ABSTRACT
None of the three dominant theories of bureaucratic behavior is able to explain “good bureaucratic behavior.” The neo-Marxists argue that bureaucratic action is motivated by class interest. Public choice theorists claim that bureaucrats' “rent-seeking” tendencies dictate their actions. And Max Weber predicted that bureaucrats would follow rules and precedents. There are instances, however, when bureaucrats (hereafter referred to as planners) initiate distributional policies that serve the interests not of the elite but of the masses, reduce the possibilities of rent- seeking by the planners themselves, and are not guided solely by standardized rules and procedures. In other words, innovative policies in support of the poor do emerge within the so-called “capitalist,” “rent-seeking,” and “bureaucratic” state. So far, we have been unable to explain the emergence of such policies, which are routinely dismissed as motivated by the state's need to co-opt the poor or as the result of prolonged class struggle, or—at best—as an aberration brought about by one or two exceptional individuals who are unlike the rest of the unheeding planners.
