Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15025 in Books
• Published on: 1991-01-29
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

From Library Journal
Wilson (management, UCLA) attempts to explain bureaucratic behavior, beginning with a contrast of similar institutions (armies, prisons, and schools) that have succeeded and failed. He finds that neither the liberal view (more money, new programs) or the conservative ideology (smaller government) provides the single answer. Wilson's key contribution here is his emphasis on the "bottom" of the bureaucracy--those who do the work. Policy, he says, is developed by those with no understanding of its implementation. In addition, Wilson suggests that bureaucracy can be made "efficient" by giving bureaucrats more incentives and flexibility, a strategy, he concludes, that conflicts with our political culture. For academic libraries.
- Jeffrey Kraus, Wagner Coll., Staten Island, New York
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Christian Science Monitor
"A gold mine of interesting, even unique observations about bureaucratic government on all levels."

--Martha Derthick, University of Virginia
"The synthesis is shrewd and creative. The prose is uncommonly swift. The fresh insights are abundant and compelling."

Customer Reviews

great read for policy people
I just finished a masters program in public policy, and though this book was not used in any of my classes, it was recommended reading. I have to say that it provides a great introduction to bureaucracies and why they are the way they are. (Spoiler: it's not, as many believe, because bureacrats are idiots) Coming from a background of small, private-sector organizations, this was especially useful for me.

I appreciate Wilson's taxonomies of various organizations. Every political scientist has to have a 2x2 matrix to divide the world, but one of Wilson's, that divides organizations into "production," "coping," "craft," and "procedural" is particularly useful. If you are planning a career in public service, you'd do well to take some time to match your personality to the type of organization you're thinking of joining.

This book is NOT a sociological examination of bureaucracy
Though the author does name drop Max Weber twice, this book is far from a concise sociological understanding of the concept bureaucracy. So reading it from this standpoint, the material would appear a bit long winded and inconcise. I would not recommend this book if you are interested in understanding bureaucracy from a sociological perspective. The focus is strictly government bureaucracy (mostly if not entirely a United States bureacracy analysis). "Search inside this book" and you can see how the author breaks up this focus. ( Don't be fooled by reading the paged provided to you by Amazon, the rest of the book isn't at all like those few beginning pages. The book gets more uninteresting as you read the following chapters.) In my opinion the book is overloaded with example that, as reader, you kind of lose focus as to what the points of those examples are. And it's almost as though these "examples" that the author provides are really suppose to be stand alone "stories of interest" The book was written in 1989 so all the examples are dated in that respect so if you purchase this book now in 2007, these examples may not be of any interest in and of themselves like I believe the author intended them to be. For 25 plus dollars I would say that this book really isn't worth a purchase but if money is not an issue or if you can get this book for less then whatever you know. It not even a very good book on government bureaucracy either in my opinion because the author really isn't very insightful in his analysis. Just read the review by Tansu Demir found in the review section and save your money.

Good book
This is a book used for my public management class and I have to say, it is pretty interesting. I feel that there is some overlap in chapters, but overall it's a good book.