Categorizing state organizations in theory and practice, in general and in Norway

Paul G. Roness

e-mail: paul.roness@aorg.uib.no

Department of Administration and Organization Theory University of Bergen

Paper prepared for Seminar on organizational forms, autonomy and control in the public sector,

Bergen, 1 -2 December 2003

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CATEGORIZING STATE ORGANIZATIONS IN THEORY AND PRACTICE,

IN GENERAL AND IN NORWAY

Introduction

In attempts at mapping the pattern of state organizations, three questions arise: First,

what constitutes a state organization? Second, what constitutes one state organization?

Third, what constitutes different types of state organizations? There are no clear and

straightforward answers to these questions on state boundaries, units of analysis and

categorization. The answers provided have to be well-founded, as well as take into

consideration the availability of relevant information.

In this paper I discuss some aspects of the third question. I will review some

important contributions in the international literature and assess whether and how they

may be of relevance. While I in previous papers have focused on contributions from

and on New Zealand and the United Kingdom (Roness 2002a), and the Nordic

countries (Roness 2002b), I here emphasize Norwegian contributions that may be of

relevance for the development of the Database on the organization of the Norwegian

state administration.

Since there is no clear and straightforward categorization of types of state

organizations, there is also no clear and straightforward categorization of this kind of

categorizations. To sort out the various contributions I use the distinction of whether

they are based on: a) organization theory, b) political science, c) economics, or d) law.

In addition to these mainly deductive categorizations, there may be categorizations

that are inductive, where the pattern revealed through empirical observations

constitutes the basis for developing categories of state organizations. Christopher

Hood and Andrew Dunsire’s (1981) analysis of British government departments in

1976-77 is an example of this kind of inductive study. Since the use of empirically

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based categorizations has been quite uncommon in the Norwegian context, I will not

discuss these types further here.

As will become clear later on, the various theoretically based categorizations

represent different points of departure, rather than different results. Among

contributions from organization theory, I will distinguish between categorizations

according to principle of specialization and categorizations according to basis of

knowledge. For political science I will focus on contributions emphasizing state

activities or tasks, while under economically inspired contributions I will particularly

be interested in contributions emphasizing functions or roles of organizations. What I

call legally based contributions comprise discussions of the form of affiliation to the

central state authorities. This categorization of categorizations based on discipline and

focus does not fully satisfy requirements of being exhaustive and mutually exclusive.

Thus, some relevant contributions may be overlooked, while others may be included

several places.

Analyses of state organizations may show that categorizations to a varying

extent will be able to uncover relevant similarities and differences among these

organizations (cf. Nexø Jensen 1997, 1998). At the same time, since we cannot be

sure of their advantages in advance, mappings of state organizations should allow for

the use of several categorizations simultaneously. I will conclude by outlining some of

the categorizations that have been used in the development of the Database on the

organization of the Norwegian state administration.

Principle of specialization

Probably the most famous categorization based on (horizontal) specialization is the

one provided by Luther Gulick (1937). He presents his four principles of purpose,

process, people and area in a section on ‘aggregating the work unit’:

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“In building the organization from the bottom up we are confronted by the task of analyzing everything that has to be done and determining in what grouping it can be placed without violating the principle of homogeneity. This is not a simple matter, either practically or theoretically. It will be found that each worker in each position must be characterized by:

1) The major purpose he is serving, such as furnishing water, controlling crime, or conducting education; 2) The process he is using, such as engineering, medicine, carpentry, stenography, statistics, accounting; 3) The persons or things dealt with or served, such as immigrants, veterans, Indians, forests, mines, parks, orphans, farmers, automobiles, or the poor; 4) The place where he renders his services, such as Hawaii, Boston, Washington, the Dust Bowl, Alabama, or Central High School.” (p. 15)

