Kaufman's research on the "immortality" of public organizations has led us to believe that the population of organizations in government is very stable. The research reported here finds Kaufman's work to have some serious flaws. With a different data base and different methodology, the findings are that there was a great deal of change in the U.S. federal government in the period of 1933 to 1983.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Behn, R.D.
(1977) "The False Dawn of Sunset Laws,"The Public Interest, 49, pp. 103-118.
2.
Brewer, G.D.
and R. deLeon (1983) The Foundations of Policy Analysis. Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey.
3.
deLeon, P.
(1978) "A Theory of Policy Termination," in J.V. May and A. Wildavsky (eds.), The Policy Cycle (London: Sage), pp. 279-300.
4.
Hogwood, B.W.
and B.G. Peters (1983) Policy Dynamics (Brighton: Wheatsheaf).
5.
Kaufman, H.
(1976) Are Government Organizations Immortal? (Washington, D.C.: Brookings).
6.
Levine, C.H.
(1978) "Organizational Decline and Cutback Management,"Public Administration Review, 38, pp. 316-325.
7.
Levine, C.H.
(1980) "More on Cutback Management: Hard Questions for Hard Times," in C.H. Levine (ed.), Managing Fiscal Stress (Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House).
8.
March, J.G.
and J.P. Olsen (1982) "Organizing Political Life: What Administrative Reorganization Tells Us About Government." Paper presented at International Political Science Association World Congress, Rio de Janeiro.
9.
Moe, R.C.
(1979) The Federal Executive Establishment: Evolution and Trends (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office).
10.
Nystrom, P.C.
and W. H. Starbuck (1981) Handbook of Organizational Design (New York: Oxford).
11.
Peters, B.G.
and M.O. Heisler (1981) "Government: What is Growing and How Do We Know?,"Studies in Public Policy (No. 89) (Glasgow, Scotland: Centre for the Study of Public Policy, University of Strathclyde).
12.
Seidman, H.
(1980) Politics, Power and Position: The Dynamics of Federal Organizations, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford).
13.
Sharkansky, I.
(1979) Whither the State? (Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House).
14.
Tarschys, D.
(1977) "The Problem of the Pre-planned Society." Paper presented to Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association.
15.
Tarschys, D.
(1982) "Rational Decremental Budgeting,"Policy Sciences, 14, pp. 49-58.
16.
Walsh, A.H.
(1978) The Public's Business (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press).
17.
Wildavsky, A.
(1979) Speaking Truth to Power: The Art and Craft of Policy Analysis (Boston: Little, Brown).
