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Government Efficiency and Network Theory
Science News reports on a study relating (in a loose way) the efficiency of a national government with the size of its cabinet. Researchers in Vienna found that the development level of countries, as a proxy for the efficiency of their governments, is in general lower for countries with more members in the national cabinets. They then went on to model cabinet members as nodes in a network and found support for the observed correlation. There was even specific evidence for the decades-old observation of English historian Cyril Northcote Parkinson that decision-making is severely impaired in committees of more than 20 people. The US is getting close to Parkinson's cutoff, at 17.
Oh, and the corruption of course.
This can, at best, describe the cabinet-level and section of the governments. With many different structures, a poor measure at best. A proper study would require many more measurements, and be weighted by the decision powers given to various levels of government. The Japanese diet, for instance, is much more powerful than the president and his cabinet.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
sounds like something I should model in the next version of this:
http://www.democracygame.com/
It already represents ministers as nodes in a neural network.
Can't say it surprises me in the least tbh.
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The Legion of Doom was case in point of why this isnt true. They NEVER were successful despite the under 20 rule...
Government inefficiency is a good thing. Bureaucracies (attempt to) keep the government slow and sane. The extreme alternative is a dictatorship, which is much more efficient.
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
Nothing seems to get done properly in our company. We have 19 vice-presidents and one president.
We don't have a randomized experiment here, with cabinet size
being manipulated... countries get the cabinets they choose
(sort of).
More complex problems (to begin with) -?-> larger cabinet.
"Never bullshit a bullshitter" All That Jazz
I don't know about the Parkinson's Cutoff, but I think at least one former member of the cabinet surpassed the Alzheimer's Threshold.
I hope my karma is high enough to withstand this beating. Hmm, I don't recall.
Around 20 members, people start making prepared statements rather than using meetings as think tanks. Real work is no longer done in cabinet meetings.
Since this new study indicates that the government and the nation is less efficient if the cabinet is large, it's an interesting extension of Parkinson's work.
Many of Parkinson's articles were humorous and he strongly hinted that he had no actual numbers to back up his claims. It's a little surprising to see that the real world aligns with his claims.
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Dictatorship is the most efficient system in decision making.
And politicians in a 'democratic' system knows this as well. It's not unusual to delegate one person(I'm even not talking about an elected one) the sole decision making power on extremely important issues.
In that case the US congress uses CSMA/CD.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
But... I think it is interesting to consider WHY certain posts are created. Does a separate, cabinet level post really need to exist for homeland security? Wouldn't a secretary of defense occupy that duty?
Sure, homeland security would be a worthy sub-cabinet level post, but was the homeland security position made into a cabinet position for PR or for truly getting things done?
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
The study actually finds a correlation between a countries HDI (human development index) and the size of its cabinet.
nice study.
if you want to read the whole report, i found the original url here :
http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.2202
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0804.2202v1
the only problem i see is that they missed out on the *actual* membership, for example Belgium is ranked as 15 but this doesnt explain the shabby decisionmaking in Belgium until you also count in the regional govs which should put it around 50 give or take.
I have several of C N Parkinson's books, including a signed first edition of 'Parkinson's Law', from which this example is taken.
Though he was a history professor, and did some studies, Parkinson's primary claim to fame is not as a historian. He was a writer who wrote historical fiction with a sideline in humorous articles and books.
This whole study sounds as if it has been taken completely from the (comic) Parkinson proposal which is wiki'ed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_Inefficiency
News just in - the quality of soup can suffer when an excessive number of culinary technicians are involved in the preparation. Film at 11.
At the bottom of the
This article cover the news better: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/33926
It also contains a link to the original paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.2202
Best Regards,
Durval Menezes.
I have never met a computer that didn't like me.
Wait.
You mean more politicians ='s LESS efficiency!?
Let's just replace the politicians with scientists. Problem SOLVED.
We call them Ministers and they tend to be elected.
The number of Cabinet members and Cabinet-level departments is much less important in the US than in parliamentary systems.
Our Cabinet is one in name only. The President has authority over all executive branch decisions, and no Cabinet head can go against his wishes. He can remove them at his leisure and appoint new ones. Although the Senate confirms appointments, it usually does so regardless of whether Senators agree with the policies of the nominee. Instead, it is expected that as long as the nominee isn't scandalous or completely incompetent, he or she will be confirmed.
