Why Bureaucrats Play Games

Simulating the Foreign Policy Decision-Making Process in the Undergraduate Classroom

“…• the impact of stress and constraints (e.g., time, information availability, and information reliability) found in crisis situ-ations (Brecher 1977;George and Stern 2002;Hermann 1963;Rosenthal, 't Hart, and Kouzmin 1991); • the role of interest groups in the decision-making process (Haney and Vanderbush 1999;Putnam 1988;Risse-Kappen 1991;Van Bell 1993); • the impact of electoral politics, election timing, and partisan conflicts on the decision-making process (Marra, Ostrom, and Simon 1990;Risse-Kappen 1991); • the institutional conflicts involved in decision making (Allison and Halperin 1972;Allison and Zelikow 1999;Art 1973;Bender and Hammond 1992;Caldwell 1977;Halperin 1971);…”

Sources of Responsiveness by a Government Monopoly

“…Thus, departments have an incentive to focus on other hostages. There are, after all, many things the personnel director and his staff value: they wish to preserve their jobs, authority, prestige, and time; they do not want the agency to lose its budget appropriation, autonomy, or legitimacy (Halperin, 1971;Perrow, 1970;Blau and Scott, 1962). A credible threat, however, is hard for departments to develop.…”

Bureaucratic Responsiveness in the Cities

“…Funded in part by the Methodist Church, the clearing house persistently claimed that the police force should racially reflect the fifty percent minority population in Oakland. In dealing with the minority challenge, then, Oakland officials spent much time resisting. Urban bureaucrats generally wish to preserve their decision-making autonomy (Halperin, 1971), particularly in issue areas such as recruitment which vitally affect the flow of power resources into city departments. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Oakland policy makers thwarted minority efforts to establish participatory structures (Thompson, 1973a).…”