reconceptualizing red tape research

3
Book Reviews 463 is an overarching theme of this absorbing new book by Barry Bozeman and Mary K. Feeney. In an earlier, impressive treatise, Bureaucracy and Red Tape, Bozeman (2000) masterfully develops a theoretical framework for studying red tape. Bozeman and Feeney’s comple- mentary work has two related purposes: One is to review and summarize the research conducted on red tape over the past 20 years or so. e second is to Barry Bozeman and Mary K. Feeney, Rules and Red Tape: A Prism for Public Administration eory and Research (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2011). 216 pp. $34.95 (paper), ISBN: 9780765623355. T o what extent have researchers successfully conceptualized the ambiguous term “red tape” for theoretical and empirical exposition? is Reconceptualizing Red Tape Research Sonia M. Ospina and Rogan Kersh, Editors Norma M. Riccucci Rutgers University–Newark Norma M. Riccucci is professor of public administration in the School of Public Affairs and Administration at Rutgers University–Newark. Her research interests lie in the area of public management. She is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. E-mail: [email protected]

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Page 1: Reconceptualizing Red Tape Research

Book Reviews 463

is an overarching theme of this absorbing new book by Barry Bozeman and Mary K. Feeney. In an earlier, impressive treatise, Bureaucracy and Red Tape, Bozeman (2000) masterfully develops a theoretical framework for studying red tape. Bozeman and Feeney’s comple-mentary work has two related purposes: One is to review and summarize the research conducted on red tape over the past 20 years or so. Th e second is to

Barry Bozeman and Mary K. Feeney, Rules and Red Tape: A Prism for Public Administration Th eory and Research (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2011). 216 pp. $34.95 (paper), ISBN: 9780765623355.

To what extent have researchers successfully conceptualized the ambiguous term “red tape” for theoretical and empirical exposition? Th is

Reconceptualizing Red Tape Research

Sonia M. Ospina and Rogan Kersh, Editors

Norma M. RiccucciRutgers University–Newark

Norma M. Riccucci is professor of

public administration in the School of

Public Affairs and Administration at Rutgers

University–Newark. Her research interests

lie in the area of public management. She is

a fellow of the National Academy of Public

Administration.

E-mail: [email protected]

Page 2: Reconceptualizing Red Tape Research

464 Public Administration Review • May | June 2012

In chapter 4, Bozeman and Feeney examine the theory that has been produced from research on red tape, and, at the outset of the chapter, they express almost apologetically that research in public administration more generally is inchoate because of its lack of em-pirical (read: scientifi c) rigor. Nonetheless, researchers of red tape have surmounted these challenges to off er “a signifi cant amount of empirical work in a short period of time” (80). Bozeman and Feeney carefully review the body of research on red tape, specifi cally focusing on data sources and types, methods, models, and how it has been operationalized. In some cases, as they note, the research has produced mixed results. For example, some studies have shown that red tape has no eff ect on government performance, while other research suggests that it does. Th ey clarify that “[t]hese contradictory fi ndings may be related to measurement error, bias, or misuse of defi nitions. Unfortunately, be-cause public administration researchers are not in the habit of assessing their measures, there is no current research aimed at determining whether the contradic-tory fi ndings are a result of a gap in theory [or] of measurement error and bias” (100).

Chapter 5 opens up an area that is ripe for red tape research and theory building: contracting and per-formance management. Specifi cally, the authors sug-gest that researchers predisposed to study these areas might broaden their focus to examine the relationship of these issues to red tape, given the trends in privatiz-ing and outsourcing at every level of government. For example, does red tape interfere with a government’s eff ort to contract out, the performance of contractors, or the overall ability of a proxy government to govern?

Chapter 6 provides a comprehensive summary of the book and identifi es a much-needed agenda for further research on red tape, especially because “pre-vious research is neither deep nor rich enough as to preempt new work [and] . . . has proved incremental and somewhat repetitive, often examining new variants of old questions” (125). In particular, the authors call for the development of stronger constructs of red tape so that “real red tape” (126), as opposed to generalized perceptions of it, might be discovered. Th ey point to specifi c concepts in red tape theory that have yet to be studied, such as “pass-through red tape,” introduced by Bozeman in 1993, which seeks to examine the manner in which red tape passes through an organization to clients or to other organizations (140). Th e authors also note that expanded epistemic traditions and method-ologies are needed for studying red tape, especially those that employ qualitative tools. Th ey acknowledge, for example, the value of critical realism for investigating bureaucratic red tape, stating that “there are actual phe-nomena available for study even if the phenomena are mediated by observer response or social construction” (126). Clinical research on red tape, they say, also can contribute to developing and testing theory, and so, too,

exemplify theory building in public administration through empirical research, where the subject matter is red tape. Th e book thus will be of interest, as they suggest, not only to those who study red tape, but also to the philalethist, those who are interested in the mul-titude of epistemic traditions in the search for truth. Th e book fulfi lls this promise on both counts, through, for example, their careful treatment of theories pro-duced from empirical work, mostly quantitative, some qualitative, and their attention to the signifi cance of conceptual theory building apart from empiricism.