Moreover, our Cabinet doesn't really have meetings anymore. It just isn't the case that the heads of the Departments of Veterans Affairs, the Treasury, and the Interor sit around with the President and discuss policy. The executive branch really does its business in smaller groups, many of them wholly distinct form the Cabinet (the National Security Council, for example).
Make cheese not war 8:)
... as Japan does not have a president.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
SIERRA TANGO FOXTROT UNIFORM
Coming up next, our studies investigate the religion of the Pope.
If you haven't made a developer cry, you've wasted a day.
Oh, wait, I did that already -- in Russia in early 90's. And all they did was giving up control of everything government had and everything government didn't have, to domestic and foreign "businesses" that proceeded to loot the country...
I have an idea. Can I be the looting businessman this time, and you all will be cheerleading Libertarians?
Pretty please?
With sugar on top?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
A crippled government is a good government.
Ideally you have one that can react to a crisis (natural disaster or invasion) but is very, very slow to get anything else done. The less meddling the bettter.
I'ds actually like it if the government was required to spend 50% of its time debating and repealing existing law, instead of just layering on more and more.
Isn't government efficiency an oxymoron?
'nuff said.
I would argue that it's good for a government to take time to study complex issues to make sensible, deliberate decisions. Inefficiency merely slows that process and creates the appearance of deliberation to mask debilitation.
The US government is based on an evolutionary process of change. It's not designed to make fundamental changes quickly or capriciously.
Earmarks notwithstanding. Just who's looking at their ears anyway?
Invenio via vel creo
A fairly sage quote I remember from somewhere is:
The intelligence of a committee is equal to the intelligence of the dumbest member of the committee divided by the number of people on it.
I only clicked on the link above to see if the insane-looking URL actually worked (it does), but why on earth do they need to pass in so many blank arguments? Is Scott Adams trying to future-proof the site for several millennia to come?
Scott Adams does not make those decisions. His PHB does.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
"It's a good thing we're not gettin' all the government we're payin' for."
The LAST thing the USA needs now is an efficient presidency.
I want my gubbermint to run slowly enuf that we the people have time to get outraged, organized, wake up the couch potatoes and cure their apathy, and get the rest of the political system moving (legally) against the prezdint's ideers.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
He's so weak, he doesn't even have an office or title! He's just some unpaid guy in the basement trying his best to hold onto his stapler.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
The basis of government is coercive deadly force, and the threat thereof. For some things, this is necessary; for most things (the US gov't is doing), force is inappropriate and/or antithetical.
All the laws, procedures, beuracracies, Miranda Rights, etc, are there in an attempt to limit the ways and frequency that the force is used.
When a people feel that voting and other means of redress are ineffective, then the best one can hope for is that the gov't is inefficient. Low voter turnout reflects the disenfranchisement of the people, not their apathy.
If you think that speed or "efficiency" in lawmaking is good, remember that the Patriot Act was passed about a month after 9/11.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
This is what happens when we leave social science to actual scientists. Physicists are doing some really cool stuff with social network analysis, but they're ignoring over 50 years of actual social theory of networks. They're finding correlation and calling it causation.
Saying that countries with large cabinets are less politically developed isn't that interesting or even true (Canada has a federal minister of sports and recreation!). What needs to be looked into is _why_ less developed countries have larger cabinets. Off the top of my head (and I'm a geographer, not a social scientist) is that developing countries often have multiple ethnic groups that demand representation in the government, and this is often required by their constitution. Cabinet positions are made to give them representation in the government and to ensure that the government receives those groups support.
Look, I like social network analysis. I do it myself, and I'm glad that physicists are taking an interest in it, they've produced some amazing work. But, they also need to start to realize that they're working in a _social_ science, and qualitative research is needed to complete the quantitative.
Sleep is for the weak!
Orbis terrarum est non altus satis
No, you can be the one making broad, sweeping generalizations. Sorry, I dont intend to sound hostile, but this is something I feel strongly about.
While I feel politically agnostic, I find libertarian ideals appealing. Nowhere have I read anything associating libertarianism with Laissez-faire Capitalism. It seems that there is no substitute for self-involvement when it comes to governing bodies. When you let others make decisions for you, its possible for those results to not be in your favor.
I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other.
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While I feel politically agnostic, I find libertarian ideals appealing. Nowhere have I read anything associating libertarianism with Laissez-faire Capitalism
Glad you put that to bed.
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Authoritarian regimes can get a lot done in a very short period...Stalin, for example, built Russia back up from the brink of disaster...He did that AND he oppressed the people he ruled over....When the strong leader dies, those who inherit his power often do tremendous damage simply bickering with each other over who gets to rule exactly what.
