Concluding Observations

Abstract

This chapter reviews several substantive ideas. First, the ontology of government proposed here is actor-centered. The properties and activities of government are generated by the socially-constituted actors who make up the offices and agencies of government. Second, we can understand much of the workings of governments through the findings of institutional sociology and organizational studies. Government is an assemblage of organizations, with social networks, authority relations, and modes of influence and culture that influence and shape the behavior of the actors within the organizations of government. Third, government is inherently complex. It is a network of organizations encompassing many mechanisms of information gathering and analysis, priority setting, policy writing, regulation, and enforcement. Throughout we have seen that these particulars of the composition of government give rise to the perennial possibility of dysfunction. All of these dysfunctions can be addressed, and indeed, many improvements are underway at present at multiple levels of government and civil society. However, it is clear that effective government is a dynamic and never-ending project.