National Institute of Mental Health Studies in Ne. Zt eA YL zane Zz a TN a. x \ aX. X Social Science and Institutional Change DOCUMENTS DEPARTMENT APR +5 1879 LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIgg DEPOSITORY rice . S$. MAR 2119713 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE Public Health Service Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health Administration SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE by Robert R.)Mayer) Ph.D. Weaver} Department of City and Regional Planning University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE Public Health Service Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration 14 &National Institute ot Mental Health Division of Special Mental Health Programs 5600 Fishers Lane Rockville, Maryland 20857 Ce Sop v2.2) This monograph is one of a series of studies concerning social change. The series is being sponsored by the Division of Special Mental Health Programs, National Institute of Mental Health, to encourage the utilization of social science knowledge in public policy discussions. The monograph was written by an authority on research in the area of social problems under contract number 278-76-0082(SM) from the National Institute of Mental Health. The opinions expressed herein are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the National Institute of Mental Health, Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration, Public Health Service, or the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. DHEW Publication No. (ADM) 78-627 Printed 1979 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, D.C. 20402 Stock Number 017-024-00868-1 HN 18 M383 PUBL Foreword With the growth of the social sciences, there has been increasing interest in use of their products to throw light on and also to solve some of the pressing social problems of our society. A concerned public and concerned policymakers are increasingly asking the question: What can social science research contribute to our planning process, particularly planning to effect institutional change to more clearly meet basic mental health needs? And, indeed, policymakers have for some time made use of social science theory and research findings in their planning process. It is important, then, to learn more about how social science is utilized, by whom, and with what effect. It is important to obtain an evaluation of the products of such use both by the change agents and by those to whom the change was directed. Such knowledge should be of value to social science theory, to social science research program development, and to the policy planning process. This monograph, the first in a series of studies on social change, reports on an analysis of applications of social science theory and research to programs of institutional change. It includes a state-of-the-arts review of the literature, both scientific and public policy oriented, and a study of important questions raised by this literature. Finally, it offers a proposal to bridge the gap between the social sciences and public policymaking. By this means it brings us closer to the goal of directing knowledge toward the satisfaction of basic mental health needs. Juan Ramos, Ph.D. Director Division of Special Mental Health Programs iii Acknowledgments This book was written under contract No. 278-76-0082 (SM) with the Division of Special Mental Health Programs of the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Juan Ramos and Dr. Mary Lystad were very helpful in providing substantive guidance. The literature review, field work, and writing of chapter 6 were done by Shana Goldiamond; for chapter 8 they were done by Debby Goldberg. They join me in expressing gratitude to the staff and the people served by the Federal Correctional Institution at Butner, North Carolina; the Massachusetts Division of Youth services; the Alum Rock (California) Union Elementary School District; and the Detroit Public Schools. The willingness of these people to share their personal experiences brought the study out of the library and into the world of reality. Audrey Delong, Sharyn Dodrill, Bradford Liff, Donald Meserve, Paul Mones, Bonnie Morell, and Mildrilyn Stephens helped to identify ways of synthesizing the literature. Professor Richard L. Simpson and Frank De Giovanni were very helpful in critically reviewing the manuscript. Robert R. Mayer Chapel Hill, North Carolina iv Contents FOREWORD . . . ee ee eee eeu iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . iii itt tee e een iv Chapter 1. The Nature of Institutional Change . . ................ 1 Definition of Concepts . . . . ..................... 2 Method of Study . . . ............ 5 A Model of Institutional Change . .................. 7 References . . . . . . . ee 12 2. The Use of Ideology in Institutiona! Change . ............ 14 A Definition of Ideology . . . ............... ...... 14 The Conscious Use of Ideology . . . ................. 16 Functions and Limitations of Ideology in Institutional Change . . . ...................... 23 Conclusions . . . . Lee 27 References . . . . . . 27 3. Structural Approaches to Institutional Change ........... 31 The Nature of Organizational Structure . . ............. 31 A Structural View of Institutional Change . ............. 37 Ideology and Organizational Structure . . . ............. 48 Conclusions . . . . eee 52 References . . . . . . . .. ee 53 4. Institutional Change Through Individual Change .......... 56 Use of Individual Incentives . . . ................... 57 Alteration of Psychological States . . ................ 63 Ideology and Interpersonal Relations . . ............... 70 Conclusions . . . . eee 72 References . . . . . . . . ee 72 5. The Utilization of Social Science—An Overview ........... 74 Attempts to Institutionalize the Use of Social Science . ...... 74 Examples of Social Science Utilization . . .............. 79 Factors Which Affect the Utilization Process . . .......... 91 Toward a Resolution of the Utilization Problem . .. ....... 95 Conclusions . . . . 97 References . . . . . . ee 99 NOs, WN= . Case Studies of Correctional Reform An Overview of the Corrections System... ............ The Federal Correctional Institution at Butner, North Carolina... ............... 00 ..o... Massachusetts Department of Youth Services References The History of Educational Vouchers at Alum Rock The Modified Voucher Plan Implementation Evaluation References . Decentralization of Detroit Public Schools . . ........... History of Decentralization in Detroit The Decentralization Plan Implementation of the Plan. . . . .................. Evaluation... .... References . Toward an Integrated Theory of Planned Institutional Change Interrelatedness of Theories Examples From Field Studies... .................. Issues for Further Research and Development References Index Figures . Two levels of organizational structure . . . ............. . Types of organizational internal structure . . ............ . Types of organizational external structure . . ............ . Zones in the domainofabureau . .................. . Organizational chart of the Modified Voucher Plan... . .... . Community involvement in Region One Detroit Public Schools . Matrix for effects of intervention variables on outcome variables . CHAPTER 1 THE NATURE OF INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE Planned institutional change involves the efforts of people to alter that part of their environment which is governed by a set of rules and power relationships which are established within the context of a larger social order. A newly elected Governor seeks to change the deplorable conditions in a State prison system; a Federal agency tries to get a local school system to become more responsive to the needs of minority groups; and low-income residents protest the lack of decent and affordable health care in their community. Such efforts, while often heroic in proportion to the resistance against which they contend, fall short of being revolutionary in that they are not directed at changes in the larger social order. Rather, that social order is used to bring about a desired change in one of its constituent institutions. Such efforts are variously referred to as social reform, intended social change, or institutional change. The latter term reflects, we feel, a more precise understanding of the process involved. Interest in institutional change waxes and wanes with the fluidity of the larger social order which affects the promise of its attainment. Thus, during the Great Depression of the 1930s; the Second World War of the 1940s; and the convergence of the civil rights movement, the peace movement, and urban riots of the 1960s; interest ran high. But during the relative stability and quiescence of the 1950s and the 1970s, interest subsided. Yet efforts at institutional change never completely disappear. As long as there is government, or dependence on a collectively organized way of doing things, there will be attempts on the part of one group or another to alter those organized ways in order to redress grievances or bring about a fuller measure of social justice. The purpose of this book is to add to our current understanding of the process of institutional change. It is our hope, in so doing, to assist those within the Government who have the responsibility, as well as those outside who advocate such responsibility, to make institutional arrangements more responsive to the people and 1 2 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE purposes they were originally intended to serve. More specifically, our purpose is to assess the state of the art as reflected in the writings and research of social scientists and as tempered by the experiences of planners, administrators, politicians, and citizens who are the practitioners of this art. We cannot hope to be comprehensive or definitive. The effort to conceptualize the process of institutional change is as old as institutions themselves and spans many disciplines and many perspectives. Our effort can be unique only in the sense that it tries to integrate the contributions of the most recent literature with more historic themes in a manner which is relevant to the practice of public planning or decisionmaking. The social sciences have much to contribute to the process of institutional change, yet their offerings often are not accepted. The limited success with which social science research findings have been adopted in the policymaking process is a many-faceted problem. On the one hand, social scientists tend to pose issues in terms which are highly abstract, not related to actions that can be applied in a practical way. In a word, the social sciences tend to be descriptive rather than prescriptive. On the other hand, groups who have the most to gain from institutional change often couch their proposals in highly emotive, imprecise terms and exhibit little patience to examine any larger set of issues that transcends their immediate experience. They shun the rational process that is the trademark of the social scientist. And finally, there are what Lindblom (1968) calls the ‘proximate policymakers,” those legitimized by the larger society to make decisions involving institutional change (p. 70). They are caught in a complex web of forces and values which surrounds a particular issue, only some of which are reflected in the rational analysis of the social scientist or the proposals of participating interest groups. For this reason, a secondary objective of this inquiry is to examine the utilization of social science theory and research in institutional change. In this connection, we seek to learn the role which social science plays in such planned change, as well as the factors which facilitate or hinder that utilization. Definition of Concepts Before proceeding with a further description of our task, we will pause to define the basic concepts which underlie it. In summary form, we define planned institutional change as any planned or intended alteration in the goals, program, or structure of an organization which is operating in the public interest. We NATURE OF CHANGE 3 will examine each of the elements of this definition in more detail. Historically, the term institution has had two different mean- ings. (1) It has been construed very narrowly to refer to a culturally defined set of norms governing behavior which serves some group purpose, such as marriage. (2) The term has also been used more generally to refer to organizations which serve some larger social purpose, such as the church or the courts. It is in this latter sense that we use the term. This use requires that the characteristics which distinguish institutions as a subset of organizations be identified. Blase (1973) defines institutions as ... organizations which embody, foster, and protect norma- - tive relations and action patterns, and perform functions and services which are valued in the environment (p. 261). The implications of this definition are twofold: (1) Institutions are organizations which are viewed as subsystems of a larger system; and (2) institutions are organizations that are normative in purpose, that is, they have been imbued with a purpose or goal which is valued by the larger system. Thus, in this study we are concerned with institutional change as it occurs in some formal organizations over which public decisionmaking has direct in- fluence, rather than changes which occur at a societal level, such as changes in the family, the economy, or belief systems. This definition gives values an explicit role in distinguishing institutions from other types of organizations. Institutions are defined by the values they hold for some larger group. Examples are prisons, schools, and hospitals. Organizations which are not institutions are defined on the basis of their self-interest. Examples are a business enterprise or a fraternal order. This distinction does not deny the fact that all organizations have a value system which governs their operation. The distinction recognizes that, in the case of an institution, the good or service rendered has been explicitly acknowledged in some manner as of value to the larger society. In this sense, institutions can be thought of as organiza- tions which act in the “public interest.” It is this quality which makes them appropriate targets of social policy. Much of the literature with which this study deals does not make this distinction when discussing organizations of an institutional nature. Therefore, we will use the terms interchangeably, even though we are referring to institutions. This brings us to the delicate matter of defining what constitutes change in any institution. The simplest definition is that change is any measurable difference in a state or property of an institution over time. It should be noted that change refers to a state of a system and not to idiosyncratic or ad hoc behaviors. 4 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE This definition rules out specific acts of an organization which depart from established policy or procedures and are taken in response to some pressure from its environment. Thus, to constitute institutional change, the alteration in question must become a part of the standard operating procedures of the institution, and it must persist over time. The definition we have used often precipitates the question: How big must the alteration be to constitute institutional change? To this question there is no definite answer. Although most proponents of institutional change think implicitly of a scale that is large, we believe that size is not an inherent requirement. Change can be either large or small, as long as it is reflected in a system state and is measurable. If size is to be considered a property of a particular institutional change, it must be so specified in advance to determine whether or not such a change takes place. A definition of institutional change is also frequently ques- tioned on the basis of its effectiveness. Change in one institutional state is usually proposed because someone wants to bring about a change in another state. For example, citizen participation in the management of a public agency may be proposed as a way of bringing about a change in the type of services provided. When the desired effect does not ensue, there is a tendency to say that institutional change did not occur. We believe there is nothing inherent in the nature of institutional change that implies success in bringing about changes in other institutional states. Thus size and effects are norms by which a given institutional change can be evaluated. But to determine that such a change has occurred, one need simply observe a difference in the nature or size of a system state over a specified time period. Institutional change should be distinguished from innovation. An innovation involves the adoption of a policy, program, or structure which is new to the adopting institution. While institu- tional change may, indeed, constitute an innovation, it need not necessarily do so. Institutional change could constitute the reestablishment of a former system state or property. And finally, planning is defined in this study as a public social process in which a choice is made among alternative ends or among alternative means for attaining desired ends. Such choices are made on the basis of some analysis of the anticipated consequences of each alternative. This definition excludes institu- tional changes that were unintended consequences which flow from natural or unplanned events. Planning that is to be considered in this study takes place in some agency of government or in a formal organization providing some public good or service. NATURE OF CHANGE 5 Planning can be carried out by a single actor or a set of actors designated to function in this capacity on behalf of a group. Planning can also be carried out by a group acting collectively, as in the case of communal organizations which operate on the basis of mass participation. Method of Study This book reviews th: literature on the nature of planned institutional change published during the last 10 years and the role of social science in that process. The findings from this review are tempered by field studies of four selected cases of such change. Our objective is to assess the current state of knowledge about planned institutional change and to identify issues which need to be addressed by further research and development activities. Since the subject matter with which we are dealing is so broad, and the literature in which it is covered is so diffuse, an attempt has been made to develop a systematic strategy for searching out the literature to be reviewed. We divided our study into three topics: (1) theory and research on planned institutional change, (2) the utilization of social science in planned institutional change, and (3) case studies of planned institutional change in the criminal justice system and in local public school systems. The latter two fields of application were picked from among those of interest to the sponsors of this study because it was believed they would provide the clearest examples. Since criminal justice is a relatively closed system and local public education is a relatively open system, it was believed that this contrast would more fully elaborate the process involved. Six data bases were used for the literature search: . Research in Education (ERIC) 2. Sociological Abstracts 3. Abstracted Business Information (ABI/INFORM) 4. National Clearinghouse for Mental Health Information 5. Psychological Abstracts 6. Poverty and Human Resources Abstracts The first four data bases were searched by computer, and the latter two were searched manually for the period 1967-77. Our first topic was the most difficult to search, for the term “planned institutional change” was not widely used. Therefore, we added terms such as reform, planned social change, organizational change, social policy experiments, and administrative change to expand our findings. The second topic was adequately handled by the intersection of the term ‘‘social science” with “public policy” — 6 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE and several variants. For searching out case studies, we used specific issues in the respective fields which had become identified with institutional change. With respect to criminal justice these terms were prison reform, deinstitutionalization, community- police relations, and indeterminate sentencing. With respect to education these terms were decentralization, education vouchers, and community control. Our search yielded over 700 listings. We made no attempt to comprehensively review so extensive a list. Rather, we searched for a framework by which its major themes might be portrayed. A perusal of the literature on planned institutional change suggested three types of theories: (1) those adopting ideology as the key to institutional change, (2) those approaching the subject from a social structural perspective, and (3) those focusing on interper- sonal relations as the key to such change. The literature on the utilization of social science in institutional change was more sparse and focused. It required no strategy for reduction. With respect to case studies, two were selected from each field of application that seemed to provide the greatest potential for insights into the institutional change process. They were: (1) the design and construction of an experimental Federal Correctional Institution at Butner, North Carolina; (2) the deinstitutionalization of the Massachusetts juvenile correctional system; (3) the adoption of a voucher-market system by the Alum Rock (California) Union Elementary School District; and (4) the decentralization of the Detroit Public Schools. After the literature on each of the four cases of planned institutional change was read and analyzed, a 3-day field visit was conducted at each site. The purpose of such visits was to verify and amplify our understanding of the process of planned institutional change that occurred in each respective case, as reported in the literature. This purpose was pursued by interview- ing a selected set of actors in each case: (1) those who planned the change, (2) those who administered or carried it out, and (3) those who were to benefit from it. Every effort was made to include persons who favored as well as opposed the change, those who participated at each significant level of the organization, and those by whom the effort was evaluated a success as well as a failure. As a result of these field visits, we were able to resolve significant contradictions about the way in which institutional change came about, as well as gaps in information contained in the literature. The findings of our study are presented in a manner which follows closely the steps in which it was carried out. In the remainder of this chapter, a model of planned institutional change is presented which we found useful as a general guide in our review NATURE OF CHANGE 7 of the literature. It is not presented as a definitive statement by which all theories must be judged, but rather as a heuristic device to suggest the range of variables which should be covered in any comprehensive discussion on the subject. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 are devoted to each of the three basic themes we found among theories of institutional change, those emphasizing ideology, social structure, and interpersonal relations, respectively. Chapter 5 assesses the role of social science in planned institutional change and the factors which affect its utilization. Chapter 6 analyzes two cases of institutional change in the criminal justice system. Chapter 7 analyzes the adoption of education vouchers in the Alum Rock Schools; and chapter 8 analyzes efforts to decentralize the Detroit City Schools. Chapter 9 provides a summary of what we have learned about the process of planned institutional change. It identifies the points at which alternative theories might be integrated and suggests areas for further research and experimenta- tion. A Model of Institutional Change Prior to undertaking an investigation of such a broad topic as institutional change, it is helpful to develop a model or conceptu- alization of the underlying phenomenon in order to establish some boundaries and to bring focus to the investigation. We were fortunate in finding early in our search such a model that has proved very useful for our purposes. It comes from the literature on national development planning and was prepared by the Midwest Universities Consortium for International Activities, Inc., based at Michigan State University. The work of the Consortium is reported by Blase (1973) and elaborated by Bumgardner et al. (1972). We have already reported their definition of an institution as an organization that performs some vital function which is explicitly valued by a larger system. Description of the Model The model which Blase and his colleagues have developed applies to institution building. Institution building refers to the process of developing new organizations or reconstructing existing ones in a manner that gives the institution the desired innovative qualities for effecting innovations in society. The situation for which the model was constructed was a developing Nation in which new institutions are being built to facilitate or guide the development process. However, we think the model has equal 8 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE applicability for reconstructing or changing existing institutions in developed societies where other goals may predominate. Blase and Bumgardner et al. describe three elements which interact to define the shape of the changing or emerging institution. These are: (1) institutional variables, (2) linkages, and (3) transactions. Institutional variables describe the key com- ponents of institutions. Linkages refer to the relationships or interdependencies between the institution and its environment. Transactions refer to the processes or exchanges by which an institution’s linkages with its environment are established. These elements will be described briefly. Institutional variables include: (1) leadership, (2) doctrine, (3) program, (4) resources, and (5) internal structure. These five components interact and complement each other in the process of institutional change or development. Leadership is defined as ‘the group of persons who are actively engaged in the formulation of doctrine and programs of the institution and who direct its operations and relationships with the environment” (Blase 1973, p. 266). In short, leaders are persons who direct the internal operations of the institution and manage its relations with the environment. Properties of leadership which may determine its effectiveness include its political viability, professional status, technical competence, commitment, and continuity. The im- portance of leadership style may fluctuate with variations in the other institutional variables. Doctrine, or ideology as we prefer to call it, provides the ‘motivational basis for action in shaping institutional change. Doctrine is the specification of the major purposes or goals to be sought by the institution and the operational methods by which those goals may be pursued. Doctrine is more than just a statement of objectives; it is a justification of the institution’s very existence in relation to some larger social purpose. Properties of a doctrine which are relevant for institutional change include its degree of specificity, its relationship to existing norms within the institution, and its relationship to societal preferences and priorities. Doctrine serves three important purposes: (1) It provides a means of gaining acceptance of the activities of the institution by linking it to the values of the larger society of which it is a part; (2) it serves as a motivating force for personnel within the institution; and (3) it provides criteria by which to judge the relevance of the institution’s program. Disagreements may ac- company attempts to specify doctrine. These disagreements can result in decreased clarity, potentially hindering effective change; or they can result in wider flexibility which, if carefully managed, can facilitate change. Where doctrine departs from the traditional NATURE OF CHANGE 9 norms of society, conflict may be engendered, arising from outside the institution as well as from within. A program is the action plan of an institution. It represents the translation of doctrine into action and the allocating of resources to carry out those actions. The adequacy of a given program for institutional change can be evaluated by reference to a number of characteristics: comprehensiveness, relation to societal needs, relation to doctrine, use of available technology and resources, timing, and consistency. Staff understanding and support for a given program are critical to the implementation of planned change. The feasibility of a program will be determined by the availability of technology and resources. Timing is a key factor in programs that are highly dependent on political support, for results must often be produced within a fixed time period to justify the program’s continued existence. Resources are those inputs to the institution that are needed in order to produce the desired goods or services. Resources are of two types: flow and stock. Flow resources are consumable or tangible elements such as money, material, and manpower. Stock resources are intangibles such as legitimation, political support, and propensity to change. Resources can be evaluated by their availability and source. Availability refers to their quality and quantity. Source refers to the particular origin of the resources and the extent of alternative sources in the environment. Although the level of resources is influenced by external variables, it also is considered a function of the effectiveness of leadership and program. When existing resources are used wisely and imaginative- ly, their flow can increase. Internal Structure refers to the distribution of authority and the division of responsibility among the units of the institution. It is also meant to include the means and channels of communication and decisionmaking. Characteristics in which structures might vary are the incentives for staff performance, the degree of centraliza- tion of authority, and the degree of participation in decision- making. Linkages refer to those relationships or interdependencies between the institution and its environment that shape and sustain the institution as well as provide the potential for change. Four types of linkages are identified: (1) enabling, (2) functional, (3) normative, and (4) diffuse. Enabling linkages are relationships with organizations that provide the institution with the legal authority and resources with which to operate. These linkages include legislative acts which authorize the institution’s existence, and the appropriation of funds by which to purchase factors of produc- tion. Enabling linkages are important for protecting the institution 10 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE against attack and for gaining access to resources. This is particularly true in the formative stages of an institution, when it is not yet strong enough to deal with the environment on its own terms. In the latter stage, enabling linkages are crucial to the institution’s attempts to expand its domain or area of responsi- bility in public affairs. Functional linkages are relationships with organizations in the environment whose interests are complementary rather than controlling of the institution which is the target of planned change. They are organizations or actors that provide the necessary inputs (factors of production) and use the outputs of the institution. These inputs may include clients, manpower, technology, and information. The outputs refer to whatever goods or service the institution produces. Functional linkages may be competitive rather than cooperative, in that more than one organization may offer similar inputs or outputs. Normative Linkages refer to relationships with organizations which dictate norms or set standards that govern the domain in which the institution operates. These linkages are less apparent but can be quite critical, as exemplified by the views of the Catholic Church in relation to family planning, and the views of profession- al organizations in relation to human services planning. Normative linkages are not always expressed through a formal organization. They may involve general belief systems which pervade society and are expressed through the mass media or the pronouncements of influential public figures. Diffuse linkages refer to relationships providing popular support for the institution. They involve populations rather than organiza- tions who are indirectly rather than directly related to the institution’s work, but whose support may ultimately be necessary if other linkages are to be established. Examples of such groups are parents of school children, or taxpayers in a political jurisdiction. The last element in the model, transactions, is the actual exchanges which go on between the institution and its environ- ment by which the environment affects and is affected by the institution. Transactions are events which are subject to strategies and planning and which result in the various linkages discussed above. These strategies and plans constitute the practice of institutional change. Blase and Bumgardner et al. do not elaborate the nature of such transactions, and, therefore, their model falls short of depicting the practice of institutional change. However, by identifying institutional variables and linkages involved in institutional change, they provide the groundwork for developing such practice. NATURE OF CHANGE 11 Implications While the model of institutional change presented above is incomplete, it does serve a useful purpose. It provides a general definition of the phenomenon with which we are dealing and a specification of the elements involved with which we can focus our review of the literature. Once that review is complete, we can return to the model and determine in what ways it may be amplified or altered to provide a more adequate depiction of the process of planned institutional change. At the outset, the model alerts us to a range of variables which have not been given equal treatment in previous efforts to conceptualize this subject. The list of institutional variables seems to be a good reflection of what one would need to consider in any effort at planned institutional change, but, when one considers each element individually, it becomes quite clear that they all have not received equal attention. For example, the matter of leader- ship has been given considerable attention by political scientists in their studies of elite versus participatory forms of decisionmaking. The element of program has been given major emphasis by each of the professions, such as public health, education, and social work. The matter of resources is a major focus of economists who analyze public decisionmaking in terms of resource allocation. And finally, the matter of structure is of major interest to sociologists who study organizational behavior. It is the element of doctrine, or ideology, that stands out as having been relatively neglected in efforts to think systematically about institutional change. One notable exception is the historical work of Selznick (1975). Indeed, this neglect may be directly linked to efforts by American social scientists to insist on a value-free approach to the study of social behavior. The lack of a systematic, rational approach to the study of ideology is consis- tent with basic criticisms of American public policymaking by Lowi (1969) and others. He argues that the failure of American governmental institutions to solve important social problems stems not from its lack of knowledge but from its lack of a process by which a clear-cut set of goals can be enunciated and a public commitment to those goals can be developed. In the absence of well-developed ideologies it is impossible to formulate strong goal statements, and in the absence of strong goal statements the necessary commitment to public action is fragile at best. In the course of discussing their model of institutional change, Blase also reports a number of specific interrelationships between elements in the model which suggest the kinds of propositions that could be developed for a theory of institutional change. These 287-264 O = 79 = 2 12 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE interrelationships provide an agenda for future research: (1) Doctrine has an important influence on the effectiveness of leadership. In the absence of a clear-cut doctrine, leadership can be hamstrung; it must constantly struggle for legitimacy among members of the institution, and it has little basis on which to arouse the commitment of other elements in the environment to the goals of the institution. (2) The importance of leadership may be a function of the resources available to the institution. In fact, leadership can be defined as the skillful use of resources. Therefore the greater the resources, the less critical is the role of leadership; and the fewer the resources, the more impor- tant is leadership. (3) The timespan within which change is to occur affects the role both of resources and doctrine. When the timespan is short and resources are scarce, the importance of doctrine is heightened. Doctrine can make the process of institu- tional change more efficient and more effective by clearly specifying ends and presenting appropriate means. (4) Doctrine requires expression through a program in order to have any reality. However, once it has been so expressed the program becomes the focus of a commitment, a process which has been referred to elsewhere as ‘goal displacement.” Thus, programs run the danger of usurping the place of doctrine. With this model and its implications as a general framework, we are ready to review theories and research on the nature of planned institutional change. In keeping with our observation about the relative attention given different aspects of the mod:l, we will begin by reviewing literature dealing with ideology s a major determinant of such change. References Blase, Melvin G., ed. Institution-building, A Source Book. Wash- ington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, AID, 1973. Bumgardner, Harvey L.; Ellis, Walter; Lynton, Rolf P.; Jung, Christhian W.; and Rigney, J.A. Institution Building: Basic Concepts and Implementation. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University Population Programs, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, (Mimeographed), 1972. NATURE OF CHANGE 13 Lindblom, Charles E. The Policy-making Process. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968. Lowi, Theodore. The End of Liberalism. New York: Norton, 1969. Selznick, Philip. Leadership in Administration. White Plains, New York: Row, Peterson and Co., 1975. CHAPTER 2 THE USE OF IDEOLOGY IN INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE Interest in the role of ideology in public decisionmaking has re-emerged in recent years; yet this interest can be characterized as a trickle rather than a flood. Ideology figured more prominently during the Great Depression and the Second World War. But with the advent of the 1950s, public decisionmaking became dominated by scientific paradigms emphasizing effectiveness and efficiency. Considerable discussion has occurred within the academic com- munity about the role of ideology in American society, but this analysis has focused on the implicit and covert role of ideology in society at large (Habermas, 1971; Marcuse, 1964). In this study we are concerned with the explicit and overt use of ideology in public decisionmaking. A Definition of Ideology Before proceeding to a discussion of this topic, let us define what we mean by ideology. In discussing its role in government organizations, Zentner (1973, p. 75) defines ideology as a set of “beliefs which are publicly expressed, with the manifest purpose of influencing the orientation and actions of others.” Downs (1967, p. 273), in analyzing the same phenomenon, defines a bureaucratic ideology as ‘‘a verbal image of that portion of the good society relevant to the functions of the particular bureau concerned, plus the chief means of constructing that portion.” Inherent in these definitions of institutional or organizational ideology are five characteristics. Ideology is (1) a set of values that is (2) a property of an organization (3) designed to influence the acts of others regarding (4) the goals of the organization and (5) the appropriate means for pursuing those goals. This definition implies that goals are a unitary set and refer to the output of an institution. As Perrow (1970) points out, more than one type of 14 USE OF IDEOLOGY 15 goal may exist in an organization, reflecting the interest of different actors. We are assuming that an ideology deals primarily with output goals, by which other types of goals must be justified. It should be recognized that in this study we are focusing on organizational or institutional ideology rather than national ideology. This emphasis does not deny the existence or impor- tance of the latter. On the contrary, we feel that the tendency to view national level decisionmaking in the United States as being nonideological is a misreading of the case. There is an implicit, if not explicit, American ideology of laissez-faire and pragmatism that governs public debate (James 1972). This ideology espouses a preference for government which confines its actions to enhancing the maximization of individual utility rather than public or collective interests, and which seeks solutions to public problems on the basis of what works in the context of plural interests, rather than on the basis of what is defined publicly as good. This ideology has been referred to as disjointed incrementalism (Braybrooke and Lindblom 1963). Given this national ideology of pluralism and pragmatism, it is not only possible but necessary for public institutions to design their own ideologies if they wish to achieve any concept of a collective good. The limited expressions of the public interest voiced by the national society of which they are a part will not suffice. The concept of ideology must be distinguished from theory as it is thought of in the social sciences. An ideology is a set of propositions which are considered valid because they constitute a set of beliefs or preferences of the persons who espouse them. A theory is a set of propositions which are considered valid because they permit the derivation of hypotheses which can be verified by means of observations of real events. Both ideology and scientific theory may be used to direct action, but they serve different purposes. Ideology specifies the goals as well as the range of acceptable courses of actions to be taken. Theory provides the basis for designing alternative actions and evaluating their effec- tiveness or efficiency. Ideology precedes or constrains the use of theory in public decisionmaking. It can be argued that ideology governs the work of scientists, as well, by influencing the choice of problems to be worked on, and the range of acceptable solutions. The controversies over the work of Jensen in the racial inheritable- ness of intelligence, or the experimentation on human subjects are cases in point (Cronin et al. 1975; Newsweek 1973). In this sense, ideology is implicit in the paradigms which govern the theories and methods of science as recognized by Kuhn (1970). 16 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE The Conscious Use of Ideology The conscious use of ideology in planned institutional change is not a part of the American ideology. That is to say, the American concept of public decisionmaking is to make choices based on the amount of opposition generated by each alternative, rather than on the extent to which each conforms with predetermined goals or an explicitly expressed value system. So if we are going to find clearcut examples of the conscious use of ideology in public decisionmaking, we need to look at cultures where ideology is given freer rein. A Chinese example Probably the clearest examples currently available are to be found in China. A very useful, concise analysis of public decisionmaking in China is contained in a recent study conducted, ironically enough, by the Rand Corporation for the United States Air Force (Harding 1969). The analysis focuses on the controversy between the Maoists, followers of the late Chairman, and the Liuists, an insurgent group, regarding the proper role of ideology in public decisionmaking. Harding summarizes the difference between these points of view in terms of two characteristics: Maoists advocate a high level of mass participation and the use of dogmatic criteria in decisionmaking, while Liuists advocate lower levels of mass participation and the use of pragmatic criteria. Liuists in essence represent the U.S. model of policymaking. We need touch only on those aspects of this debate which highlight the issue before us, namely, the appropriate role of ideology in public decisionmaking. Those aspects can be sum- marized as follows: 1. Maoists believe that all questions or issues have a single correct answer, and that answer is contained in the Thoughts of Mao. Liuists believe that only general principles (goals) are predetermined by ideology and that multiple solutions exist for any particular problem which are equally acceptable ideologically, but which have different pragmatic con- sequences. 2. Maoists believe that the solution to any public problem or issue lies in identifying the single solution that is consistent with the Thoughts of Mao. Thus, solutions are selected on the basis of their ideological correctness and not their compatibility with the preferences of decisionmakers. In contrast, Liuists hold that the appropriate solution to any public issue is based on technical studies of the relative costs USE OF IDEOLOGY 17 and benefits of each solution, and preferences on the part of decisionmakers for alternative packages of costs and benefits. 3. Since the Thoughts of Mao are relatively simple and available to everyone, Maoists believe in high levels of mass participation in public decisionmaking. The masses can readily determine what the correct solution to any public problem is. However, this process requires a certain kind of leadership or “priesthood,” someone who can help the masses identify the ideologically correct solution. Once this solution is identi- fied, consensus will result through a process of education and open-ended debate which continues until everyone comes to see the correct solution. In this sense, policy solutions lead to consensus. On the other hand, Liuists believe that the process of finding the right solution involves technical analyses which depend on skills not available to the masses, and a selection among equally acceptable alternatives by some representative set of leaders. In this sense, consensus leads to a solution. One point of departure from the Maoist view of policy making should be noted. High levels of mass participation are not advocated in decisionmaking regarding foreign affairs. In dealing with agents external to the system, Maoists argue that decisions should be entrusted to elites, presumably because knowledge of external affairs is more limited and because defense against external threats requires more decisive timing and more control over resources. This point is relevant to the discussion of structural approaches to institutional change which we will take up in chapter 3. Let us consider the implications of this example for our purposes. We are not interested here in advocating Maoist thoughts about organizational behavior; rather, we are interested in identi- fying factors which are known and not so well known about the process of planned institutional change. Most commentators of the American scene are relatively pessimistic about the effectiveness of efforts at social reform or institutional change over the last 20 years; some even doubt our record going back to the Depression. This failure is attributed to the American style of public decisionmaking as we have described it above. Some attempts at reform are technical in origin, i.e., an individual or professional group invents a new technique or a new program for dealing with a social problem and sells it to an organization or unit of government as a good solution. Other attempts at social reform are opportunistic in origin, i.e., an individual or organization perceives that a new set of resources is available and proceeds to adopt a new policy or program in order to obtain those resources. Still other efforts at social reform are procedural in origin, i.e., persons 18 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE or groups perceive that not all interested parties have equal access to decisionmaking, and therefore attempts are made to increase the level of citizen participation. What seems common to all three approaches is the attempt to avoid goals or basic values. Most reformers in the American context agree that to raise the question of goals in public debate over a proposed course of action is to invite political disaster. Since Americans do not agree on any one set of goals or values, to raise such a question is to invite defeat of the associated proposals. Therefore, attempts at reform are sold on technical, opportunistic, or fairness grounds. The question to be raised from the Chinese example deals with the proper relationship between ideology and public decision- making. Perhaps the record of failure in American social reform is due not to the lack of technical knowledge or its use, but to the lack of unifying ideologies, or the methods by which they can be developed, upon which a commitment to solve collective problems depends. The choice is between selecting an alternative that is acceptable to the various interested parties, but which may provide little resolution of the problem at hand, and selecting an alternative that is “right” in relation to some commonly accepted understanding of the problem, and rallying support for it. The latter course is not altogether foreign to the Anglo-American tradition. It is referred to as political leadership and has been in evidence at times of national crises. Roosevelt exercised it during the Great Depression, Churchill during the Second World War, and Johnson with respect to civil rights and poverty in the 1960s. Industrial organization Another example of an ideological approach to planned institutional change is reflected in the organization of industrial plants. Since economic ideology tends to vary along national lines, Tannenbaum et al. (1974) undertook a cross-national study of a sample of factories in Israel, Yugoslavia, Austria,! The United States, and Italy. These countries were chosen because of their marked differences in ideology regarding economic organization, ranging from Marxist socialism to various forms of capitalism. Ten plants, matched for size and type of industry, were selected from each country. The types of industry were limited by kibbutzim which had the narrowest range: plastics, nonferrous foundry, food canning, metal works, and furniture. One small plant, approximately 60 workers, and one large plant, approxi- mately 600 workers, were selected from each type of industry, 'Since Austria represented a mixed case, it has been dropped from this discussion in the interest of simplicity. USE OF IDEOLOGY 19 except among Israeli kibbutzim where only small plants were available. Thirty-five respondents were picked in each plant representative of all levels of decisionmaking. The authors tried to select plants in each industry with the same technology and work processes, factors frequently cited as having a prime influence on the structure of work organizations. Considerable variation in the internal structure and operation of plants was found to be directly related to the formal ideology in each of the countries. The ideology of Israeli kibbutzim prescribes that all property is to be communally owned and that all members are to have equal status. This ideology is reflected in the fact that industry is owned by the kibbutz, and all major decisions, such as the election of plant manager and investment plans, are made by the kibbutz as a whole. Management decisions of an operational nature are made by a management board elected by the plant workers. All managerial personnel, from plant manager to first-line supervisors, are elected from among kibbutz members and are replaced every 2 or 3 years. There are no monetary payments for work. All kibbutz members eat in a communal dining room, receive small annual cash allowances for personal expenses, and receive communal services on the basis of need. Two factors facilitate this form of organization: The level of education of kibbutz members is uniformly high, a result of the fact that kibbutzim provides extensive education; and managerial experi- ence is widespread, a result of the ideological emphasis on rotation of leadership responsibilities. With respect to kibbutz industry, it should be noted that the plants are located in relatively self-con- tained communities so that the ideology experienced by the workers on the job is reinforced by the ideology which pervades the rest of their daily experience. In Yugoslavia, the ideology known as “worker self-manage- ment” prescribes that the means of production are socially owned, that is, owned by society as a whole and not the government; and the management of such production is delegated to the workers who act as a collective. All major development decisions are made by the workers through annual or semi-annual meetings of the collective and through referenda. However, worker participation in management decisions is more likely to be indirect than in the kibbutz, due in part to the size of Yugoslavian collectives. Management responsibilities are delegated to a Workers’ Council elected by all workers, a managing board elected by the council, and a paid director who is elected by the council. The council is the supreme operative authority of the collective enterprise. Management positions do not rotate among workers, as in the kibbutz, but are filled by election from among candidates 20 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE recruited through public announcements. Profits of the enterprise are distributed among the workers on the basis of their contribu- tion, there being no private ownership of property in the collective. The Yugoslav ideology prescribes that mutual respect and equality characterize the relationship among all workers. There- fore, managers and supervisors are formally referred to as coordinators or organizers of work, rather than as bosses. However, the authors found that there is a rather low level of informal participation, relative to kibbutzim and American plants, in the form of sharing of responsibility between workers and foremen in the daily operations of the plant. The authors attributed this contradiction to an inequality in education between workers and managers, which was markedly greater in Yugoslavia than in Israel or the United States. In the face of this inequality, Yugoslavian workers tended to be very deferential toward supervisors, creating an informal stratification in the plant that ran counter to the national ideology. In the United States, economic ideology prescribes that private enterprise govern the process of production, with control and profits accruing to the owners of the means of production. Plants are owned by private individuals or corporations and have a low level of formal participation. They are hierarchically organized, with command decisions flowing from the top to the bottom. However, unlike their counterparts in European capitalist in- dustry, American workers tend to have a higher degree of informal participation in terms of supervisor-subordinate relations on the job. While having no final say in management decisions, American workers were more likely to report that they had opportunities to express their opinions and be listened to than did workers in Italian, Austrian, and even Yugoslavian plants. The authors attribute this degree of informal participation to a general democratic ideology in American society at large, less disparity in education between American supervisors and workers, an orienta- tion of American unions toward negotiating plant-level working conditions rather than structural changes in the economy, and a human relations orientation in American management style. In Italy, ideology also prescribes private enterprise as the means of production, but the larger national ideology emphasizes the preservation of family reputations inherited from feudal times. This ideology is reflected in family ownership of industry, with little formal or informal participation on the part of workers. Managers are selected from among family members with no opportunity for upward mobility by workers. Management is USE OF IDEOLOGY 21 highly centralized and authoritarian in style and tends to be conservative rather than risktaking in its outlook. It is motivated by the desire to preserve family reputations more than to increase profits. Worker-management negotiations occur at the national rather than the plant level. Italian unions are oriented more toward political action over the structure of the economy than toward worker participation and working conditions in local plants. The point of this brief summary is to provide evidence of the operational impact which ideology can have on collective be- havior, in this case with respect to the organization of the work place. Three exceptions are worth noting. One is the failure of a formal ideology of equality to be fully implemented in the face of informal stratification among workers in Yugoslav plants, as discussed earlier. The second exception concerns the effect of organization size on ideology. Tannenbaum and his colleagues found that variations in the degree of hierarchy and participation in decisionmaking was less marked in large plants than small plants, irrespective of the country and its ideology. That is, large plants tend to have less worker participation, regardless of the country and its ideology. This finding suggests that smallness is a necessary condition of high levels of participation in decision- making and control. The third observation is that members of kibbutzim expressed less willingness to assume managerial re- sponsibilities than workers in any of the other countries. The authors suggest that this reluctance may result from the fact that managers of kibbutzim plants received no extra monetary rewards or formal prestige for their services. Thus, although egalitarian plants, as exemplified by those in kibbutzim, compare favorably in efficiency and profitability to hierarchical plants of similar size and technology, they may encounter difficulty in the recruitment of leadership. The Role of Ideology in American Policymaking Let us turn now to a consideration of the intentional use of ideology as a basis for institutional change within the American context. In a clear and concise discussion, James (1972) postulates that ideology has been used to constrain rather than foster institutional change in the United States. She cites three basic ideological traditions in Western European thought regarding poverty and politics. They are liberalism, conservatism, and socialism. Liberalism essentially espouses the freedom and equality of individuals. It holds that the needs of individuals are of a higher order than the needs of the state, and advocates that government 22 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE play a major role in protecting individuals against encroachment by the state. Conservatism, on the other hand, is based on the assumption that the social order is superior to the individual; that is, individuals derive their rights and their meaning from the state. Therefore, the integrity of the state must be protected, even at the expense of the welfare of individuals. Conservatives also believe that individuals are inherently unequal. Socialists are similar to conservatives with respect to priority of the social order over the individual, but they are more like liberals with respect to individual equality. While socialists do not argue that individuals are inherently equal, they believe that ultimately they achieve equality after the attainment of a classless society. James argues that a fourth ideology, what she calls ‘organic liberalism,” grew up in this country as a corrective to the naivete of classical liberalism. This viewpoint recognized that individuals were prevented from exercising their freedom or enjoying equality because of constraints imposed on them by social and economic forces. Therefore, they advocated a positive role for government in promoting individual freedom and equality. James argues that the American debate regarding poverty and politics has been waged entirely within one ideology, that of liberalism. American “conservatives” are really classical liberals, and American “liberals” are really organic liberals. They both agree on the value of individual freedom to pursue private ends; their only disagreement is on the role of government in that process. Burkean conservatism and Marxian socialism never enter into the debate. Thus she concludes that ideological differences in American public decisionmaking are marginal at best. At a more operational level, James argues that ideology has never consciously entered into the planning of government programs, although all government intervention is consistent with organic liberalism. She views the New Deal under the Roosevelt administration as an expedient response to crisis rather than a reflection of a clear-cut ideology. She calls the war on poverty under the Johnson administration an example of a national innovation without a national ideology. The Economic Oppor- tunity Act was conceived by a small group of Presidential advisors who shared a common ideology, but was presented to Congress and passed without debate. Its most radical innovation, the “maximum feasible participation’ clause, was unintended by the authors of the legislation and by its legitimizers, i.e., Congress. It was slipped in by a few bureaucrats in the Bureau of Budget and the Justice Department, and was not a reflection of a change in American values. She argues that the lack of a clear-cut ideology surrounding the war on poverty laid the groundwork for wide- USE OF IDEOLOGY 23 spread public controversy and its eventual collapse. She notes that the order in which each part of the war on poverty was abandoned is directly correlated with the degree to which that program conflicted with dominant American ideology. First to go were rent subsidies and the Community Action Programs; the last to go were Head Start and the Job Corps. Functions and Limitations of Ideology in Institutional Change Ideology can be said to be an important motivating force in establishing new institutions or changing existing ones, and a basis for mobilizing support for such institutions or defending them from attack by forces in the environment. Ideology also permits a greater level of self-direction on the part of an organization’s members, and less centralization in decisionmaking. On the other hand, an ideology can be a source of conflict within an organization when competing interpretations arise; it can render an institution less flexible to changing conditions in its environ- ment; and it can make an organization more vulnerable to attack when that ideology conflicts with the ideology of the larger community. Zentner (1973) identifies the functions of ideology through an examination, albeit cursory, of two governmental agencies. He cites the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Peace Corps as government organizations in which an ideology was created as part of their formation, and he credits this conscious use of ideology with their immediate success. In the case of NASA, its ideology centered on the enhancement of national prestige and the importance of increasing our knowledge about space. The ideology of the Peace Corps revolved around the promotion of world peace and mutual understanding through technical assistance. Of the Peace Corps, Zentner says: . seldom before in the history of the American govern- ment, in the absence of major war or depression, has a government agency moved and grown with such nerve, enthusiasm, and speed as did the Peace Corps (p. 80). He argues that ideology enabled both agencies to capture the imagination of the country and enjoy widespread public support. Zentner (1973) and Downs (1967) summarize some of the advantages of the use of ideology in planned institutional change: 24 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE 1. An ideology can help leaders promote the achievement of organizational goals by synthesizing the values and norms of the organization with those of society. An ideology attempts to project the organization’s purpose outward by relating it to the environment, and by suggesting how that organization can contribute to reforming the environment, maintaining it, or defending it against unwanted changes. 