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Organized Anarchy
(Source: http://nopsa.hiit.fi/pmg/viewer/images/photo_2801526484_6f0480b4a2_t.jpg)
Organized Anarchy Model
This chapter introduces you to the basic features of decision making in organized anarchies, or
what some call a “garbage can theory’ of organizations. When we teach coalition theory, we ask students in our classroom to assume the role of different organizations that have a contradictory stake in
an issue like that of the Milwaukee Voucher Program (Quinn and McFarland 2006). Then every
group has a pair-wise encounter with each other
where they can apply a variety of exchange techniques so as to try and forge a dominant coalition
behind certain solutions like universal vouchers,
targeted vouchers, magnet schools, more funding,
class size reduction or do nothing. Every year, the
student groups do a great job of playing to their organization’s parochial interests and manipulating
other organizations into joining some sort of collective resolution. But a lot of what they experience
goes beyond what coalition and exchange theories
of organizing capture. There is a far more chaotic
and dynamic quality to their discussions and decisions that seemed more consistent with an organized anarchy model.
Organized Anarchy - Introduction
What do we mean that the decision process
resembled an organized anarchy? Well, for example, some of them have a hard time coming up
with their group’s platform and identity (what’s the
platform of lower income parents in Milwaukee?).
Also, some of the group’s proposed solutions
changed over the course of bargaining – some initially proposed universal vouchers only to promote
targeted vouchers in the end. Almost all of the
groups thought in terms of an identity and what
that entailed. And they also thought about other’s
identities and interests when trying to manipulate
the situation in their favor.
Problems seemed to be brought up in a much
more dynamic and contingent manner. Some
groups brought up problems that fit their interests
(e.g., problem of choice for Republicans; problem
of equity for African Americans; problem of
achievement for businesses), while others mentioned several problems (educators). And then
they presented the problems in different orders.
The same occurred for solutions. Groups created additional solutions to those arising in the Milwaukee case (e.g., sliding scale Vouchers). Some
solutions they never took up (do nothing). None
of the solutions and problems seemed to arrive as
set pairs. Instead, the solutions were matched with
multiple problems and those connections were negotiated. Each group tried to make a case for why
another group’s problems could be addressed by
their solution. As such, the bargaining was in connecting solutions and problems in a way that convinced other groups.
The debates and decisions also followed a
temporal dynamic. Some of the students got up
and went to the restroom and their voice was lost
in pushing for certain problems and solutions.
Some pairs of groups took longer to finish their exchange and were rushed to make a deal before
their time was up and that seemed to affect decision outcomes. Some groups even back-tracked
on prior deals when they saw a better solution and
coalition emerge. Many students felt the ordering
of pair-wise meetings greatly affected which bargains arose and which were dropped.
Garbage Can Model
A lot of what we have described pertains to
an organized anarchy view of organizational
decision-making, or what some organizational
theorists call “the Garbage Can Model”. This theory was proposed by Cohen, March and Olsen
(1972), and throughout this chapter we will draw
heavily on their conceptualization (March 1994:
Chapter 5).
Most organizational theories underestimate
the confusion and complexity surrounding actual
decision-making. Many things happen at once;
technologies (or tasks) are uncertain and poorly understood; preferences and identities change and are
indeterminate; problems, solutions, opportunities,
ideas, situations, people, and outcomes are mixed
together in ways that make their interpretation un-
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certain and connections unclear; decisions at one
time and place have loose relevance to others; solutions have only modest connection to problems;
policies often go unimplemented; and decision
makers wander in and out of decision arenas saying one thing and doing another. Organizational
decision making often looks like a mess!
With ambiguity, the story of decision-making
moves away from conceptions of order concerning
reality, causality, and intentionality to conceptions
of meaning. Here, decisions are seen as vehicles
for constructing meaningful interpretations of fundamentally confusing worlds (logic of appropriateness!), not as outcomes produced by a comprehensible environment. Hence, as we increase the complexity of decision situations so they more closely
reflect reality, they become meaning generators
instead of consequence generators.
Given this chaos, is there any way to theorize so as to get beyond interpretive, detailed, contextualized accounts? Cohen, March, and Olsen
(1972) describe organized anarchy in a relatively
simple model that describes the more chaotic reality of organizational decision-making. In Garbage
Can Theory, “an organization is a collection of
choices looking for problems, issues and feelings
(problems) looking for decision situations (choice
arenas) in which they might be aired, solutions
looking for issues (problems) to which they might
be the answer, and decision makers looking for
work (1972:2; Italicized text added).” One can
view a choice opportunity (or meeting with decisions) as a “garbage can” into which various kinds
of problems and solutions are dumped by participants as they are generated.
Taken in broad perspective, Garbage Can
Theory (or GCT, as we will be referring to it) suggests the following possible metaphor for decision
making within an organization:
Consider a round, sloped, multi-goal
soccer field on which individuals play
soccer. Many different people (but not
everyone) can join the game (or leave
it) at different times. Some people can
throw balls into the game or remove
them. Individuals, while they are in the
game, try to kick whatever ball comes
near them in the direction of goals they
like and away from goals that they
wish to avoid. The slope of the field
produces a bias in how the balls fall
and what goals are reached, but the
course of a specific decision and the actual outcomes are not easily anticipated. After the fact, they may look
rather obvious; and usually normatively reassuring (March and Olsen
1976. Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations. p. 276).