With regard to later applications of this typology it may be noted that the first

principle does not contain any mentioning of function, and that the third principle

includes things (or ‘materiele’) as well as persons (or ‘clientele’). Moreover, Gulick

shows that the ordering based on one principle at one level often is combined with the

ordering based on another principle among subunits at a lower level. He has a quite

comprehensive discussion of the advantages and disadvantages that may be expected

with the application of one or another of the principles. His conclusion is that there is

no best solution, and that all principles are interrelated within an organization:

“Students of administration have long sought a single principle of effective departmentalization just as alchemists sought the philosophers’ stone. But they have sought in vain. There is apparently no one most effective system of departmentalization. Each of the four basic systems of organization is intimately related with the other three because in any enterprise all four elements are present in the doing of the work and are embodied in every individual workman. Each member of the enterprise is working for some major purpose, uses some processes, deals with some persons, and serves or works at some place.” (p. 31)

Gulick’s typology was heavily criticized by Herbert Simon (1947: 28-36), who argued

that it was inconsistent and ambiguous. However, according to Thomas Hammond

(1990: 161-167) this critique is mostly off the point, since Gulick was aware of most

of the problems and tried to solve them (cf. also Jordan 1994: 57).

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In his discussion of the organization of government, Peter Self (1972) takes

Gulick’s typology as his point of departure. He asserts that “.. there is little difficulty

in showing that three of Gulick’s principles cannot be assigned a dominant status.” (p.

55) After eliminating area, persons and process as relevant principles, ‘major function

or purpose’ remains as the only alternative. However, he says that this principle

“unfortunately .. is also obscure and inadequate”, i.a. since “purpose is not the same

as function.” (p. 57) Even if this may be true for the way he defines the concepts of

purpose and function, this critique does not apply fully to Gulick, who has a more

narrow definition of this principle.

Even if prominent persons in administration and organization theory have

presented strong objections to Gulick’s categorization, it is still often used in reviews

of public organizations. Thus, in his discussion of problems of administrative

structure, B. Guy Peters (1995: 147-161) takes this typology as his point of departure.

In contrast to Self, Peters does not reject any of the four principles, and he links

function to process (e.g. staff functions like budgeting and accounting) rather than to

purpose. However, he recognizes the problems of distinguishing purpose from the

other principles:

“This mode of organization is not always distinguishable from the others discussed. For example, is a Ministry of Agriculture organized on the basis of its major purpose - the promotion of agriculture - or is it organized around a ready-made clientele group - farmers? Organization by purpose, perhaps more than the other criteria mentioned, points up the lack of exclusiveness of this set of categories.” (p. 158)

Brian Hogwood (1992: 165-168) also starts with Gulick’s categorization in his

discussion of organizational change and policy change in Britain. Like Self (1972),

Hogwood links function to purpose, and points to ambiguous aspects of this principle.

In addition, he launches a possible fifth principle: “responsibility for certain stages in

the policy process relating to particular functions. This form of allocation could

perhaps be a fifth criterion of allocation overlooked in the traditional classification by

function (that is, policy area).” (p. 166)

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In Norway, Morten Egeberg (1984, 1999) has drawn heavily upon the work of

Gulick, characterizing it as one of the most central contributions in classical

administration theory. He joins Hammond in his defence of Gulick on the critique

from Simon (Egeberg 1999: 158), but also adds that these four principles of

specialization do not cover all relevant questions: “In practical organizational design,

it is, for example, as often a question of which purposes should be linked or kept

apart, as a question of choosing between the principle of purpose and, for example, the

principle of area.” (Egeberg 1984: 33, my translation).

In its Report on the organization of central state administration (1970), the

Modalsli commission mentions what is called the principle of division of labour in

organization theory:

“The provincial system (government by area) was previously quite common in Europe. (..) The clientele principle implies that one considers in conjunction all or important measures by the state towards a group of persons. (..) The functional principle implies a specialization according to the type of tasks - or if one wants - according to the function of the tasks in society.” (p. 38, my translation)

The commission does not want, however, to rank the principles: “In the view if the

Commission, it is not necessary to decide which principle to take as the point of

departure for the division into ministries. It may under no circumstances be an

exclusive use of any one principle.” (p. 38, my translation).