2. An ideology can provide defensible space to a fledgling organization that is trying to get established, or one that is embarking on a major change in relation to its environment. This sort of protection is also important to organizations operating in a fluid environment. 3. Ideology facilitates internal processes within the organiza- tion. It fosters commitment on the part of members and minimizes the need for coercion in carrying out organiza- tional activities. (It is worth noting that this principle is recognized by such ideological opposites as Talcott Parsons and Mao Tse-Tung.) Ideology allows greater decentralization of decisionmaking without loss of productivity, and can increase the productivity of an organization whose size is held constant. However, by the late 1960s, both NASA and the Peace Corps were in serious decline, and attempts were launched in Congress to abolish them. Zentner relates this decline to a number of problems which ideologies create for organizations. In the first place, ideologies are never completely consistent with or adequate to explain the facts of experience which they claim to interpret. These inconsistencies or gaps provide the basis for disputes among competing segments of an organization regarding the appropriate interpretation of ideology. Such inconsistencies are a particular burden to the leadership of an organization. Leaders must of necessity identify with the organization’s ideology and profess to use it. However, their actions involve political processes, such as the formation of alliances and compromise, which may invoke a different ideology. Consequently, a good deal of discrepancy often exists between the ideas reflected in the organization’s ideology and the actions taken by leaders, a fact which engenders considerable criticism and discontent among followers. Secondly, Zentner observes that ideologies tend to resist change. People in an organization can retain a static view of the world long after forces and events in their environment have changed, rendering that ideology, or parts of it, obsolete. This fact is often used as an argument in favor of pragmatism rather than ideology as a basis for public decisionmaking. NASA is an example of such obsolescence. As the United States caught up and USE OF IDEOLOGY 25 surpassed the Soviet Union in space exploration, national prestige no longer seemed a burning issue. With the cities exploding into riots during the late 1960s, adding to our storehouse of knowledge about space seemed less important than dealing with social problems at home. However the likelihood of obsolescence, argues Zentner, depends on the nature of goals reflected in the ideology. When such goals can be translated into easily identifiable and readily measured products, reappraisal and readjustment of goals are more easily accomplished, thereby enabling the ideology to be changed with changing conditions. Thus, NASA is now promoting the indirect benefits of space exploration for gerontology, medical care, nutrition science, and the production of consumer goods. However when goals result in intangible and difficult-to-measure products, accountability and re-evaluation are much more diffi- cult, a consequence which befell the Peace Corps. This discussion of the flexibility of ideology raises questions about its inherent nature. If an ideology can be adapted to a changed environment, is it really an ideology, or is it simply a rationalization for self-interested survival? If an ideology consists of the basic values of a group, does it not persist over time? These questions have several answers. In the case of NASA, it could be argued that the institution’s ideology, to explore space through a partnership between Government and private industry, changed not at all. What changed was the way NASA interpreted its mission to its sponsors in light of their changed priorities. Thus an institution may adapt to changing conditions in its environment through changing its public relations rather than changing its ideology. A second answer lies in the fact that an institution may change its strategies or programs on the basis of feedback regarding their effectiveness, without changing the goal set to which those strategies are directed. Thus, as we shall see in chapter 5, some civil rights groups have shifted their support from efforts to desegregate public schools to efforts to increase the resources going to inner-city schools. They conclude from experience that the former strategy places minorities in an inferior position in a multi-ethnic system, and therefore does not lead to their goal of equality of educational opportunity. The question of the flexibility of ideology can be answered within the framework of time. We believe that ideologies are stable systems by which individuals and groups judge the relevance of specific facts and the desirability of courses of action. However, in the long run all ideologies are subject to change, in respect to both goals and strategies. Changes in goal sets are likely to occur when pursuit of one goal conflicts with an equally salient goal. For 26 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE example, it can be said that a shift in ideology regarding race relations occurred for many Americans in the 1960s only after the civil rights movement demonstrated persistently that racial priv- ilege could be maintained only at the expense of domestic tranquility. However, such shifts are likely to occur only when the evidence of such conflict is massive and consistent over a period of time. Goal sets are given up only rarely, and with great resistance. Niskanen, in referring to ideologies as paradigms, elaborates the point. For most people, most of the time, learning from experience means reinforcing their existing paradigm...You don’t achieve [a] change of paradigm either on an individual basis or a social basis in the absence of a truly massive accumula- tion of evidence. The Great Depression was a condition which changed a lot of people’s paradigm. The Vietnamese war has caused a lot of people in the United States to search for a new paradigm. But you shouldn’t expect the drifts of evidence to change the paradigm itself—it will usually lead to reinforcing the paradigm (Mayer, Moroney, and Morris 1974 pp. 203ff.). Most writers view an organization’s ideology as a means of gaining legitimacy for the organization’s activity (Zentner 1973; Dowling and Pfeffer 1975). Accordingly, the organization’s ideology must be consistent or at least not in conflict with the ideology prevalent in its environment. To be otherwise would be to render the organization ineffective or isolated. We believe such a view is unnecessarily restrictive. It eliminates the possibility of an organization’s challenging or seeking to change the ideology of its environment. Organizations in such a situation may need to adopt special structures in order to protect themselves as well as to have an impact on their environment. The structure of revolution- ary movements provides a case in point and will be discussed in chapter 3. And finally, it should be noted that ideology will play a more critical role in some organizations than in others. For example, the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration appear not to be highly dependent on ideology to assure their effectiveness, though each will operate on the basis of some belief system. Zentner and Downs both identify a number of factors which affect the relative importance of ideology in organizational effectiveness. 1. Size—Large organizations are more likely to require ideology in order to achieve internal cohesion, because of the limit size imposes on face-to-face communication. USE OF IDEOLOGY 27 2. Type of persons recruited—When members are recruited from unusual or disparate sections of society with which the organization does not have regular contact, ideology may be important in communicating the meaning and advantages of membership. 3. Directness of benefits—Organizations providing only indirect benefits, such as a public school system, are more dependent on ideology to justify their existence. 4. Level of consensus—Activities requiring a consensus that permeates all levels of an organization will be more depen- dent on ideology. 5. Degree of controversy—The more controversial its activities, the more likely the organization will need an ideology to sustain those activities. 6. Domain overlap—Organizations acting in the public interest which have domains that overlap will be more dependent on ideology to justify the duplication of their activities. 7. Domain expansion—A public service organization will need ideology to help justify a rapid expansion of its domain, since such expansion will invariably interfere with the plans of other organizations. Conclusions The conscious use of ideology does play an important role in bringing about institutional change. By ideology we do not mean, necessarily, some all encompassing national belief system. What we mean is a belief system at the level of the organization or social group, be it the staff of a mayor’s office, a health service agency, or a bureau of the Federal government, which provides a rationale for a set of goals and the means for their attainment. This conclusion has an important implication for the overall purposes of our study. It suggests that the use of social science knowledge regarding the process of institutional change depends not only on the extent and dissemination of that knowledge, but also on the development by the adopting group of an ideology that forms the basis for collective action. It may be that the articulation of public ideology is a necessary requisite to the effective use of social science knowledge. Given this implication, future intellectual effort should be directed toward the process by which ideologies are developed. This will require some research, for little is known about this 287-264 0-79 - 3 28 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE process. But equally important is support for efforts to design practical methodologies for the development or articulation of ideologies in public decisionmaking. Some work has been done along these lines for small group processes, but more needs to be done for large groups. In addition, research needs to be carried on regarding the relationship between ideology and other elements involved in institutional change—about the trade-offs between ideology, social structure, and the resources involved in any effort to change public institutions. For example, most writers are agreed that the conscious use of ideology can allow a greater degree of participa- tion in decisionmaking without a corresponding loss in efficiency. However high levels of participation may require a more complex structure. Harding notes that Maoists, in making their internal structure for decisionmaking consistent with their ideology, have developed what is called the ‘three-in-one principle.” Since correct solutions are those which are consistent with ideology, decisions at every level of an organization are made by three persons: a technician, a worker, and a party cadre. It is the job of the technician to identify the practical consequences of alternative courses of action, it is the job of the worker to reflect the interests of the masses, and it is the job of the party cadre to identify the Thoughts of Mao which are relevant to the alternatives under consideration. All three persons have important inputs to the final decision. While such a structure seems exceedingly cumbersome to the American viewer, it clearly is one way of keeping goals and values uppermost in public decisionmaking. Another structural issue raised by the Chinese example is the role of leadership in ideologically oriented decisionmaking. Since ideology lends itself to subjective interpretation, such a system apparently requires some means for resolving competing interpre- tations. Under the Maoist scheme, a leader stands above the decisionmaking system to interpret ideology. The counterpart of the American system, of course, is the U.S. Supreme Court which is relied upon to interpret the implications of the Federal Constitution. Zentner and Downs have also alluded to the trade-off between the conscious use of ideology and the innovativeness of an organization’s activities. Commitment to an ideology may blind decisionmakers to new means of operations. Specialization and technical resources are less important in an ideologically oriented system. Whether the gains in social solidarity resulting from such a process outweigh the losses in technical or material progress is a question worth considerable attention. USE OF IDEOLOGY 29 And lastly, very little has been researched or written about ideological conflict between an organization and its environment. What is the process of planned institutional change when the intent is to bring about a change in the ideology of the environment upon which the organization is dependent? The planning of social services often involves a conflict between the ideology of human development and the ideology dominant in American society. This conflict may account, as we shall see in chapter 5, for much of the failure to achieve social goals. Thus, institutional change involving attempts to alter the ideology of a larger system is very germane to this study. References Braybrooke, David, and Lindblom, Charles E. A Strategy of Decision. New York: The Free Press, 1963. Cole, David Bras. The role of psychological belief systems in urban planning. Dissertation Abstracts International, 36:5542-A, 1975. Cronin, James; Daniels, Norman; Hurley, Anne; Kroch, Anthony; and Webber, Ronald. Race, class and intelligence: A critical look at the 1.QQ. controversy. International Journal of Mental Health, 3(4):46-132, 1975. Dowling, John, and Pfeffer, Jeffry. Organizational legitimacy: Social values and organizational behavior. Pacific Sociological Review, 18(1):122-136, 1975. Downs, Anthony. Inside Bureaucracy. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1967. Gerlach, Luther P. Movements of revolutionary change: Some structural characteristics. American Behavioral Scientist, 14(6):812-836, 1971. Habermas, Jurgen. Translated by Jeremy Shapiro, Toward a Rational Society, Student Protest, Science, and Politics. Bos- ton: Beacon Press, 1971. Harding, Harry. Maoist Theories of Policy-making and Organiza- tion—Lessons from the Cultural Revolution. Santa Monica, California: Rand Corporation, 1969. James, Dorothy Buckton. Poverty, Politics, and Change. Engle- wood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1972. Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970. 30 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE Marcuse, Herbert. One Dimensional Man, Studies in the Ideology of Industrial Society. Boston: Beacon Press, 1964. Mayer, Robert; Moroney, Robert; and Morris, Robert. Centrally Planned Change: A Reexamination of Theory and Experience. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1974. Newsweek. The Great IQ controversy. Dec. 17,1973, pp. 82-109. Perrow, Charles. Organizational Analysis: A Sociological View. Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1970. Tannenbaum, Arnold S.; Kavcic, Bogdan; Rosner, Menachem; Vianello, Mino; and Wieser, Georg. Hierarchy in Organizations: An International Comparison. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc., 1974. Zentner, Joseph L. Organizational ideology: Some functions and problems. International Review of History and Political Science, 10(2):75-84,1973. CHAPTER 3 STRUCTURAL APPROACHES TO INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE The structural analysis of organizational behavior has a very long tradition. In fact, structural determinism is prevalent among theories of organization in the sense that structural characteristics are thought to explain organizational behavior and therefore to provide a key instrument for planned intervention (Zaltman, Duncan, and Holbek 1973, p. 106). Consequently, the literature reflecting this point of view is abundant, and any attempt to review it comprehensively would go beyond the scope of this study. Our efforts will be confined, therefore, to identifying the major themes in this literature and discussing their implications for institutional change. The Nature of Organizational Structure The structure of an organization can be defined in terms generic to the structure of any social system, as an arrangement among a given set of people or actors which persists over time. A structure always has two manifestations: (1) a set of roles or functions which defines the kinds of behaviors expected of actors, and (2) a distribution among those roles of rights and obligations, or positive and negative sanctions, to enable the expected behavior to be performed (Mayer 1972, pp. 21-26). The structure of an organization is described by Zaltman, Duncan, and Holbek in terms of five characteristics: (1) locus of authority, (2) participa- tiveness, (3) division of labor, (4) interpersonal style, and (5) formalization. Locus of authority refers to the particular role(s) in an organization in which decisions are made on behalf of the organization. This characteristic can be thought of as the degree of centralization of an organization’s structure. Participativeness refers to the extent to which various role incumbents or actors are 31 32 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE granted or exercise the right to participate in organizational decisions. Presumably a close interdependence exists between the degree of participation in decisionmaking and the locus of authority in an organization. However, this relationship is not necessarily deterministic. It is possible for an organization to have a centralized locus of authority and yet a high degree of participation by various members of the organization in reaching decisions. Division of labor refers to the extent to which there is heterogeneity, or a high degree of specialization and task differentiation among the roles of the organization. Interpersonal style refers to the extent to which relationships between actors are impersonal. Formalization refers to the extent to which rules and procedures for role enactment are specified rather than left to the discretion of individual actors. Of these five characteristics, the first three clearly pertain to structure as we have defined it here. The latter two we prefer to think of as process variables, or the way in which an organization operates within a given structure. FIGURE 1 — Two levels of organizational structure internal structure external structure It seems appropriate to think of the structure of organizations in relation to two different “surfaces.” (See figure 1.) We can speak of the structure of an organization as the arrangement of the internal elements or members which comprise that organization. However, it also seems appropriate to speak of the structure of an organization as that relationship which exists between the organ- STRUCTURAL APPROACHES 33 ization which is the subject of analysis and other organizations or entities in its environment. The former we will refer to as the internal structure of the organization, the latter as the external structure. Although the term structure is not used as commonly in this latter sense, most writers on the subject of organizational change and development discuss the distribution of powers and functions between an organization and its environment in terms which are analogous. Therefore it seems appropriate to think of an organization’s external structure as embodying that arrangement which exists among members of the larger system of which the organization is a part (Evan 1966; Morrissey, Riecker, and Horan 1975). The Internal Structure of Organizations Organizational theorists have tended to conceptualize organiza- tional structure in two extreme ways: as hierarchical, typified by a bureaucracy; or as lateral, typified by a university faculty or a research organization (Zaltman, Duncan, and Holbek 1973; Perrow 1970; Argyris 1972). A hierarchical model involves a centralized locus of authority; that is, certain actors are granted or acquire power over the action of others. This command structure presumably accounts for an organization’s ability to operate efficiently. On the other hand, the lateral model assumes a dispersed locus of authority; that is, each actor is presumed co-equal with the others. The ability of such organizations to achieve collective goals is more problematical and presumably results either from strong normative bonds which make voluntary collaboration possible, or exchanges among members which result in reciprocal agreements. Organic structures are necessary, it is argued, in order for an organization to produce innovative outputs. The literature frequently uses the terms pyramidal, bureaucratic, and mechanistic to refer to hierarchical structures, and organic and collegial to refer to lateral structures (Burns and Stalker 1961; Zaltman, Duncan, and Holbek 1973). We will use these alternative terms interchangeably in order to convey a sense of this larger literature. In between these two extremes it is possible to envision a variety of structural types (Mayer 1974; Warren 1967). (See figure 2.) A decentralized structure can be characterized as one in which an allocation of decisionmaking authority occurs between a centralized unit and member units of an organization, some activities being in the purview of the central unit and others in the purview of member units. This delegation of authority occurs in a downward direction from the central authority to member units, and presumably can be retracted upward. A decentralized struc- SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE 34 (uoneziuebio youeasal) aimonays |esale| (3uawusanob 40 |19un0d) aimonas pajesapay (uoneanp3 jo pieog AID JOA Ma) (Asesoneainq) aimoanns aimoanas pazijesuasep [ev1yaaesaly > NU aimonas |eussiul jeuoneziuebio jo sadA] — z 3HNOI4 STRUCTURAL APPROACHES 35 ture is exemplified by the New York City Board of Education in which taxation and budgeting authority is maintained by the central Board of Education, and authority over curriculum and personnel is given over to community school boards operating in specified jurisdictions within the city. A variation of the decentral- ized model is the matrix organization, so called because it delegates authority for making decisions regarding the coordina- tion of independent activities to that level of the organization where the activities are interdependent (Davis and Lawrence 1977). Thus scheduling decisions in a hospital among medical, nursing, food service, and housekeeping staffs will be made in the department or unit of the hospital where an identifiable service is to be delivered. A federated structure is one in which decisionmaking authority is determined through contracts initiated by member units with a centralized body. Such a delegation of authority occurs in an upward direction, and presumably can be retracted by member units on the basis of contractual performance. A federated structure is exemplified by a council of government or regional planning commission, in which each municipality or local political jurisdiction agrees to participate in order to procure certain collective goods or services, such as planning or the protection of environmental resources. Both decentralized and federated struc- tures allow an organization to achieve overall or collective goals and at the same time allow member units the flexibility to innovate in the pursuit of those goals. They differ in that a decentralized structure gives primacy to collective goals, while a federated structure maximizes the achievement of individual or member goals. The External Structure of Organizations Let us turn now to a consideration of the relationship between an organization and its environment. We will begin by defining what is meant by environment. The environment of an organiza- tion or institution can be thought of on two levels (Zaltman, Duncan, and Holbek 1973, p. 2). The immediate environment consists of those organizations, groups, or individuals upon whom the organization, which is the focus of investigation or the target of planned change, is dependent for survival. It may consist of public officials to whom the organization is accountable, funding bodies, clients, professional groups, and organizations which produce competitive or complementary goods or services. On a remote level, the environment consists of more undifferentiated groups, individuals, values, or resources which have an indirect influence on the target organization. This level may consist of 36 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE public opinion, prevailing political ideology, community wealth, educational level of the general population, system of government, etc. The relevant environment of any particular organization depends on the flow of inputs and outputs needed to carry on the activities of that organization. Therefore the designation of that environment proceeds not from an analysis of the organizations or elements externally proximate to the target organization, but from an analysis of the functional relationships between the target organization and those external elements. The organization togeth- er with its environment constitutes an interorganizational field or system which in turn has its own structure and processes. When the organization-environment relationship is so viewed in this study, the interorganizational field is being looked at from the perspective of a member or entity in that field rather than from the perspective of the field as a system (Morrissey, Riecker, and Horan 1975). In discussing the relationship between an organization and its environment, the literature has traditionally distinguished between organizations as open systems and as closed systems (Thompson 1967; Katz and Kahn 1967). (See figure 3.) Open systems are organizations which have a high degree of interaction with and dependence on their environment, while closed systems have little or no interaction with their environments and are presumably self-sufficient. Since in reality it is quite probable that the only closed system is a dead system, it is more realistic to differentiate organization-environment relationships on the basis of their degree of openness, a practice which we shall adopt. FIGURE 3 — Types of organizational external structure open system closed system STRUCTURAL APPROACHES 37 A Structural View of Institutional Change Having discussed the nature of organizational structure, both internal and external, we are now in a position to examine the nature of institutional change from a structural perspective. The Internal Structure and Institutional Change In the literature on social policy there is a prevailing view that lateral structures are necessarily preferred over hierarchical ones, that the more participation in decisionmaking on the part of members of an organization or system, the more human welfare will be enhanced. However a value preference for one form of structure will not suffice for our purposes. In terms of the focus of this study we must ask the question, “What type of organizational structure is most likely to facilitate institutional change?” One encounters conflicting answers to this question. Conven- tional wisdom has it that hierarchical structures are resistant to change because those members of an organization who enjoy more power than others have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. But the counter argument has also been established that hierarchical structures are more effective in the successful imple- mentation of institutional change when that change is opposed by a popular majority. For example, studies of school desegregation indicate that public school systems comply with Federal court orders for desegregation more quickly and with less community unrest when they have boards of education which are appointed rather than elected, and which are homogeneous with respect to political philosophy (Crain 1968; Mayer 1974). Such boards can be said to be elitist (hierarchical) rather than participatory (lateral). The reconciliation of these conflicting propositions requires a closer examination of the relationship between the internal and external structures of an organization, its ideology, and the process of institutional change. The ability of a hierarchical or bureaucratic organization to respond to the need to change or innovate has been challenged on a number of grounds (Thompson 1961, 1969; Zaltman, Duncan, and Holbek 1973, pp. 124ff.) One difficulty arises from the monocratic nature of bureaucracies, that is, the assumption that some individual(s) at the top of the hierarchy has the ability to master the operating technology, process the necessary informa- tion, and issue clear and adequate commands for all parts of the bureau. However, the pace of changes in technology and operating conditions leads to a degree of specialization and complexity which exceeds the grasp of the bureaucratic manager, creating a gap between the actual performance and the expected perfor- 38 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE mance of the bureau. The response of bureaucratic managers to such a gap is to increase their control over operations their dependence on regulations, their aloofness to interpersonal rela- tions, and their resistance to change, a state of affairs referred to as bureaupathic behavior (Thompson 1961, pp. 152-177). Another deficiency of hierarchical organizations arises from their lack of mechanisms for dealing creatively with conflict. As most writers point out, the impetus for change or innovation is most likely to occur in organizations with diversity of membership or tasks. Yet diversity inevitably generates conflict; and bureau- cratic organizations tend to lack mechanisms for dealing with conflict, other than suppression, which forgoes the opportunity for change. A third deterrent is the overemphasis on certainty. Bureaucracies tend to have very clear-cut and comprehensive rules and procedures. Rational decisionmaking requires examining the consequences of all alternative courses of action. Yet in situations demanding change or innovation, standard rules may not apply, and to anticipate the consequences of innovative actions is by nature difficult. Therefore the ability to accept risks, to be experimental in practice, conflicts with the decisionmaking style of bureaucratic organizations. . These deficiencies have led organizational theorists to identify the organic structure (what we have called lateral) as more conducive to change and innovation (Burns and Stalker 1961). Because of its low degree of centralization, individual members have greater freedom to respond adaptively to changing condi- tions, and information is more likely to flow freely throughout the organization. Because of its greater diversity, responses on the part of individual members are more likely to be innovative or varied. However, the structural properties that are seen as facilitating the initiation or conception of change were also found to inhibit the implementation of change. That is, organic organizations with their greater diversity of membership and their low level of centralization are less likely to be able to reach a consensus about which proposed change to adopt (Zaltman, Duncan, and Holbek, 1973). These different impacts have led to the conceptualization of the institutional change process as occurring in two stages, the initiation stage and the implementation stage (Hage and Aiken 1970; Zaltman, Duncan, and Holbek 1973). In the first stage, ideas or proposals for change or innovation are generated, and in the second stage a proposed change is selected and implemented. In this context, both types of organizational structure have an appropriate role. The organic structure is best suited to the STRUCTURAL APPROACHES 39 initiation stage of institutional change, and the hierarchical or mechanistic structure is best suited to the implementation stage. This relationship can be elaborated by reference to the character- istics of organizational structure cited earlier. 1. Complexity—The more diverse an organization in terms of the specialized interests or skills of its membership, the more productive it will be in creating or generating proposals for change or innovation. However, in order to select and implement proposed changes, some structural adaptations must be made to bridge that diversity. Decisionmaking teams composed of representatives of the disparate elements may be used, or the selection and implementation phase may be turned over to a more homogeneous body. 2. Formalization—During the initiation stage, rules and pro- cedures need to be as minimal and flexible as possible so as not to constrain creativity and the exploration of alternative actions. However, in the implementation phase, a singleness of purpose prevails, requiring the specification of procedures and decision rules for the successful adoption of the proposed change. 3. Centralization—A very high degree of hierarchy of authority is likely to restrict the flow of information and reduce the amount of diversity of behavior in an organization from which proposals for change or innovation derive. However, with a highly dispersed locus of authority it is difficult to generate a clear set of procedures and enough influence over members of an organization to implement proposals for change. Therefore centralized structures are advantageous during implementation. 4. Interpersonal relations—Under the conditions of diversity and uncertainty that characterize the initiation stage of institu- tional change, two conditions are necessary. Information must flow freely among members of the institution, and individuals must be willing to take the risk of being different even though they lack sufficient evidence to substantiate their views. Yet the conditions of diversity and uncertainty naturally generate considerable stress and anxiety. This fact causes individuals to withhold information, to distrust others, and thereby to thwart the generation of innovation. It is important, therefore, that the organizational structure foster free, open, and trusting interpersonal relationships. Hierarchi- cal structures, by design, stress impersonality in interpersonal relationships and therefore are not suitable to the initiation of institutional change. Organic structures, while not guar- 40 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE anteeing openness and trust, are more conducive to such qualities. The question arises: Are not openness and trust favorable qualities to have in the implementation as well as the initiation of institutional change? Argyris answers the question affirmatively, while others argue that impersonality is more acceptable and may even be functional, in situations involving routine tasks in a stable environment. This discussion of the differential advantages of organic and hierarchical structures leads to an integrated view of the effect of internal structure on the process of institutional change (Burns and Stalker 1961). Organizational theorists have arrived at the conclusion that both types of structure may exist simultaneously in subunits of the same organization, and that both types of structures may characterize a single organization at different points in time (Zaltman, Duncan, and Holbek 1973, pp. 130-134). For example, several researchers have found that, within industrial organizations, departments or units involved in research and product development (the initiation state of institutional change) were more likely to have organic structures. However, units involved in the production of new products (the implementation stage) were likely to have hierarchical or mechanistic structures. On the other hand, a given organization may alternately operate under both structures depending on the stage of institutional change. For example, Shepard (1967) found in a study of military raiding parties in World War II that the planning done prior to the raid was undertaken jointly by all members of the party, the private having as much voice as the colonel. However, during the raid the party operated under a strict military command system, hierarchical in structure. After the raid, the party reverted back to an organic structure to evaluate the results that could be used in planning the next raid (pp. 474-475). Thus the internal structure of an organization should be thought of as dynamic and flexible, subject to purposeful design in order to carry out institutional change. The External Structure and Institutional Change Most organizational theorists have come to believe that the impetus for change derives from an organization’s relationship with its environment (Emery and Trist 1965; Levine and White 1961; Terreberry 1968; Zaltman, Duncan, and Holbek 1973). Since organizations are viewed as dependent on their environment for providing resources (inputs) necessary to carry on their activities and for utilizing the results of those activities (outputs), any change in environmental conditions would precipitate some form of organizational change. This environmental change is STRUCTURAL APPROACHES 41 referred to as “turbulence” or “‘stress.” Thus organizations located in a turbulent environment are assumed to be dynamic or highly responsive to proposals for change. This view is exemplified by the work of Jacobs (1974) who provides a model of the external structure of organizations that provides a basis for designing strategies of planned institutional change. His model is based on exchange theories developed by Blau (1969) and involves the concepts of dependency and vulnerability. The power of A (some organization in the environ- ment) over B (the target organization) is equal to B’s dependence on A for some reward. This relationship can be expressed as P.b=DPpa- The dependence of B on A, in turn, is conceptualized as directly proportional to B’s motivational investment in the goals which are mediated by A, expressed as Dpg:Mpy. However, dependence is inversely proportional to the availability of these goals outside the A-B relationship. Availability, in turn, is a matter of the extent to which other goals or rewards are substitutable for those provided by A, and/or the number of alternative suppliers of such rewards. Thus the relationship between an organization and its environment is conceptualized as a continuous variable ranging in value from high dependence to no dependence, rather than as a series of discrete models. The case of no dependence is character- istic of a closed system and is often referred to as “structural free-wheeling,” a situation in which an organization can operate freely in its environment. Its behavior does not affect, nor is affected by, its environment. Jacobs suggests a number of stages in the life of an organization at which dependency on the environment occurs: 1. Acquisition of materials, which, in the case of a firm, refers to the procurement of raw materials for processing, or goods to be sold; and in the case of a service organization, to the procurement of clients 2. Capital acquisition, which refers to the acquisition of financial resources with which to procure the other inputs necessary for the functioning of the organization 3. Acquisition of production factors, which refers to the acquisition of the facilities, equipment and technology necessary for producing the goods or providing the service 4. Acquisition of labor, which refers to the hiring of personnel to produce the good or provide the service 5. Output disposal, which refers to the sale of goods produced; or in the case of service organizations, to the delivery of service to customers or clients. 42 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE Given some degree of dependence on its environment, an organization responds to the demands of, or turbulence in, that environment in ways which may result in organizational change. Organizations will resist any proposed reduction in the support they currently enjoy from their environment, and they will undertake changes in order to maintain or increase levels of support from that invironment. They will protect their turf, expand into neighboring turf, refuse to cooperate with competing agencies, or enter into “restraint of trade” agreements with a funding body. In other words, organizational behavior is seen in large part as an attempt to protect the organization’s linkages with elements of its environment upon which it is dependent for survival or growth. Such organizational responses result in the carving up of a given environment into what is usually referred to as organizational domains or policy spaces. Downs (1967) identifies five zones in the domain of a public service organization or bureau: a heartland, an interior fringe, a no man’s land, a periphery, and alien territory (See figure 4). The heartland is that part of a bureau’s environ- ment in which it is the sole determiner of policy. The interior fringe represents that part in which the bureau is dominant, but other bureaus share influence. No man’s land is that area in which many bureaus have influence, and no one of them dominates. The periphery is that area in which one bureau has influence but another dominates. An alien territory is that part of a bureau’s environment which is the heartland of another bureau, and in which the former, therefore, has no influence. This process of protecting and enchancing policy space was observed in a study of the Wisconsin State Employment Service (Randall 1973). In the late 1960s, the Wisconsin State legislature authorized a Human Resources Development Program to assist disadvantaged, unemployed persons to find jobs. Randall found that the response to this legislation by the various district offices of the State Employment Service could be explained in terms of the effect which implementing the program might have on the support they received from their respective environments. Most district offices resisted implementing the program for fear of losing use of their service by private employers who preferred well-screened and qualified workers to disadvantaged workers. This resistance was greatest in districts with large employers who were in a position to substitute their own employment service for that provided by the State and thus threaten a reduction in the latter’s policy space. This resistance was less likely in districts with a Community Action Program which was in a position to set up a parallel employment service for the disadvantaged, thus threaten- STRUCTURAL APPROACHES 43 FIGURE 4 — Zones in the domain of a bureau J ~~ _— / = A's exterior boundary . B’s exterior Rd boundary © J - * (Im Mutual no man’s land — Heartland boundaries — A and B* wm mm = = As Interior and exterior boundaries t= = mm === B's Interior and exterior boundaries ————— Other zone boundaries — A and B *Only two bureaus shown for simplicity Source: Anthony Downs, Inside Bureaucracy, Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1967, p. 214. 287-264 O - 79 = 4 44 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE ing the State agency’s opportunity for domain expansion. We can summarize our discussion thus far by observing that the external structure of an institution is the result of a two-way process or interaction. On the one hand, it is determined by the amount of control exercised by organizations in the environment over resources upon which the target institution depends. On the other hand, it results from the actions taken by the target institution to defend or expand its claim on those resources, its domain or policy space. Given an understanding of the organization’s external structure, it should be possible to identify strategies for behaving within that structure to achieve institutional change. Benson (1975) identifies four such strategies. A cooperative strategy involves finding some interest held in common by the organization which is the target of change and the organization in the environment upon which the former is dependent. Such common interests can serve as a basis for joint planning. A disruptive strategy involves engaging in competitive activities or activities which duplicate those of the target organization and thereby threaten the resource-generating capacity of that organization. A manipulative strategy involves a direct alteration of an environmental resource upon which the target organization is dependent. This strategy is reflected in changing the eligibility requirements which the target organization must use in accepting applicants for service and thereby altering its pool of potential clients; in altering the restrictions on the type of manpower that could be used in providing a given service; or in changing the allocation of funds to a given organization through the budgetary process. An authoritative strategy involves a direct alteration of the organization’s activities by mandate of some legitimate authority, such as the legislature or the judiciary. Jacobs suggests two constraints on the use of these strategies which are worth noting in passing. One deals with the degree of cohesion or special concentration of the users of an organization’s service or the buyers of its output. The more fractionated or dispersed the users, the less they will be able to exercise any control over that organization. This constraint is clearly re- cognized in efforts to organize welfare clients in order to achieve welfare reform and to organize consumers in order to reform business practices. The second constraint deals with the relation- ship between values and the organization’s external structure. When the values of an environmental actor upon whom the organization is most dependent differ widely from the values of an actor upon whom the organization is least dependent, the latter will periodically resort to coercion in order to gain influence over STRUCTURAL APPROACHES 45 that organization. This hypothesis rests on the assumption that the target organization will adopt the values of the actor upon whom it is most dependent, leaving actors with contrary values and little control over relevant resources no normative basis on which to influence the organization’s behavior. As a consequence, the latter are forced to resort to coercive tactics. Most organization theorists are-of the opinion that turbulence or change in the external structure will directly precipitate changes in the organization’s internal structure. Indeed, much of the earlier discussion of mechanistic versus organic structures was premised on the assumption that organic structures better enable organiza- tions to generate new and adaptive responses to changes in their environment. Therefore, in turbulent or changing environments we should expect to find successful organizations adopting organic structures, at least during the initiation stage of institutional change. Two studies of the response of police and fire departments to the civil disturbances of the middle and late 1960s provide some interesting elaboration of this process (Warhelt and Waxman 1973; Kreps 1973). Both studies report significant changes in the structure and operations of police and fire departments in response to the urban riots. For example, Warhelt and Waxman found that firefighting units formed mutual-aid pacts in carrying out their tasks; that is, some served as protectors or covers against sniper shot, while others fought the fires. Fire departments which were highly centralized before the riots became quite decentral- ized. They discovered that local units were much better at determining to which alarms to respond and how best to respond to them. Overall coordination of firefighting was reduced by this decentralization, but the operational effectiveness in fighting individual fires was greatly improved. However, Kreps found that some organizations were more able to make adaptive changes than others. An external threat was not sufficient to precipitate organizational change. In the case of police services, departments that had a high degree of contact with agencies which had developed adaptive responses, that had a well developed information-gathering and processing system, and that were high in resources and professionalization were able to expand their range of options and to exhibit more organizational change. Apparently, as in the case of individual behavior, some organiza- tions in the face of threat may freeze and be immobilized, while others respond to such treats by finding new and adaptive ways to structure their activities. Interaction with a support system, sufficient resources, and knowledge seem to be essential in- 46 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE gredients for organizational change in the face of external threats (Rothman 1974, p. 126). Still another view of how changes in external structure affect changes in internal structure focuses on the nature of leadership in an organization. Downs notes that, when its environment provides opportunities for the expansion of domain, a bureau experiences a rising proportion of “climbers” in leadership position, and a declining proportion of ‘conservers.” Climbers are by nature innovators. They are able to invent new functions or invade the policy space of less dynamic organizations and thus enable the bureau to take advantage of opportunities for growth. Benson describes the same phenomenon in a slightly different way. The distribution of power within an organization, he observes, may well be explained by the ability of different actors within that organization to control those linkages of the organiza- tion to its environment which are problematic to the survival or growth of the organization. For example, agencies which are short of capital will often be governed by boards composed of businessmen or persons of influence with funding organizations. Similarly, organizations which are secure in capital, but short in technical competence, will tend to have boards which delegate considerable authority to management. Thus, when engaged in changes involving its external structure, an organization will need to elevate into leadership position persons whose skills match the linkages between the organization and its environment which need to be strengthened in order to facilitate the desired change. This observation seems more pertinent to the implementation than to the initiation stage of institutional change. Up to this point we have been discussing the relationship between the external and internal structure of an organization under the implicit assumption of the primacy of the environment for determining the nature of that relationship. That is, we have been treating the environment as the given, proactive force, and the organization as the responding, reactive force. Before leaving the subject of this interrelationship, we should consider the question of how an organization can be the proactive force seeking a change in its environment. Of course the answer can be given that the same propositions apply; one simply changes perspectives. Since the environment itself is made up of organizations, a given organization can change its environment by adopting the position of an environmental force acting on other organizations. However, this perspective implies relative equality among the various organizations in an environmental field. What about the case of the organization which is relatively weak in that field, which, in a sense, has a “negative balance of payments” with all STRUCTURAL APPROACHES 47 other organizations? Such is the case of revolutionary or social movements which are trying to change a wide range of institutions in their environment which are arrayed against them. In studying revolutionary movements in this country, Gerlach (1971) found three internal structural characteristics that were shared in common: 1. Segmentary—They are composed of a range of diverse groups or cells which grow, die, divide, fuse, proliferate and contract independent of one another. 2. Polycephalous—They do not have a central command or decisionmaking structure; they have many leaders or rivals for leadership within each cell as well as among cells. Each leader is treated as a “first among equals.” 3. Reticulate—These diverse groups or cells within each move- ment are organized into a network through cross-cutting links, such as traveling ‘‘evangelists,” overlapping participa- tion, joint activities or ‘‘in-gatherings,” and shared objectives and opposition. Gerlach argues that these structural characteristics serve impor- tant adaptive functions for revolutionary movements. In the first place, they prevent effective suppression by the dominant forces in the environment. New leadership springs up where old leadership is banished. Since cells are independent, the suppression of one does not affect the functioning of another. Secondly, they provide for multipenetration; that is, factionalism and schisms provide many points of penetration into the larger social order. Multipenetration enables the revolutionary movement to have an impact on its environment as a network, rather than to have its impact confined to selected organizations or groups. Thirdly, such diversity maximizes the adaptive capacity of the movement. It provides ready-made alternative ways of responding to changing environmental conditions. Fourthly, such a structure contributes to system reliability. That is, duplication of effort provides a backup for cell failure which results in system reliability. Lastly, such a structure fosters an escalation of effort on the part of individual cells in the movement. Competition among the various factions means that a gain in public recognition by one stirs others to greater levels of activity. The internal structure which Gerlach describes can be thought of as an extreme form of the organic model, in which the members or cells are not only equal but quasi-independent of each other. One could conclude that the organization which seeks to change an extremely hostile environment should adopt such a structure, not only to survive, but to gain influence in that environment. 48 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE Support for this proposition can be found in a study by Warren, Rose, and Bergunder (1974) of institutional change in the Model Cities program. The study dealt with the interactions between the Model Cities agency and other organizations in its environment in each of nine cities. Warren and his colleagues found that in only one city, Oakland, did the Model Cities agency, the Oakland Economic Development Council, Inc., try to bring about a change in its environment. The Oakland Economic Development Council, Inc. (OEDCI) tried to change the ideology (the institutionalized thought structure, as the authors term it) of the other organiza- tions in its environment regarding the appropriate strategy for alleviating poverty. In this effort OEDCI was in a relatively weak position viz-a-viz its environment. It was dependent on the City Council for legitimacy, on the State and Federal Office of Economic Oppor- tunity (OEO) for funding, and on the city’s Board of Education, Redevelopment Agency, and Manpower Commission for collabor- ation in carrying out its own program. In attempting to bring about the intended change, OEDCI adopted a highly centralized structure. A single, vocal, charismatic leader built a united front among poverty organizations and low-income residents in challeng- ing the basic program, goals and methods of OEDCIs environment. The result of this strategy was defeat. State and Federal OEO offices coalesced with the Oakland City Council to deny OEDCI funds and to take away its designation as the Model Cities agency. The Board of Education, Redevelopment Agency, and Manpower Commission proceded to bypass OEDCI in carrying out their programs. According to Gerlach’s findings this outcome was predictable. Presumably if the leaders of OEDCI had adopted a polycephalous segmented strategy, i.e., maintained a highly disjointed array of organizations, these groups could have de- fended themselves against annihilation, and they could have infiltrated their environment, thereby bringing about the desired change. Ideology and Organizational Structure This review of structurally oriented theory and research leaves us with two principle propositions. 1. The impetus for institutional change comes primarily from forces or turbulence in the institution’s environment. 2. An organic or lateral internal structure is most conducive to institutional change during the initiation stage, and a mechan- STRUCTURAL APPROACHES 49 istic or hierarchical internal structure is most conducive during the implementation stage. These two propositions seem to dominate American social science theory regarding institutional change. It is our contention that they represent a limited perspective on this process that derives from an inherent bias in the positivist or empirical tradition of American social science. Empirically based theory tends to rest on the observation of events as they are, rather than events as they might be. Such observations are further confined to the range of behavior that takes place within a cultural context. As Argyris points out, American organizational theorists conclude ‘that hierarchically structured production processes are most efficient because all the production processes they observe repre- sent forms of hierarchical structure; a clear contrast does not exist within their cultural experience. Thus an empirically based theory runs the risk of reinforcing the status quo rather than generating propositions about the effects of alternative social arrangements. It seems apparent from this review that American organizational theorists tend to ignore the role of ideology in organizational management and change. This oversight may derive, in part, from the fact that much of the research upon which such theories are based deals with American economic organizations which, by design, are nonideological. Their goal is profit maximization rather than the realization of any social or public good. In the absence of collective benefits as an objective of such activity, it should not be surprising to find little mention of ideology as a factor in theories derived from the study of such organizations. This bias was overcome by the research of Tannenbaum et al. reported in chapter 2. That research discovered that the efficient production of goods could be achieved in industry which was lateral or organic in structure in the presence of a clear and strongly held ideology irrespective of the technology involved (see also Burns and Stalker 1961. p. 122). This observation is consistent with that of Blase and Downs who conclude that, in the presence of a clear-cut ideology, leadership or centralization of authority is a less critical factor in the institutional change process. Zaltman, Duncan, and Holbeck themselves provide evidence of this possibility. In reviewing research which demonstrated that heirarchical structures are more effective in the implementation stage of institutional change, they encountered one exception whose deviance from this pattern they were at a loss to explain (pp. 136ff). The case involved social welfare organizations in which structures that tended to be organic were found to correlate positively with the rate of adoption of program changes. It may be that this anomoly can be explained by the variable of ideology, for 50 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE the cases showing a high correlation between hierarchical struc- tures and program adoption were of industrial firms that lack a collective ideology, while the cases which deviated from this finding were of social welfare agencies which tend to operate on the basis of an explicit ideology. When the variable of ideology is taken into consideration, it may be possible to question the other major proposition of organizational theorists. We believe there is evidence to suggest that, in the presence of a clear-cut ideology, the impetus for institutional change may come from within the organization, rather than from its environment. To find such evidence one must examine instances in which the ideology plays a conscious role in organizational life. Two studies of the participation of Protestant denominations in efforts at social reform in the late 1960s illustrate this proposition (Wood 1975; Taylor 1975). Institutional change in these studies is referred to as ‘organizational transcendence,” that is, the use of an organization’s name and resources in ways which are contrary to, or not predictable from, the wishes of individual members. When an organization adopts a course of action which is contrary to, or not explicitly consistent with, expressed wishes of its members, it has engaged in action which transcends the aggregated will of its members. Wood distinguishes between legitimate and oligarchic transcendence. Legitimate transcendence occurs when leaders act in accordance with the formal structure of the organization to realize the expressed values of the organization when those values run counter to or transcend the self-interest of individual members. Oligarchic transcendence occurs when leaders act on behalf of their self-interests, which are not those of the members and are contrary to the expressed values of the organization. Wood studied the behavior of Protestant Churches in Indian- apolis during the late 1960s in relation to the needs of blacks and other minorities. He used three actions which churches could have taken as an index of their inclination to seek racial justice. The principle action involved the request by George Forman to have his Black Manifesto, calling for reparation payments from the churches to the black community, presented before individual congregations. Wood reasoned that the actions in his index were consistent with the formal ideology of the respective churches as expressed in the New Testament, making the adoption of any given action by a congregation consistent with organizational goals. However, he found in a sample survey of the respective churches that in no congregation did more than 20 percent of the members favor allowing George Forman to read his Black STRUCTURAL APPROACHES 51 Manifesto before a regular meeting of the congregation. The question to be answered was: Would the churches elect to allow the presentation of the Black Manifesto in keeping with their ideology, or deny the request in keeping with the wishes of their members? Wood found that some churches transcended the interest of their members and some did not. The difference in response was found to be related to the presence of a hierarchical internal structure which itself was based on the ideology of the church. In those churches in which the national denomination held legiti- mated authority over governance of the local body, such as the Protestant Episcopal Church, the clergymen invited Forman to speak; in those churches where the local congregation held legitimated authority over the governance of the local body, such as the American Baptist Convention, Forman was not invited. Thus, Wood concludes that organizational transcendence occurs in the presence of an ideology which prescribes such transcendence, and a hierarchical structure in which leaders are legitimated to act on behalf of the organization in accordance with that ideology. This particular research does not conform fully to the definition of institutional change set forth in chapter 1. It seems to reflect an ad hoc act rather than a change of a system state. However, since the other behaviors studied by Wood, though less dramatic in nature, were consistent with the response to the Black Manifesto, a pattern emerges which suggests a system state, the capacity of an organization to take actions against the self-interest of its membership. To the extent that such organizational transcendence constitutes a change in program that would otherwise ensue, the study constitutes a case of institutional change. The case may seem to contradict our earlier contention that the presence of a clear-cut ideology enables an organically structured organization to adopt a proposed change. We believe this disparity can be accounted for by the degree of commitment to a given ideology. Clearly, American Protestant churches are different from Israeli kibbutzim, as studied by Tannenbaum, in the degree of commitment of their memberships to their respective ideologies. American Protestants adopt a clear-cut ideology when they become members of a particular church, but it is a well-known fact that the commitment to that ideology among many church- men is weak at best. This fact suggests a further specification of our earlier proposition. When commitment to an organization’s ideology runs high, an organic internal structure may be effective in implementing as well as initiating institutional change. When commitment is low, a hierarchical internal structure may be more effective. 