making, the most well-known being the "adversarial legalist" style found in the U.S. (46) As Franz van Waarden has put it, "National regulatory styles are formally rooted in nationally specific legal, political and administrative institutions and cultures. This foundation in a variety of state institutions should make regulatory styles resistant to change, and hence, from this perspective one would expect differences in regulatory styles to persist, possibly even under the impact of economic and political internationalization." (47)

Following Kagan, Table 3 identifies several prominent types of such national styles, based on the level of trust found in state-societal relations and the degree to which administrative behaviour is rule-bound.

The meso-, or sectoral, level

Another literature locates administrative styles at the subnational or sectoral level. Many policy studies, for example, have argued that if styles exist at all they exist at the sectoral level, linked to common approaches used to address common problems such as health, education and others, (48) where these approaches are seen to vary within a nation-state. (49) As Gary Freeman has argued, this approach "assumes that each sector poses its own problems, sets its own constraints, and generates its own brand of conflict." (50)

In assessing regulatory behaviour at the sectoral level in Europe, Christoph Knill has focused on criteria similar to those put forward by Jeremy Richardson et al. in their work on national styles. As Knill argues,

The dimension of regulatory styles is defined by two related aspects: the mode of state intervention and administrative interest intermediation; i.e. patterns of interaction between administrative and societal actors. [These include] dimensions [such as] hierarchical versus self-regulation, as well as uniform and detailed requirements versus open regulation allowing for administrative flexibility and discretion. In the same way different patterns of interest intermediation can be identified, such as formal versus informal, legalistic versus pragmatic, and open versus dosed relationships. (51)

Table 4 provides an example of a model of regulatory cultures developed on the basis of the dimensions of the dominant approach to problem-solving and the relationship between the government and society identified by Knill. (52)

Other studies have identified distinct implementation patterns--"regulatory regimes"--at this level as well but have likened these more to structural than behavioural characteristics. (53) Observers have noted that states must have a high level of administrative capacity and legitimacy in order to utilize certain policy instruments in situations in which they wish to affect significant numbers of policy targets. (54) Hence, the existence and persistence of a distinct sectoral regulatory regime is seen as being critically affected by structural characteristics of the administrative context, such as the nature of the constraints under which policy-makers operate and the type of target a policy is attempting to influence. (55) Table 5 provides an example of a model of such sectoral implementation styles based on the types of policy instruments typically used by governments in specific policy areas.

Both these studies focusing on the behaviour of regulators in the formulation and adoption of policy options and those looking at the techniques and styles of policy implementation suggest that distinct patterns of administrative actvity exist at the sectoral level. As was suggested above in the context of national administrative styles, these sectoral styles combine both cultural attributes--legitimacy and trust--and structural ones, such as state capacity and organization. Table 6 sets out the basic elements of a sectoral administrative style.

The micro-, or agency, level

Finally, there is also a large literature that locates styles at the departmental or agency level. (56) This is the case, for example, with many studies that have identified specific enforcement styles used by different agencies in their day-to-day activities. (57) This literature asserts that neither the state nor the sector are suitable aggregate units of analysis but that both must be disaggregated to the specific agency level. As Martin Smith, David Marsh and David Richards have stated, "The central state is not a unified actor but a range of institutions and actors with disparate interests and varying resources.... [W]e need to examine how different departments behave and how various decisions within departments are made. Policy process will vary according to the department/agency that is analyzed and hence there is a need for comparative research across both sectors and states." (58) Keith Hawkins and John Thomas identified two basic strategies--enforcement or negotiation--pursued by local departmental level officials in their administrative duties, with the aim of either educating the regulated target or punishing it. (59) Table 7 shows the basic types of departmental cultures they identified.

Looking at the issue from the point of view of the regulatee rather than the regulator, John Scholz provides a basic model of the stucture of enforcement activities at the agency level and below. As Table 8 shows, compliance games involved in regulatory behaviour generate specific outcomes for regulators and regulatees and structures the administrative relationships found at this level.

Taken together these studies suggest that distinct administrative styles are likely to evolve at the local level in the day-to-day interactions of administrators and their targets. Table 9 sets out the elements of a basic model of micro-level/agency-level administrative styles as were the macro- and meso-level styles, on trust and capacity.

Overcoming multiple units and levels of analysis in the study of administrative styles

There are, of course, different ways to interpret the existence and persistence of these different analyses of administrative styles. However, prima facie, it would appear to be logical to assume that 1) styles are composed of both sets of institutions and behaviour and that 2) they parallel the institutional structure of society. In other words, multiple administrative styles exist in a nested relationship to each other. Table 10 sets out this general conception of multilevel administrative styles.

The dynamics of administrative styles: understanding change in administrative systems and processes

The preceding discussion points out the need to deal with questions of administrative styles in a nuanced and multifaceted way. However, it also shows that a workable model of administrative styles can be derived by viewing them in a neo-institutional light. Conceiving of an overall administrative style as a nested combination of institutional structures and administrative behaviour existing at multiple levels of analysis makes the concept more complex than many initially envisioned but also more precise and easier to apply in specific empirical circumstances. In dealing with questions of civil-service reform, however, one must move beyond a static depiction of administrative styles towns a more dynamic model that can address questions of how administrative styles change and the factors responsible for those changes.

