Bureaucratic Politics and the Shaping of Policies: Can We Measure Pulling and Hauling Games?

Abstract

This article re-evaluates Graham Allison's approach to bureaucratic politics in the second edition of his Essence of Decision, authored with Philip Zelikow. Although the renewed analytical framework still appears to be an excellent tool for describing policy decision-making processes, the numerous criticisms it received in the past with respect to its difficult operationalization is a problem left unsolved. To respond to this major difficulty, the author of this article combines Vincent Lemieux's structuration of power with Allison's approach. In order to validate the ensuing model, an empirical test is then conducted using the case study of the 1987 Canadian White Paper on Defence. This original proposition opens up avenues of research in the fields of foreign as well as public policy making.

Blind spots and spotlights in bureaucratic politics: An analysis of policy co‐production in environmental governance dynamics in Indonesia

“…On the other hand, business actors can hide the problem and keep it away from the decision-making process. It depends on power relations among actors, which can take a different path from that explored by Michaud (2002), which only involved struggle among inter-state departments or formal institutions. In fact, policy co-productions can be initiated and controlled by non-state actors within parastatal organizations, albeit in constant negotiation with the state, as in the case of the research on the silk value chain.…”

“…Bureaucratic politics can investigate deeply the informal motives of one bureaucracy or client of bureaucracy; however, the chaotic situation of complex reality means that this analysis should be accompanied by other social science analysis. Macro politics deal with the broader propositions involving state as a unitary actor whereby decisions remain in the hands of the main actor (that is, the president) (Allison & Zelikow, 1999; Michaud, 2002). Under the framework of bureaucratic politics, the assumptions that the state is a unitary actor cannot be generalised due to the fact that most actors in the domestic context are fragmented and are likely to have little interest in general concerns (Lowi, 1964) but situated in a clear competition among bureaucracies.…”

The Internal—External Security Nexus

“…(Hammond, 1986: 416;cf. Allison and Zelikow, 1999;Michaud, 2002) The fact that transnational terrorism first achieved the kind of salience it now has on the US agenda after the events of 11 September 2001 can be ex plained partly by bureaucratic politics. While some intelligence on these attacks was collected, it never reached key decision-makers before it was too late (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, 2004;Stern and Parker, 2005).…”

Bureaucratic Power: Security and the National Response Plan

“…Michaud states this concern in his review of Allison and Zelikow's Essence of Decision framework (Michaud, 2002). Moe (1982) offered a model of the effect that presidential impact has on administrative behavior suggesting that presidents do influence the direction in which administrators go when they make policy.…”