What is an example of an organized anarchy? Robert Birnbaum uses GCT to describe the
American college or university. He describes the
university as a prototypical organized anarchy –
and especially the faculty groups like departments
and the academic senate. He views them as not
decision-making organizations, but meaningmaking ones… (439):
Organized anarchies need structures and processes that symbolically reinforce their espoused values, that provide opportunities for
individuals to assert and confirm their status,
and that allow people to understand to which
of many competing claims on their attention
they should respond. They require a means
through which irrelevant problems and participants can be encouraged to seek alternative ways of expressing themselves so that
decision makers can do their jobs. They
should also be able to “keep people busy, occasionally entertain them, give them a variety of experiences, keep them off the streets,
provide pretexts of storytelling, and allow socializing” (Weick’s The Social Pyschology of
Organizing, p. 264).
So here we have this understanding that organized
anarchies are a context for meaning making not
consequence generators. That is kind of an interesting, aspect of organized anarchies - that we
need these contexts within organizations so that
we feel like we have reasons and identities for be-
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ing there and for addressing all kinds of concerns,
many of which may not be consequential. The
places we see organized anarchy are meetings (faculty meetings) and those kind of settings.
Now that we have some sense of where organizational anarchy resides, and and the kind of
general world it is, we can begin to identify their
characteristics. How do we know one when we
see one? What qualities do they have? The most
common things people reference are...
(1) Ill-defined goals, problematic preferences
and inconsistent identities. Within organized anarchies it is unclear which problems mater and which do not.
(2) Unclear technology. It is unclear what the
consequences are for each proposed solution or alternative; it is unclear how to
solve problems because the proposed solutions lack evidence.
(3) There is fluid participation. Within organized anarchies people come and go. There
is participant turnover.
(4) There are quasi-independent streams of
problems, solutions, participants and
choice opportunities. Meetings come
and go on their own schedule; and participants enter and exit depending on theirs;
problems seem to be noticed and related
in ways independent of the persons present or the possible solutions; and solutions seem to hang around, waiting for a
problem that suits it some day.
When these qualities arise in a choice arena, some
form of organized anarchy is likely occurring.
Many of these features also seem to be interrelated in the process of choice. That is, organizations make choices by attaching solutions to
problems, subject to chance, timing, and who
happens to be on the scene. Take for example,
faculty senates. A decision situation (or choice opportunity / arena) is like a garbage can into which
various kinds of problems and solutions are
dumped by participants who attend the meeting.
In such a meeting, decisions happen when problems, solutions, participants, and choices coincide.
The timing is right, and solutions are attached to
problems, and problems are attached to choices by
participants who happen to have the time and energy to see them through. In short, Garbage Can
Theory is about the social construction of meaning
attached to a choice.
Now that we have a general sense of organized
anarchies, let’s look more carefully at their particular features. First, they entail (1) Choice opportunities (what John Kingdon calls “policy windows”, see Kingdon 2003). These can be meetings, committees, and so on where the opportunity
and capacity to make a choice are possible. These
choice opportunities and policy windows can be
seen as “garbage cans.” The meaning of a choice
derives from how the “trash” is organized within a
can - or the mix of problems, solutions, and participants.
Second, organized anarchies entail (2) distinct
flows. Imagine three continual streams of “trash”
flowing through each “can.” It is all chaos in the
garbage can, but order is in the larger flows and
their confluences. Each stream flows relatively independent of the other. That is, problems get generated in public opinion (e.g., educational crises
like school shootings, national and international
exam reports, etc), solutions are constantly generated by academics and vetted even when their problem is not recognized yet (e.g., character education
and heterogeneous groupwork), and participants
come and go for other reasons (e.g., school boards
turn over, teachers come and go with tenure or
leave the profession altogether).
Let’s look at each of these streams in turn:
The first stream is one of issues or problems (p1,
p2, p3 ~ Kingdon’s “problems”). These do not
need to be real problems or even the most important ones. They need to be perceived as such by
the participants in the choice arena. The second
stream is one of solutions (s1, s2, s3 ~Kingdon’s
“policies”). These pertain to ideas, bills, programs, all solutions [old and new], standard operating procedures that are revisited and even
changed. And they don’t need to pertain to any existent problem. They can lead or lag problems.
The third stream is one of participants or actors
(a1, a2, a3 ~Kingdon’s “participants” and as
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stream, “politics”). In the government arena, politics determines what actors show up, what interests are represented. Even if a decision is good for
a congressperson’s constituents, they may pass up
on the meeting due to political concerns).
So there are these three streams, but they
mean little until a choice opportunity arises. All
too often, the opportunity just is not there. There
is no meeting, most people lack access to it, etc.
And even if there is a meeting, the right confluence of flows may not arise. The right problem
and solutions enter, but all the wrong participants
are there and the decision lacks energy and momentum. This is why timing and finding the right moment matters so much!
Now the outcome of choice arenas can vary.
In many cases, you can hold a meeting and no one
can agree on a problem or solution. One idea after
another is shot down and thrown away. On many
occasion, no decision gets made. In other instances, the solutions adopted do not address a
problem. This can arise in two ways. The first is
by Oversight: sometimes choice opportunities arrive and no problems are attached to them. Why
might this happen? It can happen if all problems
are attached to other choice arenas. In these instances, people make choices and select solutions
before problems reach the meeting. Later, we will
show you such a case where the school board and
the administrators of a district cannot attend meetings about a desegregation court order and its implementation because they must focus on other
concerns like a teacher strike.
