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Hammond, T.H. (1993). Toward a general theory of hierarchy: books,
bureaucrats, basketball tournaments and the administrative
structure of the nation-state. _Journal of Public Administration
Research and Theory 3_(1), 120-145.
Hammond describes how the hierarchical structure of institutions
affects how information in the hierarchy is transformed and used. This
happens because hierarchies inform how information is categorized and
thus how comparisons are made. Hierarchies control how information is
aggregated and transmitted, thus controlling how problems and solutions
are discovered and defined. Some examples are given, including: in
different library classification schema adjacency is defined differently
because of different categorical relationships--meaning the results
of serendipitous browsing in the shelves or catalog will be different
from one scheme to another; in an intelligence organization how people
filter information, determining relevancy, controls what information
the final decision maker at the top of the hierarchy will see and act
upon. Hammond's conclusion is that since hierarchies are present, as in
any politicized institution, in the nation-state the organization of
the nation-state impacts the sort of problems that can be identified,
shared and worked upon by the state. Knowledge of this will help in
the understanding of the behavior of nation-states.
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