Th e book is laid out in a very logical, reader-friendly format. Chapter 2 examines the seminal concerns for red tape, both as a concept and a theoretical construct. Bozeman and Feeney point out, as Bozeman did in his 2000 book, that the development of red tape theory is confl ated with rule theory, which underscores two early conceptualizations of red tape:

Organizational red tape: Rules that remain in force and entail a compliance burden for the organization but make no contribution to achieving the rules’ functional objective.

Stakeholder red tape: Rules that remain in force and entail a compliance burden for the organization but make no contribution to objectives valued by a focal stakeholder. (44)

Th e authors argue that these concepts, which domi-nated post-1990s research on red tape, are limited because they do not contribute to organizational or stakeholder goals and purposes, thus reducing the proportion of rules that “qualify” as red tape. As a cor-ollary, the authors advance a new concept of red tape, “multidimensional red tape”: “Rules that remain in force and entail a compliance burden for the organiza-tion or its stakeholders, but that are ineff ective with respect to at least some of the organization’s or stake-holders’ objectives for rules” (46). Th is, as they argue, makes the red tape concept more relevant for experi-ence or for managerial and organizational reality.

Chapter 3 methodically reviews the theory of red tape, primarily that developed by Bozeman in 2000. Aside from his work, there is a paucity of theory on red tape. With this as a foundation, Bozeman and Feeney then ask whether a body of empirical research has been generated that tests this or any conceptual theory of red tape. Th ey answer with a resounding no. One explanation for this is that Bozeman’s theory is too broad and the constructs do not lend themselves readily to operationalization (69, drawing from the work of Pandey and Moynihan 2006). However, there has been extensive research on the impact of red tape on organizations and their employees as well as their stakeholders. Th is body of literature is reviewed by the authors.

Page 3: Reconceptualizing Red Tape Research

Book Reviews 465

may agree or disagree with Bozeman and Feeney’s assessments; notwithstanding, the authors raise valid points about overzealous eff orts to develop data sets, which may or may not have been remotely related to red tape theory. It begs the age-old question of what’s on fi rst: theory or data? In the end, they argue that an overreliance on survey research and questionnaires has hindered progress toward the convergence of red tape theory and research.

Th is book adds immense value to the body of knowl-edge on red tape. It nicely shows the signifi cance of this topic to the fi eld of public administration, the progress made around theory building and research, and cogently outlines gaps that need to be fi lled. One overall concern is that the authors seem ambivalent about the value of epistemic traditions that go beyond what they call “traditional” social science inquiry (read: quantitative empiricism). On the one hand, they call for it in the form of, for instance, critical realism; also, their introspective criticisms of red tape research are imbued with postmodernist tenets. On the other hand, they dismiss the signifi cance of postmodernists’ contributions to theory building and research in public administration. Th ey do call for greater qualitative empiricism, at least in the form of case studies, but the value of qualitative research on red tape could have been developed more systematically to illustrate, for instance, the contributions that it could make toward theory building and empirical research on red tape.

ReferencesBozeman, Barry. 2000. Bureaucracy and Red Tape. Upper Saddle

River, NJ: Prentice Hall.Pandey, Sanjay K., and Donald P. Moynihan. 2006. Bureaucratic

Red Tape and Organizational Performance: Testing the Mod-erating Role of Culture and Political Support. In Public Service Performance: Perspectives on Measurement and Management, edited by George A. Boyne, Kenneth J. Meier, Laurence J. O’Toole, Jr., and Richard M. Walker, 130–51. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

could “drawing on sociological research on rules and rules histories to develop more in-depth qualitative ap-proaches to understanding government red tape” (142).

In chapter 7, Bozeman and Feeney assess and identify various shortcomings with empirical research on red tape. Th ey set the stage at the beginning of the chapter by reviewing the criticism of public admin-istration research; actually, they criticize the critics. For example, they note that postmodernists take issue with existing public administration research because of its overreliance on traditional “scientifi c” methods. But because the authors themselves rely on quantita-tive empiricism, they devalue the contributions of postmodernists, arguing that “there is very little in the postmodernist approach that has any particular rel-evance to public administration research and theory, or more importantly, to advancing public administra-tion research and theory” (147, emphasis in original).

Bozeman and Feeney also point to shortcomings of the “data-driven” critics of public administration research, those who not only tout the importance of quantitative empiricism, but also rely on it to criticize the body of research on public administration. Here they argue that the methods employed by those critics often are not scientifi cally rigorous.

Th en they off er an “embedded approach” to criti-cism—embedded because Bozeman and Feeney view the dilemma through the lens of red tape, and also because they have contributed to this very body of research that they are challenging. Th ey claim that one of the chief problems with research on red tape is that it evolved in an ad hoc, opportunistic manner, often through funded or unfunded research projects that were data driven and not necessarily concerned with red tape. In this sense, the research was not driven by any established theoretical stream. Has the cumula-tive body of red tape research, then, been built on a snowballing of research fl aws? Researchers of red tape

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 72, Iss. 3, pp. 463–465. © 2012 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.111/j.1540-6210.2011.02552.x.