11.235 | Fall 2009 | Graduate

Analyzing Projects and Organizations

Readings

SES # TOPICS READINGS

1

Introduction No readings
2  

Kelman, Steve. Unleashing Change: A Study of Organizational Renewal in Government. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2005, pp. 1-58, chapters 1-3. ISBN: 9780815748991.

Tendler, Judith. “Research Questions for the Ford Foundations Innovations-in-Government Programs: Documentation, Evaluation, and Dissemination.” MIT, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, 1998.

Professors notes on the readings (PDF)

3  

Fox, Jonathan. “Introduction,” and “The Sandwich Strategy: Opening from Above Meets Mobilization from Below.” In The Politics of Food in Mexico: State Power and Social Mobilization. La Jolla, CA: Center for U.S-Mexican Studies, 1993, pp. 1-8 and 151-205. ISBN: 9780801427169.

March, James. “Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning.” Organizational Science 2, no. 1 (February 1991): 71-87.

Professors notes on the readings (PDF)

I. What drives organizational behavior?
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March, James G. “Decisions in Organizations and Theories of Choice.” In Perspectives on Organization Design and Behavior. Edited by Andrew H. Van de Ven and William F. Joyne. New York, NY: Wiley, 1981, pp. 205-248. ISBN: 9780471093589.

March, James. A Primer on Decision Making: How Decisions Happen. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780029200353. (Preface, Chapter 1 “Limited Rationality,” pp. 1-35; rest of chapter optional.)

5  

Wilson, James Q. Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1989. ISBN: 9780465007851. (Preface and chapters 3-6 required.)

Goldsmith, Arthur A. “Africa’s Overgrown State Reconsidered: Bureaucracy and Economic Growth.” World Politics 51, no. 4 (1999): 520-546.

II. Street-level bureaucrats (SLBs)

6

 

Roe, Emery. “Development Narratives, Or Making the Best of Blueprint Development.” World Development 19, no. 4 (1993): 287-300.

Tendler, Judith. “Executive Summary and Reinventing the Projects.” In New Lessons from Old Projects: The Workings of Rural Development in Northeast Brazil. A World Bank Operations Evaluation Study, 1993, pp. xix-xxvi and 14-33. ISBN: 9780821325124.

Roe, Emery M. “Except-Africa: Postscript to a Special Session on Development Narratives.” World Development 23, no. 6 (1995): 1065-1069.

Bouckaert, Geert, and Walter Balk. “Public Productivity Measurement: Diseases and Cures.” Public Productivity & Management Review 15, no. 2 (1991): 229-235.

DiIulio, Jr., John. “Principled Agents: The Cultural Bases of Behavior in a Federal Government Bureaucracy.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 4, no. 3 (1994): 277-318. (Read pp. 278-284, 314-316; rest optional)

Gootman, Elissa. “In Cramped Spaces, Small School Benefits.” The New York Times, December 21, 2008.

Kaufman, Herbert. The Forest Ranger: A Study in Administrative Behavior. London, UK: RFF Press, 2006. ISBN: 9781933115276. (Required: Chapters 1 “Introduction”, pp. 3-21; Chapter 7 “Conclusion” recommended: Chapter 3, pp. 66-87)

Maynard-Moody, Steven, and Michael Musheno. Cops, Teachers, Counselors: Stories from the Front Lines of Public Service. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780472068326. (Required: pp. 3-8 of Chapter 1 “Dealing with Faces”; pp. 97-106 of Chapter 8 “Who are the Worthy”? Optional: pp. 77-96 of Chapter 7 “Putting a Fix on People: Identity, Conduct, and Street-level Work”)

Van Maanen, John. “Observations on the Making of Policemen.” Human Organization 32, no. 4 (1973): 407-418.

Professor’s notes on the readings (PDF)

III. Professionals, para-professionals, insiders, outsiders
7  

Lipsky, Michael. “The Critical Role of Street-Level Bureaucrats,” “The Assault on Human Services: Bureaucratic Control, Accountability, and the Fiscal Crises,” and “The Broader Context of Bureaucratic Relations.” In Street Level Bureaucracy, Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2010, pp. 3-25, 159-179, and 181-191. ISBN: 9780871545442.

Justice, Judith. “The Invisible Health Worker: The Peon,” and “Sources of Information.” In Policies, Plans People: Culture and Health Development in Nepal. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986, pp. 101-106. ISBN: 9780520054240.

Navarro, Mireya. “Polluters, Beware: These Eco-Police Officers Are for Real.” New York Times, March 26, 2009.

8  

Scully, Maureen, and Amy Segal. “Passion with an Umbrella: Grassroots Activists in the Workplace.” Social Structure and Organizations Revisited 19 (2002): 125-168. (PDF)

Tendler, Judith, and Sara Freedheim. “Trust in a Rent-seeking World: Health and Government Transformed in Northeast Brazil.” World Development 22, no. 12 (1994): 1771-1791.