The second means by which an adopted solution fails to affix to a problem is by Flight: Here
problems are affixed to choice opportunities for a
while and exceed the energy of the decision makers attuned to them. Hence, the original problem
may move to another choice arena (like another
meeting or department). In these instances, people
wait for the problem to go away in order to pick a
solution. So, in these cases you will see later, people table a decision or send it off into a subcommittee. In both of these instances, the problems do
not get attached to a solution.
Of course, the case we are most interested in
as managers of organized anarchies is when a prob-
lem actually gets resolved: these are instances
where problems are brought up in a choice opportunity or meeting, and the decision makers attending that meeting bring enough energy/ability to
meet the demands of the problems. Here a choice
is made and the problem is resolved.
Each garbage can, choice opportunity, or
meeting, has different access rules. In particular,
every choice arena has an access structure or social boundary of sorts that influences which persons, problems, and solution can enter or not. The
loosest structure allows for unrestricted access.
All the problems, solutions, and people are allowed to enter, and this creates more energy, but it
also allows problems, solutions and participants to
interfere with each other. This increases conflicts
and time devoted to problems – you get greater anarchy! Another structure entails hierarchical access. Here, important actors, problems and solutions are given priority access. For example, big
decisions may occur in executive meetings, while
unimportant issues are addressed by the rank and
file employees.
Finally, there is specialized access. This occurs when special problems and solutions have access to certain meetings. For example, in my
school, the costs students incur when printing their
papers on school printers may be an issue that
goes to the school’s technology committee, while
journal costs might be brought up in the library
committee. Therefore, certain specialists have access to certain choices that fit their expertise (e.g.,
engineers with technology concerns).
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Another constraint influencing access to
choice arenas are deadlines. Deadlines characterize temporal boundaries and the timing of decision
arenas and what flows enter them. Here there can
be constraints on the arrival times of problems.
For example, there are seasonal problems like the
flu or cold weather. There can also be constraints
on the arrival of solution, such as when we propose and implement 1 or 5 year plans. And there
are constraints on the arrival of participants, such
as that defined by the timing of work days, school
years, tenure cycles, and so on. There are even
deadline constraints on choice opportunities or
meetings, such as the meetings dictated by yearly
budget cycles and student admissions.
All of this compounds and characterizes decisions in organized anarchies. Decisions arise from
the interaction of constraints (access structures
and deadlines) and the time-dependent flows of
problems (or issues), solutions, and participants
(decision-makers).
To this point, we have covered a lot of concepts in a short amount of time. Let’s take the example of a faculty meeting again and work
through the features we have mentioned and see
what they look like. We think this will afford you
a more concrete sense of what the concepts mean
and how to see and apply them in various cases of
organizational decision making on your own (or
rather, “meaning-making” where a decision might
not get made!).
Let’s begin with some of the problems that
might flow in an academic environment. One
problem might concern space usage – we have
more people than we have space at Stanford, so it
might be relevant (p1). Another problem could be
the need for additional money or resources (p2)
and whether the school has enough grant money to
function well. Other problems might concern a student advising issue (p3), or even a research center
losing staff (p4), or concerns about the university
endowment and how it lost 1/3 its value in the recession (p5). So those are our potential problems
swirling in the environment. The figure on the
next page captures this space.
The blue circle is the choice arena or faculty
meeting. Which actors or participants attend?
Let’s say it is an executive committee meeting
where access is hierarchical, and therefore only the
dean and associate dean can enter (a1-2). And finally we have various solutions: s1 could be a solution concerning minority recruitment; s2 could be
a plan to increase master’s student enrollments; s3
might be a new tenure policy; and s4 might be an
idea to find new donors for the school.
Now all of them might not enter the choice
arena, and the meeting agenda might have a certain order and have a finite timeframe of 1 hour,
thereby imposing a deadline. So let’s think about
this diagram and what we see:
(i) Let’s look at p1. It does not really seem
to go anywhere and not decided on before
a solution enters (decision by “flight”!).
(ii) p2 on the other hand connects. Or
rather, it is linked to s1, a1, a2. They get
enough energy to be decided upon (i.e.,
decision by “problem resolution”).
(iii) p5 is also linked when they discuss p2,
but the actors never see the endowment
decline being solved by increasing enrollments. So the faculty who attend agree
that the problem of not enough resources
can be solved by increasing MA enrollments – thereby increasing the funds gotten via tuition. So that is the choice decision that occurs. p5 is ultimately unconnected to a solution. So it is another decision by “flight”.
(iv) And then p3 and p4 is never even
brought up before the meeting ends. So
the deadline affected its discussion.
(v)p1 through p5 could have affixed to s1,
but no actors latched onto it. A plan for
minority recruitment could then be regarded as having underwhelming support.
If it had been picked without connection
to a problem, then we would say it was
decided on via “oversight”.
Hopefully you now see how these streams
collide in the garbage can, and how their ordering
and deadlines matter.
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Problems
Participants
(who attends)
(space needs) p1
a1 (dean)
($ needed) p2
p1
a2 (assoc dean)
a1
(std advising) p3
p2
a2
(ctr decline) p4
(endowment!) p5
p5
s2
a3 (fac memb1)
a4 (fac memb2)
s1
(minority recruitment) s1
(increase MA enrollment) s2
(new tenure policy) s3
s1 s2 s3 s4
Solutions
(plan to find new donors) s4
Decision Situation
Managing Organized Anarchy
With all this in mind, we come to the question of how to manage organized anarchies. If we
see an organization that resembles a garbage can,
how do we approach it?