Even if there also in Norway are some examples on the use of principles of

(horizontal) specialization, no attempts have been made at a more comprehensive

mapping of all state organizations according to this kind of categorization. As Egeberg

(1984) mentions, perhaps it is as important to clarify the relationships between

different purposes as to choose between the four principles.

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Basis of knowledge

In analyzing decisions in organization, the form and extent of knowledge and

information are often emphasized. According to James G. March (1999: 1-4), the

pursuit of organizational intelligence is made elusive by problems of ignorance,

conflict and ambiguity. Thus, the consequences of taking one action or another are

difficult to anticipate precisely, the preferences or identities embraced by some

participants are inconsistent with the preferences or identities of other participants,

and the preferences to be pursued or the identities to be enacted are typically neither

clear, nor stable, nor exogenous. As the following contributions will show, concepts

and ideas related to knowledge and information in organizations may also form the

basis for categorizations of state organizations.

James Thompson and Andrew Tuden (1959) focus on decision issues, which

they categorize along two dimensions: preferences about possible outcomes, and

beliefs about causation. For both dimensions they distinguish between agreement and

disagreement, thus forming the basis for four types of decision issues and

corresponding appropriate strategies for handling them: computation for agreement on

both, majority judgment for agreement on preferences and disagreement on causation,

compromise for disagreement on preferences and agreement on causation, and finally

inspiration for disagreement on both. The four types of strategies are also related to

four types of structures: computation in bureaucratic structures, majority judgment in

collegial structures, compromise in representative structures, and inspiration in

‘anomic’ structures (p. 196-205). In her discussion on administrative responsibility,

Linda deLeon (2003) uses this scheme to categorize work situations. She slightly

modifies the terms from the original, particularly to reflect the language used in

contemporary scholarship to capture the fourth-cell condition (p. 570-572). Referring

to Cohen, March and Olsen (1972), she calls this decision situation a ‘garbage can’,

and relates the situation to what she refers to as anarchic systems or network

structures.

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Karen Hult and Charles Walcott (1990) develop this typology in their

discussion of governance structures. According to them, the two dimensions of

decision setting can be split into three categories: preferences about possible outcomes

in uncertainty, consensus and controversy; and beliefs about causation in uncertainty,

certainty and controversy. Like Thompson and Tuden, they argue that certain

structures (seven types all together) are most appropriate for certain combinations of

preferences and causation (p. 49-80). Even if neither of them explicitly relates

different types of structures to different types of organizations, this follows naturally

from their way of reasoning.

James Q. Wilson (1989) takes as his point of departure the tasks or activities of

public agencies, and distinguishes between two dimensions:

“From a managerial point of view, agencies differ in two main respects: Can the activities of their operators be observed? Can the results of those activities be observed? The first factor involves outputs - what the teachers, doctors, lawyers, engineers, police officers, and grant-givers do on a day-to-day basis. Outputs consist of the work the agency does. The second factor involves outcomes - how, if at all, the world changes because of the outputs. Outcomes can be thought of as the results of agency work. The outputs (or work) of police officers are the radio calls answered, beats walked, tickets written, accidents investigated, and arrests made. The outcomes (or results) are the changes, if any, in the level of safety, security, order, and amenity in the community.” (1989: 158-159)

For outputs (work) as well as for outcomes, the extent to which this can be observed

will vary. By combining the two dimensions, Wilson identifies four types of

organizations:

“Production organisations are those which have both observable outputs and observable outcomes; procedural ones are characterised by observable work but unobservable outcomes; craft organisations produce observable outcomes through unobservable work; and neither the work nor the outcomes of coping organisations is observable.” (Gregory 1995: 172)

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Robert Gregory (1995) has developed this typology further in a discussion on prime

resources and essential purpose for the four types of tasks and corresponding types of

organizations:

“Hence, for production tasks, money is the prime resource, and the purpose is to produce things. This is reflected in the fact that the production model is the one that is almost universally applicable to business management. For procedural tasks, authority is the main resource, since their inability to produce demonstrable outcomes renders their activities extremely rule-driven. Their purpose is that of maintaining systems. For craft tasks, power is the central resource, principally the power which derives from the knowledge that operators use in achieving outcomes. And in the case of coping tasks, the main resource is persuasion, in that - much more than in the other three cases - these tasks involve public agencies in the very difficult purpose of changing people’s behaviour.” (p. 173)

Even if purpose also appears in connection with this typology, the point of departure

is not this criterion, but tasks or activities.

