Bert A. Rockman

Conducting and Coding Elite Interviews

In real estate the maxim for picking a piece of property is “location, location, location.” In elite interviewing, as in social science generally, the maxim for the best way to design and conduct a study is “purpose, purpose, purpose.” Its elementary that the primary question one must ask before designing a study is, “What do I want to learn?” Appropriate methods flow from the answer. Interviewing is often important if one needs to know what a set of people think, or how they interpret an event or series of events, or what they have done or are planning to do. (Interviews are not always necessary. Written records, for example, may be more than adequate.) In a case study, respondents are selected on the basis of what they might know to help the investigator fill in pieces of a puzzle or confirm the proper alignment of pieces already in place. If one aims to make inferences about a larger population, then one must draw a systematic sample. For some kinds of information, highly structured interviews using mainly or exclusively close-ended questions may be an excellent way to proceed. If one needs to probe for information and to give respondents maximum flexibility in structuring their responses, then open-ended questions are the way to go.

Clashing Beliefs Within the Executive Branch: The Nixon Administration Bureaucracy.

This article examines two key political beliefs of high level American federal executives: their views on the role of government in providing social services and their views regarding inequities in political representation. Data were collected in 1970 through open-ended interviews with a sample of 126 political appointees and supergrade career civil servants in the domestic agencies. Both of the beliefs analyzed were pertinent to the efforts of the Nixon administration to reorder national priorities and policies. The evidence in the paper establishes differences in the outlooks of administrators depending on agency, job status, and party affiliation. Agency and party affiliation are particularly important variables, and their joint effects on the beliefs examined are substantial. Democratic administrators in the social service agenoies were the most liberal and Republicans in the non-social service agencies the most conservative. Our data document a career bureaucracy with very little Republican representation and a social service bureaucracy dominated by administrators ideologically hostile to many of the directions pursued by the Nixon administration in the realm of social policy. The article closes with a discussion of the implications of our findings for future conflicts between the elected executive and the bureaucracy.

The Past and Future of Political-Administrative Relations: Research from Bureaucrats and Politicians to In the Web of Politics—and Beyond

Abstract This article examines the changing nature of the relations between bureaucrats and politicians. Drawing on our earlier work with Robert D. Putnam (Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies, 1981) and our book published in 2000 (In the Web of Politics), plus additional works by others in this area, we consider the findings in these studies with particular emphasis on their implications for further research. One notable phenomenon is a retreat from what looked originally like a steady progression of bureaucratic influence in policymaking from Image I (politicians making decisions and bureaucrats implementing them) to Image IV (a deepening overlap of roles) back to Image II (with civil servants bringing facts and knowledge to the policy process and politicians defining values and representing interests). In a dynamic world, one should be cautious in suggesting a future research agenda. Despite this caution, however, we conclude the article with suggestions for work that we think will be important in the near future.

Comparative Administration Methods, Muddles, and Models

This article explores three theoretical and methodological problems in the comparative study of public administration: (1) the relations of parts of the administrative system, usually the focus of inquiry, to the administrative system as a whole, usually the object of theoretical inference; (2) the connection between universals of organization theory and variabilities in the environment of organizations and administrative systems; and (3) the link between distinctive levels of analytic focus-structures, actions, and actors. These broad theoretical and methodological problems anchor a more specific analysis of (1) links between bureaucracies, bureaucrats, and politics; (2) the ideas of centralization, planning, and coordination; and (3) the notions of bargaining, mediation, and sub governments.

America's Departments of State: Irregular and Regular Syndromes of Policy Making

This article (1) sketches a general explanation for the growth of coordinative machinery and of irregular personnel in modern governments; (2) identifies both general and specific reasons for this phenomenon in the United States with special reference to foreign policy making; (3) identifies within the American foreign policy-making context the modal characteristics of irregular and regular syndromes of policy making, and the conjunction between personnel and institutional base; (4) traces the implications arising from these different policy syndromes; and (5) evaluates some proposals for improving the coherence and knowledge base of American foreign policy making. The problems of defining foreign policy authority, assuring an integrated perspective, and effectively using specialized expertise are best seen in terms of the larger problem of governance in Washington against which all proposals for reform must be abraded.