Several types of reactions can emerge. First,
you can try and be a Reformer: eliminate garbage
can elements from decisions. Reformers create
greater “systematicity,” order, and control. In a
way, this is what Daley and Vallas did in the Chicago public school case – centralize, rationalize,
fix streams and access, etc.
Oppositely, you can be an Enthusiast: here
you try to discover a new vision of decision making within garbage can processes. This is sort of
what March and Birnbaum argue people should do
in choice arenas like the faculty senate. Here, the
manager needs to realize the planning is largely
symbolic and an excuse for interaction, and sensemaking. It is a way to make people feel like they
belong and to learn about views and identities.
The arena is more for sense-making and getting
observations than making decisions. Also, the
manager can view temporal sorting as a way to organize attention. The order can indicate what is
more of a concern for collective discussion. An
enthusiast will focus on the flows of problems and
solutions and regard them as a matching market
where energies and connections are mobilized.
Recognizing who is present, where links / time
and energy are sufficient, and then pressing the
case is how you’d approach it. Last the enthusiast
would see advantages in flexible implementation,
uncoordinated action, and confusion. It’s ok not to
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decide at times, and to make choice arenas into a
space of meaning-making.
Last, you can be a Pragmatist and try to use
garbage can processes to further your agenda (idea
being that organized anarchies are susceptible to
exploitation). Here you can time the arrival of solutions knowing attention is scarce. As such, you
can set the meeting agenda and work the order of
issues – put ones you want discussed up front. Put
last the ones everyone knows need to be passed
but you do not want discussed so you can rush the
decision. Be sensitive to shifting interests and involvement of participants. You can be opportunistic and when certain people are not there, press on
issues and solutions you care about that they
would oppose if they were present. Or, you can
abandon initiatives that are entangled with others –
if streams get tangled and the opposition is present, move on. If an agenda arises that does not
suit your interests, overload the system to protect
your interests: bring up other problems and solutions, slowing the process and making it more complex. Otherwise, you can provide other choice opportunities (other meetings) to attract decision
makers and problems away from choices that interest you. In this way you open up time for the issues you are concerned with.
In sum, you have options on how you want
to confront organized anarchy situations. Understanding how these arenas operate afford you different levers to try and hopefully the ones related
here give you a sense of how to start. I hope you
find the organized anarchy model useful. I find it
especially helpful because it renders pathologies of
choice theoretically consistent. All too often, real
choice arenas are messy and this theory embraces
that mess and affords us a framework for making
sense of it.
We find garbage can theory especially helpful in explaining all sorts of meetings where there
are ecologies of choice and where problems and
solutions are fluidly discussed. It fits the policygovernment world, research and development
groups, crisis management situations, and most
any distributed, decentralized social system trying
to deal with issues.
Examples of Organized Anarchy
We will now cover a series of examples and
applications of organized anarchy. Hopefully with
each example, you will see greater relevance and
form a more concrete understanding for how this
theory can be applied. We have three examples
we want to discuss. The first concerns the case of
San Francisco Unified School District’s effort to
undergo desegregation in the 70’s as told by Stephen Weiner. We want to show you how that case
can be elaborated using the garbage can framework laid out in the last lecture. Following that,
we want to discuss John Kingdon’s book “Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies.” Kingdon
writes a nice summary of Garbage Can Theory and
its application to the policy world and how legislative agenda setting is performed. It is a great read
that we hope all of you will experience. Last, we
will discuss the recent case of Title V in the No
Child Left Behind Act. This last case concerns an
federal act to reform the American primary education system. We recount this briefly, using materials most people can find online.
We understand many of you will not be familiar with some of the particular cases we are relating, so we will try to afford a bit of overview and
summary so you get their gist. The point of the examples is to get you thinking as an analyst and
manager by applying theory to cases. It might be
a good exercise for many of you to try applying
these theories to cases of your own choosing. Just
view the ones we relate here as models and caricatures that you can apply, extend, and elaborate further.
The San Francisco Unified School District
The case we want to discuss first was written
up by Stephen Weiner, and it concerns San Francisco Unified School District’s desegregation plan
adopted in the 1970s. Here is the general story: In
the 1960’s SFUSD experiences white flight, where
the white middle class families start leaving public
schools. At same time, desegregation court cases
emerge in the Southern United States and later
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Participants (a1-6)
Problems (p1-10)
Problems that never
enter but draw SFUSD
to other arenas…
p7 – Tch-Std Boycott
p8 – LatAmerOrg Sues
p9 – Financial Probs
p10 – Teacher Strike
Actors that never make it into the
choice arena:
a4 – SFUSD consultants & admin
a5 – working minorities
a6 – working men
Problems that enter arena:
p1 – Integrity of comm schl
p2 – Bilingual ed
p3 – Busing ! white flight
p4 – SES integration
p5 – Deseg 2ndary
p6 – Deseg primary
s1 – Tristar (3 zones
bussing / more deseg)
Actors that enter arena:
a1 – community int grps
a2 – fed consultants
a3 – CAC (MC-WF)
s2 – Horseshoe (7 zones,
respects comm / less deseg)
Solutions that enter (s1-24)
Solutions (s1-24)
Many solutions were proposed and
discussed, but few connected with
energy
Choice Arena for
Citizens Advisory
Council (CAC)
Deadline!
arise in more Northern and Western states. No action is taken by SFUSD
during this period and the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) warns the district it is too segregated. SFUSD
develops a desegregation plan that is immediately rejected in committee
due to cross-town busing fears. They fear such a plan would be hard to
manage and would be unwanted by the district’s stakeholders. Instead, a
citizens committee forms and develops a desegregation plan for only two
elementary schools.
