Summary of books in academic contexts

¶ … Working, Shirking, and Sabotage: Bureaucratic Response to a Democratic Public, Scott Gates and John O. Brehm examine the factors that influences decisions made by bureaucrats. The authors argue that supervisors are essentially ineffectual in influencing the behaviors and attitudes of street-level bureaucrats. Instead, the decisions of street-level bureaucrats are influenced by their own beliefs, and by the peer pressure exerted by other bureaucrats. This contrasts significantly with earlier principal-agency models used to explain bureaucratic behavior which argued that supervisors significantly influenced bureaucratic behavior.

The authors argue that a look at the working lives of bureaucrats is a topical and valuable addition to the literature on the role of government in the United States today. They note that bureaucrats act as important agents for a democratic government, as they perform the lion's share of governmental tasks. As such, the actions of bureaucrats can influence the day-to-day lives of millions of Americans. Understanding the factors that control bureaucratic decisions is crucial to better understanding our government, and may ultimately help predict the behavior of bureaucrats.

Gates and Brehm use a variety of evidence to back up their discussion throughout the book itself. The book is bolstered by the results of surveys, administrative records, and observational studies. Further, the authors provide a useful analysis and understanding of the current theory of bureaucratic workload and motivation, including a review of principal-agency models.

The authors note that a bureaucrat's discretion regarding decisions is related to a mixture of working, shirking and sabotage. In other words, Gates and Brehm argue that decisions made by bureaucrats generally consist of three categories of working, shirking, or sabotage. Working is characterized by exerting effort toward accomplishing specific goals of policy. Most often, this work matches the goals of their supervisors. In contrast, shirking occurs when a bureaucrat directs his or her efforts toward goals that are not policy related. Shirking can include working actively towards leisure goals. In the case of sabotage, these bureaucrats move toward accomplishing policy goals that may be in direct conflict with the policy goals of their supervisors.

One of the more interesting concepts tackled within Gates and Brehm's discussion is their focus on the power of the bureaucrat vs. The influence of the supervisor. Traditionally, the authors argue that the leader influences the subordinate bureaucrat through either coercion or through education. However, they argue that bureaucrat's decisions are not influenced strongly by their supervisor's policies and beliefs. This contrasts sharply with some earlier theories that suggested that supervisors were responsible for the actions of their subordinates. Working, Shirking, and Sabotage clearly shows that supervisory ability to guide subordinate actions is significantly limited, although bureaucrats report that supervisors do have a small influence on their behavior.

Specifically, Brehm and Gates empirically demonstrated that decisions made by street-level bureaucrats were explained by their own personal choices and those of their peer group. Further, these decisions often bore little kinship to the beliefs and preferences of supervisors, as would be argued by principal-agency models. Street-level bureaucrats implement public policy out of personal agreement with policy mandates and pressure from their peer group, rather than those of their supervisors. Thus, "work" in accordance with policy objectives does not occur as a result of supervisory control or the ability of the supervisor to coerce the bureaucrat to perform certain actions.

In addition, Gates and Brehm note a number of other factors that influence how hard bureaucrats work. The nature of their specific jobs they are hired to do is one such factor. Further, the public that they serve also plays an important role in their decisions to work, shirk, or sabotage.

Interestingly, Gates and Brehm argue that there is little evidence for what they call "leisure shirking." This "leisure shirking" refers essentially to the tendency of street-level bureaucrats who tend to favor light workloads to avoid their work duties. Here, effort would be focused toward leisure activities rather than policy goals. Gates and Brehm's failure to find empirical evidence for "leisure shirking" again goes against the ideas of most principal-agent literature.

The authors also discuss a phenomenon called "political shirking." Here, bureaucrats avoid policy-related work out of specific policy preferences, rather than for a desire for leisure. Often, these policy preferences can be motivated by cynical or aversive perceptions about their clients.