Th e Rational, Self-Maximizing Bureaucrat 201
of organization in shaping individual motivations, Downs proposed a series of
general propositions about the behavior of bureaucrats and bureaucracies. Th ese
included the “Law of Increasing Conserverism,” which posits that in the long run
most bureaucrats become conservers; and the “Law of Imperfect Control,” which
posits that the larger an organization, the weaker the control those at the top of
the hierarchy have over the actions of those in the middle and at the bottom.
Downs added to the picture portrayed by Tullock, but did not radically change
the overall impression: Th e rational, self-maximizing bureaucrat led to public
agencies that were unwieldy, diffi cult to manage, and, at best, only partially ori-
ented toward the public-interest concerns embedded in their putative missions.
Although Downs and Tullock presented a radically alternative picture of bu-
reaucratic behavior than that conveyed by previous research, it was Niskanen
who really thrust rational choice theory into a central role in explaining bureau-
cratic behavior. Niskanen’s great achievement was to create the fi rst formal eco-
nomic theory of bureaucratic behavior (i.e., his theory was based on mathematical
derivations concerning the utility and productivity functions of bureaucrats and
bureaucracies). Niskanen’s starting points were similar to those of Tullock and
Downs in that the central fi gure in his theory is the individual utility-maximizing
bureaucrat. Niskanen, however, paid more detailed attention to what bureaucrats
seek to maximize. Th e rational choice assumptions of economics argue that in
making decisions and taking actions, an individual seeks to maximize personal
utility.
In and of itself, however, this is not a particularly useful insight. What, aft er
all, constitutes “personal utility”? In economics, utility is typically put into oper-
ation according to Buchanan and Tullock’s “more rather than less” dictum. De-
cisions that yield more of something (wages, profi ts, consumption opportunities)
are thus presumed to increase utility. Niskanen sought to extend this reasoning
from the individual economic actor to the bureaucrat by suggesting several vari-
ables that might enter into the latter’s utility functions: salary, perquisites, power,
prestige, patronage, public reputation, and agency output. Niskanen argued that
most of these variables are tied to the budget of a given agency. If such things as
salary, power, and prestige are tied to the overall budget of an agency, the ratio-
nal bureaucrat should therefore strive to make that budget as large as possible.
Niskanen (1971, 38) thus suggested that budget maximization serves as a good
proxy for the utility of the bureaucrat.
Niskanen recognized that not all bureaucrats are motivated by fi nancial bot-
tom lines or career advancement, and was willing to acknowledge that some
bureaucrats genuinely seek to serve and advance the public interest. Th ese bu-
reaucrats, however, have a problem: “A bureaucrat . . . is neither omniscient nor
sovereign. He cannot acquire all of the information on individual preferences and
production opportunities that would be necessary to divine the public interests”
(1971, 39). In other words, bureaucrats have diff erent ideas about what consti-
tutes the public interest, and no individual has all the information required to