In 1970 the NAACP files a suit demanding all 102 elementary
schools within SFUSD be included in the desegregation plan. The US district judge would not rule until the Supreme Court ruled (arguing SFUSD
made a small effort with two schools and therefore showed good faith).
In the meantime, the judge advises SFUSD to devise a desegregation
plan. SFUSD appoints one staff member and three committees: Staff
Committee, Certified Staff Committee, and Citizens Advisory Council
(CAC). The third committee has the most energy and committed members to this cause.
In 1971 the US Supreme Court rules SFUSD must desegregate its
elementary schools and must devise a plan in two months. So it is a case
of partial decisions and little or nothing happening – a pretty common occurrence when it comes to policy and school district reforms! Can GCT
apply here and help us understand the process of relative indecision?
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Figure. School Board Meeting (not SFUSD)
(source http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beverly_Hills_Board_of_Education.jpg)
In many regards this is an instance of organized anarchy. First, it is ambiguous as to what desegregation means. The problems and preferences
for desegregation are unclear and it is ambiguous
how to accomplish desegregation. How does one
know desegregation has been accomplished? In
effect, there is an unclear solution and an unclear
technology or means of bringing it about.. Moreover, there is a tight deadline and the participants in
this case keep changing – judges turnover, different committees form and dissolve, etc. Only the
threat of a lawsuit creates a choice opportunity!
So the case of SFUSD has many qualities that suggest it is a case of organized anarchy.
Let’s identify the problems mentioned in the
case as related by Stephen Weiner. The figure on
the prior page identifies the problems, solutions,
and actors involved with SFUSD desegregation.
The focal arena is the Community Advisory Committee, since it is the arena in which a decision is
ultimately made. The key problem for this arena
is that of desegregating the elementary schools –
p6. At the outset, the participants were not sure
what integration should look like. They eventually
adopt a state standard that is very strong. All the
schools need to have a racial compositions within
15% of the district average.
A bunch of problems enter the CAC choice
arena and are interrelated by participants:
p1 - Keeping integrity of school complexes
p2 - Bilingual education needed
p3 - Bussing disliked by whites (white flight)
p4 - SES integration wanted
Figure. Teacher strike (not SFUSD)
(source - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:London_Cuts-Demo_5704.JPG)
p5 - Desegregating secondary schools
p6 - Desegregate elementary schools
(the key problem!!)
Other problems arise but they are not taken up in
the CAC:
p7 - Teachers and students boycott schools in
disrepair (budget woes)
p8 - Lawsuit filed by Latin-American organization (demand for bilingual education)
p9 - Financial problems are apparent with
teacher contract disputes
p10 - Teacher’s go on strike
So while the courts demand SFUSD go through
desegregation, they are contending with a variety
of other issues and problems. Many are quite severe and draw necessary attention and resources.
A variety of participants are also involved,
but only some of them enter the choice arena that
takes up the problem of desegregation.
a1 – Community interest groups
a2 – Federal consultants
a3 – CAC
a4 – SFUSD consultants and administrators
a5 – working minorities
a6 – working men
Of these groups, the federal consultants are outsiders with little understanding of constituent concerns and who cannot always attend. Because
meeting times are scheduled during the day, the
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most active CAC members tend to be white middle class women (stay at home moms), while working men and minorities are unable to attend due to
their day jobs (less energy to devote it). And finally, the SFUSD consultants and administrators
are drawn away by other problems that do not enter the choice arena for desegregation (a4 attend to
p7-p10). Only a1-3 attend the meetings.
At the actual meetings, these participants
raise and discuss a variety of solutions: twentyfour of them to be exact (too many to list). Here
are a few:
s1—s24 Twenty-four solutions developed
and narrowed down to two.
s1 - Tristar (3-zone plan written by technocrats)
s2 - Horseshoe (7-zone plan – less drastic)
What is not considered is the solution of simple
cross-town busing.
If we put it all together we begin to see what
happens in the CAC arena. Certain actors get
pulled away (a4) to other problems arising in other
choice arenas, while other actors just cannot make
the meeting times (a5 and a6). In the arena, the
CAC is composed of mostly white, middle class
females. Their attention and energy is on p1 – sustaining the integrity of community schools and this
is related to p3 – how busing might lead to white
flight. They see s2 – the horseshoe plan as partially addressing the desegregation order (p6) as
well as the problem of sustain community schools
(p1). By contrast the federal consultants see s1,
the tristar plan as the best because it most fully addresses the desegregation order, but they do not
connect the solution to the problems other participants find salient in the choice arena.
In a way the diagram sums up the decisions that
arose and how the deadline affected the outcome.
The deadline of the court decision pushed prevented other problems and participants from fully
Kingdon and What Becomes Part of the Government’s Agenda.
Figure. United States Capital Building‘
(Source - http://www.flickr.com/photos/brad_holt)
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entering the discussion and decision. The case of
SFUD’s segregation plan could have been different had there been a different deadline, different
meeting times, and different problems interfering.
Kingdon and Government Policy
Let’s next turn to the Kingdon text (2003).
Kingdon does a nice job of summarizing some of
the major tenets of organized anarchy. He does
this in his focus on American health and transportation policies that arose during 1976-1980 presidency of Jimmy Carter. Kingdon asks: Why do
certain issues become part of the government’s
agenda while other issues do not? Kingdon’s research finds that policy proposals are not necessarily written in response to a particular event.