In order to address these questions, it is first necessary to develop a concept of what constitutes successful administrative reform. Without such a definition, as Guy Peters has argued, "it appears that any administrative reform can work, and equally, any reform can fail, given the particular set of circumstances within which it is attempted." (60) In this context, using the multilayered concept of an administrative style developed above is helpful. It would be expected that administrative reform means the alteration of either the fundamental institutional basis of an administrative style or the characteristic patterns of behaviour that comprise it. And the extent of reform will clearly vary from relatively minor alterations of agency-specific enforcement styles to changes in overarching national administrative styles. What then causes changes in these key dimensions of administrative styles? An examination of the literature in these areas points to several key factors.

Factors affecting alterations in administrative styles

With respect to national administrative structures, most of the literature points to the impact of large-scale geo-historical developments such as wars, conquests and colonization that directly brought about changes in the institutional structures of administration in many countries, as well as the slower and less direct diffusion of administrative ideas from one country to another. (61) Such studies tend to see, for example, significant differences between continental European and "Anglo-American" administrative traditions and institutions and focus on the processes of colonization and decolonization that have seen these institutions disseminated throughout North America, Asia, Africa, Australia and Latin America. (62)

At the level of national administrative cultures, authors point to the significance of factors such as changes in the social composition of administrative elites, perceptions of the legitimacy of governments and states held by their populations, self-perceptions of professionalism and engagement held by civil servants themselves, and the constitutional structure of government. Key factors and processes affecting change, therefore, include alterations in the secular or religious nature of the society in question, alterations in educational systems or political power underlying merit and patronage systems of appointment, alterations in levels of public-sector unionism or professionalism, and any shift in fundamental governing arrangements arising from foreign war, revolution, civil war or other means. (63) Observers have also noted the manner in which adherence to new regional or transnational governance arrangements--such as the European Union--can affect elements of these national traditions (64) and the manner in which propensities and capacities for learning at the national level affect the disposition to alter structures and behaviour on the basis of lessons derived from other jurisdictions. (65)

At the level of sectoral administrative styles, attention has been focused on the stabilizing effects of institutional structures and past policy decisions--policy legacies--on regulatory regimes and the manner in which changes at the sectoral level are often the result of alterations in variables such as the policy paradigms or idea-sets held by key political and administrative actors. (66) The context of the situation, its timing and the scope of actors it includes are also cited as having significant potential impacts on sectoral regulatory regimes and cultures. (67)

Finally, there is the question of enforcement cultures and structures at the agency level. Here, as many observers have noted, decisions on the use of coercion, persuasion, negotiation, or legal recourse are often made on the basis of managerial preferences as well as experiences in the field on the part of enforcement personnel. (68) However, the nature of the structures that exist to monitor and enforce compliance are also significant. (69) Alterations in the mandates and instructions provided by agencies, turnover in personnel, and changes in ideas about regulatory behaviour have all been found to be significant elements affecting the type of enforcement style found in an agency. (70) Table 11 sets out the overall situation described above.

Conclusion: implications for the study of public administration reform

This discussion, of course, poses the question of whether there are overall patterns in the direction of alterations in administrative styles. Generally speaking, most of the literature on political convergence has tended to focus on questions of policy outcomes rather than on administrative styles, per se, and few discussions of this topic exist. (71) Nevertheless, as was stated at the outset of this article, a pattern of transnational convergence in administrative styles has been alleged by organizations such as the OECD and by proponents of new public management philosophy and has also been observed independently by students of particular sectoral and other arrangements (72) However, as was also pointed out, all of these studies have not only observed patterns of convergence but considerable divergence in their subject areas." (73)

A neo-institutional model of administrative styles as set out here helps to explain these findings. The mixed pattern of convergence and divergence is explicable if one considers the nested nature of the different types of administrative styles identified earlier. Since the lower levels of institutional orders are located within higher ones, each level serves to "filter" or mediate the effects of changes at higher levels, moderating the impact of any changes occurring at those levelS. (74) Thus, for example, the impact of "global" changes such as the diffusion of new ideas about appropriate state-society relations will be moderated by existing regulatory styles, meaning that managerial practices at the department or agency level may or may not be affected substantially by those developments. (75) Similarly, changes that occur independently at lower levels may not necessarily affect higher levels at all. (76)

Applying such an analysis to any country is, of course, a nuanced and complex task. (77) However difficult, though, disaggregating the concept of an administrative style and undertaking analysis at multiple levels provides a useful methodology for such studies. The nested nature of styles means little can be assumed, a priori, about the effects of individual causal factors on the nature of the interactions occurring between styles at different levels. Careful case studies and empirical evaluations are required to allow specific conclusions to be drawn about the nature of these processes in different circumstances. However, this analysis, at minimum, suggests that reform efforts must be at least minimally compatible with important aspects of existing styles if they are to have any chance of success. (78)

Table 1. A Model of National Administrative Cultures

 Administrator Identification with State

 High Low

Administrator High Weberian "monocratic" Anarchic
Identification model administration
with Public
Good

 Low Pathological Weberian
 bureaucracy "patrimonial" model

Table 2. A Model of National Civil-Service Systems

 State Participation in Economy

 High Low

Means of Legislative/ Authoritarian and Traditional
Political Executive non-authoritarian Anglo-American
Control of developing nations and continental
Administration (e.g., East Asian European
 newly industrialized systems
 countries (NICS)]

