Controlling the Bureaucracy among the States

Abstract

This article examines the attitudes of state administrators, executives, and legislators toward proposals for controlling the bureaucracy. Respondents were queried in regard to executive control, pluralism, professionalism, and representative bureaucracy. While a self-interest thesis is to some extent present (preference linkages between administrators and professionalism, executives and executive control, and legislators and pluralism), it is neither exclusive nor overwhelming. Governmental elites show a great deal of uniformity in their attitudes toward the various approaches suggested for controlling the bureaucracy. Occupational and political characteristics appear to possess relatively little explanatory power with regard to these administrative matters.