Rather, at any given time, there exist a multitude
of proposals ready to go and waiting for the best
opportunity for their introduction. An idea’s time
comes via a process of organized anarchy. Let’s
look at how Kingdon regards federal agendasetting as such a process.
He does so by first asking who are the participants? -- Let’s start by identifying the various
participants in Washington, D.C.:
Within government there is …
• Congress: Upper and lower house, plus
congressional staff – they have scheduled
election cycles of 2 and 6 years so there is
some turnover.
• The president, plus the cabinet, staff, and
his political appointees. The President has
a large say in agenda setting but less control on alternatives. His election cycle is
every 4 years, and turnover then is likely
even if he is re-elected.
• Last there are civil servants: bureaucrats
who have longevity and expertise. They
turnover less frequently.
Outside the government:
• Interest groups: lobbyists, labor, professional societies, public interest/advocacy
organizations, etc.
•
•
•
•
Academics and other researchers
Media
Voters
General public/constituents
So you have all kinds of other actors and participants that can affect the legislative process and
they turnover somewhat rather variably.
Next – what is the process of policy formation? In what ways can we consider how a policy
originates and develops? Here, Kingdon considers
a few different models by which scholars have
characterized policy formation. The first concerns
origins. Where did the idea and policy come
from? How did the idea spread? The assumption
here is that it started somewhere and got taken up
more and more. We have an initial origin and if
we follow that origin, we will have some understanding for its development. A second view is
that of rational choice: We saw this earlier. Here,
the view is that we define the goals, identify alternatives, and choose the optimal alternative – e.g.,
the policy in question. Therefore, its adoption
should be based on predictions of the policy’s consequences. A third view is that of incrementalism.
Rather than starting from scratch, new policies
build on existing policies. Changes are made at
the margins and what we see today is an adaptation of prior ones.
Kingdon argues that each of these descriptions has some value, but they do not describe the
process of policy formation as completely as Garbage Can Theory (GCT). Kingdon asks how does
agenda setting resemble an organized anarchy?
Let’s take a step back like we did in the
SFUSD case and see if it fits the criteria. First, we
ask, is it a context of problematic preferences (inconsistent, ill-defined)? And here, the answer is
yes - Action is often taken before identifying preferences. Participants even disagree on their preferences and priorities. Second, we ask is there unclear technology? Kingdon says how the government attempts to solve problems is often unclear.
There is not a clearly defined way to desegregate
schools, eliminate the achievement gap, end child
poverty: “it’s not like making widgets” (2003:85).
Third, there is Fluid participation and there is a
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good deal of turnover in personnel. Moreover, the
importance of participants does not match their job
description and the executive branch is often involved in legislative processes. Participants outside the government enter and exit the decision
making process all the time, and access varies. In
sum, the federal government would seem to be an
organized anarchy, as defined by Cohen, March
and Olsen.
Kingdon’s adaptation of GCT conceptualizes
three independent streams of problems, policies
(solutions), and politics (participants).
These
streams converge (“couple”) at critical points. It is
this process that sets the agenda. He sees the
streams as somewhat independent. For example,
problems flow in and out of focus in the news and
for legislative actors. Policies are generated and
sit around for years, circulating without a home.
No Child Left Behind
Participants come and go. And the opportunities
for decisions (i.e., choice arenas or garbage cans),
arises at different times.
The independence of these streams is a key
point I want to reiterate: policy solutions can be
developed whether or not they respond to an actual
problem. The political stream is not necessarily
dependent on identified problems. And as Kingdon says on page 88:
Advocates develop their proposals
and then wait for problems to
come along to which they can attach their solutions, or for a development in the political
stream...that makes their proposals
more likely to be adopted” (Kingdon, p. 88).
These three streams must converge when a policy
window is open. That is, only when the conditions
are right will an issue find itself on a policy
agenda. If you have the chance, read Kingdon as
Figure. Department of Education Building at Launch of NCLB
(Source - http://www.flickr.com/photos/dchousegrooves/)
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he does a wonderful job applying theory to this particular instance of agenda setting. Rather than rehash his application of GCT to particular instances
of agenda setting, we want to apply garbage can
theory to a new case many of you might not be familiar with – in this way we can afford you numerous examples so you see how the theory can be applied in many instances, not just one.
problem stream. At any given time, a set of problems may rise in prominence and capture the attention of governments, often not because of political
pressure but because of systematic indicators that
purport to prove the existence of a problem. That
is, “problems” may not necessarily be true problems. They merely have to be “problems” in the
minds of some subsection of the public in order to
be considered.
No Child Left Behind
What problems could Title V purport to solve?
! Failing schools with no sign of improvement.
! Lack of innovation in public schools (charter
schools may be an incubator of innovation)
Public
! There is a lack of competition.
schools are not pressured to improve.
! Unequal opportunity for lower income children (these families have fewer options because they can’t afford private schools. Charters are free public schools of choice.)
! Charter school funding (Claim by charter
school proponents that they receive a disproportionate amount of per pupil funding from
the state).
Our last example will concern a recent policy
decision: Title V of the No Child Left Behind Act
– the Promotion of Informed Parental Choice And
Innovative Programs (or NCLB). Briefly, NCLB
is the name of the 2001 reauthorization of the
1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act
(which was part of President Lyndon Johnson’s
“War on Poverty”). When originally passed, the
primary focus of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act was on improving the education for
economically disadvantaged students who met federal definitions of poverty. Over time, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was expanded
to include bilingual education, education to indigenous communities, education in correction facilities, magnet schools, foreign language programs,
midnight basketball, and migrant education.
