Page 136 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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Introduction 18:0
were far more examples of traditional interest groups with bureaucratic
organizational forms going about their business in traditional ways. The
Internet-based political efforts represented something largely new, to be
sure, but just how deeply changes in the information and communi-
cation environment might be connected to changes in organizational
forms is still not clear. How can the extent of postbureaucratic organi-
zation be assessed more systematically and compared with traditional
organizational structure? For a quantitatively oriented social scientist,
the natural inclination when confronted with such a question is to seek
population samples and test for trends or differences. In a world of ideal
evidence, one would sample groups and organizations active in politics
at points prior to the contemporary information revolution and again at
points after. Coding these organizations as to their conformity with ele-
ments of bureaucratic and postbureaucratic organizational forms would
then permit the appropriate inferences to be made about changes over
time.
Unfortunately, that approach is unworkable, since opportunities for
assembling anything approaching a probability sample of political orga-
nizations are scarce. Selecting groups and organizations requires a priori
judgment about which are likely to be of interest. It is also clear that the
boundaries of whatever information regime might eventually solidify
out of the fourth information revolution will take time to become clear.
History provides chastening lessons in this regard. As Charles Hecksher
warns, a study of market economics conducted in 1650 and examining
a wide or random cross-section could have documented much about
how markets work theoretically, but empirically would have had to con-
clude that markets function effectively only in cloth-producing areas.
The wise observer would have focused attention on the cloth sector and
extrapolated from there rather than sampling many sectors. By the same
token, a study of new economic organizations conducted in 1870 and
bound by the methodology of random sampling might have concluded
22
that bureaucratic management is only appropriate for railroads. Such
cases warn against attempting to make final claims about the extent
of change in organizational structures at the beginning of periods of
dramatic change. They also warn against concluding prematurely that
limited developments cannot one day become profound.

22
Charles Hecksher, “Defining the Post-Bureaucratic Type,” in Charles Hecksher and
Anne Donnellon, eds., The Post-Bureaucratic Organization: New Perspectives on
Organizational Change (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1994), pp. 14–62.

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