Resisting Government Control. How Agencies Use Strategic Resources to Challenge State Coordination

Abstract

Institutional pressure provoked by public sector reform leads to strategic reactions from agencies. Several agencies in the Netherlands and France only complied with a selection of imposed reforms. Other rules were manipulated, not complied with, or compromises were made. In case of disagreement between government and agency, the most effective resource for governments to reform is a parliamentary majority. Manipulation was found to be an effective strategy employed by agencies to serve their goals. Although greater government influence on agencies was expected in centralist France than in the Netherlands, not many differences were observed; in both countries, the same strategies are employed by agencies in the public sector.