The Elementary and Secondary Education
Act has been reauthorized several times since its
original passage in 1964, usually for approximately four- to six-year periods. President George
Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act of
20011 into law on January 8, 2002. Title V provides federal grant support for Innovative Programs and Public Charter Schools. It also adds a
new incentive program to help charter schools
meet their facility needs. Included in this section
is a provision that provides transportation and
other support that allows students attending
schools that do not meet “adequate yearly progress” for two years to transfer to a charter school
or other public school.
So, how would we use Kingdon’s model to
describe how Title V entered the agenda and ultimately became law? First we would look at the
In most cases we would agree that these problems
are probably true. However, we want you to understand that it does not necessarily matter if you
think it is true or not. What matters is that a subsection of a population does - that there is energy
behind it, and actors are affixed to these kinds of
problems.
What are some of the indicators to this problem?
! International comparisons (USA behind)
! Achievement gap literature (by race, income,
urbanicity - disparities exist)
! Government evaluations and other studies
show many problems in schooling
All these indicators suggest the problems of our
education system are more than our biased view,
and exist beyond our own opinion.
What is the public’s perception of this problem?
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Summary of the Problems, Alternatives,
Politics, and Open Policy Windows.
Figure. Bush Signing NCLB
Figure. NCLB Symbol
(Source - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:No_Child_Left_Behind_Act.jpg)
(Source - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nochild.jpg)
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! Public opinion is that schools in general are
failing (constant media bombardment of this)
! They see their own schools as a little better
than most (bias)
! Market forces make sense to people. They
like the idea of choice and think it could lead
to improvement.
! Bush presents rhetoric picked up in media:
“soft bigotry of low expectations”
In sum, there are streams of problems in the environment that relate to the No Child Left Behind
legislation.
There is also a stream of solutions (policies)
that is occurring. To see these, we next look at the
competing policy alternatives being proposed to
address the problems above. Within governments,
specialists including lawmakers, staffers, advocacy
groups, researchers, and academics concentrate on
developing policy proposals: “Ideas are floated,
bills introduced, speeches made; proposals are
drafted, then amended in response to reaction and
floated again” (Kingdon, p. 117).
So lets look at this more closely. What are
the policy alternatives that speak to the problems
identified above? First there are school vouchers.
Here a student might get so much money from the
state, they could use that money to apply to and attend another school of their choice (public or private). Another potential solution is to promote
charter schools, which is somewhat like promoting
vouchers, but here students are limited to public
schools. One could view public school improvement as a policy and solution. But how? Here the
issue is “unclear technology”. One could focus on
improving instruction (e.g., teacher preparation
programs, professional development training, or
new curriculum). Another way would be to structure the schools better like seen with some forms
of ability grouping, class size reduction, extended
school days, etc. Another would be accountability: where one assesses adequate yearly progress
or conducts annual testing with rewards and punishments, much like NCLB adopts. There are
other less ambitious solutions too - like simply
throwing money at the problem and existing programs. Or you can ignore the problem and play
the blame game. One could argue it is not the role
of federal government to mess with schools and it
is the responsibility of the states, cities, districts,
schools and school teachers.
All these are viable alternatives, and you just
need to remember in Kingdon’s model, policy
does not necessarily follow problems. These policy alternatives in many cases were developed independent of the problems we have identified. In
fact, much of NCLB, including accountability provisions, was developed under Clinton.
The third feature of NCLB we would look at
are the participants (politics) involved. The political stream described corresponds to Cohen, March
and Olsen’s participants/decision-makers stream.
Even when a policy solution attaches to a problem,
passage is not guaranteed. Political factors such as
partisan concerns, ideological distribution of policymakers and interest group lobbying can work
against any proposal, no matter how complementary it may be to a policy problem.
In the case of Title V, the reauthorization of
Elementary and Secondary Education Act was
signed in 1994 and was scheduled to expire in
1999. Congress and the Clinton Administration
began work on the reauthorization process in 1999
and in 2000 but failed both attempts to finish the
work. Education was a central component to candidate G.W. Bush’s platform. And when Bush entered office, one of his first actions was to send to
Congress a broad outline of his education proposal. He vowed to “Leave no child behind”
which was hard to argue against on rhetorical
grounds. There was little Congressional criticism
of the final version of the bill (it passed 87-10 in
the Senate and 381-41 in the House) and received
support from even some of the most liberal members, including Representatives George Miller and
Barbara Lee and Senator Ted Kennedy.
Recall from our discussion of solutions or
policy alternatives, above, that school vouchers are
an alternative.
Although original versions of
NCLB contained voucher proposals for private
schools, this was given up in order to make the necessary concessions for the Democratic support required for passage. In other words, the political
environment was accepting of the provisions of
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NCLB as it was passed. Since that time, there has
been some criticism (mainly around funding issues), but the public is still supportive of the general measures of the law.
The final feature of NCLB we would look at
is the Policy Window, which concerns deadlines
and the convergence of streams. We’ve discussed
the three streams of problems, policy alternatives,
and politics. But these streams must converge
while a policy window is open in order for legislation to move. NASA has a ‘launch window’—a
time period in which a particular rocket must be
launched. If they miss the launch window, NASA
has to wait for the next one before it can go. The
same is true under Kingdon’s model. There are
particular times in which a policy window is open.
