Allison’s Paradigm of Bureaucratic Politics 49
than search for all potential responses, the various components of government
will act according to SOPs that, in eff ect, say, “When X happens, do Y.”
Th e seminal contribution of Allison (1971) and Allison and Halperin (1972)
to the bureaucratic politics literature came in the articulation of an alternative
to Models I and II. Model III, or the bureaucratic politics paradigm, explains
government actions as the product of bargaining and compromise among the
various organizational elements of the executive branch. Allison’s model of bu-
reaucratic politics is constructed from four basic propositions. (1) Th e exec-
utive branch is composed of numerous organizations and individuals having
divergent objectives and agendas. Any given issue will attract the attention and
involvement of a set of these actors, who bring to that issue their divergent in-
terests and motivations. (2) No preponderant individual or organization exists;
in other words, no one actor in the executive branch is able to act unilaterally.
Th e president might be the most powerful actor on a given issue, but he will
not be the only actor, and his infl uence will be limited. (3) Th e fi nal decision
is a “political resultant”; in other words, what the government decides to do is
the outcome of bargaining and compromise, the product of a political process.
(4) Th ere is a diff erence between making policy and carrying it out. Once an
action is decided upon, the task of implementing that decision is handed over
to others who must also make decisions about the specifi c actions to take. Th ose
decisions are in turn shaped by the operating procedures and interests of the
implementers (Rosati 1981).
With these as a starting point, a policy analyst’s attention is immediately fo-
cused on power and politics within and among executive branch bureaucracies.
Within the confi nes of the executive branch, Allison’s model combines and makes
little distinction between politics and administration, and in doing so seems to
answer the challenge laid down by Gaus. In studying bureaucracy, as Allison put
it, “the name of the game is politics: bargaining along regularized circuits among
players positioned hierarchically within the government. Government behavior
can thus be understood . . . as a result of these bargaining games” (1971, 144).
Model III sees the components of the executive branch as semiautonomous orga-
nizations that do not act in unison on a series of single strategic issues, but act on
a variety of issues according to their own conceptions of national, organizational,
and individual goals. Instead of making policy and implementation decisions ac-
cording to rational self-interest, or according to the dictates of SOPs, government
actors decide on the basis of the “pulling and hauling” that is politics.
From its general premises, Model III systematically goes about explaining spe-
cifi c policies by seeking the answers to a few basic questions. (1) Who plays? In
other words, what agencies or individuals have an important stake in a given is-
sue, and whose behavior can have an important eff ect on government decisions
and actions concerning that issue? (2) What determines each player’s stand? Th is
question stems from Allison’s proposition that “where you stand depends on
where you sit.” Diff erent agencies and individuals will have diff erent perceptions