BRINGING POLITICS BACK IN - DEFENSE POLICY AND THE THEORETICAL-STUDY OF INSTITUTIONS AND PROCESSES

Are defense studies relevant to the study of public administration? St udents of public administration, regulatory processes, public bureaucr acy, and policy studies rarely focus on defense as their substantive a rea, leaving the field to those trained in defense studies and interna tional relations. The result is negligible attention to the domestic p olitical aspects of defense policy. The authors' goals are to (1) esta blish why this gap exists, (2) draw parallels with similar arguments t hat are giving way under scrutiny in other fields of study, and (3) id entify the gains to be made by bridging the gap. Specifically, they su ggest work from the new economics of organization, as applied to other policy areas, as a means to highlight the political and administrativ e challenges of defense procurement. Traditionally, procurement proces ses have received heavy, yet simplistic, criticisms from scholars of d efense policy who argue for deregulation of the process to emphasize o utcomes rather than processes, and efficiency rather than procedural a ccountability. Mayer and Khademian argue that a more realistic examina tion of procurement in a political context of multiple and competitive principals illustrates the difficulty of demanding accountability (es pecially for outcomes) when goals are diverse and heavily debated, mea sured with difficulty, and the purchases are ''lumpy'' and time intens ive.