The policy window is not indefinitely open.
There are deadlines which constrain the amount of
time problem-alternatives have in order to be implemented. Decisions typically must be made by
the end of the legislative session. Failure to do so
means that the process would have to begin from
scratch at the start of the next session. In addition,
legislatures are systems composed of decision makers that can change from one election to the next.
A favorable set of decision makers may disappear,
to be replaced with a new set of decision makers at
the start of the next term who may be less willing
to support the provisions of Title V.
dency in its particular form and not well before under a different guise and during Clinton’s era.
In the case of Title V, The Policy Window was
open when there was a…
• Republican majority in Congress
• Republican president
• Frustration with public education
• Promising start of the charter school movement
• Strategic use of language by proponents of
NCLB
• “Success” of state accountability laws (CA,
TX, others)
But most of the time, the policy window is closed.
So if we put all 4 features of Kingdon together, we
see the following table and understand better how
that legislation’s time occurred under Bush’s presi-
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Unitary actor or team that
confronts a problem, assesses
objectives (goals) with regard to
it, identifies options, the
consequences of said options,
and then chooses option that
minimizes costs.
Variant: Bounded rationality
and satisficing. Recognize
imperfect info, ambiguity, and
select first satisfactory option
(good enough).
Maximization of options
(solutions).
Summary or Basic Argument
Know alternatives and their
consequences for the shared
goal, and select wisely. Improve
information and analysis.
Management by consequences.
Not salient except as
influencing consequences of
options.
Environment
Management Strategies
Formal roles, hierarchical.
Social Structure
Action = Maximization of
means to ends.
Goals are defined in regard to
problem.
Goals
(what probs to resolve)
Dominant Pattern of Inference
Unified team or actor
Participants
Technology (how solutions get decided)
Exists when there is a unified
actor with consistent
preferences, lots of information,
and clear goals (and time
calculate).
When does it apply?
Rational Actor (RA)
Summary Table of Five Theories to Date:
Know SOP’s, what problems they
go with (matching), and who cues
them. Improve rules and matching
with problems. Management by
rules.
Action = output close to prior
output (path dependence), cueing
of SOP’s appropriate to problem.
NA
Actors in hierarchical
organizational positions. Cue
sequential routines that accomplish
task or solve problem by routines
available (supply issue).
Objectives – compliance to SOP’s,
match with problem parts.
Organizational positions
Matching identity and SOP’s
(solutions) / programs / repertoires
to problem.
Dividing up problem, coordinating
/ activating organizational actors
who have special capacities /
SOP’s for parts of problem,
conducting sequential attention to
objectives (localized searches until
problems resolved). Action guided
by processes / available routines.
Exists when the decision is guided
by a logic of appropriateness –
matching problem to actors with
procedures for handling it (routineprocess focus).
Organizational Process (OP) /
Limited Problem Solver (LPS)
Bargain with players (log-roll,
horse-trade, hinder opposition’s
coalition formation, etc). Learn
others’ interests / weaknesses so
you know how to manipulate and
win. Direct management of
relations via bargaining.
Action = result of political
bargaining.
Deadlines and wider array of
stakeholders.
Coalitions – enemy/friend
Parochial priorities, goals/interests,
stakes / stands.
Players in positions
Bargaining, or playing the game
(within its rules), or political
maneuvering.
Focus on the players occupying
various positions; their parochial
interests (their conceptions of
problems and solutions); their
resources (expertise, money,
people) and stakes in game; and
bargaining processes between them
that establish agreements /
coalitions.
Exists when there are multiple
actors with inconsistent preferences
and identities, and none of whom
can go it alone without assistance
of others.
Coalitions /
Bureaucratic Politics (BP)
Time when your solution is raised (to
coincide with right participants and
cycle of problems) to maximize energy;
abandon entangled initiatives; know
how to overload system for policies you
detest; and generate choice opportunities
that work to your interests
(access/timing). Indirect managing of
situations.
Action / decision = result of streams
collision in choice arena.
Deadlines and other choice arenas (e.g.,
decision in current arena may be means
of access to another choice arena…)
Access rules – segmented, hierarchical,
or democratic.
Problems stream determined by public
opinion, prominence / vocalness of
problems in firm, etc.
Confluence of multiple streams, such
that solution is connected to problems
and enough actor-energy to see it
through.
Participant stream shaped by political /
career cycles & unplanned departures.
Focus on choice arenas (when choice
opportunities / windows arise); the
distinct and decoupled streams of
problems, solutions, and participants;
and their access rules to the arena
(whether structural or timed).
Exists when solutions are unclear,
participants turn over, and
preferences/identities are inconsistent.
Organized Anarchies /
Garbage Can (GC)
References
Birnbaum, Robert. 1989. “The Latent Organizational Functions of the Academic Senate: Why Senates Do Not Work But Will Not Go Away?” Journal of Higher Education 60 (July/August) 4: 423443.
Cohen, Michael D, March, James G. and Olsen,
Johan P. 1972. A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice. Administrative Science Quarterly
17(1): 1-25.
Kingdon, J. W. 2003 (1995). Agendas, alternatives, and public policies, second edition. Longman.
March, James G. 1994. A Primer on Decision
Making: How Decisions Happen. NY: The Free
Press. Chapter 5, pp. 175-218.
Weiner, Stephen S. 1976. “Participation, Deadlines, and Choice” Chapter 11 (pp. 225-250) in
Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations. (eds)
March, James and Johan Olsen. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget
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