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Politicization and Responsiveness in the Regional Offices of the NLRB

California State University, Chico

Societal, professional, and organizational pressures create opportunities in bureaucratic decision making for political forces to dominate policy implementation. The author examines regional decision making in the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Because earlier studies examine such decision making in NLRB regional offices from 1964 to 1986, they include no critical examinations of the impact of changes in partisan control, societal attitudes, the balance of power between employers and unions, and economic stability from 1986 to 1997. The author argues that these developments create important new constraints on the level of regional staff responsiveness and accountability to political interests. Using a dynamic model, the author examines the influence of national pressures, regional environmental influences, and previous decisions by regional staffs to dismiss and by clienteles to withdraw complaints. The results show that clienteles pursue cases strategically in response to expectations of favoritism from national forces, political strength at the regional level, and previous decisions and the contemporary success of opposing interests.

The American Review of Public Administration, Vol. 32, No. 2, 188-215 (2002)
DOI: 10.1177/02774002032002004


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