 Party/ Socialist, Fascist Transitional
 Judiciary and Islamic systems democracies

Table 3. A Model of National Administrative Styles

 Levels of Trust in State-Societal Interactions

 High Low

Adherence to High Bureaucratic corporatist Adversarial legalist
Rules of Law administration administration

 Low Paternalistic Corrupt
 administration administration

Table 4. A Model of Sectoral Regulatory Cultures

 Dominant Approach to Problem-Solving
 in the Sector

 Anticipatory Reactive

Relationship Consensus "Rationalist consensus" "Negotiation"
between culture culture
Government and
Society

 Imposition "Concertation" culture "Negotiation
 and conflict"
 culture

Adapted from Jeremy Richardson, Gunnel Gustafsson and Grant Jordan,
The Concept of Policy Style in J.J. Richardson, ed., Policy Styles
in Western Europe (London: George Allen and Unwin. 1982).

Table 5. A Model of Sectoral Regulatory Regimes

 Nature of the Policy Target

Severity of
State
Constraints Large Small

High Institutionalized Representative regulation
 voluntarism

Low Directed subsidization Public provision with
 oversight

Adapted from Michael Howlett, "Policy Instruments and Implementation
Styles: The Evolution of Instrument Choice in Canadian Environmental
Policy," in D.L. Van-Nijnatten and R. Boardman, eds., Canadian
Environmental Policy: Context and Cases (Toronto: Oxford University
Press, 2002), pp. 25-45.

Table 6. A Model of Sectoral Regulatory Styles

 Levels of Trust in Sectoral State-Societal
 Interactions

 High Low

State Capacity High Responsive Legalistic proceduralism
for Action administration

 Low Voluntaristic Inefficient administration
 administration

Table 7. A Model of Agency Enforcement Culture

 Agency Purpose in Enforcement

 Punish Educate

Agency Strategy Coerce Legalistic Negative incentive
 administration administration

 Negotiate Voluntaristic Positive incentive
 administration administration

Adapted from Keith Hawkins, Environment and Enforcement: Regulation
and the Social Definition of Pollution (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1984).

Table 8. A Model of Agency Enforcement Structure

 Agency Enforcement Mechanism

 Coercive Negotiative

Nature of Evasive Active "policing" Training and licensing
Enforcement
Target

 Cooperative Passive "fire Client-led
 alarms" self-reporting

Adapted from Arthur Lupia and Mathew D. McCubbins, "Learning from
oversight: Fire alarms and police patrols reconstructed," Journal
of Law Economics and Organization 10, no. 1 (March 1994), pp. 96-125.

Table 9. A Model of Agency Enforcement Styles

 Level of Trust in-Agency-Client Relations

 Low High

Agency Positive Traditional legalistic Collaborative
Capacity enforcement style enforcement style
for Action

 Low Contested litigious Ineffective
 enforcement style enforcement style

Adapted from John T. Scholz, "Cooperation, deterrence, and the ecology
of regulatory enforcement," Law and Society Review 18, no. 2 (1984),
pp. 179-224.

Table 10. A Multilayered Concept of Administrative Styles

 Components of a Style

Level of Institutional Administrative Resultant
Analysis structure behaviour Administrative Style

National Civil-service Administrative National
 system culture administrative style

Sectoral Regulatory Regulatory culture Sectoral regulatory
 regime style

Agency Enforcement Enforcement culture Agency enforcement
 structure style

Table 11. Factors Affecting Change in
Different Levels of Administrative Styles

Level of Component of
Administrative Administrative Factors Responsible for Change
Style Style in Administrative Styles

National Civil-service --War, conquest or colonization
 system

 --Diffusion of ideas and structures
 from other traditions

 Administrative --Alterations in popular and elite
 culture views of roles and responsibilities
 of public servants

 --Modernization

Sectoral Regulatory --Alterations in subsystem complexity
 regime and/or administrative capacity
 affecting choices of governing
 instruments

 Regulatory --Alterations in relationships
 culture between government and interest
 groups

 --New ideas and actors penetrating
 policy subsystems

Agency Enforcement --Government reorganizations
 structure

 --Alterations in mandates, incentive
 systems and/or management
 practices

 Enforcement --Day-to-day experience in the field
 culture

 --Attitudes and behaviour of client
 groups

Notes

(1) On these efforts in Canada, see Mohamed Charih and Arthur Daniels, eds., New Public Management and Public Administration in Canada. Monographs on Canadian Public Administration--No. 20 (Toronto: Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 1997), pp. 143-63; and Kenneth Kernaghan, Brian Marson and Sandford Borins, The New Public Organization. Monographs on Canadian Public Administration--No. 24 (Toronto: Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 2000). For elsewhere, see Willy McCourt and Martin Minogue, eds., The Internationalization of Public Management: Reinventing the Third World State (Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 2001); and B. Guy Peters, "public-Service Reform: Comparative Perspectives," in E. Lindquist, ed., Government Restructuring and Career Public Services in Canada. Monographs on Canadian Public Administration--No. 23 (Toronto: Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 2000), pp. 27-40.

