Government Reform, Political Ideology, and Administrative Burden: The Case of Performance Management in the Bush Administration

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Lavertu, Stephane; Lewis, David E.; Moynihan, Donald P.
• 署名单位: University System of Ohio; Ohio State University; University of Wisconsin System; University of Wisconsin Madison
• 刊物名称: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-3352
• DOI: 10.1111/puar.12132
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 845-857
• 关键词: assessment rating tool; part; presidents

摘要

This article examines how ideological differences between political officials and agencies may have affected the implementation of an ostensibly nonpartisan, government-wide administrative initiative: the George W. Bush administration's Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) review of federal programs. The analysis reveals that managers in agencies associated with liberal programs and employees (liberal agencies) agreed to a greater extent than those in agencies associated with conservative programs and employees (conservative agencies) that PART required significant agency time and effort and that it imposed a burden on management resources. Further analysis reveals that differences in reported agency effort can be explained partly by objective differences in the demands that PART placed on agenciesliberal agencies were required to evaluate more programs and implement more improvement plans relative to their organizational capacityand partly by the ideological beliefs of employeeson average, liberal managers reported more agency effort, even after accounting for objective measures of administrative burden.