Officials pursue self-interest (power, prestige, security) within agencies.
Downs's 1967 typology distinguishes climbers, conservers, zealots, advocates and statesmen. Its value is predictive: which type dominates an agency tells you how it responds to a budget cut.
In practice
- A director who wants the top job and one who wants a quiet retirement respond to the same budget cut in opposite ways, and both responses are predictable.
- An agency dominated by zealots pursues one policy past its usefulness; one dominated by conservers pursues nothing.
- Subject
- Law & Politics
- Essay
- Competing accounts of how power works