(2) Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Governance in Transition: Public Management Reforms in OECD Countries (Paris: OECD, 1995), p. 25.

(3) Ibid.

(4) On the actual record of OECD governments in this area, see Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Issues and Developments in Public Management; Survey 1996-1997 (Paris: OECD, 1996-97).

(5) Laurence E. Lynn Jr., "Globalization and administrative reform: What is happening in theory?" Public Management Review 3, no. 2 (August 2001), pp. 191-208. See also Mark Bevir, R.A.W. Rhodes and Patrick Weller, "Traditions of governance: Interpreting the changing role of the public sector," Public Administration 81, no. 1 (Spring 2003), pp. 1-17.

(6) Joel D. Aberbach and Tom Christensen, "Translating theoretical ideas into modern state reform: Economics-inspired reforms and competing models of governance," Administration and Society 35, no. 5 (September 2003), pp. 491-509.

(7) Kate Ascher, The Politics of Privatisation: Contracting Out Public Services (Basingstoke, U.K.: Macmillan, 1987); M.E. Beesley, Privatization, Regulation and Deregulation (New York: Routledge, 1992); Paul Starr, "The New Life of the Liberal State: Privatization and the Restructuring of State-Society Relations," in E.N. Suleiman and J. Waterbury, eds., The Political Economy of Public Sector Reform and Privatization (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1990), pp. 22-54; and Dennis Swann, The Retreat of the State: Deregulation and Privatisation in the U.K. and U.S. (Hemel Hempstead, U.K.: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1988).

(8) In the Canadian case, see John Shields and B. Mitchell Evans, Shrinking the State: Globalization and Public Administration "Reform" (Halifax: Fernwood, 1998); and Mike Burke, Colin Mooers and John Shields, eds., Restructuring and Resistance: Canadian Public Policy in an Age of Global Capitalism (Halifax: Fernwood, 2000).

(9) See Peter Aucoin, "Administrative reform in public management: Paradigms, principles, paradoxes and pendulums," Governance 3, no. 2 (April 1990), pp. 115-37. See also Peter Aucoin, The New Public Management: Canada in Comparative Perspective (Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1995); and Tom Christensen and Per Laegreid, eds., New Public Management: The Transformation of Ideas and Practice (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2001).

(10) See Christopher Hood, "A public management for all seasons?" Public Administration 69, no. 1 (Spring 1991), pp. 3-19; Christopher Hood, "Contemporary public management: A new global paradigm?" Public Policy and Administration 10, no. 2 (1995), pp 104-117; and Patrick Dunleavy and Christopher Hood, "From old public administration to new public management," Public Moneyand Management 14, no. 3 (July-September 1994), pp. 9-16. See also Gernod Bruening, "Origin and theoretical basis of new public management," International Public Management Journal 4, no. 1 (2001), pp. 1-25.

(11) On these contradictory initiatives of "managerialism" and "representativeness," see Aucoin, "Administrative reform in public management," Governance. See also Sandford Borins, "Public management innovation in economically advanced and developing countries," International Review of Administrative Sciences 67, no. 4 (December 2001), pp. 715-31. On the Canadian experience with these kinds of initiatives, see Jacques Bourgault, Maurice Demers and Cynthia Williams, eds., Public Administration and Public Management: Experiences in Canada (Quebec: Les Publications du Quebec, 1997); and Katherine A. Graham and Susan D. Phillips, "Citizen engagement: Beyond the customer revolution," CANADIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 40, no. 2 (Summer 1997), pp. 225-73.

(12) Jos C.N. Raadschelders, Handbook of Administrative History (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1998). See also Jos C.N. Raadschelders, "Administrative history of the United States: Development and state of the art," Administration and Society 32, no. 5 (November 2000), pp. 499-528; and Marc Allen Eisner, "Economic Regulatory Policies: Regulation and Deregulation in Historical Context," in D.H. Rosenbloom and R.D. Schwartz, eds., Handbook of Regulation and Administrative Law (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1994), pp. 91-116.

(13) See E. Philip Morgan and James L. Perry, "Re-orienting the comparative study of civil service systems," Review of Public Personnel Administration 8, no. 3 (Summer 1988), pp. 84-95.

(14) See J.D. Aberbach and B.A. Rockman, "Comparative administration: Methods, muddles and models," Administration and Society 18, no. 4 (February 1987), pp. 473-506.

(15) B. Guy Peters, ed., Comparing Public Bureaucracies: Problems of Theory and Method (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1988), p. 8.

(16) See Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978); and S.E. Eisenstadt, The Political Systems of Empires (London: Collier, 1963).

(17) See, for example, Dwight Waldo, The Administrative State: A Study of the Political Theory of American Public Administration (New York: Ronald Press, 1948); and Ernest Barker, The Developmeni of Public Services in Western Europe 1660-1930 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1944).