9  

Joshi, Anu. “Public Sector Unions and Policy Reform: The Case of Joint Forest Management in West Bengal.” Draft article. Centre for the Future State, Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, Brighton, England. 2006. Based on Roots of Change: Front Line Workers and Forest Policy Reform in West Bengal, Chapter 4, of the author’s PhD Dissertation (Cambridge, MA, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2000).

Crook, Richard, and Joseph Ayee. “Urban Service Partnerships, ‘Street-Level Bureaucrats’ and Environmental Sanitation in Kumasi and Accra, Ghana: Coping with Organisational Change in the Public Bureaucracy.” Development Policy Review 24, no. 1 (2006): 1-23 (especially pp. 11-23).

10  

Pfeffer, Jeffrey, and Gerald R. Salancik. The External Control of Organizations. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford Business Books, 2003, chapters 1, 4, and 10. ISBN: 9780804747899.

11  

Dobbin, Frank, and John R. Sutton. “The Strength of a Weak State: The Rights Revolution and the Rise of Human Resources Management Divisions.” The American Journal of Sociology 104, no. 2 (1998): 441–76, pp. 441-61, and 470-471, Conclusion, skim rest.

Pfeffer, Jeffrey. “Human Resources from an Organizational Behavior Perspective: Some Paradoxes.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 21, no. 4 (2007): 115-134.

12  

Pires, Roberto Rocha. “Promoting Sustainable Compliance: Styles of Labour Inspection and Compliance Outcomes in Brazil.” International Labour Review 147, nos. 2-3 (2009): 199-229.

Coslovsky, Salo. Compliance and Competitiveness: How Prosecutors Enforce Labor and Environmental Laws and Promote Economic Development in Brazil. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. PhD dissertation, 2002, chapters 1, 2, and 4.

13  

McKenna, Christopher Davis. “Introduction,” “Creating the Contractor State: Consultants in the American Federal government,” and “Finding Profit in Nonprofits: The influence of Consultants in the Third Sector.” Chapters 4 and 5 in The World’s Newest Profession: Management Consulting in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 1-7, 80-110, and 111-144. ISBN: 9780521757591.

Ban, Carolyn, and Mark Huddleston . “Exporting Administrative Reform to Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union: The Role of the Consultants in Technical Assistance.” Paper prepared for Annual Meeting of the Association of Public Policy and Management, Washington, DC, November, 1999.

Argyris, Chris. Flawed Advice and the Management Trap. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780195132861.

14  

DiMaggio, Paul J., and Walter W. Powell, eds. “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organization Fields.” In T_he New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis_. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. pp. 63-82. ISBN: 9780226677095.

Meyer, John W., and Brian Rowan. “Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony.” In The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Edited by Walter W. Powell and Paul J. DiMaggio. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1991, pp. 54-62 required, rest optional. ISBN: 9780226677095.

15  

Teaford, Jon C. The Unheralded Triumph: City Government in America, 1870-1900. Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins Press, 1984, pp. 1-14, 307-314, and skim 132-173, within the chapters entitled, respectively, “Trumpeted Failures and Unheralded Triumphs,” “Triumph with the Taste of Defeat,” and “The Professionals.” ISBN: 9780801830631.

Woodall, Brian. Japan Under Construction: Corruption, Politics, and Public Works. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996, Introduction and Conclusion, pp. 1-24, and 124-148. ISBN: 9780520088153.

IV. Public management reforms: models, case studies, assessments
16  

Pollitt, Christopher. “Justification by Works or by Faith? Evaluating the New Public Management.” Evaluation 1, no. 2 (1995): 133-154.

Chetkovich, Carol, and David Kirp. “Cases and Controversies: How Novitiates are Trained to be Masters of the Public Policy Universe.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 20, no. 2 (2001): 283-314.

Kettl, Donald F., and John J. DiIulio, Jr. “Learning from Public and Private Reform?” Chapter 2 in Cutting Government. A Report of the Brookings Institution’s Center for Public Management. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, May 22, 1995, pp. 27-41 (especially pp. 27-36, and 40-41). ISBN: 9780815749134.

17  

Grindle, Merilee S. “Good Enough Governance: Poverty Reduction and Reform in Developing Countries.” Governance 17, no. 4 (October 2004): 525-548. (PDF)

Hood, Christopher. “Paradoxes of Public-Sector Managerialism, Old Public Management, and Public Service Bargains.” International Public Management Journal 3 (2000): 1-22.

V. Back to labor standards, this time with “stateless” compliance
18  

Elliott, Kimberly Ann, and Freeman, Richard. Can Labor Standards Improve under Globalization? Institute for International Economics, Washington, DC, 2003.

Seidman, Gay. “Citizens, Markets, and Transnational Labor Activism,” “Labor Rights as Human Rights: Regulation in the Context of a Thinned National State,” “Constructing a Culture of Compliance in Guatemala,” “Citizenship at Work.” Chapters 1, 2, 5, and 6 in Beyond the Boycott: Labor Rights, Human Rights, and Transnational Activism. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 2007, pp. 1-14; 15-46, 102-131, and 132-144; rest optional. ISBN: 9780871547620.

