Bureaucratic control and information processing: An institutional comparison

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Chan, Kwan Nok; Lam, Wai Fung
• 署名单位: University of Hong Kong
• 刊物名称: GOVERNANCE-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF POLICY ADMINISTRATION AND INSTITUTIONS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0952-1895
• DOI: 10.1111/gove.12326
• 发表日期: 2018
• 关键词: POLITICAL CONTROL; hong-kong; administrative arrangements; bounded rationality; policy punctuations; GOVERNMENT; legislators; absorption; attention; diversity

摘要

Standard models of bureaucratic control argue that politicians vulnerable to asymmetric information rely on third-party monitoring to expand information supply. This solution to information asymmetry assumes that politicians can process all information that comes their way. However, advocates strategically oversupply information to crowd out rivals, making such a solution counterproductive. Using data on administrative reorganization in Hong Kong, we examine the alternative proposition that bureaucratic control is contingent not only on how information is obtained but also on how it is processed under two different institutional arrangements: one that splits attention across domain-specific streams and one that concentrates attention in a single sequence. In both cases, bureaucrats refrain from major changes when politicians break from these arrangements. Moreover, bureaucratic action is significantly more likely to respond to changes in attention allocation when politicians process information in multiple streams.