Are There Counterarguments to Giving More Freedom to Bureaucrats?

How can you best deliver effective public services? Is it better to exert top-down control over the work of bureaucrats on the ground – through targets, monitoring, and prescribed procedures – so that slacking or corruption or inconsistency can be prevented? Or can more be achieved if you free up bureaucrats to work out their own approaches, utilizing their practical knowledge and allowing their desire to do a good job to flourish?

Our colleague Dr Dan Honig, who is Associate Professor of Public Policy here in the UCL Department of Political Science, argues that we have tended to get the balance wrong, with too much top-down control and not enough freedom on the ground. In two books – one of them published in 2018 by Oxford University Press and the other on its way – Dan sets out the case for a new approach.

And his work is making waves not just in academia. At the end of 2021 he was announced by Apolitical as one of its hundred most influential academics in government in the world. 

Mentioned in this article:

• Navigation by Judgment. Why and When Top-Down Management of Foreign Aid Doesn't Work
• Dr Dan Honig is named as one of 100 most influential academics in government by Apolitical

UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.