Replication data for: What history advises about reinventing government: A case meta-analysis of bureaucratic effectiveness in United States federal agencies, 1995

Since the Progressive Era, scholars of American politics have been concerned with the question of what factors influence bureaucratic effectiveness, defined as the demonstrated ability of an agency to accomplish goals related to its mission. Although hundreds of historical case studies of U.S. federal agencies have been written, the various hypotheses regarding bureaucratic effectiveness have never been subjected to general empirical tests. This dissertation provides a general empirical test of competing theories of bureaucratic effectiveness, an investigation of the fundamental causes of bureaucratic performance, and an examination of the scope and domain of those causes. Previous scholarly work on bureaucratic effectiveness has relied upon illustrative examples or single case studies for empirical support. Single case studies inevitably contain more independent variables than data points, making formal tests of causal relationships impossible. To address this problem, the dissertation employs the "case meta-analysis" research method to aggregate systematically the informed judgments of scholars contained within 170 historical case studies of 104 diff erent U.S. federal agencies and subject these data to statistical analysis. Based on this analysis, the "Political Theory of the Firm" is the best model of bureaucratic effectiveness. The Political Theory of the Firm argues that agencies require certain institutional characteristics in order to operate effectively in an environment constantly and decidedly influenced by politics. In order to avoid both the political capture and inertia that often occur when political institutions and actors seek to use bureaucratic institutions for their own narrow purposes, public agencies require autonomy from direct political control, adaptability, a strong sense of mission, enhanced administrative capacities, and forceful agency leadership. Agencies with missions that have widespread political approval, involve developmental policies, and bring the agency in competition with other agencies performing related missions will tend to perform better than agencies with missions that lack these characteristics. If our primary goal is to improve the performance of federal agencies, the general lesson of history is that government should be "reinvented" in ways which increase the presence of these organizational and mission characteristics in U.S. federal agencies.