52 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE Clearer evidence of the role of ideology in generating an internal impetus for institutional change can be found in organizations with a strong ideological foundation. The civil rights movement and the antipoverty movement in the United States generated new forms of delivering education and legal services. Revolutionary governments in China, Cuba, and Yugoslavia have originated new means of delivering health care and producing industrial goods. However, such movements are not ordinarily the subject of analysis of American organizational theorists. Conclusions The internal structure of organizations varies in the extent to which responsibility and authority for conducting the organiza- tion’s activities are held by a central body. On the one extreme are bureaucratic or hierarchical organizations in which ultimate responsibility and authority rests with some central actor and organizational decisions are effected by commands. On the opposite extreme are organic or lateral organizations in which responsibility and authority are dispersed widely among the members or units which are presumed to be equal, and in which actions are coordinated by some central actor. Decisions in such organizations are effected by negotiation or consensus. The external structure of an organization consists of the linkages it has with other organizations which control resources upon which the target organization is dependent. The external structure can be described or mapped by the degree to which the target organization is dependent on its environment for those resources, and the domain which it has established viz-a-viz other organizations. Organizations with an organic internal structure are more likely to initiate institutional changes, but organizations with a hierarchi- cal structure are more likely to implement them. The impetus for such change is more likely to come from changes in the environment. Such changes affect the target organization’s exter- nal structure, which in turn affects its internal structure. Organiza- tions which seek to change their environments should adopt the internal structure of a social movement, which consists of many quasi-independent units or cells that have a high degree of redundancy and are held together by overlapping activities rather than a centralized command structure. An interaction exists between the nature of an organization’s structure and the role of ideology in bringing about institutional change. In the absence of an ideology, change is more likely to be STRUCTURAL APPROACHES 53 induced by forces or turbulence in the organization’s environment. In organizations with a clear-cut ideology, institutional change may be internally induced. When commitment to that ideology among members is high, an organic structure can be effective in initiating as well as implementing institutional change. When the degree of commitment is low, a hierarchical internal structure will be more effective in initiating as well as carrying out such changes. Up to this point we have discussed two major variables involved in institutional change: ideology and organizational structure. In the next chapter we will examine the role in interpersonal relations. References Argyris, Chris. The Applicability of Organizational Sociology. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1972. Benson, J. Kenneth. The interorganizational network as a political economy. Administrative Science Quarterly, 20(2):229-249, 1975. Blau, Peter M. The structure of social associations. In: Walter L. Wallace, ed. Sociological Theory. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co., 1969. pp. 186-200. Burns, Tom, and Stalker, G.M. The Management of Innovation. London: Tavistock Publications, Ltd., 1961. Crain, Robert L. The Politics of School Desegregation. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co., 1968. Davis, Stanley, and Lawrence, Paul R. Matrix. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1977. Downs, Anthony. Inside Bureaucracy. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1967. Emery, R.E., and Trist, R.L. The causal texture of organizational environment. Human Relations, 18(1):21-32, 1965. Evan, William M. The organization set: Toward a theory of interorganizational relations. In: James D. Thompson, ed. Approaches to Organizational Design. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1966. Gerlach, Luther P. Movements of revolutionary change: Some structural characteristics. American Behavioral Scientist, 14(6):812-836, 1971. Gillespie, David F., and Perry, Ronald W. Influence of an organizational environment on interorganizational relations. 54 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 34(1): 29-42, 1975. Hage, Jerald, and Aiken, Michael. Social Change and Complex Organizations. New York: Random House, 1970. Horowitz, Irving Louis, and Katz, James Everett. Social Science and Public Policy in the United States. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1975. Jacobs, David. Dependency and vulnerability: An exchange approach to the control of organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 19(1):45-59, 1974. Katz, Daniel, and Kahn, Robert L. The Social Psychology of Organizations. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1967. Kreps, Gary A. Change in crisis-relevant organization: Police department and civil disturbances. American Behavioral Scientist, 16(3):356-367, 1973. Levine, Sol, and White, Paul E. Exchange as a conceptual framework for the study of interorganizational relationships. Administrative Science Quarterly, 5(4):583:601, 1961. Mayer, Robert R. Social Planning and Social Change. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1972. Mayer, Robert R. Social system models for planners. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 38(3):130-140, 1974. Mayer, Robert R.; King, Charles E.; Borders-Patterson, Anne; and McCullough, James F. The Impact of School Desegregation in a Southern City, Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath and Co., 1974. Morrissey, Joseph P.; Riecker, Patricia; and Horan, Patrick M. Interorganizational relations: Directions for further research. A paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco, 1975. Perrow, Charles. Organizational Analysis: A Sociological View. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing Co., Inc., 1970. Randall, Ronald. Influence of environmental support and policy space on organizational behavior. Administrative Science Quar- terly, 18(2):236-247, 1973. Rothman, Jack. Planning and Organizing for Social Change. New York: Columbia University Press, 1974. Shepard, Herbert A. Innovation-resisting and innovation-producing organizations. Journal of Business, 40(4):470-477, 1967. Sutton, Richard L. Cultural contact and change-agent organiza- tions. Administrative Science Quarterly, 19(4):547-562, 1974. STRUCTURAL APPROACHES 55 Taylor, Mary Grace. Two models of social reform action in a normative organization. Sociological Analysis, 36(2):161-167, 1975. Terreberry, Shirley. The evolution of organizational environments. Administrative Science Quarterly, 12(4):590-613, 1968. Thompson, James D. Organizations in Action. New York: McGraw Hill Book Co., 19617. Thompson, Victor A. Bureaucracy and Innovation. University of Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1969. Thompson, Victor A. Modern Organizations. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961. Tucker, W.T., and Campbell, James P. The twilight of the managers. Personnel Administration, 34(6):14-20, 1971. Warhelt, George J., and Waxman, Jerry. Operational and organiza- tional adaptations of fire departments to civil disturbances. American Behavioral Scientist, 16(3):343-355, 1973. Warren, Roland L. The interorganizational field as a focus of investigation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 12(3):396-419, 1967. Warren, Roland L.; Rose, Stephan M.; and Bergunder, Ann F. The Structure of Urban Reform. Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath and Co., 1974. Wood, James R. Legitimate control and organizational transcen- dence. Social Forces, 54(1):199-211, 1975. Zaltman, Gerald; Duncan, Robert; and Holbek, Jonny. Innova- tions and Organizations. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1973. CHAPTER 4 INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE THROUGH INDIVIDUAL CHANGE A number of theories have a common focus on the attitudes and behaviors of individuals as the key to planned institutional change. These theories provide the basis for strategies for changing individual level behavior as the means by which organizational level behavior is changed. A debate persists in much of the literature between those advocating structural interventions to achieve institutional change and those advocating interventions designed to bring about changes in the behavior of individuals. The former argue that changing an organization’s structure will lead to a change in interpersonal relations, not vice versa. Advocates of individual change argue that those who design structural changes fall short of showing how such changes are to be brought about. If individuals are to govern their behavior by a new ideology or operate within a new structure, they must develop a commitment to that ideology and learn new ways of behaving in such structures. Therefore, advocates of intervention at the level of individual behavior, in all fairness, do not represent a rejection of ideological or structural approaches to institutional change, but rather a corrective. In this section we are going to consider two variants of individual level theories which may seem like ‘‘strange bedfel- lows.” However, they have in common a focus on how individuals behave in the process of institutional change. One variant involves the use of incentives to induce individual change and is based on the model of economic man. The other involves techniques for inducing personal self-esteem and interpersonal trust and is based on a model of psychological man. However, both types of theory approach institutional change through individual change, and therefore are considered together. 56 INDIVIDUAL CHANGE 57 Use of Individual Incentives During recent years, economists have shown a growing interest in using micro-economic theory to explain organizational behavior (Downs 1967; Olson 1965; Buchanan and Tullock 1962). Current- ly, the most articulate proponent of the use of individual incentives to induce institutional change is Niskanen (1971). Although his theory focuses on the inefficiency of American governmental bureaucracies, rather than their impact on human welfare, his notions about how to change bureaucracies are instructive for our purposes. Niskanen’s concept of a bureaucracy is close to our concept of an institution, and therefore we will use these two terms interchangeably. In order to understand this approach to institutional change, it is necessary to examine briefly the assumptions which underlie his theory. Niskanen focuses on managers as the principle actors in this drama. Managers are the ones, he argues, who account primarily for a bureau’s performance. They are viewed as individuals who are utility maximizers rather than role players. That is, managers are individuals who are primarily motivated by a desire to achieve for themselves the highest level of benefits, usually measured in financial gain, in any activity in which they engage. This view contrasts with a sociological perspective in which such persons are believed to be capable of acting on the basis of some group or collective interest in response to norms or sanctions provided by the group. Thus Niskanen ignores ideology as a factor in institutional behavior and treats structural influences as given. Bureaus are distinguished from other organizations that are economic in nature by three characteristics. (1) The owners and employees of bureaus do not appropriate any part of the difference between revenues and costs as personal income. In other words, bureaus accumulate no profits that can be distributed among their members. (2) Some part of the recurring revenues of bureaus derive from other than the sale of the output of that bureau at a per unit rate. That is, bureaus are not financially self-sustaining in the sense that they sell units of output and thereby cover their costs of operation. Bureaus depend on some grant or subsidy from a sponsoring organization as part of their regular revenues. (3) Closely related to the prior two character- istics is the fact that the output of bureaus is often difficult to specify or define in ways which make its production contractable. For example, national defense and mental health do not lend themselves to units of outputs for which a sponsoring agency could contract with a private producer. Bureaus, therefore, are the 58 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE preferred type of organization for the production of such outputs. According to this model, the environment of a bureau consists of three principle elements: (1) a collective organization or sponsor which provides the grant or appropriation for the bureau’s operation, (2) suppliers of labor and material factors of produc- tion, and (3) customers of any services that are sold at a per unit price. The clients or nonpaying users of the service are members of, or represented by, the sponsor. Since most bureaus provide services which are not sold at a per unit price, the principle actors in the environment are reduced to the sponsor and the suppliers of labor and materials. According to this theory, the relationship between the bureau and its sponsor constitutes a bilateral monopoly. That is, the bureau is usually dependent on one sponsor for its source of revenue, and the sponsor is dependent on one bureau as the sole supplier of a given service. In essence, the bureau offers a promised set of activities to be performed over a given time period in return for a budget. However, the bureau offers a total output at a fixed price. Herein lies an imbalance of power between the bureau and the sponsor. The bureau can estimate fairly well the amount of budget which a sponsor is likely to give; such amounts are usually revealed through elections or public declarations in the mass media. However, a sponsor knows very little about the factor costs and production processes involved in a bureau service. It has little basis for assessing the validity of the costs of delivering the service reported by the bureau. Therefore a bureau has overwhelming power in this relationship. Given these assumptions about the nature of a bureau and its relationship to its environment, the theory goes on to explain how the operation of such bureaus results in the production of an oversupply of services at considerable waste of public expendi- tures. As was said earlier, the particular motivation of managers of bureaus is to maximize their utility. But what constitutes a ‘bureaucrat’s utility? Since managers of bureaus cannot appropriate any of the difference between their budget and the costs of providing the service, their utility must lie elsewhere. It lies with such things as salary, privileges of the office, prestige, and power over resources at their disposal. All of these factors are represented by the size of the bureau’s budget. Therefore, the primary incentive of the bureaucrat is to maximize the bureau’s budget. Of course managers are limited or constrained in this process by the fact that they must be able to deliver the level of activity or service which was promised in exchange for the budget. To do less would be to jeopardize one’s reputation in seeking future appropriations from the sponsor. INDIVIDUAL CHANGE 59 Given this state of affairs, there is little incentive for bureaus to operate efficiently, that is, to provide the most service or activity at the lowest cost. Bureaus which experience a budget which is limited by the costs of operation, rather than the sponsor’s willingness to fund additional output, will use the cheapest factors of production in order to maximize their output and therefore the size of their operation. However, bureaus which experience a budget which is limited only by the demand of the sponsor for additional output, i.e., one in which the costs of operation are less than the maximum budget which the bureau can exact from its sponsor, have no such incentive. They will find ways of justifying additional expenditures beyond those required to cover the cost of their output through using more expensive factors of production, and by appealing to the self-interest of sponsors. Niskanen cites such examples as defense programs in which managers inefficiently locate defense installations in the locale of Congressmen serving on review panels as a way of justifying additional expenditures. One would think that in a representative democracy the activities of public bureaus would be adequately scrutinized to avoid such abuses. However, Niskanen offers several reasons why such is not the case: (1) Sponsors are passive in the review process when their preferences are consistent with the budget maximizing behavior of bureaucrats. For example, when national defense or higher education is considered by sponsors as ‘good’ in its own right, then the more spent on those services the more satisfied the sponsors will be. (2) As was noted before, sponsors have very little information by which to review critically the budget proposals of bureaucrats. Sponsors have no price information regarding the units of output produced and little knowledge about the factor costs or the processes of production. In the absence of competi- tion, bureaucrats have no incentive to reveal such information. (3) The review process in representative government is dominated by representatives of those groups who have the highest demand for a given service. Responsibility for reviewing the budget proposals of " bureaus is divided among committees by the legislature. The review committee for each bureau is composed of representatives of the group with the highest relative demand for the service provided by that bureau. This arrangement tends to encourage the advocacy of maximum bureau budgets and dilutes any opposition to such maximization. Thus, review committees will recommend budgets to the legislature that will maximize the net benefits to the median voter in the region which they represent, while still being acceptable to a majority of the legislature. Niskanen argues that competition among bureaus in the presentation of their budgets would correct the deficiencies of this 287-264 O -79 = 5 60 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE review process. Bureaus offering the same service and presenting their budgets before the same review committee would provide more information about the real cost of providing that service by disclosing alternative cost estimates. However, this process would still result in an oversupply because the review is taking place in a committee composed of representatives with a high demand for that service. The most advantageous situation occurs when such competition generates a procedural problem, i.e., when a partic- ~ ular bureau feels that it has been unfairly handled by a review committee and makes an ‘end run” around the committee, appealing directly to the legislature. Such a situation, argues Niskanen, results in levels of service which more nearly approxi- mate the demand of the majority at a lower cost. It places the review of a budget in the hands of the middle demand group which controls the legislature through majority rule, and it generates additional cost information. Given this understanding of the budget-making process, Nis- kanen offers three recommendations for its reform. The first two are structural in nature. Competition among bureaus in providing specific services should be increased. This can be done by encouraging bureaus to broaden the line of services they provide. Bureaus have a natural tendency to do so, observes Niskanen, as a way of hedging against changing public priorities and as a way of presenting a budget package that is more difficult to scrutinize in the review process. For example, the Department of Agriculture provides a number of education, welfare, housing, and health programs that parallel programs offered by other Federal depart- ments. Therefore, attempts to ‘streamline’ or reorganize govern- ment by consolidating the bureaus with the same service in the same departments should be avoided. While such consolidation provides a degree of competition among bureaus, the review process under such an arrangement is governed by administrators and review committees who have an interest in maximizing the total supply of that service. A preferred arrangement is for bureaus to be scattered among different departments in order to provide more rigorous scrutiny by disinterested parties. Chaos in the organizational chart of government services is to be desired. The second proposal involves changing the composition of review committees. In an effort to make such committees more representative of the body politic, Niskanen would have member- ship on such committees assigned on a random basis to avoid the dominance of high demand groups on any given committee. An alternative approach to the same end would be to assign randomly the review of budgets to different committees. Niskanen’s final proposal deals with individual level interven- INDIVIDUAL CHANGE 61 tions. He advocates the use of financial incentives to induce bureaucrats to behave in a more efficient manner. These incentives would consist of financial rewards given to senior bureaucrats for maximizing the difference between the budget obtained from the sponsor and the actual cost incurred in providing the service. In other words, bureaucrats who are able to provide the agreed-upon level of service at a cost less than that provided for in the approved budget would receive some reward for their economizing. Niskanen cautions that such incentives would work only in a competitive bureaucracy as provided for in his first recommenda- tion. In the absence of competition, a given monopolistic bureau would tend to undersupply a service in an effort to economize. Niskanen suggests three forms which such incentives could take. The most radical form would be to allow a bureaucrat to appropriate as personal income some portion of the difference which was saved between the approved budget and the actual cost of providing a service. Recognizing that such a proposal might be politically infeasible, he offers a second proposal. Bureaucrats who had been exemplary in their economizing behavior would be awarded prizes that were deferred for some time after the bureaucrats left office. The recipients of the awards would be chosen by a panel of judges. A third alternative involves allowing a portion of the difference saved by the bureau to be spent on an approved activity or amenity, chosen by the workers, from an approved list, which would otherwise not be covered by the bureau’s budget. For example, a bureau may choose to provide air conditioning in all of its offices, or special vacation benefits to employees. The specifics of Niskanen’s proposals for bureaucratic reform are not of interest here. Our concern is not with the efficiency of public bureaucracies, important as it may be, but rather with how to make them more responsive to proposals for change. In this connection, Niskanen’s model suggests to us three factors which might be useful in planned institutional change: (1) the budget review process, (2) competition among bureaus, and (3) budgetary incentives. If one is interested in promoting a particular change or innovation in a public program, Niskanen’s analysis suggests that budgetary proposals for the funding of such changes should be reviewed by legislative committees which are composed of representatives of the group with a high demand for such changes. If such budgets are processed through existing review committees, the desired change is likely to be subverted. The representatives of groups with a high demand for existing programs will collude with 62 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE bureaucrats who want increased budgets, whatever the program, to approve increased funding for proposals which are essentially the same as existing programs. One can think of numerous examples in which a particular crisis has generated a public outcry for new government programs. However, the proposals for such programs are channeled through the existing bureaus and the existing review committees. When they emerge from this process, they appear as proposals for increased levels of funding for existing types of programs. A second factor suggested by the Niskanen model is the importance of competition for monitoring institutional change. Following Niskanen’s model, it may be difficult to monitor institutional change because of (1) the inability to specify the precise change desired in the nature of public goods or services, and (2) the reluctance of bureaus to disclose information regarding production costs and processes. Therefore, it is difficult to determine how much change in a given good or service has taken place and whether the desired change is at a maximum, given the constraints and resources under which the bureau operates. If proposals for change are funded through competing bureaus there is more likely to be public disclosure of the true costs and benefits of such proposals. The Community Action Program and the Model Cities Program were examples of such a strategy. The third factor consists of financial incentives in the form of budget increments offered a bureau in return for an innovation or change in the goods or services provided. Actually such incentives have long been used by the Federal Government in the form of demonstration grants or matched funding. Niskanen’s model suggests the conditions under which such incentives might be used or abused on behalf of institutional change. In the first place, such incentives are likely to be used only by bureaus that are budget constrained, that is, whose cost of operation equals the maximum budget obtainable from its sponsor. For bureaus operating in the demand-constrained region, there is no incentive to engage in program innovation. Budget increments can be obtained through manipulating the expenditures involved in providing existing goods and services. Secondly, those bureaus which do adopt such incentives have no reason to institutionalize the proposed change in the absence of any ideological commitment to it, a factor with which Niskanen’s model does not deal. It is more likely that bureaucrats will use the budget increment to maximize their budgets and pay only lipservice to the sponsor’s purpose in granting the increment. That is why so many demonstration program grants fail to result in institutional change. They precipitate program change during the life of the grant, but once INDIVIDUAL CHANGE 63 the grant terminates, the bureau reverts back to its original program. To avoid this abuse we can suggest several safeguards that might be built into the use of budget incentives, which are inspired by Niskanen’s model. One would be for the sponsor to attach a budget deficit for every unit of obsolete output which the bureau continued to produce to the budget increment provided for every unit of new output. Obviously the per unit budget increments would have to exceed the per unit budget deficits in order to motivate the budget-maximizing bureaucrat to change his program or service. In this manner the bureau would actually have to change its “line of production,” and when the grant period ended, it could not revert back to its old program without incurring considerable “retooling” costs. An alternative safeguard would be to offer budget incentives to competing bureaus as a way of determining which bureaus will maximize the innovation or change and which are more likely to institutionalize it. And finally, a way of assuring the continuation of new or changed programs is to make the budget incentive a recurring rather than a time-limited grant. Budget-maximizing bureaucrats are more likely to institutionalize new programs which have the prospect of long-term, ‘permanent’ funding, than ones which are funded as demonstration grants. Budget incentives provide no panacea for planned institutional change. They will be used only when they provide the bureaucrat with net benefits and when they do not violate his or her belief system (Rogers 1973). However, much of the strategy presently used in public policymaking is of this nature. Reference to the Niskanen model helps us to see in greater detail the dynamics of economic incentives to achieve public purposes and to be more realistic about their potential success as well as more prudent in avoiding their misuse. Alteration of Psychological States Another view which explicitly recognizes the role of individual behavior in the process of institutional change comes from the field of social psychology. This view is based on the central assumption that institutional change represents the interaction between changes in institutional and environmental factors and changes in the attitudes, values, and behaviors of individuals. In this sense, it can be said to incorporate both macrolevel and microlevel behavior. Although this perspective takes structural variables into consideration, its primary focus and point of 64 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE intervention are at the level of individual or interpersonal behavior. It recognizes the need for structural alterations and assumes they will be made, but its primary argument is that such changes cannot be implemented or institutionalized without accompanying changes in individual attitudes, values, and be- haviors. It is for this reason that we have chosen to characterize this perspective as an individual level approach to institutional change. Kelman and Warwick (1973) introduce a general paradigm of the psychological dispositions that need to be considered in any attempt to facilitate economic and political change. They argue that, while such dispositions may not be necessary or sufficient conditions for institutional change, they are factors which may facilitate or impede that process. 1. Cognitive orientation is the way in which individuals per- ceive, store, and use information in reasoning and problem- solving. Presumably such orientations also encompass sub- stantive knowledge about the institutional behavior involved in change. 2. Motivational orientation refers to individuals’ goals and their expectation of pleasant consequences from participation in a given activity. 3. Ideological orientation refers to individuals’ orientation toward the political system that is derived from the society or subgroup of which they are a member. It reflects collective goals and the appropriate means for attaining those goals. This orientation provides the legitimacy for collective action. 4. Interpersonal attitudes refer to the level of interpersonal trust which individuals hold as well as their orientation toward authority. These factors can impede participation in collaro- rative action which is necessary for the obtainment of collective goals. 5. Personal efficacy refers to individuals’ subjective competence, their sense of ‘fate control,” or mastery of the environment. Such an orientation affects individuals’ willingness to take the risks necessary to engage in adopting innovations as part of institutional change. Some of these orientations have been dealt with in the models of institutional change which we have already discussed. Motiva- tional orientation was dealt with, albeit within a narrow frame- work, in the Niskanen model of economic incentives to induce change in the behavior of bureaucrats. Ideological orientation was discussed in chapter 3. Cognitive orientation is not dealt with INDIVIDUAL CHANGE 65 explicitly in any of the models discussed in this study. However, implicitly it underlies them all, in the sense that we are concerned with identifying the conditions under which valid knowledge may be used in planned institutional change. Dealing directly with this orientation presumably would involve the manipulation of infor- mation flows and education strategies. Orientations involving interpersonal attitudes and personal efficacy are the primary foci of models of institutional change being dealt with in this chapter. They have become the target of social-psychological strategies that make up the bulk of the literature falling under the rubric of organizational change and development. There are basically two types of strategies for altering psycho- logical states. One is considered manipulative. It involves the direct application of knowledge derived from social psychological research to alter the attitudes, values, or behavior of an individual without the latter’s participation in decisions regarding the objectives or the procedures of the change process. The other is called collaborative. The individuals who are the target of change have decisionmaking power over the selection of objectives and actively participate in the change process. The former model is exemplified by the unireezing-changing- refreezing scheme developed by Schein (1969). This scheme is based on assumptions regarding the sources of an individual’s resistance to change. Resistance stems from an informational. environment which supports the present behaviors, from the function these behaviors perform in meeting the individual’s personal needs, and from support exhibited by peers or other relevant social groups. In order to overcome these resistances, the change agent must first unfreeze the behavior, that is, separate the individual from his attachment to that behavior and therefore his resistance to change. This may be done by either depriving the individual of the support he derives for that behavior or diminishing the importance of that support. Once the behavior is unfrozen, the second step involves inducing new behavior. This the change agent does through providing new information which links the new behavior to appropriate benefits and goals, through providing social support for the new behavior, and through clearly defining the new behavior and its meaning. The final step involves refreezing, or integrating, the new behavior into the individual’s personality and into significant ongoing relationships. This is done through some socialization process and through the building of appropriate support networks. The collaborative approach to altering psychological states was pioneered by the work of Bennis, Benne, and Chin (1969) with 66 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE the recognition that intelligent action requires commitment as well as a program. However, since any program of change involves a rearrangement of power, the use of new skills, and the adoption of different values, it is necessary that people work through the fear that such change engenders, if commitment to the program is to develop. Fundamental to personal growth in the direction of greater trust and risktaking is a collaborative process involving mutuality in goal setting and equalization of power between the change agent and the client system. The manner in which proponents of this approach express their ideas is often more picturesque than precise. However, their views serve a very important function of forcing one to think differently about the nature of organizational or collective behavior. They can lead to the formulation of propositions that are testable empirically. One of the most articulate advocates of collaborative ap- proaches to organizational change is Argyris (1972a). In building his model, Argyris explicitly recognizes the interrelatedness between structural properties and individual properties in organ- izational behavior. Argyris criticizes structural theories for their assumption that individual properties can be ignored, and points out that, in fact, such theories embody implicit assumptions about individual behavior. For example, hierarchical theories of organiza- tion are based on a model of man as a reactive rather than a proactive creature. They assume that people will not do their jobs unless someone is placed in authority over them and that organizational intelligence and guidance are management rather than worker functions. They assume that hierarchy increases coordination, when, in fact, it can be demonstrated that work autonomy increases coordination. Goldthorpe, Lockwood, and Platt (1969) found that effective supervision and coordination existed when middle- and lower-level managers leave employees alone. Hierarchical theories approach decentralization through the formalization of procedures. However, this form of decentraliza- tion involves applying programed responses to set situations; it does not increase autonomy in decisionmaking. Again the implicit model of man is reactive, one who is incapable of seeing the connection between one’s own activities and those of others, of developing a holistic view of one’s work. The conclusion of Argyris’ line of argument is that an adequate theory of organizational behavior must start with a theory of individual behavior as well as a theory of social structure. However, for Argyris, such a requirement is not sufficient. He criticizes prevailing organizational theory for being slavishly inductive, for being based on research of what is rather than what could be. If theory is to be truly prescriptive, it should be based INDIVIDUAL CHANGE 67 on normative assumptions about what ought to be, as well as testable propositions about how to achieve those desired states. In order to arrive at an alternative to the hierarchical theory of organization, Argyris starts with an alternative theory of man. Following the work of Maslow, he posits four basic needs of individuals: autonomy or self-control, growth, initiative, and variety. Argyris hypothesizes that the ability of individuals to satisfy these needs is blocked by the hierarchical structure of existing organizations. For individuals not to experience auton- omy, growth, initiative, and variety is to experience psychological failure. Such failure has nothing to do with one’s competence in completing a given task; it refers to one’s feeling of self-compe- tence as a person. Argyris argues that individuals adapt to this sense of failure through absenteeism on the job, turnover in employment, or involvement in unionization of employment. In essence, workers accept monetary rewards in lieu of the intrinsic rewards that would satisfy their psychological needs. This theory comes dangerously close to providing an apology for the economic exploitation of workers in that it tends to minimize the value of economic benefits to be derived from employment. Some research has attempted to test the prevalence of this conception of man in work organizations (Argyris 1972a, p. 89). The findings raise questions about the validity of the theory. Workers expressed reluctance to become more involved in their work, a requisite for receiving intrinsic benefits. Employers feared the additional trust and openness that would be required of them in less hierarchical structures. , To match this model of man Argyris proposes the organic form of organization. He refers to it as molar in structure, implying that it is composed of self-directed elements which interact with one another on the basis of reciprocal interdependence and mutual adjustment, rather than on the basis of a command process. Argyris takes the position that the organic is the most appropriate form of organization under all conditions because of its adaptivity. Hierarchical, mechanistic organizations are static and lead to “dry rot” and entropy. He debunks the contingency theory of organizational structure discussed in chapter 3. That theory asserts that organic structures best fit organizations which use complex technologies and operate in a turbulent environment, and that mechanistic structures best fit organizations which use routine technologies and operate in a benign environment. He reports that managers of organizations using routine technologies are constant- ly creating turbulence in order to reduce ‘dry rot” in their organizations. The contingency theory, he argues, is based on research on existing organizational forms which do not contain 68 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE clear-cut alternatives to the hierarchical model. A further advan- tage of an organic model of organizations is its ability to explain organizational change in terms of the interaction among organ- izational members. In a hierarchical model change is initiated by command from the top in response to pressures from the organization’s environment. Argyris observes that a process for planned organizational change must be consistent with one’s theory of man and one’s theory of organizational structure. Any attempt to introduce an organic process of management into a mechanistic organization will result in the conversion of the organic process into a mechanistic one. Conversely, if one changes structures unilaterally, one operates within an authoritarian intervention process that decreases free choice, increases resistance to change, and decreases the level of internal commitment of actors to the organization. Such a change process can convert an organic system into a mechanistic one. The process proposed by Argyris is based on the assumption that the more difficult a given change, the greater must be the commitment of an organization’s members to that change through their involvement in its design, execution, and monitoring. Client involvement requires clients who are open, experimental, risk- taking, and trusting. Such qualities are lacking in formal organiza- tions. To engender them, organizational members are urged to participate in a change process that is essentially like the sensitivity training or T-Groups carried on by the National Training Laboratories. It involves people’s working in groups in which they are rewarded for being more open and straightforward in their communication with others. However, such qualities cannot be realized by simply engaging organizational members in personal growth. Their realization requires changing the styles of the first to middle levels of management. Unless managers are committed to openness and risktaking, they will subvert changes that may take place at lower levels of organizational behavior. However, Argyris points out that to focus on the expression of feelings as a way of engendering qualities of openness and trust does not mean that emotionality should be substituted for rationality. It is rather a matter of emotional qualities supplement- ing rational ones. It may be that reorienting interpersonal relations is not necessary in all cases of organizational change. Argyris identifies five characteristics or dimensions of the change process which affect the nature of interpersonal relations. They refer to whether or not the change in a property of the organization involves (1) the adoption of deviant behavior by individuals, (2) the unfreezing INDIVIDUAL CHANGE 69 of old behavior patterns by individuals, (3) a self-corrective capacity of the organization, (4) a high degree of interdependence in the behavior of individuals, and (5) individual or organizational discomfort. Thus, the introduction of an organizational change which does not require that members deviate from the previous norms of the organization, or the established norms of the larger community, is not likely to necessitate any change in the level of openness or risktaking on the part of individual members. For example, changing the procedures for processing applicants for service at a health clinic may involve the adoption of new behavior on the part of intake workers, but such behavior probably would not violate norms upheld by other members of the clinic staff. Similarly, if the adoption of an organizational change does not require an unfreezing of individual patterns of behavior, the level of interpersonal relations need not be a factor. For example, changing the hours of operation of a health clinic from daytime to evening to allow more employed persons to attend would not, in itself, require any change in the patterns of interpersonal behavior between clinic staff and patients. Similarly, organizational changes that do not require self-corrective behavior, i.e., responsibility for evaluating and correcting one’s own behavior, that do not involve highly interdependent behavior, or that do not generate significant individual or collective discomfort, will not be affected by the quality of interpersonal relations. Before leaving this discussion of collaborative models of organizational change, we will mention briefly the ideas of Sarason (1972). Although not developed fully as a model, Sarason’s work is particularly relevant for our purposes because it is based on his experience in creating new institutions for the delivery of human services. The most unique of Sarason’s insights has to do with the role of individual change in the institution building process. He believes that the growth and development of the staff members of a service agency should be as important a goal as the provision of service to clients. He argues that agencies which are task oriented, that is, in which output is considered their primary measure of success, are doomed to rigidity and eventual death. Such organiza- tions are most likely to blame failure in service outcomes on the client rather than on the provider. Service agencies which treat the provider as a co-equal object of change are more likely to respond to service failure by seeking new ways of providing that service. The reason that schools are no longer places where children learn, argues Sarason, is because they are no longer places where teachers learn (pp. 123ff). Sarason comes to this point of view not only out of a concern for organizational effectiveness, but also from a recognition of the 70 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE constraints which exist in an organization’s environment. He observes that most human service programs are planned on the assumption of unlimited resources. They are based on the belief that the way to meet human needs is through a prescribed type and level of professional service. However, at any time, public resources make it possible to provide only a fraction of the prescribed services, leaving thousands of potential clients unserved. Failure to deal with this constraint is an act of social irresponsi- bility on the part of human service planners. He blames such failure on a static conception of program. He recommends that human service agencies first commit themselves to serve a potential client population and then examine ways in which that population can be served, given the resources at its disposal. Such an approach inevitably leads one to consider both staff and program as dynamic factors which can grow and change to meet needs. Similarly, when an institution is being formed, the leader usually has an idealized vision of the types of personnel with which to staff the agency. The real manpower pool falls short of such conceptions, leaving the leader with a staff which does not measure up to his or her expectations. Leaders who adopt an output-oriented view will end up being disillusioned about the prospects for attaining their goals. Leaders who consider the growth and development of staff as an organizational goal will proceed to develop the best program possible within the resources at their disposal and thereby end up with a more satisfactory output. Ideology and Interpersonal Relations Let us conclude this discussion by noting the relationship between interpersonal relations and ideology in planned institu- tional change. We have discussed at some length how attempts to change the structure of an organization can be thwarted by patterns of interpersonal behavior that is incompatible with that structure, and similarly how attempts to change patterns of interpersonal behavior can be thwarted by structures that are not compatible with such changes. What might be said about the effect of patterns of interpersonal relations on ideological approaches to institutional change? Sara- son speaks briefly to this point. He notes that ideology is an essential but not a sufficient basis for social change. He cites the example of Fidel Castro who declared, in 1970, that Cuban leaders had failed in their efforts to lead the revolution because they had INDIVIDUAL CHANGE 71 wrongly assumed that agreeing on basic values and goals, possess- ing the strongest motivation to succeed, and acquiring power were sufficient conditions for achieving the objectives of the revolution. On the other end of the spectrum, Sarason objects to the overuse of strategies that center on the expression of feelings as the mechanism for bringing about organizational change. What is missing, according to Sarason, is knowledge about how to reach a utopia. This point is discussed more concretely in the study of ideology in industrial organizations by Tannenbaum et al. (see chapter 2). It may be recalled that Tannenbaum and his colleagues found that the official Yugoslav ideology which prescribed egalitarianism between workers and supervisory personnel was not fully realized in their plants. Workers reported relatively little informal partici- pation in on-the-job decisions, little sense that their ideas were sought or listened to by supervisory personnel, and considerable deference toward management. The authors attribute this in- equality in behavior to the authoritarian and exploitative factory system and to the peasant culture which existed in Yugoslavia prior to World War II. The resulting attitudes of fear and deference were carried over into the founding of the socialist economy (pp. 221ff.). In addition, the Yugoslav labor force shows a sharp difference in educational level between management personnel and workers, further reinforcing the traditional attitudes of distrust and deference. Consequently, the inequality in interpersonal behavior between workers and supervisors derives from patterns that are related to tradition and differences in education, rather than from formal organizational structure and ideology. In contrast, the authors found a relatively high degree of informal participation and egalitarianism between workers and supervisory personnel in American plants, in spite of the fact that such plants were hierarchically structured and had a capitalist ideology. The authors attribute this fact, in part, to the “human relations” orientation of American management, the use by managers of techniques which foster openness and participation on the part of workers and supervisory personnel in the daily operations of the plant. The authors conclude that the adoption of such techniques in Yugoslav plants might help workers and managers to overcome the informal barriers which block the realization of the intended degree of equality and participation. It appears, therefore, that, far from being antithetical to the conscious use of ideology, attention to the quality of interpersonal relations can reinforce such efforts of planned institutional change. 72 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE Conclusions In this chapter we have examined the effect which individual behavior can have on efforts to carry out institutional change. In all cases we have seen that strategies to affect interpersonal behavior supplement rather than supplant structural or ideological approaches to such change. The use of economic incentives can induce bureaucrats to forego the tendency to maximize their budgets to the detriment of the public interest. Economic incentives could also be used to induce bureaucrats to forego their tendency to convert the public’s desire for innovative programs into an increase in demand for existing services. The use of such incentives requires a competitive environment in order to force into public view a clearer picture of a bureau’s true cost and output. The attitudes and behaviors of individuals are also important to institutional change. Such change requires that individuals be open to new ways of relating to each other and willing to take risks in the face of uncertainty. Such behaviors are dependent on the development of personal competence and interpersonal trust. These attitudes can be developed by various forms of human relations training, such as those referred to as T-Groups. However, the success of such a process requires organizational structure and ideology that are consistent with the desired attitudes and behavior. References Argyris, Chris. The Applicability of Organizational Sociology. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1972a Argyris, Chris. Management and Organizational Development. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972b. Argyris,Chris. On Organizations of the Future. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Professional Papers, 1973. Bennis, Warren G. Theory and method in applying behavioral science to planned institutional change. In: The Planning of Change, 2nd ed., New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969. Bennis, Warren, G.; Benne, Kenneth D.; and Chin, Robert, eds. The Planning of Change. 2nd ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969. Buchanan, James M., and Tullock, Gordon. The Calculus of Consent. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1962. INDIVIDUAL CHANGE 73 Downs, Anthony. Inside Bureaucracy. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1967. Goldthorpe, J.S.; Lockwood, D.L.; and Platt, J. The Affluent Worker: Industrial Attitudes and Behavior. New York: Cam- bridge University Press, 1969. Kelman, Herbert D., and Warwick, Donald P. Bridging micro and macro approaches to social change: A social-psychological perspective. In: Gerald Zaltman, ed. Processes and Phenomena of Social Change, New York: John Wiley, 1973. pp. 13-60. Niskanen, William A., Jr. Bureaucracy and Representative Govern- ment. Chicago: Aldine-Atherton, 1971. Olson, Mancur, Jr. The Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965. Rogers, Everett M. Effect of incentives on the diffusion of innovations: The case of family planning in Asia. In: Processes and Phenomena of Social Change, 1973. pp. 133-152. Sarason, Seymour B. The Creation of Settings and the Future Societies. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1972. Schein, Edgar H. The mechanisms of change. In: The Planning of Change, 2nd ed., New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969. pp. 98-108. CHAPTER 5 THE UTILIZATION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE—AN OVERVIEW In this chapter our interest turns to the more general issue of the role of social science in planned institutional change. There is a small but significant literature on the utilization of social science in public policy. While the making of public policy may not appear at first glance to be precisely the same as institutional change, many cases of public policy actually involve institutional change. We shall concentrate our attention, therefore, on the literature that deals with the role of social science in the making of public policies that involve institutional change, particularly in the areas of human welfare that are of interest in this study. Three volumes were found particularly useful for their focus and comprehensiveness: Social Science and Public Policy in the United States by Horowitz and Katz (1975), An Introduction to Applied Sociology by Lazarsfeld and Reitz (1975), and The Use and Abuse of Social Science, edited by Horowitz (1971). We shall discuss this literature under four topics: (1) a brief history of attempts to institutionalize the use of social science in public policymaking, (2) a review of selected examples of utilization, (3) an analysis of factors which affect the utilization process, and (4) recommendations put forth to improve the use of social science in public policymaking. Attempts to Institutionalize the Use of Social Science Horowitz and Katz provide a useful summary view of the history of attempts to inject a social science orientation into policymaking. With respect to the executive and legislative branches of the Federal Government, such attempts, with the exception of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors (CEA), have been abortive. With respect to the judiciary, such attempts have been markedly successful. 74 SOCIAL SCIENCE 75 The most comprehensive effort to institutionalize the use of social science in the executive branch of government was the Full Opportunity and Social Accounting Act of 1967, sponsored by then Senator Walter Mondale. The purpose of this act was to provide information for policymaking in the areas of education, welfare, employment, and health. It provided for the establish- ment of a Council of Social Advisors, modeled after the CEA, attached to the White House with the purpose of providing the executive branch of government with advice regarding public policy in these areas. Although the bill passed the Senate without any substantive criticism or significant opposition, the bill never was acted on by the House of Representatives. A related effort was sponsored by Senator Harris in 1966 in a bill to establish the National Foundation for Social Sciences. This bill proposed the establishment of a research agency similar to, but independent of, the National Science Foundation (NSF), which would give the social sciences greater visibility and equality with the physical sciences in NSF. However, the community of social scientists was divided on the bill, many leading members testifying against it on the grounds that it would be divisive in its effect on Federal support for scientific research. They proposed expanding the NSF to provide more support for the social sciences and thus achieve a unified scientific voice in public policy. The latter view prevailed in the passage of legislation which expanded the social science emphasis within NSF. The attempts to establish a system of social indicators represent a more long-term, substantial effort to bring a social science perspective into the policymaking process. As early as 1929, President Hoover established a Research Committee on Social Trends. The purpose of the committee was to review trends in the nature of the population and the organization of American society with a view toward forecasting future social developments. Although the committee was formed by the President, it was funded and staffed through private foundations. President Eisen- hower, in his second term of office, established a Commission on National Goals. This commission was composed of citizens of national reputations whose job was prescriptive rather than analytical; that is, it was to assess what goals reflect the interests of the country as a whole, and therefore should be the focus of public policy. The report which it produced in 1960 consisted of goal statements rather than an analysis of social data. During the Kennedy-Johnson era more serious efforts to establish social indicators were undertaken. They began with the establishment by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) of two serial publications, Trends and Indicators. 