DID TVA MAKE A DIFFERENCE - AN ORGANIZATIONAL DILEMMA AND REFORESTATION IN THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS

In his well-known study of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), Selzn ick (1966) outlined an organizational dilemma in which leaders who emb race grass-roots administration run the risk of sponsoring ineffective or incoherent programs. According to Selznick, TVA's leaders turned t he administration of its land use programs over to local elites who we re indifferent to the programs' goals, thereby preventing TVA from bec oming ''a first line, committed conservation agency'' (p.xii). This ar ticle extends Selznick's analysis and then puts the extended argument and contradictory claims by more recent students of TVA to a test with data on reforestation in the southern Appalachians between 1935 and 1 975. With one exception, the analysis shows support for Selznick's arg ument. The exception suggests that the organizational dilemma faced by TVA's leaders disappeared over time. The article concludes by outlini ng the historical conditions in which natural resource managers find t hat supporting democratic procedures makes their policies less effecti ve.