A civilized war: The administrative reform battles of the Central Intelligence Agency

The Central Intelligence Agency is well known for its involvement in rebellions and wars. This dissertation is about another kind of war that the CIA was engaged in during the 1990s---a war to carry out administrative reforms. The lessons learned from this war and the differing approaches to reform provide a robust vehicle for understanding more about public sector administrative reform components and dynamics. The purpose of this dissertation is twofold: to understand more about the reform efforts of the CIA through the application of concepts developed in the study of the public policy process, and through that understanding learn more about administrative reform generally.;Administrative reform is civilized war. As with war, in administrative reform leadership counts, troops are needed, strategies are developed, counter tactics are deployed, resources are critical, and the outcome can be murky. Administrative reform is civilized insofar as there are no real casualties (aside from adverse effects on careers), the intentions of proponents and opponents of the administrative reforms are mostly noble, and there is a unifying approach or strategy to the reform efforts. This dissertation is about such a civilized war---the administrative reform efforts at the CIA in the 1990s. As such, it is a dissertation about strategies, counter-tactics, resources, goals, and outcomes associated with those efforts. The central purpose of the dissertation is to propose a conceptual framework for thinking about administrative reform efforts, test that framework against the reform efforts at the CIA, and modify the framework in order to inform other administrative reform efforts.;The administrative reforms at the CIA during the 1990s range from rebellions to revolutions in outcome, The Agency's experiences with administrative reforms present an important opportunity to learn critical lessons from those revolutions and rebellions. The lessons' isomorphic qualities have the potential to reinforce efforts of other public sector organizations undertaking their own administrative reforms. Consequently, this dissertation takes direct aim at both describing the Agency's administrative reform efforts and answering a set of research questions by developing three CIA administrative reform cases.