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13 Pol'y Stud. J. 5 (1984-1985)

handle is hein.journals/plyssjnl13 and id is 1 raw text is: 5 ARTICLES OF GENERAL INTEREST ORGANIZATION THEORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE: ORGANIZATIONAL TYPOLOGIES, POLITICAL VARIABLES, AND POLICY STUDIES Hal G. Rainey, Florida State University INTRODUCTION Organization theory and political science have been in a state of mutual disregard for years, but recently a number of developments are reducing the divergence between them. This paper first describes that divergence. Then it reviews some of the prominent organizational typolo- gies developed by organization theorists, to show that the importance of relations between organizations and the political system have been sugges- ted in some of those typologies for a long time, but that this topic has not figured prominently in research in organization theory. Then recent indica- tions of increasing attention to the topic among political scientists and organization theorists are described. Finally, research issues and directions are discussed, such as the need for improved analysis of political and governmental dimensions of organizational environments. These issues are particularly relevant to public policy studies. All contemporary societies face choices among various admixtures of market- based and governmentally-directed organizational forms (Lindblom, 1977). In many specific programs and policies, questions arise constantly over whether policies should be implemented through public or private organiza- tions (Savas, 1982) or some hybrid of the two such as a public corporation or governmental regulation of private organizations. The divergence between political science and organization theory has impeded analysis of such questions, and has impeded development of a fund of research to support public management (Allison, 1982; Lynn, 1981). A number of re- searchers have recently pointed out that the relationship between organiza- tion theory and public policy needs more attention (Hall and Quinn, 1983; Meltzner, 1983; Beyer, Stevens, and Trice, 1983; Bryson, 1984; Elmore, 1978; Van Meter and Van Horn, 1975). As the divergence between organiza- tion theory and political science has decreased in recent work, moreover, conceptual and methodological issues of special relevance to policy studies have become more evident. The review of typologies points up a number of these issues which will be discussed later, but first the claims of a divergence must be justified. THE DIVERGENCE BETWEEN ORGANIZATION THEORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE The Generic Emphasis in Organization Theory Organization theory has not played an important part in political science, and political science has not figured prominently in organization