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Guest: Professor Richard Locke, Sloan School of Management & Political Science Department

Locke, Richard, Matthew Amengual, and Akshay Mangla. “Virtue Out of Necessity? Compliance, Commitment and the Improvement of Labor Conditions in Global Supply Chains.” Politics and Society 37, no. 3 (2009): 319-351.

Locke, Richard, Qin, Fei, and Brause, Alberto. “Does Monitoring Improve Labor Standards? Lessons from Nike.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review 61, no. 1 (2007): 3-31. (PDF)

VI. International organizations—inside the organization and out
20  

Tendler, Judith. Inside Foreign Aid. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975, chapters 1, 5, and 8, pp. 1-7, 54-72, and 102-110 (rest optional). ISBN: 9780801820168.

Wade, Robert. “Japan, the World Bank, and the Art of Paradigm Maintenance: The East Asian Miracle in Political Perspective.” New Left Review (May-June 1996).

Hirschman, Albert O., and Kermit Gordon. Development Projects Observed. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1967, Preface + text. ISBN: 9780815736516.

Rosen, George. Western Economists and Eastern Societies: Agents of Change in South Asia, 1950-1970. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins Press, 1985. ISBN: 9780801831874.

Mallaby, Sebastian. The World’s Banker: A Story of Failed States, Financial Crises, and the Wealth and Poverty of Nations. London, UK: Penguin Books, 2006. ISBN: 9780143036791.

21  

Swidler, Ann. “Syncretism and Subversion in AIDS Governance: How Locals Cope with Global Demands.” International Affairs 82, no. 2 (2006): 269-284.

Cooley, Alexander, and James Ron. “The NGO Scramble: Organizational Insecurity and the Political Economy of Transnational Action.” International Security 27, no. 1 (1991): 5-39. (PDF)

Sanyal, Bishwapriya. “Antagonistic Cooperation: A Case Study of Nongovernmental Organizations, Government and Donors’ Relationships in Income-Generating Projects in Bangladesh.” World Development 19, no. 10 (1991): 1367-1379.

McCormick, Dorothy, Winnie Mitullah, and Erick Manga. “Extent and Forms of Donor Proliferation and Coordination in Kenya: the Case of Inclusive Industrialization and Governance Reform, 2000-2005.” Working paper. Kenya, University of Nairobi, Institute for Development Studies, 2007. (Strongly recommended: pp. 1-48; rest optional.)

Killick, Tony, Carlos N. Castel-Branco, and Richard Gerster. “Perfect Partners? The Performance of Programme Aid Partners in Mozambique.” Report to Programme Aid Partners and the Government of Mozambique, 2004. (PDF)

The new donor world: competition (as vs. collaboration)

Associated Press. “Britain May Withhold World Bank Donation.” The New York Times, September 19, 2006.

Perlez, Jane. “China Competes with West on Aid to its Neighbors.” The New York Times, September 19, 2006.

Bruck, Connie. “Millions for Millions: This Year’s Nobel Peace Prize Winner and Some High-Tech Entrepreneurs are Competing to Provide Credit to the World’s Poor.” The New Yorker 82, no. 3 (October 30, 2006).

Malkin, Elisabeth. “Microfinance’s Success Sets off a Debate in Mexico.” The New York Times (Business Section), April 5, 2008.

22  

Houtzager, Peter P. “Introduction: From Polycentrism to the Polity.” Chapter 1 in Changing Paths: International Development and the New Politics of Inclusion. Edited by Peter Houtzager and Mick Moore. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003, pp. 1-31. ISBN: 9780472030972

Osterman, Paul. “Overcoming Oligarchy: Culture and Agency in Social Movement Organizations.” Administrative Science Quarterly 51 (2006): 622-649.

Houtzager, Peter P., with Jonathan Pattenden. “Coalition Building from Below.” Chapter 4 in Changing Paths: International Development and the New Politics of Inclusion. Edited by Peter Houtzager and Mick Moore. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. ISBN: 9780472030972.

23

Guest: Peter Houtzager, Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, Brighton, U.K.

Houtzager, Peter P., and Arnab K. Acharya. “Associations, Active Citizenship, and the Quality of Democracy in Brazil and Mexico.” Forthcoming in Theory and Society, 2010.

Ananth Pur, Kripa, and Mick Moore. “Ambiguous Institutions: Traditional Governance and Local Democracy in Rural India.” IDS Working Paper #282. Brighton: Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, 2007.

Kruks-Wisner, Gabrielle. “Sea of Change: Seeing the State in Disaster Recovery and Service Delivery.” Department of Political Science, MIT, 2nd year paper, 2008.

24

Student Presentations I

No readings

25

Student Presentations II

No readings

Course Info

As Taught In
Fall 2009
Level
Learning Resource Types
Projects with Examples
Written Assignments with Examples