Does Governmental Termination Exist?

Despite the cessation of a variety of governmental organisations, policies, and programmes throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the termination concept which emerged during the late 1970s remains heavily underused. This is attributed partly to the effects of the same incremental practices which termination was designed to solve; partly to the difficulties of distinguishing the categories of ‘termination’ from ‘succession’; and partly to Kaufman's assertion that organisational survival was a matter of chance, and therefore not fruitful to study. Academic interest in governmental cessations remains firmly rooted in the termination of organisations; much less attention has been paid to the ending of policies and programmes. Management science research can be used to challenge assertions about the lack of pattern in organisational survival, and the way in which political science has operationalised the concept of incrementalism, suggesting the applicability of semirationalist techniques in an incrementalist world. With a hierarchical reformulation of de Leon's 1978 categorisation of governmental functions, organisations, policies, and programmes it is here suggested that termination and succession are distinct. The aim is to demonstrate the practical utility of the termination concept, both for analysis and for practitioners whose interest is centred on the opportunity-cost savings which cessations can make available.