State Agencies and Their Environments: Examining the Influence of Important External Actors

Abstract

Research on the federal bureaucracy has long recognized the importance of organization environment for differentiating among agencies and affecting their political support as well as policy outputs. Although the environment has been considered an element in the behavior of state agencies as well, research at this level has been less sensitive to important differences across agency environments. This article identifies four major actors in the policy environment of state agencies--the governor, legislature, clientele groups, and professional associations--and based on a 1978 survey of state administrators, evaluates empirically the influence of these sources over a sample of agencies encompassing all 50 states. Data analysis shows that in addition to agency type, several factors are systematically associated with differences in the nature of the environment confronted, including agency structural characteristics, funding provisions, exogenous shocks to normal operations and state political environment. Just as at the federal level, then, this research suggests that at the state level, bureaucracy more closely resembles a collection of heterogeneous agencies than a monolithic institution.

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