Strategy, Structure, and the Administration of Complex Geographies

All countries with complex geographies must extend national power to local areas. Field administration is a primitive in government: it is inevitable in modern national governments, but its variety and impact is rarely discussed in modern public administration. Building on the work of James Fesler and formal results on agenda-setting in organizations, this article demonstrates dilemmas in the use of historically important, widespread mechanisms for designing the field operations of national governments. The experiences of different nation-states provide context for these dilemmas. How governments address these dilemmas shapes policy implementation and the performance of national governments.