5. Lot sizing and Scheduling with Non-Triangular, Period Overlapping and
5.2 Modelling multiple lots per product per period for single machine
5.2.3 Imposing a minimum lot size
A corollary of the notion that bureaucracies are often self-serving and guardians of the status quo finds expression in their willingness to defy directives by political authorities they are supposed to serve.
Bureaucratic unresponsiveness and inaction sometimes manifest themselves as lethargy. At other times bureaucratic sabotage is direct and immediate, as vividly illustrated again by the U. S. experience in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. While President Kennedy sought to orchestrate U.S. action and bargaining, his bureaucracy in general, and the Navy in particular, were in fact controlling events by doing as they wished.
POL344 FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS
“The bureaucracy chose the orders it liked and ignores or stretches others. Thus after a tense argument with the Navy, Kennedy ordered the blockages line moved closer to Cuba so that the Russians might have more time to draw back. Unbeknownst to Kennedy, the Navy was also at work forcing Soviet submarines to surface long before Kennedy authorised any contact with Soviet ships. And despite the president’s order to halt all provocative intelligence, an American U-2 plane entered Soviet air space at the height of the crisis. When Kennedy began to realise that he was not in full control, he asked his Secretary of Defence to see if he could find out just what the Navy was doing. McNamara then made his first visit to the Navy command post in the Pentagon. In a heated exchange, the Chief of Naval Operations suggested that McNamara return to his office and let the Navy run the blockade (Gelb and Halperin, 1973 in Kegsley Jr. 2007)”.
Bureaucratic resistance is not only inertial force promoting status quos foreign policies. The dynamics of governmental politics which reduce policy choices to political tug of war, also retard the prospects for change. From the perspective of the participants, decision making is a high-stakes political game, in which differences are often settled at the least common denominator instead of rational cost-benefit calculations. As former U. S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger described the process.
Each of the contending factions within the bureaucracy has a maximum incentive to state its case in its extreme form, because the ultimate outcome depends to a considerable extent, on a bargaining process. The premium placed on advocacy turns decision making into a series of adjustments among special interests-a process more suited to domestic than to foreign policy… The outcome usually depends more on the pressure or the persuasiveness of the contending advocates than on a concept of overall purpose. (Kissinger 1969 in Kegley Jr., 2007).
Bureaucratic recalcitrance is a recurrent annoyance that leaders throughout the world experience, in authoritarian and democratic political system alike. Bureaucratic resistance to change is one of the major problems reformers in the Soviet Union and the other centralized communist countries of Eastern Europe encountered, which impaired their efforts to chart new policy directions and to remain in power, and eventually caused their disintegration.
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The foreign policy process in China operates similarly. It is subject to the same vicissitudes of subjective perception, organisational conflict, bureaucratic politics and factional infighting that bedevil other governments. And in the United States nearly every president has complained at one time or another about how the bureaucratic ostensibly designed to serve his government has undercut his policies. The implementations of foreign policy innovations thus pose a major challenge to most leaders.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3
Discuss the attributes of bureaucratic organisations.
4.0 CONCLUSION
The sub- state actors closest to the foreign policy process are state’s bureaucratic agencies, maintained for development and execution of foreign policy. Different states maintain different foreign policy bureaucracies but share some common elements.
Bureaucratic management of foreign policy is not new. It was in evidence long ago in Confucian China, but is a peculiar modern phenomenon. Bureaucratic procedures are commonplace throughout the world in large measure because of the perception that they enhance rational decision making and efficient administration.
Thus, the dividing line between decision makers and bureaucrats is often not properly defined. However, it is important to note that bureaucrats are career governmental personnel as distinguished from political appointees or elected officials. Legally, political leaders are to command the bureaucracy but they find it difficult to control the numerous sub-structures of their governments.
5.0 SUMMARY
From this unit, what emerges from the study is that bureaucracy is another idealised picture of the policy making process.
Bureaucratic decision making is not in all ramifications a modern blessing. However, we should emphasise that the foregoing propositions tell us how bureaucratic decision making should occur, they did not tell us how it does occur. It is important to stress that the actual practice and the foreign policy choices that result show that bureaucracy produces burdens as well as benefits.
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POL344 FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT
1. What do you understand by Bureaucracy, efficiency and rationality?
2. Discuss the major attributes of bureaucratic behaviour.
3. Analyse the consequences of bureaucratic behaviour.
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READING
Irving, J. (1982). Crucial Decision: Leadership in Policymaking and Crises Management. New York: Free Press.
Kegley, C., Jr. (1993). World Politics, Trend and Transformation, (4th Ed.). New York: St. Martin’sPress.
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