| What are the causes of administrative reform? Even though the question is critical in understanding administrative reform efforts and their impacts on administration and society, much remains to be understood about this process. In this dissertation, I will examine the following research question: What accounts for the occurrence of two types of state-level administrative reform---the adoption of performance-based budgeting legislation and comprehensive state executive branch reorganization? I focus on these reforms because they are core administrative reform processes. More importantly, the examination of two reforms within a single study provides an opportunity to examine the differences in the adoption prospects and process (Chackerian and Mavima, 2001).;My framework attempts to integrate the micro level political market approach with macro perspectives that point to the importance of external forces. There are diverse administrative reform theoretical perspectives. In my view, administrative reform can be explained in terms of the political market in which elected officials provide administrative reform to constituents based on their costs and benefits and constituents supply political support based on their costs and benefits (Feiock & Stream, 1988; Keohane, Revesz, & Stavins, 1997; Dixit, 1996). However, these micro aspects of the political market are embedded in macro environmental forces such as institutions and more general socio-economic conditions (Chackerian, 1996; DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Berry & Berry, 1990). Therefore it is important to consider the macro environmental forces as well as the micro political market factors simultaneously.;The units of analysis for this study are forty-eight U.S. continental states. Annual data for each of the variables in this study were collected for 48 U.S. continental states for the 17-year time period 1980 to 1996. The reason why I choose the year 1980 is related to "new federalism" and the beginning of the Reagan administration. From that time, not only were federal grants to states severely cut, but also states played more important roles in the federal system. This new trend, the so-called "Resurgence of the States" (Bowman, 1998) or "New Federalism" (Dye, 1990), provide the ideal context to study state government activities in terms of administrative reform. In addition, I choose 48 U.S. continental states to capture neighboring state effects on administrative reform. (Abstract shortened by UMI.). |
