Public Management and Administration - Owen E.hughes

42 Public Management and Administration
other public-choice-inspired work. As Niskanen argues, ‘if the structure and
incentives in a bureaucracy have to be changed so much to improve its performance,
why not rely more on private markets, where this structure and
incentive system now exist’ and ‘a wide range of services financed by government
are also marketed, or are potentially marketable in the private sector’
(1973, p. 54). From this perspective, public service should be reduced to the
bare minimum with many current functions returned to the private sector or
simply abolished.
Public choice arguments about bureaucracy, while plausible, are hardly
proven and have been challenged, even from within their own framework
(Dunleavy, 1991). The question about bureaucrats maximizing budgets to
achieve their personal ends suffers from a marked lack of evidence or empirical
examination (Lane, 1995, pp. 64–5). Since there are central agencies or senior
officers who gain personal benefits by restricting the money going to others,
there can hardly be an overall conspiracy to increase the agency’s budget
(Dunleavy, 1986, pp. 13–34). Also, bureaucrats are in no position to spend on
themselves any extra funds they may get for their agency. As Wilson argues:
‘One wonders why Niskanen thinks bureaucrats are so desirous of maximizing
their budgets if they can enjoy so few of the fruits’ (1989, p. 118). Niskanen
later argued that his initial formulation was inadequate and that bureaucrats
aim to maximize their discretionary budget rather than the total budget (1994,
p. 281). It is also possible the theory may be more applicable to the United
States, where agencies build separate political relationships with Congress and
where fiscal responsibility is hard to locate. In parliamentary countries, funding
is more directly controlled by the executive and central agencies and there
are particular bureaucrats whose career paths are advanced by their ability to
cut the budgets of their own or other agencies.
The public choice approach is valuable because it enables generalizations
from quite simple assumptions. However, there is an increasing recognition
even among economists that their notion of ‘rational economic man’ (or
woman) is too often ‘introduced furtively and left under-specified’ (Dunleavy,
1991, p. 4; see also Monroe, 1991). Even if there is only a need for these
assumptions to apply in the average or aggregate, there are greater problems
when the area of application is further away from strict market behaviour.
Another point is that, in this kind of criticism, bureaucracy is seen as somewhat
sinister, as an all-purpose societal villain, as a ‘traditional bête noire’ or
‘some kind of alien force’ (Goodsell, 1983, p. 149). This view exaggerates the
power of bureaucracy and disregards its public purpose. The case against
bureaucracy at some points is extrapolated into a case against all government
or all non-market entities, in all circumstances, instead of pointing to more
realistic problems in one kind of organization, or places where it might or
might not work.
However, public choice arguments have had an impact on parties and governments,
despite ideological persuasion (Walsh, 1995). Even if the greatest