Shielding Public Agencies from Political Influence:Does Structural Insulation Really Matter?

• 영문명: Shielding Public Agencies from Political Influence:Does Structural Insulation Really Matter?
• 발행기관: 한국국정관리학회
• 저자명: 이정욱(Jung Wook Lee)
• 간행물 정보: 『현대사회와 행정』第26卷 第3號, 59~84쪽, 전체 26쪽
• 주제분류: 사회과학 > 행정학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2016.09.30

영문 초록

This study tests the moderating effect of ‘structural insulation,’ an agency design strategy for shielding a public agency from external political influences. Since ‘politics-administration dichotomy’ was put forward as a core theory for administrative reform, various schemes have been proposed for safeguarding administrative agencies from political influence, thereby enhancing their neutral competence. Structural insulation-structuring agencies with insulating features such as fixed-term for agency head(s), governance by multi-member board, etc.-is one of such ideas. A review of the literature, however, reveals a paucity of systematic evidence of whether and how structural insulation matters. Few studies tested the efficacy of each insulating feature, using data from a representative sample. Yet another problem is that studies on structural insulation are based largely on discussions of how politics affects the policies of public agencies, to the virtual exclusion of discussions of how politics affects their organizational characteristics. Using data collected from 115 U.S. federal agencies, this study attempted to address these voids in the current literature. It examined whether the impact of ‘political salience’ of a federal agency-salience to the president and Congress-on its ‘priority goal ambiguity’ is moderated by insulating features, extending Lee et al.’s (2009) study, which reported a positive relationship between the two. Regression results provide partial support for the moderating effect of structural insulation: three out of the four insulating features were found to mitigate the impact of congressional salience on priority ambiguity, while no such effect was detected when it comes to presidential salience. This study discusses the implications of these results and puts forward suggestions for future research.

목차

Ⅰ. Introduction

Ⅱ. Structural Insulation

Ⅲ. Methods

Ⅳ. Results

Ⅴ. Discussion and Conclusions

키워드

Structural insulation agency design political transaction cost