The Missouri Department of Community Affairs : a politico-administrative analysis
Authors:   , Dickeson Robert C. 
Published: June 2024

The State of Missouri established, in 1967, a high- level administrative department to deal with urban problems, one of only seven such agencies on the departmental level in state administrative structures in the United States. This study is focused on the Missouri Department of Community Affairs. It is the central thesis herein that the Missouri Department of Community Affairs, a new and developing bureaucratic institution, underwent an adaptive process of accommodation and response to political stimuli that forced the Department into a facilitative, rather than an innovative role in urban affairs. Due to practical, political considerations, moreover, there has resulted a shift in emphasis from initial, expressed concern for predominantly metro-urban problems to concern for problems of rural units of government. Thus the phenomenon known in the literature of organization theory as "goal displacement" has taken place. The shifting of goals is noted first in the "urban posture" of the incumbent Governor and is intensified by administrative action designed to build organizational bases of support. A few words about the methodology of this study would seem to be in order. An eclectic approach, employing both conventional modes of administrative analysis as well as extensive interviews with the politico-administrative actors was deemed necessary to make the study relevant to widespread public concerns. Efforts were made to delineate the perceptions of Departmental leaders and to probe the attitudes of certain external clientele groups. The appropriate interview schedules are included in the Appendixes. The study has been guided throughout by certain propositions of organization theory relating to organizational survival. Anthony Downs, Philip Selznick, Amitai Etzioni, Burton R. Clark, Norton E. Long, and J. Leiper Freeman, are among those who have served as sensitizing agents, alerting the author to the possibilities and probabilities of bureaucratic behavior. While this is primarily an administrative case study and analysis, it is recognized that, for such studies to be more widely relevant, they should relate to broader questions of the political process. For this reason, the present study undertakes to (1) relate the Missouri experience to the larger process of intergovernmental relations; (2) compare the particular administrative operation with similar agencies in the American states which have them; (3) relate the particular administrative operation to broader questions of organization theory; and (4) infer generalizations from this study which may suggest further research into administrative response to political stimuli. The first chapter is devoted to an analysis of why Missouri and some sixteen other American states have established agencies for dealing with urban affairs. Chapter Two presents a comparative analysis and categorization of the seventeen existing state agencies for urban affairs. With particular reference to the Missouri experience, Chapter Three examines the thrust for establishment of the Department of Community Affairs, and the formal organizational structure of that Department is presented in the fourth chapter. Chapter Five reviews the perceptions of Department officials and others in connection with the central thesis. The sixth chapter analyzes perceptions of the Department held by its major clientele groups, with an in-depth analysis of city manager attitudes. A summary and conclusions of the author are found in the final chapter.