Working, Shirking, and Sabotage Michigan Studies in Political Analysis Michigan Studies in Political Analysis promotes the development and dissemination of innovative scholarship in the field of methodology in political science and the social sciences in general. Methodology is defined to include statistical methods, mathematical modeling, measurement, research design, and other topics related to the conduct and development of analytical work. The series includes works that develop a new model or method applicable to social sciences, as well as those that, through innovative combination and presentation of current analytical tools, substan tially extend the use of these tools by other researchers. GENERAL EDITORS: John E. Jackson and Christopher H. Achen Keith Krehbiel Information and Legislative Organization Donald R. Kinder and Thomas R. Palfrey, Editors Experimental Foundations of Political Science John Brehm The Phantom Respondents: Opinion Surveys and Political Representation William T. Bianco Trust: Representatives and Constituents Melvin J. Hinich and Michael C. Munger Ideology and the Theory of Political Choice John Brehm and Scott Gates Working, Shirking, and Sabotage: Bureaucratic Response to a Democratic Public R. Michael Alvarez Information and Elections David Austen-Smith and Jeffrey S. Banks Positive Political Theory I: Collective Preferences Working, Shirking, and Sabotage Bureaucratic Response to a Democratic Public John Brehm and Scott Gates Ann Arbor THE llNIvERsrrr OF MICHIGAN PREss First paperback edition 1999 Copyright © by the University of Michigan 1997 All rights reserved Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America 9€ Printed on acid-free paper 2002 2001 2000 1999 4 3 2 1 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brehm, John, 1960- Working, Shirking, and sabotage: bureaucratic response to a democratic public / John Brehm and Scott Gates. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-472-10764-X (alk. paper) 1. Government productivity-United States. 2. Supervision of employees. 3. United States-Officials and employees-Professional ethics. 4. State governments-Officials and employees-Professional ethics-United States. 5. Local officials and employees Professional ethics-United States. 6. Bureaucracy-United States. 7. Democracy-United States. I. Gates, Scott. II. Title. JK768.4.B74 1997 353.001 '02-dc20 96-43487 CIP ISBN 0-472-08612-X (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN13 978-0-472-08612-2 (paper) ISBN13 978-0-472-02738-5 (electronic) For our teachers Contents Preface ix Chapter 1. Bureaucracy and the Politics of Everyday Life 1 2. Why Supervision Fails to Induce Compliance 25 3. Foundations of Organizational Compliance 47 4. The Preferences of Federal Bureaucrats 75 5. Working and Shirking in the Federal Bureaucracy 93 6. Working, Shirking, and Sabotage in Social Work 109 7. Donut Shops and Speed Traps 131 8. Policing Police Brutality 149 9. Smoke Detectors or Fire Alarms 173 10. Routes to Democratic Control of Bureaucracy 191 Appendixes A. Models 205 B. Distributions 217 C. Estimates 227 References 247 Index 263 Preface We began this project coming from different theoretical orientations, but with a common intuition: that a great deal of contemporary research, and a greater quantity of political rhetoric, made mean-spirited assumptions about public servants in local, state, and federal bureaucracies. How different is the aca demic's assumption of the leisure-maximizing subordinate from the politi cian's rhetoric against the lazy bureaucrat? Our intuition told us that the police officer, the social worker, the NASA engineer, the health inspector chose their jobs not for the possibility of maximizing leisure, or even for the material re wards of the job, but for the intrinsic character of the job itself. As our research progressed, we found that our methods began to fuse, and that the intuition grounded itself in models that reflected the possibility of diverse preferences among bureaucrats, and in empirical analysis that ratified the connections between preferences and performance. The data for our research primarily came from the Interuniversity Consor tium for Political and Social Research, which bears no responsibility for our analysis and interpretations. The specific data sets we employ in this project were: the 1979 Federal Employee Attitude Survey (ICPSR 7804); the 1983 Federal Employee Attitude Survey (6304); the 1992 Survey of Federal Gov ernment Employees (9983); Attitudes and Perceptions of Police Officers in Boston, Chicago, and Washington, DC, 1966 (9087); Patterns of Behavior in Police and Citizen Transactions, Boston, Chicago, and Washington, DC, 1966 (9086); Police Services Study, Phase II, 1977, Rochester, St. Louis, and St. Petersburg (8605); Police Use of Force 1991-92 (6274); and Politics of Public Utility Regulation in the United States, 1980 (8080). We also thank Daniel Hudgins and the Durham County Department of Social Services for their as sistance in collecting the data for the social worker chapter. (Data for the social worker chapter is available from the authors on request.) We have many people to thank for their insights on aspects of this manu script. In particular, we want to thank John Aldrich, Jim Batista, Bill Bianco, Dan Carpenter, Jay Hamilton, Jeff Hill, and Matt Holland for their willingness to comment on the manuscript in entirety or in part. Much of this manuscript appeared originally in the form of conference papers, and we thank Paul Abram son, Bob Bates, Dan Carpenter, Patty Conley, Gary Cox, Doug Dion, Evelyn Fink, Gary Goertz, WiIIiam Gormley, Jim Granato, Paul Gronke, Tom Ham-