287-264 O = 79 = 6 76 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE This effort grew out of pressure from the National Commission on Technology, Automation, and Economy to establish a system of accounts of the social costs and benefits of various public interventions. In 1966, President Johnson established within HEW a Panel on Social Indicators. The work of this panel resulted in a document, Toward a Social Report, in 1969, which recommended the establishment of an ongoing mechanism for producing an annual social report. However, such a mechanism was not established, and the Panel lacked any continuing authority. In 1969, President Nixon established the National Goals Research Staff (NGRS) within the White House. The purpose of the NGRS, in essence, was to establish a management information system to chart social trends, to forecast their future course, and to predict the consequences of alternative public interventions. It represented neither a goal-setting nor a planning activity, but rather a monitoring of data on the quality of life of the American people. The NGRS was disbanded in 1970, and its function was taken over by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in 1974. The OMB conceived of its task essentially as constructing indexes of important variables which presumably measure changes in the quality of life. While noting that the effort to construct a system of social indicators represented the introduction of social variables into public policymaking, Horowitz and Katz observed, and rightly so, that such an activity falls short of the utilization of social science. It involves no theory, no understanding of any causal relationships in social behavior. The social indicator movement is a step toward bringing social science information to bear upon public policy. But such indicators represent a higher rationalization and system- ization of quantitative data, rather than any full array of social science explanations (Horowitz and Katz, 1975, p. 32). While social science theory and research have had little utilization in the executive and legislative branches of the Federal Government, they have been increasingly used in judicial decision- making. In this way the social sciences have had an important impact on national social policy. Horowitz and Katz argue that the courts have used social science as a surrogate precedent. When the courts probe issues that arouse public concern, they have no precedents to go on because the courts have not dealt openly with such issues before. In such instances social science research and/or theory are used as a basis for approximating a precedent. The first use of social science data as a legal precedent is attributed to Justice Brandeis. In a 1908 Oregon case, Louis Brandeis argued in favor of the constitutionality of a maximum SOCIAL SCIENCE 77 10-hour work day for women on the basis of social science evidence of the consequences of a longer working day, rather than on previous judicial rulings or common law. However, the use of social science did not become an established practice until its dramatic introduction in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which will be discussed in more detail later. Since 1960, social science evidence has been used extensively in court cases linked with social advocacy by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Legal Defense Fund of the NAACP, and the legal aid services of the Office of Economic Opportunity. The 1971 Supreme Court of California decision in Serrano v. Priest, regarding equity in the financing of local public schools, was based on research on the relationship between taxation rates, per pupil expenditures, and State budgeting practices. In Richard Loving et al. v. The Commonwealth of Virginia in 1967, anthropological data were used in debating the constitutionality of antimiscegenation laws before the U.S. Supreme Court. The question of whether race was a biological or a social concept was settled on social science grounds, thus laying the groundwork for a judicial decision regarding the constitution- ality of the law. Horowitz and Katz conclude their review of the utilization of social science in governmental decisionmaking with the observa- tion that utilization has depended in large part on the degree of quantification of the social sciences. Economics with its monetary system had the easiest time of it. The behavioral social sciences commanded a hearing as they were able to convert qualitative materials into quantitative measures. This observation does not negate the reflexive role of the social sciences. It merely indicates that, as long as they are solely reflexive, the social sciences will be confined largely to an academic environment. While these efforts were going on within the Federal Govern- ment, other efforts to encourage the utilization of social science were being carried out within the community of academic social scientists. Lazarsfeld and Reitz review the work of three study committees during the late 1960s which examined the relationship between social science and policymaking. The first committee was established by the National Academy of Sciences. It produced the Lyons Report in 1969 which dealt essentially with ways in which the utilization of behavioral science could be institutionalized within governmental decisionmaking. It called for staffing govern- mental agencies at all levels with behavioral scientists, providing inservice training in the behavioral sciences to existing staff, and developing within each department a long-range research pro- gram. It also called for the creation of a national institute for 78 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE exploration into the growth and application of all sciences to the major issues of society. This last recommendation was realized with the creation of Research Applied to National Needs (R ANN) within the National Science Foundation. The second study group was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and was chaired by the President of the Russell Sage Foundation. This study group examined the use of the social sciences in all sectors of American life, both governmental and nongovernmental. It culminated in the recommendation that 20 different institutes be funded by government, but not necessarily located in government, to deal with specific social problem areas. Such a recommendation should not be surprising, given the sponsor of the committee or its leadership. It essentially reinforces the present pattern of research funding and utilization. The third study group was sponsored jointly by the National Academy of Sciences and the Social Science Research Council. It focused on the implications of the utilization process for the structure of the social sciences in universities. It asked the question, “If social science is to be utilized in governmental decisionmaking, how must it be taught?” In its report, the group recognized the advantages of professional schools as a base for applied and problem-oriented research, but concluded that these advantages are offset by the “missionary orientation’ of profes- sions. Apparently the group believed that normative or goal- oriented activity conflicts with the utilization of social science theory and research, a perspective which seems contradictory. Recognizing that existing academic departments are not in a position to provide major training in the utilization of social science in policymaking, the group recommended that universities establish a graduate school of applied behavioral science. Such schools would be multidisciplinary and would accept responsi- bility for conducting research that contributes both to basic knowledge as well as to the design of solutions to persisting social problems. In retrospect, the recommendations of the three study groups seem both self-serving and simplistic. They appear self-serving in that they propose to increase the utilization of social science in government by training and hiring more social scientists and by funding more research by existing social science agencies. In this sense the committees, composed as they were of members of particular disciplines or professions, acted as special interest groups. They conceived of solutions to public problems in terms of an expansion of the professional domains they represent. The recommendations seem simplistic in that they are based on the assumption that utilization is simply a matter of extrapolating SOCIAL SCIENCE 79 public policies from social science evidence or injecting theory and research into the decisionmaking process. There is no recognition that utilization, as we shall presently see, requires value consensus, and that the relationship between scientific evidence and public values must be hammered out as part of that process. It is further assumed that this injection can be accomplished by forming a new academic department, without any assurances that such a depart- ment would continue to give basic research priority over applied research, and without any recognition of the enormous power exercised by traditional academic disciplines to block interdis- ciplinary work. Lazarsfeld and Reitz also review a number of educational materials designed to further the application of social science to public affairs which appeared in the late 1960s. One of the earliest and best known is The Planning of Change by Bennis, Benne, and Chin, discussed in chapter 3. While there are some examples of macrolevel social change, the bulk of the book is devoted to small group processes interpreted through psychological and social psychological theories. The volume is unique in that it is based on an explicit normative framework or ideology regarding the utilization process. It specifies the kinds of goals which the change agent should seek in social relationships and marshals behavioral science principles which will lead to the attainment of those goals. A reader, Planned Social Intervention, by Zurcher and Bonjean (1970) grew out of the reaction among academic sociologists to Moynihan’s attack on the role of the social scientists in the formation of public policy. This volume contains reports on efforts of sociologists to implement the maximum, feasible participation requirement in OEO programs. In a similar vein, a reader, Sociology in Action: Case Studies in Social Problems and Directed Change, was put together by Shostak (1966) out of the conviction that the sociologist indeed has a role in social action and that many social scientists are in fact utilizing their theory and methods in a wide range of public and voluntary efforts of planned social change. The book is designed as a teaching manual and contains articles in which sociologists describe their experi- ences in specific action programs in such areas as population control, education, health, community development, race rela- tions, criminal justice, and economic welfare. Examples of Social Science Utilization In examining specific cases in which social science theory or research was utilized in the formulation of public policy, we obtain our most concrete evidence of the extent to which such utilization takes place and the factors which facilitate or impede 80 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE that process. Horowitz and Katz (1975) provide us with an examination which is most appropriate because it focuses on planned institutional change in fields with which we are con- cerned. As is true with most competent analysts, Horowitz and Katz have an explicit theory about the role of social science in institutional change. However, it is not clear whether they select observations to illustrate their theory, or whether the theory derives from and, therefore is informed by those observations. All we can do is review the cases and the theory and examine their consistency. Cases of Utilization Let us turn now to an examination of the cases which Horowitz and Katz present as the basis for their theory of social science utilization. A number of cases involve the utilization of social science by private or nonprofit organizations which are trying to influence public policy. Probably the most appropriate of these for our purposes is that of the Metropolitan Applied Research Center (MARC) founded by Kenneth Clark in 1967. MARC is a black-run social science research agency made up of social scientists, lawyers, and professionals in municipal and public affairs. It was established to influence public policy on behalf of the poor and racial minorities through the use of social science. It is structurally independent in that it does not depend on regular subsidies from a parent or sponsor organization. As an advocacy program, MARC represents a departure from the conventional model in which social science information is supplied to wealthy and powerful clientele and used to improve the management of the system. This difference is exemplified in the type of projects MARC selected to work on and the way in which it approached those projects. MARC was commissioned by the Washington, D.C. School Board to develop a plan to improve the arithmetic and reading skills of pupils. In developing its recommendations, MARC started from the assumption that the low educational achievement among ghetto children was due to factors in the school system rather than in the pupils or their families. MARC came up with a number of proposals. However, it is clear that only those recom- mendations that were not opposed by the teacher’s union were implemented by the school board. MARC also worked in New York City in helping to draw up plans in five East Harlem com- munities for parent participation in the operation of the con- troversial Intermediate School 201, and in support of the Bundy Plan for school decentralization which was eventually adopted in part by the New York State legislature. SOCIAL SCIENCE 81 However, after working for a number of years as an ardent supporter of school decentralization, Clark changed his position in 1972 and became an opponent. He argued that decentralization had worked against achieving equity in the teaching of basic skills. He found that it resulted in less funds for ghetto schools, more racial segregation, and variation in educational policies: which worked to the detriment of ghetto communities. At first glance, it would appear that Clark’s action represented an abandonment of his ideology in the face of negative evidence. On closer inspection it turns out to be a rejection of the theory of intervention embodied in his ideology. Clark believed that school decentraliza- tion would lead to greater equity in educational achievement. However, when school decentralization was adopted it did not have that effect. This failure can be attributed to the fact that the goal reflected in Clark’s ideology, that is, equity in educational attainment, ran counter to goals reflected in the ideology of the larger system. As a result, decentralization was adopted by the larger system in such a way as to protect the differential privileges enjoyed in that system. The intended change was distorted in its implementation to conform to the ideology of the larger system, thus offsetting the ideology of its advocates. Therefore, Clark’s reversal in his stand on school decentralization represents a modification rather than an abandonment of his ideology. It represents an abandonment of a program—school decentralization, which Clark assumed would lead to his policy goal—equality in the attainment of basic educational skills. A number of observations about the experiences of MARC suggest general principles that may govern the use of social science in institutional change. (1) Horowitz and Katz argue that social science is used to support positions that are already arrived at on other grounds. In this case special educational services, parent involvement, and school decentralization were interventions fa- vored by MARC, and social science evidence was used to demonstrate how they might have a beneficial effect. (2) When the ideology of the agency attempting to bring about change runs counter to the ideology of the target institution, the former can fulfill an advocacy role if it is structurally independent of the latter. (3) Only those proposals stemming from the ideology of an advocacy agent which enjoy a consensus within the target institution will be adopted by that institution. Given this fact, one may question the advantage of an advocacy agent in institutional change. The advantage lies in the fact that its divergent ideology provides a basis for generating solutions to institutional problems which, though not in conflict with the target institution’s ideology, would not have been conceptualized by the latter. (4) 82 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE When the goals of intervention proposed by an advocacy group run counter to the goals of the target institution, the intervention proposed by the former, if adopted, will be adapted to fit the ideology of the latter. Horowitz and Katz also examine cases in which Federal bureaucracies attempt to utilize social science. The President’s Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) represents probably the most successful case of institutionalizing social science in Federal policymaking. The issue, therefore, is not whether the social sciences can have an input into public policy, but whether the noneconomic social sciences can have their views and perspectives acted upon. Three characteristics of economics may account for its effective utilization. The discipline is highly normative in that it has a distinct value which it tries to maximize, namely efficiency in the use of scarce sources. This normative basis permits economics to build empirical relationships about the attainment of these objectives from which prescriptions for policymaking can be derived. The second characteristic is that economics deals with variables derived from the monetary system which are highly quantitative. This quantification facilitates the applicability of its prescriptions. And lastly, the normative structure upon which economics is based, the efficiency of the free market system, is consistent with the ideology of the larger society, making its prescriptions highly acceptable. Psychology is the second most widely used social science. The American Psychological Association is the largest single profession- al organization in the country, giving psychologists political influence in Washington second only to that of economists. The input of psychologists has had dramatic successes in military and international affairs, along with more obvious influence on domestic programs in health and education. Psychological testing has been used to discriminate in the selection and deployment of personnel by the Department of Defense as well as private industry. The use of psychometrics has had a powerful impact on designing and evaluating programs of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The field of psychology shares two characteristics with economics which, argue Horowitz and Katz, may account for the extent of its impact on policymaking. Both embrace scientism as an ideology: In the case of economics it is mathematics; in the case of psychology it is biology. Both are highly quantitative. While the dominant theoretical orientation of psychology is not normative, its focus on individual behavior lends itself to prescriptions which facilitate rather than conflict with organizational ideology. Psychological theory does not generate macrolevel prescriptions which involve institutional change. SOCIAL SCIENCE 83 Anthropology has had a major involvement in the Bureau of Indian Affairs through the efforts of John Collier who was Commissioner in 1933. However, the lack of a normative basis left anthropologists in a difficult position with respect to providing policy guidance. In 1936, Collier elaborated this criticism in evaluating a report done by staff anthropologists: As a recorder of atomized facts, one may put in years of time among a population and his atomized recording, or photog- raphy may be accurate and even useful. But in determining Indian Service policies and in attempting to evaluate human beings and to chart the future of human spirits, there are needed some endowments of enthusiasm, confidence in the human nature one is dealing with, and social philosophy... . This is another case showing that achievement in a special science, anthropology or any other, provides no assurance to deal with social problems (Horowitz and Katz, 1975, p. 83). One might conclude from this brief review that a social science must build hard, quantitative data to be listened to in Federal policymaking, but it must have an ideology or value system in order to prescribe. Horowitz and Katz treat the Russell Sage Foundation as the primary vehicle for input into national policy for sociologists. The fact that a private foundation rather than a Federal bureau has been the principal consumer of their work is explained by the fact that private foundations support the work of a social science when its policy relevance is not apparent to policymakers. Such might appear to be the case since sociology is less quantitative than either economics or psychology. But Horowitz and Katz also attribute this relative impotence to the fact that sociologists have tended to focus on the least advantaged sectors of society, and that their macro level prescriptions are more likely to challenge the ideologies of target institutions or the larger society (p. 89). However, this view seems to be an overstatement. Sociology has had a long-standing influence in the field of corrections, particular- ly in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and industrial sociology has been a successful area of application in private industry. The Russell Sage Foundation was established in 1907, dedicated to the improvement of social conditions in the United States through providing financial support for sociologists to work on broad-based social problems. The program of the foundation was based on the belief that social science could be used in planned social change. Thus the foundation, like the CEA, was established within a normative framework, however, one which had far less precise objectives and which lacked public legitimation. 84 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE However, in operation the program seemed to depart signifi- cantly from the foundation’s general goals. Horowitz and Katz attribute this outcome to the weakness of the foundation’s ideology, which, unlike that of MARC, was relatively vague and justified an elitist rather than advocacy position. The foundation’s mandate was to conduct research which would have a high payoff in policy acceptance without involving the foundation in partisan politics. It led the foundation to emphasize projects which have wide public appeal and which increase public awareness of the benefits to be derived from social science. This mandate placed the foundation in the position of helping to make the management of society more informed, rather than to meet the needs of disadvantaged groups. The foundation’s major contribution to national policy during the 1960s and early 1970s was in the development of social indicators—techniques for measuring social change—rather than in the development of techniques for effecting such change. It also lobbied for basic research in areas of widespread ignorance where there is little public controversy, such as the processes of aging and dying. The foundation increasingly had difficulty in bridging the gap between its role in providing information and its potential role in social action. Its ‘“‘harder” wing, composed of sociologists who favor the former role, carried the day, and they, rather than social workers, gained an upper hand in running the foundation. In its forthright support of social indicators it has further served to tighten the relationship between social science and public policy in domestic areas—those areas in which a greatest degree of consensus among selective elites presently obtains (Horowitz and Katz p. 85). However, in 1977, a change in leadership of the foundation occurred. It is too early to tell whether this change will result in a reorientation of the foundation’s program. In addition to these cases of institutionalized involvement in Federal decisionmaking, Horowitz and Katz examine some cases in which social science was involved in specific institutional changes at the national level. In 1948, President Truman by executive order required equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin. Military leaders were at a loss as to how to implement this order. A team of social scientists was hired by the Operations Research Office of the U.S. Army to determine how best to deploy black manpower within the army, an effort called Project Clear. Social scientists provided operational data on the use of manpower resources and recommendations for their SOCIAL SCIENCE 85 redeployment. But as Bogart points out, social scientists were used to legitimize and operationalize a decision already made elsewhere. The Army’s desegregation was willed by historical necessity, not by research. It would have come about without Project Clear and perhaps not very differently or very much later. Social research was conducted on a large scale and at a substantial expense in the process of arriving at the decision and in working out the procedure for implementing and enforcing it (Bogart 1969, p. 41). The Brown v. Board of Education decision by the U.S. Supreme Court is a more dramatic case. Horowitz and Katz conclude that it represents the “most significant utilization of social science input into the direct transformation of domestic policy” (p. 218). The Court’s finding that a constitutionally guaranteed right had been violated was based on behavioral science data and reasoning. In the opinion of the Court, legally sanctioned segregation leads to feelings of inferiority. A sense of inferiority lowers a person’s motivation to learn. Therefore, publicly sanctioned segregation of children based on race in the public schools leads to an unequal educational experience. The decision ushered in a period of controversy over the role of social science in judicial decisionmaking. One line of criticism charged that in using nonlegal evidence as a basis for reaching its decision the Court was acting as a policymaking rather than a judicial body. Furthermore, social science was an improper form of evidence, and decisions based on invalid evidence are invalid. Some blacks argued against the ruling on the grounds that they would rather have segregation struck down on moral and legal grounds than on the basis of social science evidence. What if research findings should change and show no deleterious effect of segregation? Some social scientists agreed: What if, some social scientists wondered aloud, this became a legal precedent, and one had to prove damage to insure equality under the law? Right to equality should be protected, it was argued, even if it were not harmful to another party (Horowitz and Katz 1975, p. 130). This latter criticism represents a misunderstanding of the relationship between means and ends in the policymaking process. The criticism assumes that integration and equality of opportunity were both goals of public policy. In reality, the former was treated as a means to the attainment of the latter. Equality was never at issue in this case; that is guaranteed by the Constitution. What was at issue was segregation as a public action, against which there is 86 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE no explicit constitutional prohibition. Therefore, until integration is declared national policy, the courts had to find some way of linking segregation instrumentally with the attainment of equal rights in order to declare such actions illegal. Social science was used to establish that link. Other criticisms of the validity or the quality of the social science findings shed further light on the role of social science in policymaking. While Kenneth Clark’s data showed a higher incidence of negative self-image among southern blacks than among southern whites, they also showed a higher incidence among northern blacks than northern whites. This latter finding was never dealt with by the Court in reaching its decision. The works cited by the Court were highly selective rather than comprehensive. Furthermore, the little research that existed at the time was largely unpublished, and the Court had to base its deliberations on the opinions of social scientists rather than objective facts. Ironically, most of the research on the effect of segregation on educational opportunity has been conducted since the Court’s ruling, a fact which suggests that the involvement of social science is more likely to follow than to precede institutional change. And finally, the research used did not prove that segregation caused educational retardation, merely that a correla- tion between the two existed, raising many of the same questions regarding causal attribution that were engendered by research on the association between smoking and lung cancer. Thus, argue Horowitz and Katz, the Court made its decision on its sense of the effect of segregation and on the requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court was swayed by the testimony of social scientists, but it used that testimony to rationalize the prior decision: ...social science was not the foundation of the decision; it was used to lend weight to what the justices clearly were persuaded was true: that segregated education is unequal education. The problem that the proponents of segregation faced was not that social science led the court down an erroneous path; rather it was that the time had come in the judgement of the court—and judging from the initial media response, in the opinion of many opinion makers—for blacks to take their place as full-fledged U.S. citizens (Horowitz and Katz 1975, p. 132). Social science played a more substantial role in what have come to be known as the negative income tax experiments. Social scientists not only formulated the need for them but designed them as well. However, Horowitz and Katz are of the opinion that SOCIAL SCIENCE 87 the impact of those experiments on national policy will be marginal. He notes that the concept of a negative income tax must face the traditional public hostility to welfare as well as the insistence on work as a way out of poverty. American ideology focuses governmental attention on solutions involving employ- ment rather than income maintenance or redistribution. However, we feel that this criticism is overdrawn. It does not take into consideration the distinction between inherent values and instrumental values (Kaplan 1964, pp. 393ff.). Inherent values are espoused because of the value they represent to the holder in and of themselves. Instrumental values are espoused because they are believed to be a necessary means to the attainment of values that are inherent in nature. American ideology prescribes work as a solution to poverty because work is an inherent value. It opposes various forms of income supplementation because of an assump- tion that such supplementation will take away the recipient’s incentive to work. In this sense, opposition to income supplement- ation operates as an instrumental value. The negative income tax experiments are testing an instrumental, not an inherent, value. They are testing the effect of income supplementation on motivation to work; they are not testing the value of work per se. If the research can destroy the presumed negative correlation between income supplementation and work incentive, it may change the attitude of policymakers toward such programs. However, if opposition to income supplementation is considered to be an inherent value (“people should not get something for nothing”), the experiments are irrelevant to policymaking; there is no way they will have any impact on policy if they produce evidence contrary to that value. Toward a Theory of Utilization From a review of these cases, Horowitz and Katz draw a number of conclusions which form the basis of a rudimentary theory of the utilization of social science in institutional change. They are based on two conditions under which government agencies will utilize social science: (1) when social science organizations have provided services in the past which legitimize the decisions of policymakers; and (2) when knowledge regarding the specific issue at hand is not sufficient to justify reliance on conventional, intuitive, or commonsense approaches to decision- making—when, in essence, managerial techniques break down. The Federal Government, they argue, has been unwilling to establish and support a policy voice for social scientists, with the exception of economists, because such scientists have demonstrated little usefulness in either legitimating existing decisions or providing 88 - SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE knowledge where such is lacking. Given this lack of confidence, private foundations provide an important bridge between social science and public policymaking. They support such activity when the risk of its payoff is high and thereby foster developments which ultimately may be perceived as useful in the public sector. Horowitz and Katz explain the functions which social science performs when it is utilized. Social science is almost invariably employed to rationalize decisions that are controversial and in broad public view and that are made on the basis of criteria other than scientific evidence. Social science recommendations are accepted or rejected on the basis of their conformity with political preferences rather than the inherent quality of the research. On the other hand, social science is used to provide “quick sociotech- nical fixes” to assist the decisionmaker in overcoming problems that arise as a result of past decisions and policies. This conception of the functions of social science can be clarified by thinking of policymaking in a means-ends relationship. Decisions regarding the ends to be served by policy are made on the basis of the decisionmaker’s values or political preferences. Social science will be used in making those decisions to the extent that it supports those values or preferences. Decisionmaking regarding the means for achieving those ends, when they pose alternatives that are equally acceptable to the decisionmaker, are made on the basis of evidence or judgment about their relative effects on the ends to be achieved. Social science may influence the outcome of those decisions to the extent that the decision- maker perceives a lack of sufficient knowledge to make such decisions. Thus social science theory and research are given a freer hand in the design of implementation strategies or the evaluation of public programs, than in the selection of public goals and objectives. Schorr (1971), a seasoned observer of national welfare policy, comes to similar conclusions. By temperament and training he is disposed to believe that scientific knowledge can provide direction to social reforms: Still, IT have spent ten years observing the development of national welfare policy at close hand and must acknowledge that social science had rather little to do with it (Schorr 1971, p. 155). Schorr explains his view of the utilization process with what he calls the “theory of randomness.” Policy does not move, in his view, from trial and error to new trials. Although the solutions proposed in a given policy do relate to publicly recognized needs, there does not seem to be any connection from one solution to SOCIAL SCIENCE 89 another. Each solution is designed without any consideration of prior efforts. However, Schorr is quick to point out that social policy does not develop randomly when viewed from a political perspective. It responds predictably and consistently to the desires of the electorate as expressed through the political process. As an example of his theory of randomness, Schorr cites the fact that economic dependency has been assumed to be a curable handicap in the welfare proposals of the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations. In fact, he argues, the proposals of all three administrations look alike. There was no attempt in any of them to incorporate the effects of prior efforts to cure dependency. In the urban development field he notes that urban renewal gave way to comprehensive redevelopment, which in turn gave way to the Workable Program, to Community Renewal, and finally to Model Cities. Yet, he argues there is very little to distinguish the underlying assumptions in any of these programs. The develop- ment of truly new programs such as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, and Community Action Program and the Family Assistance Plan, have little to do with social science. They were dictated, he argues, by powerful events going on in society at large, by a reaction of guilt on the part of the affluent public to the persistence of poverty, to the death of President Kennedy, to the civil rights movement, and to the urban riots of the late 1960s. The point being illustrated may be clear; we get forward movement in social policy out of the resonance of develop- ments that are quite unrelated to social science and maybe unrelated to reason. Because such forward movement must satisfy its sources before anything else, the actual design of programs shows little fundamental influence of social science. Along with that, as has been already said, on some matters we get no movement at all (Schorr 1971, p. 158). Schorr argues that public values determine the direction of social policy, and to this extent the development of policy is rational. He cites two dominant values: greed and pragmatism. Greed is reflected in the fact that Americans seem motivated to maximize their individual possessions of material goods, and to make sure their acquisitions exceed those of someone else. As evidence, Schorr cites the fact that increases in the amount of education in the United States do not greatly affect poverty. The average level of education has risen dramatically during recent years, but this rise has had very little apparent effect on the ability of people to increase their income or job status. Schorr forsees the time when a college education will be a requirement for entrance 90 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE into the job market. In contrast, the average duration of education in Great Britain is no more than the educational level achieved by poor people in the United States. Yet the structure of Britain’s labor market is not markedly different from ours. Therefore, concludes Schorr, one’s ability to compete for a job depends more on the amount of education one has relative to others, rather than the absolute level of one’s education. The values being asserted are greed for money and status and the right of the powerful to the spoils. Most people in the country appear to be unwilling to give up having more than someone else or feeling better than someone else whatever peace or sense of community might be produced (Schorr 1971, p. 159). Pragmatism as a public value also dominates social policy. Schorr acknowledges that a few programs may seem to have rested on social science theory: President Kennedy’s program on delin- quency prevention, the war on poverty, and Model Cities. However, on closer examination, the persons actually involved in the programs often had competing theories or interpretations of theories. In addition, the administrators of the programs selected those theories or aspects of theories which were consistent with feasibility. The result was that, in operation, the programs often did not reflect the theories from which they were designed and often reflected no consistent theory at all. Schorr argues that theories are resisted by politicians and bureaucrats for four reasons: (1) They are a threat to those whose skills are based on intuition and personal experience. (2) They are a threat to representative government in which decisions are based on an amalgamation of the various interests in society, rather than on some rational calculation. (3) They cannot be tested within the 3-year time perspective of each national administration. When administrations change, the new one is not particularly interested in concluding the experiment begun by the former administration; instead it will reshape an inherited experimental program to serve its own purposes. (4) There is a tendency in government to prefer incremental developments over experimentation. Incrementalism accommodates old interests while attempting to develop new patterns. Some theories cannot be tested by increments of this nature; they require a fresh start or a pure contrast from established practice. To sum up so far: social science has rather little relation to policy development because policies are determined by values that are often unrecognized. These values, in turn, determine SOCIAL SCIENCE 91 the very definition of the issues, and so we get fed back to us the solution to the issues that our values demand. Then our resolutely pragmatic approach to government makes it harder from one decade to the next to know what theories and therefore what programs are serving us well or poorly (Schorr 1971, p. 163). Although Schorr’s assessment of the role of social science in public policy appears resolutely negative, we believe it is actually consistent with that of Horowitz; and Katz. Schorr’s assessment seems focused almost exclusively on the role of social science in selecting the ends or goals of public policy. In this respect, he comes away “empty handed,” as do Horowitz and Katz. He does not address the role of social science in legitimizing those decisions or in implementing them. On these matters the evidence presented by Horowitz and Katz is more convincing. Factors Which Affect the Utilization Process The literature discusses a number of factors which facilitate or impede the utilization of social science in policymaking. Some are constraints about which little can be done, except to minimize their effects on institutional change. Others represent elements in the practice of social science or the process of policymaking which could be altered. In a 1948 conference sponsored by the Social Science Research Council, Merton identified two basic classes of factors involved in the utilization process (Lazarsfeld and Reitz 1975): (1) interpersonal or organizational problems which stem from the relationship between the social scientist and the policymaker, and (2) substantive limitations of scientific research to meeting the practical demands of policymaking. We will deal first of all with problems in the relationship between social scientists and policymakers. One factor which seems rather obvious is the frequent lack of any plan of implementation to bridge the research findings and the policy decisions to be made. Often social scientists feel it is enough to report their findings. However, unless those findings are translated into a set of concrete actions by which they can be implemented, they are likely to have little effect. Lazarsfeld and Reitz cite the work of the President’s Crime Commission as noteworthy in this respect (p. 61). Another factor reported by many authors is the reluctance of politicians and bureaucrats to use expert advice for fear it will undermine their own managerial skills. Thus, social science evidence may not be rejected on the basis of ideology, validity, or 287-264 O - 79 = 17 92 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE relevance, but rather because many experienced and sophisticated decisionmakers feel that an excessive reliance on scientific inquiry can weaken overall managerial performance. Administration leaders owe their success partly to their ability to make quick decisions involving great risk or uncertainty. Such decisions are typically based on the intuitive assessments of somewhat opaque situations. It might well be that executives do not necessarily distrust or misunderstand the social scientist; rather, they fear that an important property of theirs, a natural gift for decision- making, might be impaired by too much concern with its rational aspect (Lazarsfeld, Sewell, and Wilensky 1967, p. 22). There is no ready-made solution to this problem. However, awareness by the social scientist of this motivation of the decisionmaker should make the scientist less defensive in the utilization process and more sensitive to the needs of the decisionmaker. A third relationship factor is an inherent conflict in norms for decisionmaking between those held by the social scientist and those held by the politician. The social scientist believes in decisions arrived at through free and open inquiry and is likely to demand publicity for his findings. On the other hand, the politician uses negotiation in an effort to gain commitment for a course of action, a process that often requires secrecy in dealings between interested parties. A related factor is the charge levied by politicians that the procedures used by social scientists often lead to elitism. Social scientists demand free access to top decisionmakers in government which is not available to line persons in a bureaucracy. They are not sensitive to the need to integrate findings of research with the preferences of a politician’s constituency. In essence, they circumvent the avenues of participation available to others and take stands in opposition to the civic will as expressed through the political process. And finally, as noted by the Social Science Research Council, social scientists have structural blinders which inhibit their free participation in policymaking. They often are more oriented toward gaining the favor of their peer group than serving the public will. Many academic scientists value the prestige that their contributions to basic research and theory give them in the eyes of their peers more than whatever rewards might be obtained from clients who would find their work useful (National Academy of Sciences 1969, p. 193). SOCIAL SCIENCE 93 This leaves Schorr to conclude that the Nation is structured around a set of professions and occupations which act like medieval guilds. Each pursues its self-interest, and each believes in the validity of its own prescriptions for public policy, which just happen to coincide with perpetuating its own self-interest. Assuming that a viable relationship between the social scientist and the policymaker can be achieved, there remain a number of problems which arise from the nature of social science that inhibit its utilization. Much more attention has been given to these types of factors in the literature (Dror 1971; Etizioni 1971; Gans 1971; Gouldner 1965; Lazarsfeld and Reitz 1975). Four problems are identified: (1) The policy problem to be researched can be overspecified by the social scientist’s adherence to theoretical perspectives and research techniques of the discipline in which he or she was trained. The social psychologist tends to define a problem in terms of attitudes which can be measured with attitude scales; the survey researcher defines problems in terms of target population characteristics which can be measured through survey research; and the anthropologist tends to define problems in terms of cultural world views which require participant observation. (2) The leap from research findings to practical recommendations often involves assumptions which are not obviously true or acceptable to the policymaker. This is more likely to occur when the scientist uses variables derived from his or her theory rather than variables that are manipulable and derived from the action system of the policymaker. (3) The recommendations which the decisionmaker must accept involve a certain amount of risk due either to error in the research procedures or to uncertainty regarding the total range of forces acting on the policymaker. Social scientists are frequently unwilling or ill-equipped to venture into areas of uncertainty. (4) Policymaking involves decisions governing events which extend into future time frames. Research, on the other hand, is based on known events of the past and present. Such research is often a poor basis on which to make policy decisions because it does not account for new or unforeseen events, nor does it take into consideration the purposeful nature of human behavior which can act on present events to create a different future. These last two factors are referred to by the National Academy of Education as the difference between decision-oriented and conclusion-oriented research findings (Cronbach and Suppes 1969). The conclusions of scientists are always tentative, couched in relative terms with limited generalizability. Practical decisions take conclusions and hazard judgment that, at the present moment, a certain action is worth taking. 94 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE All authors are agreed that the tendency of each social science to view the world in terms of the traditions of its discipline is a barrier to their producing policy-relevant results. This does not mean that a given discipline may not make a contribution to policy; it is simply to say that the best solution to the policy problem may not be confined to the perspective of a given discipline. Horowitz (1971) defines this dilemma as the choice between “disciplinary excellence and disciplinary pluralism” (p.5). Truman (1968) develops this point even further. He notes that policy research requires the researcher to orient his inquiry toward a publicly defined agenda. For this reason the policy concern of a social science declines as the discipline matures and sets its own agenda as a free and independent enterprise. Given the inclination in all of the social sciences to grant the highest prestige to theoreticians—those members whose work is most completely oriented to the discipline—a turning away from policy concern as a field matures is scarcely remarkable (Truman 1968, p. 509). In addition, the more sophisticated a discipline becomes, the more inapplicable is its work to public policymaking. Science has developed in two ways: (1) through abstract segmentation and (2) through specialization. Science develops by successively abstract- ing segments of reality for intensive examination, a practice which Schorr refers to as the error of elaborationism. A value is placed on greater and greater precision rather than greater and greater utility. Students are taught to abandon unlearned common sense and with it, simplicity... . This is not to plead for reductionism but only to name the parallel error of elaborationism (Schorr 1971, p. 164). These segments, by themselves, no longer correspond to reality and therefore have to be put back together before policy prescriptions are possible. Through specialization each science tends to develop a cognitive structure from which it defines the world. Each therefore defines the problem at hand differently, resulting in a competition among paradigms rather than a confrontation of facts. Truman refers to this state of affairs, in the words of Margaret Mead, as a rebellion of the educated man against a new kind of ignorance. . . not the stimulating ignorance of the unknowm, but the ignorance of what is already known (Truman 1968, p. 150). SOCIAL SCIENCE 95 Toward a Resolution of the Utilization Problem A number of proposals have been put forth to bridge this hiatus between the social sciences and public policymaking. These proposals can be summarized in terms of models of how the relationship between social science and policymaking should be structured. On one extreme is the model of the social engineer as proposed by Janowitz and Lazarsfeld (Lazarsfeld and Reitz 1975). This model involves the social scientist working with the decision- maker in the direct application of existing theoretical knowledge to produce answers to policy problems. The engineer works on whatever problems are assigned or defined by the policymaker, leaving the selection of goals and objectives outside the utilization process. While such a model seems democratic in that it does not pit the social scientist against the public will as expressed through the political process, it side steps the problem of ideology, the relationship between values and facts. It assumes that value debate lies outside the formal or rational parts of decisionmaking and that social science has no role in that debate. The model also ignores or at least has not provided solutions to the practical problems of translating social science theory into policy prescriptions as discussed in the previous section. In its most extreme form the social engineer becomes a ‘hand maiden” or mandarin of the decisionmaker, a position advocated by Moynihan. What institutional role may the social scientists expect to play in public affairs? The answer seems clear enough. The role of social science lies not in the formulation of social policy, but in the measurement of its results (Moynihan 1969, p. 193). A somewhat more ambitious role is embodied in the clinical model as advocated by Gouldner (1965) and Rossi (1969). In this model the social scientist interacts with the decisionmaker in all phases of the decisionmaking process. He assists in the clarification of goals and objectives as well as in proposing appropriate programs and in evaluating them. While this model allows for a more influential role for the social scientist, it is not clear on what basis social scientists enter into decisionmaking that deals with the goals or purposes of social policy. Do they have an ideology or value system from which to debate with the decisionmaker, or do they simply offer their services as a logical thinker to spin out the potential consequences of alternative actions? Most social scientists who operate in this manner either implicitly or explicitly bring some ideology to bear. The question is, from whence does 96 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE the ideology derive: from social science, from personal philos- ophy, or from some public process? The model does not answer this question. A third model takes a more detached view. It does not pretend to close the hiatus, but rather incorporates it into the policy- making process. The enlightenment model as proposed by Jano- witz, is one in which the social scientist develops a series of broad scale studies of complex social systems (Lazarsfeld and Reitz 1975). These studies result in bodies of data and new modes by which society can evaluate its present goals and objectives and develop new ones. The impact of the social sciences is indirect rather than direct. While working on the same issues being dealt with by the policymaker, but independently of the latter, social scientists have a good deal of freedom to define problems and pursue inquiries on their own initiative. This model is probably preferred by most social scientists. However, in what way does the model avoid the danger of existing practice whereby disciplines define their agenda in terms of self-interest rather than the public interest? As a partial answer, Truman proposes a process of reciprocity between decisionmakers and social scientists. This can take the form of an exchange of employment on a temporary basis, or the organization of periodic seminars and conferences in which social scientists and decisionmakers come together as equals and exchange viewpoints. Although the model avoids the role of ideology in the utilization process, it does provide the social scientist freedom to pursue lines of inquiry that may be based on alternative ideologies. A fourth model represents the extreme of detachment. In the nonparticipation model it is argued that social scientists should not attempt to influence policymaking through participation in any government sponsored activities (Horowitz and Katz 1975, p. 158). Social scientists should continue to write and do research as independent academicians. To the extent that their results are useful, they will be picked up in the policymaking process. This position is advocated not only by conservatives who wish to preserve the freedom and independence of the academic com- munity, but also by radicals who have an ideology antithetical to that of the established government and see any form of collabora- tion as a threat to that ideology. And finally there is a movement toward the creation of a new discipline, policy science, which would deal with the hiatus by integrating a social science perspective with the process of public decisionmaking. The policy science approach has had many supporters; principal among them is Dror. However, the notion of a policy science has not yet been worked out in operational detail, SOCIAL SCIENCE 97 which may be one reason why it has not taken hold. It also has not resolved the problem of how to integrate scientific processes and public values. It appears that the key to bridging the gap between the practice” of social science and the process of policymaking lies in the integration of a scientific perspective with the articulation of public values. Toward this end, it is essential for the social sciences to develop normative systems as the basis for their empirical work. An important beginning on this task has been provided by MacRae (1976). After analyzing the devaluation of ethics in the social sciences, MacRae proposes that a formal process called ethical discourse be undertaken so that each of the social sciences as a discipline can construct ethical or normative theories of human behavior. He provides some rules for the conduct of this discourse and discusses how it might proceed. Such systems of ethical thought already exist in economics around the efficient use of scarce resources, as we have already noted. A long tradition of political philosophy concerned with the proper role of the State in human affairs exists in political science. Normative theories abide on the fringes of psychology in the work of Maslow, Rogers, Freud, and Piaget. The field of sociology has an implicit normative basis in its quest for social order, as reflected in the work of Parsons. Normative systems need not impinge upon the practice of science; they simply make more explicit the values upon which particular scientists practice. They would serve to increase public debate over goals and objectives, because alternative normative frameworks would be articulated along with the evidence of their practical consequences. Conclusions Let us summarize what can be said about the utilization of social science in policymaking and, more particularly, in institu- tional change. In the first place, the utilization process rests on a presumed unity between fact and value, between theory and practice. The utility of scientific theory or evidence for public policy rests on its compatibility with the value system of the persons who must act in that policy context. Social science cannot be treated as an entity separate from the political process, the former to be appended onto the latter. Social scientists cannot seek both freedom from commitments to particular interests or values and receptivity to their work by persons involved in public decisionmaking. Policymaking is viewed as a moral process; and if social science is to be utilized in that process, it must come to grips in its very analysis with the public values being expressed. 98 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE The distinction between pure and applied research similarly is found to be erroneous. Lazarsfeld and Reitz cite evidence that contributions to basic theory are just as likely to come from applied research as from pure research. So what is required for the utilization of social science in public policymaking is a fusion of theory and research with public values. Secondly, the extent to which a particular social science gets utilized in public decisionmaking rests on three factors: (1) the presence of a normative basis to the discipline’s theory, (2) the quantifiability of its propositions, and (3) the compatibility of its normative base with the dominant ideology of the decisionmaking system in which it is to be applied. Thirdly, the ability of social science to foster or bring about institutional change depends on a prior value consensus in the decisionmaking system, or the breakup of a prior concensus which blocks such a change. Those social science propositions that are compatible with the value consensus or ideology of the decision- making system will be adopted. Those propositions which are not compatible will be adapted, if adopted, to serve the needs reflected by that ideology. “The point is that social science has little discernable influence unless it is taken up and exploited for political reasons” (Horowitz and Katz 1975, p. 132). Proof of this axiom lies in the fate of publicly commissioned social science research that results in findings which are undesired or unexpected by political leaders. Such a fate befell the work of the presidential commissions on drugs, obscenity, and population control. A fourth and related observation is that a consensus over values is not created by rational, scientific evidence; it is shaped by forces that are political or economic in nature. When dissension exists, the infusion of social science evidence can influence the tide of battle between competing interests or value systems, but can never determine its course. Presumably, that scientific perspective will prevail which is associated with the political interests that win the contest. Fifthly, the implicit ideology or value system of a social science is related to its structural location with respect to the target institution. For example, the work of political scientists is concentrated in the Department of Defense and the State Department. It tends to emphasize the tasks of the dominant sectors of society and the management needs of government. Psychologists also are heavily involved in the Department of Defense as well as private industry, and their efforts also tend to focus on improving management effectiveness. Often sociologists are concerned in domestic affairs where they are associated with the interests of the least advantaged in society. Sociologists have SOCIAL SCIENCE 99 weak public sector support and are more heavily dependent on private foundations. When the explicit ideology of social scientists is contrary to the ideology of the target institution, as was the case with MARC, the former should be structurally independent of the latter, i.e., not dependent on it for financial support or political legitimacy. In this manner, social science can be used in advocacy. And finally, when social science is used in planned institutional change, its role can be twofold: (1) to rationalize or justify the goals or objectives of change that are selected on ideological or political grounds, and (2) to determine the best means for attaining those objectives when other bases of decisionmaking are deemed inadequate. Thus the role of social science cannot be characterized inherently as either that of a ‘“‘change agent” or that of an “establishment tool.” Social science can be used either to encourage change where a prior concensus for such change exists, or to protect order where such order is consistent with prevailing values. It is clear from this analysis that a reawakening to the importance of ideology in public decisionmaking is essential if there is to be a more effective utilization of social science. There must be a re-establishment of some kind of organic relationship between the practice of science and public ideology. The two can no longer be seen as discrete activities bordering on the anti- thetical. To become involved is to become committed. For social scientists consciously to align their research and theorizing with explicit ideological positions does not mean that science neces- sarily becomes a ward of the State. Social science can be carried out in an advocacy framework at the service of a variety of ideologies, as has been demonstrated in the cases discussed in this chapter. Such an approach would provide a clearer basis for judging the relevance of social science evidence and should increase its utilization in the decisionmaking process. References Bogart, Leo, ed. Social Research and the Desegregation of the U.S. Army. Chicago: Markham, 1969. Coleman, James. Policy Research in the Social Sciences. Morris- town, N.J.: General Learning Press, 1972. Cronbach, Lee J., and Suppes, Patrick. Research for Tomorrow’s Schools. New York, Macmillan, 1969. Dror, Yehezkel. Applied social science and systems analysis. In: Irving Louis Horowitz, ed. The Use and Abuse of Social Science, 1971. 