Supplementary texts Decision-making models

Given the array of duties public administrators find themselves performing, the professional administrator might refer to a theoretical framework from which he or she might work. Indeed, many public and private administrative scholars have devised and modified decision-making models.

Niskanen's budget-maximizing

In 1971, Professor William Niskanen proposed a rational choice variation which he called the “budget-maximizing model”.

Budget-maximizing model

Budget-maximizing model is an influential new stream of public choice theory and rational choice analysis in public administration inaugurated by William Niskanen, in 1971...

He claimed that rational bureaucrats will universally seek to increase the budgets of their units (to enhance their stature), thereby contributing to state growth and increased public expenditure. Niskanen served on President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisors; his model underpinned what has been touted as curtailed public spending and increased privatization. However, budgeted expenditures and the growing deficit during the Reagan administration is evidence of a different reality. A range of pluralist authors have critiqued Niskanen's universalist approach. These scholars have argued that officials tend also to be motivated by considerations of the public interest.

Dunleavy's bureau-shaping

The bureau-shaping model, a modification of Niskanen, holds that rational bureaucrats only maximize the part of their budget that they spend on their own agency's operations or give to contractors and interest groups. Groups that are able to organize a “flow-back” of benefits to senior officials would, according to this theory, receive increased budgetary attention. For instance, rational officials will get no benefit from paying out larger welfare checks to millions of low-income citizens because this does not serve a bureaucrats' goals. Accordingly, one might instead expect a jurisdiction to seek budget increases for defense and security purposes in place of domestic social programming. If we refer back to Reagan once again, Dunleavy's bureau shaping model accounts for the alleged decrease in the "size" of government while spending did not, in fact, decrease. Domestic entitlement programming was financially de-emphasized for military research and personnel.

European Union

Throughout its history Europe has exerted an influence disproportionate to its size. Its most important ancient civilizations developed in Mediterranean region. Greek civilization reached its zenith between 500 and 300BC, to be succeeded by that of Rome. Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire in the late 4^th century, shortly before the empire’s western section succumbed to Germanic invaders. The eastern section lived on as the Byzantine empire, centered on Constantinople, which eventually fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

During the Middle Ages a politically fragmented Europe underwent varying degrees of invasion and colonization from Moors, Vikings, Magyars, and others. The attempt of the powerful Franks to re-establish the Western Roman empire soon failed, but the year 962 marked the foundation of what later became the Holy Roman Empire. The Roman Catholic Church became the unifying force throughout the continent; but in the wake of the Renaissance, the 16^th century bought about a religious schism (the Reformation) in western Christendom and ushered in an era of national and international politico-religious warfare.

Post-medieval Europe was characterized by the rise of strong individual nation-states such as Spain, France, England, the Netherlands, and eventually Russia. Their influence on the rest of the world was the result of their acquisition of vast empires outside Europe. Imperial expansion continued through the age of European revolutions, of which the French Revolution was the most momentous. In the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries north-western Europe became the first region of the world to undergo in industrialization.

The modern history of Europe is largely that of its constituent nations. In the 20^th century European history has been dominated by World War 1 and World War 2. Since the end of World war 2 the European Community and its successor, the European Union, have brought an altogether more hopeful era to the peoples of Europe. European Union was established in 1993 by 15 European countries. The EU took over all the European Community institutions, such as the European Parliament, but also extended the scope of the EC according to the terms of the Maastricht Treaty. The member countries agreed to add a shared foreign policy and commitment to cooperation on security matters, including justice and policing, to their economic and political links under the EC. These constitute the “three pillars” of the EU, one pillar being the EC, another pillar coordinating foreign and external security policies(designating the Western European Union as the EU’s defense wing), and the third pillar coordinating internal matters and justice (particularly on immigration and political asylum). Proposals concerning the creation of a single European currency were not acceptable to all members and the issue was complicated further by the withdrawal of the UK and Italy from the Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992. There have also been disagreements over social policies and the sovereignty of member nations; the UK, which has opposed any suggestion of federalism, opted out of a common policy on social issues to be adopted by other members.

In 1995 Austria, Finland, and Sweden joined the EU, increasing the total number of members to 15. Other countries have applied for membership and the EU has agreed to cooperate with former members of the Communist bloc. With the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), a free-trade area originally comprising a number of non-EC European states, the EU established a frontier-free zone in 1994, known as the European Economic Area (EEA). In 1999 a European currency, the euro, was launched. It is now an official currency of 11 European Union states.