REVIEWS

Date01 March 1992
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1992.tb00930.x
Published date01 March 1992
REVIEWS
DEMOCRACY. BUREAUCRACY
AND
PUBLIC
CHOICE
Patrick
Dunleavy
Harvester/Wheatsheaf.
1991.
286pp.
€10.95
(paper)
At times it appears as
if
the dissemination of knowledge in the social sciences is inversely
related to the available channels
of
communication. The last two decades have witnessed
an extraordinary growth in the number of books and academic
journals
in political science
and in the other
social
sciences. But consider
this.
In
1970
Brian Barry published
Sociologists,
Economists
ad
Democracy,
an important monograph which alerted political scientists
to the potential value of rational choice models. Within a
few
years most political scientists
claimed to know at least something about both Downsian models of party competition
and the collective action problem. But for most of them interest in the public choice
approach rarely went beyond the literature to which
books
like Barry’s had drawn attention.
Thus, in
1991
Dunleavy is quite correct in claiming:
.
.
.it is still very common outside the United States for political scientists who do not
themselves
use
public choice methodology to dismiss it as of marginal interest for the
discipline
as
a whole. Even
in
the US the prominence
of
public choice in leading political
science journals is based on a fairly small group of authors and studies (p.
3).
Undoubtedly, the avalanche of published research confronting political scientists today
contributes to the failure of
mainstream
political science to take much notice
of
the potential
explanatory value of public choice models. But by no means is this the whole story. Much
of the research by public choice theorists seems
so
far removed from the study of political
institutions that its relevance seems doubtful. Moreover, too often public choice theorists
display
all
the zeal of seventeenth century religious sects: for its adherents it provides
the
way to a true understanding of social phenomena.
It
is
against such backgrounds that
striking
parallels between Dunleavy’s book and
Barry’s
earlier work can
be
appreciated. Both
are
clearly written analyses; both provide important
insights into the explanatory value of rational choice models; and in neither case is the
author a propagandist for the public choice ’sect’. There are interesting parallels too in
the content of the
two
books. Barry’s account of economic theories
of
democracy
focuses
on
Downs
and Olson-Riker‘s
Theory
of
Political
Conditions
is
summarily
dismissed
without
discussion. Similarly, Dunleavy devotes two
of
his nine chapters to Downsian’ issues of
voting and a further two chapters to interest groups; coalition theory is discussed only
briefly. Nevertheless, as one might expect given the twenty year interval between them,
the
two
books
are
very different
-
the different
thrust
to Dunleavy’s
reflecting
developments
in the discipline. Whereas about half of Barry‘s relatively short book could be devoted
to
the sociological approach to politics, Dunleavy analyses theories
of
interest groups and
of party competition in much greater depth than did Barry. Moerover, three
of
Dunleavy‘s
chapters are devoted to public choice models
of
bureaucracy
-
Niskanen’s pathbreaking
and provocative work on the subject having been published the year after
Sociologists,
Economists
and
Democracy.
REVIEWS
137
Democracy,
Bureaucracy
and
Public Choice
is
a book that
can
be
recommended strongly
to both students and colleagues.
It
is particularly useful
if
read in conjunction with Iain
McLean's
Public Choice.
However,
I
must admit
to
having some reservations about
Dunleavy's book.
His
strategy is to focus on 'soft' public choice
-
excluding 'hard public
choice theory, because it provides insights into only isolated aspects of decision making.
While
I
happen to agree that public choice advocates often claim far too much for it,
Dunleavy
dismisses
the general explanatory claims of game theory, for example, far too
quickly. Moreover, hiscoverage
of
'soft' public choice theories is uneven
-
I
have already
noted the limited space devoted to coalition theory.
I
believe that part of the problem
here
is
that
many
of
the chapters had their
origin
in articles published in academic
journals,
and
I
have a strong impression that this book represents an uneasy compromise between
a monograph and a collection of separate essays on related topics. In passing,
I
would
add that it is unfortunate also that the books first reference
-
to Tsebelis's much publicized
Nested
Gmffi
-
should misprint
so
horribly that author's name;
this
conveys an impression
of carelessness which is not warranted.
In
general, though, Dunleavy's book
is
successful
-
most especially, perhaps, in
demonstrating that rational choice analysis is not necessarily linked to the theories and
political agenda of the
New
Right.
Alan Ware
Worcester College, Oxford
ADMINISTRATIVE
REFORM COMES
OF
AGE
Gerald
E.
Caiden
Walter
de
Gruyter,
1991.
347pp.
$44.95.
DM.88.00
In
Administrative Reform Comes
of
Age
Caiden draws detailed lessons from the past thirty
years of administrative reform in the First, Second and Third Worlds. Reforms are placed
in the broad political and international contexts of the Cold War, international development
assistance, and revolution in the Eastern bloc. The historical experience from which
generalizations about administrative reform can be generated is broadened to include the
premodern bureaucratic empires, the transformation of absolute monarchy into responsible
government, and the emergence of the newly independent states of the Third World. The
assumption is that administrative reform is needed everywhere, that
it
will always bring
benefits
if
done properly and that countries doing well
despite
poor administrative
performance (e.g. Italy) would always do better
if
their administrations were reformed.
It is not recognized that when reform is part of a restructuring of state and society there
are always interests which benefit and those which lose. The closest admission of this is
the recognition that 'the administrative state has helped to double the average expectancy
of life, eradicate preventable diseases, diminish hunger, sickness, ignorance and poverty,
and generally given hope
to
the underprivileged in society' (p.
93).
Caiden probably over-estimates the importance attached to administrative reform by
its protagonists and its association with the betterment of mankind. It
is
highly unlikely
that 'When people tire of reform, they tire of life' (p.
315).
Consequently he runs the risk
of placing too much responsibility on public administration for protest in the Eastern Bloc,
the slow pace
of
Third World development, and the poor economic performance
of
the
industrialized democracies. It may
be
true that 'much in the contemporary world depended
on the performance of public organization, administration and management for adminis-
trative reform not to be given a higher priority on political agendas' (p.
3),
but it is not
as much as this book often implies. Part of the problem is that Caiden is himself a crusader
for administrative reform (or at least that
is
how he comes over here). Part is that a

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