100 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE Etzioni, Amitai. Policy research. The American Sociologist, 6:8-12, June 1971. : Gans, Herbert J. Social science for social policy. In: Horowitz, Irving Louis, ed. The Use and Abuse of Social Science, New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1971. Gouldner, Alvin W. Explorations in applied social science. In: Gouldner, Alvin W., and Miller, S.M., eds. Applied Sociology. New York: The Free Press, 1965. Horowitz, Irving Louis, ed. The Use and Abuse of Social Science. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1971. Horowitz, Irving Louis, and Katz, James Everett. Social Science and Public Policy in the United States. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1975. Kaplan, Abraham. The Conduct of Inquiry. San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Co., 1964. Lazarsfeld, Paul F., and Reitz, Jeffery G. An Introduction to Applied Sociology. New York: Elsevier Scientific Publishing Co., 1975. Lazarsfeld, Paul F.; Sewell, W.; and Wilensky, Harold, eds. The Uses of Sociology. New York: Basic Books. 1967. MacRae, Duncan, Jr. The Social Function of Social Science. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1976. Moynihan, Daniel P. Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding. New York: Macmillan, 1969. National Academy of Sciences and Social Science Research Council. The Behavioral and Social Sciences, Outlook and Needs. Washington, D.C., 1969. Rossi, Peter H. No good idea goes unpunished: Moynihan’s misunderstandings and the proper role of social science in policy making. Social Science Quarterly, 50(3):469-479, 1969. Schorr, Alvin L. Public policy and private interest. In: Horowitz, Irving Louis, ed. The Use and Abuse of Social Science. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1971. Shostak, Arthur B., ed. Sociology in Action: Case Studies in Social Problems and Directed Change. Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey, 1966. The Use of Social Research in Federal Domestic Programs. Washington, D.C.: Committee on Government Operations, 1967. SOCIAL SCIENCE 101 Truman, David B. The social sciences and public policy. Science, 160(3827):508-512, 1968. Zurcher, Louis A., and Bonjean, Charles M., eds. Planned Social Intervention. New York: Chandler Publishing Co., 1970. CHAPTER 6 CASE STUDIES OF CORRECTIONAL REFORM A deep gap divides social science knowledge and correctional practices. Conditions and programs in the criminal justice system continue much as they have for decades, despite mounting criticism and proposals for change. Social scientists have developed models of ideal prisons, redefining their goals and programs. However, these models largely remain theoretical constructs, as information on how to implement them is lacking. The literature on corrections fails to use appropriate concepts to explain the gap between public policies and actual achievement. Models involving the functions and processes of organizations need to be used in correctional reform (Killinger 1976). In this chapter we will examine examples of correctional reform in an effort to understand this problem of implementation. We shall use the generalized model of institutional change developed by Blase and Bumgardner described in chapter 1 as the basis of our analysis. A general overview of the current state of theory and practice in corrections will be presented, followed by two examples of attempts to implement institutional change. One case involves experimentation within the prison system: the use of the Morris model for imprisonment at the Federal Correctional Institution at Butner, North Carolina. The other case involves alternatives to incarceration: the deinstitutionalization of the Massachusetts juvenile corrections system. An Overview of the Corrections System The institutional variables and linkages in the Blase model of institution building are useful in analyzing the opportunities and potential for change in the corrections system. As that system is examined, one notes the fact that change rarely is a consequence of planned social policy. More often, it is a response to crisis situations or external pressures from the judicial system. In this 102 CORRECTIONAL REFORM 103 section, the nature of leadership, doctrine, programs, public attitudes, and resources of the prison system as a whole will be considered. Leadership in the correctional system is diffuse. The Federal Government, under the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), operates the Federal penal system which had 43 institutions as of 1977. Each State maintains its own prison system. County and city govern- ments operate their own jails. Not only does leadership cut vertically through the levels of government, but horizontally across the three branches as well. Executive and legislative initiatives can provide leadership, guidance, and resources to prison systems. Recently the judiciary also has taken an active role in their guidance. The BOP, under the Department of Justice, is funded through Congressional appropriations. Although responsible for providing facilities for the incarceration of individuals who have violated Federal laws, the BOP can provide leadership for other prison systems through experimenting with different models for im- prisonment. Also within the Department of Justice is the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA), established under the “Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968.” It provides leadership and assistance to State and local prisons as well as assists in law enforcement and other activities. Since 1968, the LEAA has spent over $1.5 billion aiding various correctional systems in the United States. The LEAA has been criticized, however, for not providing sufficient leadership to States. Serrill (1976b) notes two condi- tions exacerbating this situation. The first involves the rapid administrative turnover within the LEAA. In the 9 years since its birth, the Nation has had seven attorneys general and five LEAA directors. The LEAA is strongly influenced by the political climate; priorities shift as administrators change. At the State level, directors responsible for administering the categorical grants are influenced by State politics and also have served for short time periods. This lack of continuity limits the possibilities for long-range planning, which is important for investment decisions. The second condition involves the nature of most LEAA grants. As part of the “New Federalism,” the LEAA initially gave block grants to designated State planning agencies. This form of Federal spending has engendered much criticism, as little innovation characterizes State spending. Governor Brown of California has called State expenditures of LEAA funds a waste and said that such spending should end unless the Federal Government can prove that it contributes to a reduction of crime. 104 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE The LEAA has begun moving away from the block grant approach and increasingly has awarded grants for more specified activities. The percentage of LEAA funds given in block grants to States dropped from 70 percent in 1970 to 54 percent in 1975. Priorities can be expressed better in this manner, though critics feel that stronger leadership is needed and that minimum Federal standards for all prisons should be established. A recent proposal to Congress, introduced by Representative Robert Kastenmier of Wisconsin and supported by the Carter Administration, represents a move in the direction of standard setting. The bill would give the Justice Department the clear legislative authority to initiate suits involving institutional abuses that fall into a broad repeated pattern or practice. Presently, the authority of the Justice Department to engage in such actions is questionable. The legislation is opposed by the National Associa- tion of Attorneys General who say that enactment would lend Congressional endorsement to the growing intrusion of Federal courts into State affairs. The States point out that Federal court decisions affect State spending, demanding that millions of dollars be appropriated from State budgets for institutional changes. This budgetary discretion, they argue, is the function of the State and not of the Federal Government (The New York Times, May 8, 1977). This objection reflects concern about the increasing role of the judiciary in correctional systems in recent years. In fact, by default, judges often have become the leaders in prison reform. For years the courts had maintained a ‘hands off” attitude toward the prisons. During the 1960s, as minority groups pressed for civil rights, prison reform became a judicial concern. In 1961, the courts set a precedent for involvement in a landmark decision permitting the Black Muslims religious freedom in the prisons. Prisoners were to be covered by the First Amendment right to practice the religion of their choice. Since then the role of the courts has increased steadily as they have been inundated with thousands of lawsuits. Such suits have been initiated largely by activists within the prisons. Many feel that lawyers have done more to improve living conditions in the prisons than have reformers over the last 100 years. Rights won in various jurisdictions include freedom from mail and literature censorship, access to judicial relief and to the media, due process in disciplinary and transfer procedures, and expanded visitation rights. Certain forms of punishment have been outlawed as being “cruel and unusual.” In 1970 a Federal court set a precedent by ruling that the entire Arkansas prison system was unconstitutional, constituting cruel and unusual punishment CORRECTIONAL REFORM 105 in violation of the Eighth Amendment. By 1977 overcrowded conditions in the State systems of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana had all been declared uncon- stitutional on these grounds. Yet there are important limitations to the leadership potential of the judiciary in the cause of prison reform: (1) The judiciary can act only retroactively. It cannot shape the direction for corrections beyond attempting to bring prison conditions up to some certain minimal standards. Judge David Bazelon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reports that he asks the question “Does it make you sick?” as a criterion for deciding whether or not Federal intervention into a correctional system is warranted (The New York Times May 8, 1977). (2) Decisions apply only to prisons over which a given court has jurisdiction. Lower court decisions may require years of appeal before they can reach levels at which they affect conditions widely. (3) Prison officials, State legislatures, and chief executives have developed many ways for circumventing court decisions. While following the letter of the law, the spirit can be perverted through manipulation of conditions unaffected by specific rulings. For instance, Ala- bama, in an effort to comply with a court ruling specifying less crowded conditions in State prisons, is sending the overflow to the county jails which are already desperately overcrowded. In short, the courts may set down regulations to uphold the Federal Constitution, but enforcing them is another matter. At the State and local level, concern for correctional practices often has low priority. Still, under certain circumstances, Gover- nors will urge reform, and dynamic leaders in the correctional field will be appointed to change the institutions. However, the fragmentation of leadership in prison reform often leads to inaction or bodes ill for the prospects of sustained change once it has been initiated. Legislative bodies and executive branches have largely abrogated their responsibility in leading and supporting changes, leaving the courts to pick up the pieces. Beyond fragmentation of leadership, conflicts over doctrine regarding the purposes of the correctional system and of incarcera- tion are great. Ideological differences are reflected in the lack of systemic or institutional goals and the lack of agreement on strategies for attaining such goals. Disputes hinder attempts to alter the system and to implement change. Since current contro- versy centers around the issue of imprisonment, it is appropriate to consider the role of incarceration in a historical context. Imprisonment as a penal sanction for serious offenders has not been common until the last couple of centuries. Previously, jails had been used to hold petty offenders, vagrants, alcoholics, the 106 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE mentally ill, debtors, and other people considered as public nuisances. Special fortresses were sometimes used to hold persons in political disfavor. Felons, however, were subject to capital punishment and various forms of corporal punishment, rather than incarceration. At that time, people held little hope for reforming criminals. A change in public attitudes was reflected in the late 18th century when the Quakers established the first penitentiary in Philadelphia. Offenders were isolated from the community so they could meditate, read the Bible, and repent for their misdeeds (Morris 1974). Thus began the concept of individual rehabilitation made possible through incarceration. This idea, boosted by the Enlightenment, soon caught on. Public expectations of the potential for reforming individuals grew. Between 1820 and 1840, penitentiaries and other types of asylums became widespread. In isolated environments free of corruption, individuals were subject to military-like precision in their daily lives. This was expected to bring order to an individual’s life and cure criminality. By 1870, it became clear that the workings of penitentiaries and other asylums were not as had been originally intended. The institutions were overcrowded; disorderly and cruel practices were common. Officials continued to describe the goal of institutions as rehabilitation, but practice differed from strategies designed to achieve that end. Custody had replaced rehabilitation as the function of incarceration. As the composition of society grew more complex, the general public was no longer able to identify or sympathize with the inmates and accepted this shift in function. Persons incarcerated were often ‘“outsiders,” either members of new immigrant groups, or people with little political leverage as reflected in their lower-class status. Still, demands for deinstitu- tionalization of some categories of prisoners, such as widows and children without support, developed and grew during the Progres- sive era at the turn of the century. However, prisons remained full, and the controversy regarding the incarceration of convicts continues to this day. Deinstitutionalization, prison conditions, and programs to rehabilitate offenders remain sources of heated debate. Rehabilitation, the recurring theme for corrections, continues to be subject to dispute, much on the same grounds as in the past. Wright (1973) describes this purpose as ‘a wolf in sheep’s clothing” (p. 323). Critics claim that false rhetoric rather than accomplishments characterizes rehabilitation programs, that, as in the past, they mask the custodial functions and often coercive practices of prisons. The model is attacked by some as inherently CORRECTIONAL REFORM 107 faulty, for it assumes criminal behavior is the act of a “sick” individual, implying that if the individual is ‘“‘cured,” he or she will no longer commit crimes. Maintaining instead that crime is often the product of rational decisionmaking in a limiting social environ- ment, critics find this “medical” model an inappropriate frame- work on which to base correctional programs. They point to the lack of effectiveness of these programs in reducing recidivism. The “Martinson report” and other studies have lent weight to these attacks (Lipton, Martinson, and Wilks 1975). Some former supporters of the rehabilitation function of prisons have withdrawn their support. Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General, is a case in point. In his book, Crime in America, he maintains that the criminal has a mental disturbance and advocates rehabilitation through indeterminate sentencing and special programing. Subsequently, Clark has changed his opinion. He now favors ‘‘the elimination of the prison as we know it . . . the big houses can’t work and we need to eliminate the notion of reforming them because they can’t be reformed. The concept is wrong, the concept of isolated remote confinement” (Serrill 1976b, p. 8). Advocates of rehabilitation note that inadequate leadership, financing, outside support, staff training, and time have limited rehabilitation attempts. They maintain that rehabilitation has hardly been given a chance. Advocates also claim that critics may expect too much. The strength of societal forces on the individual outside of prison may counterbalance rehabilitative gains made within prisons. Still, they argue, this does not imply that prison programs should not attempt to equip inmates with skills which might be helpful on the outside. “Given the continued existence of prisons,” they ask, “what should be the goal of imprisonment, if not rehabilitation?” Beyond rehabilitation, other purposes of imprisonment have been suggested. Deterrence is a controversial function. Evidence suggests that sanctions do have a deterrent impact but that this impact varies with the certainty of sanctions, the nature of the value challenged by the criminal act, characteristics of the rule breaker, and the type of sanction (Tittle and Logan 1973). Although the theory demands further study, proponents of deterrence believe that lengthy sentences are unnecessary to achieve this objective. Wilson and Van den Haag feel that 1- to 2-years imprisonment carries a sufficient deterrent effect for serious crimes (Serrill 1976b). Others feel that, rather than serving to eliminate criminal acts altogether, deterrence tends to shape the nature of crimes committed and the type of victims selected. 287-264 O - 79 - 8 108 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE Individuals will prefer to commit crimes which engender little probability of prosecution. In the retribution or punishment model for imprisonment, the State assumes the role of avenging an act which violates societal notions of justice. Prisons function to maintain the social order by defining limits of acceptable behaviors. Denmark, noted for public enlightenment and liberalism, considers the American preoccupa- tion with treatment and rehabilitation of prisoners to be nonsense. The purpose of imprisonment in Denmark is punishment (Serrill 1977). The importance of humane treatment within this context is emphasized, however, and vocational and educational programs are available to prisoners more generally than in America. Thus, given punishment as a purpose for incarceration, mistreatment is by no means implied, for the act of incarceration is considered punishment enough. Incapacitation is still another model for incarceration. It is based on the notion that dangerous individuals should be kept off the streets. Unfortunately, accurate methods for determining who is dangerous do not exist, and one runs the risk of incarcerating individuals who are not dangerous in an attempt to avoid releasing those who are. Since Anglo-American tradition dictates that the guilty should go free rather than the innocent be incarcerated, incapacitation is of limited usefulness and is considered by some as immoral (Morris 1974). A new “reintegration” model attempting to synthesize the better aspects of past thinking with practical experience and research findings is proposed by Morris. In this model the legitimate function of incarceration is deterrence and punishment. Given these purposes, certain principles are important to assure the rational and parsimonious use of imprisonment (Morris 1974, p. 80): 1. The least restrictive sentence should be applied. 2. Imprisonment should be a sanction of last resort. 5. The extent of punishment should be limited by that which is deserved by the crime itself. Within prisons, Morris would like to see the rehabilitative ideal “liberated” from its more corrupting tendencies. He considers mandatory and coerced participation as a corruption of this ideal and suggests that it be replaced by the concept of facilitated change. Graduated testing of fitness for freedom through various release programs should be substituted for current practices of reliance upon parole board predictions for determining the suitability of release. On these and other principles, Morris hopes to develop a more humane approach to imprisonment. CORRECTIONAL REFORM 109 Ideologies which underlie proposals for broad changes in correctional institutions can be grouped into two categories: pragmatism and abolitionism. Morris, considered a pragmatist, believes that prisoners are victims of a socioeconomic system that discriminates against the poor and minorities. However, pragma- tists are modest in their concept of reform. They favor the elimination of the mega-prisons and their replacement with smaller units. Some favor large-scale depopulation of the prisons. They are concerned with finding practical solutions to present problems. Believing that the main purpose of incarceration is punishment, pragmatists consider rehabilitation an inappropriate and dangerous goal of imprisonment. Abolitionists, like pragmatists, believe that prisons function as social control mechanisms, discriminating against poor people and minorities. They have called for a moratorium on prison construc- tion and maintain that only the most dangerous individuals should be incarcerated. William Nagel of the National Council for Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) summarizes the abolitionists’ phi- losophy: The causes of crime in this country are deeply rooted in its culture and in its economic and social injustices. The massive use of incarceration has not contributed and will not contribute significantly to the abatement of crime or to correction of the flaws in our social fabric. Jerome Miller, who deinstitutionalized the Massachusetts juvenile correctional system, is a member of this school. Given a particular ideology, questions of appropriate programs for achieving mutually accepted goals arise. For instance, David Fogel’s “justice model” has provoked angry attacks from aboli- tionist groups, despite Fogel’s basic acceptance of their doctrine. As director of the Illinois Law Enforcement Commission, Fogel developed a program in which only those individuals representing a “clear and present danger” to society would be incarcerated. Others would receive less restrictive punishments, including fines, probation, and community treatment. Fogel categorizes all crimes deserving imprisonment into five groups, each carrying a fixed term. Depending on circumstances specified by law, judges could raise or lower sentences for individuals by 20 percent. While Fogel claims the number of prisoners would drop by 30 to 40 percent, abolitionists maintain the number would double, as individuals receiving early probation or parole under present procedures would receive more extensive prison terms (Serrill 1976aq). Beyond disputes over doctrine and disagreement over programs, the lack of public support for prison reform is a major problem for 110 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE advocates of change. A 1977 survey demonstrates that 83 percent of Americans feel the police are not sufficiently tough on criminals (Doleschal 1977). The public lacks sympathy with persons in prison and is not interested in spending scarce public resources on them. States are unwilling to appropriate funds to bring health standards up to minimum levels, let alone to finance experimental programs. The amount of money spent daily to maintain a prison inmate in the United States varies from $4 to $35. In contrast, $50 a day per inmate is spent in Denmark. Estimated costs for bringing prison systems up to Federal standards are high. Alabama estimates that $200,000,000 would be required to comply with standards set by Federal judges. The State is unwilling to appropriate these funds and is presently circumventing the Court decision through reliance on already overcrowded county jails. Overcrowding characterizes both the State and Federal systems despite the outcries of the abolitionists and pragmatists. In 1977, the number of persons incarcerated in these prisons reached a record high of 275,000. Adding the estimated 7,700 persons being held in county jails because of circumstances described above, the total climbs to almost 283,300, a 13 percent increase over the number held in 1976, and 25 percent greater than the number of inmates in 1975. Social scientists suggest these figures reflect a “get tough” attitude toward crime which has resulted in the decreased use of probation and increased use of harsher sentences. By and large, the response to tightening budgets and increased crowding has been to ‘sit tight” or, less often, to begin experimenting with alternative models to imprisonment. The Federal system, having greater access to funds, has responded by building nine new institutions within the past 7 years. Presently the system is holding 6,000 prisoners beyond its capacity, and four institutions are under construction. Appropriations in 1977 are twice the average figure of the past 4 years. Mississippi was the only State showing a statistically significant decline in the prisoner population from 1976 to 1977. The 7 percent decline was attributed to a new work-release program. Other States are experimenting with alternatives to incarceration. Louisiana’s Commissioner of Corrections, Paul Phelps, states, “The economists are going to force a revolution in corrections” (Serrill 1977). Still, the anticipated revolution has yet to arrive. Although pressures on the system are growing, the impact of ideas on correction practices remains weak. This should not be surprising when one considers the fragmentation of leadership and ideologi- cal controversy characterizing corrections at all levels. When one CORRECTIONAL REFORM 111 adds to these factors the power and inertia of an entrenched bureaucracy, and the low priority which the needs of prison populations enjoy in public decisionmaking, it is indeed surprising that any change occurs at all. The need for reform is increasingly apparent, however, as State systems are found unconstitutional, prison populations continue to grow far beyond the capacity of prison facilities, and funds become short. Officials, recognizing the need for change, are seeking institutional and deinstitutional alternatives to prisons. Whether they will be able to take the tide at its flood, uniting to develop structures for problemsolving, committing themselves to experiments with planned change, and providing the necessary leadership remains to be seen. The Federal Correctional Institution at Butner, North Carolina The first case involves the attempt to implement the Morris model of imprisonment at the newly constructed Federal Correc- tional Institution at Butner, North Carolina. This case is an example of reforms which attempt to establish more open, “humanizing’’ milieus within prisons, in contrast to reforms which attempt to abolish incarceration as a corrections strategy. History of the Experiment Opened in the spring of 1976, the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) at Butner was to be based on a model prison proposed by Morris and further operationalized by Steele, Levinson, and Deppe. Disappointed with the management and outcome of prisons incorporating the popular rehabilitation model of imprisonment, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) was eager to experiment with new approaches to incarceration. A soon-to- be-opened Federal facility at Butner was designed to allow experimentation with different models for treatment of the prison population. However, before the facility could open, opposition to the notion of experimentation broke out. The warden was forced to resign when certain prison reform groups attacked his proposed plans. The attacks were vicious and distorted, yet led to a congressional investigation. Lacking sufficient supporters, the warden left. In addition, construction problems plagued the empty facility. The original company had defaulted, leaving buildings unfinished for 2 years. In the meantime, Morris, a law professor and director of the Center for Studies in Criminal Justice at the University of Chicago, 112 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE had developed a systematic approach designed to eliminate prison practices considered inconsistent with rehabilitative goals and to substitute a more ‘“humane” environment in which a prisoner’s self-motivation would be allowed fruition. Given the thoroughness and logic of Morris’ reasoning, and in need of a program for the Butner facility, the Morris model was selected for implementation by the Director of the BOP, Norman Carlson, and the U.S. Attorney General, Edward Levy. Morris’ model is based on the philosophy of reintegration of prisoners into society and the ‘liberation of the rehabilitative ideal” from its tendencies toward corruption. Morris cites two fallacious aspects of the rehabilitation approach. First, advocates of this approach consider inmate behavior while imprisoned a predictor of future community behavior. This assumed correlation has yet to be demonstrated. Second, the medical model underlying the rehabilitation approach forces inmates to participate in prison programs so that they may be ‘“‘cured” and demonstrate their fitness for release. Morris contends that ‘facilitated change” should be substituted for “coerced change.” Participation in prison programs should be truly voluntary, having no bearing on release dates, and prisoners should be released into the community gradually, so that problems may be discussed and preparations made for their impending freedom. Morris states three goals for the program: (1) the reduction of recidivism, (2) increasing the levels of employment of exoffenders who have participated in the program, and (3) improving the social relationships of exoffenders when they are released. These latter two goals serve to reinforce the first, being based on two of the important known correlates of decreased recidivism: job stability and strong family and other social support networks. They suggest a means through which the prison may try to intervene in the lives of its inmates in an effort to reduce recidivism. Also, as goals in their own right, society values working citizens and benefits from stable social relationships. The Morris model is designed, then, to reduce the likelihood of an individual’s becoming a recidivist through creating an environment that will lead to increased employment levels of inmates following release, and that will strengthen the network of social relationships on which the inmate can rely upon release. Morris’ model was later operationalized in an article published by Levinson and Deppe (1976) shortly after the facility opened. Donald A. Deppe, selected as the first warden of the prison, modified the program in accordance with limitations imposed by the rural location of the facility and the practices of the BOP. In CORRECTIONAL REFORM 113 addition to these changes, Deppe incorporated some ideas from other programs. The model consists of five basic components: (1) the prisoner population, (2) the prison program, (3) daily life and living units, (4) staff selection and roles, and (5) evaluation. These components will be described largely as Morris and Steele depicted them originally. Modifications which Deppe made will follow. A brief report of the status of implementation to date and a look at some of the factors hindering or facilitating this implementation will then be discussed. The Morris Model The ‘‘deep-end” approach is to be used in the selection of inmates for the model prison. This involves choosing both males and females determined to be the most likely to relapse according to known correlates of recidivism. It is felt that the expense of the program is better justified if those posing the largest threat are reintegrated into society. Also, its generalizability has greater credibility if the program is successful with the ‘hard core.” A second selection criterion is that prisoners are to be within 1 to 3 years of their first possible parole date. This timing is intended to lend an air of optimism and seriousness to inmates’ attitudes, as well as allow sufficient time for the program to have some effects. Individuals meeting Morris’ criteria are to be randomly selected for the model prison from the general prison population. The results of participation in the model prison are to be gauged by comparing the recidivism rates of the program participants with those of the eligible but nonselected control group. Major characteristics of the prison program include setting the parole date for each prisoner upon entry into the model prison; the opportunity of the individual to return without penalty to the latest prison from which she or he was transferred; the develop- ment of a graduated release plan; and the availability of a broad array of vocational, educational, recreational, and therapeutic programs to individuals on a voluntary basis. As participation in such programs has yet to be correlated with recidivism, Morris assures that such participation is voluntary through the setting of a parole date that is contingent only upon the inmates’ avoiding major, dangerous infractions of prison rules. Additionally, the certainty of a release date allows the inmate to prepare for his or her impending return to society. The graduated release plan, developed shortly after the inmate’s arrival, provides the inmate with the opportunity of readjusting into society more smoothly. Family and job problems can be managed with the help of prison 114 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE staff. While the prisoner lives at Butner, programs designed for self-enrichment will be available so that inmates may further develop living and coping skills. Daily life at the model prison is to be community oriented while retaining inmates’ rights to individual privacy. Prisoners are to live in single rooms paid for by inmates from paychecks received for working full-time in an industry paying reasonable rates. Prisoners involved in a course of study which interferes with their working will be exempt from the payment. The rooms are to be located in small group units of from six to eight inmates. The group meets daily with assigned staff to share discussions and meals. They are encouraged to develop programs of mutual interest, to elect representatives to various inmate councils, and to involve their families in discussions. Staff attitudes are important in the development of a milieu generating inmate self-respect and reliance. In an effort to shape conducive attitudes, Morris suggests that employees be selected from among individuals who have never worked in prisons, as well as from regular prison workers. The staff members are to be comparable to the prisoner population socioeconomically and racially. This may increase the likelihood of sympathetic under- standing of the prisoner’s situation and decrease racism, which has been a problem in prisons. With such a mix, traditional attitudes are less likely to hinder the development of the nontraditional prison environment. Other means of achieving staff commitment and participation are through the upgrading of staff roles and through training prior to assuming responsibilities as well as on the job. Staff are to be encouraged to participate in open staff meetings. Advancement opportunities within the prison should be available. Those filling top administrative positions, though chosen for personal skills and attitudes, are to be selected from the more ‘neutral professions such as education and law, rather than fields in which hierarchical doctor-patient relationships are important, such as psychiatry or psychology. Morris and Steele suggest that the program be located in an urban area. Job opportunities for work release and halfway house programs, as well as a wider range of people from whom to select staff, are more likely to exist in a city. Evaluation of the program is a key component in its develop- ment. An independent team of evaluators will determine if the program is accomplishing its goals of reducing recidivism through the use of an experimental design involving the random selection of experimental and control subjects. Observing the development of the program, evaluators will contribute to knowledge of how CORRECTIONAL REFORM 115 such programs are instituted as well as their anticipated and unanticipated consequences. The Morris model was further modified by Deppe who was responsible for imposing it on the empty facility at Butner. In this effort he was confronted with two limitations. The facility had been designed to meet the specifications of a different program, and it was located in a rural area of North Carolina. The prison contains seven units of 38 to 64 prisoners each. Four of these, of 50 beds each, were assigned to the Morris program. The other three were used for a mental health program. Within the units to be used for the Morris program, facilities for small living groups were not available. Instead, Deppe emphasized the use of the larger units as semi-autonomous groups which would conduct town meetings of about 2 hours duration each week at which inmate attendance was to be mandatory. This unit-level approach to creating a prison community is common in the Federal prison system. Teams were to be assigned to smaller units of inmates to review their proposed schedule of activities in the upcoming months and for general supervision. The selection of prisoners for the experimental units was to follow Morris’ criteria. Women, however, were to be excluded from these units. Cultural values, political feasibility, and perhaps difficulties in locating sufficient numbers of female offenders meeting the criteria may have influenced this exclusion. Due to practicality, the length of time by which the entering individual was to receive a parole date was extended from 6 to approximately 13 weeks. The graduated release plan consisted of release to a community treatment center for the last 60 days of imprisonment. A prerelease program was to be set up at the unit team’s discretion for the last 6 months of an inmate’s sentence. Levinson and Deppe divided the program into three distinct phases: orientation, continuation, and prerelease, following the implicit segments of the original model. Program days were divided into three segments, 3% hours in duration, a common practice within the Federal prison system. Only one of these was to be devoted to work experience. The limitations in work opportunities may have motivated this change. The other periods of each day were to be devoted to programs of the individual’s choice. Levinson and Deppe would have the prisoner in the prerelease phase write a résumé describing his skills, accomplishments, and weaknesses so that potential future employers could have an introduction to the individual. The résumés were to be subject to the overview of other prisoners and staff. This idea was adopted from the Drug Abuse Program in the U.S. penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. 116 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE Implementation of the Model The Butner program began in 1976 and many of its aspects remained in the startup phase at the time of our own field visit. Nevertheless, the status of the implementation of certain com- ponents can be assessed, and variables impeding and facilitating this implementation can be gauged. First, regarding prisoner selection, the BOP had been unable to meet the Morris criteria for the “deep end” approach in choosing inmates for Butner, claiming that an insufficient number of inmates met the criteria. Those few who did meet Morris’ criteria were sent to Butner, with the resultant loss of a matched control group outside the Butner. The relief of overcrowding in other Federal facilities necessitated the sometimes rapid unloading of prisoners to Butner. Accordingly, only two of the four units set aside for the Morris model contained subjects for the experiment. Only about 30 percent of the inmates in the two experimental units had been given fixed parole dates by the parole board. The rest are to serve until their terms expire within the next few years, a fact known before arrival at Butner. The effects of giving individuals a fixed parole date who would not otherwise receive one will be difficult for evaluators to assess, for an outside control group is lacking for the vast majority of program participants. Researchers were planning to compare differences in outcome between individuals within Butner who receive fixed dates and those who do not, though the comparability of the groups is questionable. As the subject of the effects of fixed sentences and fixed parole dates is controversial, it is unfortunate that this part of the experiment is largely lost. The difficulty in implementing the fixed parole date feature of the experiment stems from the structure of the Department of Justice, in that the Bureau of Prisons is separate from the Parole Commission. For whatever reason, the Parole Commission showed no apparent interest in easing the implementation of the Morris model. Accordingly, fixed parole dates were given only a minority of new arrivals, as mentioned previously. The graduated release plan did not provide as many alternatives to incarceration as Morris had envisioned. It consisted mainly of a prerelease class which inmates attended prior to release to community treatment centers (CTCs). Because of financial cut- backs within BOP, participation was to drop to 50 percent. Since Butner is geographically isolated from work and study opportunities, few individuals were released for such experiences. The prison was developing in-prison programs for work and study, as are present at other BOP facilities. Vocational training within the prison was available to a limited number of persons. About 12 inmates participated in a lens grinding shop and 20 in a heating CORRECTIONAL REFORM 117 and air-conditioning program. Limited space prohibited expanding such training. Work opportunities inside the prison were also limited. Most inmates were employed in maintenance activities. About 20 worked in a trousers factory sponsored by the Federal prison industries. This program was to be expanded to 125 employees within the next few years. Still, pay will remain low. Failure to implement the wage levels specified in the model results from the operation of the larger prison system on which Butner must rely for industrial opportunities. Private manufacturers are not inter- ested in locating their plants in prisons for several reasons. First, Federal law prohibits within prisons the manufacture of goods that are to be sold on the open market. Goods must be manufactured for use by government agencies. Second, Federal law requires that minimum wages be paid for production of these goods. Considering the ‘captive’ labor market, productivity presumably would not compare to that of a free market. Therefore, manufacturers perceive themselves as better off locat- ing outside of the prisons, producing what they wish for whomever they wish, and hiring as they wish. Therefore, prison officials must rely on the larger prison system for work opportu- nities. They must compete for industry with other prisons that also need it. Attempts to develop small living units were limited. The physical design of the facility prevents the use of intimate living groups as Morris foresaw, although inmates did meet weekly in groups of 10, with staff, to discuss issues of concern. The newly appointed warden was pressing unit managers to develop programs within their units to a greater degree. Initiatives had been limited to a few voluntary programs. The warden had also established monthly meetings between a group of inmates elected by their peers and an associate warden. Another problem in implementing Morris’ model involved staff roles and selection. Staff members must be hired according to civil service procedures, and present employees have first chance at job openings within the system. Accordingly, most Butner employees were career correctional workers who had traditional expectations for a strict hierarchy and a clear definition of their roles. The staff mobility, flexibility, and demographic features which Morris desired did not exist within Butner. Little attempt had been made to develop pre- and inservice training to introduce staff to the Morris model and to encourage innovation. In fact, few of the staff had much awareness of the model at all. To summarize, it appears that the Morris model had been implemented to a very limited degree. The most significant aspects, experimentation with fixed release dates and the develop- 118 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE ment of programs for the graduated testing of fitness for release, had not been sufficiently implemented to allow conclusions to be drawn regarding their effect on recidivism. Difficulties in maintain- ing pure experimental and control groups limited the nature and extent of conclusions as well. Other aspects of the reintegration model, such as work experience on a full-time job, and intensive, small group relationships, had not developed. Staff involvement in the development of these groups and program development in general was minimal. Certain elements of the model had been introduced, however. The inmates who had been selected were due to be released within a couple of years, though some were due for release prior to the 1-year minimum proposed by Morris. Inmates were allowed to return to their previous prison if they so desired. Program participation was voluntary. Despite threatened overcrowding, officials from the BOP had been able to stave off demands for wide-scale prisoner transfers, although the prison already was beyond its maximum capacity. Although the milieu was not completely as Morris envisioned, the Butner facility does provide a relatively free internal environ- ment. Units are spread out and modern. No bars are used on the windows. Inmates and staff dress as they wish. Visitors may meet inmates in a brightly colored snack bar and may come as often as they wish during daily visiting hours. Although inmates are locked into the units every night, they have access to game tables and television within the unit. With keys to their rooms, they may have privacy as they wish. Evaluation Attempts to implement the Morris model of prisons at the Federal Correctional Institution at Butner represent a case of planned institutional change. An evaluation of this process according to Blase’s model of institution building is difficult at this time, although several observations can be made. Butner was not an independent institution, but rather an operating unit of a larger system, the BOP. In this sense, it had relatively little control over the process of implementation. The Federal structure posed a number of constraints on implementation of the Morris model: (1) the independent nature of the Parole Commission, (2) the civil service requirements for promotions and transfers, (3) the nature of Federal prison industries, (4) fund cutbacks and budgetary constraints, and (5) overcrowding in the Federal system. To overcome many of these constraints, stronger enabling and functional linkages between Butner and the Federal system would be necessary. Commitment of the U.S. Attorney General would be useful in securing the cooperation of the Parole Commissioner. CORRECTIONAL REFORM 119 Commitment from the Bureau of Prisons is necessary to assure that the prison does not become overcrowded. The availability of sufficient funds and greater program options also depends, in part, on outside supports. This weakness of enabling and functional linkages may stem from a difference between the implicit ideology of the larger system and the explicit ideology of the Morris model. Control of inmates is a key objective in the operation of institutions. As prisons become overcrowded, the possibilities for maintaining order diminish. Therefore, authorities may be primarily concerned in the short run with developing means for decreasing overcrowd- ing. Given the fact of scarce resources, implementing a model prison as described by Morris would require a greater interest in finding long-range solutions to the problem of recidivism than in maintaining short-run control throughout the system as a whole. Other variables which constrained successful implementation were built into the program’s design and therefore lie outside the implementation process. The geographical location of Butner hindered the development of a graduated release program because of the lack of employment in the area. The physical plant itself limited the development of small living groups, though leadership was able to devise means for minimizing this constraint. Within Butner, failure to implement the Morris model can be attributed to the role of doctrine and leadership. In the first place, the decision to adopt the model was quasi-opportunistic. That is to say, the decision stemmed not so much from a conviction that the Morris model was the best concept of a correctional institution as from the fact that a new program had to be implemented, and this was the best one available. Furthermore, once the decision to implement was made, leadership failed to use doctrine to gain staff understanding or support for the model. Staff training programs had been very limited, and few of the staff were informed about the Morris model. This oversight is significant when one considers the anticipated role of staff in program development and in community life. The employees constitute one of the few resources over which leadership has any control, yet this resource by and large had not been exploited. Massachusetts Department of Youth Services The second case involves an attempt to deinstitutionalize the juvenile correctional system run by the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services. It represents an example of reforms which seek 120 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE to establish an alternative to incarceration as a corrections strategy. In the forefront of the movement toward deinstitutionalization, the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services (DYS) reduced the number of juveniles incarcerated in State institutions from about 1,000 in 1969, to about 100 in 1973. The years of change were turbulent, and controversy still surrounds the program. DYS currently is grappling with the problems of building a new system in accord with the goal of ‘deinstitutionalization” yet which meets the needs of all the youngsters referred or committed to the department by the State’s juvenile court judges. A brief chronol- ogy of the change process will be presented, followed by a discussion of the current status of the program. History of the Reform A key figure in the reforms was Dr. Jerome Miller, who was selected in 1969 to be the director of the reorganized Department of Youth Services. The appointment of such a reform-minded administrator represented the culmination of a series of crises in the youth correctional system. Since the early 1960s, concerned citizens’ groups had called for investigations of the State training schools and demanded administration reforms. From 1965 to 1968, six investigations were conducted, including one by the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The media publicized the investigations, and public fervor was aroused as reformers charged that the institutions were brutal and oriented toward custody rather than treatment. In 1969, legislation was passed which reorganized the system and authorized the develop- ment of alternatives to incarceration. At the same time a reform-oriented governor, Francis Sargent, took office. Miller, an associate professor of social work at Ohio State University, was chosen as commissioner of DYS because of his known attitudes regarding reform. He took office with a mandate for reform from the press, local citizen groups, the State legislature, and the Governor. Miller did not enter office with a firmly established doctrine of deinstitutionalization. Rather, the idea developed as he observed the institutions and noted that more traditional reforms inevitably failed. As a newcomer to State government and to correctional administration, Miller was horrified by conditions in the 10 institutions which he inherited from his predecessors. He planned, initially, to reform the system along the lines which some other States were taking. Defining administrative goals and policies early, the changes were aimed toward giving youth more responsi- bility for their behavior and establishing small therapeutic com- CORRECTIONAL REFORM 121 munities within institutions. In addition, Miller issued immediate directives eliminating some of the more controversial practices and permitting youths more freedom of personal expression. Always aware of the importance of public opinion, Miller used community volunteers as much as possible. From the start, the two major problems plaguing the adminis- tration were finances and personnel. After the first year, State and Federal monies became more readily available, although financial problems continued to limit program planning, development, and monitoring. LEAA funds remain particularly vital to the program today. Institutional staffs were a more serious limitation to the success of Miller’s reform efforts. Old-line staff resisted and even sabotaged new programs. Ohlin, Coats, and Miller (1974) outline the three strategies which Miller used to alleviate the problem: (1) He filled job vacancies with more sympathetic individuals while searching his existing staff for more flexible members; (2) he reassigned authority without regard to civil service classifications; and (3) he retrained and educated existing staff members to his philosophy. Funding problems constrained the first approach. The second was adroitly managed, so much so that it became difficult for an outsider to determine the actual responsibility of staff from their job titles. The third option was found to be quite expensive and divisive. Different groups of staff responded differently to the same training materials, so that programs had to be devised separately for each group. Staff resistance continued in spite of Miller’s sometimes ingenious use of resources. A Plan Emerges By 1970, Miller began losing patience with the slow pace of his reforms. He concluded that large institutions were inherently destructive and could never operate humanely. He closed one of the most brutal institutions shortly after a visit in which he and the Governor’s wife, a strong supporter, witnessed the beating of three youths who had attempted to escape. He then ordered that the length of time that juveniles served in training schools be shortened, resulting in a large decrease in the institutional population. By 1971, Miller decided that the other institutions should also be closed. Fearing the development of a backlash, he stepped up an already strong public information campaign to inform citizens of his philosophy and of institutional conditions. Miller capitalized on the concept that those who favored institutions disliked children, effectively picturing opponents as wicked people. During the next year, with much public fanfare, two other major facilities were closed. 122 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE Implementation Planning staff developed a master plan for the community placement of youth. It consisted of two elements: (1) the delivery of services on a regional basis, and (2) the use of private agencies to provide the bulk of these services. Both elements continue to be the basic organizing features for DYS. Administrators chose a decentralized approach, believing that the needs of children from different areas of Massachusetts could be best analyzed and met at the local level. Consequently, the State was divided into seven regions which were responsible for contracting with private agencies for services, and for coordinating the needs of youngsters with the resources available in the community. The central office was to monitor programs, provide quality control, and handle general administrative matters. The second element, the private provision of services, developed as a response to the problems encountered by Miller as he tried to deal with the large bureaucracy. Public programs, bounded by civil service personnel practices and entrenched bureaucracies, have proven inflexible and difficult to terminate, and they have a tendency to expand into small fiefdoms. Administrators felt that small private programs would be more responsive to the changing needs of DYS youth. If found unsatisfactory, they could be terminated with relative ease. However, the limitations of the private sector in providing for the needs of all of the children became apparent as the program has evolved. Miller had planned originally to use small, private group homes as the chief alternative to institutions. Difficulties in implementing this approach quickly became evident. Experience proved that such homes were not less expensive to run than institutions, an assumption that had been a major selling point for the program. Additionally, some communities resisted the establishment of group homes in their midst. As a result, many youngsters were placed in homes in low-income neighborhoods, and a few on the grounds of institutions previously closed. It was difficult to keep youngsters in residential programs from escaping, particularly those children who previously had been confined in the larger institutions. Recognizing these problems, Miller began to rely much more on nonresidential programs, especially day care facilities. These have grown to become the largest single program category in the system. When Miller left the State in 1973, the system was in shambles. The work of consolidation and program development was left to his successors. The new commissioner of DYS, Joseph Leavey, having worked under Miller, was strongly committed to continuing the policies of deinstitutionalization. During his administration, CORRECTIONAL REFORM 123 the department increased the number of program alternatives available for the placement of children. The services received by these youths varied from the least restrictive alternatives, including parole and nonresidential day care; to residential programs of a noninstitutional nature including group and foster homes; to two categories of fairly traditional institutional care, though smaller in scale, involving lockup facilities. The latter two were known as ‘secure treatment’ or “intensive care” programs for committed youth, and “secure detention” programs for youth on detention. Of the approximately 2,200 children between the ages of 10 and 17 who were under the jurisdiction of DYS when Leavey left in late 1975, about 800 were on parole and 1,200 in residential and nonresidential programs. Of the remainder, about 135 youngsters were in secure facilities, 60 of these being on detention. Programs in secure facilities and some residential care programs came under severe attack in the fall of 1975. The State’s four full-time juvenile court judges were joined by a television station and others in issuing scathing indictments of the system. Critics charged gross mismanagement, particularly in reference to the five secure facilities providing intensive care. They complained that few educational and vocational programs were available to locked-up youth. Additionally, the court complained that secure facilities were becoming “revolving doors” for delinquents. Not only was the escape rate very high, but youngsters were released without receiving remedial services. Recidivism rates had not decreased under the new program, as had been hoped. Critics also bemoaned the closing of the best training school, which was a girls’ facility, noting very few residential programs and secure facilities were available for girls. In late 1975, Leavey resigned. The new commissioner, John A. Calhoun, recognized gaps in DYS services and began developing means for filling them, while remaining committed to the ideal of deinstitutionalization. Regarding the charges that secure facilities were “about as tight as sieves,” DYS increased security and claimed to have reduced the escape rate by 75 percent for the 4-month period ending October 30, 1976. The problem of insufficient secure treatment facilities continued. In 1977, only 49 beds in such facilities were available. As a result, some youngsters who should have been in lockup facilities remained in secure detention facilities after being processed through the courts. The secure detention program was designed for youths awaiting court action only. The Office of Children, an umbrella agency having jurisdiction over DYS, set a 45-day maximum for the amount of time a youngster could spend in a detention facility. Accordingly, 287-264 O -79 = 9 124 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE if no space opened up in the secure treatment facilities within this time limit, the youngsters were shifted to another detention facility. Estimates of the number of children requiring placement in secure facilities varied. Calhoun established a 21-member task force on security to consider this problem. Members included probation officers, judges, DYS members, and others with diverse opinions and philosophies. The group drew a random sample of 10 percent of the individuals in the custody of DYS on a particular day. Members of the task force considered the history of each of the 110 juveniles. Of these, 11 percent were considered in need of secure treatment. By this method, it was determined that 121 beds were needed. In accord with the conclusions of the majority of the task force, plans were approved to open three new secure treatment programs by the winter of 1977, which would increase the number of beds to about 90. A difficulty in reliance upon the private sector to meet the needs of youngsters was reflected in the lack of provision of secure facilities and services for girls. The secure facilities were operated by the State because private agencies ‘‘skimmed the cream” of youngsters considered most manageable for their services. The provision of services for girls had been overlooked by the private sector as well as the State, leaving a large and ever increasing number of girls unserved. This oversight was being remedied by the development of a new service network for girls. The new program had two tasks. The first involved getting the position of Assistant Commissioner for Girls’ Services recognized in the State budget. The placement of the position high in the DYS hierarchy is crucial to increasing the influence of the office. In the past, officials responsible for girls’ services had been below the regional directors and had difficulty gaining the interest of male regional directors in the plight of female offenders. As the LEAA provided one half of the funds for program development for girls, the Federal Government was able to pressure DYS to elevate the status of the position. The second task involved developing placement opportunities for girls. In the Boston area, no residential treatment facility for girls existed, and the only secure detention facility housed but 12 girls. This lack was believed to underlie the fact that girls were bound over to the adult courts at a higher rate than boys. Girls were often sent to mental institutions or out-of-state when placement locally was not possible. To alleviate this situation, the Boston DYS region was considering proposals from private agencies to develop residential treatment facilities for girls. However, none of the three new secure treatment facilities was intended for girls. CORRECTIONAL REFORM 125 Critics of the deinstitutionalization of youth correctional services in Massachusetts have attacked the DYS staff, claiming the caseworkers who operated out of regional offices and handled an average of 13 youngsters at a time were untrained and frequently incompetent. They claimed that some of these persons were transferred from positions in the old system without receiving any preparation for their new role. Critics also argued that the staff of many of the private programs were untrained. The department responded by developing new positions for staff trainers and teams that would monitor programs more closely. In addition, the absence of ‘“‘credentialism” was defended on the grounds that a specific educational background does not guarantee the effective- ness of staff members. Other factors, including culture, street knowledge, and a sincere interest in the youngsters may be more important. Under Calhoun, critics of deinstitutionalization acknowledged an increased responsiveness to problems, yet some remained vocal. Particularly outspoken were the judges who supported a bill, aptly known as the “Judges Bill,” which would return sentencing powers to the juvenile court judges. Passage of this bill would incapacitate DYS, removing discretionary powers for placement and length of stay from the department. Officials saw little likelihood that it would be passed. Although opinions on the outlook for the continuation of the deinstitutionalized program varied, most officials saw little likeli- hood of any major return to traditional institutions. The increase in the number of secure treatment beds was seen by some as a sign of retrenchment and a warning of creeping ‘reinstitutionaliza- tion.” However, more saw it as a politically responsive move that might satisfy program critics and diffuse threatening opposition. Ironically, financial limitations, considered a major problem for program development, also strengthened the likelihood for the continuation of the present system, for the cost of reestablishing training schools would be great. Additionally, the ideology of deinstitutionalization itself appeared to have developed a momen- tum and tradition of its own, making challenges heretical. Evaluation Considering factors leading to the implementation and contin- uation of the program, one notes the strength of many of the linkage and institutional variables. An environment favorable to change laid the groundwork for the arrival of a strong leader. Enabling legislation creating DYS gave it the authority to establish alternative programs and vested it with sentencing powers essential to program startup and success. This support was made possible by 126 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE the articulation of public norms by child advocacy groups and the succession to office of a reform-minded Governor. The support of a public incensed over conditions in the traditional institutions was generated by media campaigns and investigations which uncovered conditions in conflict with the values of the citizenry. It is no small wonder that the public mobilized to challenge the existing system when one considers the time period, the late 1960s, and the traditionally liberal attitudes of the citizens of Massachusetts. And finally, the existence of LEAA made addi- tional resources available for carrying out the reform, completing the environmental linkages favorable to institutional change. Functional supports were also forthcoming. Although judges have been critical of the program, their options are limited to binding serious offenders over to adult courts. Consequently, children continue to be remanded to the custody of DYS. The provision of alternative services by the private sector, another critical functional support for the program, has been adequate, generally, although the State has had to augment and redirect the provision of such service in some cases. When considering institutional variables, one notes the initial importance of strong leadership and the increasing importance of doctrine to sustain reforms. Miller is remembered for his charis- matic and determined leadership style. Interpreting the mandate for reform in the broadest possibile sense, Miller pushed his approach through the system. Aware of the value of maintaining favorable public attitudes toward the program, he was careful to exploit such support as fully as possible. The internal structure and resources available within DYS posed problems for Miller initially. He made do as best he could, reshuffling staff, obtaining Federal grants, and finally tearing the system apart, leaving the rebuilding to his successors. Without a system to fall back on, Miller’s followers were able to build something entirely new with relatively little opposition. The doctrine of deinstitutionalization, which Miller eventually came to espouse, was useful in mobilizing public opinion, giving supporters a clear goal for his and later administrations. After Miller left, the doctrine remained to direct change. Within 2 years the last of the traditional institutions closed. Whether the doctrine of deinstitutionalization has become institutionalized, or whether the maintenance of noninstitutional programs is a losing proposition, remains to be seen. References Bakal, Yitzhak. Closing Correctional Institutions: New Strategies for Youth Services. Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath Co., 1973. CORRECTIONAL REFORM 127 Bakal, Yitzhak. Correctional Youth Reform, The Massachusetts Experience. Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath Co., 1976. Clark, Stevens H. Juvenile offender programs and delinquency prevention. Crime and Delinquency Literature, 6(3):377-399, 1974. Doleschal, Eugene. Rate and length of imprisonment. Crime and Delinquency. 23(1):51-56, 19717. Killinger, George G. Corrections and administration. In: Killinger, George G.; Cromwell, Paul F., Jr.; and Cromwell, Bonnie, J., eds. Issues in Corrections and Administration, Selected Read- ings. St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing Co., 1976. Levinson, Robert B., and Deppe, Donald A. Optional program- ming: A model structure for the Federal Correctional Institu- tion at Butner. Federal Probation, 40(2):37-44, 1976. Lipton, Douglas; Martinson, Robert; and Wilks, Judith. The Effectiveness of Correctional Treatment: A Survey of Treat- ment Evaluation Studies. New York: Praeger Press, 1975. Morris, Norval. The Future of Imprisonment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974. Nagel, William. On behalf of a moratorium on prison construction. Crime and Delinquency, 23(2):154-172, 19717. New York Times. Editorial, May 8, 1977. Sec. E, p. 8. Ohlin, Lloyd; Coates, Robert B.; and Miller, Alden D. Radical correctional reform: A case study of the Massachusetts youth correctional system. Harvard Educational Review, 44(1):74-111,1974. Serrill, Michael S. Critics of corrections speak out. Corrections Magazine, 2(3):3-8, 21-26, 1976a. Serrill, Michael S. LEAA: a question of impact. Corrections Magazine, 2(4):3-7, 1976b. Serrill, Michael S. Moving the kids out: A unique experiment. Corrections Magazine, 2(2):29-40, 1975. Serrill, Michael S. Profile/Denmark. Corrections Magazine, 3(1):23-29, 34-43, 19717. Shireman, Charles H.; Mann, Katherine Daird; Larsen, Charles; and Young, Thomas. Findings from experiments in treatment of correctional institutions. Social Service Review, 46(1):38-56, 1972. Steele, Eric H. A model for the imprisonment of repetitively violent criminals. Chicago: Center for Studies in Criminal 128 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE Justice, University of Chicago Law School (mimeographed), 1975. Tittle, Charles R., and Logan, Charles H. Sanctions and deviance: Evidence and remaining questions. Law and Society Review, 7(3):371-392, 1973. Wright, Erik Olin. The Politics of Punishment: A Critical Analysis of Prisons in America. New York: Harper Torchbooks, Harper and Row, 1973. CHAPTER 7 EDUCATIONAL VOUCHERS AT ALUM ROCK With this chapter, our case study of planned institutional change turns to the field of public education. Local public school systems have become a prime target of institutional change. In the first place, they provide a service which in certain important respects constitutes a public good. Public education is a primary vehicle for the transmission of knowledge from one generation to another. The level and extensiveness of education are considered to be an important resource for social and economic development. Public schools are also a primary means by which children and young people are prepared for adult roles in society as citizen, parent, and producer of individual and coliective wealth. The public schools specifically are held responsible for preparing young people with the attitudes and skills necessary for entrance into the labor market, which is the principle means in our society for the distribution of income. A second reason why local public school systems have been, and continue to be, targets of planned institutional change is the fact that such systems are relatively open to influences from their environment. While disgruntled parents and local taxpayers may take issue with such a characterization, it must be acknowledged that, when compared to such institutions as the health care system or the criminal justice system, local school systems are relatively exposed and responsive to external pressures for change. They have a high degree of visibility in their day-to-day operations. They are physically located and operate in full view of their local constituencies. Parents receive almost daily evidence of the performance of schools through the experience of their children. Local schools are penetrable by consumer groups. Parents are free to visit them at almost any time, and parent involvement in school affairs has had a long history, even though it often has been more characterized by cooptation than by collaboration. The schools are more accountable to their local constituency than any other public institution through governing boards and taxing powers 129 130 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE that are established by direct election. Local and State govern- ments frequently undertake investigations to evaluate the opera- tion of local school systems. Over the last 15 years, public education has been under considerable pressure to undergo substantial changes in an effort to be more responsive to the needs of a diverse constituency. Two such proposals will be examined in case studies. The most radical proposal, as well as the newest, involves the use of educational vouchers as a means of financing public education. A voucher market system of public education involves the granting by some public body of a voucher of fixed value to individual parents as a claim on public monies set aside for education. These vouchers are then used by parents to enroll their children in an educational institution of their choosing. The institution uses the voucher to seek reimbursement from the public agency for the educational services provided. The use of educational vouchers is advocated as a way of making school systems more responsive to the desires of diverse groups of parents. By placing purchasing power in the hands of the parents, parental influence over the educational program of local schools can be exercized by the demand expressed for particular programs. Although the voucher market system has not been adopted by any school system, it has been the subject of widespread public debate and was tested on an experimental basis in the Alum Rock Union Elementary School District near San Jose, California (Cohen and Farrar 1977). The second proposal, the decentralization of urban school systems, has a longer history and is less radical in nature. Decentralization maintains control over educational decision- making by the local school system, while delegating authority over such matters as curriculum and personnel to individual schools or groups of schools within the system. Decentralization is proposed as a way of allowing a school system to be more responsive to the diverse constituencies it serves. However, this responsiveness is controlled by an educational bureaucracy rather than by parents. Decentralization has been a formal feature of school systems in New York City, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Detroit. The use of educational vouchers in the Alum Rock public schools will be the subject of this chapter while the decentraliza- tion of the Detroit Public Schools will be discussed in chapter 9. We will discuss the experimentation with a voucher market system in the Alum Rock public schools under four topics: (1) a history of the decision to engage in the experiment, (2) a description of the Modified Voucher Plan upon which the experiment was based, (3) implementation of the voucher experiment, and (4) an evaluation of that implementation. EDUCATIONAL VOUCHERS 131 The History of Educational Vouchers at Alum Rock By the late 1960s, most attempts at major reform of urban school systems were disappointing. Faced with the defeat of “community control,” as exemplified by the Ocean Hill-Browns- ville confrontation in New York City, the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) undertook a search for more “interference- proof” means of making school systems responsive to the needs and interests of low income urban populations. In December, 1969, OEO commissioned a study to identify and recommend policies and programs which might be pursued toward this end. The study was carried out by the Center for the Study of Public Policy under the direction of Christopher Jencks, author and proponent of the voucher market system in public education. The study recommended that OEO engage in a field test of the educational voucher concept and outlined seven alternative ways in which it could be operationalized. OEO adopted the regulated compensatory voucher system as best suited to its objectives. This system had the following components: 1. The parent of each child in a given school system was to receive a voucher equal to the existing average per pupil expenditure by that system. 2. No school in the system would be allowed to charge tuition beyond the value of the voucher. This regulation would prevent upper income families from purchasing a superior education to that of low income families through additional tuition payments. 3. Schools would be given a supplementary voucher for every disadvantaged pupil enrolled. This supplementation would provide an incentive for better schools, that is, those experiencing a high demand for their services, to enroll difficult to teach children. Otherwise, they might refuse to enroll such children because of the sufficient demand from normal or advantaged students and the greater cost of teaching disadvantaged students. 4. All educational institutions within a given jurisdiction, both public and private, would participate in the voucher system. This participation would maximize the amount of competi- tion and increase parent choice among educational programs. 5. An educational voucher authority would be established in each jurisdiction. Its functions would be to receive public 132 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE monies allocated to education, to dispense vouchers to individual schools, and to certify the eligibility of schools to receive vouchers based on their conformity to regulations governing the voucher system. The local board of education would continue to function as an administrative body for local public schools. In December, 1969, OEO sent letters to major school districts around the country, soliciting their interest in being the potential site for an experimental voucher system. Each district was invited to apply for a grant with which to undertake a study of the desirability and feasibility of instituting such a system. In order to receive a grant, the school district had to select an advisory committee, composed of a cross-section of community interests, to advise the school board on whether or not to participate in such an experiment. Six school districts applied for and received feasibility study grants: Gary, Indiana; Seattle; San Francisco; Alum Rock, California; New Rochelle, New York; and Rochester, New York. In four of these districts, the school board decided against participation. This decision was based on two facts: (1) As relatively large urban districts they were already burdened by massive problems which would complicate the implementation of the voucher system; and (2) some had experienced difficulties with racial isolation which they feared would be aggravated by the parent choice provided by educational vouchers. The stand against the voucher experiment taken at the national level by the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers led the teachers’ organizations in all school districts except Alum Rock to oppose participation in the experiment. As a result, the Alum Rock Union Elementary School District alone decided to proceed as a potential test site. While Alum Rock did not represent the prototype of the urban school district which was the target of reform, OEO had no alternative. The monies appropri- ated by Congress for the educational voucher experiment would return to the general treasury if left uncommitted beyond the spring of 1972. Unwilling to forego this opportunity, OEO settled on Alum Rock as the test site. Alum Rock’s Decision to Participate In order to understand the experiment with educational vouchers in the Alum Rock schools as planned institutional change, we will discuss in more detail the conditions and events within Alum Rock leading to the district’s decision to participate in that experiment. The Alum Rock Union Elementary School District serves the eastern portion of the San Jose, California, metropolitan area EDUCATIONAL VOUCHERS 133 known as the ‘east valley.” It is a former agricultural area undergoing rapid urbanization. Fruit orchards are being converted into low and moderate income housing developments. There is little of what might be called a downtown area to Alum Rock; shopping centers are dispersed throughout the residential areas. One half of the children of the district are poor by Federal and State standards, yet poor families are not concentrated in any particular area. San Jose is the most integrated Standard Metro- politan Statistical Area in the Nation (National Institute of Education). The school district is governed by a board of trustees which is composed of five members, each of whom is elected to a staggered 4-year term by residents of the district. The composition of the board in 1976 closely reflected the composition of the communi- ty: one Chicano, one Japanese-American, one black, one white male, and one white female. The board has independent taxing authority and appoints the superintendent. Alum Rock is a relatively poor district. In 1969, it received one-third more State aid per pupil than the average allocated to school districts in California. However, it is a school district with a relatively high level of support for its public schools. Only 30 of California’s 723 elementary school districts had a higher tax rate, even though Alum Rock’s median assessed valuation per ele- mentary pupil was $5,328, compared to a State median valuation of $19,600. According to its superintendent, Alum Rock is the poorest large school district in northern California and one of the poorest large elementary districts in the State. The student population in 1969-1970, in kindergarden through the eighth grade, was approximately 16,000. Of this enrollment, approxi- mately 50 percent were of Spanish surname, 12 percent were black, and 38 percent were white and Oriental. As is common in rapidly growing metropolitan areas of California, the pupil turnover in Alum Rock is as high as 30 percent per year. A relatively high degree of mobility may make a school system more receptive to experimental proposals (National Institute of Educa- tion, 1973). In the fall of 1968, William Jefferds was appointed superin- tendent by the Alum Rock board of trustees. Under the former superintendent, whose term had lasted 12 years, the district was highly centralized and very rigid in its educational program. In the words of one teacher, “on every morning, in every classroom throughout the district, not only did reading begin at 8:00, but the second reading group began at 8:20.” The district also had serious financial difficulties. One year it went broke, ending up with about $1,000. Upon ascending to the superintendency, 134 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE Jefferds had two objectives for the district. One was to encourage more diversity and flexibility in the educational program by decentralizing decisionmaking authority to the building level. The second was to alleviate the financial shortages of the district. In the spring of 1970, Jefferds attended a meeting of the California State P.T.A. at which a representative of the Center for the Study of Public Policy (CSPP) presented the concept of the voucher system. Jefferds became interested in the OEO experi- ment as a way of meeting the needs of Alum Rock and invited the representatives of CSPP and OEO to Alum Rock to discuss that possibility. These consultations culminated in the preparation of an application for a feasibility study which was unanimously - approved by the district’s board of trustees on September 3, 1970. The application was accepted by OEO, and funds were made available to Alum Rock in February, 1971. Pursuant to OEO regulations, an Education Voucher Committee (EVC) was convened to supervise the study and advise the board of trustees whether or not to apply as a test site for the voucher experiment. The committee consisted of 21 members representing school administrators, teachers, parents, businessmen, community- wide groups, and minority groups. The feasibility study included surveys of parents and staff regarding their attitudes toward education vouchers. These surveys, in general, showed that both parents and teachers believed that a need for change existed in the education program, that parents should have more voice in making such changes, and that a cautious openness existed to the possible benefits of a voucher market system in bringing about such changes (Mecklenburger and Hostrop 1972). The Alum Rock Education Association (AREA), the local professional teacher’s organization, remained neutral on the issue, leaving the decision of whether or not to participate in the voucher experiment up to teachers in individual schools. AREA was very independent of national professional organizations and had a reputation of being more oriented toward the needs of the local community. By April, 1971, EVC was faced with two areas of uncertainty in making a recommendation regarding the experiment. One was the fact that the legislation required to enable private schools to participate in the voucher experiment had not yet passed the California State Legislature. The other uncertainty was a pending election of the district’s board of trustees which EVC feared might be affected by a positive recommendation. Given these circum- stances, EVC was prepared to vote down the feasibility study. However, the superintendent intervened and salvaged the proposal by persuading EVC members to recommend to the board of EDUCATIONAL VOUCHERS 135 trustees a postponement of any decision until after the State legislature had acted. Jefferds realized that a decision to participate in the voucher experiment ultimately must come from the principals and teach- ers. The matter could not be decided unilaterally by the administration. Support for such a decision required that princi- pals and teachers have an opportunity to explore the uncertainties of the voucher experiment and to overcome their fear of the changes which would accompany it. Both Jefferds and the deputy superintendent had backgrounds in the behavioral sciences and management and realized the importance of inservice training in any attempt at organizational change. In the words of the latter: We realized there were so many sacred cows in the hidden feelings that could block change. We had to get these out in the open which is a very painful process. We (the administra- tion) were the absolute controllers of the system. We couldn’t get any honest participation in decision-making without human relations training. Consequently, in the fall of 1971, the district applied for and received a continuing planning grant from OEO to engage in staff training to explore the issues of increased autonomy for principals and teachers in the six schools which were leaning toward participating in the experiment. The district hired the Center for Human Resources and Organizational Development (HRC) of San Jose to carry out that training. Meanwhile, in the fall of 1971, the California State Legislature failed to pass legislation permitting private schools to participate in any voucher experiment carried on under the auspices of a public school system. Therefore, the district asked OEO to alter its original specifications and accept a voucher system consisting only of public schools. Faced with the loss of funds if the Alum Rock District did not become the test site, OEO acquiesced to the request and permitted a transitional model to be developed, thereby eliminating that obstacle to Alum Rock’s eventual decision to participate. By January 1972, principals of six schools decided to partici- pate in the voucher demonstration, as a result of the HRC training, and convinced their teaching staffs of the desirability of this decision. Thus the principals and administrative staff were able to reach agreements that overcame the objections of each of the parties to the proposed experiment: Teachers wanted assurance that they would not lose their jobs; principals wanted autonomy over their schools; and OEO wanted a functional experiment that provided educational diversity, competition, parent choice, and 136 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE incentives to accept poor children into a given educational program. On the basis of these agreements, the staffs of each of the six schools voted to participate. On March 8, 1972, the school board unanimously authorized the superintendent to develop such a proposal to be submitted to OEO. In keeping with the administration’s belief that organizational change requires the active participation of all parties involved, a 3-day working conference was organized at Santa Clara Commu- nity College to prepare the first draft of the proposal to OEO. The conference consisted of 55 participants including parents, princi- pals, and teachers of each of the six participating schools; the central district staff; and representatives of AREA, PTA, CSPP, HRC, and OEO. The conference was organized in the manner of what has come to be known in the planning literature as a community charrette (Riddick 1971). A representative of OEO set forth the principle elements which the Federal government required of a voucher system. Then the conference was broken up into small groups, each being assigned a facet of the proposal on which to develop a position. The preliminary results of each group’s deliberations were typed and distributed to all members of the conference, following which new groups were formed to review these preliminary positions and to suggest modifications. The sequence was repeated with the modified results being subjected to a third round of small group review and modification. The final positions were negotiated by all participants of the conference meeting as a whole and were adopted by consensus. The conference recommendations became the basis of the final proposal presented to the school board. Participants agreed that the conference was a major success, both in providing open and frank communication among all the parties involved and in producing a workable proposal. In the opinion of a minority parent, all segments of the community were represented, although not proportional to their number in the population. Both parent representatives and staff representatives commented on the honest confrontation of different points of view and the willingness to work toward a consensus. There is no evidence that the conference was manipulated by the administra- tion to produce certain predetermined results. In the words of the deputy superintendent: The administration had no preconceived notion about how the voucher system should work. Everything was new to the administration. Therefore, everyone at the Santa Clara conference was in the same boat; we were all starting from scratch, learning together. EDUCATIONAL VOUCHERS 137 Conference participants were invited to review the final proposal, written by the school administration after the conference was over, before it was submitted to the board of trustees. Both parent and staff participants reported that the proposal followed faith- fully the recommendations of the conference. One must be impressed with the degree of success in using the conference to complete this planning task. Such is not always the case. Many attempts at widespread participation in developing planning proposals founder on either of two grounds: They are rigged ahead of time and therefore do not reflect genuine participation, or they bog down in conflict between adverse groups and never result in any viable plan. In this case success may be attributable to two factors: (1) Substantive conflicts between major actors were negotiated prior to the conference, thereby eliminating any barrier they might impose on the conference’s productivity. (2) All participants entered the conference in positions of relative equality in terms of knowledge or control over the process. This meant that parents’ interest in maintaining the option of neighborhood schools, which had not surfaced in prior negotiations, could be dealt with in the recommendations of the conference. The district’s board of trustees unanimously approved the final proposal on April 12, 1972, and OEO followed almost immedi- ately with its approval, allowing planning for the experiment to begin before the end of the school year. We can summarize this discussion of events leading up to Alum Rock’s decision to participate in the voucher experiment by indicating the factors which seem to account for that decision. In the first place, a need was felt by all parties concerned for decentralization of the school system. This commonly shared interest provided the basis for a collective goal for institutional change. One cannot say that a full-blown ideology was present, because no clear-cut notion prevailed about how to carry out such decentralization. Thus, education vouchers came to be seen as an operational expression of how to achieve this goal, and the experiment was entered into opportunistically. A second factor was the leadership of the superintendent in clearly articulating the goal of decentralization, in seeking resources in the school’s environment to help bring that about, in persistently and skillfully negotiating the interests of the district with OEO, and in providing the means whereby different parties within the district could resolve their individual interests with the proposed organizational change. In the third place, each of the major parties to the decision had something important to gain from the experiment and very little, 138 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE if anything, to lose. The teachers needed additional resources in order to develop badly needed innovative programs. The principals wanted greater autonomy over the administration of their schools. Parents, at least those involved in school affairs at the time, wanted more flexibility and innovation in the curriculum. AREA, as a professional organization wanted increased funds for the district. The administration wanted decentralization, but had no program or resources with which to bring it about. And lastly, OEO needed a demonstration site on which to spend its monies earmarked for a voucher experiment. A fourth factor was the use of techniques to enhance interpersonal relations as the school system worked its way through the change process, namely the adoption of inservice training in human relations and the use of the community charette in planning the voucher experiment. A fifth factor was the availability of substantial resources from OEO amounting to about $8 million a year, with which to carry out the program of institutional change. Without that incentive, it is doubtful that Alum Rock would have contemplated the adoption of a voucher market system. The Modified Voucher Plan The actual voucher system adopted by the Alum Rock School District departed in several important respects from the regulated compensatory voucher system specified in the original OEO prospectus. These departures resulted from limitations imposed on the Alum Rock schools by the State legislature, as well as agreements reached by parties within the school system to assure their support for the experiment. While these departures con- strained the potential for consumer choice, they did not negate the notion of a market system of education. The adopted plan provided competition among diverse providers of education, parent choice within that competitive framework, and incentives to providers to accept poor or high-risk children into their programs. The experiment proposed by Alum Rock, therefore, was known as the modified voucher plan. It was seen as an interim step on the way to future testing of the full voucher system originally proposed by OEO. The modified voucher plan was based on the voluntary participation of individual schools in the district. In the first year of the experiment, six elementary schools were involved. The plan consisted of the following elements: EDUCATIONAL VOUCHERS 139 1. Each participating school was to develop two alternative programs, or mini-schools, between which parents must choose to enroll their children. In this manner, parents preferring the concept of the neighborhood school, that is, to keep their children in the school in which they were currently enrolled, would still have to make an educational choice among programs within that school. Parents were to participate in the planning of these programs. 2. The parent of each child currently enrolled in a partici- pating school was to receive a voucher worth the current average cost of educating a child in the district. Compen- satory vouchers equal to one-third the value of the basic voucher were given directly to each program or mini- school on the basis of the number of eligible children that were enrolled. Eligibility for a compensatory voucher was determined by a student’s eligibility for the Federal lunch program. The latter in California was based on the equivalent of a maximum annual income of $4,000 for a family of four persons. In this manner, eligibility for compensatory vouchers was self-declared, and did not require any special testing or ‘labeling” of individual students. Compensatory funds were to be spent on services available to all participants in a given program, rather than just eligible children. The budget for each program was to be determined by the amount of voucher money attracted. 3. To facilitate parent choice each mini-school was to provide information in writing on the philosophy, practices, and finances of its program and on the performance of students to parents in all participating schools. Community counselors were to be made available by the district to help bring this information to parents and counsel them in the process of selecting the program and school in which to enroll their children. 4. Open enrollment was guaranteed for each program, but was limited with respect to school buildings. Parents were guaranteed placement of their children in the program of their first choice. If a program attracted more children than could be accommodated in the building site in which it planned, additional space would be made available in other buildings, a process known as satelliting. With respect to building choices, previously enrolled children and their incoming siblings were given first preference. If a building was oversubscribed, new enrolees would be assigned on the basis of a lottery. This enrollment 287-264 O - 79 - 10 140 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE procedure was accompanied by free transportation for each child to the building in which he or she was enrolled. . Each school was to operate autonomously from the school district; and each program, whether confined to a school building or located in multiple buildings, was to be responsible for its own policy, curriculum, staffing, texts and materials, management, and budgeting, within the limits imposed by the California State Education Code. This provision left the role of principals undefined. Two alternatives were suggested. One was that of a program manager responsible for the conduct of a given program in one or more buildings where it operated. In such a role, principals would have a home base, but their responsibility would be to the program being managed, rather than to the building in which it was located. The management of a particular building as a facility would be contracted for as a service. The second alternative was as a traditional building principal, responsible for managing all programs located in a given building. This alternative was seen to have the disadvantage of putting principals in the position of favoring one program over another, and thereby diminishing competition among programs which was essen- tial to parent choice. This issue was left unresolved in the plan and became the source of considerable conflict during the plan’s implementation. . An advisory body, known as the Education Voucher Advisory Committee (EVAC), was to be established to advise the school board and administration on the im- plementation of the voucher plan. EVAC was to be composed of one parent and one staff member from each school, the manner of their selection to be determined by the school. . The experiment was to be evaluated by two procedures. A continuous internal evaluation was to be conducted, under the auspices of the district, consisting of annual tests of academic achievement and attitudes of children toward school. This information was to be used as part of the information disseminated to parents each year. In addi- tion, surveys were to be conducted of the attitudes of parents and teachers toward the voucher system. An external evaluation regarding the effectiveness of the experiment itself was to be carried out by the Rand Corporation under contract with OEO. EDUCATIONAL VOUCHERS 141 8. The district was to assist any group of individuals outside the Alum Rock public schools which wanted to start an alternative education program. Such groups were to be provided monies with which to plan their programs and to cover the startup costs. The programs would operate under contract with the Alum Rock School District. This provision was an attempt to minimize the limitation of choice which resulted from the inability of private or parochial schools to participate in the voucher experiment. 9. All teachers certified under California law were to be guaranteed their seniority and tenure rights during the voucher experiment. If they chose to teach in a voucher school, their employment in the district could not be jeopardized by a declining enrollment in their program. Should such a decline occur, three alternatives were provided: (a) to transfer to another voucher program, necessitating that any expanding program must give first priority in hiring to existing district personnel (b) to transfer to a school not participating in the voucher experiment or (c) to have their contract bought up by the district. 10. Under California State law, the school board could not delegate legal responsibility for the participating schools; it could only delegate responsibility for program develop- ment and management, and disperse money to those schools on the basis of vouchers. To assure autonomy of operation, the plan specifically prohibited EVAC and the district administration from making any curricular or expenditure decisions for principals or program managers. Centralized services such as psychological counseling, audiovisual equipment, and curriculum development, were to be purchased at the option of participating schools. To assure the market orientation of the experiment, those centralized services which were essential to parent choice, namely, the dissemination of program information, enroll- ment counseling, and internal evaluation, were to be carried out by a private consulting firm under contract with the district. The firm was also to advise the superintendent on the implementation of the experiment. The modified voucher plan established a rather complex organization and generated certain structural conflicts which made difficult the plan’s implementation (see figure 5). The superintend- ent, as the chief administrative officer of the Alum Rock District, also became the administrative officer for the voucher experiment. 142 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE This placed the superintendent in the position of administering two very different and often conflicting educational operations. The superintendent’s responsibility went directly to the mini- schools or programs in seeing that they met the statutory requirements of California law and in transferring voucher money from the district to the individual programs. EVAC, instead of being an educational voucher authority responsible for running the voucher experiment, became an advisory group to the superin- tendent and the school board. The influence of EVAC on the experiment could only be indirect. Given this lack of autonomy for the voucher system, the district hired the Sequoia Institute, headed by Joel Levine, a former staff member of CSPP, to advise the superintendent on the conduct of the experiment and to perform those functions necessary to maintain the competitive nature of the system (which would have been performed by a voucher authority). This design left the principals with little official power in the system. The principals had no established role in running the mini-schools. In addition, they were superseded in their influence by two new agents, EVAC and the Sequoia Institute, which had direct access to the superintendent. The principals were left with what informal power derived from their strong ties with the superintendent that preceded the experiment. Implementation First Year: 1972-1973 In the first year of the voucher experiment, 22 mini-schools or programs were offered in the six participating schools. This constituted an average of better than three programs per school. Since the purpose of creating mini-schools was to provide choice in educational philosophy and program, the question naturally arises, to what extent did programs vary? The judgment in this matter is mixed. Some argue that basically there was little difference in philosophy and content from one program to another, while others argue that there was at least a basic difference in teaching style in each school. It is universally agreed that one building, the Meyer School, achieved significant varia- tions in educational philosophy and program. Since the purpose of the voucher experiment was to see whether or not such diversity would be generated, we will focus our comments on the school where it apparently did occur. In the view of one of the more successful teachers at Meyer School, an enormous amount of time and energy went into planning the mini-schools. Immediately after the OEO grant was EDUCATIONAL VOUCHERS 143 FIGURE 5 — Organizational chart of the Modified Voucher Plan Alum Rock Union Elementary School District Board of Trustees EVAC . superintendent Sequoia Institute ~ Z r= — = = ” [ principal Hl principal | I | mini- mini- | | school school | | Il 2 |] I I] i —— ——— — J N-ZZZTT _ L__ voucher schools non-voucher schools formal responsibility — — — informal responsibility awarded, the Meyer faculty sat down and outlined as many different types of programs as they could think of. Having identified the widest range of choices, the school held a Parents’ Night in which parents were asked to indicate their preferences among these options. On the basis of this preliminary measure of demand, the teaching staff narrowed the range of programs to be offered and proceeded to plan them. Since preregistration for the first year of the experiment occurred at the end of May, 1972, teachers had little more than a week to prepare programs, although curriculum planning did go on throughout the summer. It is generally agreed that too little time and resources were available for this purpose at the outset of the experiment. In the first year, Meyer School offered four programs; in the second year, five. They were: 1. The Year 2,000, a future-oriented curriculum teaching children how to solve problems and how to learn, rather than transmitting a body of knowledge 2. Fine Arts Curriculum 3. Behavioral Research Laboratory, a commercially developed program of individualized learning 4. Basic Skills, a traditional curriculum emphasizing skills in reading, math, and language arts 144 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE 5. Down to Earth, a free school focused on developing the motivation of children to learn by an unstructured explora- tion of their environment While all parents were forced to make a choice among programs in a given school, very few chose to enroll their children in a new school. Of the 2,650 families served by the six participating schools, 101 enrolled their children in a new building, while an additional 95 changed programs within a building during the first year (National Institute of Education 1973). Additional evidence of parental choice is reflected in the fact that 40 percent of families with two or more children in the voucher schools chose different programs for different offspring, suggesting that parents made an effort to match the needs of individual children with the most appropriate educational program. The voucher mechanism for allocating funds was implemented in that dollars were budgeted to programs on the basis of their enrollment at the beginning of the year. An income-outgo budget tying dollars to enrollment on a continuous basis throughout the year was planned but not implemented. Such a budget was designed to make the impact of parent choice on the mini-schools more immediate. The assignment of compensatory vouchers created a substantial increase in resources normally available, making innovative programs feasible. For the most part, teachers took over administrative responsibilities for the mini-schools. For example, in the Meyer school one teacher was appointed coordi- nator for each mini-school in addition to carrying teaching duties, and another teacher was appointed budget director. The coord- inators for each program met periodically with the building principal to work out common problems. The principal and vice principal had very little direct involvement. The principal handled relations with the district administration in terms of obtaining resources, and the vice principal handled discipline problems for the teachers. But, in the words of one teacher, “we ran the school; if the principal hadn’t been there, the school would have gone on anyway.” EV AC was organized largely with persons who had participated in the Santa Clara conference. In subsequent years, representatives on EVAC were elected from each school. EVAC had little formal power over the voucher experiment. It saw its role as a “watch dog” over the implementation of the Modified Voucher Plan and as a facilitator of communication between the schools and the community. Community advisory boards were also established in each school. Their function was to meet regularly with school staff to advise on community needs and interests in designing and operating the mini-schools. EDUCATIONAL VOUCHERS 145 During the first year, the principals moved to create a position of power for themselves within the voucher system. They saw EVAC and the Sequoia Institute as additional layers of centraliza- tion imposed on an experiment in which the schools were supposed to have increased autonomy. In the words of the principal, “We moved to block Levine from becoming, in effect, a superintendent of the voucher system, and EVAC from becoming a board of education.” The principals cut off all communication between the schools and EVAC. They counteracted Levine’s guidelines for running the experiment by dealing directly with the superintendent, as was their custom, in negotiating how the experiment was to be carried out in their individual schools. As a result, they were able to prevent the implementation of two of the key elements of the Modified Voucher Plan. They secured an agreement by which community counselors would be held responsible to each school building rather than to the Sequoia Institute, putting the counselors in a position of serving the needs of the school rather than the needs of the parents. As a result, the parent who headed the community counselors resigned in protest. The principals also secured an agreement that there would be no internal evaluation, during the first year, a move which greatly pleased the teachers. They argued that early testing of students’ performance and attitudes would be an unfair measure of the success or failure of their programs. As a consequence, testing could not begin until the second year, which meant that the results would not be available to parents until the third year of the experiment. These agreements gutted any serious attempt to increase the capacity of parents to make educational choices. Thus, while the principals, for the most part, were committed to the voucher concept, their play for power nullified the regulatory roles of EVAC and the Sequoia Institute which were necessary to assure free choice and competitiveness, characteristics essential to a voucher market system. A survey was conducted in the fall and the spring of the first year to determine the reactions of both parents and teachers to the experiment (National Institute of Education 1973). In general, the proportion of parents favoring the voucher system increased during the year. Parents who liked a choice in curriculum increased from 83 percent in the fall to 95 percent in the spring. Those believing that parental choice in enrollrnent would make teachers more responsive went from 66 percent in the fall to 76 percent in the spring. Parents believing that vouchers would improve the quality of education increased from 77 percent in the fall to 89 percent in the spring. 146 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE The survey of teachers showed that in the fall about 50 percent in both the voucher schools and the nonvoucher schools believed that educational vouchers would improve education in Alum Rock. In the spring, 74 percent in voucher schools as opposed to 33 percent in nonvoucher schools believed in such improvement. Teachers believing that vouchers would benefit students consti- tuted 83 percent in the voucher schools in contrast to 30 percent in nonvoucher schools. In referring to the advantages of voucher schools, 75 percent of teachers cited teacher teamwork; 85 percent cited a curriculum better suited to student needs; 84 percent cited learning experience for teachers; 96 percent cited opportunity to innovate; and 72 percent cited parent involvement. Second Year: 1973-1974 In the second year, seven schools were added to the experiment, bringing the number participating to 13. Forty-five mini-schools were provided, which again was substantially greater than the number called for in the original plan. This represented an addition of three new programs and a drop of the three existing programs due to a lack of demand. There was very little shift in enrollment among the various programs. The addition of new schools was opposed by the principals of the original six schools. These principals felt that by the end of the first year they had worked out a great number of conflicts and had begun to make the experiment operational. Now that the principals had ‘gotten themselves together,” they wanted to confine the experiment to the original six schools during the second year so that they could begin to function like a market. But their recommendation was overruled, it was believed, because of the additional money which the new schools would bring into the district and because the National Institute of Education wanted to demonstrate success in order to get more money from Congress. In the second year, the policy of open enrollment received its severest test, and failed. In order for the voucher system to operate as a market, enrollment in any given program had to remain open to all comers, allowing the expansion of programs with a high demand and the retrenchment of programs with a low demand. To implement open enrollment required that programs with increased enrollment be able to expand or satellite into school buildings with decreasing enrollment. In every case, attempts at satelliting were blocked or sabotaged by the receiving school. Programs which attempted to satellite were usually denied space in other buildings, presumably because the schools involved were threatened by the success of the expanding program or were opposed to the voucher concept. EDUCATIONAL VOUCHERS 147 The experience of the Meyer School is insightful. During the second year, the staff of Meyer wanted to fully test the voucher concept by keeping enrollments open. They attracted 1,000 students, compared to their usual enrollment of 750. Meyer wanted to satellite their grades six through eight into a junior high school and consequently urged the district to ‘“voucherize” a new junior high school, Ocala, which was to open that year. However, parents of other elementary schools which were to feed into Ocala were opposed to the voucher concept, leading the district administration to voucherize Fischer Junior High School instead. This decision made sense in that Meyer was a feeder school to Fischer. However, the principal and staff of Fischer were opposed to vouchers. To deal with this situation, the administration allowed those in opposition to vouchers to transfer to the new Ocala Junior High School. When the time came for Meyer to satellite, the staff of Fischer, now a voucher school, did not want satellites from Meyer School, reportedly because they feared the competition from what was known as a very successful program. Faced with this dilemma, the administration decided to put Meyer’s satellites at the Ocala School, which had extra space and where the principal and staff were also opposed to the voucher system. Meyer compounded the error by sending its least experienced teachers to the satellite. With no support for relatively inexperienced teachers, the program lost students and eventually was dropped. It was in the second year that an attempt was made to implement another major element of the plan, the creation of alternative schools. It also failed (Cohen and Farrar 1977). A group of teachers from outside the district applied for permission to establish a “free school” known as GRO-KIDS. The group was awarded a planning grant; but to some, the district appeared to drag its feet on granting permission for the school to operate, extending negotiations throughout most of a year. However, opposition to the alternative school was based more on personnel matters than educational philosophy. The proponents of GRO- KIDS wanted the freedom to choose their own teachers and determine their own salary scale. The Alum Rock teachers union, seeing that GRO-KIDS might attract enrollment out of district schools and thereby threaten existing jobs, insisted that the applicants hire certified teachers, have the same student/staff ratio, and pay the same salary and fringe benefits as prevailed in the district. The principals of the voucher schools sided with the teachers union, but for different reasons. They wanted the same freedom over personnel practices being sought for GRO-KIDS. Since they were denied that freedom, they did not want 148 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE GRO-KIDS to have it, and thereby operate with a competitive advantage over the district’s voucher schools. In the end, the administration sided with the teachers’ union and principals, the applicants agreed to these terms, and a contract for GRO-KIDS to operate was awarded. However, by the time the program was offered, the number of parents who had originally expressed an interest dwindled to the point where the program was no longer feasible. The second year saw implementation of the continuous income-out go budget. This budget allowed each program to keep a more accurate account of its per pupil cost so that a program’s budget could be automatically increased or decreased with changes in enrollment. The construction of such a budgeting system consumed an enormous amount of time and recordkeeping on the part of the teaching staff. This burden, in addition to the already cumbersome tasks of program management, led many mini-schools to transfer administrative responsibilities from the teachers to the principals. Teachers found that they preferred teaching to adminis- tration. Third Year: 1974-1975 The failure of satelliting during the previous year led to a decision to curtail open enrollment in all schools. This policy meant that programs could enroll students up to their existing capacity on a first-come, first-serve basis. Parents who could not be accommodated would have to seek other choices. The demise of open enrollment marked the beginning of the end of competi- tion between programs, a fate greatly welcomed by teachers. There were no births or deaths in mini-schools during this year, and the shift in program size was negligible. A budget crisis in the district as a whole dominated the experiment in the third year. Local revenues decreased due to an overall loss of students and cost increases due to inflation. Teachers and teacher-aids were laid off. However, due to personnel regulations, this attrition had to occur on the basis of teacher seniority rather than a school building’s enrollment. This meant that mini-schools had to shuffle their staff to accommodate district-wide attrition, which involved taking on teachers based on their seniority rather than their program compatibility. As an additional economy measure, compensatory funds from the voucher experiment were consolidated with compensatory funds from other State and Federal programs and used district wide. For the second year in a row, excess voucher funds remaining at the end of the year were absorbed by the district to help balance its budget. And finally, in order to insure the future financial EDUCATIONAL VOUCHERS 149 solvency of the district, class sizes were fixed to allow the district to predict future teacher needs more accurately. All of these remedies for the district’s fiscal problems served to restrict the discretion of voucher schools and decrease their resources and incentive for program innovation. In the third year, booklets on how to interpret program options, how to visit schools, and how to select programs were designed and distributed. Parent education, a basic element in the voucher plan, was finally introduced. For the first time, parents received information on students’ cognitive performance and attitudes toward school. However, at the insistence of principals such information was distributed only to parents of children enrolled in each respective program. Comparative information among programs had to be requested by parents. Thus in the third year, increased information regarding educational programs was made available to parents. However, such information came at a time of declining opportunity for parents to exercise choice. Fourth and Fifth Year: 1975-1976, 1976-1977 The changes in operating procedures during the third year were reflected in the experiment’s steady decline during its last 2 years. In the fourth year, mini-schools continued, but the interest of parents in exercising choice markedly diminished. The number of parents who made enrollment decisions prior to the deadline was 1,500 fewer than the previous year. The internal evaluation and parent information program continued as in the third year. Principals in most schools assumed complete management respon- sibility for the mini-schools. Teachers further withdrew from competitiveness between programs. For example, in the Meyer School the teaching staff felt that teachers were becoming so identified with the mini-schools that the building as a whole was not hanging together. As a result, the roles of program coordinator and budget director were dropped. Two school-wide task forces were formed, one for the curriculum and one for the budget. Every teacher was assigned to one task force. The fifth year brought a formal end to the experiment. Its termination did not represent a dramatic change in operating procedures because many of the features of the voucher system had already been discarded, and the voucher schools were brought more into conformity with the rest of the district. Only nine buildings offered more than one program. Budgeting was still tied to program enrollment. The internal evaluation and parent information procedures continued. 