Page 126 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

P2: GCO/GCZ
Tally: GCV
P1: GYG/GAQ
10:56
CY101-03
CY101-Bimber
0 521 80067 6
August 13, 2002
Postbureaucratic Political Organization
Table 3.2. Constraints on Postbureaucratic Political Organization
1. The dynamics of mass media and public attention.
2. The need to interact with unchanging formal institutions of government.
3. The importance of personal relationships based on familiarity and trust.
4. The requirement of sustained performance across events and throughout
the policy process.
5. The discounted value of inexpensive information and communication.

familiarity, and the need for sustained performance across events and
processes, this problem of the discounted value of inexpensive informa-
tion constrains the exploitation of postbureaucratic forms by organiza-
tions. These five factors are summarized in Table 3.2.
Moreover, no single organizational structure is superior for all sit-
uations in any case, regardless of era or informational context. Not all
industrial-era organizations resembled classical Weberian bureaucracies,
but the Weberian model still provided powerful insights into organiza-
tion and administration. Similarly, not all information-era organizations
are likely to exhibit postbureaucratic features such as these. Large
organizations may differ from small ones; organizations aimed at one
political strategy or function should differ from those pursuing others;
organizations whose leaders have autocratic styles should differ from
those whose leaders tend toward collaboration, consultation, and del-
egation; organizations facing instability in their environments should
be organized differently from those operating under conditions of cer-
tainty and stability. Even within individual organizations, substructures
vary. For all these reasons, the connection between information abun-
dance and postbureaucratic pluralism indicates a theoretical direction
for changes in politics rather than a universal condition.
This connection raises the empirical question of evidence: In practice,
dopostbureaucraticorganizationsexistinpolitics,andifso,whatdothey
look like? To what extent does contemporary politics conform to the
bureaucratic conception of political organization, and to what extent to
the postbureaucratic conception? These questions are the subject of the
next chapter.

109