So far, Norwegian researchers do not seem to have drawn upon these concepts

and ideas on knowledge and information to any extent when discussing various types

of state (or public) organizations. Like in other countries, these kinds of discussions

on the basis of knowledge are also quite uncommon in Norwegian public documents.

It is probably quite hard to use analytical typologies like the ones based on Thompson

and Tuden (1959) and Wilson (1989) on the whole range of state organizations - they

may be more suitable for a smaller set of more distinctive organizations.

State activities

According to the focus on activities or tasks, I could have included Wilson’s typology

in this section - like several of the other contributions reviewed in the previous section

it is based on political science as well as on organization theory. However, the present

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discussion is confined to contributions that take different types of state activities as

their point of departure, and not the activities of specific organizations.

Richard Rose (1976) argues that state activities have developed in three stages:

securing its own existence, mobilizing physical resources, and providing social

benefits:

“First of all, a state seeks to secure its own existence through the creation of institutions of government that can maintain its territorial integrity, internal order, and manage its finances. (..) Once a state has created an organization sufficient to guarantee a surplus, it then possesses organizational and tax resources giving it the capability to engage in other activities as well. (..) The mobilization of physical resources can be done effectively by the state, because the activities in question, such as building canals, roads and railways, or creating a postal and telegraph service, require action by some kind of formal organization, whether public or private - and the state is normally the organization with the greatest resources available to invest in the creation of additional wealth and power. (..) At a third stage in its development, a state begins to emphasize activities intended to provide social benefits for the sake of its citizens.” (p. 257-258)

In his later works, Rose has been primarily interested in what he calls programmes:

“The term programme is here used to describe a set of government activities related in

budgets and organizational structure to a common purpose.” (1985: 9) Even if he does

not apply his own trichotomy, he still focuses on state activities. Thus, in his attempt

at understanding big government he discusses the extent to which the programmes

involve public resources like money, personnel and laws:

“The major programme areas of government differ greatly in the particular mixture of claims that they make upon public revenues, employees and laws. The programme areas examined in Table 1 - education, health, income maintenance, debt interest, economic infrastructure, public enterprises, defence and law and order - were selected because each ranks relatively high in its claim on at least one major public resource.” (Rose 1984: 186)

If certain state organizations handle certain state activities or programmes, this

distinction may also form the basis for a categorization of types of state organizations.

Even if Rose does not make this connection, others have tried. For example, based on

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this trichotomy, Chris Rudd (1991) analyzes the development of public expenditures

in New Zealand in the 1980-1990 period.

In Norway, a report from the Directorate for Communication and Public

Management (Statskonsult 2001a) has mapped the development of the division into

ministries in the Netherlands, Great Britain, Sweden, Finland and Denmark, based on

a similar categorization of activities presented by an international group of experts to

the Finnish government (Bouckaert et al. 2000):

“We distinguish between four main types of ministries: a) ministries responsible for the classical state activities related to: foreign affairs, finance, justice, defence and domestic affairs b) ministries with functions directed towards the economy, like industry, labour market, agriculture, fisheries and transport. c) ministries responsible for education and welfare (social protection and health) d) ministries responsible for the environment and resources.” (p. 18, my translation)

Here, the addition of the environment and resources may be regarded as a timely

update of the original categories of Rose.