(18) See Christoph Knill, "European policies: The impact of national administrative traditions," Journal of Public Policy 18, no. 1 (April 1998), pp. 1-28; Christoph Knill, "Explaining cross-national variance in administrative reform: Autonomous versus instrumental bureaucracies," Journal of Public Policy 19, no. 2 (May 1999), pp. 113-39; and Adrienne Heritier, Christoph Knill and Susanne Mingers, Ringing the Changes in Europe: Regulatory Competition and the Transformation of the State. Britain, France, Germany (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1996). See also Hans Bekke, James L. Perry and Theo Toonen, "Comparing civil service systems," Research in Public Administration 2 (1993), pp. 191-212; Hans A.G.M. Bekke, James L. Perry and Theo A.J. Toonen, eds., Civil Service Systems in Comparative Perspective (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996); Hans A.G.M. Bekke, James L. Perry and Theo A.J. Toonen, "Introduction: Conceptualizing Civil Service Systems," in Ibid., pp. 1-12; Hans A.G.M. Bekke and Frits M. van der Meet, eds., Civil Service Systems in Western Europe (Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 2000); and Hans A.G.M. Bekke, "Studying the development and transformation of civil service systems: Processes of de-institutionalization," Research in Public Administration 5 (1999), pp. 1-18.

(19) Ferrel Heady, "Configurations of Civil Service Systems," in Bekke, Perry and Toonen, Civil Service Systems in Comparative Perspective, pp. 207-26.

(20) B. Guy Peters, "Theory and Methodology," in Ibid., pp. 13-41.

(21) See Junko Kato, "Review article: Institutions and rationality in politics--Three varieties of neo-institutionalists," British Journal of Political Science 26, no. 4 (October 1996), pp. 553-82; and Peter A. Hall and Rosemary C.R. Taylor, "Political science and the three new institutionalisms," Political Studies 44, no.4 (December 1996), pp. 936-57.

(22) Elinor Ostrom, "Institutional Rational Choice: As Assessment of the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework," in P.A. Sabatier, ed., Theories of the Policy Process (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1999), pp. 35-71. See also Oliver E. Williamson, "Transaction Cost Economics and Organization Theory," in O.E. Williamson, ed., The Mechanisms of Governance (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 219-49.

(23) A useful definition of institutions used in this approach was put forward by Robert Keohone, who described them as "persistent and connected sets of rules (formal or informal) that prescribe behavioural roles, constrain activity, and shape expectations." Robert O. Keohane, International Institutions and State Power: Essays in International Relations Theory (Boulder. Colo.: Westview Press, 1989), p. 163.

(24) James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, "The new institutionalism: Organizational factors in political llfe," American Political Science Review 78, no. 3 (September 1984), p. 738.

(25) Elisabeth S. Ciemons and James M. Cook, "Politics and institutionalism: Explaining durability and change," Annual Review of Sociology 25 (1999), pp. 441-66.

(26) James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, "Institutional perspectives on political institutions" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Political Science Association, p. 5 [unpublished document].

(27) Morten Egeberg, "The impact of bureaucratic structure on policy making," Public Administration 77, no. 1 (Spring 1999), p. 159.

(28) Graham T. Allison and Morton H. Halperin, "Bureaucratic politics: A paradigm and some policy implications," World Politics 24, Supplement (1972), pp. 40-79; Egeberg, "The impact of bureaucratic structure on policy making," Public Administration; Alexander L. George, "The "operational code": A neglected approach to the study of political leaders and decision-making," International Studies Quarterly 13, no. 3 (September 1969), pp. 190-222.

(29) Thomas H. Hammond and Jack H. Knott, "Political institutions, public management, and policy choice," Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 9, no. 1 (January 1999), pp. 33-85. See also Thomas H. Hammond, "Agenda control, organizational structure, and bureaucratic politics," American Journal of Political Science 30, no. 2 (April 1986), pp. 379-420. More generally, see Fritz W. Scharpf, "Games real actors could play: The problem of mutual predictability," Rationality and Society 2, no. 4 (November 1990), pp. 471-94; and Fritz W. Scharpf, "Political Institutions, Decision Styles, and Policy Choices," in R.M. Czada and A. Windhoff-Heritier, eds., Political Choice: Institutions, Rules and the Limits of Rationality (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 1991), pp. 53-86.

(30) Jon Pierre, "Conclusions: A Framework of Comparative Public Administration," in J. Pierre, eds., Bureaucracy in the Modern State: An Introduction to Comparative Public Administration (Aldershot, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 1995), pp. 205-18. See also B. Guy Peters, "Administrative culture and analysis of public organizations," Indian Journal of Public Administration 36, no. 4 (Winter 1990), pp. 420-28.

(31) On ideas and their impact, see John L. Campbell, "Institutional analysis and the role of ideas in political economy," Theory and Society 27, no. 5 (October 1998), pp. 377-409. On calculations of feasibility, see Ralph K. Huitt, "Political Feasibility," in A. Ranney, ed., Political Science and Public Policy (Chicago: Markham Publishing Co., 1968), pp. 263-76; and Giandomenico Majone, "On the motion of political feasibility," European Journal of Political Research 3, no. 3 (April 1975), pp. 259-74.

(32) On path dependence, see Paul Pierson, "Increasing returns, path dependence, and the study of politics," American Political Science Review 94, no. 2 (June 2000), pp. 251-67; John Zysman, "How institutions create historically rooted trajectories of growth," Industrial and Corporate Change 3, no. 1 (Spring 1994), pp. 243-83. On its application to the evolution of civil-service systems, see Jos C.N. Raadschelders and Mark R. Rutgers. "The Evolution of Civil Service Systems," in Bekke, Perry and Toonen, Civil Service Systems in Comparative Perspective, pp. 67-99.

