The impact of the machinery metaphor -- Government and the messy five big I's -- The taste for formal rules

Even though the phrase “machinery of government” has been popular in official reports and academic studies for many decades, Ted Hodgetts (the recently deceased Grand Old Man of public administration in Canada) was not comfortable using it. Instead he adopted the intriguing phrase the “physiology” of government. In the medical field, “physiology” refers to the vital functions of a living organism, including development, breathing, nutrition and reproduction. The other great branch of medicine is anatomy, which refers to the structure of bones and ligaments which comprise the body. So, in his eloquent manner, Hodgetts was arguing that we need to move beyond the formal political and administrative structures (anatomy) of government to understand the vital functions (physiology) which give life to the operations of government, such as staffing, decision making and implementation processes.