Top-Down

Top-down organization is a model applied to power structures and political systems whereby the impetus for action comes from those in charge. Once a course of action has been decided upon by the leader or leaders, individuals and organizations occupying lower rungs of the power tree are then charged with realizing the wishes of those at the top.

This can be contrasted with a bottom-up model, where actions are determined by ordinary individuals, who make their will known and then charge those in power with giving them what they ask for.

A top-down model is generally considered autocratic or even dictatorial. The difference between dictatorship and democracy, [President Herbert] Hoover liked to say, was simple: dictators organize from the top down, democracies from the bottom up.^[1]

References[edit]

1. ↑ Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum GALLERY TWO: The Humanitarian Years