BOOK REVIEW: INSIDE BUREAUCRACY, BY ANTHONY DOWNS,

The author has succeeded in cataloging much of the folklore of government bureaucracy e.g., Law of Increasing Conservatism. All organizations tend to become more conservative as they grow older, unless they experience periods of very rapid growth or internal turnover. and in listing many of the tricks-of-the-trade utilized by Washington, D.C., bureaucrats e.g., Successful high-level officials develop whole informal networks of outside information sources through which they can verify the reports made to them by their subordinates. Because of this, the book is a valuable contribution to the literature and its insights will be of substantial interest to scholars and students of organization theory. Author