Dimensions of State Government Capability
| Date | 01 June 1988 |
| Author | Richard C. Kearney,Ann O'M. Bowman |
| DOI | 10.1177/106591298804100208 |
| Published date | 01 June 1988 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
DIMENSIONS
OF
STATE
GOVERNMENT
CAPABILITY
ANN
O’M.
BOWMAN
AND
RICHARD
C.
KEARNEY
University
of
South
Carolina
OLITICAL
system
performance
depends
to
a
great
extent
on
institu-
tional
capacity.
As
a
result,
institutions
are
the
objects
of
continu-
ous
attempts
at
reform
and
modernization.
These
transformational
efforts
are
undertaken
to
attain
the
somewhat
nebulous
goals
of
&dquo;capa-
bility
improvement&dquo;
and &dquo;capacity
building.&dquo;
The
frequency,
compre-
hensiveness,
and
impact
of
these
exercises
are
likely
a
function
of
the
larger
political
context.
The
last
twenty
years
have
found
state
governments
engaged
in
a
con-
geries
of
activities
aimed
at
improving
institutional
performance.
Con-
stitutional
and
statutory
reforms
of
the
executive,
legislative,
and
judicial
branches
have
substantially
altered
the
structural
and
procedural
charac-
teristics
of
state
government.
The
formal
powers
of
the
governors
have
been
strengthened
and
executive
authority
has
been
consolidated
in
the
governor’s
office,
while
state
bureaucracies
have
become
more
profes-
sional
and
representative.
State
legislatures
have
increased
in
levels
of
institutionalization
and
professionalism,
and
their
processes
have
been
streamlined.
Even
the
state
judicial
systems
have
been
modernized
through
reorganizations
and
improved
management
practices.
The
reforms
generally
have
consisted
of
efforts
to
improve
the
capa-
bility
of
state
institutions
to
respond
to
increasingly
rapid
technological
and
socioeconomic
changes
in
their
jurisdictions,
and
to
cope
more
ef-
fectively
with
new
program
and
policy
responsibilities
resulting
from
&dquo;New
Federalism&dquo;
policies,
national
government
retrenchment,
and
the
growing
incapacities
of
local
governments.
The
scope
and
variety
of
these
state
reforms
in
&dquo;capability
building&dquo;
have
recently
been
documented
by
the
U.S.
Advisory
Commission
on
Intergovernmental
Relations
(1985).
Well
over
one-hundred
structural
and
procedural
changes
have
been
widely
adopted
by
the
states
in
efforts
to
make
them
more
capable
by
improving
their
effectiveness,
efficiency,
and
representation.
The
avalanche
of
state
capability
building
efforts
during
the
past
twenty
years
has
not
gone
unnoticed
by
political
scientists.
Reforms
in
the
executive
branch
and
legislative
branch
have
been
described
and
ana-
lyzed
thoroughly.
Political
scientists
have
also
attempted
to
measure
the
impacts
of
various
reforms,
with
conflicting
results
(Grumm
1971;
Car-
>
Received:
December
23,
1986
First
Revision
Received:
July
3,
1987
Accepted
for
Publication:
July
24,
1987
NOTE:
The
authors
thank
Don
Edwards,
Sandra
Cowen,
and
Frank
Whitaker
for
their
con-
tributions
to
this
research.
1
The
terms
"capacity"
and
"capability"
are
used
interchangeably
in
the
literature
and
in
this
paper.
Government
capacity
implies
the
quality
of
being
capable.
For
the
sake
of
consistency,
however,
we
utilize
"capability"
throughout
most
of
the
paper.
342
mines
1974;
LeLoup
1978;
Roeder
1979;
Meier
1980;
Morehouse
1981).
Widely
varying
research
findings
on
the
effects
of
state
government
capa-
bility
building
reforms
may
be
attributed
to
common
pitfalls
such
as
fuzzy
conceptualization
and
imprecise
or
inappropriate
measurement
tech-
niques
(see
Blalock
1984).
In
general,
the
absence
of
appropriate
data has
resulted
in
the
need
to
utilize
surrogate
measures
for
critical
concepts.
Specifically,
the
concept
of
state
government
capability
has
lacked
defini-
tional
clarity,
and
its
operationalization
has
been
inconsistent.
This
arti-
cle
responds
to
this
situation
by
developing
an
operational
definition
of
capability
applicable
to
state
policymaking
institutions
and
then
measur-
ing
the
adoption
of
relevant
reforms.
Our
findings
underscore
the
mul-
tidimensional
nature
of
state
government
reformism,
affirm
our
definition
of
capability,
and
provide
empirically
derived
state
capability
measures
for
future
research.
THE
CONCEPT
OF
CAPABILITY
The
concept
of
capability
has
been
applied
somewhat
differentially
at
the three
levels
of
government.
The
earliest
work
is
found
in
the
fields
of
comparative
politics
and
comparative
administration,
where
capacity
denotes
such
national
government
attributes
as
scope,
effectiveness,
ra-
tionality,
survival,
adaptation,
innovation,
and
the
management
of
con-
flict
(Heady
1984:
98).
The
development
of
a
political
system
is
equated
with
the
capacity
of
that
system
to
respond
effectively
to
new
demands
placed
upon
it
(see Jaguaribe
1973;
Almond
1965;
Eisenstadt
1963).
Within
the
context
of
the
U.S
federal
system,
the
concept
of
capabil-
ity
building
has
received
growing
academic
and
practitioner
attention
since
the
early
1970s.
Most
of
the
attention
has
focused
upon
national
government
efforts
to
strengthen
the
executive
management
capacity
of
local
governments
through
helping
them
to
develop
program,
policy,
and
resource
management
skills
for
utilization
in
federally
funded
endeavors.
These
federal
programs
were
highly
fragmented
among
some
40
federal
agencies,
reflecting
the
ambiguity
associated
with
the
concept
of
capac-
ity
building
(Burgess
1975).
Recently
there
have
been
efforts
to
define
local
government
capacity
more
broadly
than
a
management
perspective
(Gargan
1981;
Honadle
1981;
1986).
Growing
recognition
of
the
multidimensional
nature
of
government
capacity
is
reflected
in
Honadle’s
(1981:
577)
six-part
defi-
nition
of
the
concept:
capacity
is
&dquo;the
ability
to
anticipate
and
influence
change;
make
informed,
intelligent
decisions
about
policy;
develop
pro-
grams
to
implement
policy;
attract
and
absorb
resources;
manage
resources;
and
evaluate
current
activities
to
guide
future
actions.&dquo;
At
the
state
level,
the
concept
of
capacity
was
first
applied,
albeit
loosely,
in
Crittenden’s
(1967)
work
on
state
government
modernization.
Other
research
has
followed,
most
of
it
concentrating
on
the
capacity
of
a
single
branch
of
state
government.
Here,
too,
there
has
been
a
gradual
recognition
of
the
multidimensional
character
of
capability,
perhaps
best
illustrated
in
the
Advisory
Commission
on
Intergovernmental
Relations’
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