So far, political scientists have devoted little attention to the origins of the American bureaucracy and the relationship between bureaucratic policies and interest groups. In this pioneering book, Daniel Carpenter contributes to our understanding of institutions by presenting a unified study of bureaucratic independence in democracies.

He focuses on the emergence of bureaucratic political innovation in the United States during the progressive era, wondering why the Postal Administration and the Ministry of Agriculture have become politically independent authors of the new policy and why the Ministry of Interior has not done so. To explain these developments, Carpenter introduces a new theory of bureaucratic autonomy based on the theory of the organization, rational selection models and network concepts.

According to the author, unique-purpose bureaucracies achieve independence when middle-level officials have a reputation among diverse alliances in order to effectively deliver unique services. These coalitions enable agencies to resist political control and make it costly for politicians to ignore agency ideas.

Carpenter values ​​his argument through a highly innovative mix of historical novels, statistical analyzes, countermeasures, and carefully organized political comparisons. Along the way, it rephrases national food and drug laws, Comstockery and the progressive anti-vice movement, the emergence of American conservation policy, the rise of the farm lobby, the establishment of postal savings banks and the delivery of free rural mail, and even the 1910 Cannon Revolt Congress..

I want that book.