Among practitioners, the United Nations Classification of Functions of

Government (COFOG) now seems to have become the international standard. This

categorization has ten main types of activities (each having from five to nine

subtypes): (http://unstats.un.org/unsd/cr/registry/regcst.asp?Cl=4)

Χ general public services Χ defence Χ public order and safety Χ economic affairs Χ environmental protection Χ housing and community amenities Χ health Χ recreation, culture and religion Χ education Χ social protection

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In Norway, this categorization has been used in a recent report from the Directorate

for Communication and Public Management (Statskonsult 2003). However, so far

there is no authoritative typology of state activities in Norway. Instead, some central

agencies make their own lists. An example based on state activities is the Handbook

of the National Archives of Norway (Johannessen, Kolsrud and Mangset 1992), where

the organizations subordinated the ministries (except for defence) are divided into six

categories (my translation):

• finances, statistics • justice and police, municipal affairs • culture, education, research • economic affairs, communications • social affairs • foreign affairs

Like for all categorizations based on state activities, or policy areas, the question

arises on the clarity of the categories and how easy it is to assign the specific state

organizations to them. I will not try to give some answers here, but only claim that

state activities may be a relevant point of departure for developing categorizations. An

advantage compared to the typologies based on organization theory reviewed in the

previous sections, is that they are more easily applied to public sources.

Functions

Prescriptions on an organizational split between different functions are particularly

prominent in contributions based on concepts and ideas from public choice theory,

agency theory and transaction cost analysis. Even if these kinds of economically

inspired approaches during the last decades have become more widespread in

organization theory and political science, and to some extent are related to principles

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of specialization, bases of knowledge, and state activities, I will here discuss them

separately.

New Zealand is often mentioned as a forerunner in the use of economic

organization theory in public sector reform (e.g. Boston 1995: 167). Here, the main

administrative doctrine for organizing government departments is probably the split

between policy advice, regulation and service delivery (Boston et al. 1996: 81-86).

Patricia Greer (1994) also points out how ‘the Next Steps Initiative’ in Great Britain

from the late 1980s fits well into ideas in public choice theory:

“There is nothing new about either the idea or the practice of separating ‘policy’ functions from ‘operational’ functions, or ‘steering’ from ‘rowing’. The idea is a central core of public choice theory which states that one way of controlling bureaucratic self interest is to separate advisory, regulatory and delivery functions which should be carried out by different agencies.” (p. 24)

On her own part, she launches a typology of agencies based on transaction cost

analysis. Thus, the agencies may vary according to two dimensions: the extent to

which they have a monopoly on service delivery in their area, and the extent to which

they depend on revenue from the Treasury (p. 18-19). She relates the conditions

identified as increasing transaction costs to the two dimensions.

Patrick Dunleavy (1989, 1991) also to a large extent bases his ‘bureau-shaping

model’ on economic organization theory. His point of departure is different types of

budgets (i.e. expenditures) that the agencies have. According to this model, “the

relative sizes of core, bureau and program budget levels fluctuate systematically

across agencies, creating an important basis for distinguishing theoretically based

agency types.” (1991: 183) More specifically, he distinguishes between five basic

agency types:

“Delivery agencies are the classic line bureaucracies of Weberian theory and economic analyses. They directly produce outputs or deliver services to citizens or enterprises, using their own personnel to carry out most policy implementation. (..) Regulatory agencies .. key tasks are to limit or control the behaviour of individuals, enterprises or other bodies, (..) Transfer agencies handle payments of some form of subsidy or entitlement by government to

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private individuals or firms. (..) Contract agencies are concerned with developing service specifications or capital projects for tendering, and then letting contracts to private sector firms. (..) Control agencies are the last of the basic agency types. Their primary task is to channel funding to other public sector bureaus in the form of grants or inter-governmental transfers, and to supervise how these other state organizations spend the money and implement policy.” (1991: 183-186).

