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A New Social Ontology of GovernmentWhat Does Government Do?

A New Social Ontology of Government: What Does Government Do? [This chapter provides a treatment of what governmentgovernmentdoes. It is common to speak of government as if it has intentions, beliefs, plans, and fears. However, governmentgovernment is an extended network of offices, bureaus, departments, analysts, decision-makers, and authorityauthority structures, each of which has extensive internal structure. This implies the likelihood of a lack of coherence in the intentions and actions of government. Chief executives at a range of levels often have the aspiration of directing the organizationorganizations as a tightly unified and purposive unit. However, it is plain that the behaviors of functionalfunctional properties units within organizationsorganizations are only loosely controlled by the will of the executive. This ontologicalontology fact makes the strategic action field model of organizationsorganizations directly pertinent to understanding the processes and dynamics of government. The chapter argues that we must also take into account the influence of powerful outsiders on legislation and policy formation. The chapter also considers the role that scientific expertise plays within government policy creation, and identifies some of the sources of pressure and distortion to which scientific experts are subject in policy development.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A New Social Ontology of GovernmentWhat Does Government Do?

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Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Copyright
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
ISBN
978-3-030-48922-9
Pages
125 –144
DOI
10.1007/978-3-030-48923-6_8
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[This chapter provides a treatment of what governmentgovernmentdoes. It is common to speak of government as if it has intentions, beliefs, plans, and fears. However, governmentgovernment is an extended network of offices, bureaus, departments, analysts, decision-makers, and authorityauthority structures, each of which has extensive internal structure. This implies the likelihood of a lack of coherence in the intentions and actions of government. Chief executives at a range of levels often have the aspiration of directing the organizationorganizations as a tightly unified and purposive unit. However, it is plain that the behaviors of functionalfunctional properties units within organizationsorganizations are only loosely controlled by the will of the executive. This ontologicalontology fact makes the strategic action field model of organizationsorganizations directly pertinent to understanding the processes and dynamics of government. The chapter argues that we must also take into account the influence of powerful outsiders on legislation and policy formation. The chapter also considers the role that scientific expertise plays within government policy creation, and identifies some of the sources of pressure and distortion to which scientific experts are subject in policy development.]

Published: Jul 8, 2020

Keywords: Agencies; Environmental Policy; Executives; Knowledge creation; Policy creation; Policy implementation; Science policy

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