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Thickening Government - Federal Hierarchy and the Diffusion of Accountability (Paperback)
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Thickening Government - Federal Hierarchy and the Diffusion of Accountability (Paperback)
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Government is under enormous pressure to change. Call it
reinventing, reengineering, or plain old change, but the mandate
remains the same: produce more with less, and satisfy the customer
while doing it. Yet, successful reform must involve more than
exhortation and slogans. Paul Light argues that a failure to pay
attention to the thickening of government over the past half
century may doom any reinventing effort. The federal government has
never had so many leaders. There are more layers of management
between the top and bottom of government, with more administrative
units and occupants at each layer. Bill Clinton is further from the
frontlines of government than any president in American history. If
the past decades are any indication, he will exit a presidency that
is even thicker. Light presents a revealing look at how thick the
bureaucracy really is, how and why thickening occurs, what
difference it might make, and what can be done to both reverse the
process and keep the thickening from growing back. Light shows how
the management layers between the top and bottom of
government--between air traffic controllers and the Secretary of
Transportation, food inspectors and the Secretary of Agriculture,
and so on-- have steadily increased. In 1960, for example, John F.
Kennedy's senior-most appointments came in four layers: secretary,
under secretary, assistant secretary, and deputy assistant
secretary. By 1992, the number of layers had tripled. In the
meantime, the number of occupants at each layer grew geometrically;
the number of assistant secretaries jumped from 81 to 212. A
government of managers means the president has very little direct
access or control over what happens farbelow, a basic problem of
accountability. Information gets distorted on the way up, and
guidance gets lost on the way down. Thickening often creates so
many bureaucratic baffles that no one can be held accountable for
any decision; mid-level workers may have so many bosses that they
effectively have none. Light concludes that practically nothing by
way of quality management, service-government, or employee
involvement can work with these towering government agencies. But
practically nothing will fail if a radical " down- layering" is
undertaken now.
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