According to him, some additional categories are needed to be included to achieve

comprehensive coverage: “Taxing agencies raise government finances. (..) Trading

agencies were defined for the UK central government analysis as full governmental

bodies. (..) Service agencies are very similar in function, providing services or

facilities to other government bodies.” (1991: 186-187) In the analysis of how certain

types of agencies have certain types of budgets, he also to some extent opens for

combinations of two or more categories (e.g. ‘delivery/transfer’, ‘delivery/control’ and

‘predominantly carrying out delivery functions’). He is particularly interested in how

important, or how easy, it is for rational bureaucrats within the different types of

agencies to maximize different types of budgets.

In Norway, the first major attempt at mapping state organizations and the

number of state employees (St. meld. nr. 40 1949) took economic concepts and ideas

as the point of departure:

“From a macro-economical point of view it is natural to distinguish between activities that are related to the exercise of public authority and all other activities. Thus, the tasks of the state fall into two main groups:

A. Law-making, administration of justice, exercise of law, maintenance of

law and order, defence of the country, and the organization of the economic, social and cultural life. (..)

B. Activities aimed at meeting individual and collective demands by service delivery or the production of goods. What characterizes this activity is the immediate creation of economic values in the form of services or material products.” (My translation)

The relationship between type of organization and function is even more prominent in

the report from the Hermansen commission on ‘A better organized state’ (NOU 1989:

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5). Here, the choice of form of affiliation (cf. next section) is based on a discussion of

the role of the state in: (p. 56, my translation)

Χ societal steering and exercise of authority Χ interest mediation and conflict resolution Χ handling values and culture Χ service delivery Χ distributing grants Χ economic affairs Χ partnership with other actors Χ administration and service provision for the state itself

Thus, state organizations may be categorized according to what constitutes their main

role or function. As an example, Kjersti Helgesen (1991) bases her analysis on the use

of and the attitudes towards different types of reform measures among administrative

leaders in state organizations on this typology.

Even if there are some differences with regard to the basis for these

economically inspired categorizations, and in the individual categories, it may be

possible to distinguish between some pure functions, like policy advice, control and

scrutiny, and service delivery. However, as mentioned above, one state organization

may handle several functions at the same time. As I will return to in the concluding

section, this may have some consequences for the ways in which this type of

categorization are put into use.

Form of affiliation

The concept form of affiliation indicates the legal status of a state organization and its

relationships to the superior ministry, minister, cabinet and parliament. As shown in a

recent report from OECD (2002), the specific forms of affiliation may differ among

countries. In this report, in addition to ministerial departments, three main types of

agencies, authorities and other government bodies are identified (p. 17-19):

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1. Departmental Agencies: They are part of ministries, and do not have their own

separate legal identity from the state.

2. Public Law Administrations: They function mostly under public law, but they

are partially or completely institutionally separate from the ministries and/or

can be partially separate or fully separate legal bodies.

3. Private Law Bodies: They are not companies, but function mostly under private

law, usually with a full separate identity from the state.

Within a single country there may also be some problems clarifying what units belong

to the state, what constitutes one unit, and what constitutes different types of

affiliation (cf. Rolland, Roness and Ågotnes 1998). In Britain, for example, in his

analysis of ‘the bureau-shaping model’, Dunleavy (1989) shows that previous

attempts at delineating ‘the central state’ have produced different results. In his own

assessment of which units to include, he takes as his point of departure a

categorization based on whether they are directly controlled by a minister and/or are

staffed by civil servants:

“A. Ministerial and non-ministerial Whitehall departments B. Agencies directly controlled by ministers, staffed by civil servants, yet

not counted as ministries C. Agencies staffed by civil servants but not directly controlled by

ministers D. Agencies directly controlled by ministers but not staffed by civil

servants E. Agencies neither directly controlled by ministers nor staffed by civil

servants.” (1989: 259) Grant Jordan (1994: 15-26) has a similar scheme based on ministerial control and

ministerial rank, mainly comprising units close to a minister:

Χ Five-star Departments: Departments headed by a Secretary of State, or called, ‘Cabinet-Minister-led departments’.

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Χ Second division or non-Cabinet-headed Departments: Departments not headed by Cabinet-rank but junior ministers.

