Organizational Regeneration and Political Change: A Model with Applications to Affirmative Action

This paper develops a model of organizational regeneration--the process by which organizations reconstitute themselves over time through replacement of their members. Though not often studied by political scientists, the regeneration process is fraught with political implications. Model development is wrapped around the substantive case of the employment of women in state and local governments in the United States. Some 1980 data are factored into the model along with a series of alternative assumptions to generate simulated 1990 figures on the sexual composition of the state and local government work force. This prospective modeling, then, helps clarify the probable future consequences of policy choices in the present.