This concept is explored in The J Curve - A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall, which graphs the openness of the nation on the X-axis, and national stability on the Y-axis. The resulting curve is shaped like a J, with some national stability able to be maintained within a closed society, and more national stability able to be mantained by an open society. But the transition from a closed to an open society will be marked by a decrease in the stability of the nation/society.
A dictator can rule over a stable state (but not always), as can a effective democracy. But what about an country trying to move from a dictatorship to an elected government? Way more often than not, the net stability of the country DECREASES as the central authority is removed from power, with nothing standing by to replace that authority.
Your example of Stalin is a good one of a stable dictarships - the far left of the graph. Another is recent Iraq: Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator, who kept the made-up state of Iraq together, and functioning relatively well, despite the political suppression, death squads, and mass slayings. He was a sociopath, but there was no doubt who was in charge, and society functioned to a pretty good degree. But see how that's changed in the last 5 years.
Upon removal of the dictator and his power structure (Baathist military), chaos and anarchy filled that space for long enough that people returned to ethnic, and then tribal, power structures. Stability decreases. Ethnic cleansing and the creation of homogeneous neighborhoods, cities and regions shows the bottom of the J-curve. In the eyes of an average Iraqi, stability has plummeted. Polls of Iraqis within the last few years show, particularly when the neighborhood-level violence has increased, that a lot would prefer going back to Saddam, as at least he kept the streets somewhat safe. The trains running on time, and all of that.
People choose personal safety over elections, particularly en masse. A dictator keep gangs from terrorizing neighborhoods (well, OTHER gangs). And the counter-balance to a rational dictator is the need of that dictator to keep the brutalization and societal stranglehold at a level beneath that which triggers a revolt. So if the dictator's brutalization is less than the anarchy that might follow a revolution, it is understandable that peoples may stay on the far left of the curve (stable dictator), rather than risk the transition through (unstable quasi-open-government, tribal warfare, anarchy) to the right side (stable democracy)
A less-clear example is Kim Jong-Il of North Korea - as closed/non-representative of a society as I can imagine, but at a global scale, the 'nation' has been fairly stable, in that the government-vs-people power dynamic hasn't shifted much in 50 years. But internally, thought, the stability just isn't there - 1 million people dying in a preventable famine isn't effective governance, even if you are a dictator. Mass famine shouldn't count as 'stable', even if that is the routine state of affairs.
Researchers in Vienna found that the development level of countries, as a proxy for the efficiency of their governments, is in general lower for countries with more members in the national cabinets.
This is an incredibly complex (and wrong) explanation for a simple phenomena.
In most 3rd World (at least African) countries, the state is used as an instrument to employ the ruling party and its members. For this the cabinet is fairly effective - it is usually appointed by the ruling party's president (as opposed to seats in a parliament that is proportional to the votes).
So it is only rational that the cabinet will be huge - the ruling party effectively pays its top staff with government money.
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
Sorry, I wasn't being specific, I was focused on the "cheerleading Libertarians" comment. I wasnt sure how it fit in with the rest of his statement and not an attack. And if I claim to be Libertarian but I'm really something else, does that paint the rest of the Libertarians with the same brush? Much like the Republican party in the US, they transformed into something totally different and they are still called the same thing.
Not all members of the Cabinet will be involved in every decision. If they are, then something is seriously wrong. So the "17" isn't real. The number actually involved in any decision will be the executive set operating in that department: the relevant member of the Cabinet, plus anyone above or below who may need to be involved. Other silos won't necessarily be involved in the decision itself unless they are meshed in some way by the policy intended....and then need only look at the fallout for their area and not necessarily the big picture. The big picture will belong to the President and the relevant cabinet member. Team leaders....
Only boring people are ever bored.
Of the countries at the top of the HDI there are very few known for having small government:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index
Iceland does have a smaller cabinet, but it's a tiny country:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_Iceland
But Australia has a cabinet of 20 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_Australia) including the fact that many people have multiple cabinet positions in Australia. Norway has 18 that I can see (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_cabinet_Stoltenberg) and Canada is well above 20 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_Canada) as is Sweden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_Fredrik_Reinfeldt).
I believe Ireland has a constitutional limit of the size of its Cabinet at 15, but they have a very different style of government; with the Cabinet essentially taking on the role of a head of state.
In short, simple research shows that this is propagandist bullshit.
(trust me, that one works at more than one level)