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Toward a Rational Theory of Decentralization: Some Implications of a Mathematical Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Manfred Kochen  and
Karl W. Deutsch
Manfred Kochen
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
Karl W. Deutsch
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

This paper seeks to open for exploration the field of decentralization in politics and organizational design. As a first approach, it examines conditions under which decentralization is preferable from the viewpoint of rationality or cost-effectiveness. Our normative statements as to what would be best, or what should be done, are formulated first from the viewpoint of the subjects or clients, but they are expected to include the interest of the community in ensuring adequate service at low cost, and they also include the interest of the rulers, insofar as their power in the long run depends on their capacity to respond to the demands made upon them quickly enough and adequately enough to retain their political support.

The political theory underlying our study assumes that modern governments retain “their just powers by the consent of the governed,” and hence that both their legitimacy and their power will depend at least in significant part on their ability to respond adequately to the popular demands made upon them. We do not deal in this study with other important criteria of preference, such as the psychological value which some of those who take the role of powerholders may put upon centralized control, or the contrary value which some of those who identify with their subjects may put upon power sharing and decentralization.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 63 , Issue 3 , November 1969 , pp. 734 - 749
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1969

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References

1 Kochen, M. and Deutsch, K. W., “A Mathematical Model for a Study of Political Decentralization,” submitted to Operations Research, 09 1968 Google Scholar.

2 On the concept of feedback, see Wiener, Norbert, The Human Use of Human Beings, (New York: Avon Books, 1967), ch. 1Google Scholar; Deutsch, K. W., The Nerves of Government, (2nd ed.; New York: Free Press, 1966)Google Scholar, with references; and Rosenthal, Robert A. and Weiss, Robert S., “Problems of Organizational Feedback Processes,” in Social Indicators, Bauer, Raymond A. (ed.), (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1966), pp. 302–340 Google Scholar.

3 See, e.g., Simon, Herbert A., Smithburg, Donald W., and Thompson, Victor A., Public Administration (New York: Knopf, 1956), pp. 272–279 Google Scholar. For a related argument in international relations, see Wohlstetter, Albert, “Illusions of Distance,” Foreign Affairs, 46 (01 1968), p. 250 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 A qualified emphasis on decentralization is found in Litterer, Joseph A., The Analysis of Organizations (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1965), pp. 378–393 Google Scholar; and Pfiffner, John M. and Sherwood, Frank P., Administrative Organizations, (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1960), pp. 440–462 Google Scholar.

5 For some important general approaches, see Kaufman, Herbert, “Organization Theory and Political Theory,” this Review, 58 (1964), 5–14, esp. 7–8, 13–14 Google Scholar; Haire, Mason, Organization Theory in Industrial Practice (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1962), pp. 6–7 Google Scholar; Rubenstein, Albert H. and Haberstroh, Chadwick J., Some Theories of Organization (Homewood, Illinois: Irwin and Dorsey, 1966)Google Scholar.

6 For examples of discussions of the political and social aspects of decentralization and the size of political units or areas, see Baum, Bernard H., Decentralization in a Democracy, (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1961)Google Scholar; Dahl, Robert A., “The City in the Future of Democracy,” this Review, 61 (1967), 953–970 Google Scholar; Fesler, James W., Area and Administration (University, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1942)Google Scholar; Hess, S. W., el. at., “Non-Partisan Political Redisricting by Computer,” Operations Research, 13 (1965), 998–1006 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jacob, Philip and Toscano, James V. (eds.), The Integration of Political Communities, (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1964)Google Scholar; Macmahon, Arthur W., Delegation and Autonomy (New York: Asia Publications and Taplinger, 1967)Google Scholar; Robinson, E.A.G. (ed.), Economic Consequences of the Size of Nations (New York: St. Martins Press, 1963)Google Scholar. General studies of decentralization are relatively rare in political science. The Cumulative Index to the American Political Science Review (1906–1963) (ed.), (Evanston, Ill: Northwestern University Press, 1964)Google Scholar lists only one article for the 57 years covered, Lowrie's, S. G. “Centralization versus Decentralization (Federalism)”, which appeared in the Review in 1922 Google Scholar. During the same 57 years, three articles referring to their titles to the delegation of legislative powers appeared in 1908, 1926, and 1947, respectively.

7 See Hess, et. al., op. cit.; Baumol, W. J. and Wolfe, P., “A Warehouse Location Problem,” Operations Research, 6 (1958), 252–263 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hurwicz, L., Decentralized Resource Allocation, Cowles Commission Discussion Paper No. 2112, 1955 Google Scholar; Koopmans, T. C. and Beckmann, M. J., “Assignment Problems and the Location of Economic Activities,” Econometrica, 25 (1957), 53–76 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kuehn, A. A. and Hamburger, M. J., “A Heuristic Program for Locating Warehouses,” Management Science, 9 (1963), 643–666 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Manne, Alan S., “Plant Location under Economies-of-Scale—Decentralization and Computation,” Management Science, 11 (1964), 213–235 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Anderson, J. P., et. al., “D825—A Multiple Computer System for Command and Control,” in AFIPS Conference Proceedings, Volume 22, (Washington, DC: Spartan Books, 1962), pp. 86–96 Google Scholar; Arrow, K. J. and Hurwicz, L., “Decentralization and Computation in Resource Allocation,” in Pfouts, R. W. (ed.), Essays in Economics and Econometrics (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960), pp. 34–104 Google Scholar; Information Dynamics Corporation, A Methodology for the Analysis of Information Systems, Final Report to the National Science Foundation, NSF-C-370, (1965)Google Scholar; Jackson, J. R., “Networks of Waiting Lines,” Management Sciences Research Project Research Report No. 53 (Los Angeles: University of California, mimeographed, 1957)Google Scholar; Wurtele, Z. S., “A Criterion for Determining the Number of Identical Machines to be Installed at a Machine Center,” Management Sciences Research Project Discussion Paper No. 78 (Los Angeles: University of California, mimeographed, 1961)Google Scholar; Hoover, Edgar M., The Location of Economic Activity, (New York: McGraw Hill, 1948)Google Scholar.