Χ Bureaucratic-led departments: Certain bodies listed as departments are headed by bureaucrats and some have a specified relationship to the Secretary of State.

For the more devolved organizational forms, the boundaries are even more unclear.

Many of the British units previously being called ‘quangos’ are now officially defined

as ‘non-departmental public bodies’, or NDPBs: “An NDPB is a body which has a

role in the processes of national government, but is not a government department or

part of one, and which accordingly operates to a greater or lesser extent at arm’s

length from Ministers.” (Whitehall Programme 2000a: 6) In addition, through the

‘Next Steps Initiative’, many executive agencies have been established as parts of

government departments. On a scale of degrees of devolution, the NDPBs normally

are more towards the autonomous end than executive agencies (Massey 1997: 43).

In Norway, all ministries are headed by a minister (in some few recent cases

two or three ministers for separate parts of the ministry), while civil service

organizations outside the ministries are headed by top civil servants. Over time, the

relationship between ministries and central agencies (directorates) has been arranged

in different ways (cf. Christensen and Roness 1999, Christensen et al. 2002).

Particularly between the two world wars, several central agencies had a double

position, operating as part of a ministry in the handling of some cases. Today,

however, all central agencies are structurally devolved, that is separate organizations

outside the ministries, but subordinated one (or in some few recent cases two or more)

of them through the normal hierarchy of state administration.

The concept form of affiliation became particularly widespread through the

report from the Hermansen commission (NOU 1989: 5). Here, the main distinction is

between organizations that are part of the state as a legal entity and organizations that

are separate legal entities. However, even before the report was presented, some sub-

types had existed. Thus, while they are a part of the state as a legal entity, government

administrative enterprises and central agencies with extended authority were

exempted from some of the regulations in the state budget. Likewise, there were

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different types of state-owned companies and public foundations. As mentioned in the

previous section, the commission made some general recommendations on the choice

of form of affiliation according to the roles of the state organizations. Based on this

work and some later reports and commissions, the set of forms of affiliation has been

adjusted. A recent report from the Directorate for Communication and Public

Management (Statskonsult 2001b) lists the following types (my translation):

* within the state Χ ordinary civil service organizations Χ civil service organizations with extended authority Χ government administrative enterprises

* outside the state: state-owned companies and foundations

Χ government-owned companies Χ government limited companies Χ hybrid companies established by special law Χ public foundations

Compared to the other types of categorization, in Norway it is now relatively easy to

categorize all current (and most previous) state organizations according to form of

affiliation.

Conclusion

As reviewed in the preceding sections, many categorizations of state organizations

have been launched. Even if the concepts have been defined in different ways in the

literature, I have argued that it is possible to distinguish the theoretically based

categorizations according to whether they emphasize principle of specialization, basis

of knowledge, state activities, functions, or forms of affiliation. However, even in the

main types of categorizations there is some variety as to which categories are being

presented and how specific state organizations are assigned to them.

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How, then, can these challenges be handled? One of the few comprehensive

databases on state organizations has been developed within the British Whitehall

Programme, comprising the organization of central government departments 1964-

1992. After reviewing many categorizations produced by academics or in British

public documents, the people responsible for this database conclude that there is no

right answer for human organizations like state organizations. Thus, their ‘quest for a

taxonomy of government organisations’ ends ‘in defence of arbitrariness’ (Whitehall

Programme 2000a: 10). This implies that the database does not contain categories

related to purposes, activities, tasks, functions or roles. On what is called level 1 the

database only distinguishes between the following seven types (Whitehall Programme

2000b: 13):

“1 - Ministers and Departments (England) 2 - Other Organisations (England) 3 - Research Councils (England) 4 - Libraries, Museums and Galleries 5 - Departments and other organisations: Northern Ireland 6 - Departments and other organisations: Scotland 7 - Departments and other organisations: Wales” The alternative to arbitrariness does not, however, have to be the choice of one

categorization, whether it is based on the academic literature or public documents, or

more homespun. Instead, a set of categorizations and categories can be used, to which

the specific state organizations can be assigned according to whether they satisfy the

various criteria or not.