(33) See Bekke, Perry and Toonen, "Comparing civil service systems," Research in Public Administration, p. 195.

(34) Zysman, "How institutions create historically rooted trajectories of growth," Industrial and Corporate Change.

(35) Bekke, Perry and Toonen, "Introduction: Conceptualizing Civil Service Systems," in Bekke, Perry and Toonen, Civil Service Systems in Comparative Perspective, p. 4.

(36) On Weber's ideal types and their application, see L. Rudolph and S. Rudolph, "Authority and power in bureaucratic and patrimonial bureaucracy," World Politics 31, no. 2 (January 1979), pp. 195-227; and Henry Jacoby, The Bureaucratization of the World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973). On the need to deal with the actual historical record, see Brian Chapman, The Profession of Government (London: Unwin, 1971).

(37) See Mark Bevir and R.A.W. Rhodes, "Decentering tradition: Interpreting British government," Administration and Society 33, no. 2 (August 2001), pp. 107-32: Mark Bevir, R.A.W. Rhodes and Patrick Weiler, "Comparative governance: Prospects and lessons," Public Administration 81, no. 1 (Spring 2003), pp. 191-210; Mark Bevir, R.A.W. Rhodes and Patrick Weller, "Traditions of governance: Interpreting the changing role of the public sector," Public Administration 81, no. 1 (Spring 2003), pp. 1-17; and O.P. Dwivedi and James Iain Gow, From Bureaucracy to Public Management: The Administrative Culture of the Government of Canada (Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 1999).

(38) Francis G. Castles, "The dynamics of policy change: What happened to the English-speaking nations in the 1980s," European Journal of Political Research 18, no. 5 (August 1990), pp. 491-513.

(39) Mark R. Rutgers, "Traditional flavors? The different sentiments in European and American administrative thought," Administration and Society 33, no. 2 (May 2001), p. 239.

(40) Gert Hofstede, Culture's Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1980).

(41) On grid-group and other efforts to operationalize culture in a political or administrative context, see G. Grendstad, "Nordic cultural baselines: Accounting for domestic convergence and foreign policy divergence," Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis 3, no. 1 (June 2001), pp. 2-29; G. Grendstad, "Comparing political orientations: Grid-group theory versus the left-right dimension in the five Nordic countries," European Journal of Political Research 42, no. 1 (January 2003), pp. 1-21; and Christopher Hood, The Art of the State: Culture, Rhetoric and Public Management (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998).

(42) For a similar analysis, see Ferrel Heady, "Configurations of Civil Service Systems," in Bekke, Perry and Toonen, Civil Service Systems in Comparative Perspective, pp. 207-26.

(43) Mark Considine and Jenny M. Lewis, "Bureaucracy, network, or enterprise? Comparing models of governance in Australia, Britain, the Netherlands, and New Zealand," Public Administration Review 63, no. 2 (March/April 2003), pp. 131-40.

(44) Matthew Evangelista, "The paradox of state strength: Transnational relations, domestic structures, and security policy in Russia and the Soviet Union," International Organization 49, no. 1 (Winter 1995), pp. 1-38.

(45) Marc Allen Eisner, Regulatory Politics in Transition (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993); Marc Allen Eisner, "Discovering patterns in regulatory history: Continuity, change and regulatory regimes," Journal of Policy History 6, no. 2 (1994), pp. 157-87; and Richard Harris and Sidney Milkis, The Politics of Regulatory Change (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).

(46) See Robert A. Kagan, "Adversarial legalism and American government," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 10, no. 3 (Summer 1991), pp. 369-406; and Robert A. Kagan, "The Political Consequences of American Adversarial Legalism," in A. Ranney, eds., Courts and the Political Process (Berkeley: Institute of Governmental Studies Press, 1996). See David Vogel, National Styles of Regulation: Environmental Policy in Great Britain and the United States (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986). See also Jeremy Richardson, Gunnel Gustafsson and Grant Jordan, "The Concept of Policy Style," in J.J. Richardson, ed., Policy Styles in Western Europe (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1982), pp. 1-16.

(47) Frans van Waarden, "Persistence of National Policy Styles: A Study of Their Institutional Foundations," in B. Unger and F. van Waarden, eds., Convergence or Diversity? Internationalization and Economic Policy Response (Aldershot, U.K.: Avebury, 1995), p. 334.

(48) Theodore J. Lowi, "Four systems of policy, politics and choice," Public Administration Review 32, no. 4 (July/August 1972), pp. 298-310; Lester M. Salamorb "Rethinking public managemeat: Third-party government and the changing forms of government action," Public Policy 29, no. 3 (1981), pp. 255-75.

(49) Gary P. Freeman, "National styles and policy sectors: Explaining structured variation," Journal of Public Policy 5, no. 4 (September 1985), pp. 467-96; Paul Burstein, "Policy domains: Organization, culture and policy outcomes," Annual Review of Sociology 17 (1991), pp. 327-50.

(50) Freeman, "National styles and policy sectors." Journal of Public Policy, pp. 491-92.

(51) Knill, "European policies," Journal of Public Policy, p. 3.

(52) Ibid.