9 Deutsch, K. W. and Isard, W., “A Note on a Generalized Concept of Distance,” Behavioral Science, 6 (1961), 308–311 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Simon, Smithburg, & Thompson, op. cit., pp. 275, 279. Simon's thoughtful comments on the various tendencies making for actual, rather than merely possible, centralization are wholly compatible with our analysis. The latter merely adds some emphasis on several no less real tendencies which may work in the opposite direction.

11 On centralization and communication at earlier levels of technology, Lewis Mumford comments: “Action at a distance, through scribes and swift messengers, was one of the identifying marks of the new megamachine (the centralized state) … ‘The scribe, he directeth every work that is in this land,’ an Egyptian New Kingdom composition tells us … They made possible the constant ‘report to political headquarters’ essential for a centralized organization”: The Myth of the Machine (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1967), p. 192 Google Scholar. Cf. also Innis, Harold A., Empire and Communication, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950)Google Scholar.

12 This calculation assumes roughly the usual average of 6 bits per character, 80 characters per line, and 42 lines per page. For further discussion, see Kochen, Manfred (ed.), The Growth of Knowledge (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1967)Google Scholar; also Kochen, Manfred, “Newer Techniques for Processing Bibliographic Information,” in Kilgour, F. (ed.), Proceedings of the Symposium on Data Processing in University Libraries (Philadelphia: Drexel Institute of Technology, 1968)Google Scholar.

13 On the concept of responsiveness, see Deutsch, K. W., Burrell, S. A., et. al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957, 1968), pp. 40–41, 199–200 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Russett, Bruce M., Community and Contention: Britain and America in the Twentieth Century, (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1963), pp. 29–30 Google Scholar; Pruitt, Dean Y., “Definition of the Situation as a Determinant of International Action,” in Kelman, Herbert C. (ed.), International Behavior: A Social-Psychological Analysis (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965), pp. 397–399 Google Scholar.

14 On the general problem of the “quality of life,” which is connected with our growing lack of and need for time, compare Galbraith, John Kenneth, The Affluent Society (New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 1958)Google Scholar and The New Industrial State (New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 1967)Google Scholar.

15 See references in notes 2–6, above.

16 In the 1950s, the average rate of per capita income growth in 68 countries, comprising 86 per cent of the world's population, was about 3 per cent, while the average rate of population growth in 111 countries, with 97 per cent of mankind was 2.3 per cent. ( Russett, B. M., et. al., World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964, pp. 46–48, 160–161 Google Scholar.) More recently, in 1960–66, world population increased at an annual rate of 1.9 per cent. During the last two decades, total GNP in many countries may have been rising, therefore, at about 5 per cent per year, and thus doubling every 14 years. Request loads and service loads in many fields, including governments may have grown at about the same rate as GNP. United Nations Demographic Yearbook, 1966 (New York: 1967), p. 95 Google Scholar. During the same years, 1960–66, the population of the United States increased at the rate of 1.4 per cent, while its gross national product in constant 1958 prices grew at 4.8 per cent. Murders and non-negligent homicides grew at 2.3 per cent, all accidents at 2.8 per cent, domestic mail at 3.5 per cent, and daily telephone conversations at 5.0 per cent, and automobile thefts at about 7 per cent. In contrast to this, the average speed of motor vehicles increased only at 1.4 per cent a year, and about the same low rate held for the 1945–66 period. The average speed of aircraft on scheduled domestic air carrier routes increased at about 3.5 per cent for 1950–67 period, but rose more quickly, at 5.0 per cent, during the years 1960–67, and the speed of aircraft on international flights in 1960–67 increased at about 7 per cent per year. (Approximate rates, computed from data in the Statistical Abstract of the United States 1967, pp. 58, 86, 505, 508–509, 561 and 586; and ibid., 1968, pp. 6, 550 and 573; and Uniform Crime Reports for the United Stales, 1960, p. 2 Google Scholar, and ibid., 1965, p. 3.) These figures exclude, however, the delays caused by getting to and from the airports, and the delays by traffic congestion on the ground, and in the air above many airports. If these delays are taken into account, it seems plausible that many activities, calling for public service, now may be growing faster than does our effective speed in moving persons and goods in daily practice. Something similar may apply to telephone communications: a telephone call from Washington to San Francisco during business hours does not get through much more quickly to the individual we want to reach in a busy office than it did in 1945.

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