Harold Seidman on “The Executive Establishment: Culture and Personality”
Number of pages:
5
ABSTRACT:
This is a 5 page paper discussing the role of the executive within governmental agencies according to Seidman. In Harold Seidman’s text “Politics, Position and Power: the Dynamics of Federal Organization” (1997) he discusses “The Executive Establishment: Culture and Personality” (Chapter 8). While there is an executive hierarchy within the government agencies, influence and position are often dependent on the specific agency and the relationships with those superior. Despite the professional expertise of some secretaries, their appointments are largely related to where in the country they are from, their lifestyle, what their professional and personal background is and how conformist they are to the established values and ideology of a particular agency and in fact are only as free to act “as big as the president, the bureaucracy, the Congress, and their constituencies allow them to be”. While higher executives within agencies fall within the expected traditional roles, undersecretaries and others within the agencies may more so represent the diverse groups within the portfolio. Despite the increase in external “hybrid” agencies, traditional social and cultural expectations remain of executives within the political structure who must conform to rather than try to reform the institutions they administer.
Bibliography lists 6 sources.
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File: D0_TJSeidm1.rtf
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