Anticipating Uncertainty: The Strategy‐Structure Problem in Public Bureaucracy

Abstract

The connection between administrative structure and policy strategy for public agencies is neither well understood, nor widely appreciated in political science. Much more emphasis is placed on the structure of linkages between bureaucracies and other political institutions. In this article, 1 advance an argument explaining the importance of strategy in policymaking for public agencies, and demonstrate how the concept needs to be refined in order for it to have meaning for public sector organizations. Strategy is analyzed in terms of two categories of uncertainty: generalized and contingent. Because of the ubiquitousness of generalized uncertainty in public policymaking, developing a capacity for anticipating uncertainty problems is critical in strategy formation. Whether that capacity exists is a function of administrative structure. 1 further present an argument for why structure deserves consideration as a political and technical matter, and not simply as a consequence of political preferences.

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