Environmental Protection Agency: Structuring Motivation in a Green Bureaucracy, The

Environmental History, Oct 2006 by Corn, Jacqueline

The Environmental Protection Agency: Structuring Motivation in a Green Bureaucracy. By Robert McMahon. Brighton, U.K., and Portland, Ore.: Sussex Academic Press, 2006. xiii 219 pages. Bibliography, index. Cloth $69.50

In his book titled The Environmental Protection Agency: Structuring Motivation in a Green Bureaucracy, Robert McMahon explores the difference between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Environmental Agency for England and Wales. In the introduction McMahon says he intends to examine the motivations of officials and political appointees in the two agencies, referring to them as "green bureaucracies." His method is to use testimonies from officials and political appointees in order to illustrate the motivations of those who work in the two green bureaucracies. He explains in the preface that he has two lenses with which to examine the EPA and EA-institutions and culture. The central theme is that institutions and cultures viewed together explain the motivation of officials and political appointees in the two organizations. Thus McMahon presents a comparison of motivations in the EPA and the EA and bases his research about motivation upon anecdotal information and accounts of motivations presented by staff in each of the two agencies. He does not go deeply into political and historical context. McMahon states his purpose is to combine institutional structures and cultural identification to better understand motivation. The thesis is that success or failure in achieving organizational goals, in this case of public sector organizations, occurs as a result of motivations of the organization. Clearly his concerns are sociological, and his methodology that of sociology. His concerns are: (1) the motivation of members of the two bureaucracies, and (2) how the motivations of officials affect the ability of the organization to achieve its goals.

McMahon begins his book with a theoretical construct which includes an explanation of motivations, organizational design, structures and cultures, institutional approaches, cultural expectations and methodology. It reads like a grant application. A discussion of each bureaucracy and its regulatory style follows the construct.

Of the next seven chapters, four discuss the EPA and three discuss the EA. The book includes a comparison of the two agencies. In the first chapter McMahon presents information about the creation and subsequent development of the EPA, explaining the terms, mission, and motivation, but it does not have any depth. The next three chapters examine institutional structure and analyze cultural identification within the EPA to support the thesis that cultural identification of the agency's staff shapes its mission. In chapter 4 there is a discussion of the "reinvention" of the EPA, that is, reforms in the EPA, which uses culture to explain the failure of reinvention. McMahon wrote, "The architects of reinvention failed to pay sufficient attention to cultural groupings within the agency, nor did they assess how institutional structures and organizational cultures interact" (p. 117). These four chapters do not sufficiently explain the successes, failures, and impact of the EPA. Nor do they explain how the agency functions. Environmental issues are extremely complex. A theoretical treatise such as this one presents those interested in environmental policy and politics with little insight or few tools to understand the history and working of EPA.

The last three chapters explore similar issues as the EPA chapter did, related to the EA. The author said he would explore the differences between EPA and EA in sociological terms. He did.

The thesis that culture and motivation shape the agencies is hardly adequate to explain environmental policy, environmental history, regulatory action, how the agencies function, what they have done, and the effect of science on the agency's function.

Jacqueline Corn is an emeritus professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University. Areas of specialty include public health, environmental health, workplace health and safety, and public health policy.