(53) See Harris and Milkis, The Politics of Regulatory Change and Michael Howlett, "Beyond legalism? Policy ideas, implementation styles and emulation-based convergence in Canadian and U.S. environmental policy," Journal of Public Policy 20, no. 3 (september 2000), pp. 305-29. See also Eisner, "Discovering patterns in regulatory history," Journal of Policy History.

(54) Michael Howlett, "Managing the 'hollow state': Procedural policy instruments and modern governance," CANADIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 43, no. 4 (Winter 2000), pp. 412-31; Michael Howlett and M. Ramesh, Studying Public Policy: Policy Cycles and Policy Subsystems (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1995); and Mark C. Suchman, "Managing legitimacy: Strategic and institutional approaches," Academy of Management Review 20, no. 3 (July 1995), pp. 571-610.

(55) Virpi Timonen, "What explains public service restructuring? Evaluating contending explanations," Journal of European Public Policy 8, no. 1 (March 2001), pp. 43-59.

(56) J.J. Richardson, A.G. Jordan and R.H. Kimber, "Lobbying, administrative reform and policy styles: The case of land drainage," Political Studies 26, no. 1 (March 1978), pp. 47-64.

(57) Keith Hawkins and John M. Thomas, "Making Policy in Regulatory Bureaucracies," in K. Hawkins and J.M. Thomas, eds., Making Regulatory Policy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989), pp. 3-30. See also John T. Scholz, "Cooperation, deterrence, and the ecology of regulatory enforcement," Law and Society Review 18, no. 2 (1984), pp. 179-224; and John T. Scholz, "Cooperative regulatory enforcement and the politics of administrative effectiveness," American Political Science Review 85, no. 1 (March 1991), pp. 115-36.

(58) Martin J. Smith, David Marsh and David Richards, "Central government departments and the policy process," Public Administration 71, no. 4 (Winter 1993), p. 580.

(59) Hawkins and Thomas, Making Regulatory Policy.

(60) B. Guy Peters, "What Works? The Antiphons of Administrative Reform," in B.G. Peters and D.J. Savoie, eds., Taking Stock: Assessing Public Sector Reforms (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1998), p. 78.

(61) See, for example, Eric W. Welch and Wilson Wong, "Effects of global pressures on public bureaucracy: Modeling a new theoretical framework," Administration and Society 33, no. 4 (February 2001), pp. 371-402; and All Farazmand, "Globalization and public administration," Public Administration Review 59, no. 6 (November/December 1999), pp. 509-22. For a more sceptical view, see Francis G. Castles, "On the political economy of recent public sector development," Journal of European Social Policy 11, no. 3 (August 2001), pp. 195-211.

(62) See Mark Hanson, "Organizational bureaucracy in Latin America and the legacy of Spanish colonialism," Journal oflnter-American Studies and World Affairs 16, no. 2 (1974), pp. 199-219; Fred G. Burke, "Public administration in Africa: The legacy of inherited colonial institutions," Journal of Comparative Administration 1, no. 3 (1969), pp. 345-78; and Bernd Wunder, "Le Modele Napoleonien d'Administration: Apercu Comparatif," in B. Wunder, ed., The Influences of the Napoleonic "Model" of Administration on the Administrative Organization of Other Countries (Brussels: International Institute of Administrative Sciences, 1995). More generally, see S.E. Finer, The History of Government From the Earliest Times--Volume III: Empires, Monarchies and the Modern State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), especially Chapter 7, "The Transplantation of European State.Models, 1500-1715; and V. Subramaniam, Transplanted Inda-British Administration (New Delhi: Ashish Publishing House, 1977). On recent examples of this phenonomenon, see Joachim Jens Hesse, "Rebuilding the State: Public Sector Reform in Central and Eastern Europe," in J.-E. Lane, ed., Public Sector Reform: Rationale, Trends and Problems (London: Sage Publications, 1997), pp. 114-45; and Vitchie Gabrielian, and Frank Fischer, "Reforming Eastern European Bureaucracy: Does the American Experience Apply?" in H.K. Asmerom and E.P. Reis, eds., Democratization and Bureaucratic Neutrality (London: Macmillan, 1996), pp. 109-26.

(63) Bekke, "Studying the development and transformation of civil service systems," Research in Public Administration; and Jos C.N. Raadschelders and Mark R. Rutgers, "The Evolution of Civil Service Systems," in Bekke, Perry and Toonen, Civil Service Systems in Comparative Perspective, pp. 67-99.

(64) See Maria Green Cowles, James Caporaso and Thomas Risse, eds., Transforming Europe: Europeanization and Domestic Change (Ithaca: CorneU University Press, 2001); Heritier, Knill and Mingers, Ringing the Changes in Europe; Adrienne Heritier, "Market integration and social cohesion: The politics of public services in European regulation," Journal of European Public Policy 8, no. 5 (October 2001), pp. 825-52, and Knill, "European Policies," Journal of Public Policy.

(65) See Johan P. Olsen and B. Guy Peters, eds., Lessons From Experience: Experiential Learning in Administrative Reforms in Eight Democracies (Osio: Scandinavian University Press, 1996).

