How Leaders of Arm’s Length Agencies Respond to External Threats: A Strategic-Performative Analysis

• DOI: 10.1177/00953997211027532
• Date: 01 March 2022
• Published date: 01 March 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/00953997211027532

Administration & Society

2022, Vol. 54(3) 366 –394

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/00953997211027532

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Article

How Leaders of Arm’s

Length Agencies

Respond to External

Threats: A Strategic-

Performative Analysis

Cosmo Howard1

Abstract

Researchers have recently shown increasing interest in how leaders of

agencies respond to external threats. This article extends Katharine

Dommett and Chris Skelcher’s strategic-relational analysis of agency

leaders’ responses to exogenous threats. It focuses on the role of dramatic

performances and impression management in agencies’ strategic responses.

Interviews with senior officials in statistical agencies in Britain and Canada

were used to assess the strategic-performative model. Agencies are better

able to defend their functions and autonomy when they undertake effective

dramatic performances to shape external stakeholders’ impressions. These

findings further our understanding of the mechanisms that influence the

legitimacy and autonomy of public agencies.

Keywords

termination, leadership, political control, statistical agencies, autonomy,

dramaturgy

1Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland, Australia

Corresponding Author:

Cosmo Howard, School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University, 170

Kessels Road, Nathan, Queensland 4111, Australia.

Email: c.howard@griffith.edu.au

1027532AAS0010.1177/00953997211027532Administration & SocietyHoward

research-article2021

Howard 367

Introduction

It was not long ago that the prevailing wisdom in political science suggested

government agencies were immortal (Downs, 1967; Kaufman, 1976; Simon,

1950). This assumption rested on empirical data that have been subsequently

challenged (Boin et al., 2010), as well as several contested theoretical

assumptions, including the “lock-in” and “credible commitment” theses, that

regard agencies as a form of irreversible commitment by politicians to ensure

that a policy function continues indefinitely and outside of political control

(Moe, 1997; Thatcher & Stone Sweet, 2003). Recent empirical work on

agency termination, survival, and autonomy has challenged these theories,

pointing out how they reflect the specific experiences of agencies in the U.S.

separation-of-powers system, where multiple veto points create institutional

barriers to reductions in individual agency budgets and organizational termi-

nations (Dommett & Skelcher, 2014; Lewis, 2002). In parliamentary sys-

tems, agencies are at the mercy of the incumbent executive and are subject to

the whims of administrative fashion regarding the use of arm’s length agen-

cies in public administration (Elston, 2014). The “agency fever” that peaked

in the 1990s has subsided in many parliamentary systems, with the result that

governments have attempted to—and often succeeded in—shutting agencies

down, terminating significant agency functions and programs, and imposing

enhanced external controls on the those agencies that remain (Flinders et al.,

2014; Flinders & Skelcher, 2012; Pollitt & Talbot, 2004).

This recent bout of agency “culling,” downsizing, and intensified over-

sight has generated a new set of research questions concerning why some

agencies experience termination, program retrenchment, and enhanced exter-

nal control, whereas others have escaped such reforms. However, efforts to

identify a consistent set of drivers for these differences have been largely

unsuccessful, leading some to conclude that governments are “walking with-

out order,” that is, taking decisions on agencies without a clear or consistent

logic (Flinders, 2008; van Thiel, 2012). In this context, one factor that has not

been studied in detail is the role of agency leadership in responding to and

countering exogenous threats. Some recent work has explored the sociologi-

cal “agency of agencies,” to see whether agency leadership can shape the

outcomes of retrenchment and control efforts. For example, Dommett and

Skelcher (2014) propose a “strategic-relational” model, which posits that

agency leaders assess their strategic context and then choose from several

possible response strategies. However, this model says little about how the

internal characteristics of an agency and its individual leaders might shape

responses, and it does not address why some agency leaders are successful in

defending their agencies, programs, and professional autonomy while others

are not.