Politics, Power, and Organization 53
procedures and “going by the book” provide operators with a guide to low-risk
behavior. Wilson additionally argued that most large organizations, and cer-
tainly many public agencies, have their own particular personality. Th ey have
persistent, patterned ways of thinking about the purposes of the organization and
the best means to achieve those purposes. Combined, these patterns constitute
organizational culture, and they serve to socialize organizational novitiates into
the “way things are done around here” (1989, 91–93). Recent work by Foldy and
Buckley (2009) suggests that we only partially understand how street-level prac-
tice might change. Th ey do fi nd, however, that the “way things are done around
here” oft en endures, unless new goals are issued in a clear, coherent fashion, and
that teams of workers are stable.
Wilson was not just interested in identifying the behavioral motivations of
operators; he also identifi ed two other kinds of bureaucrats: managers (peo-
ple who coordinate the work of operators to achieve organizational goals) and
executives (people responsible for maintaining their organizations). He also
identifi ed systematic elements to the behavior of each level and how they inter-
act with each other. For example, he argued that managers of public agencies
have a diff erent set of constraints upon their behavior than managers in private
fi rms. At a most basic level, managers must have a clear sense of an organiza-
tion’s mission if they are to coordinate the work of operators toward that end,
and executives must be capable of defending that mission and of supporting
their organization’s pursuit of a given objective. In the public sector, even these
most basic elements of administration are complex because public organiza-
tions cannot control their broadly defi ned missions, nor can they unilaterally
control other critical elements of management—revenues, personnel, and the
means of production.
Wilson concluded that successful bureaucracies are those in which executives
have created a clear sense of mission, identifi ed the tasks that must be achieved
to fulfi ll that mission, distributed authority within the organization according
to those tasks, and provided subordinates (particularly operators) with enough
autonomy to achieve the task at hand (1989, 365)—a fairly tall order given the
complex environment of public agencies. Wilson’s argument suggests that agen-
cies given clear objectives and high levels of autonomy are more likely to be suc-
cessful in achieving those objectives. Yet, as Wilson acknowledged, it is diffi cult
to see how clear objectives can be routinely manufactured as an end product of
a democratic process. If the administrative arm of government is given greater
levels of autonomy, and if clearer goals are not forthcoming from the democratic
institutions of government, the likely result is the transfer of increasing amounts
of policymaking power to the bureaucracy. In its call for clearer missions and less
centralization in public bureaucracy, Wilson’s argument is ultimately prescrip-
tive. Reorganization through deregulation, however, turns out to be an extension
of bureaucratic politics rather than a way to channel it toward universally desired
ends. Organization helps determine not only how bureaucracies and bureaucrats