Solving Problems of Bureaucracy Limits on Social Science

Remedies for the problems of bureaucracy take many forms, ranging from simply pruning existing organizations to creating new organi-zations or procedures. One remedy, increasingly popular in recent decades, is better information and analysis for decision-making. Bureaucracies work badly, it is often argued, because inadequate information and analysis are brought to bear on decisions. Typically the inadequacies are said to arise from the experience of workers within bureaucracies: their information and analysis are said to be anecdotal, fragmentary, and powerfully shaped by the perspective of their particular agency or bureau. Better information and analysis would be more impartial, more independent of particular perspectives, and it would be generalizable rather than fragmented and anecdotal