Institutional immortality: The reality of cabinet-level abolition attempts. Ronald Reagan and the Departments of Energy and Educatio

Through case study analysis this dissertation chronicles the attempts of the Reagan Administration to meet 1980 campaign promises to abolish the Departments of Energy and Education. Expanding on observations of a pilot study undertaken by Herbert Kaufman in 1973 which examined the "immortality" of federal organizations, this research was guided by an analytical framework of several intertwining and interactive variables.;Initially, the case studies document the reality of abolition plans developed for both Education and Energy. The plethora of institutional, political and socioeconomic factors that hindered the successful implementation of the abolition plans are substantiated via personal interviews with institutional actors and secondary literature.;Parameters of the Reagan administrative strategy which was invoked against all federal bureaucracies between 1981 and 1988 are identified and chronicled as an alternative strategy to abolishing the two Cabinet level entities.;The role of Cabinet Secretaries, Reagan White House personnel, Congressional Committees and their leadership, and constituent interest groups are focused on as a means to verify the tenacity of what Ripley and Franklin have referred to as "subgovernment relationships".;Finally, the results of the case study research are contrasted against political ruminations in 1994-1995 that resurrect the idea of abolishing the Departments of Energy and Education and discuss changes in variables found a decade ago that may no longer hinder such abolition objectives.