150 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE Evaluation In evaluating the experimentation with a voucher market system at Alum Rock, it is important to recognize that two efforts at institutional change are involved. One is the effort by OEO to change primary and secondary public education through the adoption of a voucher market system. The other is an attempt by the Alum Rock School District to change itself through decentrali- zation of decisionmaking. Therefore, two sets of objectives exist by which the experiment can be evaluated. OEO’s objectives were to make an educational system more responsive to the needs of diverse groups by increasing parent choice and, therefore, parent influence over the curriculum. Alum Rock’s objectives were to create more flexibility and variety in its curriculum by decentrali- zing decisionmaking within the district. Evaluation by OEO’s Objectives In order for OEO’s objectives to be met, it was necessary to establish the essence of a voucher market system, i.e., the exercise of parental choice among clear educational alternatives that were in competition with each other for voucher dollars. Was such a system implemented? In a pure sense, the answer is “no,” and one would have to conclude that the experiment was a failure. However, one would have to acknowledge that some of the important elements of such a system were implemented and that in a partial sense the experiment was a success. Let us elaborate this conclusion in more detail. 1. A voucher mechanism of a compensatory nature was estab- lished with a budgeting system that permitted funds to be attached to enrollment for individual programs, and was maintained throughout the experiment. 2. Clear educational alternatives were established within some of the schools of the district at the height of the experiment. Teacher initiative and responsibility in designing and carrying out innovative and varied educational programs were clearly demonstrated. 3. Open enrollment succeeded only at the building level. It failed at the program level in that mini-schools were not able to satellite beyond their existing facilities. 4. No alternative school outside the public system was estab- lished. EDUCATIONAL VOUCHERS 151 5. Community counselors were not used to educate parents about how to make choices; they were used to advertise, or disseminate information about schools. 6. The internal evaluation did provide consumers with compara- tive information about the performance of mini-schools, but this occurred too late to have any significant impact on program development. 7. EVAC and advisory boards for each school were established, but their impact on the implementation of the voucher system was restricted. One could say from this summary that those elements of the plan which dealt with diversity in curriculum and building-level decisionmaking were successfully implemented, whereas those elements that dealt with competition and parent choice were not. We must now ask the question, why was the voucher market system as originally conceived by OEO not implemented? The answer to this question has several dimensions. Some of the failure is attributable to factors which were built into the design of the experiment, for which responsibility lies with those who planned it. A part of the failure is attributable to the process by which the experiment was implemented, responsibility for which must be assumed by those who administered it. Still other factors lie outside the actions of planners or administrators and therefore reflect on the viability of the concept itself. Failure by Design A principle cause of failure lies in the fact that the voucher experiment was not designed as a freestanding market system, but rather as one contained within a larger bureaucratic system. That larger system existed prior to the experiment and was to persist beyond it. Therefore, the interests of the larger system prevailed when they conflicted with those of the voucher experiment. In the view of one principal: The District was unwilling to let the voucher schools be truly independent and function as a market. They were forced to play by the District wide rules. The voucher demonstration consisted essentially of two systems in one, the voucher system within the larger system, and the larger system won out. A second factor was the preservation of teacher seniority and tenure rights. Their enforcement limited the ability of individual programs to hire the most appropriate personnel for their philosophy and methods, and prevented the removal of teaching 152 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE personnel judged ineffective on the basis of parent demand. A third factor was the absence of any nonpublic schools that would have bypassed the constraints on the experiment imposed by the conflicts between the voucher schools and nonvoucher schools within the district. And lastly, bypassing the principals in assigning formal manage- ment responsibility for the voucher programs created an informal triangle of power among the principals, EVAC and the Sequoia Institute (who were responsible for overseeing the voucher plan), and the superintendent (who was caught between the interests of the district and the interests of the voucher experiment). This triangular relationship allowed the principals to secure an alliance with the superintendent against EVAC and the Sequoia Institute to block implementation of key elements of the voucher plan. Failure by Implementation Levinson (1976), in a well-informed and respected critique of the voucher experiment at Alum Rock, attributes its failure to the incremental process by which it was implemented. Three aspects of incrementalism are relevant. The voucher plan was broken down into its components and implemented in stages. This procedure would have been satisfactory had these components been serially related, that is, if the successful implementation of one component were related sequentially to the implementation of another. However, the voucher plan constituted a system change in which the components were interrelated, and thus required simultaneous implementation. Alternative education programs were introduced the first year, the budget system was introduced the second year, and the evaluation of programs and parent education were introduced the third year. This staged implemen- tation meant that parent choice and its impact on budget allocations could not have its full effect on program design. In the words of Levinson: The problem with incremental implementation is that if the components are treated as individual entities, rather than as parts of a whole to be meshed together, then the innovation, although interesting and beneficial, may not conform to its original plan, since the relationship of the components to the whole can be ignored (p. 15). A second feature of incrementalism is the preservation of the old system during the introduction of a new one. The voucher system was implemented as a supplementation to the existing school system, rather than a replacement of it. This procedure allows power over change to reside with the current operators of a EDUCATIONAL VOUCHERS 153 system, those with entrenched interests, who, because of the staged nature of incrementalism, can dismantle the innovation piece by piece when it conflicts with their interests. Thus satelliting was blocked because it threatened the integrity of building organization and professional control over program expansion. The establishment of the alternative school, GRO- KIDS, was deterred by teachers who feared loss of employment in the larger system. A third feature of incrementalism is decisionmaking by negotia- tion rather than by plan. The introduction of new system parts, while preserving existing ones, leads to decisionmaking which depends on the agreement of all parties concerned. Such decision- making results in innovations being modified or blocked so as to minimize conflict with existing practices. When the redesign of a system is instituted simultaneously, it is more likely to proceed as planned. Thus principals were able to negotiate a postponement of internal evaluations, and the teachers union was able to negotiate crippling requirements for the proposed alternative school. Constraining Factors Some factors contributing to the failure of the experiment lay outside its design or implementation and therefore suggest limitations of the concept of the voucher market system. Most key actors in the experiment agreed that very few parents became significantly involved in making choices between educational philosophies and programs when such alternatives did exist. Some believe that effective parent choice could be developed if a serious effort at parent education had been made by the district. However, most agreed that parents, particularly at the elementary level, are more concerned about choosing teachers than an educational curriculum. They want to match the style of the teacher with the learning style of their children. A second factor noted by all parties involved was the tremendous drain in time and morale which competition inflicted on teachers. Teachers were not happy with having to try to outdo each other for students. They liked the variety in programs that came with the voucher system and the opportunity to work together in small groups. But they did not like the pressure that pitted teachers against each other. In the words of one teacher, “The whole voucher experience was very painful: it engendered a lot of conflict and lack of trust.” As a result, teachers began to minimize competition among programs in order to reduce conflict. Competition is inherent in a market situation. However, the amount of interpersonal conflict experienced in Alum Rock could be avoided with a voucher system in which the school building was 154 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE the basic competing unit. In the mini-schools, teachers who were used to working together on a daily basis were suddenly thrust into face-to-face competition. If a school building were to work together as a single producing unit, such personalized conflict would be avoided. That is exactly the state of affairs to which the voucher system in Alum Rock eventually gravitated. The conclusions which we have been discussing should not be construed to imply that the voucher experiment at Alum Rock constituted an adequate test of a voucher market system. With the number of limitations built into its design and implementation, it can in no way be so considered. A more adequate test must involve a system in which the educational programs operate independently of each other, free to grow or decline in response to demand, and with competition preserved and protected by an overriding authority. What the Alum Rock experiment does provide is a trial regarding the feasibility of some of the elements of that system. From this trial it would appear that educational innovation and diversity can be generated by teachers and related financially to parent demand when competition internal to an educational unit of production is avoided. Evaluation by Alum Rock’s Objectives The Alum Rock school district did not have an articulated plan for achieving decentralized decisionmaking. Neither the nature of decentralization to which the district aspired, nor a set of actions designed to achieve it, had been specified. Rather, the school administration saw in the voucher experiment an opportunity to advance decentralization and therefore adopted the experiment as its plan. We therefore have no preconceived notion of decentraliza- tion by which to evaluate the attainment of the district’s objectives. What we have is a statement from key actors about certain features of the voucher system which did not exist in the district prior to the experiment, which persisted 2 years after the conclusion of the experiment, and which therefore can be considered to be institutionalized. 1. Curriculum variability—Although there is now only one educational program per school building, that program is designed by each individual school. This procedure provides some opportunity for variation in the curriculum on a systemwide basis. The staff of each school are free to make decisions about the emphasis which their curriculum will take and to set priorities regarding the kinds of teachers to be EDUCATIONAL VOUCHERS 155 hired. Within a given school, teachers are continuing to use their own style within a given curriculum. They can team-teach or do individual teaching. Furthermore, in some schools there is decisionmaking by the faculty rather than by the principal. For example, at the Meyer School the faculty decided which math and reading programs to adopt and whether or not an individual teacher can depart from that program. Teachers decided the discipline policy to be used within the school and initiated a continuation of the human relations program to improve working relationships among the faculty. 2. Open enrollment—Open enrollment exists in that a parent can choose to enroll his or her child in any school in the Alum Rock district. Transportation is provided as long as funds are available. Furthermore, within some schools there is a degree of open enrollment between classes. For example, at Meyer School, when parents come for a conference regarding the next academic year, they are told who is teaching at a given grade level and are asked their preference for the teacher they would like for their child. However, there is no guarantee that first preferences will be honored, since class size must be balanced. 3. Building-based budgeting—The system of attaching building budgets to enrollment continues, and each building decides how its budget will be spent. For example, at the Meyer School, the principal solicits recommendations for program expenditures for the coming year from teachers. The princi- pal integrates these recommendations into the budget total allocated to the school on the basis of its projected enrollment, and returns the proposed budget to the teachers for review before submitting it to the district. The district then aggregates all building budgets by use of a computer and makes adjustments in the allocated amounts based on any changes in expected average daily attendence. This budgeting procedure means that the amount of funds over which the central administration has discretionary power went from $18 million prior to the voucher experiment to $2,000 after the experiment. In the words of the deputy superintendent: This budgeting procedure has radically changed the nature of my job. Before, when I was responsible for all of the money in the system, people were afraid to come to me for advice or assistance. Now they use me as a resource person. 287-264 O = 79 = 11 156 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE 4. Human relations—There is a continuing appreciation for and use of interpersonal skills learned in the human relations training carried on during the experiment. 5. Evaluation—The internal evaluation has become a permanent function of the district. Information on students’ cognitive performance and attitude toward school, budget expendi- tures, staff size, and program philosophy for each building continues to be distributed annually to all parents. 6. Parent involvement—Community advisory boards continue to operate at each school. Although their role in decisionmaking is minimal, it is qualitatively different from that of PTAs. The former presumes to oversee a school’s operation, while the latter’s function is more supportive and social. Parent involvement never achieved the level of influence hoped for, but all parties are agreed that the current level of involvement exceeds that which occurred prior to the experiment and that the school system is much more sensitive to community needs and interest. The schools now have a “pro student” attitude; student feelings are taken into consideration. In the words of one parent: The voucher experiment opened up communication be- tween the schools and the community. The schools just cannot carry on business as usual without considering the attitudes and wishes of the community. Whatever else happens, the schools will never be the same; they can’t go back to working in isolation. The community now feels it has a right to participate and express its opinion. One must conclude from this list of carryover effects that the attempt to decentralize the Alum Rock schools was an unqualified success. The degree of decentralized decisionmaking is not only remarkable for Alum Rock, but surpasses what one might expect to find in almost any local public school system. One might say that the operation failed, but the disease was cured; that is, the attempt to establish a voucher market system failed, but the attempt to decentralize the school system succeeded. Whether the Alum Rock schools would have achieved decentralization without the experiment is a moot question. In the words of a former employee of the Sequoia Institute: The people in the district have an enormous sense of failure about the voucher experiment. That is probably because each of them feels responsible for their piece of it, and if it failed, that failure reflects on them personally. Actually, a lot was accomplished by the voucher experiment. EDUCATIONAL VOUCHERS 157 References Cohen, David K, and Farrar, Eleanor. Power to the parents? — The story of educational vouchers. Public Interest, 48 (sum- mer):72-98, 1977. Education Workers: The Experience at Alum Rock. Washington, D.C.: The National Institute of Education, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, mimeographed, 1973. Levinson, Eliot. The Alum Rock Voucher Demonstration: Three Years of Implementation. Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Corpora- tion, 1976. Loventhal, Gloria, teacher. Alum Rock, California, July 25, 1977, interview. Mecklenburger, James A., and Hostrop, Richard W., eds. Educa- tion Vouchers. From Theory to Alum Rock. Homewood, Ill.: ETC Publications, 1972. Oberg, James, principal. Alum Rock, California. July 21, 1977, interview. Reyes, Richard, former staff member, Sequoia Institute. Alum Rock, California, July 25, 1977, interview. Riddick, W.L., II. Charrette Process: A Tool in Urban Planning. York, Pa.: George Shumway, Publisher, 1971. Silva, Joseph, president of EVAC. Alum Rock, California, July 22, 1977, interview. Symons, Dr. Walter, deputy superintendent. Alum Rock, Cali- fornia, July 25, 1977, interview. Woll, Carmela, parent. Alum Rock, California, July 25, 1977, interview. CHAPTER 8 DECENTRALIZATION OF DETROIT PUBLIC SCHOOLS As any organization or institution grows, effective management and efficient production become more difficult. A school system, which is basically an institution that delivers educational services, is no exception. At some point it finds itself losing touch with its beneficiaries, separated by the bureaucratic structure and the mass of red tape that are its inevitable companions. One possible solution to this problematic situation is to decentralize. Decentral- ization can increase efficiency by shortening the chain of command and thus reducing the time and effort involved in any decision. And it can improve effectiveness by allowing the decisionmaker, who is closest to the specific scene and most familiar with the particulars of the situation, to make decisions that are suited to the situation rather than dictated by some uniform rule. This kind of internal reorganization is administrative decentralization. It is usually sought and implemented from within the institution by professionals who wish to improve the institu- tion’s operation. It does not change the nature of the institution’s relations with its constituency—the school system is the provider, the students and their parents are the recipients. An alternative form of decentralization is political decentraliza- tion which raises parents and students to the status of active participants in school policy and operation. It is based on the presumptions that the sharing of power is good, that decisions should be made close to the site of their impact, that people want to participate in the decisions that affect their lives, and that decentralization will allow them to do so (Scott et al. 1974). It also presumes that lay people have or can learn the skills and develop the expertise necessary to make important decisions about the school system. This notion, understandably, can be threaten- ing to professional educators, and for this reason the impetus for political decentralization usually comes from outside the institu- tion itself. A politically decentralized system is not necessarily 158 DECENTRALIZATION OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS 159 efficient, for it involves many more people in each policy decision; but it has tremendous potential to improve the community’s level of satisfaction with the services it receives. And because it involves a radical reorganization of the power structure, the idea of political decentralization is likely to meet resistance and obstacles throughout its implementation. Without solid support, a plan for political decentralization that looks beautiful on paper may turn out, in practice, to be virtually no different from the previous status quo. Several communities have attempted it, but whether any school system has actually achieved political decentralization is doubtful. History of Decentralization in Detroit The Detroit school system has been working with some form of decentralization for many years. Administrative decentralization began when structural revisions were needed to make a growing system more manageable. In 1956, the elementary schools were grouped into districts, each of which had a senior principal who reported to an assistant superintendent and supervised the implementation of centrally formulated policy in the district. The principals of the junior and senior high schools reported to another assistant superintendent and performed a similar policy implementation function in their own schools. In 1959, the district senior principals took over responsibility for the junior and senior highs; thus nine vertically integrated districts were created in which senior highs and all their feeder schools were put under the administrative authority of one person who reported to and carried out the policies of the central superintendent. The impetus for this reorganization was the realization that a totally centralized administration was too cumbersome to be effective. There was also the growing feeling, with the beginning of the civil rights movement and the Country’s generally liberal political atmo- sphere, that institutions had to make themselves more accessible to those they served. An administratively decentralized structure, with all the contact points it provides, can do just that and in the process can adapt more readily to the particular needs of each of the districts within the school system. The concern with the school’s relationship to the community in which it is sited was carried a step further in 1959 with a pilot project which appointed school-community coordinators for two elementary and one junior high school. The purpose of the project was to show that achievement levels could be increased, absentee- ism and vandalism decreased, and parent-teacher relations im- 160 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE proved if the community could become more involved in school affairs. The results of the project were favorable enough to secure Ford Foundation funding for a larger scale operation known as the Great Cities Improvement Program which began in the fall of 1960. Great Cities employed seven school-community coordina- tors or agents who acted as outreach workers. They organized neighborhood block clubs; provided classes in reading, typing, leadership training, and crafts; developed child and adult recre- ation programs; and encouraged extensive use of school facilities after regular school hours. Great Cities also funded a remedial education program in which teachers stayed after school to conduct special classes, had extracurricular activities, and helped students with homework assignments. After several years of operation, the school-community agents developed a statement of goals for the program. They described their own role as assisting the schools, community groups, and individuals within the community to strengthen their attitudes, concepts, and skills so that there could be maximum democratic participation in effec- tively solving school-community problems. The program’s general goal was stated as providing the best possible environment for the education of the whole child through the school and the local community. The agent was to help develop mutual trust and respect among all members of the community, to help the community develop its potential to solve its own problems, to stimulate and provide opportunities for increasing social and academic competence of residents, and to serve as a source of factual information for the school and the community. The activities of the Great Cities Improvement Program expanded the school system’s contacts with members of the school community. It brought more people into the schools and put them in touch with school personnel. It reflected an attitude of concern with the relationship of the schools, not only to the students, but to their parents and neighbors as well. However, neither the creation of school districts nor the Great Cities program changed the fundamental relationship between the people and the schools. They provided only administrative changes. The power structure of the school system remained centralized. Policy matters were still decided by the central board which was generally composed of representatives of Detroit’s major power groups: Chrysler, the labor unions, the major charities, and the professional community. Open access did not mean shared authority for decisionmaking. The line was drawn between community involvement and community control. And that is where the line remained until 1969. DECENTRALIZATION OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS 161 Another facet of the Detroit public schools’ relationship with its constituency, also growing out of the civil rights movement, is its commitment to desegregation. It began in 1964, when the board of education’s election resulted in a working majority of labor people, liberal whites and blacks, all of whom were concerned with integrating the schools. In 1966, they appointed, as the new superintendent of schools, Norman Drachler who had been the assistant superintendent for community relations. Under Drachler and the liberal coalition, the school system began to take steps toward school desegregation. Between 1966 and 1970, many changes took place. The number of blacks holding instructional positions increased by one-third, and those holding noninstruc- tional positions increased by two-fifths. Two blacks were ap- pointed as deputy superintendents. The number of all-white schools decreased by one-half, while the proportion of black students increased by only one-eight. The Detroit public schools pushed to increase the numbers of blacks holding important positions in the companies that supplied the school system. They went so far as to publish their own textbooks when they found none available commercially that adequately depicted blacks or dealt fairly with black history (Pilo, 1975). The Detroit public schools came to be regarded as one of the Country’s leaders in desegregation. Despite the school system’s efforts at desegregation and community relations, there still were problems. A fundamental one was lack of money which in turn caused other problems. In 1967, half of the elementary school classes in Detroit were overcrowded, a condition that could be remedied only with $65 million that the school system did not have. More than half of the students entering inner-city high schools dropped out before graduation. Indeed, students had little incentive to complete high school—most personnel directors would not accept their diplomas as valid. A study conducted in the fall of 1967 at one inner-city high school showed that 50 percent of the dropouts were unemployed, while 90 percent of the 1967 graduating class were unemployed (The National Advisory Commission on Civil Dis- orders). Somehow, despite all its efforts, the Detroit public schools seemed to be failing to give its graduates the skills and credentials necessary to “make it” in the mainstream of society. This failure was felt most actively in the black community, an ever-increasing part of the school system’s constituency. In 1967, Detroit was the scene of severe civil disorders. By no stretch of the imagination can the responsibility for those uprisings be laid at the feet of the school system. But the condition of Detroit’s educational system was one part of the 162 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE complex of social and economic problems that was the breeding ground for those riots. The riots had a definite impact on the atmosphere in Detroit and the future direction of the school system. The liberal coalition that controlled the school board maintained its dedication to desegregation. However, members of the white community were frightened and felt threatened. They began to think of escaping from the city and removing their children from the schools. The black community, which had previously supported desegregation as a way to improve the schools and guarantee their children a good education, began instead to consider community control of the schools as the most likely means to this end. They believed that they knew best the needs, wants, and ways of their community, they understood their children better than anyone else, and therefore they should have a hand in deciding how the schools should be run. Tied up in this ideology was the belief that self-respect is a vital part of education; and that involvement in the decisions that affect one’s own life is an essential part of gaining self-respect. The sharing of power and responsibility—political decentralization—would be necessary to achieve this goal. In June of 1967, the Inner City Parents’ Council, organized by the Reverend Albert Cleage, Jr., made the first demands for community control of the schools. These demands were taken up by the State legislature where, in 1968, two legislators from Detroit introduced separate proposals for the political decentrali- zation of the Detroit public schools. One of the bills would have created 16 autonomous school systems, each with the same status as all the other independent school systems in the State. The second bill called for the school system to be divided into several regions, each with its own elected school board. This bill retained and enlarged the central school board which was already in existence (Grant 1971). Both failed. But the movement toward political decentralization had begun. The school board began looking at various proposals for decentralization but was unable to decide just how much power to delegate to the regions. In the meantime, the issue picked up support, particularly in the black community, which began to lobby for strong political decentrali- zation. Early in 1969, the two legislators who had previously introduced the decentralization proposals reintroduced their bills, which were again defeated. In April 1969, the Detroit Chapter of the NAACP submitted a plan for community control of the schools to the board of education. On the same day, State Senator Coleman Young introduced a nearly identical decentralization proposal into the legislature. Young’s proposal had widespread support. On April 11, 1969, Public Act 244 was signed into law by Michigan Governor Milliken. DECENTRALIZATION OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS 163 The Decentralization Plan The provisions of Public Act 244 were simple. The school system would be divided into from seven to eleven regions, each with an enrollment of from 25,000 to 50,000 students. Each region would be run by an elected nine-member board. The regions would control the appointment of regional superinten- dents, the assignment and promotion of teaching staff, the determination of the curriculum, the use of school facilities, and the allocation of the regional budget. Originally the persons selected to chair the regional boards were the highest votegetters in the regional election; later this provision was changed to allow the boards to elect their own chairperson. The regional chairper- sons were to form the citywide central board along with seven members elected at large. The central board would handle those aspects of policy and operations which had systemwide impact or could be done most efficiently through a central office. These included taxation, purchasing, payroll management, employee contract settlement and hiring, special education programs, and the determination of basic educational standards. The central board was also to allocate a sum of money to each region, which the region could then spend at its discretion. Regional allocations are based on the size of the student population, the amount of State aid received, and the priorities the regions themselves establish as indicated by the budget proposals they submit to the central board. The central board attempts, through its budget allocations to provide in all of the regions equal services, although not necessarily equal amounts of money. The plan was meant to bring the decisionmaking powers out of the central school offices and into the regions where, presumably, the greatest familiarity with local needs and concerns lay. This would have been true political decentralization and would have fulfilled the demands of the black community for control of the schools. However, the plan actually retained significant authority centrally—the budgeting and hiring provisions were particularly important with respect to community control—and could not be considered a plan for full political decentralization. The potential for the reallocation of additional authority existed since the regional representatives made up a majority on the central board. If they were strong and well-organized, they could seek greater control for the regions. The legislature’s decentralization plan was to be implemented by the board of education. While the board did not object to the plan, and in fact believed that decentralization could improve the quality of education in Detroit, it was still committed to 164 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE desegregation as the best means for improving the quality of education. The board saw in the decentralization plan an excellent opportunity to further the desegregation of the Detroit public schools. According to State law, the board of education alone had the authority to determine internal school district boundaries. Therefore, the board drew up the new regional boundaries in such a way as to provide as much desegregation as possible without a major busing effort. The district lines radiated out from the central city, combining inner-city blacks with whites from outlying areas in each region. Because black parents were a minority in the voting population, in many regions blacks would not gain control of the schools even though their children made up the largest portion of school enrollment. Thus, without intending to do so, the effect of the board’s attempt to promote desegregation was to limit community control, at least for the black community. The announcement of the new regional boundaries drew immediate and intense reaction from all sides. Vocal sections of the black community openly rejected the proposition that desegregation would improve the schools and raise the quality of the education received by their children. They also rejected the distribution of power which would result from desegregation because they would continue to lack control over their schools. Vocal parts of the white community refused to accept the new racial composition of the schools that desegregation would entail, and they refused to allow their children to be bused. They feared that desegregation would mean a poorer quality education for their children; they wanted their children to go to schools in their own neighborhood; and they wanted to avoid any threat of racial violence. New antibusing and antidesegregation groups sprang up within the white community and demanded the recall of the prodesegregation members of the board of education. And in the legislature, Coleman Young moved immediately to block the actions of the board of education. After a lengthy debate, the legislature replaced Public Act 244 with Public Act 48 which specified that the Detroit public schools be divided into eight regions, each with approximately 36,000 students, and with the boundaries to be drawn by a commission appointed by the Governor. Each region would elect a five-mem- ber board. The chairperson of each regional board would sit on the central board of education along with five at-large members. The division of authority between the central board and the regions was the same as under P.A.244. Under the new act, enrollment was to be open so that any student could attend any school as long as there was room. This provision would allow inner-city DECENTRALIZATION OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS 165 blacks to attend the outlying, largely white schools and would allow white students to transfer out of racially mixed schools. (A later court order revoked the open enrollment provision of the act). The new act also effectively supported the recall movement by shortening the terms of three of the board members who had actively supported desegregation so that they would leave office in December, 1970. However, the recall election was held anyway. It drew a heavy turnout from the white community and succeeded in removing from office the desegregationist members of the board. The issue of desegregation was taken to the courts by the Detroit NAACP. Court suits continued for years, sparking a great deal of controversy in Detroit, much more than did the issue of decentralization. While the court cases were going on, elections were held for the new regional boards. There were 200 candidates for 45 positions, representing a wide range of backgrounds from housewives to lawyers. The strong black separatist slate was not elected; a number of white separatists were. Although black students were the majority in six districts, black candidates won a majority on only two of the eight regional boards. In general, the new board members were much less supportive of desegregation and less inclined toward educational innovation than the old central board, and several of the people who had been elected had taken firm stands against decentralization. The new board mem- bers took office on January 1, 1971. The matter of the regional boundaries was settled by the appointed commission, and Detroit’s decentralization plan, as detailed in Public Act 48, was put into practice. Implementation of the Plan School decentralization was not equally successful throughout Detroit. The region that came to serve as the prime example of how decentralization could and should work was Region One. This region is in the heart of Detroit; it encompasses the downtown business district and the innermost residential areas. In comparison with other regions in 1970, Region One had e the poorest housing conditions: 13 percent of the units stood vacant, and 45 percent of the owner-occupied units were valued less than $10,000 e the highest proportion of families in poverty: 36 percent e the highest proportion of single-headed households: 26 percent 166 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE e the second highest proportion of parents without high school diplomas: 63 percent (Board of Education of the City of Detroit 1973) Students’ achievement levels in the region were well below the national average, and parents had little positive involvement in school affairs. A position paper prepared by the Region One Ad Hoc Decentralization Committee describes the parents’ role prior to decentralization as ‘being relegated to sipping tea and (attending) fund-raising activities” (1977c). Region One was also the part of the city in which the most organized and militant segment of the black community resided. It was in Region One that the civil disturbances began in 1967, and it was in Region One that Reverend Cleage organized the Inner City Parents Council and made the first demands for community control of the schools. Soon after its election, the Region One board passed a resolution that ‘each local school community within Region One shall have a permanent democratic structure for effective neigh- borhood participation in the decisionmaking process of the local school” (Board of Education of the City of Detroit 1973). The board drew up guidelines for the establishment of local school councils and utilized community organizers to inform community people of their existence and to involve them as members and participants in the councils. Each of the 44 schools in Region One now has a council which defines the community’s needs, orders those needs according to priorities, and makes decisions on curriculum changes, physical and material needs, and the employ- ment of school personnel. The schools and their councils are grouped into constellations (a constellation consists of an upper level school and its feeder schools) for the purpose of conducting leadership training and resolving problems that affect the entire constellation. The local council has two links to the region board. (See figure 6). The first is through its chairperson who is a member of the Committee of Council Chairpersons. This committee meets before each region board meeting to exchange information, discuss problems, and make recommendations to the board. The second link is through the standing regional committees (buildings and sites, curriculum, finance, personnel, school-community relations, Title I) which are made up of representatives from the correspond- ing committees at each local council. The standing committees have input into the formulation of regional policy and also disseminate policy decisions from the regional level down to the local councils. The final piece of the regional structure is the special committees, formed by the region board to meet special needs. For example, the Region One Ad Hoc Decentralization 167 DECENTRALIZATION OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS L161 “LI YoJBpy ‘S|00YIS 21/qNnd 310138Q ‘331440 SUOIBIaY ANUNWWOD-|00YIS (82IN0S ‘sjuapMs 40 sjualed pue sJuapmis *A}IUNWWOD 3Y1 UI 10M 10 3Al| OYM SUOSIag ALINNWWOD 3NO NOI93H | uolile||31suod e uo Buiuien diysiapes] *SWa|qoid UOWIWOD UO UOJ. JUIOf “7 ‘siseq $378V.LANNOY NOILVYIIILSNOD 1 33LLINWOD SNOSH3dHIVHD TIONNCD *sbunieaw pieoq uoibai 1e pue s38111WWod |euoibas uo uoneluasaidal ane “pp *sa10ljod pieoq uoibai jo uolleluawa|dwi |ed0| ainsse pue 1aidiaiul djs ‘¢ *38111WWOD SUOIIe|al ALIUNWWOD-|00YIs PalEPUBW 1IN0D AY) SB BAIS °Z ‘|eAosdde pieoq uoibas yim Adijod |ooyds |e20] aE “L STIONNOJD ALINNWWOI-T00HIS TVvI01 S33LLINWOD TVIO3dS Aoijod |euoiBas 03 8InqliIU0Y * Buinjoswa|qoud uonew.osu| '$89131WWod 119UNOJ |BJ0| JO} UOIIDAUIP pue Bulules 8piAcig 3INO 371IL SNOILV13H ALINNWWOOD-TOOHOS« T3INNOSH3d« JONVNId« WNTNIIHHND« S3LISANV SONIATINg« (S88131WWO0d |19uN0d [B20] ' 8y} 40 siequisw 40 pasodwio)) S33LLINWOD TVNOID3H ONIANVLS | $|00Ydg 91jqnd 3o18Q »'$83111WWoD |euoibal Jieyo siequiBy ‘Z *sauljapinb uoI1BZI|BJ1Ud28p Yim Buidasy ul Adljod sexe “| advosd NOI93Y aHvos TVHLIN3D ‘au uoibay ul JuawaAjoAul Allunwwo) — 9 IHNOI4 168 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE Committee was formed to prepare a position statement for the region as part of the current evaluation of the success of decentralization. Thus, the region board sets policy on the regional level, based on input from the local councils that is fed through the standing committees and the Committee of Council Chairpersons. The policy is relayed to the local councils through the same mecha- nisms, and the local councils carry out that policy in each school, adapting it to meet particular school conditions, and, where necessary, seeking changes from the region board. The structure for two-way communication is from the schools and the councils up to the board, and from the board down to the schools and councils. An example of how the process works can be drawn from the curriculum policy. On the basis of the parents’ expressed need for more oversight of their children’s studies and more feedback on their progress in those studies, the board established the policy of mandatory homework assignments which parents must sign before they are returned to the teacher. The local councils see that this policy is carried out, that teachers do assign homework, and that parents do sign it. Where problems arise with either teachers or parents, the councils work with the people involved. They try to explain the policy and its rationale and to come to some solution. If too many problems were to arise or if an evaluation were to show that the policy was not achieving its intended effect, then the councils could, through the established channels, seek to have the policy changed or revoked. A similar process is followed for budgeting, personnel, and decisions about the use of school facilities. The input generated from the community by this structure is fed to the central board through the region board chairperson who is an ex officio member of the central board. Students are also involved in the Region One decisionmaking structure. Students are members of the local councils and can serve on the standing committees. There is a student council in each school and a school-community council convention is held yearly to bring students, parents, teachers, and staff together to discuss school issues and priorities. Region One has opted to allocate part of its budget to purchase services from the Central Office of School-Community Relations. The region is served by a hierarchy of school-community liaison personnel who keep community members informed of school actions and issues at all levels, local, State, and Federal; who urge parents to become active participants in council committees and school affairs; and who refer parents to the special individualized services offered by the schools. Since many of the personnel are DECENTRALIZATION OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS 169 themselves parents, they bring to their job an understanding of the problems which parents and students have in the schools. Region One is also fortunate to receive Federal funds under Title I, and has used some of these monies to provide workshops on curriculum development, program planning, budgeting and evalua- tion, and teacher-parent-student relations. These workshops have helped to give community people the knowledge and skills necessary for successful and meaningful involvement in the schools. Since the onset of decentralization, Region One has been selective about its personnel, within the limits of its authority, and has consciously developed a staff that would be responsive to community needs and involvement. The structure and procedures used in Region One did not come about overnight; a great deal of time and effort was spent evaluating and revising them. Eventually a form was achieved with which all parties could live happily. Jefferson Junior High is a good example of how decentral- ization has worked on a microlevel. Its current principal, William Hollingsworth, did his student teaching at Jefferson and then returned, after several years, to serve as assistant principal. The summer before decentralization was put into practice the previous principal of Jefferson left to take a new position. The central school board appointed in his place someone who had had no previous contact with the community. This appointment was made without consulting or seeking approval from the communi- ty. The day that school opened in the fall of 1970, parents picketed the school and refused to let the new principal enter the building. A 10-day standoff followed. Finally an agreement was reached: The school would open without a principal, and, when the region board took office in January, it would decide upon a replacement. After many meetings and much discussion, the community approached Hollingsworth, who had been thinking about moving on to a new school, and asked him to stay on as Jefferson’s principal. Between the election of the region board and the time it actually assumed office, the board members worked together with Jessie Kennedy, the incumbent regional superintendent, and members of the community to come up with an organized approach to community involvement through the local school- community councils. Jefferson Junior High was one of the first schools in the region to form a council that met the guidelines and functioned. It was soon discovered that community people had an interest in their schools and wanted to get involved. They had begun with the issue of the principal, and they continued that interest by reviewing curriculum, student achievement, textbooks, and school procedures; and by establishing a priority of educa- 170 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE tional goals. Over the years council members have evaluated progress toward the achievement of these goals, working their way down the list. This involvement is in marked contrast to that of the previous parents’ organization which consisted of little more than providing assistance during school parties and trips. The teachers and staff of Jefferson are all open to community participation in the educational process. This was not always the case. In the early years of decentralization, Jefferson’s population was declining and the cutbacks that the decline made necessary were used to weed out personnel who could not or did not want to work together with the community. Today, according to Hollingsworth, there is not a single teacher in the school who would want to work elsewhere, nor is there a single teacher that he would want to have work anywhere else. He is proud of the fact that the teachers have sufficient respect for each other and confidence in the quality of education at Jefferson to enroll their own children in that school. The relations between the school, the students, and the parents are good. The operation of Jefferson Junior High has evolved into a mutually satisfying cooperative venture in which all parties bring their expertise to bear to achieve goals that they have set together. For them, decentralization has been a good thing. Parents elsewhere in Region One concur in this judgment. This was apparent both in interviews with parents and from documents evaluating decentralization that were written by parents. (Region One Ad Hoc Committee on Decentralization 1977a, 19770, 1977¢c). They feel that their participation in school affairs has been legitimized under the decentralized structure. In addition to their input into school planning through the local councils, administrative records have been opened up to the councils while council signoffs are required on most budgets and plans. The right of parents to participate and contribute to the running of the schools has been acknowledged. School staff not only listen to their opinions, they also solicit those opinions and act upon them. No longer is parent interest brushed off as an interference. Parents feel that their participation now is more effective than it was under the old, centralized system. The regional structure brings them together with other parents who have similar concerns not only from their own schools but elsewhere in the region. No longer do they feel like isolated parents battling an educational bureaucy; now they are part of a community working to solve its problems. The workshops and training sessions for parents have provided the necessary skills and knowledge in budgeting, evalua- tion, curriculum, and personnel matters to talk and work with school personnel on a professional level, to deal with problems DECENTRALIZATION OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS 171 more effectively, and to evaluate programs and proposals. In addition, parents have gained a much clearer understanding of how the school system works, what the region has control over, what comes under the central administration’s jurisdiction, and who the important personalities in the system are. This means that parents, having identified a problem, can also identify the place to go and the procedure to follow to achieve some resolution of that problem. They are much less at the mercy of the bureaucracy. Parents also expressed the feeling that the decentralized system is more responsive to their needs. As one parent put it, “Unlike with the (old) Central Board, we’ve never had a Region Board meeting adjourned on us because they didn’t want to hear what we had to say.” Because of community involvement in the selection of personnel, more administrative positions are filled by minorities, reflecting the racial composition of the region. Before decentralization, 70 percent of the principals were white; now 70 percent are black. Community members participate in the evalua- tion of principals, a practice which makes principals more accountable and gives the community a better understanding of the principal’s role. The administrators, in turn, have gained a better understanding of the community. Many have come to regard the schools as just one part of the community and have become involved with other parts—housing, traffic, health, and safety—as they help parents find solutions to their problems. Parents reported that they can see a difference in their children’s attitudes toward school. As parents become more relaxed about going into the schools and develop a more positive attitude toward school, they have passed these feelings along to their children. Students have a broader range of choices now that they know more about the alternatives available to them, and they understand better what is expected of them. As a result of their parents’ greater input into all aspects of education and increased contact with school programs and personnel, students are getting an education that is tailored to their individual needs. Region One parents seem to agree that there are still problems to be worked out in the system. Some of the problems lie within the region. Some teachers and administrators are not as open to community participation or as active in community affairs outside the schools as they might be. However, this is to be expected in any large institution. Not all parents are willing to give their time to come to meetings, attend workshops, and help make decisions; and not all parents are aware of how the regional structure works. The school-community agents are constantly working to increase the number of parents who participate on all levels, from attending council meetings to running for election to the region 287-264 O - 79 = 12 172 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE board. They are satisfied, however, that both the level and the quality of parental involvement in the schools are better than they were before decentralization, and that they are improving. The serious complaints in Region One over decentralization lie with the central administration and the matters under its control. Some of the complaints are strictly administrative—it takes too long to get things done which have to go through the central offices. One principal says that he does most of the repairs on his audiovisual equipment himself because if he waited for central to fix it his school would be without it for a long time. And when new equipment is needed, the waiting time is lengthy. Adminis- trators feel that such matters should be handled on a regional basis. Other complaints have to do with policy. Regional people would like more control over budgeting. Under the current procedure a lot of time is spent preparing budget proposals which go from the principals and local councils to the region board and then to the central board. The central board picks and chooses among the various items, on the basis of system-wide priorities, and puts together the final budget for the whole school system. Each Region’s allocation does not always bear much relation to its proposals or to what it sees as priorities. Regional people would like more control over personnel—the ability to hire teachers and administrators of their own choosing rather than having to hire from a centrally selected pool. Such a pool does not always contain persons particularly well suited to a specific job. Parents and administrators also complain that the central staff and the central board do not always provide the financial and technical support necessary to carry out innovative ideas. The latter problem is attitudinal. The level of policy decisions left to the regions is limited, and Region One is working within a system that allows only partial political decentralization. Yet, within these bounds, the people in the region have succeeded in opening up the decisionmaking process and sharing the power and the responsibilities that the region does have. They have achieved as much political decentral- ization as the system’s built-in constraints allow. And despite the problems, people in Region One are generally pleased with decentralization. Many of the kinks could be ironed out in time, and in the meanwhile the benefits far outweigh the costs. The experience with decentralization in Region One was not typical of the rest of the school system. Region Eight was modeled after Region One, using the same structure, conducting similar programs, and achieving a high level of satisfaction. However, the other six regions do not fall into any particular pattern. Some key DECENTRALIZATION OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS 173 differences between the general method and structure of decen- tralization found in Region One and Eight and those found in the other six regions can be pointed out. First, it is important to note that the responsibilities assigned to the regions and to the central board, both for making policy and for everyday operations, are mandated by law. No matter what kind of structure exists within a region, it must draw up budget proposals and spend the money allocated to it, assign teachers and principals to schools, hire a regional superintendent, decide within the set limits what courses are to be offered in its schools, and how the school facilities are to be used. The differences between regions arise, not from the powers each region has, but rather, from the way those powers are exercised. Most of the regions do not have a comprehensive system of local school-community councils. Most schools do have some sort of parent organization; but in the areas that have a higher concentration of white parents, these organizations tend to follow the traditional PTA model. They do not serve as advisory boards, they do not take a hand in making decisions about how the school should be run, they do not attempt to bring community members into the school as paraprofessionals or for adult education classes, they do not involve students in making school decisions. All these are left to the professionals, if done at all. Instead, the PTA-type organizations restrict themselves to more traditional activities such as fundraising, special events, and providing assistance on school outings. If parents are concerned about their child’s progress in school, or if they see some problem in the classroom, they meet with the teacher or the principal as individuals, not as a body. The picture presented here is a general one and does not apply universally to all schools outside of Regions One and Eight. But it does represent the basic approach to decentralization in Regions Two through Seven. A corollary to the traditional character of parent organizations in these regions is the absence of school-community relations staff. Regions One and Eight have allocated money for such personnel; each constellation has a community agent, and the agent’s work is coordinated by a school-community relations administrator who also works closely with the regional superintendent and the region board. The administrator and the agents form a support staff for the community and the councils. The support they provide is an important factor in the councils’ effectiveness. The absence of such personnel in other regions is an indication of their lack of commitment to community participation, since the regions decide how they want to spend their own money. It may be that other budget items have a higher priority or that parents in these regions 174 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE feel that they have adequate access to school personnel and adequate input into school policy decisions. Whatever the reason, without such personnel it becomes more difficult to organize parents within a school, should there be the need or the desire, and it is particularly difficult to establish communication with parents elsewhere in the region. Since there is no formal network of local school-community councils in Regions Two through Seven, there can be no region-wide committees for buildings, curriculum, finance, person- nel, etc. Again, this means that there is no coordination on these matters among the nonprofessional part of the school community, and there is no established system of communication that feeds input from the local schools to the regional boards and back down again. Any input from the community comes from individuals and is gathered at region board meetings or through private communi- cations with board members. Therefore, the input of the region board into central board decisions is based on a much more informal information and opinion-gathering process than is the case in Region One, allowing them to operate with more autonomy from the community. In this sense they function much like small scale central boards. They represent administrative decentralization within the larger school system, but the informal- ity of the structures in which they work does not foster community input into policy decisions. In other words, these regions do not represent political decentralization for the Detroit public schools. Evaluation Successful decentralization in two out of eight regions cannot be considered a systemwide success. Why was decentralization not more successful in Detroit? The answer to such a question is very complex and lies beyond the information available here. However, a number of factors which contributed to this outcome are suggested by the framework of institutional change which we have been using in this study. One obvious factor was the absence of any clear-cut ideology on the systemwide level. The decentralization plan grew out of the militant black community’s demands for control over their schools. The idea of community control was clear within that community, but its implications for a system the size of Detroit, and for other communities—middle class blacks, working class whites, professional whites, ethnic minorities, organized labor— were never worked through. The State Legislature responded to DECENTRALIZATION OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS 175 the demands for a program which made sense in terms of the ideology of one community by imposing that program on the system as a whole. Closely related to the lack of a systemwide ideology was the lack of systemwide leadership. The board of education which was in power when the first decentralization plan was passed professed belief in decentralization but proceeded to implement it in such a way as to nullify its inherent meaning. Not only did the desegregation effort frustrate community control, it raised a great deal of opposition to the decentralization plan with which it was associated. This reaction led to the election of a board of education under the second decentralization plan that was composed of many disparate elements, some of whom were opposed to decentralization. It is no wonder that the people of Region One found that the central board did not operate fully in accord with the principles enunciated in the decentralization plan. The lack of systemwide leadership for decentralization was consistent with the fact that the formulation of the decentraliza- tion plan did not reflect the desires of the broad community. One poll showed that the majority of both the black and the white communities favored a centralized, integrated school system and not the decentralized system produced by the political process. A survey of parents active in PTAs and therefore, presumably, having an active interest in school affairs, found no particularly strong support or opposition to decentralization. Most liked the idea of having as much say as possible in running the schools and so gave passive consent to decentralization. But their commitment to the idea was not strong enough for them to take any interest in the specific details of the decentralization plan (Gipson and Hall 1976). As is probably the case with most political issues, adoption is carried through the system by a vocal, committed minority. But the implications of this lack of widespread support for a proposal for political decentralization are particularly serious. Successful political decentralization depends on the willingness of the community to take upon itself the responsibility for sharing in making decisions. Still another factor limiting the success of political decentraliza- tion was the opposition of the Detroit Federation of Teachers. The federation did not want to have to bargain with a multitude of small school systems and feared that community control over personnel matters would threaten the job security of its members. It insisted, therefore, on the maintenance of a centralized registry of certified teachers from which regional boards must draw their personnel. This action seriously limited the regions’ control over educational programs. 