(66) This is a prominent feature of Paul Sabatier's work. See Paul A. Sabatier, "Knowledge, policy-oriented learning, and policy change," Knowledge: Creation, Diffusion, Utilization 8, no. 4 (1987), pp. 649-92; Paul A. Sabatier, "An advocacy coalition framework of policy change and the role of policy-oriented learning therein," Policy Sciences 21, no. 2/3 (1988), pp. 129-68; Paul Sabatier and Hank Jenkins-Smith, "The Advocacy Coalition Framework: Assessment, Revisions, and Implications for Scholars and Practitioners," in P.A. Sabatier and H.C. Jenkins-Smith, eds., Policy Change and Learning: An Advocacy Coalition Approach (Boulder, Colo.: Westwiew, 1993), pp. 211-36.

(67) G. Bruce Doern et al., ed., Changing the Rules: Canadian Regulatory Regimes and Institutions (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999); Eisner, "Discovering patterns in regulatory history," Journal of Policy History; and Carter A. Wilson, "Policy Regimes and policy change," Journal of Public Policy 20, no. 3 (September 2000), pp. 247-71.

(68) William T. Gormley, "Regulatory enforcement styles," Political Research Quarterly 51, no. 2 (June 1998), pp. 363-83; and Keith Hawkins, Environment and Enforcement: Regulation and the Social Definition of Pollution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984).

(69) Arthur Lupia and Mathew D. McCubbins, "Learning from oversight: Fire alarms and policy patrols reconstructed," Journal of Law Economics and Organization 10, no. 1 (March 1994), pp. 96-125; and Mathew D. McCubbins and Thomas Schwartz, "Congressional oversight over-looked: Policy patrols versus fire alarms," American Journal of Political Science 28, no. 1 (January 1984), pp. 165-79.

(70) Peter May and Raymond J. Burby, "Making sense out of regulatory enforcement," Law and Policy 20, no. 2 (April 1998), pp. 157-82; and Peter J. May and Soren Winter, "Regulatory enforcement and compliance: Examining Danish agro-environmental policy," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 18, no. 4 (Fall 1999), pp. 625-51.

(71) Colin J. Bennett, "What is policy convergence and what causes it?" British Journal of Political Science 22, no. 2 (April 1991), pp. 215-33; and Brigitte Unger and Frans van Waarden, "Introduction: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Convergence," in B. Unger and F. van Waarden, eds., Convergence or Diversity? Internationalization and Economic Policy Response (Aldershot, U.K.: Avebury, 1995), pp. 1-35.

(72) Michael Howlett, "Beyond legalism? Policy ideas, implementation styles and emulation-based convergence in Canadian and U.S. environmental policy," Journal of Public Policy 20, no. 3 (September 2000), pp. 305-29; Marc Galanter, "Legality end its Discontents: A Preliminary Assessment of Current Theories of Legalization and Delegalization," in E. Blankenburg, E. Klausa and H. Rottloathner, eds., Alternative Rechtsforen und Atternativen Zum Recht (Bonn: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1980), pp. 11-26; and Miles Kahler, "Conclusion: Causes and consequences of legalization," International Organization 54, no. 3 (Summer 2000), pp. 661-83.

(73) See Mark Thatcher, "Analysing regulatory reform in Europe," Journal of European Public Policy 9, no. 6 (December 2002), pp. 859-72; and Andrew Jordan, "The Europeenization of national government and policy: A departmental perspective," British Journal of Political Science 33, no. 2 (April 2003), pp. 261-82. On the various possible arrangements of similarities and differences in comparative studies, see Robert Seeliger, "Conceptualizing and researching policy convergence," Policy Studies Journal 24, no. 2 (Winter 1996), pp. 287-310.

(74) Alan Peled, "Why style matters: A comparison of two administrative reform initiatives in the Israeli public sector, 1989-1998," Journal of Public Administraion Research and Theory 12, no. 2 (April 2002), pp. 217-40.

(75) This is a very common finding, for example, in terms of the actual impact of new public management thinking "on the ground." See Welch and Wong, "Effects of global pressures on public bureaucracy," Administration and Society; Knill, "Explaining cross-national variance in administrative reform," Journal of Public Policy; Christopher Pollitt, "Clarifying convergence: Striking similarities and durable differences in public management reform," Public Management Review 3, no. 4 (December 2001), pp. 471-92; and Colin J. Bennett, "Understanding ripple effects: The cross-national adoption of policy instruments for bureaucratic accountability," Governance 10, no. 3 (July 1997), pp. 213-33.

(76) William D. Coleman and Wyn P. Grant, "Policy convergence and policy feedback: Agricultural finance policies in a globalizing era," European Journal of Political Research 34, no. 6 (October 1998), pp. 225-47; and Jill Hills and Maria Michalis, "Restructuring regulation: Technological convergence and European telecommunications and broadcasting markets," Review of International Political Economy 7, no. 3 (September 2000), pp. 434-64.

(77) Michael Barzelay and Natascha Fuchtner, "Explaining public management policy change: Germany in comparative perspective," Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis 5, no. 1 (March 2003), pp. 7-28.

(78) For good examples of studies undertaken in this vein, see Borins, "Public management innovation in economically advanced and developing countries," International Review of Administrative Sciences, and Lindquist, Government Restructuring and Career Public Services in Canada. On this final point, see Peled, "Why style matters," Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory.

The author is Burnaby Mountain Professor, Department of Political Science, Simon Fraser University. He thanks the Journal's anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.