SOG News
AWARD CITATION: THE CHARLES H. LEVINE MEMORIAL BOOK PRIZE, 2002.
Charels H. Levine was a major presence in the IPSA Research Committee on the
Structure and Organization of Government and was deeply involved with the
Research Committee's official journal, Governance, serving on its
editorial board. His distinguished professional career was devoted to connecting
the worlds of theory and practice. Following his untimely death in September
1988, the editorial board of Governance and the SOG executive board
established an annual book award in his memory. The award is to honour the best
book in the fields of public policy and administration published in the previous
year according to the following criteria:
- it makes a contribution of considerable
theoretical and / or practical significance in the field of public policy
and administration;
- it takes an explicitly comparative perspective or
produces findings whose implications for comparative research are highly
significant;
- it appears in an accessible writing style and form
so that both scholars and practitioners might find it valuable to their
research and work.
From among the nominations received, the selection committee - composed of
Paul I. Quirk (University of Illinois), Donald F. Kettl and Anne M.
Khademian (University of Wisconsin-Madison) - is pleased to announce
that the winner of the 2002 Levine Award for best book published in 2001 is Daniel
P. Carpenter for The Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy: Reputations,
Networks and Policy Innovation in Executive Agencies, 1862-1928 (Princeton
Univeristy Press).
The Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy is a work of uncommon ambition.
The book explores the emergence of, and variations in, the capacity for
entrepreneurial policy innovation in three federal agencies - the Department of
Agriculture, the Post Office Department, and the Department of Interior - from
the Civil War to the Great Depression. The key question asked by Carpenter is
why were some agencies able to impose their preferences for policy change in
face of resistance from powerful actors while other were not?
In a perspective and original theoretical synthesis, Carpenter incorporates
rational choice, social networks, and bureaucratic culture to argue that "legitimacy
is the foundation of bureaucratic autonomy in democratic regimes", and to
identify the conditions of legitimacy. Using a vast array of both archival
evidence and quantitative data sets, The Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy
is methodologically rigorous and self-conscious. The author presents carefully
structured narriative comparisons across agencies and over time; spells out and
evaluates counterfactual implications of the argument; and brings to bear
stae-of-the-art statistical techniques. It is a tour de force of
historical and social scientifid research.
Carpentrer's findings challenge much of the leading scholarship about
bureaucratic politics and the development of the American state. Carpenter
rejects interpretations that stress institutional structure, procedural
constraints, party or regional politics, or sweeping trends in state development.
He finds that autonomy results when "gain lasting esteem for their ability
to provide unique services, author new solutions to troubling national dilemmas,
operate with newfound efficiency, or offer special protection to the public from
economic, social and even moral hazards".
The Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy is a study rich in practical
implications. At bottom, Carpenter shows that bureaucratic officials below the
top executive level - bureau chiefs and program managers - play the central role
in developing institutional compotence, shaping a distinctive organizational
culture, and building a divers network of constituencies and defer to agency's
judgement and support its initiatives. In the end, therefore, to bureaucratic
autonomy is forged politically.
Daniel Carpenter's extraordinary book is not a singular example of the
criteria assiciated with the Levine award of significance, comparative
perspective, and accessibility, it is an examplar of social science at its very
best. This year's Levine Prize Committee is pleased therefore, to award the 2002
Charles Levine prize to The Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy.
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