176 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE And finally, one can only speculate on whether the decentral- ization plan represented an incremental approach to the attain- ment of a more radical objective and thereby resulted in failure by design. In the decentralization plan, certain functions remained centralized in order to protect the public interest. These were taxation, budget allocation, and the enforcement of minimal educational standards. The centralization of these functions provided the basis for the maintenance of vestiges of power which could undermine the political decentralization of the school system. To minimize this risk, the lay structure of power was reorganized at the center to place control of the system in the hands of regional representatives. However, it is unclear that the professional structure of power was similarly restructured. In any event, these centralized functions could have been exercised either in a manner which fostered and reinforced political decentraliza- tion or in a manner which minimized it. It is apparent that the latter occurred. It is unclear whether this outcome resulted from the partial restructuring of the system or from the fact that those who rose to power in this restructured system were not committed to the ideology of political decentralization. This analysis is reinforced by a comparison of what occurred in Region One with what occurred in less successful regions. In Region One a clear ideology favoring political decentralization existed. Leadership toward the attainment of this objective existed in the community, in the presence of Reverend Cleage and the Inner City Parents Council, as well as among professional school administrators. A structure was established in the form of the local school-community councils; a program was designed, the School- Community Relations program; and resources were allocated to make political decentralization work. In other regions, where parents had not felt a lack of control over their lives, the eagerness for political decentralization was absent and the participation was not forthcoming. Regional level decisions were left to regional boards. People in those regions who were interested in school policies had no formal mechanism through which to contribute their opinions and no guaranteed voice in decisionmaking. The consideration of their input depend strictly upon the goodwill of the regional board members. Many of the board members were openly opposed to decentralization and had no desire to receive input from the community. A number of board members were using their position as a stepping stone to bigger political careers. They were more interested in personal political power than in bringing the community into the decision- making process. DECENTRALIZATION OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS 177 One region board member recounted an experience she had when serving her turn as board chairperson. The regional board had always reported on the business of central board meetings after those meetings took place, effectively preventing community people from having an input into those meetings. She proposed that the agenda of central board meetings be presented to the region before the meeting of the central board so that she could properly represent the region’s position at those meetings. The suggestion met with strong opposition from her fellow members on the regional board. Citizens in regions like this one who have no effective communication with their elected representatives have less access to the school system than before decentralization. They cannot deal with the central administration because the appropri- ate channels are through the regions. For them, regional boards are merely buffers—another layer of bureaucracy to battle when they want to have some input. Pilo (1975) hypothesizes that political decentralization of the public schools, if it can be achieved at all, can only be achieved through the political system external to the schools, rather than through the administration internal to the schools. It would seem, then, that in Detroit where the decentralization plan was imposed by the legislature, it should have been successful. But the legislature was the wrong level of government. It was too far removed from the mass of the Detroit citizenry to accurately reflect the general will. The legislature picked up on and carried through the demands of one small part of Detroit. For that small part, decentralization has worked. But the fact that the plan went through the State government rather than the city government meant that the voice of the rest of the city went unheard. All the parties involved were never forced to sit down together and work out a set of goals and a program of action to achieve these goals; they never had to iron out differences and design a system that would satisfy all of their needs. The lack of support in six of the eight regions suggests that had the issue been on a citywide referendum, it would never have passed. Decentralization’s success in Region One and Region Eight is exciting—it has brought positive changes in those communities and in their schools—but it is difficult to see how that success can be replicated elsewhere in the city. The future of decentralization in Detroit is uncertain. The disenchantment of six of the eight regions has raised many questions about the efficiency and effectiveness of a decentralized school system. These objections spurred Governor Milliken and Mayor Young in the fall of 1977 to appoint a committee to study the results of decentralization. The committee held hearings, both 178 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE public and private, with all segments of the school community in an attempt to evaluate the impact of decentralization on cost, community involvement, the ease of administration, and the level of achievement in Detroit’s schools. This information never before had been compiled. What conclusions the committee will reach cannot be predicted. On November 10, 1977, the House of the Michigan Legislature passed a version of a bill that would recentralize the school system. A similar, though less extreme, version of the bill was introduced into the Senate and was to be considered when the study committee’s results became available. Ironically, the Senate bill was introduced by Stanislaw Stopzynski whose political career began when he was elected to the board of education in Region Six. However, the courts, which are still involved in the desegregation issue, have recently called for a school-community relations plan that will be difficult to achieve in a centralized system. How much control the court will be able to exercise over the structure of the school system is unclear. Parents in Region One do not have much hope that they will be allowed to continue with their present system. But as one parent remarked, “They can take the word (decentralization) away, but they can’t take away the process—people have become too accustomed to it.” References Board of Education of the City of Detroit. A Look at Local School Community Councils in Region One. Detroit: The Detroit Public Schools, 1973. Cantey, Mrs. Brenda, parent, school-community agent, region One. Detroit, Nov. 9, 1977, inverview. Carter, Mrs. Carolyn, parent, school-community agent, region One. Detroit, Nov. 9, 1977, interview. Douglas, Walter, chairperson of the Decentralization Study Com- mittee. Detroit, Nov. 9, 1977, interview. Gipson, Joella, and Burnes, Hall, Jr. Decentralization and com- munity involvement in the school system—The example of Detroit. Trends in Education, (3): 35-38, 1976. Grant, William R. Community control vs. school integration—The case of Detroit. The Public Interest, (24):62-79, 1971. Hollingsworth, William E., principal, Jefferson Jr. High. Detroit, Nov. 9, 1977, interview. Leverett, Ms. Undrea, school-community agent, Region One. Detroit, Nov. 9, 1977, interview. DECENTRALIZATION OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS 179 May, Lucius. Community involvement: The Detroit experience. Community Education Journal, 4(3):52-53, 1974. Pilo, Marvin R. A tale of two cities: The application of models of school decentralization to the cases of New York and Detroit. Education and Urban Society, 7(4):393-411, 1975. Pilo, Marvin R. Sequential and organizational models of school decentralization—New York City and Detroit. Paper presented to the 59th Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association, Chicago, 1974. Region One Ad Hoc Committee on Decentralization. Position statement on decentralization and educational quality. Detroit (mimeographed), 197 7a. Region One Ad Hoc Committee on Decentralization. Position statement on decentralization and administrative management. Detroit (mimeographed), 1977b. Region One Ad Hoc Committee on Decentralization. Position statement on decentralization and citizen participation. Detroit (mimeographed), 1977c. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. New York: Bantam Books, 1968. Roberts, Mrs. Carmen, parent, Region Seven Board Member. Detroit, Nov. 10, 1977, interview. Scott, Robert E.; Bayne, Steve,; Milwid, Beth,; Quattrin, Judy ; and Roberts, Jay. Urban School Decentralization. The San Francisco Service Center for Public Education, 1974. Hn CHAPTER 9 TOWARD AN INTEGRATED THEORY OF PLANNED INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE In this book we have reported our review of a wide-ranging literature on the nature and process of planned institutional change, and the role of social science in that process. We have tempered and refined this review by field studies of four attempts at institutional change. What have we learned from this review and observation? In this chapter we report our findings in terms of a skeleton or outline of an integrated theory of planned institutional change. We discuss these findings under three topics: (1) the interrelatedness of theories of institutional change, (2) examples of this interrelatedness from our field studies, and (3) issues for further research and development toward an integrated theory or planned institutional change. Interrelatedness of Theories In reviewing the literature, we used two similar frameworks with which to organize the various conceptualizations and theories of planned institutional change. One was the Blase-Bumgardner model, and the other was a threefold typology of ideological, structural, and individual level approaches to institutional change. We will reexamine both of these frameworks in summarizing the interrelatedness of various theories. The Blase-Bumgardner Model Reexamined Throughout this study, the Blase-Bumgardner model has proven to be a useful framework for viewing and understanding the process of planned institutional change. The institutional variables of leadership, doctrine (or ideology), program, resources, and internal structure, together with linkages that are enabling, functional, normative, and diffuse, have been found to be sufficiently comprehensive and useful in depicting the process. 181 182 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE Based on the literature reviewed in this study, the Blase- Bumgardner model can be improved in three respects. One is the development of methods for depicting or measuring the relative strength of linkages between the institution and its environment, or the external structure of an organization as discussed in chapter 3. The Blase-Bumgardner model discusses the elements which make up the relationship between an institution and its environment; it does not provide a way of determining the magnitude of the various linkages which comprise that relationship. Jacobs provides such a contribution. In defining the organization-environment relationship in terms of an organization’s dependence on and motivational investment in the resources in its environment, as well as the availability and substitutability of those resources, Jacobs provides a means of depicting or measuring the relative importance of institutional linkages in any given instance of institutional change. Downs’ discussion of the zones of an orgaization’s domain provides another way of mapping or meas- uring the relative latitude or stricture of an organization’s relationship with its environment. A second respect in which the Blase-Bumgardner model can be improved is the elaboration of the interactions or interdepend- dencies among the various institutional variables, and between those variables and the linkages that bind an organization to its environment. To this subject we will turn presently in summa- rizing the utility of our other framework. The third shortcoming of the model is the limited discussion of strategies (transactions as they are called in the model) for manipulating institutional variables or linkages to bring about intended change. Such a failing is not uncommon in practice theories. To overcome it requires a fairly high level of refinement in the knowledge of the processes involved. A beginning in this regard is provided by Benson’s discussion of strategies to alter the external structure or linkages of an institution. Ideology, Structure, and Interpersonal Relations The threefold typology of theories used in this review was particularly helpful in identifying the interrelatedness of key variables in the institutional change process. These variables are: (1) the values or belief system which define the objective and means of change; (2) the structure of functions and power among actors within the institution, as well as between the institution and its environment; and (3) the quality of interpersonal relations among actors within the institution that reflects their commitment and responsiveness to change. It is clear from our review that ideology is an insufficient basis for institutional change. By itself it AN INTEGRATED THEORY 183 can lead to frustration and disillusionment, as dreams become dashed by the failure to design feasible means for their realization. The manipulation of institutional structures is also an insufficient strategy for institutional change. Without the restraint of ideology, structural changes can lead to the corruption of public or collective acts by the attainment of private benefits. Structural manipulations involve coercion and the exercise of raw power. In the absence of any consideration of the attitudes and behaviors of persons involved, such strategies become undermined at best, and lead to dehumanization at worst. On the other hand, strategies involving change in the attitudes and behaviors of individuals, without consideration of the ideology and structure in which such changes are to be enacted, can lead to exploitation of the persons involved or their regression to early forms of behavior that are more consistent with their social milieu. The interrelatedness of these three major variables in the process of planned institutional change can be summarized in terms of a number of propositions. In the absence of an ideology, that is, a belief system shared by all members of an institution regarding that institution’s public purpose and the means appropriate for its attainment, institutional change is most likely to derive from forces exterior to the institution, from environmental turbulence. Under such condi- tions, an organic or lateral internal structure is most conducive to the initiation of such change, i.e., to the generation of alternative responses to the pressure for change. A mechanistic or hierarchical structure is most conducive to the implementation of institutional change. In the presence of such an ideology, institutional change may derive from internal forces, i.e., the perception by members of discrepancy between the institution’s prescribed performance and its actual performance. Although the literature is not clear on this point, it may be that, in the presence of such an ideology, institutional change is less likely to derive from environmental turbulence because the institution has a rationale with which to defend its performance from external criticism and with which to sustain the commitment and effort of its members in the face of adverse circumstances. When institutional change is internally induced and is ideologi- cally based, and when the commitment of members to that ideology is weak, a hierarchical internal structure is more conducive to the initiation of such change, as in the case of American Protestant churches. An organic internal structure is more conducive to its initiation when the commitment of members to that ideology is strong, as in the case of Israeli 184 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE kibbutzim. The literature is unclear on the relative advantages of different internal structures during the implementation of institu- tional change under these conditions. The presence of an ideology to which there is a strong commitment may result in a reversal in the relationship that otherwise exists between the internal structure and stages in the institutional change process. Such a reversal may be accounted for by the fact that ideology defines the nature of allowable change and enjoys widespread acceptance. Under such circumstances, a hierarchical structure might initiate change without risking alienation. Similarly, an organic structure might implement such change since little centralized direction or reinforcement is required. These several propositions permit a resolution of a fundamental enigma that has plagued democratic notions about reform. For considerable time it has been assumed that democratic processes, or what have come to be known as citizen participation, increase the likelihood of institutional change. Yet time and again, empirical cases emerge which show the opposite relationship: The greater the amount of citizen participation, the less likely is any change in the fundamental distribution of power or benefits, at least when such a distribution is perceived to serve well the interests of a majority of a population. The propositions which we have been examining lead us to the following conclusion: Organic or lateral structures in and of themselves do not lead to institutional change. In the absence of an ideology upon which to evaluate the justice of a given state of affairs, organic structures lead to a “tyranny of the majority.” Those states will be maintained which serve well the majority, and those changes will be initiated which serve the interests of the majority. Under such conditions, the only basis on which changes can occur that are contrary to the expressed interests of those in power is through turbulence in the institution’s environment. When the object of change is the environment and the change agent is an organization, a different relationship exists between an organization’s internal structure and the change process. In this situation the organization is not an institution in the sense in which it has been defined in this study. Since it is seeking a change in the larger system, the organization’s output has not yet been valued by that larger system. When the external structure of the organization is relatively lateral, that is, when the organization is relatively equal in power with its environment, then an internal structure that is hierarchical will be most conducive to that organization’s interactions with its environment. This situation is exemplified by Maoist China in which domestic affairs were managed by mass participation, but foreign affairs were managed AN INTEGRATED THEORY 185 by an elitist decisionmaking structure. When the external structure of such an organization is hierarchical, that is, when the organization is weak relative to its environment, an internal structure that is extremely organic, i.e., polycephalous and segmented, will be most conducive to carrying on relations with its environment. The example of such a situation is social movements in the United States. Up to this point we have said nothing about theories involving the quality of interpersonal relations as they relate to planned institutional change. There is an interdependence between the processes of individual change, structural change, and ideology. Any attempt to alter psychological states, i.e., to make individuals more open and willing to take risks in their relations with others, must be consistent with the structure within which that behavior is to occur and the ideology by which it is to be judged or evaluated. Changing individual behavior as a strategy for institu- tional change cannot work alone. Attempts to induce individuals to be more open and willing to take risks in an organization, in which power can be wielded capriciously by a few individuals, will make those individuals vulnerable to exploitation and cause them to regress to more defensive behavior. On the other hand, attempts to alter the structure or ideology of an institution must be accompanied by psychological states that are consistent with that new structure or ideology. The lack of such congruence will result in the imposition of an informal structure which is compatible with those states on that new structure, rendering the latter less effective with respect to the purposes for which it was designed. The example of such a situation is the workers’ communes in Yugoslavia in which work organizations achieved less than the desired level of worker participation in decisionmaking. The same type of interrelatedness exists between the use of economic incentives to induce changes in organizational behavior and the structure of resources available to that organization. If such incentives are used to induce the adoption of new goals or operating procedures without changing the allocation of estab- lished resources among new and old states, the organization will regress to the latter when the incentives are taken away. Utilization of Social Science Having examined a framework for understanding planned institutional change, we can draw some tentative conclusions about the role of social science in that process. In order for social science to have any role at all, one of two conditions must exist: (1) an institutional ideology that provides a commitment to act, or 186 . SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE (2) a crisis in the institution’s environment. It is the ideology or the crisis which provides the direction and motivation for change. Social science provides the rationalization of effective means for attaining those ends. In the context of the Blase-Bumgardner model, social science provides the program for institutional change. In order for social science to play that role, one of two other conditions must be met: (1) The social science has demonstrated its utility in prior instances of a similar nature, or (2) conventional wisdom or intuition is judged inadequate as a basis for dealing with the need to change. These principles do not mean that social science cannot have a role in the formulation of ideology in institutional change. However, to do so social scientists must go beyond empirically based or positivist theories to the development of normative theories. If alternative models of ideal end states are developed, they can influence the range of the debate over public purposes even though they cannot determine its outcome. When such models are linked to empirically tested propositions about the relative effectiveness of alternative actions in bringing about those end states, social science can have its most powerful impact. Normative theory can contribute to the debate over ideology as well as influence the program selected to put that ideology into practice. Empirically based theory can address itself only to questions of program choice. Examples From Field Studies Having identified the basis for a more integrated theory of planned institutional change, let us review our four case studies to see if they support or illustrate the various propositions we have set forth. In order to do so, we must first establish some criterion by which the efficacy of the propositions can be judged. If we can arrange our four cases along a hypothetical continuum of success, we will have such a criterion. By success we mean that the institutional change was implemented as planned and that its implementation was sustained over some reasonable time period. Such a criterion is a continuum in the sense that no change is ever implemented exactly as planned, nor does it last forever. What we are talking about, therefore, is a relative matter. Furthermore, the information we have on each case is highly subjective, consisting of judgments and impressions that are often obtained from partisan observers. Our evaluation of each case by this criterion must, therefore, be treated as speculative at best. On the basis of the information at our disposal, we would have to consider the deinstitutionalization of the Massachusetts juvenile AN INTEGRATED THEORY 187 correctional system as the most successful case. It came closest to realizing its objectives and has persisted largely intact over an 8-year period in the face of opposition. The least successful case would have to be the Federal Correctional Institution at Butner, North Carolina. This judgment is based on the fact that after a year of operation many of the basic elements of the proposed change had not been implemented and, indeed, appear impossible to implement. Many of the features which were implemented were already standard practice in Federal prisons. Thus, while the Butner facility does in fact constitute a very progressive correc- tional program, it amounts to little in the way of planned institutional change. In between these two extremes lie the voucher experiment in the Alum Rock Schools and the decentralization of the Detroit Public Schools. Of these we would consider the Alum Rock case more successful. Although the voucher system failed, a decentrali- zation of the system which differed markedly from previous conditions in the schools did occur as intended and remained in force 2 years after the termination of the voucher experiment. In reviewing these cases, therefore, we would expect their degree of conformity with the propositions set forth in the previous section to be in the following order; Massachusetts Department of Youth Services, Alum Rock Schools, Detroit Public Schools, and FCI at Butner. Massachusetts DYS The deinstitutionalization of the Massachusetts juvenile correc- tional system is a case of environmentally induced change. An aroused public opinion, a new Governor, and the State legislature combined in their efforts to bring about change. In this connec- tion, it is significant that, of the four cases, the DYS had the most number of environmental linkages which favored change. Enabling linkages were present in the legislature’s granting DYS the power of disposition over treatment, the Governor’s consistently appoint- ing reform-minded commissioners, and LEAA’s making available badly needed funds. Functional linkages were present in the cooperation of voluntary agencies in providing alternative care. Normative linkages were present in the pronouncements of public officals and citizen groups. Diffuse linkages were present in the form of public opinion formed through the mass media. Consistent with the external impetus for change is the fact that the internal structure of the correctional system was extremely hierarchical, both in initiating and implementing change. The leadership of the system assumed a very dominant role in formulating and carrying out the change process. At the outset, 287-264 O = 79 - 18 188 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE the ideology for change was in the environment and was only partially developed. It focused on the need for more humane treatment of juveniles but did not articulate a program for reform. Deinstitutionalization emerged out of the change process and provided a more focused ideology which was able to sustain that process once begun. That the incipient ideology played an important role is exemplified by the fact that, when the commissioner encountered initial setbacks in his efforts to introduce more humane treatment procedures, he introduced more drastic measures rather than retreat to established proce- dures, a response which would be hard to imagine on the part of more pragmatically oriented leadership. As the ideology became more developed, leadership became less of a driving force; and it would appear that under the new system there is more participa- tion of staff in decisionmaking. The presence of additional resources in the form of LEAA funds was also a critical variable. It is noteworthy in this respect that these resources were used to dismantle the old system while building the new. Thus what started out as an incremental process became comprehensive and radical in order to assure the attain- ment of objectives. This radical approach, along with the conscious use of ideology, probably accounts for the persistence of change over time. The one major strategy which is not illustrated by this case is changing individual level behavior. In carrying out his reform, the commissioner came to view staff as an obstacle rather than a facilitator of that reform, a fact which eventually led to the ideology of deinstitutionalization. Whether the reorientation of staff values and behavior was never seriously attempted, or whether it was attempted and found wanting, is unclear. What is clear is that the direction which the reform eventually took meant the elimination of many of the staff who needed to be retrained. It may be that, had the commissioner begun with a clear-cut ideology of deinstitutionalization, retraining of staff could have been more realistically carried out. However, the case does illustrate the futility of attempting institutional change through changing individual level behavior when the structure and ideology of that change have not been established. Alum Rock Schools The experimentation with a voucher market system in the Alum Rock public schools represents a case of internally induced change. Though the concept of the experiment was conceived and funded by outside sources, the Alum Rock school system chose to participate because the experiment was designed to take the AN INTEGRATED THEORY 189 district in directions in which it had already decided to go. In this connection, it is significant that a clear-cut ideology with respect to decentralization existed within the system in the sense that all major parties were agreed on what kind of a change they wanted. With respect to the establishment of a voucher market system, a common ideology was not apparent, and in terms of that objective the change was not successful. In initiating and carrying out this change, a lateral or organic internal structure was used. Although the formal organization of the school system was hierarchical the superintendent adopted an egalitarian or organic decisionmaking process in deciding whether to participate in the experiment and in planning it. It is further significant that in the implementation stage an organic decision- making process was used in the sense that the superintendent negotiated the implementation of specific elements of the experi- ment with the interested parties. This adoption of an organic process is consistent with the results achieved. Those aspects of the experiment which were consistent with the commonly accepted ideology (decentralization) were successfully imple- mented, and those aspects which were consistent with the ideology about which there was disagreement (the voucher market system) were not successfully implemented. Other factors contributing to success in this case were leader- ship and resources. The leadership of the school system was strongly committed to the decentralization which succeeded, and only loosely committed to the voucher market system which failed. Furthermore, leadership played a very strong role in negotiating relations between the system and its environment, in keeping with the ideology to which the system was committed. Resources in the form of OEO funds played a significant role in enabling the system to carry out the intended change. However, unlike the Massachusetts case, those funds were used to add new processes and not dismantle existing ones. This strategy allowed the school system to revert back to those procedures which it did not wish to give up once the funds were withdrawn. The linkages between the Alum Rock School District and its environment were consistent with the success of decentralization and the failure of the voucher system. The district needed little from its environment to carry out decentralization, except financial resources and public support. The former were acquired through the voucher experiment, and the latter already existed. With respect to the voucher experiment more linkages were required: enabling legislation from the State to allow nonpublic schools to participate and to set aside the personnel requirements governing the employment of public school teachers. Neither was 190 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE forthcoming, a fact which restricted the attainment of a voucher market system. The district also needed the support of the local teacher’s union, which it received, but not without further limiting the market character of the experiment. Of the four institutions studied, the Alum Rock School District is the only one that explicitly attended to the quality of interpersonal relations in the process of planned change. All parties agreed that the human relations training was a significant factor in the degree of success which the school system achieved. However, such a process resulted in a structure for the institution- al change which protected the job security of the parties involved. When viewed alongside the Massachusetts DYS case, this finding suggests that a guarantee of job security is a necessary condition for the effective use of human relations training in institutional change. Detroit Public Schools The political decentralization of the Detroit public schools is a case of externally induced change. It was initiated by one segment of the parent population served by the schools and imposed on the system by the State legislature. In comparison to the case of the Massachusetts DYS, the external linkages supporting institutional change in the Detroit case were weak. State legislation was passed enabling decentralization, but functional linkages with the teach- ers’ union were inhibiting rather than facilitating. Normative linkages supporting the change were latent at best. Decentraliza- tion was consistent with basic American values, but there was no public enunciation of its importance to the welfare of the larger community. Similarly, diffuse linkages were lacking in that little public support for political decentralization existed systemwide. Within the Detroit public schools, key institutional variables supportive of change were lacking. There was no ideology of political decentralization at the systemwide level. Leadership was not unified in support of the change. What hierarchical powers that remained in the new structure were used to blunt or minimize change. In Region One, where political decentralization was most successful, the opposite pattern of variables emerged. A greater consciousness of an ideology of political decentralization existed, leadership was strong in support of change, a program was conceived and resources allocated to carry out the change, and widespread participation occurred in its implementation. It is significant that Region One made widespread use of training to enable actors to participate effectively in the new system. This training occurred, however, after a design for the new structure had been worked out. AN INTEGRATED THEORY 191 FCI at Butner The attempt to implement the Morris model of imprisonment at the Federal Correctional Institution at Butner represents a case of externally induced change. It was external in the sense that the larger system, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, imposed a program on one of its units, the Institution at Butner. However, unlike the Massachusetts DYS, the Butner FCI had very few supportive linkages with its environment. It did have the administrative authorization from BOP which enabled it to undertake the experiment. But it did not receive financial resources necessary to carry it out. Functional linkages were weak or absent—the parole board demurred in its part of the experiment, BOP industries were lacking, and there was no community employment to carry out the early release component of the experiment. Within the FCI at Butner, significant institutional variables were lacking. A very clear ideology lay at the heart of the Morris model of imprisonment. However, that model was adopted by the BOP and the FCI at Butner as a program with which to run a new facility, not an ideology. There is no apparent ideology to which BOP or the Butner administration was committed that dictated the adoption of the Morris model. The success or failure of the model was little more than an interesting incident in the ongoing life of a bureaucracy. The lack of ideology goes hand in hand with a lack of leadership with respect to the experiment. This conclusion is not to imply a lack of leadership in the administra- tion of the FCI at Butner; it refers only to leadership for institutional change as represented by the attempt to implement the Morris model. And lastly, the experiment at Butner involved no training to enable staff to adopt attitudes and behaviors consistent with the Morris model. In fact, many staff were unaware of the model or the existence of the experiment, further evidence of the lack of an ideology within the institution by which its members could be committed to planned change. The reader should be cautioned against treating this summary analysis of the four field studies of planned institutional change as a verification of the propositions we have been discussing in this chapter. In the first place, the analysis is based on information which is highly subjective and impressionistic in nature. A more empirical process is required for verification. Secondly, this analysis contains the error of post factum theorizing identified by Merton (1968. pp. 147ff.). This error derives from making unstructured observations, and then formulating a “theory” to fit those observations. Such observations in no way can be said to verify the theory because they do not allow the theory to be negated. Verification requires the observation of events which 192 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE both conform and fail to conform to the conditions implied in a theory; it involves predicting events before they are observed rather than explaining them ‘after the fact.” Post factum theorizing is adequate for generating hypotheses. In this sense, we can say that our analysis only illustrates the propositions we have been discussing. The fact that we applied our propositions, once formulated, to a reanalysis of our field studies adds very little to their validity. The cases used for verification are the same cases from which the propositions were derived. Such a practice only adds to the elegance of the illustration. Issues for Further Research and Development We have decided to address ourselves in this concluding section to issues involving both empirical research and program develop- ment. In keeping with the nature of planned institutional change as we have come to understand it, research has limited utility when conducted apart from the actions it is intended to inform. The success of efforts at collective action may rest as much on the development of rational methods or techniques for facilitating such action as it does on empirical research on the process. When research needs are identified in isolation from action methodolo- gies, they are more likely to reflect a motivation to perpetuate research rather than to improve action. The Role of Ideology The literature we have examined and the field studies we have conducted underscore the importance of ideology in planned institutional change. Yet little has been written about how groups come to formulate an ideology. The process remains much of a mystery. Research on how ideology is formulated would greatly enhance the ‘development of rational techniques to assist this process. Such techniques appropriate for small groups are already available, but techniques for large-scale decisionmaking are very much needed (Runyan 1977). A related issue is the design of techniques for resolving conflicts in the interpretation of a given ideology. In the example of Maoist China, a form of high priesthood fulfilled this function; in the United States, the Supreme Court is so used. Techniques or methods that are less costly and that are appropriate for use within organizations need to be developed. AN INTEGRATED THEORY 193 The role of ideology in large organizations is particularly problematic, as evidenced by the research of Tannenbaum. Further research is needed to clarify whether or not a determin- istic relationship exists between organizational size, technology, and internal structure. The literature suggests that, as organization- al size increases, the use of technology and the specialization of tasks become necessary to maintain efficiency in production. It is this use of technology and not ideology, so goes the argument, that dictates the internal structure of the organization. However, the evidence is not conclusive, as Argyris points out, and further research is necessary. A problematic relationship also exists between group size and the process by which ideology is formulated. Those who advocate the use of ideology as a guidance system for mass society, such as Maoists in China and Friedmann (1973) in the United States, see the formulation of ideology occurring through a myriad of small groups, or what has been called a cellular structure. If this relationship between the formulation of ideology and group size is deterministic, the kind of techniques or methods appropriate for ideology formation in large organizations is more apparent. And finally, the consequences of the use of ideology in planned change need to be examined. Conflicting claims are made with respect to its effect on productivity and cost. On the one hand, ideology apparently increases group solidarity, minimizes aliena- tion, and therefore increases the rate of output. On the other hand, ideology apparently limits the range of choice among the means of production or of delivering service, resulting in an inefficient use of scarce resources. The conditions under which these respective claims are true need to be verified so that their conflicting implications for action can be resolved. The Role of Internal Structure A number of issues need to be investigated with reference to the nature and function of internal structure in institutional change. In the first place, a full range of more definitive models of internal structure needs to be developed. The literature dwells essentially on two extreme models, but in reality there must be several more. The matrix, the federated, and the polycephalous are some. Furthermore, the models which do exist are not always adequately articulated. The notion of a hierarchical structure has intuitive clarity because it abounds in modern industrial society. But the research on which the concept of an organic structure is based contains only the vaguest definitions. If research is to usefully proceed into the relative merits of alternative structures, we must have fuller and more systematic conceptualizations of those structures. 194 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE The basic relationship between the internal structure of an organization and the stages of institutional change needs to be tested more fully. The research findings from which these propositions arise are consistent, for the most part, but they embody very inadequate conceptualizations of an organic struc- ture. The particular point in the process which has not been addressed by prior research is the shift between the initiation and implementation stages. The literature reports that an organic structure is more conducive to initiation because it provides the freedom for exploring a fuller range of alternatives; and a hierarchical structure is more conducive to implementation be- cause it provides a single set of consistent operations. But what kind of structure is best suited to selecting the single most appropriate course of action among those generated during the initiation stage? Presumably the organic structure lacks the consensus to make a decision possible, and the hierarchical structure lacks the vision to depart from established practices. The literature is ambiguous on this crucial point. Assuming that a single organization operates during all stages of the institutional change process, it must undergo transitions from the type of structure most appropriate for one stage of change to the type most appropriate to another stage. Yet how can an organization achieve such planful versatility? The literature is silent on the subject. It would appear that very few case examples of such multipurpose organizations exist. Again, this matter is fruitful for research. And lastly, some argue on the basis of normative theory that organic structures are more effective for all stages of institutional change. Although this position conflicts with existing evidence, it may not have been given an adequate test. An adequate test requires an experiment designed to fully incorporate all of the conditions necessary to the functioning of an organic structure, and one which evaluates its consequences with respect to all the criteria by which it purports to be effective. Tests to date have simply compared the effects of existing organizations which approximate various models of internal structure. The Role of Interpersonal Relations The effect of the quality of interpersonal relations on the ability of an organization to respond to a changing environment has been well documented. Techniques of human relations training are well developed and in widespread use. Such training is often referred to as organizational development, a term which is specious because it implies a sufficient strategy for resolving organizational malfunctioning and bringing about change. What is AN INTEGRATED THEORY 195 not so clear is the relationship between human relations training, structure, and ideology in organizational performance. As was demonstrated in the Alum Rock case, human relations training, important as it is, cannot compensate for the effects of an inadequate structure or conflictual ideologies. Research is needed into the structural and ideological condi- tions that are conducive to the effective use of human relations training. What is the role of such training in the formulation of ideology? What is its role in planned change that is imposed from the outside, as was the case in the Massachusetts DYS, as opposed to being generated from the inside, as was the case in the Alum Rock Schools? What is the role of human relations training in a hierarchical as opposed to an organic structure? Such research should be oriented toward the development of diagnostic tech- niques that identify the organizational conditions in which human relations training can be used effectively, and the appropriate purposes it should serve. Interrelatedness of Ideology, Structure, and Interpersonal Relations The major issue identified in this study is the interrelatedness among three major variables in planned institutional change: ideology, internal and external structure, and the quality of interpersonal relations. Several propositions have been set forth in the previous section. However, they are based only in part on research, and much of that research is fragmented in nature. The propositions lack any comprehensive systematic verification. Given the current level of distrust in government and the malaise which overhang many public services, these propositions would appear to justify a major research effort. Such an effort would test the several strategies for institutional change or development, singly and in combination, against the outcomes with which they are associated, both with respect to the various stages of the change process and the institution’s overall perfor- mance (see figure 7). For example, an institution with a clear-cut ideology would be observed to determine whether changes were more likely to originate externally or internally to the organiza- tion; the ease with which alternatives were initiated in response to the pressure for change; the ease with which an alternative was selected upon which to act; the degree to which that alternative was implemented as intended; the amount of output in a given product or service which the institution was committed to produce; and the cost of producing that output. Ideally, a number of public bureaucracies would be recruited to experiment with various strategies. The bureaus should operate in the same domain, SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE 196 suonejal |euosiadialul 24N32NJ}s |eutalxa 31n1ana3s |eusaul ABojoap! J] > Oo °o3 © S $ $ oF se 5 § $ S Fs gf Fs o $378VIYVA ® $ $s gs gs 8 NOILNIAHILNI S $ S$ £9 sg $ 5 $ $ $ ~ $378VI4dVA JN0J31NO $3|BLIEA 3WOJINO UO S3|(BLIEA UOIJUSAIBIUI JO §}93443 10} XIIB — Z JHNOIL AN INTEGRATED THEORY 197 so as to have a common output by which to compare their performance. Such research can be facilitated by the Multivariate Analysis, Participation and Structure (MAPS) method of organizational design developed by Kilmann (1977). The method is based on the notion that the structure of an organization should be consistent with the personal needs and styles of its members, as well as the nature of the collective tasks which are to be performed. It is a normative model in that it incorporates certain value preferences about the nature of man: that an individual seeks self-direction and self-control and seeks rather than avoids responsibility. The method begins with an elicitation of the preferences for tasks, work styles, and work colleagues of individual workers, and by use of a computer program aggregates these preferences into one of several structural designs appropriate for such tasks and interper- sonal styles. The work of Kilmann is unique in that it provides systematic and empirical procedures for organizational design which overcome the conceptual models we have been discussing in this book. It has the disadvantage of concreteness in that disagreement with the way concepts are interpreted is made easier. But from such disagreements come greater clarity and unity. Utilization of Social Science Finally, let us summarize the issues revealed in our study related to the utilization of social science in planned institutional change that require further research and development. The principal issue in this regard is the development of normative theory in the social sciences. Initially, work of a conceptual nature needs to be done on the nature of normative theory, the process by which such theories are developed, and the way in which such theories are used both in guiding empirical research as well as generating prescriptions for public action. It is apparent that such theories must integrate a theory of man with a theory of social groups. Beyond this, individual scientists need to be supported in their efforts to develop normative theory. The implication which emerges most clearly from this review is that the dilemma facing the social science community no longer involves a choice between pure and applied research, but rather a choice between value-based normative theory and value-free positivist theory. If knowledge is to have its ultimate justification in social utility, social purposes must be part of its foundation. And finally, new models of the role of the social scientist must be developed consistent with the new role of social science theory. Is the scientist a technician or a social critic, an engineer or a social - philosopher? What distinguishes a value-oriented social scientist 198 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE from a social activist or a politician? We believe there are viable and useful answers to these questions—that the possibility exists for maintaining the unique contribution of the scientific paradigm while blending it with service to the commonweal. References Friedman, John. Retracking America. New York: Anchor Press/ Doubleday, 1973. Kilmann, Ralph H. Social Systems Design, Normative Theory and the MAPS Design Technology. New York: Elsevier North-Hol- land, Inc., 1977. Merton, Robert K. Social Theory and Social Structure, enlarged edition. New York: The Free Press, 1968. Runyan, Dean. Tools for community-managed impact assessment. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 43(2):125-135, 1977. INDEX administrative decentralization, 158, 159 American ideology, 15 American policymaking, 17f., 21f, anthropology, 83 Argyris, 49, 66-69 Benne, 65 Bennis, 65 Benson, 44, 46 , Blase, 3, 7f., 11,118 Blase-Bumgardner model, 181, 182,186 relations between elements, 11 Brown v. Board of Education, 85 bureaucrats’ utility, 58 bureaus competition among, 59-62 as organizations, 57 budget maximizing, 59 and review committees, 59, 60 Bumgardner, 7, 8 7-10, capitalism, 18 change, defined, 3 Chin, 65 citizen participation, 184 closed systems, 36 community charette, 138 community control of schools, 162 conservatism, 22 contingency theory, 67 correctional reform leadership of, 105, 126 public support of, 109f. (See also Morris’ model) correctional system ideology of, 105-09 and judiciary, 104f. leadership in, 103 decentralization of schools Alum Rock Schools, 156 Detroit Public Schools, 130, 162, 165 evaluation of, 170 ideology of, 176 parents’ reactions, 171 in region one, 165 deinstitutionalization, 120-25 desegregation, 161, 162, 164, 165 doctrine, 8, 126 Downs, 14, 23, 26, 42f,, 182 Duncan (see Zaltman) 199 economic ideology, 18, 20, 97 of Israeli kibbutzim, 19 of Yugoslavia, 19f., 71 economics, 82 educational vouchers, 130 Alum Rock’s decision to partic- ipate, 132 decline of, 149 evaluation of, 150, 154 implementation of, 141, 150f. limitations of, 153 modified plan, 138 regulated compensatory, 131 and structural conflicts, 141, 152 elites, 17 environment of a bureau, 58 change of, 46, 184 defined, 35 dependence on, 41f. as impetus for change, 40, 187, 190, 191 turbulence in, 41, 48, 183, 186 (See also external structure ideo- logy) ethical discourse, 97 external structure, 184f. and change of environment, 185 domains, 42 effect on internal structure, 45f. interaction in, 44 strategies for change, 44 (See also environment) 33, 41, 182, financial incentives, 61f, flow resources, 9 foundations, 84 Full Opportunity and Social Ac- counting Act of 1967, 75 Gerlach, 47f, greed, 89 Harding, 16 hierarchical structure, 33, 37, 183, 189 and implementation, 49, 39 and initiation of change, 184 and lateral in same organization, 40 and model of man, 66 Holbeck (See Zaltman) Horowitz and Katz, 74-77, 80-88, 96-98 200 INDEX human relations training, 190f. conditions for, 195 ideology, 81, 137, 182f., 185, 189-192 absence of, 174 change of, 25f. in China, 16 commitment to, 51, 183f. conflict with environment, 29 consequences of, 193 defined, 14 of environment, 26, 82, 119 flexibility of, 25 formulation of, 27, 192 functions of, 23, 26 as impetus for change, 50, 183 and innovation, 28 and internal structure, 52 and interpersonal relations, 71 interpretation of, 192 in large organizations, 21, 193 and leadership, 49 limitations of, 24 national, 15 and organic structure, 51 and other elements, 28 and public decisionmaking, 18 study of, 11 (See also social science) implementation, 38, 183, 184, 187, 189 constrained by design, 119, 151 (See also educational vouchers, hierarchical structure, ideology, incrementalism, Morris’ model, organic structure) incrementalism, 152f., 176, 188 individual change, 183, 188 collaborative approach to, 65 sense of competence, 64 (See also psychological factors) industrial plants (See internal struc- ture) inherent values, 87 innovation, 4 inservice training, 135, 138 institution building, 7 institutional change advocacy agent in, 81 and civil disturbance, 45 comprehensive and radical, 188 consensus and, 17 continuum of success, 186 institutional change (Cont.) defined, 2 effectiveness of, 4 funding of, 61 initiation of, 38, 48, 183, 187 size of, 4 (See also social science) institutional variables, 8, 125 institutions, defined, 3 instrumental values, 87 interdependence of individual change, structural change, and ideology, 182-85, 195 internal structure, 9, 33 decentralized, 33 defined, 31 division of labor, 32 federated, 35 formalization, 32 hierarchical and lateral in same organization, 40 and individual properties, 66 of industrial plants, 18 locus of authority, 31 models of, 193 participativeness, 31 of social movements, 47 and stages of institutional change, 194 transitions of, 194 (See also hierarchical, organic) internally induced change, 53, 183, 188 (See also ideology) interpersonal relations, 32, 64-70 in American plants, 71 and environment, 194 and institutional change, 68 necessity of, 68 in Yugoslav plants, 71 (See also human relations, ideo- logy, individual change, training) Jacobs, 41, 44, 182 James, 15, 21, 22 Janowitz, 95 judiciary (See correctional system, social science) Katz (See Horowitz) Kelman, 64 Kilmann, 197 Kreps, 45 INDEX 201 lateral structure (See organic struc- ture) Lazarsfeld and Reitz, 77-79, 91-93, 95f. leadership, 8, 46, 137, 175f. 187-191 “climbers” as, 46 and ideology, 28 recruitment of, 21 strength of, 126 legitimate transcendence, 50 liberalism, 21 Lindblom, 2 linkage(s), 8, 9, 46, 125, 187-191 diffuse, 10 enabling, 9, 119 functional, 9f., 119, 126 normative, 10 strength of, 182 Liuists, 16 MacRae, 97 man, theory of, 67 Maoists, 16,184 Marxist socialism, 18 Maslow, 67 mass participation, 16 mechanistic structure (See hier- archical structure) Metropolitan Applied Research Center, 80f., 99 Model Cities Program, 48 Morris, 108, 111-115 Morris’ model, 112, 113 doctrine and leadership in, 119 evaluation of, 118f, implementation of, 116-18 modifications of, 115 National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 23, 24 negative income tax experiments, 86 Niskanen, 26, 57-63 Oakland Economic Development Council, Inc., 48 open systems, 36 organic liberalism, 22 organic structure, 33, 47, 67, 68, 183,189, 193 and hierarchical, 40 and implementation, 184 and initiation of change, 38, 39 and institutional change, 48, 184, 38 organization (See institution) organization-environment relation- ship (See external structure) organizational domains (See external structure) organizational structure (See external structure, internal struc- ture) “organizational transcendence,” 50 and ideology, 51 Peace Corps, 23, 24 Perrow, 14 personal efficacy, 65 planning, 189 defined, 4 participation in, 136, 137 policy science, 96 policy space, 42 political decentralization, 158f. 163,172,176 polycephalous, 47, 185 pragmatism, 90 program, 9, 109 Project Clear, 84 psychological factors in institu- tional change, 64-67 psychology, 82 “public interest,” 3, 15 public values and social policy, 89 Randall, 42 Reitz (See Lazardsfeld) resources, 9, 189, 190, 191 reticulate, 47 revolutionary movements (See social movements) Russell Sage Foundation, 83 Sarason, 69 Schein, 65 Schorr, 88-91, 94 segmentary, 47 Shepard, 40 social indicators, 75, 76 social movements, 47 social science American empiricism, 49 conclusion-oriented, 93 202 INDEX Social Science (Cont.) decision-oriented, 93 factors constraining use of, 93 and ideology, 15, 83, 186 and judiciary, 85f., 98 normative, 82, 98, 186, 197 policy concern of, 94 quantification of, 77, 82f., 98 resistance to, 90 role in institutional change, 99, 185, 197 utilization of, 87, 88, 97, 98 social science and policy making clinical model of, 95 depends on ideology, 99 enlightenment model, 96 hiatus between, 91-95 nonparticipation model, 96 role of value consensus, 79 social engineer, 95 study committees of 77, 78 social scientist (See social science) sociologists, 22, 83 stock resources, 9 Tannenbaum, 18, 21, 49, 71 transactions, 8, 10, 182 Truman, 94 utilization of social science (See social science) values, and facts, 97 (See also ideology, social science) voucher system (See educational vouchers) Warhelt, 45 Warren, 48 Warwick, 64 Waxman, 45 Wisconsin State Employment Serv- ice, 42 Wood, 50 worker participation, 20f. worker self-management, 19-21 Yugoslavia, 19-21, 71 Zaltman, Duncan, and Holbek, 14, 31-40, 49 Zentner, 14, 23f., 26 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1979 O - 287-264 DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE ALCOHOL, DRUG ABUSE, AND MENTAL HEALTH ADMINISTRATION 5600 FISHERS LANE ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND 20857 OFFICIAL BUSINESS Penalty for private use, $300 POSTAGE AND FEES PAID U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEW HEW 396 FOURTH CLASS Rockville, Maryland 20857 NOTICE OF MAILING CHANGE [7] Check here if you wish to discontinue receiving this type of publication. 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