Nonhierarchical Approaches to the Organization of Public Activity

Vincent Ostrom

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1983, vol. 466, issue 1, 135-147

Abstract: Recent emphasis on the management of intergovernmental relations raises questions about patterns of governance in a federal system that rely more upon the nonhierarchical modes of organization implied by management principles. Tocqueville, in Democracy in America , explicitly recognized that the American system of administration relied on nonhierarchical methods of control that manifest an invisible-hand effect in the exercise of administrative power. Modern developments in public choice theory provide another explanation for nonhierarchical patterns of organization in a public economy. Such modes of organization are consistent with the patterns of multiorganizational arrangement that one would expect to occur in a federal system of administration, in contrast to a bureaucratic system of administration.

Date: 1983
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:466:y:1983:i:1:p:135-147

DOI: 10.1177/0002716283466001009

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