These questions were also highly relevant in the development of the Database

on the organization of the Norwegian state administration at the LOS-centre (now the

Stein Rokkan Centre for Social Studies) in collaboration with the Norwegian Social

Science Data Services. At first, the database consisted of information on

organizational structure and organizational change in ministries and central agencies

from 1947 onwards (Rolland, Roness and Ågotnes 1998). It is now expanded to

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include similar information on all state organizations in Norway, and made accessible

through the Internet (http://www.nsd.uib.no/data/polsys/) .

With regard to organizational structure we have information on the parent

ministry for all state organizations at any time since 1947. The importance of this

categorization is documented in a study of Danish state organizations, showing that

parent ministry provides clear results: “A common institutional (historical) framework

makes a lasting impression on the self-conception of an organization, the relationships

with its environments and the perceptions of the ministry.” (Nexø Jensen 1997: 17,

my translation). Studies of Norwegian ministries also show that the beliefs and actions

of civil servants are highly affected by the ministry they belong to (e.g. Lægreid and

Olsen 1978). We also have information on the form of affiliation for all state

organizations during the period. Even if the concepts of form of affiliation and

ordinary civil service organization only have been used for the last 15 years or so, it is

not too difficult to decide the relevant category for the state organizations at any time

since 1947. The aforementioned study of Danish state organizations also shows that

what is called administrative level makes a difference for the governance, outputs and

outcomes of the organizations (Nexø Jensen 1997: 113). Likewise, studies of

Norwegian civil servants reveal marked differences between ministries and central

agencies with regard to their beliefs and actions (e.g. Christensen and Lægreid 1998,

Christensen et al. 2002).

In a study of incomes and restructuring in civil service organizations around the

turn of the millennium (Rolland, Roness and Rubecksen 2001) we have to a large

extent relied upon information in public documents. This made it quite difficult to use

the analytical typologies based on principle of specialization and basis of knowledge

mentioned above. Instead, we have categorized all relevant state organizations

according to task portfolio and policy area (cf. also Rubecksen 2003).

The task portfolio of a state organization comprises the combination of primary

(main) tasks and secondary (additional) tasks of various kinds it has. Thus, the

individual state organizations may have quite pure and restricted functions and roles,

or a mixture of different functions and roles. With regard to types of tasks and

21

functions we have taken the main distinction between exercise of public authority and

service delivery/production as the point of departure (e.g. as outlined in St. meld. nr.

40 1949). We have made some adjustments, to some extent based on the report from

the Hermansen commission (NOU 1989: 5). Thus, regulation and scrutiny is singled

out as a separate category, in addition to other types of exercise of public authority.

For service delivery and production we have distinguished between those done

primarily on a non-profit basis, and those who are for profit (on a market). The final

category is policy formulation (and advice). The individual state organizations are

registered as having one main task and up to two additional tasks. By distinguishing

between and combining these five types of tasks it is possible to get a more nuanced

picture than by registering only one task for each and every organization.

In this study, policy area to a large extent corresponds to purpose and state

activity, and we have chosen the following categorization:

Χ finance Χ foreign affairs Χ research/education Χ environment/health/social affairs Χ economic affairs Χ culture Χ law/justice Χ communication Χ defence Χ municipal/county Χ others

In the study, the tasks of the state organizations were related to specific policy areas.

Thus, an organization may have a main task within one policy area (called main

policy area), and also additional tasks on the same or other policy areas. If an

additional task is related to another policy area, it may be called an additional policy

area.

Similar information about state organisations is also obtained for 1989

(Rubecksen 2003). We are now working on linking this information on task portfolio

and policy area of state organizations to the Database on the organization of

22

Norwegian state administration. This makes it possible to explore potential

relationships between, for example, form of affiliation, task portfolio and policy area

over time.

23

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