Back to the Future? Senior Federal Executives in the United States

Based on findings from the 1970s, research literature on senior government executives emphasized a growing integration of politics and administration. This integration was reflected in what we called the “Image IV” bureaucrat wherein political role traits combined with those of traditional bureaucratic ones. Although this was by no means a dominant trend, we were led to speculate that traditional divisions between political and bureaucratic roles were eroding. Data gathered from the 1980s and 1990s, however, lead us to infer that divisions between political and bureaucratic roles have reasserted themselves and that integration between them is being diminished rather than strengthened. We conclude that this may be because in an era of governmental austerity the demand for executive policy entrepreneurs has slackened while the political needs have shifted to those of managerial control over an inertial or even contracting state.

The Political Views of U.S. Senior Federal Executives, 1970-1992

This research note examines the partisan affiliations of top-level appointees and civil servants in the Nixon, Reagan, and Bush administrations, and their beliefs about the appropriate role of government in the economy. The data we use are drawn from a longitudinal study of federal executives in these administrations. Over time the ranks of political appointees and senior civil servants have become more Republican. The samples of appointees and civil servants were also more conservative in their views on the role of government in the economy in the Reagan and Bush administrations than they were in the Nixon administration, with Bush administration personnel more moderate on this issue than Reagan administration officials. The note examines reasons for the changes, investigates differences within and between the samples, and lays out some preliminary interpretations of the data utilizing analysis of the political environment of each administration and opportunities for manipulation of the federal personnel system presented by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978.

Administrators' Beliefs About the Role of the Public: the Case of American Federal Executives

Faced with the steady growth of technological operations in government, to what extent and in what way can citizen participation in administra tion be preserved? A century ago the distinction between citizen and official was slight, passage from one status to the other was easy. Now inexpert participation in whole blocks of administration has become im possible, the distinction between official and citizen is more definite and permanent, a bureaucracy has emerged out of the conditions of modern government.... The reconciliation of democratic institutions and a pro fessionalized bureaucracy ... is one of the major perplexities of the future. 1

Institutions and democratic statecraft

Political Institutions And Democracy * Introduction Metin Heper. * Institutions, Democratic Stability, and Performance Bert A. Rockman. Well Established Democracies * Gridlock and the Crisis of Leadership in the U.S. Colin Campbell. * British Democracy and Its Discontents Graham Wilson. * What Kind of Democracy Do Canadians Want? Michael Atkinson. * Institutional Reform, Rationalization, and the Transformation of Australian Democracy Mark Considine. * Stability and Representation in France Valerie Rubsamen. Relatively Established Democracies * Institutionalizing Democracy in Germany: From Weimar to Bonn and Berlin Hans-Ulrich Derlien. * Freezing, Adaptation, and Change in Italian Democracy Leonardo Morlino. * Surviving the Odds in the Case of Indian Democracy R. B. Jain. * Transforming Israeli Democracy Under Stress Fred A. Lazin. Newly Established Democracies * Constitution Making and Democratic Consolidation in Turkey Ergun zbudun. * Division or Cohesion in the Polish Executive and the Democratic Order George J. Szablowski. * Managing Democratic Consolidation in Spain: From Consensus to Majority in Institutions Richard Gunther. Conclusion * Connecting Political Institutions to Democracy Ali Kazancigil.

Comparing Japanese and American Administrative Elites

Using evidence from surveys of top administrators, we examine differences between Japanese and American administrative elites. Our findings are far more complex than the reigning stereotypes of an apolitical, technocratic and elitist Japanese bureaucracy contrasted to a politically charged, conflict-oriented and social-reformist American federal executive. For example, senior Japanese bureaucrats take political considerations into account, compared to technical ones, no less than top American officials. American administrators have a more negative view of the role of political parties than their Japanese counterparts and, on average, an equally negative view of politicians interfering in their work than the supposedly more elitist, autonomous and technocratic Japanese bureaucrats. The article closes with a discussion of why popular conceptions of the two bureaucracies break down in practice.